Paul Kaye wraps up the MSIA staff trip to Europe, once again raising the bar on self-obsession and giving us more information than we ever wanted to know.
After all the herring and anchovies I had consumed, upon arriving in London it was time for me to go on the kipper diet. Kippers are herring or salmon which are split whole and then smoked and salted. They are usually cooked with eggs. They are delicious. However, I find them completely indigestible and the searing heartburn they give me ensures that I cannot eat another thing for at least three days. This is the way my stomach prepares for the gastronomical delights of Paris. However, at the Marriott Hotel in the Arab quarter of London, kippers are not to be found. Neither apparently are any English accents. I am greeted at immigration at London airport by an Indian woman. We are picked up by two Middle Eastern drivers. At the hotel I am welcomed by a Kenyan, checked in by a Bulgarian, and a Portuguese bellman takes our bags to our rooms. At breakfast our Malaysian and Japanese waitresses are mystified at my request for kippers, excusing themselves and returning empty handed with a smile and a “sorry.” (In contrast with New York, the English accents I did finally encounter were from the cab drivers).
But why care about kippers now, as presently I am writing this sitting at a cafe on the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) of Paris. The smoke from my Gauloise cigarette merges with everyone else’s smoke forming a micro climate and causing my eyes to squint as I contemplate why I exist. I think that if you receive this, it must be sufficient proof of my existence. But I question this, as one must, on the Rive Gauche in Paris. Because Paris much more than a city, is an idea around which a constellation of romantic notions have formed. Everything feels, smells, tastes, speaks of romance. It started on the Chunnel express, the train that goes from the heart of London (Waterloo), under the English Channel and into the heart of Paris at the Guard Du Nord train station. I was even reading a novel about romance. Albeit a little guilty because John and Angel were conscientiously typing away answering their email. And Vincent was translating the sign-in form for aura balances. But if there is a time to ignore emails and legal waivers for spiritual services, surely it is on the train to Paris. My attention wavered from John, no doubt in a high place as he approved initiations and the purchase of hay at Windermere, to the beautiful French woman two paces across the aisle seductively looking at the handsome man she had boarded the train with. Two seats down a man sat with his young child smiling and laughing while teaching the little one how to count. They speak in Spanish, the slower speech of a 6 year-old giving me the fleeting triumph of understanding another language. I silently wish that the train ride would last a week for the opportunity to get to know these fascinating people.
However, now at the cafe my thoughts drift to my first love when I was seventeen. She was French, and as I wistfully think of her the thick ambiance of romance causes me to have an insane thought–perhaps I will see her in the crowds that walk by or will meet her here in the Cafe. The thought is insane because she didn’t live in Paris but in Southwest France. She would be 60 years-old and I couldn’t possibly recognize her. And my wife will be reading this wondering why I am sitting in a Paris cafe thinking of my love of another woman, when I came to Paris to do aura balances. My excuse shall be that I am in Paris. What else is one to do? I never had these thoughts in London. For there even with all its beauty, the romance was missing. I was doing balances and facilitating a Spiritual Exercises (s.e.) workshop and was behind the camera for the Open Q&A that John Morton was leading. The Q&A was unusual and a landmark event for the simple fact that the people new to MSIA that John called upon actually asked questions about MSIA. What did MSIA mean? What was Initiation? Was MSIA a religion? Coming from Los Angeles I felt completely disorientated. I found myself asking inwardly, “Is there no one here that has a shoulder or back to fix?” And then, “Surely there must be SOMEONE who is energetically challenged?” But no, they stayed on point. And it didn’t end there, at the sharings at the S.E. and Soul transcendence one day workshop they actually asked questions about…yes, you guessed it, s.e.’s and Soul transcendence!
The following day in London there was a Ministers and Initiates brunch. John had them give contributions in the old fashioned MSIA seminar style. Clearly intoxicated by the Spirit–from the seminar, workshop, and the meeting–people stood up and actually expressed liking and even loving each other. Remember this is England where feelings are not easily expressed. In Los Angeles where people who you have met for the first time tell you that they love you, and in case you doubt it for one moment add that they “mean it,” it is easy to profess love as anyone knows full well that you will never meet the person again, at least looking the same way, as cosmetic surgery, all manner of insertions, and Botox will transform them into someone new. But at this Ministers and Initiates meeting the intoxication increases as they tell each other that they don’t understand why they don’t see each other more often. That the hour train ride or car journey is so short, surely they can make it to more meetings, after all it is only once a month. And there right then, (like a drunk unaware that they are under the influence as they challenge a man twice their height and four times their width in solid muscle, to a fight) they actually commit to coming to meetings. Now I know they are going to sober up. And, like the drunk waking up on the pavement outside the pub wondering how they got there, when questioned the following year as to why they had not come to a single meeting having said they would, they will with a confused look say, “What? I did? When? I couldn’t have. Really? I said that?”
But here in France, surrounded by smoke, I turn inward to all my own promises made on a high after a workshop. Only to spend the next workshop forgiving myself, and on the high from letting go, re-commit. And continue the process until after 25 years I begin to question what the hell am I doing to myself. And the wisdom of my years finally intervenes and lets me know I don’t have to make promises or agreements I can’t or won’t keep no matter how high-minded. And in another burst of wisdom I realize that on some matters I should keep my mouth shut even when talking to myself. For memories of past loves come and go with the passing of places, familiar tunes, tastes and smells. But broken promises do not pass so easily, they linger over us, constantly poised for resolution or completion. And if trust is built with oneself and others one kept agreement at a time, then I long to start all over again. And I can. Right now.
Back at our hotel room on the third floor I look directly into the eyes of the passengers on the passing trains 20 yards from our window. The whoosh of the rubber wheels of the metro trains making it easy on the ear. It’s time to turn in for the night and as I leave Vincent to his emails (he needs 8 hours a night less sleep than I) I comment on the romantic couple and the father and son on the chunnel train. He had seen them too. And had overheard the couple’s conversation. They were talking about $25 million homes in Geneva which one of them owned and about the man’s divorce from his wife. The child and father reminded Vincent of the relationship between father and son in It’s a Beautiful Life.
There are 10 services to do the next day and somehow uncharacteristically Vincent and Angel have made the matter so complicated that I fully expect them to disappear to a blackboard and spend the rest of the day covering it with mathematical equations to work it out. Nevertheless, all goes delightfully well in the end and auras are glowing and smiles and open faces are everywhere and it continues into the evening where we give two ordinations and John speaks to the ministers.
It is time to return to the United States and as I eat an early morning breakfast I recall that on this trip I have drunk American coffee, English coffee, Swedish coffee, Spanish coffee, and French coffee and I can say without a doubt that French coffee is far superior for opening the bowels. That alone is enough to feel a closeness and love of the country.
But going from Paris is not the same as going to Paris. For one thing on the flight home I notice that I have no wish to spend a week getting to know anyone in the crowded plane, thinking only of sleeping in my bed. Another dose of “reality” hits as my bags are searched with a fine-tooth comb at Customs in San Francisco. And within minutes of landing in Los Angeles, I wonder whether I was ever really in Paris. And come to think of it has Vladimir made it safely back into the Siberian Mountains by now?
Click here to Paul Kaye’s report “From Herring To Anchovies”.
