Yay, I'm the very proud and happy possessor of a shiny new visa in my passport. I'd been more than a little apprehensive about whether I was going to be able to return to Aotearoa NZ in November or not given my course doesn't start until January but when I asked the guy at Immigration how soon I could go back his answer was 'Tomorrow if you like!' Well having only just got back to the UK I reckon I'll stay here the planned 5 weeks but it is a huge relief to know for sure - having had conflicting advice given on it before I wasn't 100% convinced it would all work out.
On the train up to Birmingham from London I realised just how much I felt like I'd been holding my breath waiting, how much else had taken a back seat emotionally and mentally - I 've felt like I just haven't had the head space to deal with anything much else for a while now. So I arrived at Woodbrooke feeling decidedly unprepared for the Spiritual Friendships course I'm on and yet that seems to be turning into a blessing as I've arrived with no preconceptions of what we'd be doing and a 'clean sheet' to work on. I came a different train route than I've done in the past so the countryside was unfamiliar territory, but yet familiar. The course so far feels a bit like that too - so much so far is similar to things I've done before yet from a slightly different persepective, a different view of the spiritual landscape and ways of exploring it.
The train came in to Birmingham through Solihull - the place my great great grandparents and family emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand from in 1879 - it felt somewhat appropriate to be going through there the day I got my visa! So I said a quiet kia ora to the place of my tupuna (ancestors) and reminded myself that no matter how long and tedious my 33hr journey from Sarah's to Sam's had been it knocked the socks off however many weeks the Hereford had taken to get them from Tilsbury to Lyttleton.
No comments:
Post a Comment