I was thinking about my spirituality around this winter solstice in Australia. Our spirituality is not easily explained by words as this phenomenon is as subtle as the scent of essential oil or perhaps even more subtle. So I decided to write about it simply and just ensured to write my honest experiences. As I pondered on my understanding of spirituality, a story of my interaction with my spiritual nature in my twenties came out.  

I met my powerful clairvoyant friend Lalita at Kyoto Seika University surrounded by a forest in the North of Kyoto in 1989. This precious University was a small alternative University run by hippie professors dedicated to the human potential movement. I was 18 and began my study of humanities. Lalita was also 18, an art student majored in the 3D formative art. Lalita's eyes looked as sharp and penetrating as those of a wolf that seem to gaze into our deeper unconsciousness. With her sharp eyes and well built body, she looked like Princess Mononoke of Hayao Miyazaki's anime (Princess Mononoke is a young female warrior raised by Wolf gods attempts to revenge on the human beings who exploit the sacred forest. )

One warm, lovely spring day, after the Anthropology lecture that was open both to the art students and humanity students, I was introduced to Lalita by my new friend I had just met in the humanities department. As soon I was introduced, she introduced herself as a psychic. I got very excited, jumped off the table I was sitting on. I had never met a clairvoyant before so I pleaded her to read me. The she happily gave me a most wild and mysterious reading :

"Did you know you are not a human being? You are a spirit. Your higher self is a goddess of Mountain. In the spirit world, you are a loner who does not belong to any spirit groups. In many of your past lives, you were proud ethnic minorities. For example, in one life, you looked like Chinese. But with a closer look, you were not exactly Chinese. In another life, you looked like a Turkish. But with a closer look, you are not Turkish and so on. You were a Celtic bard in one lifetime...In fact in several life times, you were a storyteller. You have a gift for words. I can see a lot of English writing in your background...Do you want to pursue a career of translating or an editing of magazines when you left the Uni? You are not a type who is going to get sucked into any organisations.... Excellent. I can see you walking on your own. You will have your own original path in this life time."

I was blown away by what she could say about me. Although many of her statements were a way beyond my perception, I intuitively felt she was telling the symbolic story of my soul. About 3 months before this reading, I read about the Celtic bard tradition in a magazine and felt a strong affinity with it. With my Mercury retrograde in my birth chart, I struggled with academic studies throughout my school life as my brain didn't work to the system. However, I did very well with English classes and creative writing. I began to explore the Western style individualistic thinking through constructing English sentences, which led me to think outside of the conformist Japanese social system and experience my freedom of expression. Her reading- "You are a spirit who refuses to belong to any groups" penetrated me because I tend to want to do the same in the human world!  Even growing up in a conformist society like Japan, people accepted me better when I expressed my originality. 

Lalita used to love the channelling book "Bashar" by Darryl Anka. By relating to this book, she explained how the humanity is moving into more graceful era where people will live according to their free will and inner visions and become more friendly with each other, overcoming our hostilities due to a lack of understanding for each other's perspective.  Lalita's story resonated with the core of my being.

However, when I talked about Lalita and her psychic reading, my cautious skeptic friend dismissed me "I don't buy into it."....She was right. I needed to learn not to get caught up with Lalita's reading.  Dreamy by nature I got easily carried away by the beautiful image of myself revealed in the psychic reading, leaving aside my awkward feeling of living in the complex and challenging human world. I guess this is a common pit fall of psychic readings. 

However, no matter what the skeptics say, I could not help being attracted to Lalita who had a presence as symbolic as Princess Mononoke. Just as much as visionary, she always had a pragmatic approach to life. This was a characteristic of art students constantly being challenged to create art forms to their ideas. I regarded her ideas as worthy of attention and respect. 

Three months later when I saw Lalita again, she was refusing to give her readings just about anybody like she used to. She was disgusted with people who didn't treat her reading with respect. Among people who came to hear her reading were those ones who wanted to hear her reading just to satisfy their curiosities or ridicule her reading or totally became needy and dependent on her reading.

Her frustration as a psychic was as follows. 

"I don't accept anybody who underestimates my psychic reading! My reading should not be handled by wrong intentions. I want people to be interested in spiritual growth. Psychics reveal to people their masteries from the past lives as well as the potentials so they can be inspired to look into their psyche.  But many don't seem to get it. In many cases, psychic readings are a waste of my energy."

Lalita is suited to be described as a medicine woman who uses butterfly medicine according to the American Indian medicine tradition. Butterfly can change its entire genetic structure (DNA) from caterpillar to butterfly. Tuning into the butterfly's ability for metamorphosis, Lalita expressed a genuine interest in the transformation of humanity. She was passionate about encouraging people to become awakened as a spiritual beings who live their life according to their soul's visions, instead of living as "human being" limited by fearful thoughts and enslaved by our system. I was truly inspired by her vision. I sincerely wished to connect with her in a creative and meaningful way. My wish was answered through the process of uncovering the truth of my inner life. This process began when I encountered a professor who changed my view of the world.

Professor Hajime Nakao was a provocative social psychologist dedicated to to the growth of his students. His lectures proceeded through a number of good questions asked to students about their unexamined mediocre ideas within their statements. He claimed the Japanese education ministry does not want citizens who can critically and analytically evaluate the information and develop their own opinions. The emphasis of his lectures were about our inner life and understanding how our psychological issues are related with the social issues. One time he gave us a task of interviewing our friends about their sex life. In this way, he broke the taboo of our sexual life. Stimulated by Hajime's candid approach to students, I began reflecting on my inner life more closely... Back then I was in a deep psychological mess, far away from my beautiful potential revealed through Lalita's psychic reading. Every month I had a cold including diarrhea, vomiting, sneezing and coughing. I was not mentally stable either-I got offended easily by my peers' criticisms or comments, often ended up bursting into tears.

I began to suspect my physical weaknesses may have been caused by my experience of being bullied at school when I was 12-13.  A group of girls led by a tough bully took my clothes off in the classroom while other teenagers were watching.... The bullying lasted for a year. In my forth year of University, I wrote honestly about my painful, awkward traumatic experiences in my final Uni year essay under the guidance of Hajime. Writing this essay brought back my energy and a courage to live my life. I began to examine the value of my parents who were highly competitive driven professionals as well as my early childhood experiences. 

In my forth year of Uni, I also sought guidance from Prof. Yuzuru Katagiri (Hajime's brother) who was encouraging students to do the psychosomatic work. Yuzuru said I should try out the Alexander Technique. Since I was grouping in the dark and did not know what else to do, I went to have a session with an American Alexander teacher who was visiting Kyoto to teach the Alexander Technique. 

I still remember sitting face to face with Robin. As Robin explained the significance of the relationship between our head and our spine, she touched my head and neck very lightly. Then she told me to stand up and walk around. I remember myself saying "My body is lighter and taller!" I felt a bit puzzled by this experience. Robin advised "Remember your whole head, your whole body. You are in this room." On the way back home, I felt joyful about discovering my ability to expand myself by thinking differently about my body.

After finishing the University, I still felt a deep need for continuing to release my past trauma as I was still in depression most of the time. I took a variety of therapy sessions including Alexander Technique,  Rolfin, Reichean therapy and Acupuncture. As I started to understand and accept myself better through the sessions, I particularly wanted to share my therapy experiences with my friend Lalita. I felt this inner exploration holds a key to the spiritual growth that she is interested in. Lalita was fascinated with my process and started to take sessions herself.  

One day Yuzuru invited me and Lalita to the sanniasin therapists' group/ individual sessions incorporated with Osho's appropriate meditation techniques. I appreciated how sanniasin therapists spoke from their heart when they taught us. Lalita and I both fell in love with Osho, an Indian mystic who I consider as the greatest fool and educationalist in the last century. Osho's meditation techniques have a great value as they integrate the Eastern meditation with the Western therapies that work on our traumas. I yearned to be a real internationalist like Osho who stated "I am the East meets the West!" In 1994, Lalita and I became sannyasins of Osho. 

In 1995, Lalita and I started our 4 year Alexander Technique Teachers training course in Kyoto. Alexander work is about identifying ones' own prejudices or preconceived ideas expressed as physical tension and learning to undo them. It is a psycho-somatic work of choosing free & flexible thinking over our limiting thoughts. Lalita was very happy to learn the Alexander Technique. She was finding ways to navigate people to discover their potential by noticing their psycho-physical state as a first step. This approach was a powerful replacement of her psychic reading.

While trained in the Alexander, I combated with my fear of putting my hands on people's head and neck relationship. This was troublesome since AT work was about guiding people with the delicate touch of my hands. Seeing me struggle, Lalita said "You get confused when you need to connect your perception with your touch and guide people. Your Higher Self specifically wanted you to learn the Alexander Work to overcome this confusion." This reading indeed penetrated me as I could identify my fear of connecting with the physical world. I still think about the meaning of this message up to this date.

Twenty-one years passed since we finished our AT training. My fear of physical dimension still remains in the subtle part of my body. Now I came to accept my deeply seated fear can never be erased by therapies. My days of going to sessions have indicated to me that the only way to cope with my fear is to accept it and live my life fully regardless of my fear. I am still engaged in the Alexander Work by accepting my psychophysical self.  I give myself a training to become at ease with my physical dimension by going to my dance classes and practicing the piano. I am currently teaching a ten year old primary school girl the Alexander work. 

My current professional job is to care and educate preschool children drawing on my insights I gained from my experience as a mother of two my children who are now 21 and 18. Through working with children, I discovered  I am good at connecting with children who have a powerful imagination since they have a close connection to the spirit world. 

I talked to Lalita the other day on the Skype. She said she is regularly giving the Alexander lessons to a young man who wants to be a professional baseball player. She said to me "When this young pitcher poses before throwing the ball standing on the mound, he is in prayer..." Good to hear that she is helping people to manifest their vision in this way. 

Lalita and I are going to be 50 this year! The way we bring our spiritual understanding to our lives may look very different since our lifestyles differ. I live in a small town in Australia, working at a small community based preschool. Lalita lives in Kyoto and teaches the Alexander work throughout Japan. She has written a best-selling book of the Alexander Technique Introduction. She is determined to make a living as an Alexander teacher, which is considered a highly difficult thing to do in our materialistic capitalist world. She also expresses her wish for other teachers to do the same. 

Looking back my twenties, I have such a fond memory of exchanging the information with Lalita and supporting each other. When thinking about how we strove to grow spiritually together being guided by the message of the butterfly medicine and the clear presence of Princess Mononoke, A big smile come across my face. Lalita and I share the same roots but blossomed in different ways.