You can, if you want to, walk through the city gates and prod a great big inflatable beach ball down through the Royal Botanical Gardens onto the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House and give it one final push so that it plops full of rainbow-coloured bravado into one of the finest natural harbours in the world to join with all the fluttering boats, imperious ferries and float planes scooting about the sprawling coils of water.
But having no beach ball to push, I wander aimlessly through the gardens with head bowed and hands clasping and unclasping behind my back – past the ibis striding about the crushed pebble paths with their beady heads propped on indecent leathery necks, alongside shadowy clusters of quarrelsome flying foxes hanging upside down from cork-barked trees and past pockets of greenery looking like crisp garden salad set aside for gap-toothed giants.
No beach ball, only the detritus of a twenty year marriage still smouldering in my mind like the ruins of the ghost train ride at Luna Park on the other side of the harbour.
Ducks paddle with nervous alacrity across sordid ponds swirling with gold-scaled koi and eels as thick as my arm. After crossing a little bridge, I climb up the grassy slopes and sit under a singular fig tree in a hidden-away corner of the gardens.
I say singular because, although not as large as many of its compatriots, the sturdy branches snake together in sublime symmetry and invoke in my mind’s eye the Hindu deity Ganesha with a verisimilitude that is quite startling. With limbs weary from all the walking, I nestle myself down between the roots. I close my eyes and sink into oblivion. A gold-clad elephant strides into my dreaming mind.
“WHO ARE YOU?” the elephant rumbles, trunk upturned.
“A father without children, husband with no wife, a home owner without a home – a loser, a failure.”
“THESE ARE MERE LABELS. THEY SIGNIFY NOTHING. WHO ARE YOU?”
“I don’t know,” I say hopelessly, after a pause.
“YOU NEED TO GO ON A LONG JOURNEY IN ORDER TO FIND YOURSELF.”
I wake. I buy a 4WD camper. I spend nearly a year travelling solo around Australia. This is the first time in twenty years that I can drive without worrying about whether the children are hungry, thirsty or need a toilet break or arguing with my partner regarding the right way to go or where to stopover that night. My mind clears. Surfing Lennox, diving the Great Barrier Reef, seeing cassowaries up close and the waters of Kakadu bursting with life, the mysteries of Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the zebra finches and camels of the Western Desert, the beehive domes of the Bungle Bungles, the pearls of Broome, snorkelling with whale sharks and manta rays off Ningaloo, exploring the surfbreaks around Margaret River or clambering up the desiccated slopes of the Flinders Ranges – through all these experiences, I am finding myself. The further from the big cities, the safer I feel. Without the distraction of family, I can connect at a deeper, more authentic level with the people I meet and am surprised to find that I love them all. Despite all their differences and peculiarities, there is always friendliness, optimism, knowledge and wisdom to be had.
I listen to podcasts on science, astronomy, the mind and philosophy and keep a journal of my daily musings. I write poetry. I discover the music of Bach. I discover the metaphysical universe.
Getting ready for bed near Adelaide, I receive a phone call that puts me on the last flight to Sydney that night, a flight that Qantas offers to hold if my emergency dash from the camping ground gets me to the Adelaide airport later than its scheduled departure time. Our twenty year old son was in a car accident and suffered multiple prolonged heart stoppages resulting in lack of oxygen to the brain and is in an unresponsive coma and is not expected to live the night. I enter the hospital and, despite all the worry etched on the silent faces of my family as they wait in the special room set aside for us, I feel calm. He gets through the night.
The x rays show severe infection in his lungs and his blood oxygen level is critically low despite a constant oxygen feed. The neurologists come in to do their tests and an EEG scan. They say his brain is dead from hypoxia and want our agreement to disconnect the ICU breathing equipment and let him die. I don’t agree. My son is still inside this unmoving shell. I talk to him and set music to play for him via earphones to keep him present. He wakes miraculously on the tenth day. He can talk and think and knows who he is. The doctors are confounded by this miracle and hold a special conference the next day. A dear friend of mine thinks their family prayers brought him back. I think we manifested his return through love and connection with the universal consciousness and that by our love, we attracted this miraculous outcome from a quantum foam of infinite possibility. Which is probably saying the same thing as my friend.
After completing my hero’s journey through challenge and transformation as described in Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I visit the gardens and lie down for the second time between the roots of Ganesha. I doze off to the sound of bees vibrating through the air like fleets of tiny airborne tuning forks.
“WHAT DID YOU DISCOVER ON YOUR JOURNEY?” asks the gold-clad elephant of my dreams.
“I discovered that I love all and am loved by all and that, as shown by my son’s miraculous recovery, we can all manifest a new reality from a place of integrity and love.”
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“I cannot be labelled. I am man, yet also woman, father yet also mother, both adult and child, white and black, sexual and sexless, introverted and extroverted, clever and stupid, spiritual and base, crude and sensitive. I am an embodiment of Universal Consciousness. I am like the air, I am nothing yet everything, nowhere yet everywhere.”
“WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?”
“I believe in nothing yet everything. Opposing ideas fly through my mind in total harmony, like flocks of birds pitching and diving with perfect synchronicity.”
“WHAT DO YOU FEEL?”
“I feel joy, which I can never lose, for my joy is not derived of any earthly goods.”
“YOU ARE CONNECTED TO SOURCE ENERGY. IT IS NOW TIME TO FIND A NEW PLACE FROM WHICH YOU CAN CREATE.”
I buy a little house near the sea where there are friendly neighbours, cafe’s and local writers and musicians. Having cleaned all the debris from my mind, completed my hero’s journey and established a new base, I return to the Royal Botanical Gardens for the third time. I succumb to the warm breeze touching my cheeks as I lie amongst the roots of Ganesha.
“HAVE YOU ESTABLISHED A BASE FOR YOUR NEW CREATIVE LIFE?”
“I have.”
“WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?”
“I desire creative stimulation. And love.
“THESE WILL COME FROM AN UNEXPECTED SOURCE. YOU WILL NEED TO FOLLOW YOUR INTUITION. GOODBYE.”
I am invited to a morning birthday party for a friend’s child, half a day drive from where I live. Normally I would say no to a children’s party so far away but I listen to my intuition and say yes. It is a hot day and after the party I follow an impulse to drive to a nearby National Park to hike down a forested track to a secluded beach. Lying on the pebbly sand after my swim, I notice a woman sitting on the rocks, drawing and writing on her sketch pad. My intuition leads me to approach her and during our ensuing conversation, she says that I should attend a privately-held festival taking place near to where I live.
I follow my intuition. The alcohol-free / drugs-free event takes place on an informal camping ground of colourful tents dressed in fairy lights at night, set amongst lush forest on private land. Hundreds of spiritually rich people express their true being of love and non-judgement. There is a steam tent and nightly drumming circles and ecstatic dancing and daily creative workshops. Submerged in a hot tub under the star-sprinkled night skies, I meet K. and we go to bed together and drench ourselves in love-making, fortified with thirst-quenching oranges, papaya and mangoes.
Through the guidance of that singular fig tree in the hidden-away nook of the Botanical Gardens, I have journeyed to discover that we can manifest reality from a place of integrity and authenticity, that our individual consciousnesses are like tiny whirlpools of the giant river of universal consciousness, the source of all the stars and planets in our universe, and that stripped of all labels, we are nothing yet everything and that I love all and am loved by all. I feel a profound joy not derived of any earthly goods. Opposing ideas coexist in my mind without conflict and in total harmony. I have met K. and am inspired to create.
K. comes with me to the Sydney Botanical Gardens and I lead the way up to the hidden corner.
“There is no tree here,” a park ranger informs us in response to my question.
“Where did it go?” I ask in consternation.
“There has never been a tree in this part of the gardens.”
K. hugs me close. We walk down to where children are playing with a great big inflatable beach ball out on the grassy lawns above the Opera House forecourt.