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Karen
offers her
spiritual insights for "being present"
in all aspects of life, by calling upon the techniques
of her four guiding principles,
MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT.
Remembering What We Already Know
This month, I’d like to open with an excerpt from
my book, MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT: What My
Grandmother Taught Me About the Universe.
Grandmother used to tell me there was a life for me that
my deepest senses knew about. She said her joy was to
make sure I always remembered. We played a game with
colored pens and drawing pads, making large Flowers with
endlessly unfolding Petals into which we wrote and drew
all the things I loved—and loved to do. As my MESHE
grew, so did the number of Petals on my MESHE Chart.
Grandmother said her grandmother played it with her
until the day she died.
I wrote into my first Chart when I was only four years
old: my pink dress; the doggie I carried with me
everywhere I went; my Daddy; my Uncle Fred; my church
dresses; my white patent leather shoes with the black
bow; my rag doll, Sylvia; being tickled; doing errands
in the car with my mother; playing with Grandmother;
bubble baths; and finally, nap time and milk and cookies
with Mrs. Drake. That was my first MESHE Chart. I was so
proud of it that when I made my second Chart, the first
Petal I drew in said, "My First MESHE Chart."
Grandmother always had the widest eyes for me. I
understood her simple ways. She passed them on to me
like she was still a child herself. They kept me company
in my solitary world. From a very young age, Grandmother
fostered my appreciation for the mundane by teaching me
to be interested in everything I was doing and to behave
in a grateful manner for all that came my way. I learned
to be sad when I felt sad, joyful when I felt happy, and
disappointed if I felt let down. With Grandmother in my
corner, there was no reason to hide what I was feeling,
and when I allowed myself to feel things as they came to
me, there was no need to feel them for very long.
"There is this place that is me," she would
say, pressing a closed hand gently against her lower
belly. "Everything I am comes from here. I have an
obligation to myself and the world around me to come
from that place at all times."
"Even when you brush your teeth?" I’d ask at
the age of five.
"Oh, especially when I brush my teeth," she’d
answer.
"Even when you ride your bike?" I’d say at
the age of seven.
"Oh especially when I ride my bike," she’d
say.
"Even when you have to do your homework?" I
challenged at the age of nine.
"Oh, even then!"
And when I learned that being in MESHE meant giving my
homework the same love and attention as I gave the
poetry I wrote for Grandmother, I understood the
difference in myself when I was in MESHE, and how
different the world was that I created from that place.
* * * *
* * *
We have a tendency to forget that our lives are known from the
deepest part of ourselves. We are born with the hardware of inner
knowledge, and still, for most of us, our adulthood is an endless
process of forgetting, remembering and forgetting again, what we
already know.
The precursor to my moment of epiphany - the moment
when MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT first came into
being in my mind - was a period of time I spent with
relatives in Florida, nearly twenty years ago. I had
come to a spiritual crisis and did not know the way out.
My body’s wisdom took over and led me across the great
abyss by slowing me down to such an extent that I could
not move without becoming very sick. A mystery fever
arose in my physical body and I had to spend months
resting. I left my life in New York City and moved to
what was, at that time, a retirement community in South
Florida.
With nothing to do but sit and think, I learned
quickly to quiet the mind - lest I would go stark raving
mad! In the process of learning to silence my thoughts,
I became aware of a whole language that lay beneath the
surface of my thinking.
Clearing away the debris that floated atop the ocean
of my mind, I found a wealth of knowledge that spoke of
wisdom and truth. In time, this wisdom could not be
denied and I began to write down the flow of insightful
information. Soon, I realized that the tablet of my
inner-life was endless, and I would never be able to
record everything it said. But more importantly, I
discovered that I would not have to, if I could know and
trust the power of its endless flow.
I knew that eventually, when my health returned, that I would have to resume my normal life.
But I was going to have to bring back something to
connect me to this knowledge - something brief and
succinct. In the last few weeks at my healing haven, I
understood what I would have to do to maintain a
connection with my inner wisdom. I was going to have to
remember that I had an inner wisdom! So I took a sticky
pad and wrote the word REMEMBER upon several of its
pages, and when I moved back into my regular life, I
placed the notes all around me. One in the car, one by
my clock, one in the bathroom, one in the silverware
drawer, and so on.
Remember that there is a life for you that your
deepest senses know about, and make it your job to
always remember.
* * * *
* * *
Children today are often lured away from their
deepest senses. It is a complex task, to teach on the
one hand, manners and discipline, and on the other hand,
inner knowing and intuition. My job is to teach them
about the life their deepest senses know about. And I do
this by teaching them how to make MESHE
Charts.
Over the summer there was a young man, who, in the
third session of a four week course, began to say to me
over and over again, "So, what you are saying is, I
have to be myself...." For a thirteen year old boy,
living in these difficult and troubled times, with the
intense environment that school can be, and the immense
pressures to look, act and behave like all of his
peers.... To hear him say something so simple - I just
knew his life was changing.
This fall, I have a young student who has confessed
to me that life hasn’t worked out for him the way he
thought it would, and that everything he has tried to do
has been a great disappointment. The after-school
activities are too expensive. The subjects he once had
great interest in are now not so mysterious, since he
has been studying them the last several years. And he
has come to the conclusion, barely into his teens, that
life isn’t so great. In light of his views on life, we
agreed at the onset of class that if he did not feel he
wanted to participate, he would not have to attend the
full six weeks. His life experience had already taught
him that there would be nothing in the future but
limitations and disappointments. I decided at that same
time, rather than to make him my personal project, I
would allow the MESHE process - my probing questions and
his drawing responses onto his Chart - probing and
drawing - to carry him to his inner wisdom, thereby
allowing some part of his being and spirit to remember.
Met first with resistance, and then with apathy, I
persisted with the simple questions of asking what his
dreams were, what his plans were, what his wishes, hopes
and goals were for his life. What he liked, what he
loved, what he remembered of himself as a younger boy.
And slowly he began to color, sticker and draw his
responses onto the MESHE Petals, Circles and Squares of
his Chart.
When his mother came to pick him up at the end of
class that first day and asked, "So, how was
it?" he replied with the most show of emotion that
I had seen him display all day. He said simply, "It
was good!" I was surprised, and overjoyed. I can
still feel the small smile coming over my face - knowing
that the process had begun to do its magic, and
realizing too, that I had no control over how far it
could or would take this young man, at this time.
Knowing that some part of his wisdom had surfaced, and
that he would be back, was good enough for me.
* * * *
* * *
MESHE work is not only for us as adults, but the
children we parent and mentor. Engaging a process that
can renew our spirit, while ensuring the development of
our child’s spirit, is not such a bad way to spend an
afternoon!
Teach your child, and live your days nourishing that
place that your deepest senses knows about. See how
different the world is that you create from that place,
when you come from that place at all times. Learn to be
sad when you feel sad, instead of running away from it.
Learn to be joyful when you feel happy, without curbing
it. And if life lets you down, fall apart completely so
that you can get put back together again later.
What alarmed me most about this boy who had been so
disappointed in life, wasn’t his disappointment, but
his feeling that he had to protect himself from being
let down. It is the protection that has him keeping to
himself and not wanting to feel joy for new things.
Hopefully we slipped in enough feelings of creativity in
one class to bring back some measurement of hope that he
can build on. And you can bet that I will be watchful of
him, praying and hoping that he will continue to return
for little doses of spark and creativity - little bursts
of healing light, those burning rays that sometimes must
be shone upon us, in order that we may be freed from our
fears.
We have a community that is larger than our families
and schools and even our country. But what will connect
us all together is the part of us that our deepest
senses knows about - and our job is to make sure that we
always remember.
© Copyright 2001 Karen Deborah
Farris.
Read
Karen's Current "Being Present" Column
Read
Karen's Past Columns:
September
2001 - "Be Led By What You Are Trying to
Avoid"
August
2001 - "Draw Your Way to Clarity, Health &
Balance"
June
2001 - "Tending to the Negative Mind"
May
2001 - "Gentle Conscious Living"
April
2001 - "MISON and The Moment"
March
2001 - "The MESHE Concept - A Path to Soulful
Living"
Karen Deborah Farris is a successful counselor, healer, and bodyworker. For more than fifteen years she has taught extensive workshops based on MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT as well as many other self-discovery topics.
Farris began developing her integrated bodywork and counseling techniques in 1984 under the tutelage of many prominent doctors and healers throughout the United States.
Her education into the spiritual and physical aspects of the human experience served as the foundation for her own private practice and the development of a new philosophy. She combined her techniques into four guiding principles, which she shares in her book,
MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT: What My Grandmother Taught Me About the Universe. She is currently touring with a companion workshop series, where she creates an interactive environment demonstrating the material from her book with tangible, life altering effects. In these workshops, individuals discover a deepening of their relationship to self, others and the world around them.
Through individual counseling and group workshops, she has taught her results-oriented programs to many different types of people
including those confined to mental institutions, substance and food abusers, and generally, people in life transitions, struggling with intimate relationships, or who lack direction in their lives. Karen lives happily with her husband in Southern California.
Visit www.MESHE.com.
For more
information, contact Karen at: info@MESHE.com
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