A blessing

 I'm listening to portentous music on headphones at my desk. It's a catchy little track entitled "Cleans the Aura and Space. Removes all Negative Energy." No really, that's the name of the whole thing. There is a low note which reminds me of Joy Division's Atmosphere, and a bit of a drum thing, as well as wind chimes. Somewhat mesmerizing; you have to stay with it to see what will happen.

Two things I've been thinking about:

• If you do the work, the Universe/God/Spirit will meet you where you are.
• We are here on this earth to heal each other.

The second one came to me while driving too fast down a straight road through the middle of a golf course at a time of day where no-one is about. It's the second day after the solstice. It says the sun rises at 4.48am today but there was already a glowy light at half past four, and the birds were just beginning to stretch a leg out of their cozy nests. **Must buy wind chimes, stat.**

I'm reading "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda and it's marvelous. Ben Kingsley narrates (so I'm not reading, I'm listening, at speed usually). "We are here on this earth to heal each other" came to me while listening to "Song to the Siren" by This Mortal Coil. If you haven't ever listened to this track, try it here - and if you're one of those people that has just discovered Kate Bush, you will love This Mortal Coil. They are a mash up of The Cocteau Twins, Pixies and Dead Can Dance, conceived of by the guy who ran 4AD records. It's blissful stuff. Sorry, I'm going all Ronnie Corbett on you. Autobiography of a Yogi was famously the book that Steve Jobs read about three times while recovering from dysentary, because there were no other books within reach. It's about saints, yogis, miracles, science, awareness, enlightenment, grief, family.  George Harrison would keep stacks of them in the house and give them to anyone who needed "regrooving." I think that's where I might be now.

This may be too honest or make me too vulnerable to reveal, but being in LA does my head in, in a good way. I stayed in my old house because the very kind owner was away and offered it up to me, and while it created an enormous sense of safety (my home is for me my sanctuary; this house had changed very little - just slightly different art on the walls) it did bring up questions about lifestyle choices. England is a balm for me and whenever I'm in LA I long for misty mornings and green fields covered in dew, and beech woods, and the chalky strata of the Chilterns, but when I'm in England, it's the converse. Suddenly I find myself imagining myself in the canyon, walking on the dusty paths that smell like sage, and the massive feeling that I'm among my people there. This may be one of those posts which reveals too much, like telling someone else your dream which seems completely natural to you but actually reveals an enormous secret longing to a friend. You know what they say: don't tell people your dreams. I'm so pulled in both direction. Los Angeles provided me with the massive shot of positive adrenaline to my flagging heart, there was positivity wherever I turned, and love, and respect. These are my people, I thought. They understand me here. There is kindness in abundance, among the plumped lips and smoothed brows and impossibly flat tummies. If I sported an American accent instead of the upper middle class English one I have, I'm sure I would do better here. But there seems to be confusion when someone who sounds like me behaves in ways that isn't particularly English at all. It's odd for a privileged caucasian woman to be speaking of otherness, I know, but this is something

One of my oldest friends, who is also English, took me to the Lake Shrine - the Self-Realization Fellowship on Sunset Boulevard in the Palisades, which I've passed a million times but never ventured into. It was started by Paramahansa Yogananda. I said "do you want to go for a walk?" and she invited me to her house where she had prepared a feast of a lunch - roast cauliflower and white bean salad, roasted corn and avocado with greens and a buttermilk/feta dressing, and even vegan Coronation Chicken. We sipped on grapefruit soda and I admired her passion fruit vine (she provides the fruits to everyone I know because her tree gives in abundance) and watched her foster cat catch a bird (it escaped in a flurry of feathers). "Do you want to walk on the beach or?" I'd mentioned the Lake Shrine before her because I'd never been there before. "If it's calling to you, it's calling to you and we should go there" she said. I hadn't expected it. We drove along PCH to Sunset, parking just inside the gates. At the visitor centre it says "Dedicated in 1950, he envisioned a spiritual environment where people from all over the world could come and experience peace of heart and mind." And so there exists a beautiful garden with a lake in the middle, with a path around the whole thing, honoring the Christian, Islam, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu faiths. There are shrines, waterfalls, areas set aside for meditation, a small chapel. More here. It filled me with a profound sense that God was there and God was with me and that God was everywhere, in each of those flowers, especially the gardenias (my favorite flowers, next to peonies). I found it hard to articulate at the time. I think I screwed up my face and cried and thanked Wendy for bringing me. But the warm glow stayed with me and seemed to somehow infuse everything I did, and do.

I think it's called a blessing.