Greenwich Park

Tara on Tour
Today - again unexpectedly - I have placed the Fifth Tara, Tara protecting from wind and from jealousy. It's not going to be easy to write this entry because there are feelings of shame around encountering the degree to which I can experience feelings of jealousy! And not previously even have recognised them as such....

But here goes.

Today, it's the birthday of someone who has probably triggered more jealousy in me than anyone else. I won't give his name, but I was once completely in love with him and it wasn't mutual..... we had a brief relationship, but it ended: I couldn't really accept this and it wasn't until I walked into a pub and found him with his new girlfriend that I realised my dreams were nothing but fairytale castles in the sky. Amongst the many feelings this incident gave rise to, jealousy featured strongly. In fact I became so paranoid that every woman in the city of Edinburgh represented a threat!! I was taken over by the green-eyed monster and unable to really face the pain "not being loved or wanted" was creating. Because I couldn't face that pain directly, it took on a monstrous form - jealousy and paranoia.

To say that jealousy creates a "storm" of emotions, thoughts and feelings would not be an exaggeration. It seems to come from feelings of rejection and assuming that not being "wanted" is the same as not being loved, not being good enough. These old fears, old feelings - which in the distant past were tied up with feelings of abandonment and loss - get re-activated in situations where someone we have decided we "love" doesn't behave the way we want or think we need.

Most of my life, if I'm really brutally honest, I've suffered from feelings of insecurity and not being good enough - particularly when it comes to being loved by a man. This of course mirrors, or stems from, my relationship with my father who was imprisoned within his own mind to such a degree that I couldn't reach him, nor could he respond to me.

Jealousy has arisen with every man I've ever loved - mostly because they have all gone off with other women! Now, normal and understandable as this may be, it's still painful and still a cause of suffering to me and to others. The jealous response is my own; it's not created by anyone else, no matter what the apparent provocation.

News then came today that another dear friend, whom I also once wanted to be in a relationship with, is getting married. I'd been thinking of him a lot in recent days and the news came as a shock. Like the other "losses", i felt my heart open and tears came, but this time I could feel a lot of love being released for this person...without any wish to hold on or resist what is happening. This seems like progress!

Over the course of today I've been seeing the many faces of jealousy within me - and although I feel some shame about it, it's better to open to it and feel it directly. And have compassion for the heart that wants to love and be loved. I have to open and love this part of me; otherwise it will continue to eat away at my happiness and capacity to be happy for others; and it will mean I will recoil from others when I see jealousy in them.

The friend who is getting married loves trees, and taught me a lot about the appreciation of trees - simply through his love for them. There is a beautiful, big old chestnut tree in Greenwich Park, planted in 1642, and I decided to take some beads from an old crystal mala and offer them to the tree on behalf of this friend. As I was leaving, the little Tara dedicated to transforming jealousy practically jumped into my pocket....so I took her too and placed her inside the tree, surrounded by the crystal beads.

That tree has withstood all the elements for nearly 400 years; how many storms have battered the Park during this time? How much does this tree represent protection from the wind element? There are few living beings that stay with us over this amount of time, growing quietly and witnessing the many joys and travails of the Earth and of people. Kings and Queens have come and gone; the Great Fire of London; the Black Death; Victorian times; World War I and II; there are so many huge events that tree has borne witness to...and survived to tell a tale that lives on in the bark of its great girth and whispers through its branches. Past, present and future merge in the mightly presence of such a being.