Before Awakening

Looking back just two short years ago, I cannot believe how far I have come spiritually and how differently I look at the world through my new eyes. When I wrote this, I had no idea what it meant to be truly connected to the Source. Now, when I need to remember the desperation that my fellow humans go through trying to find their own path, I simply remember how I felt during this journey. I rekindle my compassion for all of the world in its birth pains.
I was writing for the local paper at the time and penned the following story as I was travelling to a northern town by bus to take delivery of my new car. It moved through a lot of folks who phoned and said how much they appreciated it. Many related to their own experiences. Something one our fellow Lightworkers said to me recently triggered the memory of this story and I thought I would pull it out of the archives and share it. When I look back at it now, it was one more step in my awakening process. Funny, life truly does move in mysterious ways. So Emmanuel, this one’s for you my dear!

Circle of Life
It’s July 20, 2006, 5:00am as I board the Greyhound. Strangely, as my mind wanders, I realize that it is 25 years to the day since I arrived in Williams Lake after spending four long days riding the bus across Canada from Ontario.

I was 23 years old and Dad had just died. Life was changing. The journey was to be a new beginning for myself and my younger brother. It was July, 1981 before global warming, before crystal meth epidemics, before small towns had to lock their doors. When a ninety-nine dollar bus ticket took you from one side of the country to the other. July 1981, Ronald Reagan had just been elected President. Israeli jets bomb a densely populated area of Beirut, Lebanon killing hundreds. They are at war. The people on the bus, much the same but somehow different. People talked to each other then. The little girl who told me I looked sad. She shyly asked me if she could tell me a joke. “What’s green and red and goes a million miles an hour?” she asks. I shrug “A frog in a blender”. I smile. She introduces me to her mother who is running from a violent relationship. We talk for days. Everyone on the bus talks and shares as we move from town to town across the country. The bus is filled with people from all walks of life. Immigrants, wives, mothers, children. Young university students on their way to plant trees, glad to be alive, looking for work, running from the recession in the East.

We step off the bus and see our new home for the first time. We have little money, no parents, no friends, no car, no place to live. All we have is each other. It is a new beginning.

Fast forward. July 20th, 2006. The beautiful girl with the exotic eyes, her turquoise and royal blue hair framing her face sits starting out the bus window. The forestry technician, maps in hand heading north. No one speaks, no one looks into your eyes. The miles pass. 2006, when the ozone is thinning, crime is rampant and Israel has just bombed Beirut, again. I think to myself, I’m ashamed to be human. We reach the bus station. I stare out the window at the graffiti scrawled on the wall. It reads “Ashamed to be human”. The hair on my arms rises as I stare at the black letters against the white painted concrete.

As I step off the bus, my old friend is waiting, his hand held out with the keys to my new car. He says “This will be a lot better than the bus.” I smile, knowing better. Sometimes in life we need to ride the bus to remember where we came from.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no coincidences in life. Life is a circle that we travel. We will always meet up with ourselves somewhere along the road. We just need to listen.

Thanks for listening,
Susanna Marie