Memoirs of the Brightside of the Moon

by Ginger Gilmour

  On the way back, Alice remembers getting upset about what one of the attendants said, "Lots of people project different ideas upon the dolphins, but really they are just mammals who are hungry." But that was his opinion, for we knew they were more than hungry mammals, we knew it differently thanks to Horace Dobbs! And my personal experiences. We were very familiar with how Horace helped many over the years with his Operation Sunshine. He has brought healing to human beings through interaction with dolphins. This initiative and other wonderful activities under his care and inspiration continue to help children and adults, especially those with physical and emotional dis-harmonies. Horace is a forerunner in the world bringing the healing power of the dolphin to mankind.

  I did an exhibition with him at the Open University in Milton Keynes, for the 2003 International Dolphin Watch Convention. My sculpture, Dolphina, was on the stage while the presenters spoke about their global work and my humanitarian series was in the foyer.

  Horace unveiled his new initiative to help heal humanity. His new project was a blow-up dome, which was portable. Inside on the walls projected a virtual reality video of dolphins swimming with background sounds of them communicating, as they do with one another underwater. The Dome could travel from hospital to hospital, school to school, hospice to hospice where the need be. What he discovered in his journey is that the need for healing humanity is great, but at the same time, the dolphins need protection from too many untrained dolphin facilitators.

  He has approached governments around the world to form laws, to make sure the dolphins are protected from the fanfare of the non-professionals. He encouraged the forming of legislation so a license would be required that insured a standard code of ethics and understanding for individuals who wanted to give Dolphin Experiences. It had become a fad and the dolphin's protection was a concern.

  During our time in the Bahamas, another experience that was available for us was to go scuba diving in deep water. David and I had gotten Paddy Diving Certificates while in Hawaii, but it was a long long time ago. I needed a refresher course and more. My last experience scuba diving with David in Ceylon put the shivers up my back thinking of its memory. Never again was encoded into my mind. Elizabeth said that she and another diver could help me with that if I was willing. We would start in a pool first to get familiar with the equipment and the sensations. We did this for one week until I was confident. Then the day came and we joined others on a boat that would take us out into deeper waters.

  Both Elizabeth and the other diver promised that they would stick with me all the time, even hold my hand if necessary. The tanks were heavy as I slowly climbed down the ladder into the waves. My eyes smitten from the salt water of my wet hair, I began putting on my mask. There were many of us in the group and I was in the queue. As I got into the depth of the water, I followed the others into the sunlight rays below. They were swimming along quite fast when I stopped to wait for Elizabeth and my other guardian. They were not there! Fear seized in my stomach. I waited but it grew stronger.

  In fact, I felt that there was a shark nearby and images kept appearing in my imagination. The group was disappearing into the distance. I was alone. I was frantic so I turned back as I could still see the bottom of the boat. I had enough control not to bolt to the surface. I didn't want to get the bends. I swallowed my panic as best that I could. Wondering what had happened to them.

  I climbed the ladder to discover that my promised guardians were still there. I cried, holding back my anger, "Where were you? You promised!" Apparently, some local official's daughter demanded their attention and was having trouble getting into her gear. Her father was one of their sponsors and she played it. Elizabeth was stuck behind the commotion not able to get down. I sat on the seat in the front of the boat to gain my composure.

  My breathing was in panic mode. Elizabeth sat with me trying to calm me down. She tried to encourage me to go down again, to let go of my fear. She promised to stay with me. It didn't work. "Never again" arose in my mind. As I pondered what she said, most of the group were returning from down below. "There was a shark!" they exclaimed. So my intuition was working, sending me a red flag. Actually, the local official's daughter was possibly my saviour. Another adventure on the high seas!

  CHAPTER 83

  BOX OF ILLUSIONS

  After Glastonbury, I began to meet with Nico and his group for spiritual instruction and guidance. They would alternate between England at my home and Antwerp, Belgium, where his center, Thelman Institute, was located. A new doorway was opened into my inner world which would further the contact with my soul purpose. We would sit in the garden, under the oak tree at Brockhurst, studying many spiritual philosophies and concepts of thought. The word consciousness appeared before me to contemplate further. My journey seems to be a series of open windows along the way.

  During my time with Lily, I began to understand about the levels of the Human Constitution. The balance of which was of great importance, to living a life of harmony. Our personality vehicle consists of the physical, astral (emotional) and mental realms. Beyond there lies the higher spiritual realms, leading to God Realization. I have found that my path of experiences have been opportunities, to find this balance within me; allowing my heart desires and increased commitment to be of the highest service and help humanity.

  As each window opened, Life gave me chances to discover, respond and then transform. Looking back at the physical challenges I had faced during my earlier years, helped me care for my body. Thus building a stronger constitution for the task that was before me, which only God knew what it was. All the emotional challenges and subsequent analysis gave me the tools to be the conductor and participate consciously in my future.

  I became able to direct and manifest my soul purpose amongst all the distractions. The whip-tide currents that came before would no longer hold me the victim. Finally, the next phase and most important, was to be the development of my mental and intuitive levels. Once this was complete, the real service would become possible. The way was clear for the deeper work to begin. God was waiting.

  The laying of my foundations, I now see, was what guided me to this day so that an inner temple could rise and sparkle. As Dr. Engel often reminded me, "Ginger, you are breaking through, not breaking down!" Lily said, "Ginger there is a light at the end of the tunnel." Joel Osteen says, "We are the children of God. We have Divine DNA." Cecil reminded me, "Below the tyranny and captivity of our images of destruction there still flows the living river of human consciousness that flowers with Beauty, if only we looked." I, too, have joined the many who know that the elements of God's Paradise await us to return to its valley and bathe in its streams of Love. Thus, I am being led along my return to the Bright Side.

  With that understanding, I soldiered on. I faced the Walls that had been built, clearing away the rubble as a new temple was being created. I faced the Glamours and False Illusions that I had accepted as the path to Happiness. These realizations crumbled the mask, leaving me vulnerable. It was all part of the process of renewing and alignment.

  Often holding on to what the Glamours and Illusions were demanding, while insisting that they were of Virtue, I repeatedly said, (jokingly to allow humor to ease the disturbance), "My shoes and coats will probably be the last to surrender before

  Enlightenment! "Not realizing that one day my journey would require me to surrender many of my beliefs. Mrs. Tweedie said to me as I sat next to her, "Ginger, one day you will even have to let go of your idea of Love to touch God's." Really, it wasn't the shoes and coats, but more the attachment to thinking they were me. I thought they were a way to touch the Joy that can fill the heart unmistakably when it comes. I wanted eternal Joy not the Illusion. I would eventually discover, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, that it was not the shoes that would take me to OZ. "Really? How?" I silently asked, "WHO AM I? WHAT IS GOD'S ETERNAL LOVE?" On and on these questions returned to me with each new window that opened.

  During one of my early visits
to Antwerp, I was inspired to create a piece of artwork, later called, The Box of Illusions, which contained our Glamours and material desires trapped within the box. The Universe of possibilities limited from ordinary sight. I walked with the group throughout the city; discovering different common images to draw that reflected the concept. I collected objects dropped on the sidewalks. There was a tin of Coke, McDonald chips, postcard of guns and fashion magazines.

  As Nico, his group and I, strolled through the public places of art, wonderful clouds followed above adding to the beauty of the afternoon sunshine. They were placed within my painting as a reminder to look up. Everywhere birds would come and sit at our feet and I will never forget how they followed us under the trees. The breath of God was with us as we walked in the silence of the afternoon. The only sound was our laughter. Another window opened. The path was clear ahead in its Wondrous Beauty.

  NEW BEGINNING

  Looking Out, Looking In

  As I wander through the mist of Illusion

  Seeking to hear once again

  The choir of Angels

  Lost it seems within the Glamour

  The Sound of Healing Silence

  Has disappeared within the noise

  Of the passing traffic in the streets

  People scurrying anxiously

  Amongst

  The idle chatter

  Full of fear and anxieties

  Chaos seeps in through the Walls.

  Where has the Wonder gone? The Stillness? Me?

  A new Cycle? A new Beginning?

  Where? When? How?

  Then a Voice

  Penetrates the darkness,

  "JUST STOP"

  "BE"

  I was Back

  © Ginger Gilmour

  CHAPTER 84

  SANCTUARY FOR THE SPIRIT

  Most of the children were in boarding school except for Matthew and I no longer needed a home where children could roller skate from one end to the other. No longer did masses of their friends and parents come to make Christmas Cakes for the school fair. No longer did we make the scenery together for the school plays at home on the lawn. They were on their own journey now so I needed a place more for my own creativity to blossom. Looking back, all our homes allowed an internal process to develop. Woodley, Hook End, Monksbridge and Maida Avenue brought forth our children, held our marriage and the birth of my own innate creativity. Brockhurst helped me to realize and find that there was life after David. There was a future.

  A new step was approaching. An inner call ushered forth from within my being to find a place where creativity could happen. Initially, I was looking around where Matthew was going to school near Eastbourne on the coast, but it was not to be. As it had been with Brockhurst, a single black and white paper in an envelope mysteriously appeared in the post. It was of a house in West Sussex called Old Bilsham Farmhouse. It had previously been a piggery, which had long since deteriorated with the change of owners. The principal house built in the 15th Century had two attached cottages on the backwater of the main farm, which later we merged into one. It needed lots of work. It found me. The answer to my call.

  Old Bilsham Farmhouse was to help me further to know "Who I AM" and "What I Truly was Born to BE!" I was guided by life to know how to create a "House of Light, a Sanctuary for the Spirit" where people could come. First, to be found within me and then for it to manifest visibly in many ways. I had already had a cycle of experiences, which guided me to be healthier on the physical level. This built a foundation ready to serve the plan of my soul. At the time, I had no idea.

  I had a phase whereby I was confronted to develop on the emotional level. I had to become the conductor of my heart since I was on the way to serve humanity more. My creativity had to take flight for it would open the doorway further. The vision was coming closer. Cecil often referred to it as the opening of "The Eye of the Heart,"encouraging us to remember a world once known and nearly forgotten.

  I worked together with one of my best mates, Alan Lee, best known as Dreamy, and his team, to convert what was falling down to become a home of "Sacred Heart and Beauty." I was further inspired to create living walls of sculpture. I experimented with the technique I had learned through the Steiner methods for sculpture, but on a larger scale upon the walls and ceilings.

  What was a tiny corridor entrance, became etherically larger. The straight lines, barely meeting each other, changing into a flow of feminine softness, and then disappearing into space worked! How, you might ask? The work is completed by you because the lines do not meet. Subconsciously, you have to go into your creative realms to do this. So often, the mind wants to have a completed form in order to understand. In doing so you see from the eyes of the soul, which is infinite. The corridor became limitless, as limitless as who you truly are! Another wonderful aspect of this process is that it is one with nature, by the simple fact that it is not a definite work of art. It was Living, the shadows of its minimal definition moved with the movement of the light. Slowly, slowly, changing as the sun became the night and the night became the day. This could be achieved by creating artwork that reflected the highest triad of life on earth. A vision reflected the harmony between the masculine (the defined lines, the practical), the feminine (the flow, the bridge) and God in us (the space, union and Love). This technique opened the doorway.

  My images further assisted and inspired others to be touched by the sacred qualities of God's gift to Humanity: Beauty, Goodness, Kindness, Truth, Gratitude, Love, and Friendship. Each of us has that Divine spark within. It is my quest to take the viewer on a journey of Return. To awaken and then ignite that Divine spark once again because mankind has nearly forgotten, the Way to Remember.

  There was not a day during my time at Old Bilsham that the shadows in my mind and heart stayed for long, as I walked amongst its corridors. Within each moment, the rays of light fell upon my face, as did the stars at night as I sat to read or to create. My divine experiment was working. It would even work in the city because the cycle of light is everywhere. My Living Walls of sculpture could be anywhere.

  Spring was one of my favorite times there. The Mallard ducks came each season and had their ducklings who played in the pond with the Koi swimming below. Each season we had to build little stairs for them to get out and follow their Mum until their wings matured. We often had drake parties on the decking at sunset. They would fly in over where I sat in the garden like jets, chat away and then leave. There was one season, when one mum and dad duck stayed and would follow Steve Gent, my project manager, into the woodworking room, leaving their footprints in the sawdust, quacking, seemingly giving their opinions. So tender. So sweet. A blessed moment with nature.

  The conversion took nearly two years with "walk in angels" for sure and another team called Creative Construction. Dreamy had to have an operation on his knee and could no longer work for us. He completed the little house and finally our temporary kitchen moved from the outbuilding away from our night time visitors-rats. Our workmen use to tell stories about sitting there after the pub and a pint, having a cigarette, while overhead the rats would scurry along the wooden beams waiting forthem to leave a morsel or two. The bedrooms were ready too. No more sleeping on mattresses on the floor. The kids felt more at home except for one thing. There was no internet yet. Broadband hadn't reached down our lane.

  There was so much more to finish when our new team took over. Creating a Sanctuary where they will come was massive. Major work became necessary to convert the barns and piggery. The makeshift office in the stables had sheets of paper pinned on the wall of the schedule: the electrics, plumbing, sewerage, rainwater drainage, plus, a Conservatory, Koi fish pond, three creative studios, two workrooms, mini gym, meditation room, my private quarters, gallery and lecture room.

  All the floorboards were up. No room for roller-skating. Our washer and dryer balanced between the support beams upstairs. The entire inner garden was a mud hole with mini diggers that look like large toys. And, la
st but not least, there was to be a six foot winged angel up in the apex near the gallery. When finally finished my Mom exclaimed, "You have an Angel in your house... That big?"Old Bilsham's soul was being raised beyond being a deserted piggery into being a Sanctuary for all who came there; a place where the "ART of Living" through creating Beauty, could be explored. Many mornings I could be found behind an angle-grinder or a sanding machine dressed in a white paper overall and a hooded face mask looking like I had just landed on the moon. One day when I was working on the narrow miniature entrance hallway, the postman arrived with our mail. The door stood open, but a cloud of dust prevented his entry. He beckoned through the dust, "Is there a Mrs. Gilmour Home?" As I walked from out of the cloud, removing the hooded face mask, I said, "Yes, I am Mrs. Gilmour."The look of astonishment on his face told a thousand stories. I smiled, putting down the sander then removing my gloves in order to sign for the package.