Footprints In The Sand
Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
“What is legacy?” I hear myself ponder… my favourite childhood poem that came to mind.
Life is a journey, a twisting and turning journey, through valleys of light and shadow, around, through and over mountains of challenges, goals and tasks. Peaks of joy and elation, troughs of sadness and pain.
We struggle forward, carving out our legacy, attempting to leave a marker in the ground of our achievements, a sense of success, recognition, meaning, purpose. And the ground shifts, the wind of time blows and the marker fades.
On my journey through life, I fully embraced the modern desire to create a legacy. The world resounds “What is the legacy you are going to create?”
Entering more world wise years and deepening my spiritual experience, I realise that this desire for legacy may actually be an illusion that distracts us, occupies us. A mask for our sense of identity, the ego hiding the soul.
I invite you to contemplate “is it really all about legacy?”.
WHAT DRIVES LEGACY?
Sometimes we are riding to glory, emblazoned with belief, hope, righteousness, dreams, ideals. Often as not, we are the wounded warrior, licking our wounds, limping forward, searching for shelter. Dismayed at what life has brought to our door, despairing, hurting, angry, fearful.
In our journey of suffering, we truly open at the level of the heart. Our vulnerabilities pour forth, scorching our very flesh, salting our wounds. We feel every fibre in our being, stretching and screaming, sensing, alive, aware, extrasensory in our perception.
Or, when blessed, in our journey of glimpsing deep unconditional love, the resonance of that love opens and fills our hearts with gratitude and appreciation for all that we experience and perceive. Devotion and compassion pours forth and our senses expand as if touching, in exploration, all of life around us. The vulnerability of childlike innocence, enthusiasm and purity.
We feel others around us, their pains, sorrows, joys. Even their soulful essence emanating out in a way that we were never aware of before …… expanding into another consciousness, another awareness.
It is in this sweet point of vulnerability we have the choice to burn with anger and brandish our hurt and pain into our being, creating layers of defensive armour….. Or the choice to melt into a more profound experience of empathy, compassion, and surrender to a higher perception of understanding, that opens our hearts and awakens the soul.
It is these choices of free will that make our journey, that plant each of our footsteps into the sands of time. These seeds begin our moment of creating legacy. A journey of proving our self-worth, a journey of healing and a journey of aliveness.
When have you felt most alive?
SEEDING OUR DRIVERS
My journey has taken me through many amazing experiences and many challenging ones. It's twisted and turned in the most unexpected ways and to the outsider may look chaotic and confusing, blessed and enriching, painful and traumatised. For me it’s perfect, it all makes sense.
Raised in a middle class family by a generous and gregarious English man and an enigmatic German matriarch in an English country village on the edge of suburbia, when society was moving from the war shocked generation into the future builders of wealth and opportunity. We had all we needed materialistically and a little bit more. My brother and I were at private schools, we were running wild in the countryside, playing dares and kiss-chase in the fields and meadows, fishing for minnows, swimming in the lakes, during long lazy summers. The land around us still languid, following the natural flow of the seasons. It all sounds so Idyllic.
But like everyone else implanted in my subconscious psyche are the aspirations and dreams that are not always what they seem! The simmering mirage of golden promise, evaporating into the reality of the doubts, fears and insecurities, passed on from generation to generation, scarred with each shift in evolution, wars, crimes, industrialisation, erosion of values, loss of spirituality, rites of passage and ritualistic initiation into man and woman hood, dissolution of community in favour of commodity, technological and financial advancement over human rights and value. Romantic illusions of fairy tale love everlasting, to the messy emotional caldron of intimacy, self-identity, boundaries and needs. Contractual relating rather than unconditional loving.
The child, a sponge, absorbing through an innocence yet bereft of understanding all the deep and subtle plays, the hopes and fears, the secret desires and the explosive emissions of frustration and hurt. Miscommunication, misdirection, lies and deception, manipulation, blaming, judging.
All countered by moments of happiness, a sense of security and belonging, gifts and recognition, support, comfort, kindness and love.
And so we move from truth and reality, covering the cracks that are appearing with happy distractions.
Often, the cracks turn into gaping holes in which we start getting lost until it is too late to heal, too far down the road to recover, and too deep to want to look into?
My Cracks.
As the eldest, I was held responsible for all that went wrong. I felt nothing I did was good enough .. a common theme for the eldest. The desire for approval through achievement. Striving to be perfect, to please. Wanting to be loved and valued, attracting the wrong kind of attention, judging and criticising each act of self and others, driving them away.
Families playing out in slightly different ways – some with deeper trauma and abuse, others with more genuinely contented loving foundations. But each of us takes the genetic and experiential positives and negatives from our family lines. Illnesses, diseases, anxieties, complexities, talents, strengths, skills. Interweaving them into our own story…. our Karma.
What lies beneath the surface of your childhood Journey driving you?
THE REBELLION
In the west there are no rites of passage to let you know you have moved from a child into an adult. Your “First Blood”. Going on your first hunt as a young buck. Taken into the women’s circle for contemplation and rejuvenation, to be educated into your womanhood. Guided meaningfully in the game of sexuality and intimacy, understanding its deeply beautiful and sacred gifts of unity. How to create the space to grow and support each other? Bring the best out in each other? How to speak from the heart? How to listen from the heart? How to be brave in hearing the truth? How to be patient and understanding? How to communicate radically, developing deep, broad interlacing roots that create a powerfully stable foundation of trust, unconditional love and growth for all that enter the hearth of such an individual's space.
My difficult relationship with my mother as a teenager stemmed from this issue of not being enough… and oh boy! Did I challenge those boundaries! I was bouncing from one extreme to the other! Striving to be enough… in my relationships, in my school work, in my hobbies…. dancing on the edge and beyond of wild….drinking too much, exploring mind altering drugs, partying through nights, even whole weeks at times, seducing and exploring my sexual potency, searching for that sexual hunger in a man’s eyes to feel control and power, in the aftermath wondering who used who and did it matter?
Was it all bad? No – it was an adventure, a merry go round of wild freeness and abandon, memorable experiences from the strawberry fields of Glastonbury to beach raves of Scotland, escaping kidnapping in Rome, the mystical canals of Venice, the light summer forest nights of Finland, moments of romance learning flamenco in Spain, snow diving in Verbier, first deep love in Switzerland. Crazy unruly adventure. …. And a degree in Medical Microbiology!
THE WAKE UP CALLS
My personal wake up call came as I watched the loved up hippy happy rave community that I was part of start to gently disintegrate into a sad, bitter greyness. The drugs started taking their toll, the addictions set in and people started to become damaged mentally, emotionally and physically. I could see the decay, the pretence, the façade was falling away.
It was time to dry out, get real and start creating my future. I came back into the world of 9-5 grafting, carrying with me a sense of guilt and shame from my previous wild and somewhat illegal behaviour as I stepped into the suited and booted world of commerce.
Immediately I was hit with my key challenge – self worth and over pleasing! Each job I entered into was with a man that bullied his staff or sexually harassed them, or both. And every relationship I entered into had a pattern of rescuing and becoming the victim. Self worth at every turn.
When did you wake up to your underlying driver to succeed?
THE FIRST STEPS
Clearly my journey with my mother needed healing and I needed to take full responsibility for those steps. I decided to explore therapy by training in it and I signed myself up to study hypnosis, psychotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, undergoing the process of peeling back the layers and looking under the bonnet, to face the truths about what blockages lay there, why and what I could do to heal.
Synchronicity stepped in with one of the most significant meetings in my life. In my first work placement, my boss asked me to step in for her at a board meeting. Here I met the President of the local chapter of the Junior Chamber of Commerce (JCI) – part of a global membership organisation created to encourage the interaction, sharing, co-operation and evolution of young leaders around the globe. Welcome to my introduction to creating legacy!
JCI launched me into the most powerful personal development journey possible and transformed my life. A new me was birthed, encouraging me to explore my potential, to challenge myself, stepping out of my circle of comfort, dragging me into leadership roles that I wasn’t even looking for and discovering I had talents that let me shine! I travelled the globe as my hobby, training other young leaders, representing my country in global conferences like Scottish Parliament, European Union, the United Nations, learning how politics really works, the values of authenticity in business, of standing by your beliefs and values, of being a servant leader, of being the agent of change! Finding my self worth.
What inspires you to step into your potential?
LEGACIES EVOLVE
In personal development, it is fundamental to have a vision, mission and goal that is for the evolution of your best possible self setting the pathway of your legacy. You want to achieve something, you are naturally wanting to leave an impression! This is a time of huge excitement, massive self discovery, a realisation of your full potential, the possibility to dream big dreams and enter into the world of crafting abundance.
At the time, I was enjoying holding space for my own growth along with others. To take on the role of president for my local JCI Chapter was much more responsibility and exposure than I had any desire for. Cajoled into the role by my peers, and wanting to do the best for my organisation that had given me so much, my plan was to put it on the map with local government, community and business and for other individuals to have the opportunity to grow, travel the world, and build global networks. To step far beyond the potential they believed they had, to shine their light. As a leadership team, we won Best Chapter in the world 3 years in a row and increased membership as the local business community saw the potential for their staff.
The second legacy sprouted wings from this journey of self-confidence and possibility. I now had the skills to teach leadership, team development, setting of vision, mission & goals, the behaviours needed for success, how to sell and market, how to network and collaborate and I had trained business leaders from across the globe from Russia to Syria, Japan to Malta, USA and across Europe, from all backgrounds and businesses.
Having lived through the painful and stressful events of bullying and sexual harassment in the work place in my earlier years, I had seen grown men develop stomach ulcers and turn grey at the hands of tyrants, men who were lost in power and greed, insecurities and abuse. Leaders overlooking horrendous discretions for the sake of status and profit. Now I knew how to create a work environment that could empower from ground roots up, develop resilience and train leaders to show up in a way that benefits the individual, the team, the company and the shareholders.
Where have you translated your struggles into your path of meaning and purpose?
Taking the leap, I set up my first business, a training & development consultancy. And thus, I turned my karma into dharma as we say on the spiritual path. I took the lessons learnt through my experiences, the skills gifted and applied them to have meaning.
What have you learnt that you can help others by sharing, teaching, innovating in your own unique way?
THE REALISATION
Life has a habit of throwing up a few icebergs when you think you have launched the Titanic, and smooth sailing rarely lasts for long. It is the nature of the beast to generate the next challenge for your evolution and throw a few spanners into the works.
You can’t travel the path of personal development without having a feeling that there is more to life. Money wasn’t my driver. It was a sense of purpose, of creating profound change and transformation for individuals and communities. For elevating peoples’ way of being, thinking, behaving. But this was still about my self worth, my ego. What if I was just being me, not proving anything to anyone. Treating life as a journey of self discovery from with in.
The challenge of self-worth was transforming into soul purpose!
Have you discovered your soul purpose?
SPIRITUALITY & LEGACY
My soul self was stirring. I was starting to seek the answers that had haunted me as a child. What is this life all about? An esoteric sense of something greater than the individual, greater than human kind. Did I believe in God? What was the meaning of life? Who am I?
Once you start opening your mind to the possibilities beyond daily life, or global politics, a rapid rate of change starts to take place. You come to a place where you contemplate a higher intelligence, a universality, a unified field of consciousness, a process of synchronicity over co-incidence. You find yourself guided to people, books, films, situations, conversations. A thread of bread crumbs enticing you to explore further.
A gift of grace to perceive fields of energy within my body guided me, leading me to spiritual teachings around the harnessing of energy and the ability to use it to tune into specific energy frequencies, enabling one to read thoughts and emotions (telepathy), to provide a level of energy healing of people's auras and physical bodies, and to start to perceive powerful energy movement and activation within oneself. Exploring Buddhism, Mindfulness, Shamanism, Reiki and Channelling. None of them explained how energy worked, asking you to have faith and trust in the process. My Virgo mind needed to know why and how!
In the process of integrating my spiritual learnings, experiences and realisations into my business of learning and development, I found myself guided to western spiritual academic explorers, who coming from science were making realisations about significant shifts in consciousness relating to the evolution from primitive survival and tribal dependence, entrepreneurial growth to corporate elitism, holistic systems to enlightened consciousness. These deeper realisations initiated a disconnect from business for me. My passion was fading for the legacy I had been aspiring to.
TANTRA – THE JOURNEY OF KARMA & DHARMA
Another area of my life I was struggling in around this time was relationships. Attracting men was not an issue but keeping them engaged and interested in me was. As a single business woman, leaning on myself for everything, my self-sufficiency appeared to be an initial attractor but a deal breaker later.
The deeper level of the feminine in me was feeling abandoned and rejected, it was crying out for attention. I typed into google “Authentic Tantra”.
Within 6 months, my consultancy was closed. A whole brave new world opened up to me. Did I find the answers to my relationship issues? That’s a story for another day!
This was my true spiritual awakening. My heart yearns to go deeper and deeper into the teachings, pushing to explore the realms of possibility in mastering energy for spiritual evolution. Tantra teaches us to live in the outer world fully from the wisdom and discernment of the inner world, and that the only true path to happiness is the realisation we are divine beings, an immortal soul.
According to Tantra, our Karma (that which we must receive by the law of cause and effect) are the lessons we need to learn in this lifetime. Our Dharma is our purpose for being in this lifetime. It is this interconnected relationship that guides the synchronicities of our life. It is a vast web, intricately interwoven, a matrix. Everything is energy, ever-changing, ever transforming frequencies of perception.
The never ending cycle of creation, evolution and dissolution. It is at this point the concept of legacy for self dissolves. The ego’s desire to be seen, to be heard, to be recognised starts to transform into a state of appreciation and acceptance, a detachment and the intense striving stills into a state of being, struggle dissolves and desires simplify.
Letting Go of The Legacy
Alexander The Great, having conquered many nations, accumulated huge wealth and power, asked his general on his death bed to fulfil 3 wishes. When asked why, he explained the 3 lessons he had learnt and wanted people to know that:
1) His physicians alone must carry the coffin
- no doctor can save you from death. Do not take life for granted!
2) The path leading to the graveyard was strewn with gold, silver and precious stones which he had accumulated.
- he spent all his life in greed of power, earning riches and would not take any of it with him. Do not waste time chasing wealth.
3) Both his hands be kept dangling out of his coffin.
- he came empty handed into this world and empty handed he left this world".
The desire to create a legacy is a valuable part of the journey of self-realisation, motivating and teaching us self-confidence, self-belief and our creative capacity to manifest what we desire. And in that we start to understand that it is the simplicity to life that is key.
As human beings, we are born asleep believing in our separation and isolation. Our immortal self travels forward concerned only with returning back to the awareness of oneness, our divine nature.
We leave our footprints in the sand and with time, they dissolve and disappear.
The soul moves on to another Journey beyond.
Author: Mel Harris, Founder of the Alchemy of Living & Tantra Yoga Teacher