1 Jul 2010
Tit-Bits to savour
Self help books suggest that our past creates the present, and the present can be changed, so the future is more fulfilling. Most people suffer from lack in some form, rather than abundance from family of origin, and in my case growing up after the war this was certainly true, when it came to influences and possessions. When pressed to remember such things, I just can’t. I found Rebirthing in 1988 because I couldn’t remember anything up to the age of 12, and I still can’t. I have done the trainings, the groups, the past lives throwbacks, the meditations and I still get the Angel " sod all ". So be it – acceptance is a wonderful thing.
Surprisingly, a few decades on, my flat is now crammed with books and I’m a total magazine whore, I always thought it was my 25 years in Advertising that paved the way to overload but the real reason turns out to be PATIENCE STRONG. The cloud is clearing. Patience Strong’s poems were first published in the Daily Mirror in 1935 under the bi-line The Quiet Corner and for more than 35 years in The WOMAN’S OWN weekly magazine. Every week my mother would wait for the magazine to come out, and so did I. Patience was my Pin-Up. Dad’s TIT-BITS never did it for me for some reason.
Patience Strong spearheaded, quite unconsciously, my route into New Age, Self Help, Personal Development and Recovery. I had no idea of her influence, until recently.
This is a sample of one of her poems always laced in a garland pictorial border on the back page of The WOMAN’S OWN in the 1950′s & 60′s:
If You Stand Very Still by Patience Strong
If you stand very still in the heat of a wood
You will hear many wonderful things;
The snap of a twig and the wind in the trees,
And the whirr of invisible wings.
If you stand very still and hold to your faith
You will get all the help you ask;
You will draw from the silence
the things that you need,
Hope and courage and strength for your task.
As a child avidly waiting for mum to finish her mag, I always thumbed to the back page as if led by magic. We had no books in our house. Books were considered for other people but Dad subscribed to The Readers Digest each month and Practical Householder. Not much glamour there, but each Thursday we would trek to my mums friends house miles away. It was well worth it for the daughter got JACKIE. I was made up. The combination of Patience & Jackie unknowingly ruled my teenage years, until drink and drugs became the new heroes, my saviours, my inspirational gurus. In recovery we need to constantly check who is influencing us, who we set up as saviours and what we read. In the internet age we can easily become consumed and influenced by the latest, newest gadget and pass by the wisdom and simplicity of achieving bliss and peace of mind.
Spend a walk today in remembering the influences that shaped you, for good or for bad. Then look up to the trees and remember that help is still required.
