My friend and I are sitting at my home opposite each other. She talks a lot and I I know that she needs to get it all out so I just sit there and listen. I've seen this many times already. Moreover, the countless time I have been in her place with someone else sitting opposite of me and listening. There is something magical about this moment when suddenly the conversation flows into something more than it might seem. It is the moment when behind spoken words there is something bigger emerges and with every minute it becomes more and more clear.
This is magic of the transformation which can happen in the safe place where the souls are ready to meet and communicate openly.
My thought return to my childhood. I remember women gathering my grandmother used to have. For a child, it was a huge adventure to see all of this women gathering together. On the surface, it was just for drinking tea and talks but I always found something magical about it. I remember everyone sitting on different sides of a table with a big samovar - a traditional Russian pot for storing hot water.
I liked these gatherings as they always will bring some homemade sweets and all would be shared. For a kid, I guess that was the most important thing. It is only in my adulthood I got a better understanding of what was really happening there.
It was their place, no men were allowed to the house for these hours and I loved it. I loved to be surrounded by this women, I was always curious about what they are talking. Most of this I couldn’t yet understand but the feeling was very nice and comforting. I remember some women crying sometimes, I remember the others sitting silently or sometimes singing to support her.
It was there that I first saw these women transformations. I saw their sad eyes at the beginning and their shining eyes when they were leaving. I saw they cry and touched me so deep that sometimes I would cry with them. I would bombard my grandma with questions regarding what was said and done afterward and she would always be kind to explain it all to me.
Looking back I think I owe a big thank you to my grandmother for introducing me to the world of Woman and their relations. I owe her big thank for the world I get involved from the early age and which then became a norm for me and led me to look for it everywhere I ever went in my life.
I believe that these magical moments from my childhood significantly shaped my vision of the world and the role of women gatherings. And in some magical way, the women gathering together to drink tea became for me a sort of a ritual, the key to many of the people's souls who I met in my life and I am always feeling honored to know them this way.
This experiences from the past have led me to the very moment I am finding myself now. While I am pouring hot tea at my friend's cup I know that she is going through the very same process I saw multiple time of the gatherings in my grandmother's house. I know that soon she would reach the bottom and the hidden feelings will emerge. I see how her cheeks are flushed, I hear the accelerating pace of her speech, I feel her breathing quicken too. While the golden liquid slowly flows into the cup, I distinctly observe how she changes. A second pass and I see her crying.
I slowly put the kettle in its place. I smile, as I know that this is a very important phase for her. I'm opening my arms - just letting her know that the hugs are needed, they always wait for her. She casts a surprised look, but her body knows best and slips into my open hands.
She keeps trembling for a while. I mentally tell her that everything is going to be ok, that this is the stage and I send the rays of love to her. She mutters many different things, her words are almost incoherent, as she is in her own world going through her own process. And the only thing I can do is to send her as much love as I can give for this moment. Give her the opportunity to go through all that is now happening being a silent witness and almost invisible support.
After a while, it subsides. She distances herself, wipes away her tears. Her breathing gradually returns to normal. She looks as if waking from a deep sleep and pulling her hand to a cup of hot drink. First, one sip, then another and I see her face change again. The muscles are relaxed, reddened eyes begin to radiate with a special light, but most importantly, this is a sensation of some wonderful calmness that is in the air. How many times I have lived this scene with different people - it's always like that. As if a gulp of tea gives a new twist, a new insight, a refreshing after a storm.
We sit in silence for a while. I slowly sip my tea knowing that if she needs she will ask or share what she wants. She is sitting silently trying to grasp the sense of what just has happened.
And after a few minutes, she laughs with might wiping the remnants of tears with a napkin. And our tea-drinking continues, only on a more positive note now. She smiles, her eyes glow, and my heart rejoices with joy. I myself have been in her place more than once and I know what it is to dive into this storm of emotions and come up fresh and calm.
I am always amazed by these metamorphoses of women. In one moment the world seems to fall to pieces, and when the emotional splash is over, the rainbow shines again in the sky and the sun shines and we shine with them.
I know that such meetings are not accidental. I value it for this encounters I have ever experienced. They are so unique and so deep. It is really hard to try to explain them.
And when I look back I always remember those gatherings at the table in my grandmother's house. Sometimes I wonder if they were the beginning of all the other women gatherings in my life?
Did they give me an understanding that the world of women is a special world, a world where we can share emotions, problems, thoughts occupying our minds and that we can help each other to get out of this vicious circle sometimes just by offering a tea in a safe place where we can be who we are.
Did these gatherings become the beginning of my own way? The way where a cup of tea shared together can become the beginning of the talk between souls?
I am a DREAMER and I believe that there is the place for LOVE, consciousness and co-existence with Nature on our Planet.
Image (c) Music of the Plants /em>
This special experience is my visit to The Sacred Wood Temple in Damanhur and LISTENING to A TREE PLAYING MUSIC as part of a program called Music of the Plants
Yes, yes, TREES and PLANTS not only can PLAY MUSIC but can communicate with us through it - scroll down to videos above if you can’t really believe it.