Earlier in the year I noticed an adult dunnock with some fledglings in tow looking for food in the back garden and decided to see if the youngsters would feed out of my hand. I sat very still in a meditative position, seed in hand, and waited. After a while the young family returned to the garden to continue their search but they did not approach me, and then out of the corner of me eye, I noticed a black bird. But I wanted to feed the babies! I observed the thought and felt the energy of those words in my body… “but I want to feed the babies”. It certainly wasn’t a malevolent energy but it wasn’t exactly benevolent either. I continued to sit, seed in hand, exploring this energy in my body until a calm feeling of clarity filled me, and from somewhere deep within a voice spoke. If I were religious I might call it the voice of God, but I’m not, so I won’t.
Whenever I hear this voice, or perhaps it would be more accurate for me to say whenever I feel this voice, I am given a message which appears as a thought in my mind and I experience a feeling of total clarity in the body, and although the words appear in my mind as if they are mine, I know they are not from my consciousness. At least that is my experience of it if you can imagine that. It is a revelation, a communication of divine truth.
The voice said “all who are hungry will come”.
And so it is with anything offered in service. Perhaps it is not for me to pick and choose who I will serve if I have something to offer. Alongside my boxing coaching, I’m currently training to be a counsellor and I also lead meditation sessions for people based in different countries around the world, and it occurred to me that I do not know the background of anybody I work with. I know only what I am told and it could well be that I’ve worked with perpetrators of sexual violence and not known it. Should that become a barrier to my service? I sincerely hope not.
In service and with love,
-Zoe Patterson-Fighting back
P.S. the picture is of a baby dunnock I rescued from the claws of a cat.
Zoe Patterson: Fighting back 