I AM RICH IN SPIRIT

I am very rich in spirit, and I thank my creator for letting me understand the importance of this. While most people in the world pray or care for material wealth, (and I must admit, it makes life easier for some to have money), my own perspective of wealth, prosperity, being rich is very different and have always been different ever since I was a young child.

 I have always sought happiness. I remember that I never liked being sad at all, neither did I ever like to see anyone unhappy. As I grew, I always prayed to be happy. Even when I went through struggle with my family, (them not loving me and showing it), in my heart I hoped it would change. I was a good student, meaning I did very well in my studies and excellent on my exams. Yet when I went off to University, I had no idea what I wanted to do, I had no major in mind, because I did not see me doing something with a degree, working in an office, or pumping a patients chest in an emergency room. I saw it on the wall, the degrees, having them, just because and me doing charity work somewhere in India or sojourning through Nepal, or dancing to the drums in Africa, or a bun a spliff Pon de road side, wid a box food beside mi, (I had to put that in, it was also apart of my reality).

Of course I could not tell my family, especially my very judgemental mother, who already had me off as the “odd ball”, of all her children. And I certainly could not “knot up mi hair, Rasta, and guh live ah righteous life”, that would definitely kill de mother. However I was “strange”. She looked at me this way, because I loved to read, and I had no friends. I had no social life, books were and still are my best friends. My pleasure back then as a teenager, was to go the botanical gardens with a book and a sandwich, a picnic basket, sit under a large shaded tree and read while enjoying nature. There, while I did this, I would dream in between reading and while reading. The books took me to places, that to this day, I still yearn to go, and at times I would pause, look up to the blue summer skies, feel the sun as it penetrated my skin, almost as if it peeped into my books as I read,  and dream.

In my dreams (day dreams), I had a life, free from family expectations of who I should be. In my dreams, I saw myself as an important person, who people loved and I loved them back. Although I wanted the husband and family life, I did not see them in my dream. The family unit, that is. I saw the children, and they were like me. Loving nature, travel and adventure.

The mind is a wonderful place. It serves as a great escape when necessary, it also gives you a first class ticke to travel away from your reality whenever you want to. I would hope, that you are able to separate the dream world from your reality and come back to your life’s space. I imagined my life filled with unique adventures and opportunities, and through it all I saw happiness in the forefront. Back then, I had no idea that I was sad. I was, but I knew it not. My dreams of my future, protected me from the realities of what was then the present. I wonder now, if my non-physicals allowed me to veer off into another world, as to protect me from the harshness of my reality in those times, and if this is true, then I take the time out to say to them…Thank You!

All that I have been through in life, I always had the outlook that all would be well, I never dwelled on sorrow, and if something made me cry, it never lingered beyond a day or two, I was easy to release pain, because, I believed that good would eventually come from it, and so I waited.

Life, did not turn out, as I imagined it would be. My joy and happiness were my children, but having them, caring them, loving them, was on me alone, the fathers ran away, and family turned their backs, and I had not one friend. No one stood beside me. I had them, the children, close to one another, so the travel to the Himalayays or to Sai Baba’s ashram was never to come. The journey to Nepal and riding elephants in India while holding onto my straw hat was left in the dream world. Life for me, had taken its own turn, these small innocent ones had no one but me and so, even if I had the means, I could not leave them and I certainly had not the means to go anywhere.

I took the reigns of my life in hand, and through bitter salty tears, especially at nights while they slept and I worried what they would eat tomorrow, I persevered. My grade four  primary school teacher in Jamaica, Mrs. Haughton, a tall, extremely dark woman with a haughty look and even though stern, a charismatic presence, would say to us children, ” Children, All’s well that ends well”. She had a booming voice, and so I have always remembered her.

All’s well that ends well, and life eventually did turn out great for me, in that, through all the pain and harhness of life, I emerged in tact, of sound mind (as sound as sound is, I’ll say) and I am ObaraMeji, someone who others look to for counsel and advice. I never got to Sai Baba’s ashram ( which wasn’t such a big deal for me anyway), or visited the monks in Nepal, ( I still want to do that), or climb the Himalayas (need to she some pounds,) so I will do that. I did get to dance to drums in Africa (yayyy), I did travel, over and over and over again, and to Africa, a place where none of my family members ever did, of all who went through the holocaust, (slavery), and begat the generations to follow of which I am apart of, I was the first to go home!

I am rich in spirit, because I have lived and realized my dreams. I brought them into my reality. Apart of that young girls dream of travel, Africa was there, and while I may not have gotten to the other places as yet, Africa, I did go. My spirituality has freed me from longing for the material part of life, freed me from wanting to be apart of the rush for gold, bright lights and big cities, (and Charlie Sheen fi a boyfriend, can oonuh imagine de fretration!!), freed me into accepting my life and appreciating where it took me, because of my faith and the removal of blind illusion. I am rich in spirit because I am free!

Obara Meji.

Tí akòko bá ńsọ igi tí ò jáwọ́, bó pẹ títí á rí ǹkan gbà lọ́wọ́ igi./
If the woodpecker won’t stop pecking a tree, it will get something from the tree, eventually……..Yoruba Proverb!
[Persist; If we won’t give up, result is assured.]