The Camouflaged Cat
'Let's stand on the rocks so that we can see the ferry come in', I said to Anadi... So we walked all along the top of the harbour wall, clambered onto the rocks, and stood looking out to sea... Very soon we saw the little dot of the ferry on the horizon, on its way from Malta with Josie on board.
As it got closer we could see her waving on deck, and once the ferry was alongside us, we jumped off the rocks and raced the boat!
It was such fun, running running running and laughing as we ran.
I felt like a child again, racing along with my friends, until with bursting lungs we flopped down on the grass...
But this time, Anadi and I kept running, slowing down as our breathing got harder...
And we did beat the boat and were waiting for Josie when she emerged...
She was coming for an 'intensive retreat' with me; her little cat Sparky had died just a few days before, she knew it was his time to pass, but naturally she was very sad about this... So it seemed very fitting that on our very last day, when we had made our way down the steep steep hill to beautiful San Blaas bay with bright orange sand, that a little orange cat, who matched the sand exactly, should appear. He then followed us to the point we had chosen to chant 'Nam Myoho Renge Kyo' as our finale to our retreat...
He snuggled into Josie, resting against her chest and purred as she chanted. He seemed to really love the sound and the vibration in her body....
As we left he yowled and vanished, blending into the sand, a camouflaged cat...
The days with Josie vanished too, into a blend of early morning runs and swims, and work together throughout the day, and eating in lovely restaurants in the evenings... And of course leaping off rocks for Anadi and Josie...
As you might know, on my list of things yet to be accomplished is handstands and as well as this there is leaping off high rocks!
The handstands I could do with ease, so i am confident my body will eventually remember...! I am still working on balancing my bod, but that is a work in progress and I am see the changes...
But leaping off high things....
When I was 8 years old I once spent all afternoon at the top of the biggest slide at the Aldershot lido trying to get myself to slide down...
Eventually - after about three hours of letting everyone go past - I did slide down just once...!
A then some years later, aged 21 in Spain I had a lovely two week holiday romance with Gilles, a young professional footballer from St Etienne, who also liked leaping off high rocks!
The three hours of sitting high up happened again...
As Gilles and everyone kept racing up the rocks and leaping twenty foot into the sea again and again, I just sat there trying to get my courage, letting them all go past...
Eventually I leapt... Just the once!
So this time, I was the 'film maker' for Josie and Anadi.
The rest of the time, Josie and I made our therapy room in a variety of places, including a flat rock with the 'Azure Window' as our back drop...
It had an air of seclusion, despite people all around us... Somehow 'our' rock was left alone and we sat in the middle, doing written exercises, talking and meditating.
Until suddenly at the end, three boys came leaping through the middle!
Gozo is a little island, just 9 by 4 miles so we took to chanting as we drove to the different outdoor therapy rooms...
If Jamie, my nephew (who spent two weeks with us on Gozo in February) is reading this, he will remember me saying 'Gozo is so small, you can't get lost'... And then of course getting regularly and hopelessly lost!
So I had visions of us chanting forever as I drove in circles, but in fact there were only a few wrong turns... As well as quite a few fits of the giggles with my rather hazardous driving, not having got used to the brake or the accelerator in our hire car!
Another feature of the Intensive was a session with Gerhard...He is an awesome intuitive bodyworker and I look forward to seeing him every time I come to Gozo..
Josie loved his treatment too... His intuitive instinctive way of speaking with the body acting as a mirror for the way she works with people in her osteopathy practice...
We are all mirrors and if we look into one another we will find ourselves reflected there, and so we will see ourselves and know ourselves more fully...
