Thinking of You once more

From Gary a penpal and a close friend.
"From his last stop before Freedom
he wishes me Happy Birthday"

Even the rich have to go through a batch of less luck at any time in their lives. I was fortunate to go through my lesser time after I reached half century... and well kept.

One day you think you are the owner of the world, I had huge plans for the next 3-5 years. Work-wise I had positioned myself at a top level where I could choose at pleasure. I simply needed the time to complete some of my dreams but overnight I went unwell.

It happened at a board meeting, I came out not knowing who I was. I took a long time to bring my body to respond to 45% normality, and since them I have been trying to heal back to normality, I still need to go about 5% and I will be PERFECT as usual.

During the convalescing period I had to work my mind and my spirit, well I tell you that my spirit needed more attention than my body. I had to start finding my inner-child and when I found it, I had to wake up quickly as my inner-child loved shopping and it loved to be in charge of the credit card too… but as I did not want to upset it and run away I went along… those were the days until I learned I was the parent and my inner-child had to do as I instructed.

I came across the right people, at the right time and places and one lent me a book by Jerry Jampolsky “change your mind change your life" (http://www.jerryjampolskyanddianecirincione.com/)

For a while I followed the New Age crystal healing, herbs, aromatherapy and the many other pleasant and relaxing therapies. I loved being around spiritual people, I felt good but during the overnight period I lost all my peaceful environment and I was desperate to find it…

Jerry in his book talked about love… loving people… aaaaah whaaaat… he had to be crazy, but I kept reading the book as I had nothing else to do… at a point he mentioned to offer love to prisoners. But Jerry was not the only author I read that mentioned the same practice, Wayne Dyer brings it out in few of his books (I read most of his books – I love that man)… so prisoners… hmmm - visiting… hmmm.. are they kidding? The idea I grew up about someone in prison was “stay away from prisoners, bad people, they will kill you..” but that is not the reality, as now I know there are many in prisons for crimes committed by others. Prisoners are just people who loose their freedom to move around.

FEAR, Mr Fear was ruling my life and visiting a prisoner was overruled, ok it had to be another way and the road was shown to me. I found Foreign Prisoners run by Kate Danes (www.foreignprisoners.com/ ), Kate still has a long list of prisoners looking for penpals and that is how I started. I also have prisoners from poor countries hoping for help from foreign penpals and donors at Burmese Prisoners Abroad (burmesepa.blogspot.com) (feel free to visit the blog please).

I picked one name from Kate's list, he is from Holland, Frank was in Japan for trafficking and given 14 years at the age of 26 I think… it was a tip toeing experience for me, I had not idea what was going to happen after I wrote a postcard. He couldn't kill me through a letter but the fear was there. Frank is the friendliest happy guy, he speaks perfect English and his world knowledge is very advanced. He knows more about Australian history than I do, well that is because the Vikings came here hehehe.

Frank introduced me to Gary from UK also doing trafficking experience in Japan. They were separated and sent to different prisons. Both of them are now at home completing their sentence times.

Meanwhile the friendship has grown stronger. Writing to prisoners needs a bit of skill and I had none by then. It is very emotional to read their living experiences as it is wanting to send some comforting words to lift their spirits, but as Jerry and Wayne said, when we send love we receive love and love guided me. I am talking about UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Frank is a spiritual man while Gary is more the easy going relaxed musician and both were influential in my personal and spiritual healing.

With Gary now in UK, everything is going as planned, because from this end I had to help him continue dreaming and in a way that monthly letter was some sort of a tender pillow.

For me it became a distant-close relationship at the end, Gary has approximately 5 months to complete his time and go on parole, today I received my first Birthday Card and is coming from Gary.

He is excited that he is so close to freedom and he has gone into open prison, he will be allowed to go abroad on holidays whilst on parole and he is looking forward that time. That was a beautiful gift I received as well as he is still holding to his dreams…

Will I ever meet them? Who knows, maybe only if we want to meet then the opportunity might present itself, then it would be nice to sit and enjoy the friendship the 3 of us have built under very restricted circumstances.

Meanwhile geography has become a pigment of our imagination we are in contact part of our days or overnight.

I thank you Gary for remembering me on my Special Day.