Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding the True Meaning of Self-Love (22 page)

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Authors: Melody Beattie

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BOOK: Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding the True Meaning of Self-Love

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Nichole accompanied me. Throughout the afternoon, she stayed by my side. She had been through this before. She would be an escort, a guide, and give testimony as to my character when the ceremony began.

At 3:30 P.M. that day, my full name including my maiden name—Melody Lynn Vaillancourt Beattie—was entered in the Book of Life. I was told this recording was a formality; it had been there all along. After carefully writing down the spelling of my name, the man taking the Page 199

information, Master Huang's assistant, told me to proceed to the back room of the Holy House.

The ceremony was about to begin.

First the men, then the women, were called by name to come to the front of the room. When my name was called, I tenuously took a position in the back row of the women kneeling before the altar. The woman assisting Master Huang, a Chinese woman who spoke no English, motioned for me to trade places with someone in the front. She told me to sit by the incense pot—the same position that she had directed Nichole to four months earlier.

I stumbled through the repetitive liturgy—imitating the sounds and repeating the Chinese words the best I could. Master Huang then approached each of us, one at a time. He put his hand on my head and asked if I was ready to take this step. I said I was. He then pronounced that I had officially received my Tao.

After spending a moment with each of us in the group, Master Huang told us that just as the candles on the altar burned brightly, so now did the light within each of us.

Our karma was ended. Reincarnation would cease. We had reached and achieved the state the ancients called enlightenment.

He told us to return to our chairs.

Carefully, so as to be understood with his Chinese accent, Master Huang gave us the Three Treasures. He Page 200

explained them carefully, tracing the Treasures to their biblical origins. Then we each took a vow of secrecy.

The Treasures were not ours to reveal.

Master Huang told us it was time to smile. We had now received the keys to the kingdom of heaven—
to paradise
—in the afterlife
and
in this world.

This is what he said next:

"For thousands of years on this planet, enlightenment has been available to only a few. Throughout the history of man, there has usually been only one enlightened being on the earth at a time. Now that the millennium is here, enlightenment will be given to the masses.

"It's a gift of the times. And a sign of the times.

"Enlightenment is now available to all.

"One at a time, across the globe, the lights will be turned on until the brilliance of this planet glows."

When I arrived home that day, I knew I had just taken part in an important and sacred event, but I was still uncertain about exactly what had transpired. Master Huang's words stuck in my mind. "You don't have to worry or ask questions. Each person will be shown what to do."

I went to bed early that evening. I was exhausted, but tired in a good way. As I began to drift into sleep, the Santa Anas started blowing once again. The winds encircled the house like a vortex, the same as they had before this trip began. They blew so hard the windows shook, the doors Page 201

rattled, and the bird began to squawk.

The next morning, first thing, I checked outside. Those winds had taken my garbage can again.

"That's it," I said. "I'm done. This is the last time this will ever take place."

I trudged to the hardware store and bought a new can and a long, thin chain. I tied the chain around the trash can, securing it with several tight knots, then nailed it to the mailbox. "There," I said, pounding in the last nail. "That solves that once and for all."

I have never understood karma—not in the way a journalist needs to know. I'm not certain if it's cause and effect, unfinished business, or a spiritual consequence of something we can't remember but have nonetheless done. I'm not certain if karma is spiritual justice, the boomerang effect, or simply the way the universe brings itself into balance.

I still don't know, not in the way a journalist needs to know, if we live many lives or just one. I know that some people have experienced so much change it's been like having several lifetimes in one.

Maybe we just have to keep cycling through until we find all those missing pieces and finally take them back.

I don't know what it means to be karmafree, or if I really am. Maybe it means we can let the winds blow away all our old emotions and beliefs—
all the blocks to
our power
.

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There's a higher road and a lower road to any place we want to go. The energy of these times brings the freedom to take that higher route.

Nichole pulled up in the drive just as I was testing the strength of the new chain that would secure my garbage can. It looked as if it would work.

''Did you figure it out yet?" she asked, following me down the stairs.

"Figure what out?" I said.

"Life. The book. Both," she said.

Now it was my turn to smile. "It's still a mystery to me."

On Will's birthday, he and Nichole came to the house. Something special was going on that weekend; I could feel it in the air. Nichole and Will went for a walk on the beach. It was the place they first had met.

When they returned to the house later that night, Nichole smiled—no, she
beamed
—
and
showed me her left hand. On it, she now wore a sparkling opal engagement ring. The children and I hugged and cried and talked and laughed. Then Nichole brought out Will's birthday cake.

He blew out all the candles except for one—a special candle that couldn't be extinguished no matter how hard he tried to blow out the flame.

Page 203

"That candle is just like us," Nichole said, looking around the room. "No matter what we do to put it out, the flame keeps on burning bright."

THE END

Page 205

Credits and Sources

Computer and Internet Resources

America Online Writer's Resources, including Compton's Encyclopedia, Grolier's Multimedia, and the Concise Columbia Library, provided instant access to facts on Algeria, terrorism, and the Middle East.

Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, 1996, provided valuable data and facts about terrorism, Cairo, Egypt, Giza, the Great Pyramids, the Sahara Desert, Islam, Ramadan, the history of writing, language and art, the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, Algiers, the Middle East, and Morocco.

World Wide Web, Elephants, Thomas Helton, 1996, "Tummy Rumble."

Page 206

Government Agencies

Many United States government publications provided valuable facts and data on Algiers, Egypt, and Morocco.

The Embassy of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria and the Egyptian Embassy were extremely helpful in preparing for this trip.

Miscellaneous

Brant Parker and Johnny Hart, creators of "The Wizard of Id."

Janis Joplin
'
s Greatest Hits
by Columbia provided the background music for writing this book.

A special thanks to the reference desks at the RidgedaleHennepin Area Library in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and the SouthdaleHennepin Area Library in Edina, Minnesota, for supplying factual data.

Virginia Slims commercial/ad was the source of the line used in the dedication.

Movies

Tombstone
,
Hollywood Pictures, written by Kevin Jarre, film by George P. Cosmatos, provided inspiration for the line on the "difference between a reckoning and revenge."

Tommy Boy
,
Paramount Pictures, a Lorne Michaels Production, film by Peter Segal, starring Chris Farley, for the tag line "for the love of God."

Page 207

Publications

Algeria
:
A Country Study
.
Edited by Helen Chapin Metz. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, 1994.

Arabian Nights
.
Adapted from Richard F. Burton's unexpurgated translation by Jack Zipes. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. Contains the tale of Scheherazade.

Bradshaw, John E.
Bradshaw on the Family
.
Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1988.

A Course in Miracles
.
Glen Ellen, CA: The Foundation for Inner Peace, 1975.

Critser, Greg. "Oh, How Happy We Will Be: Pills, Paradise, and the Profits of the Drug Companies."
Harper
'
s Magazine
,
vol. 292, no. 1753 (June 1996).

Eadie, Betty J., with Curtis Taylor.
Embraced by the Light
.
Placerville, CA: Gold Leaf Press, 1992.

Holy Bible
,
Authorized or King James Version. World Bible Publishers, 1989.

Jochmans, Joseph. "How Old Are the Pyramids?"
Atlantis Rising
,
no. 8, Livingston, MT.

Lamott, Anne.
Bird by Bird
.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1995.

This book, a
must read
for any writer, aspiring or published, provided me with professional support, wisdom, and the particular impetus for my definition of selflove.

The line referred to is one where Anne writes that she believes "nothing is the opposite of love."

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
.
Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1961, 1981,1984.

Page 208

Peck, M. Scott.
The RoadLess Traveled
New York: Simon & Schuster, Touchstone, 1978.

Simon, Jeffrey D.
The Terrorist Trap
:
America
'
s Experience with Terrorism
.
Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Sun Tzu.
TheArt of War
.
Translated by Thomas Cleary. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1988.

Williamson, Marianne.
A Return to Love
:
Reflections on the Principles ofa Course in Miracles
.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Zwingle, Erla. "Morocco: North Africa's Timeless Mosaic."
National Geographic
,
Oct. 1996, vol. 190.

And
. . .

A thankyou and acknowledgment to:

Gregg Baxter, for writing the beautiful letter.

Jen Bush, for discovering with Nichole the marvelous pigs and vampires theory.

Angelo DiBiase, my friend and hairdresser, for costuming me.

Michael Fowler, my Aikido
sensei
,
from the War and Peace Dojo, Santa Monica, California, for patiently teaching me Aikido and providing a helpful brochure from which I derived my definition and description of Aikido.

Marjorie CampbellPerfilio, for telling me the beautiful stories about herself and about Johann Strauss, and for her encouragement along the way.

And her son, Christopher Perfilio, for bringing Marjorie and me together.

Page 209

Ann Poe, for helping me solve a few of this book's mysteries.

Michael Powers, Los Angeles, California, for the author photograph.

Charlie Raun, for the delightful story of the ''Don't Help" hand.

Page 210

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