A Letter to Lulu

By Roberta Beverly

An Eighty Year Odyssey of

Life's Experiences, Adventures and Unfolding.

From the aerated cushion on the

self propelled wheelchair that was provided

following more than 7 months in hospital,

initially after awaking from surgery

to having no feeling from the waist down

it seemed timely to expre

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publicious Book Publishing
• Release date: Apr 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9781763542518

Roberta Beverly

The kaleidoscopic and colourful life of Roberta includes being married for almost 60 cycles around the sun, has lived for many moons, and still lives now in a popular metropolis on the east coast of Australia where views to the horizon across the ocean are as spectacular as are the views to the hills.Close proximity to all community facilities sees Roberta mingling easily with the local populace while scooting about on 'Hercules', her red mobility scooter. She enjoys the weather that seems to aid longevity, and appreciates the proximity of all services including light rail, shop-ping malls, divinely located cafes, and medical amenities, while on occasion still drives to ap-pointments elsewhere.

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PREFACE

From the inevitable child-like question ‘why?’ the personal notations in story telling form, commence from earliest memories through the experiences of church dogma and belief systems, held consciousness of an era past, expectations and left of centre nudgings of distractions through spiritual follies. Venturing further to off the beaten track explorations inland, off-shore and far flung faraway countries to re-connecting with the call of the heart via metaphysics, philosophy and religion that cover a period of almost eight decades - thence back to where we belong and from whence we came to

– God within.

A LETTER TO LULU

Dear Lulu,

It’s been a while since we have been in connection however it seems appropriate to reacquaint ourselves. We have known each other for a very long while, a lifetime, and now we are both octogenarians it seems that to recall and reconnect with some of our experiences could be a joy to revisit if only to see more honestly how ‘trying’ and ‘effort’ truly were of not much value, neither was the belief in ‘freedom’ for that was also of illusion, from the world of created form.

No wonder there felt to be an intense wall of conviction from the adults around us, the emphasis on expectation or entitlement to have judgement and to be heard to be the only voice of ‘right’. Surely it’s the era or moment to shine some light on our true purpose of we being here.

At this moment of the Taurus moon, Easter and the greater understanding we have now and still developing the part we play in this adventure we call life seems to beckon a clearer awareness of the responsibility we have of not playing ball with what we innately know is not of God’s truth but of the corrupted carbon copy of creation’s belief systems.

It seems to me the way I ‘sense’ the presence of God is in the stillness I know within, through my breath. I feel it to be unmistakable and quite the opposite of what I was taught in the various churches of my youth as being outside of myself - to be aimed for, to be sought as separate from myself, a deity sitting on a cloud out beyond the heavens in judgement. I know absolutely that God does not judge – God just is.

There will be a few sentences commencing with do you remember when and that is okay for there has been ‘much water passed under the bridge’. Look at our birth dates Lulu - who would have considered that we are all components of a Divine or Master Plan and the numbers of our birth dates actually have a possible deeper offering within the understanding of esoteric numerology. Did we ever consider that we may be of divine design and as we present in this life is no mistake.

Considering the month or the date of our birth for example, what could it be that we have to attend to on a daily or on a monthly basis that could be based on the realisation of an esoteric or inner heart numerology. Could there indeed be something of true worth to re-connect to like the giving of or the receiving of a universal Love when it is offered that one could contemplate.

I remember as a child being told that my conception was not a planned event so soon after their marriage only three months short of my mothers’ 22nd birth-day anniversary precisely to the same date of her birth, being the 5th.

If the human spirit of our being was due for a level of humbling for example, an opportunity of correction may be offered via perhaps the experience of pain in one of its’ many manifestations. Maybe a previous life of extreme opulence and indulgence may present in another life as the experience of poverty, physically, emotionally or spiritually. How could I know of the probable hardship, or perhaps the lack of warmth of mother’s early childhood that may have resulted in emotional distance being the result from her young wounded heart during the ‘great depression’.

Lulu, do you remember your earliest years. I have but a few memories and having unceremoniously arrived onto this planet earth towards the ending of what they term ‘world wars’, there was much hardship. Food was scarce. Coupons in lieu of money had to be exchanged for a bottle of milk or butter purchased from the local dairy. When as a wee child I lost one of these tiny coupons between the cobbled wooden blocks at the dairy driveway it was the greatest of a travesty.

At my early school age I recall hearing the clip clop of the large Clydesdale horses pulling the milk cart in the early hours of the morning back to the dairy holding yards not far up our street while the milkman skipped into each driveway leaving the required number of heavy glass I pint milk bottles on the corner of the verandah.

Little money was exchanged for long and arduous hours worked by most men, (that is if they could in fact find work) including my father in a very greasy but much sought for occupation as a motor mechanical/electrical engineer. Is it any wonder he had cigarette stained teeth and fingers from the roll your own tobacco cigarettes that were heralded as a supposed remedy to calm the nervous system.

However his skills, were soon sought from the Laverton Air Base in the back waters of Victoria, Australia during the war years. He had a seemingly highly attuned 6th sense especially with his ability to hear the different sounds of the working parts and thus was able to immediately address what was needed to be adjusted, so maybe he was more aligned than was given credit for.

You may remember my father was colour blind so was not accepted into active duty as such, due to his inability to distinguish during air raids between the red flare to abort landing on an airfield and green for ‘safe to land’.

How devastating this period was for all concerned and it would appear on some occasions these ‘wars’, as seemed to be the case were based on control of one kind or another driven by an unseen hand that was/is the antitheses of God’s Love coming from an energy of greed. One wonders now, who/which country indeed was it, or which large institutions funded these wars. Which country or institution appears to be the most wealthy or is in ownership of the most real estate in present times on this earth, etc.

Lulu, even though we were raised in our earlier years in an aura of lack so to speak, with not only the windows of our houses painted brown during the war times, and 40 watt light bulbs were the emitted light, paraffin candles and kerosine lamps etc. were in use, our own innate Light still shone. How could we expect love or warmth from our mothers to be radiated whilst in fear and despair.

I recall your father had a resounding baritone style singing voice, and on some occasions we would all gather around the upright Randall piano that was mothers’ pride and joy. She would play songs of yesteryear while one of the family would turn the worn pages of the music books as they all sang old nostalgic and familiar words that made little sense to our age but seemed to raise their spirits.

By 7 years I was learning to ‘be a young lady’ by learning to play that piano with a teacher nearby from a private girls’ school. This was a bartering arrangement as father was able to attend to her cars’ needs. One could also ask, was the need to practice indeed an escape into the lounge room and the piano itself simply an instrument to be seen as a way to withdraw or be in a phase of fantasy. It seemed that the adults in our households were mostly upset or angry. Why would I not want to withdraw could be a question.

Is it any different really today with the kids spending hours at the screen ‘gaming’. They will tell you they find it an escape, a chance to withdraw into fantasy. I am still learning much about behaviours expressed. The pious approach that was present around me didn’t seem to help much.

It was during this early period and following on from the reign of Queen Victoria of Britain that controversy arose on how to raise children, with the consciousness of that era that had many parents abiding by the belief systems that it was indeed less than healthy to hold close or cuddle your babies or tiny children in a loving way. Some ideals and beliefs were called Ruby King methodology, that promoted discipline, detachment and lack of tenderness towards small children.

In the family, there was of course ‘love’ though never expressed by a hug, encouragement or loving words. There was father who it was seen to as was the want or consciousness of that era that he meted out the punishments always on returning at the end of a tiring and hard days’ work (always with the spoken words of this hurts me more than it hurts you).

He was the expected provider in those times and working long hours we rarely had loving interactions with him, but our tummies were filled, beds to sleep in and clothing on our backs. I found a book by Ralph Waldo Emerson tucked away in his drawer (after both parents had passed), who penned in the 1800’s What lies behind us and What lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. I knew my dad as sensitive, but he kept this side hidden.

Lulu, the adults in our lives did precisely as what they could do to the best of their ability with their then understanding at the time and with the only tools they believed were available to them.

All our clothing was sewn on an old style Singer hand turned sewing machine early on, replaced by treadle types, then ultimately to an industrial sewing machine and yes, even the men’s trousers with the intricacies of flies, buttons and handmade button holes were mastered.

The demands on mother were many however there were loving gestures that I treasured, one being when I was young she made me a dolls’ house out of a cardboard box. Perhaps a depiction of the would be ‘family chamber’ early on. Let’s not forget the days that she spent into the night after a day of chores including on the knees scrubbing and hand polishing floors, making pickles and jams, preserving fruit, kneading dough, washing clothes in the wood fired copper in the wash house while in the evenings tired eyes strained in the poor lighting, stitching the clothing for the children.

Is it any wonder that these small children sometimes were being referred to as just another mouth to feed, whipper snappers, guttersnipes, ungrateful wretches and various other adjectives such were the pressures that some mothers endured at the time. Was there any connection felt between the verbal barrage and what was absorbed by every cell of the child, almost like a curse?

What energy was really in charge at that time? Was there a difference between those unfettered mutterings and pins in a voodoo doll? Perhaps these outbursts reflected the suppressed emotion of fear held at that time during the bombing in the northern realms of our country.

Go outside and play - get out of my kitchen - off my clean floor we both heard often and as youngsters we, the older of the children in the family were given the weekly task of screwing up the newspapers to put into the chip heater that sat precariously over the bath to warm the water.

The Saturday night bath was a ritual and a treat. I was always the first into our bath, with about 4 inches of warm water before the brothers took their turn. One of my chores when about 10 or so was to clean the vitreous enamel bath with ‘White Lily’ a product that scoured off all the grime, including the fingerprints on the icebox that received its’ weekly block of ice from the ‘ice truck’.

The moment soon arrived to discard the green painted meat safe with its aerating holes that hung in the laundry. This was the more improved way to prevent the cooling meat from becoming ‘flyblown’ as we had previously sometimes witnessed. A refrigerator was purchased when I was older also a little later a washing machine with a hand turned mangle that squeezed the clothes dry.

The popular rendition of a fly catcher hung in many kitchens including ours, which was a very long coil of sticky paper laced with a substance that was bliss for flies – so there they stuck, like currants all the way up and down the yard long (a little less than a metre) length of coiled stickiness from the centre of the room from the ceiling electric light cord sometimes for months at a time.

Presently in this time frame it would seem we are scouring off the grime of how we lived our many lives with many more layers and realisations still to be had with not a tub of White Lily to be seen. On rare occasion we went to the Melbourne zoo on the tram. Sit up straight – don’t look left or right so others can see how well behaved you are was always in the armoury of little dialogue between Mother and us as we travelled. Good manners were of prime importance in those days.

Occasionally mother would take us into the city where we visited the hourly black and white newsreels that kept people up to date with world affairs. These theatres were always downstairs in darkened small spaces under the city blocks, and presented in commanding tones.

The downstairs toilets under the city buildings were frightening places where to ‘spend a penny’ when needed was a worrisome event. There seemed to always be desperate looking people ‘loitering’ in the area.

A treat back in my early childhood Lulu was when father brought home a brown paper bag with a selection of broken sweet biscuits that he had picked up from a corner shop. He really did have a big heart but rarely was the opportunity for us to feel it.

Every now and then he would bring a car home to ‘give it a spin’ before the owner collected it on the Monday so we could visit the relatives in country Victoria. There was always a journey of harsh critique about our general behaviour from mother’s lips for we three during our return trip.

If the vehicle was a van that was brought home the opportunity to go into the country to collect firewood would be met with great excitement. These infrequent drives offered a sense of freedom, fresh air, trees and in nature. How glorious, surely the God I knew in my heart lived there.

To this day I can still hear the sound of the wind at View Hill billowing through the tops of the 100 year old pine trees. While staying a few days with relatives I learned about ‘wrigglers’ in the tap water from the tank, which were mosquito larvae, how to feed baby rabbits ‘rescued’ from their burrows, and how to discover the naturally growing wild orchids in amongst the bush-land.

Occasional visits to the dentist were frightening. I later learned that our teeth hold a story of karma. I wondered why the leather razor strop that was used on our tender little bottoms as punishment was still hanging there when I had to deal with clearing out the family home several years ago after mother passed quite some time later following a stroke.

Understanding why this relic of childhood discipline was still hanging there eluded me. I could still hear echoing Just you wait until your father gets home!! this rang out not only in our household but in many households and on more occasions in our house than were understood. What was the crime that we were being accused of. Perhaps eating a piece of precious fruit without permission.

What unseen energy was being tapped into to cause such unnecessary abuse. Was it simply a search for means of relief, releasing a pressure valve? What was driving the need to punish? Or on the other hand, was there an opportunity for this delineation, this body, this human spirit to renounce the energy behind the need for such punishment or similar type of behaviour.

Seemingly we must always be more aware of what energy field we may or may not succumb to even as a supposed ‘child’. Perhaps we have a much longer history than we think we think. Or perhaps the question even beckons, have we simply been trained to believe we think we think? Is any one of us the actual source of our thoughts?

There were many obvious instances of dementia, mental depression issues and suicide that ran throughout our entire families didn’t they Lulu. As a young person we found it to be a bit bewildering and sometimes quite baffling as to the grandparent’s behaviours. And of course as the years passed by there were parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, and nephews that spent many years grappling with, or just coping and with this belief arena of being ‘just a human’ and suffering all manner of depression and mental illness as was their want and understanding at the time.

Perhaps a consciousness of non-commitment to life, or given-up-ness could be seen as a field of relief sought by the human spirit. We could ask is mental illness truly an illness or an ‘arrangement’ of sorts with the energy behind that which is not of God’s Love, as put to us by Zac at a later date.

Dear Lulu, we have travelled far haven’t we, in our 80’s and sometimes making sense of our past experiences. There seems to always be a much deeper reason or purpose behind those experiences we still may at times regard as difficult, challenging or painful. Have we been royalty, have we been paupers, vagabonds, have we indeed been warlords, or even the cold and aloof mother superior.

On speaking with a young person recently, it was said to me that the pain of receiving a large tattoo on sensitive parts of the body momentarily distracted their focus from the pain of disconnect they felt within. Interesting isn’t it, and unbeknown as to why, we had often felt that emptiness within.

It is a wondrous gift to be greatly appreciated by our own deepening awareness and that is the realisation that we are much more than ‘just human’.

Did we indeed come from beyond the stars choosing to be here to bring more into balance that which was not in balance in our previous life.

Yes, even our young relatives who chose to end their own lives during our life span believing that life was too harsh for them to continue to bear in this life’s experience - little did they realise apparently that they would be back again reincarnating very soon, the soul having chosen a similar set of circumstances yet again of family, location etc. until they, through re-awakening or re-connection to their own deeper wisdom within were in a position of making more loving choices.

There is no punishment as such it seems, only an opportunity of the re-balancing of the scales as the deepening of the alignment within their core, of Ageless Wisdom, of Love, Truth, Harmony, Stillness and Joy. What tender and sensitive beings we are really, male or female or an expression of both are we not?

Do you remember your very early years Lulu, like before we started school at about five in 1946 I guess. I recall singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ at Sunday school, and it certainly wasn’t because as the song goes ‘because the bible tells me so’. I knew it already in my heart.

Mum could see me from the back verandah in the distance walking down the road, (that is now a major 4 lane highway) past the hermits house, past the fields of poppies and pussy willow trees. School no. 461 was one of the earliest brick schools built. Before I was of the age to go to school the girl next door had already started the year before. After she recovered from one of the childhood diseases of scarlet fever, I remember waiting for her to come home for someone to talk to.

I used to when older and taller, stand on the cross beam of the wooden paling fence to just see over. They had a swing set in their back yard. Oh how I wished I could have a swing.

Around this time, about 5, I experienced whooping cough (Pertussis). My little body bent over trying to find air, with a racking cough that came from the bowels of my being. This was a very scary ordeal thankfully not shared with the girls next door. One has to wonder really what was the clearing factor of such a dire lung infection. To ‘breath’ is the ability to take in God’s breathe wouldn’t you say. Was there something even now I can reflect on and realise energetically here?

It is interesting how the consciousness back then offered a seemingly healthy approach to all those childhood contractible diseases like measles, mumps, chickenpox etc. etc. which was to invite a close playtime so that to ‘catch’ the illness would strengthen the immune system.

It has appeared to be a little different in recent times where mandatory rules commanded attention in many cases e.g. the pandemic covid-19 virus and all its offshoots where the whole world seemed to be tipped on its’ head and much loss was experienced where people interaction was forbidden, businesses, schools and shopping centres closed etc. Who or what energy was in control?

However, ‘God works in mysterious ways’ a saying of old I recall, and so despite all that, support, togetherness, connected-ness would not be stifled completely. Skype, webinars, and the wonders of the information technology world were heralded by many as a way to not being held to ransom by those bearing the energy of poverty who supposedly wielded the sword of poverty consciousness.

When our parents went next door at night, shadowy things on the walls would frighten me until I shook. Perhaps it’s an attempt of that energy field to suppress the natural light of those little ones.

I guess it prepared me for life many years later while on vacation with my husband overseas when I was witness to a knee weakening vision. However, these visions deepened my own awareness around how we possibly can carry imprints from one life to another. I will refer to these events later in my letter also Lulu, while sharing our visits there.

A very telling example could be how we can ‘think’ things to happen from our alignment to either the energy of the astral plane (no true love) or our choice to align to the energy of Love that is God.

It seems that ‘emotions’ as such, or our ‘emotional body’ can play a huge part in how we view life or how reactions and emotions influence our own experiences or behaviours. The astral plane and its’ many lords is fed by our numerous outbursts, reactions and emotions. I find the moment now is to remember to respond, not to react. It seems strange how easy it seems to be to ‘react’. Isn’t it also interesting Lulu, what we have re-connected to in regards to energy.

This wise man we now know as Zac has given us the great wisdom that ‘all is energy, thus all is because of energy’.

Part of our back yard was in those early years filled with blackberry brambles, very prickly and dead looking in the winter time. Some years later this entire half of our very large back yard was transformed. A small area became dahlia beds while the majority of the remainder evolved into the most amazing and prolific vegetable gardens. When I was about 9 dad would pick large bunches of dahlia flowers and we would walk down to a little florist shop and they would buy them for about sixpence per bunch. I also sold our lettuces when we had plenty at the front gate for thrippence.

During the summer months it was densely hot, a walk sometimes in the night air helped cool us down before bed, but at night in the winter it was very cold in our brown linseed painted weatherboard house. As time passed father would paint the entire exterior white every 5 years and the internal walls were transformed into a pale blue. I found this colour much more settling.

In the dark at night time I could feel and see ‘shapes’ floating above the picture rails, and also shadowy whole figures coming through the cedar wooden door. I was terrified that the ‘boogey man’ would get me through the sash window that was propped up with a wooden block.

That city area including where our forebears lived was explored by John Batman and his accompanying British soldiers almost 200 years earlier which saw carnage of the indigenous people out and beyond to where our farming relatives were with their original small houses built to have 5 sides so they could see from all angles if they had to make preparation to ‘defend themselves’.

Perhaps this even influenced the sometimes dark energy felt around our suburban area. Are we to continue to carry the guilt now, from the British colonisation of this great continent over 200 years ago and forever more be apologising? (The present population holds the flavour of every country).

However Lulu, do you remember the day when you visited us on an especially hot day and the bathers (swimsuit) mother made you in less than an hour with ruching elastic to create a wonderful little costume so you could play under the sprinkler hose with us. She tried so hard to please.

When I was 2 my first brother arrived (from underneath a cabbage down in the vegetable garden I was told). I didn’t see these as ‘lies’ - children were told to not speak until spoken to by an adult and to be seen and not heard. One believed what the adults said after all ‘they were bigger than us’.

Little understanding or obvious connection of how mischievous many children truly can be as returning spirits or even sometimes as wise ‘old souls’ a term used upon observing a baby’s face.

We three siblings slept in one room, with pink Feltex on the floor. My bed was iron frame, and middle child had a wooden bed, and the youngest child’s bed was a reinvented form of his cot. Our mattresses were stuffed cotton, and pillows of kapok, (the fluff from a seedpod) our blankets were thin, but the hand sewn patchwork quilts lined with wadding kept us warm.

There was an antique style blacked iron wood stove in the kitchen until I was almost 9 which warmed the house, cream kalsomine painted walls and brown patterned linoleum on the floor. The house had beautiful stained glass doors and windows in some rooms. If we didn’t like the over pressure cooked swedes, parsnips, or turnips or anything on our dinner plate, we were reminded about the starving children in India – the reason for that escaped me.

Mealtimes were prompt. We children sat like little soldiers, my brothers with their backs to the wall and I opposite waiting for the sound of heavy footsteps on the wooden verandah out front heralding the entry of a very tired man to sit at the head of the table. The air was thick. Not a word was dared to be spoken as the evening newspaper was opened up and dinner was served. Not much evidence of joy in those years. So why was this so do you think Lulu?

On recalling you saying it was similar in your house, perhaps it was similar in most houses at that time, being told that for example you would think what you were told to think, and if we were told to ‘jump’ - the response had to be ‘how high’. There was no connection to our developing awareness that perhaps we do not think anyway, and that we are not a source no matter what we think we think. Our inner heart provides our re-connection to Heaven.

Perhaps is it any wonder that this life has found this body sensing realisations around the possibility as to why I discover my ‘spiritual group’ had long expressed with a sense of ‘holding back’. Could that have been due to the heaviness of belief systems that had me also governed by this suppressive energy behind ‘what others would think’. That makes some sort of sense doesn’t It Lulu?

Could that even remotely be another example of bringing the scales back into a form of balance, by perhaps another life where the human spirit was rigorously engaged in preventing others in one way or another from expressing love or truth, and now, in this life, was it indeed my time to experience how this prevention of expression truly felt. One can wonder about these possibilities Lulu.

Discipline was the first priority. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ was a consciousness not only in our households as I’ve learned in recent years from others and worldwide, who are about our age. If we didn’t like the food on the plate, we sat there until next meal time until it was finished, or maybe sent ‘to your room!!!’. A favourite was golden syrup dumplings, heavy, filling and sweet.

In the kitchen cupboard there was always a bin of white flour, a smaller bin of sugar, or treacle or golden syrup for sweetener to make puddings, and of course the big crock of set animal fat/dripping from the oven cooked meat saved from the previous Sunday roasts.

These were the days of wireless. Grandmother religiously listened to Billy Graham(an evangelist) and Blue Hills (an old style soapy). Later came radio but by the time I was in late teens we had a combined radio and record player. I was learning to love the movement of the body, but not sport.

Mothers’ father died of ‘consumption’ (lung disease). I was about 8 when we stayed there on the farm and I was the only child in the row for grade 3 at that country school. Each row of desks represented a ‘grade’. I quite liked that little country school.

Do you remember the taste and smell of the milk Lulu, not only the free milk they supplied at primary school that had been sitting in the early morning sun, but I can to this day recall the smell and taste of the milk at the farm straight from the cow, warm frothy and smelled disgusting like regurgitated clover but I imagined the calves loved it, they soon grew very chubby and very fat.

There was something obvious to my body about some dairy products I could not take to. However, the butter made in the hand-turned churn wasn’t too bad, and cheddar cheese was a staple. Little awareness about ‘dampness’ in the body was acknowledged as perhaps a resultant effect of dairy on our growing bodies that presented as hay fever, sinusitis, and phlegm in the throat. Is it no surprise that excess mucous in the bronchial tubes and ear infections were prevalent.

Maybe the re-occurring bleeding abscesses from my young ears that resulted in deafness at the age of 9 years was a warning of sorts. Was it that at that time my sensitive ears could not handle the constant sound of chastisement of we children, and hearing fighting and arguments long into the night about money, or the lack of it. Was this even a situation of many lives in repetition perhaps.

While at the farm we used to love the stars so bright at night in the Milky Way, the beyond horizon, roosters crowing long before dawn, the sound of cows mooing on their way to be milked in the early hours, and the songs of the magpies in the back yard as the sun rose..

The bull-frogs in the nearby damn sang of a completion of a cycle perhaps. Something that I didn’t love was the visit to the dunny, also called the out-house in the backyard out by the corrugated iron water tank that stood on a huge wooden stand. Grandmother had plenty of torn up pieces of the ‘Weekly Times’, threaded in neat squares on a string to use. (Not ‘toilet paper’ as in the suburbs).

Speaking of water tanks, do you remember Lulu the taste of tank water. Where the family farm was, the cream painted timber cottage had just the one water tank, with one tap over the kitchen sink and one by the wood fired stove with easy access to put a bucket under. One had to guess at times which animal, perhaps a possum, a crow or even a rat had met its demise in the water tank, just by the taste of the water. At least the maidenhair ferns along the window sill thrived on it.

Picture this Lulu – getting back to ear infections, excess mucous and related issues, the stay in the Eye and Ear Hospital in the city around the time I was 9 was my next adventure with nursing care (following tonsils removed when 7 at our community hospital).

The first commanding question I was asked by an extremely starched uniformed sister as I sat up on this very high iron bed in a ward full of beds but no other children was have you opened your bowels – I hadn’t been aware of opening anything, brown paper bag, or anything. I was not guilty of opening anything that I wasn’t meant to open so they couldn’t accuse me of that crime.

Next I was instructed tersely to sit on the pan that this nurse had put at the end of the bed and then promptly left the ward. I dutifully sat on the pan, with my pyjamas on – I didn’t have a clue what I was meant to do with this pan. Oh! The innocence of a child that was brought up to keeps its’ mouth shut and not ask questions.

To follow on from ‘speak only when you are spoken to by an adult’ – at home thereby followed the apparent need for elocution lessons when still young, as mother had been excellent at elocution having in her youth been on the stage at the church functions. So we were all (my siblings and I) to stand on a stool in the lounge and practice ‘speech’ – ‘elocution’ – the Kings English! We all failed dismally, even to the point at a later event, when not an ounce of heard sound came out of my small mouth when supposedly in the acting role of Alladin in a Sunday School concert.

The treatment for my ear abscesses was antibiotics, including a new drug called Erythromycin which was a huge bright yellow capsule that I sometimes had difficulty in swallowing, so on tucking it in my cheek, would, after the nurse had left the ward spit it out over the balcony. The quilts on the high iron beds went right down to the floor and I often hid under someone else’s bed in a different ward so I wouldn’t have to have the injections. I eventually was healed by Heaven.

Before that specific adventure the first day at school saw me with neat pigtails (plaits) and carrying a dark brown leather bag with shoulder strap and my play lunch and lunch inside. Some Saturday nights mother put my hair in rags, so I would have long curls for Sunday School.

At 5 or 6, I recall how mean the slightly older children/girls at the bottom of the street could be, all of us walking home after school in the direction of our collective homes, on calling me to come and receive a surprise some took turns in giving me something called a ‘chinese burn’, carried out by taking one small arm at the wrist and using two hands to twist the skin in opposite directions.

What vindictive energy could it be coming through some ones still so young to be gaining a thrill from hurting a younger child. I never understood why they did it. They thought it to be so funny. Was this behaviour even then a form of exhibited control, superiority or jealousy? Did they then go on to pull wings off butterflies I wondered. The initial lessons in my first classroom were writing with slim slate pencils on a small oblong slate with a wooden surround, a little like a picture frame.

There were always reports by the teacher written and sent home on a slip of paper for the parents to observe how well or not their child was doing. Examples of control or being mean were meted out, causing some of the sensitive children to cry, to stutter badly, or maybe even have a seizure.

This class room presented my first exposure to the different expressions of a very young gathering of children. Sometimes I found it to be overwhelming or other times met with wonder. Didn’t the teacher realise she had a classroom full of angels or similar, or perhaps some were simply mischievous spirits after-all. The schooling system even then seemed to be based on lowest common denominator – make them all conform, contort or collapse under the pressure.

We walked up the long hill to the presbyterian sunday-school where I loved sitting at little wooden chairs and tables with other children colouring in pictures of Jesus using crimson coloured crayons. Even then I seemed to feel that I was part of his special ‘Christ’ energy. At other times men in our close proximity would use profanity, swearing, blaspheming and cry out with force J***s Ch***t. I remember how the effect of the vibration emitted actually hurt my delicate ears and sensitive body.

I cannot recall if you were about this age when you started going to the Roman church your mother attended. ‘Hear the pennies dropping, listen as they fall’ – was a Sunday-school song that we were all taught to sing, parrot fashion, singing that all these pennies were for Jesus. But Jesus was dead so we were told. I couldn’t quite work that one out. What was he going to do with our pennies?

Differences were very confusing especially when we were told not to speak to children who went to the Roman school. Even as a little child I always felt that God loved us all. I wondered at the time were there just a bunch of other Gods pretending to be God just to confuse everybody and create a belief of difference and separation. I could never understand why the grownups around me made everything feel so full of fear and uncertainty. Why couldn’t they love each other like I loved them.

Don’t do this or that – what will the neighbours think??? Don’t hang your unmentionables on the end of the clothes line that strung across the back yard – what would the neighbours think??

More examples of control, nastiness and lies from my first week at school were shown to the class, one very small boy being loudly commanded to stand in the corner with a tall pointy hat on that had ‘DUNCE’ in big letters down the front of it, while a small girl Aggie was called to stand at the front where the teacher stood, she repeatedly had asked to leave the room to go to the toilet, was refused and was told she had to wait until playtime, resulting in her being the victim of embarrassment as diarrhoea ran down her little legs.

Did you experience such disconnectedness to sensitivities by the nuns at your school Lulu? I recall you telling me of their habit of holding a very long, sharp and pointed pencil under your wrist when learning to play the piano. I recall the little boys in the class would be ‘caned’ mercilessly.

Who or indeed what were they receiving their convictions around instructions from for ‘teaching’? Where was the caring? Where was the joy of sharing the wonders of the universe, of nature, of the oceans and the stars at night. I can still hear the hollow sound of soft cedar doors in the house closing. All conversations were held behind closed doors. Where was transparency in the family?

We had a chance to meet grandfather who visited from Canada, arriving on a ship when he needed a cataract operation for his eyes. He brought we children ‘candy’. He died years later when 96 of Parkinson’s disease. So many truths we learn along the way as to why we experience such things.

A book was written about the life of that side of the family, full of intrigue, royalty, nazis, the S.S., possible murder, another wife and so much more. I was curious, but often told this relative that things would be discovered that would indeed be less than thrilling. In those days little lies were called ‘white lies’ and they were a little worse than ‘fibs’ or so we were made to believe.

Did they even know or care about including the children, sharing, or about truth? Even perhaps a watered down version would have been acceptable. The question still beckons did we care about the truth or did we, when as young parents just repeat what was a learned behaviour.

For example, from about October children being harangued about being good so ‘father christmas/santa claus’ would visit during the night on his reindeer in December riding across the sky and coming down the chimneys to bring us presents, but only if we had been ‘nice and good’. One year when about 5-6 years old I dreaded father christmas seeing the holes in my pyjamas so I tried to sleep all night with my little body pressed up against the wall my embarrassment was such.

Have we been guilty of the same learned behaviour. Over many years children were led along this path of fantasy all lined up to sit on santa’s knee in the major shopping malls from mid November. Some young were visibly terrified. They could probably feel the energy of ‘santa’. Who can guess how that santa may have lived, or what he watched in private on television in the middle of the night. Indeed what energy was his body holding and reflecting. They can’t all be ‘saintly’ surely.

Something that is really a wonder to look back on in regards to all these tales that we heard of being sent to a place of flames, damnation, gnashing of teeth etc. that is ‘hell’ if we did or did not do one thing or another. One example was we were not permitted to be eating hot cross buns before Easter Sunday because it supposedly represented the risen Christ from the cross. How do we know for sure it was Yeshua (Jesus) that finally died on the cross for our sins. For our sins?! The energy projected from the churches was laced with guilt, so much guilt, blame and accusation.

Why couldn’t we be told by mother there simply was not enough money to buy buns. What does it really matter any way? Fruit buns are just fruit buns. One might get indigestion, but not necessarily be doomed to hell forever.

We have permission and responsibility to ask questions now after all it appears that the Romans were behaving with the same control of the mass-es long before they began to dominate the accepted universal catholicism aspect of religion. What force was really in control one may ask. Did we know the truth behind pope Pius X11 and his supremacist decree before the 2nd world war.

More deceit Lulu. In fact could this whole existence on this planet earth sometimes appear to be a great big fat delusional and created lie. Bringing it back to the issue of not eating meat on fridays, a friend in later life during my first job out of school in a bank in the city, who when discovering she was actually eating something with meat in it at lunchtime on a Friday almost had an apoplexy.

What is it that has such a hold over humanity? Something with a very questionable energy about it it seems. It certainly doesn’t resonate with the living presence of God that I feel so deeply or as is the presence of the risen Christ energy that is palpable and here on earth already, one can sense it for sure. There is