Open the Kimono

I was asked by THE HOSPITAL CLUB, a private members club for the Creative & Media Industries in Covent Garden, to write on the theme " Open the Kimono " for their quarterly Magazine and it has just been published. Each quarter is a different theme. 

http://www.thehospitalclub.com/socialsite/

Sometimes the situations that come our way require no explanation because we would go insane trying to discover WHY life has offered us this conundrum. Accepting, waiting. . .  and not wanting to know WHY? is the spiritual route I choose to take and it has served me well. I was 5 years clean in 1987 when I went to OZ and after the experience below I started Rebirthing Breathwork for emotional release. 

Read on to understand why. 

The irony ( . . . or the reason why I got "sent" to OZ by the great unseen ) was that I first heard about REBIRTHING watching a TV programme in Sydney. 

I had no idea that a year later in London a new career path would begin as a Loving Relationship Training (LRT) Rebirthing Coach.

It is my joy to remember that the universe gives me the jigsaw pieces, but has thrown away the box lid.

 

Here is the Editors Introduction followed by my article :

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open the kimono  v. phr. to expose or reveal secrets or proprietary information.

It is often said that the best creativity stems from honesty, to oneself and others. From Francis Bacon’s inner torment, brutally splashed on the canvas to the painful honesty in the bluesy voice of Nina Simone, it’s the truth which speaks to an audience and resonates with their experience. The Stanislavsky school of Method Acting made famous by Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio was founded on encouraging actors to open their emotional kimonos to facilitate genuine performances. Honesty can heal a situation, heighten a drama or create a very uncomfortable car ride; as David Parker found in ‘Truth Can be Murder’. It’s a good thing he’s one of the UK’s best therapists and well versed in hearing unsavoury confessions. 

Even in a short 3 month stay in Sydney I had formed close bonds with people with shared experiences and many knew of my imminent return to London. One guy asked me to dinner as a way of saying thank you for the support I had given him over his own liver health issues and drove me back over Sydney Harbour Bridge in his beaten up old Morris-Minor. Unlike the carefree chatty journey going, his sparkling aussie mood changed going back, as we clanked over the iconic metal bridge. He starts to hunch his shoulders up as he stared ahead, white knuckling the wheel. “ I need to tell you something that I can’t tell anyone and if I don’t tell someone I will go mad, so I’m telling you as you are going home in 2 days.” I see that he refuses to look at me.

The kimono was opening within his spluttering - “ over 12 years ago I lived in San Francisco and while I was on a drug binge someone physically abused me. I wasn’t sure who it was but eventually I realized and befriended the person. I had to move flats so I ended up manipulating to live with the abuser and sharing his dealer so a bond was formed. It was not unusual for us to spliff up overlooking the Bay of San Fran, car doors wide open, music blaring from the car speakers, head well back, eyes closed in contemplation. We had done this endless times, but this time I opened the glove department, clasped a gun I had placed there and blew his brains out “. 

What? We are now going over the metal bridge, with me sitting next to a murderer. All I could say was “ what happened next? – trying to be all stiff upper lip about it as I stared straight ahead. He then turned to me, tears streaming down as he said quietly “ I went to the boot of the car where I had a change of clothing, towels to wash the blood, a packed suitcase and a one way ticket to Australia. I hailed a taxi to the airport and here I am 12 years later. I have never told anyone“

For a moment I said nothing, I wanted to ask questions but this level of grassing himself up only fueled the compassion churning inside me at his storage and outpouring of suppressed grief, sadness, anger and relief. All while he was still driving I might add. Consequently I was somewhat relieved to reach the other side of Sydney Harbour Bridge where he slowed down into a side street, stopped the engine and sobbed in my arms. I just held him as someone had held me before, when I required silent non-judgmental support. We never spoke of it again.

On returning to England I found that my best mate Barrie had his humdinger of a mother coming from Canada for a week of expectant turmoil, but this was overtaken by his mum having her handbag stolen a few yards from Barrie’s flat in Notting Hill Gate. The whole lot gone. Six months later, the day after Boxing Day, Barrie and I was due to see a Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank concert, but he didn’t turn up. This was a Tuesday and the next day I was out of town ready for New Year but I kept calling his landline, still with no answer. Eventually other friends called the police but they refused to break the door down until the Friday when I rang the Police and said I would pay for the door myself and that I was returning to London right now on a train. Two hours later I was told he was dead, murdered in his sleep, 67 stab wounds and his head decapitated. When the body was removed I was asked to go into the flat to see if anything was missing. The murderer had taken 5 suitcases, stuffed them with spattered duvets and curtains, had a bath, cooked a meal and changed into Barrie’s clothes before leaving with the suitcases in a bizarre way of dissolving evidence. Going into the bedroom on the arms of detectives I recalled my own memory of being stabbed in the face 3 years earlier, how I should have been living in Australia, how I should be dead with liver failure, how Barrie should be alive, how I had heard the outpourings of a planned pre-meditated murderer in Sydney and how I was witnessing the aftermath of a blood-stained bedroom in London 6 months later. 

I was stunned and humbled by this spiritual opportunity for forgiveness. All veils of anger toward the killer lifted as I realized that I know nothing. I know nothing about the order of it all. Why was I stabbed, why was I chosen to hear the Sydney confession, why was I standing in this flat? Why was Barrie dead? Why me, why this? It was not until 6 months later at the inquest that the kimono was opened. Even after hair and blood samples were taken from over 300 people in 6 countries the murderer was never found and we still don’t know the motive. What we do know was that the keys were stolen to order in June from his mothers bag so the murderer could enter the flat 6 months later at 2am the day after Boxing Day and kill him in his bed asleep. This planned premeditated murder remains unsolved to the Police, as does the one in San Francisco, a closed kimono that heralds the thought that resentment kills the container it’s kept in.

There is no excuse for murder but every reason to expose secrets as quickly as possible. Unburden yourself.