trials and tribulations of karma

My Italian jaunt has come to an end and the removals people have just dumped all my belongings into my mother's old cottage in an East Sussex village. My goodness, so much stuff... and all mine! Now I have the daunting task of trying to put it all somewhere. No wonder moving house is so stressful. Over time we accumulate so much clutter and we come to possess it and call it "my belongings". Then, one day we pack it all up and move it to another house and then have to spread the whole mass of it out piece by piece in a new way that can once again come to be called "my home". And we rush the whole exercise, we try to do it all too quickly so that we can feel once more sure and secure, and we end up in an over-stressed, disembodied state, totally exhausted. But no, take a deep breath, do it slowly, packing case by packing case, a room at a time, allowing the personality of the room to guide us as to what goes where. We should only put out what the room needs, no more, so that the energy can flow freely and the character of the room becomes enhanced. What about all the stuff left over? Well, perhaps we should get rid of it. The whole exercise is an excellent lesson in detachment: I must not become attached to my belongings; they are not 'me'. If there is no place for them then they can be passed on or sold to someone who needs them. In any case, there's nothing worse than being in a room that's cluttered and stagnant. So, go slow, don't get attached, and get rid of anything you don't need. That's what I must do.

And Italy? It was a dream, to restore a lovely old house in a beautiful location and turn it into a warm and welcoming home and therapy centre. But the collapse of the housing market has dashed that dream and now I must create another. This is my karma: Italy was not meant to be and I must live with that. And my karma is irrevocably tied up with the global karma that has caused the collapse of the housing markets and the world economy. The collective consciousness has caused this collapse and I am a part of it. The idiocy that is now causing so much suffering is my idiocy, too. All we can do is accept things as they are and move on. Oh well, when one dream ceases another can begin. But I'll just finish unpacking first.