I don’t normally pick up guys. One evening last week I had been out and, instead of going home, decided to eat at ‘Lentil as Anything’ (two unusual veggo restaurants in Melbourne where you choose what you want and then leave them a donation in the box on the counter – see http://www.lentilasanything.com/ “Lentil believes Australia's strength is its multiculturalism and wants to develop and encourage the ideals of trust, generosity and respect. We provide free food to countless people without drawing attention to their financial circumstances and encourage the interaction and involvement from people of all walks of life.”).

As I said, I don’t normally pick up guys, but I was feeling quite gregarious that night. After I got my main course I looked around for a spare table. There was a single older guy sitting by himself at one table. I considered asking if I could join him, but chickened out and went outside to find a spot. Now I didn’t want to eat and run, and besides, there was a cool band inside. I went back inside and got a dessert. The man was still alone – so I bravely fronted up to his table and asked if I could have a seat. On closer inspection he looked more than passable, and I guessed late 50s or early 60s.

Chitchat – pleasant at first, but then he started telling me his views on life and Australia. He was firmly of the belief that Australia was going down the gurgler, that there was no hope for anyone, that the world was doomed, that in Charlie Chaplin’s day they had it better and they knew how to live better. The clincher for me came when he told me he would be out of the work rat race soon (meaning he would be retiring). ‘Ah early 60s’ I thought, but no, he has 15 years to go! How’s that for wishing his life away – and creating misery while he does?

So this plump chook flew the coop.

With love

Elizabeth

By Elizabeth Stephens, Editor LivingNow

Hello,

I realised V and I both knew a certain person, but from a different perspective. I said if V would promise not to say anything, I’d tell him something this guy did to me (no – not like that!) – something a bit dodgy, but in plain daylight.

V quickly and angrily retorted that he wanted to only hear things which he could repeat to people. He had no interest in wasting his time on gossip. If I had anything to say about the person, I needed to be prepared to say it to the person, or not at all.

I certainly have felt the damage of gossip myself. I’ve met people in a workshop setting, say, and shared with my partner something quite personal – and then heard it come back on the grapevine a year later.

However, there is also the unseen effect of gossip, that of the energy which comes to us along invisible waves. Most of us are not sensitive enough to pick it up, but we nonetheless feel the effects. You may think I’m being a bit too woo-woo here, but bear with me.

When trying to understand anything in life, I like to take it to extremes and then the answer is clear. For instance, if I am confused about whether I can fairly refuse to publish a certain ad in the magazine – I take the ad to its extreme and decide I would not publish an ad for child pornography, and then I can see the answer, as the boundary has defined itself quite clearly. If I can refuse to take an extremely bad ad, I can also refuse to take a slightly bad one.

Back to gossip and the energy that gets directed to the person about whom we are gossiping – think of the Australian Aboriginal custom of ‘pointing the bone’ or other indigenous people’s voodoo customs. Yes, now we can see that the energy does move toward the intended victim, because we know stories of people being crippled or even dying from these effects.

Okay, you are not convinced because you have not personally experienced this, and those stories might be hearsay. Then let’s take our example to the other extreme – something everyday: you go into a room and two people have been arguing there. You say, ‘You could cut the air with a knife’. Of course by this you mean that you can feel the energy they have left in the room from their heated projections. This is just general splattered and spilt energy and is not directed at anyone else, but you can feel its effects.

This is what we feel when people gossip about us, although thankfully most times gossip is far less vehement than an argument like this, but the strength of the gossip energy is that it reverberates around the community, perhaps even gathering mass and force as it travels.

I know all enlightened people say that gossip is very damaging, but why do we continue? I think there are a few different reasons. When I was speaking with V, it was very early in our friendship and, looking back, it seemed that there was an opportunity to share a secret and therefore get closer and feel more like a trusted ally. Little did I know then what a person I’d befriended.

What are the other reasons we like to gossip? I think a lot are centred around cutting other people down so that we in turn feel better about ourselves. V says that, by cutting other people down, we are making situations and people feel so small that we can then manipulate them.

Then he gets a steam up, “Wrapping them up in secrecy and making them small makes my mind small and this keeps me from the great mystery. Gossip concretises. You cannot approach the mystery – one is a consequence of the other.

“Look at women who love gossip (because gossip is not such a blood sport with men as it is with women). Look at what has happened to their faces – tight and screwed up.

“All this stuff you’re telling people about projecting energy is easy to get. The really big thing around it happens at the level of soul – that whenever we wrap ourselves in secrecy, we hide the mystery of ourselves.

“Every single time in my intention when I hold something in my mind that is small and I spread myself … - what’s here?”

With love,

Elizabeth Stephens

Founding CEO and Editor

Living Now Publishing Pty Ltd

It’s about a year and a quarter since Terry left. While I adjusted very well by accepting the fact that it was time for us to part, that we had finished our contract together in this life, and that he was happier with his new partner (see earlier posts about these things), I’m still grieving the loss of a lifetime partner. Well, of course it didn’t work out to be a lifetime partnership, but 41 years of marriage and everything that goes with that, not to mention starting the magazine together in 1989, feels like a lifetime.

I really do think we’re better off going different ways now, but the grief still wells up in my heart. My friend V says that he feels it is natural that I would still feel it because, ‘back in my day’ we felt that we mated for life, and therefore I feel it more than someone who was married more recently and half expects their marriage to end and to move to another person.

I feel that part of me doesn’t understand why I am alone now – that primal, more instinctual being, the one that did on some level decide in 1967 that this was it!

Hmmm… I will ask Spirit for a way to heal this, as I don’t want to have this little lost person inside me. Maybe you’ve got some ideas to help. Maybe you’ve been through this yourself. Please write if you have.

With love,

Elizabeth

Hello

I don’t normally listen to the news. When the familiar fanfare music comes on to the ABC radio it is my sign to turn it off or switch stations. Today I was painting my nails, and thinking of others things, and not conscious of the news at all – that is, until I heard someone say that some war (I am not aware which one, as I was not paying attention, as I mentioned) would take only another couple of days to end as “the job is nearly done”. It sounded so hard and callous. That ‘job’ that they have to finish – like digging carrots or stuffing envelopes or preparing a balance sheet – is to kill and maim more humans.

With love

Elizabeth