by PJ Mayhem
I’m dressed the part: a dark professional suit with some angular quirks so I still feel like me. I had considered my black and gold cheongsam momentarily; perhaps they’d appreciate a little cultural authenticity. But then a little voice inside my head reminded me I was going for an interview as an admin manager not a yum cha waitress.
Prepared with my spiritual fake it till I make it technique I head confidently across the road into the uni grounds. Even though I’m surrounded by lush green grass, I feel myself being swamped by a blanket of fog. It’s nothing tangible but the energy is all wrong. Oppression oozes up from the ground, presses down from the sky, squeezes in on me from the regal sandstone buildings and their mismatched neighbours. The black windows and broken venetian blinds of the ugly seventies concrete slabs make them seem as though they’re blinking sadly against the beauty of their stained-glass counterparts.
Which method of dull, grey, suffocation is worse? I wonder. The environment here or with Broomstick?
Maybe it’s just unfamiliar. I try to convince myself that my gut reaction to run is nothing more than the fear of facing the interview coming through now I’m closer.
However, things go from bad to worse when I walk into the building. A morgue would look like a nightclub in comparison. I would die in here. It’s not so much a thought as a knowing.
Scratchy writing on a post-it note stuck to the door with yellowing sticky tape tells me I’ve arrived at Room 107. The writer has used a fine point pen. I hate fine point pens—people who use them as a preference are pedantic and mean spirited.
The office, when I enter it, is even more morgue-like. Neither of the people look up—they’re both staring blankly at their computer screens—although one does show signs of life, flicking at woodgrain veneer that’s peeling from the edge of her desk. I stand for a moment and still neither of them acknowledge me. I ring the little bell on the counter.
My mind wanders as I wait. Perhaps Spirit has sent me here as a reminder to be grateful for what I have—still, I can’t quite see Broomstick as a gift, not even a dodgy thrice re-gifted Kris Kringle.
Then I’m called into the interview. By the time I’ve nodded and smiled and said, ‘Lovely to meet you,’ to each of the panel members, all of whom appear to be cardboard cut-outs from the crowd at the compliance workshop I attended with Broomstick, I’m quite dizzy. Six really is excessive.
I don’t quite glide over the questions with the ease and grace of an Olympic skater but it’s certainly not the disaster the Consulate interview was. I’m not sure if it’s the work I’ve done with Lionel or because there’s so much less at stake. I wouldn’t want this job now if they paid me, which of course they would, and quite well.
The question of how something that seems so right can be so wrong raises itself in my head again.
With rats, slugs and dead geckos popping up as my totem animals and my perfect jobs being flops, things aren’t looking up for me on the enlightenment front. But all of that is about to change. Today is Enlightenment Day—Amethyst’s one-day inner urban retreat. Sure, it’s a bit pricey but it’s an investment in my future. I’m all geared up to embrace my femininity, harness the power of my intuitive female knowing and wisdom, and out the Goddess within.
To begin the day, Amethyst guides her Goddesses-in-Training through the Moon Goddess meditation. We’re all lying on the carpeted floor of the hired healing space, since Amethyst’s clinic is far too small to fit us in. ‘You are the divine, heaven and earth, pure love and energy flow through each and every one of you. The karmic forces connect us, we are all as one. In your mind’s eye I want you to visualise the light that connects you to your neighbour and all living things.
‘Lie back and bathe in the radiance of connection and cosmic knowing, soak up the Goddess wisdom, strength and love.’ Amethyst pauses, no doubt tuning in to her guides. ‘Share that wisdom through your light, see it shining from you, radiating from every cell of your body, the very essence of your being …’ Her delivery takes on a near evangelical fervour.
I’m not really a moon howler, I realise, lying on the carpet. I’m bored, and quite itchy; I’m finding it hard to stay still.
By the time the Moon Goddess meditation finally ends I’ve relived virtually every interaction I’ve had with Frankie. I can’t possibly manage to recount all the signs, even though I’d tried. There’ve been thousands. I see them everywhere—part of me is always on the lookout. I do need to be careful with that, though. I’d literally almost been hit by a bus yesterday.
Up off the floor, I work hard to emulate an authentically enlightened Goddess expression, smiling beatifically at each of my neighbours, taking their hands for the Moon Goddess Unification chant. The Goddesses-in-Training form a circle around Amethyst, who flings herself around the Intention Stick. We’d made the stick earlier, each tying a ribbon around it to symbolise our special intentions. I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I can’t imagine some of the moves she’s doing would really appeal to the Moon Goddess—there’s gyrating and thrusting, among other things—she looks like pole dancer doing interpretive dance in a kaftan. The circle moves clockwise as Amethyst continues to writhe. The little cymbals strapped to her fingers are making quite a din and kicking her feet around the way she is ensures maximum impact from her brass Indian ankle bells.
The blur of her kaftan returns to the solid colours of High Priestess purple and Goddess gold (the colours had come to her in a dream, she told us in the same way most people would say, ‘I picked it up at a stocktake sale’) as she slows. When her jingling and jangling stop, so do we.
I take a huge Pranayama-style meditation breath to disguise what is really a sigh of relief. The clanging of metal on metal, the chanting, the sweetness of the Nag Champa incense, the clamminess of the hands of people I don’t know, Amethyst’s spinning, us circling around her and the swirling colours had started to make me feel a little unwell.
With a clang of the cymbals on Amethyst’s right hand and an ‘Om Shrim Som Somaya Namah’ we’re off again. Oh Goddess, have mercy. Anticlockwise this time, which she indicates with some dramatic circling and cymbal snapping of her left arm and hand above her head. I imagine it’s to balance out the energy from all our clockwise work but right now I’d give anything just to lie down for another Moon Goddess meditation. Or a nap.
Once Amethyst has received the message from the Moon Goddess that we’ve hit the right energetic note and reached our karmic chanting quota, she proudly announces that it’s time for ‘the special ceremony for the Goddesses who are having their divine feminine moon time’.
I’m not, but I wouldn’t admit to it even if I was. There is no way I’d be going into the red tent in the corner of the room: a red sheet that has been strung up to cordon off one small section. I cannot believe she’s scheduled this in just before lunch. It’s a period not a spiritual experience, for Govinda’s sake. It’s not the Goddess worshipping her womb, it’s messy, it’s painful, it’s inconvenient, you pig out, you puff up and you’re either so wet and weepy that you could be mistaken for a depressed goldfish or you’re spitting and kicking like a llama with lethal intentions—sometimes both simultaneously.
I zip my lips into a tight smile, feeling the words, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ buzzing at the base of my throat chakra like an angry wasp wanting to fly out from my Vishuddha to sting everyone in its path. I take the symbolic chunk of garnet from my neighbour and hold it against my abdomen as every woman before me has done, drawing on the energy of the crystal to reclaim our collective power and bond in the unity of womanhood and Goddess energy. As I pass it on to the next woman, whose name tag tells me she’s Megan, she looks me up and down with a slightly superior look. Megan’s wearing mauve. And not just Megan, nearly every other Goddess-in-Training is in mauve too. There’s so much mauve it’s upsetting my aura and it’s such a try-hard cliché to choose the colour of spiritual awakening.
After the garnet passing, we break for lunch.
‘I
knew it, I knew there was something impure about your energy when I got the garnet from you,’ Megan says to me, eyeing my takeaway coffee cup.
‘I normally use a KeepCup but I’m so tired I left it on my kitchen bench.’
‘I can’t believe you putrefy your system with that,’ she takes a sip of whatever is in her enviro cup, an almond milk turmeric latte no doubt.
I’d thought part of why she’d looked me up and down at the garnet exchange was because I’m all in black. She wouldn’t have been the first person today to ask me if it was a conscious choice I was making to impede my energetic connection, drowning my energy field in such a negative colour. Two other Goddesses-in-Training had done so before the Welcoming Prayer. ‘Actually on the label it’s called Obsidian,’ I could have retorted but I knew I’d only sound like a pretentious, unenlightened, superficial bitch.
A twenty-something in a white and, yes, mauve Lululemon outfit with a ‘daily yoga by the beach at sunrise’ vibe bounds up to Megan and me. ‘I’m Goddess Phoenix,’ she tells us and throws herself around Megan in a hug. She lets Megan go and turns to me. It’s too late for me to make a getaway, there’s nothing to do but reciprocate. I count to three, then let go.
‘Can you believe she’s toxifying her system with caffeine?’ Megan sounds more aghast than she did when she said it to me directly, as though she’s inferring they need to organise a purity intervention.
At afternoon tea (herbal) I text Jane to see if she can meet this evening. I’m so desperate to laugh, I’ll beg her to snort for me if I have to. I know I should chat to my fellow Goddesses-in-Training but I’m all feminine-energied out. Jane’s much more yang than yin. And busying myself with my phone gives me the perfect excuse not to join in the ‘What came to me in my afternoon meditation’ discussion; the visions are getting extreme and I’d never be able to come up with anything as close to Nirvana as they claimed to have experienced—I’d actually fallen asleep, which practically is a spiritual experience for me these days. I’m still feeling a bit groggy but Amethyst’s ‘Lessons from Hindsight’ talk—the final thing on today’s agenda—will get me buzzing. She’s in the workshop room seeking guidance from her guides about which experiences to share now. It’s going to be amazing.
And it is—very reassuring.
Dusk is descending on Enlightenment Day and Jane and I huddle in the corner of a café. Much to my relief, our hug felt almost normal again. It’s been a while since we caught up, mostly because we just haven’t been able coordinate our schedules and a full debrief of the Jack so-a-date-date was still to be had. I’ve already filled Jane in on the mauve brigade and the red tent. I can’t repeat what she said about that.
‘So, you know when someone says, “Wait for it, this is the hysterical bit,” you pretty much know it’s going to be disappointing?’
‘Oh god, the worst.’
‘That and more. But he seems totally fine now. It’s as though it never happened, he still flirts like a frisky little ferret and tries to touch my hand even though he’s got to know it’s pointless. I couldn’t even kiss him, for Buddha’s sake.’
‘I told you he would. He probably doesn’t get it. Men are pretty dumb really, Kizzo. He might just think—forget that, men really don’t think.’
For all her ease with men, Jane isn’t the male gender’s biggest fan, beyond their obvious purpose.
‘Is Mr Mural still around?’
Jane flicks her hand in the air and leans forward. ‘I did, however, have a bit of an interlude with this guy I met on Friday night.’
I spoon some non-crisis chocolate cake (Megan and Phoenix would have a fit) into my mouth as Jane embarks on the tale of Mr Friday Night. I watch her, trying to imagine her at the school gate with other mothers. I can’t.
‘Will you see him again?’ I ask after we’ve snorted our way through some of her more risqué anecdotes.
‘No, definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience, that one.’ Jane proclaims, then does her eye-narrowing thing again and brings up Frankie.
‘Nothing really,’ I say. ‘I mean, nothing that’s a big deal. I’m doing really well being Ms Middle-of-the-Road, just seeing what happens.’ I shove another spoonful of chocolate cake in my mouth, hoping it will get me out of having to disclose anything more.
‘Honestly, Kismet—’
‘I went for a job interview. It was perfect, except when it wasn’t.’
‘How so?’
Credit to her for not pushing me on Frankie. I know how much she loves to voice her opinion.
I fill in the blanks of the what and where of the interview before I declare it, ‘Dead boring, serious and stifling beyond even Broomstick.’
Jane looks shocked. ‘That bad?’
‘Unfortunately so.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘You know—I really don’t know. Keep looking, I guess.’ I shrug. ‘What about you. How’s life in the land of art?’
‘Pretty quiet, actually. I haven’t been getting much work since the mural. Not even any hideous corporate commissions in the offing but something will come up. It always does.’
It will. Jane was born under a pretty lucky star. Even so, I have a scarily Catherine-esque thought: If Jane is going to be providing for two maybe she should find something more stable.
‘Would you ever consider becoming an art teacher?’ The words are out before I can stop them.
Jane shoots me a look that tells me Ms Middle-of-the-Road has ventured way too far onto the straight and narrow, and I have to agree.
‘Just a thought, not saying it was a good one.’
‘You’re the one that’s good with kids not me. I’ll be fine with one of my own but a room full of them …’ Jane pulls a horrified face.
‘How’s your mum with it now, has she adjusted?’ I ask, Spirit having provided the perfect segue.
‘Freaking hell, Kiz, she’s so adjusted that I’ve had to tell her to back off. I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it, but it’s not one hundred per cent and she’s already talking about plans for when we go overseas. I mean that’ll be ages away yet, if it ever happens. There are so many forms and red tape. I’ll have killed her if she keeps this up.’
I laugh, even though inside, a little coil of disappointment is unfurling. When I’ve thought about it, I’d imagined me going with Jane. We’d always done big events together. I’m not going to get upset about it now; like she said, even if it did happen, it would be ages away. Anything could happen between now and then.
Someone’s chakras are out of balance this morning. Unusually for a Monday morning they’re not mine, Buddha be blessed. A guy has trundled up to the bus stop screaming blue murder and wanting to fight people. Having one of those old lady shopping carts is ruining his tough guy image somewhat, as is being hunched over and about seventy-five.
The herd of commuters waiting for the bus, ready if not willing to be transported to their slaughter houses for the working week, focus even more intently than usual on their phones. All except me.
As I do every day, I’ve strategically positioned myself at the bus stop to be in Frankie’s line of vision should he come out to do some very environmentally unfriendly disposal of cardboard into the bin (one day when I can speak to him like a normal person, I really must tell him to recycle). I admit, all this primping, preening and constantly being on anxious alert is exhausting, but on the upside, it’s great for my posture. No matter how tired I feel, I’ve become so chronically aware of the way I stand that I won’t allow myself even a glimmer of a slump. Everything has a positive. Of course I’m hoping to manifest something a little more positive than just good postural alignment with Frankie quite soon but it’s important to practise gratitude: it fuels the positive energies.
There’s a collective sigh of relief when the 509 arrives and the crowd merges forward in the bus-boarding hustle—all except Mr I-Don’t-Like-Mondays, who pushes and shoves, ramming his way to the front. We wait as he struggles with his cart
and attempts to board the bus.
‘You fucking dog bastard, I bet you fucked your fucking mother last night, didn’t you?’ It is entirely understandable that no one has offered to help him. ‘You motherfucking bastard! And then you would have sucked your father’s dick.’ He starts backing away, still at war with his trolley.
‘Off—not on my route,’ I imagine the driver has said to him.
Top marks to the old guy for expletive expression, though! Even with my former fondness for swearing I couldn’t have come up with a tirade like that. Not that I would’ve ever hurled abuse at anyone directly but pre-Amethyst I had such a penchant for the foul mouth. ‘Too much negative energy attached to cursing and cussing,’ she told me. I secretly relish my occasional lapses.
The Universe delivers its gifts in unexpected ways—I notice Frankie has come out to watch the kerfuffle. I set my manifesting in motion, and visualise him tearing down the street like a knight in shining armour to protect his delicate flower (that would be me) from such outrageous behaviour—my life hanging in the balance, at risk of being mowed down and run over repeatedly by an insane, foul-mouthed old man with a granny cart until she is nothing but a mound of pulverised flesh in a designer outfit. I even close my eyes really hard because everyone knows the tighter you close your eyes, the more likely your wish is to come true but when I open them, not only is there no sign of Frankie transforming his sneakers into a white steed to rush to my rescue, he’s laughing and chatting with another woman. And she’s younger than me and not at all dowdy.
