The in-between field

It has been a strange couple of days.


Last week Tuesday I was called in by my project manager and taken to task. I was told that the client have decided that I am delivering no real business value, I was given a whole list of new tasks to do and I was told that for the next couple of months I need to prove my value to the business. All of this with no prior warning or any previous indication that anyone was unhappy with the quality of my work.


My reaction was to take this as a sign that it was time to take the leap out of the corporate world and into something for which I feel real passion. Development work especially research being done about the effects of mental health on poverty and exclusion. I also yearn to go back to University full time so that I can finish my studies in seven instead of eleven years.


I spent a lot of time working on my CV and had an informal meeting set up with some one from the World Bank. About an hour before my interview I found a quite space, stilled my being and from the depth of my heart, there where all my best intentions live, I asked for that which needs to happen to happen.


A few minutes later I received a call that my meeting was postponed till next week Tuesday. Two hours later I had an interview with the manager of the manager who dropped the bombshell a few days earlier. It turned out that the opinions he voiced were mostly his personal interpretation and that he has recently been taken to task for not managing my work as well as he could. I was further told that my manager turned down the suggestion that I be moved onto another project.

So where does this leave me? Honestly I am not sure.


At night I walk down the sandy path leading to the gate. I stare up at the sky looking for answers. Trees stretch their ink black branches towards a sky which cradles pinpricks of light in its palm. The sand is cold against the thin soles of my slippers. Pale tree shadows remind me of the beauty of impermanence. My heart fills with hope.


Days are starting to lengthen. Spring is peeking at the building blocks for her future creations. The sun is warm on my back. Three wolves effortlessly turn the corner without slowing their speed or breaking their rhythm.



Back at University I am happy with my results and have started defining the parameters of a small three months research project. I will investigating the relationships between gardening and mental health.


We will be be celebrating Guru Poornima on Sunday – a celebration that is held on the full moon to celebrate the relationship between guru and disciple.


And a book is opening me to the changes in my life:


“One night as I wandered, I collapsed in exhaustion on a hill overlooking the harbour, finally dozing against the trunk of a large tree. I lay there, neither asleep notr awake, until dawn. I can still remember it was the 15’th of May. In a daze I watched the harbour grow light, seeing the sunrise and yet somehow not seeing it. As the breeze blew up from below the bluff, the morning mist suddenly disappeared. Just at that moment a night heron appeared, gave a sharp cry, and flew away into the distance. I could hear the flapping of its wings. In an instant all my doubts and the gloomy mist of my confusion vanished.
*

Everything I had held in firm conviction, everything upon which I had ordinary relied was swept away with the wind. I felt that I understood just one thing. Without my thinking about them, words came from my mouth. “In this world there is nothing at all….” I felt that I understood nothing.


I could see that all the concepts to which I have been clinging, the very notion of existence itself, were empty fabrications. My spirit became light and clear. I was dancing wildly for joy. I could hear small birds chirping in the trees, and see the distant waves glistening in the rising sun. The leaves danced green and sparkling. I felt that this was truly heaven on earth. Everything that has possessed me, all the agonies, disappeared like dreams and illusions, and something one might call “true nature” stood revealed.


I think it could safely be said that form the experience of that morning my life changed completely.”

The One-Straw Revolution – An Introduction to Natural Farming. Masanobu Fukuoka.