Clouds of Glory by Millie Phillips

Author:Millie Phillips [Phillips, Millie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hasidic, spiritual gift, healing, biographies about women, lynette phillips, harold phillips, Mining Millie, Nickel Queen, milstern, UN, United Nations, Place des Nations, Palais des Nations, 2 October 1978, Geneva, Australian heiress, JNF, Jewish National Fund, Israel, afterlife, life after death, self immoliation, zionist, Margaret Dent, Stephen Gerstl, Joan Levick, Amy Witting, De Guesclin, Ananda Marga, proust,
ISBN: 9780994462510
Publisher: SAI Publishing
Published: 2016-02-01T08:00:43+00:00

Chapter 21

With familiar predictability, the pendulum swung again. Now, the sect had chosen Lyn to organise and run their food tent at a forthcoming ‘alternative youth society’ live-in, and her delight was overwhelming. I hid my amusement at the ageing politician who had organised the young people’s rally in a clumsy attempt to appear to be one of the ‘hip’ generation. The press had a field day and published articles about his cavorting with his attractive, young Filipino secretary who participated in the rally. But who cared? Lyn needed me, needed my advice – and I eagerly responded.

She wrote from the camp. ‘It’s fun, Mum. Everyone tells me that I’m operating in a way that they never expected and they can’t understand what’s happened to me. The help you gave with weights, quantities and organisation has made all the difference. I’m just like you, would you believe? Feeding the hundreds you fed in the guesthouse. Don’t think I’ve ever realised how you toiled to provide for us. Thanks. Luv.’ An unusual letter – no longer competing, simply comparing. My hands stroked the quickly pencilled scrawl on the page ripped from an exercise book. After the camp and of her own volition, she came home for a long stay, and we talked long into many nights. In some unfathomable manner we had stumbled on a level of adult understanding, two women who had mysteriously become equals. Locked out of her brother’s and sister’s lives, she found pleasure in a closeness with me. And fearful of breaking the spell, exulting in our new relationship, I desperately sought the means of breaking the chains that kept her locked in the petrified forest.

‘I even swam in the river, Mum,’ she confided. ‘I’ve even lost my fear of deep water!’ Another sad, indirect rebuke that stirred the pangs of guilt at not knowing or understanding so many facets of her life – like her reluctance to use the pool or her fear of skiing from heights. So much of this child had been hidden from me. In so many ways I had allowed her to be a stranger. Some mother I turned out to be! We talked about the conquered fears and I kept a tight rein, afraid that my happiness and the trust she bestowed on me, would force her into self-destructive acts. But she chatted with a new relaxation and I raptly listened. Her savings had vanished in paying for the canteen food. ‘But what about the money you took, the shop you hoped to open? Wasn’t this the money you were determined to keep for a rainy day?’

‘It was theirs anyway,’ she shrugged vaguely. ‘The shop would have been theirs too – I had promised. It doesn’t matter if they get it this way. It makes no difference.’ She was obsessively hiding her vow of poverty, her vow to hand over all she possessed. Her secret life honed in childhood as protection from her parents had fused to become her second nature.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.