Stories and beyond the stories

A new way of being emerging from the rubble.....

We’d finally got our earthquake emergency kits organized the day before the earthquake struck on Tuesday 22nd. Unlike the quake in September, which happened in the middle of the night, this one hit at lunchtime – older kids at school, little ones playing in the garden, some of us in the top office, some in the chocolate kitchen, one of us in the central city……. By that evening, knowing we’re all safe, we’re looking at ‘What can we do?’ We’re both shattered and inspired by a city thrown open by an earthquake.

The first team was in the city 24 hours after the quake – to Hagley Park where a temporary building erected for the planned Ellerslie Flower Show was being used as accommodation for stranded tourists and locals made homeless by the quake. Chocolate was definitely a great entrance card! Within a half an hour hot chocolate, truffles and chocolate spoons had found their way into bodies hungry for the smallest comfort and sign of normality. The sweet taste of chocolate was bringing smiles to people traumatised by life’s capacity for sudden change.

Knowing the power of touch, I was inspired to offer shoulder and hand massages where I could. So many stories emerged as hand met body, heart met heart and trauma began to surface from the ocean of experience….

A 14 year old boy with the mental age of 4 would have made himself sick on chocolate if I’d let him, instead I offered to massage his hands. His experience emerged as I touched him.

He was in Centennial swimming pool when the earthquake happened. He told me graphically how the water came out of the pool like a tidal wave, taking him with it; then back in, swamping him in deep water. He was pulled out of the pool by lifeguards. In the September earthquake he and his father were buried under the chimney. They were dug out hours later. The effects of such experience were clear – his survival mechanism was on full alert.

As I massaged and talked with him an aftershock shook the steel building. In a split-second he was under the bedcovers (no seats in this shelter, just plastic mattresses and lots of blankets). He did emerge, shaken and chattering wildly ‘another one, another one’. It was only as hands touched his head with love that he calmed.

There are many more stories…. both tragic and heartening.

Radical action naturally emerges in a crisis when there is willingness to drop preferences and give. We are called beyond all boundaries to give birth to something authentic. In the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake everything we have learned within this teaching is challenged to come into a radically new living way of being, not only in our group here but also within the local community and wherever we venture. Over these few days we are seeing the expression of a spirit of unity that has not been here before – not just to survive and meet the basic needs of water, food and loos but to bring forth selfless giving to the calling of this moment. Flow happens very naturally in such a place. So does challenge to old ways of being.

Here is a small taste of what is emerging:

• She’s Chocolate Bus travels around the city with the Clown Doctor on board – lighting up faces and hearts with laughter and chocolate at relief centres. A team visits children in hospital with the funny man.
• We have received over $3200 in donations for the ‘She Chocolat Relief Fund’ and it’s growing daily. Donations are coming in from Japan, Sweden, Denmark, UK, France, Australia, New Zeland, Spain, USA & the Netherlands from She customers and BPF supporters.
• 250kg of the finest Belgian chocolate has been gifted by APS in Auckland (distributors), thousands of paper cups by a local company, hot chocolate urns by a ‘She’ supplier.
• A nationwide store has donated 3 large screens, DVD players and speakers. This enables us to show films at the relief centres where people spend days just lying on their mattresses.
• Our older children ask to learn The Form. They fall in love with it. We see the potential for other children, perhaps more traumatised, to become part of this opening.

Without intent a small gesture to take hot chocolate and chocolates into the city is evolving into something much more. Where that will take us who knows? One thing is sure however – it will always be over the edge of personal comfort.

So much is opening now; it is changing from moment to moment as vision expands. The calls for help come in in so many ways. We are struck by the potency of this time and our need for absolute response-ability in our relating and actions. As inspiration fuels the vision, the old patterning naturally arises to be embraced and transformed. It is a time of challenge to be utterly real: a time of huge potential, both inner and ‘outer’.

The shattering effect of a 6.3 earthquake is clearly being seen in the radical change within daily life. People are letting go of comfort to live on the edge of the unknown, embracing the new - newness that is clearly enforced by circumstance but with potential to bring an evolution of human connectivity and community. At a gathering in earthquake epicentre Lyttelton, held instead of the weekly Farmers’ Market, we saw the wheel of the world turn its face away from money. Local traders & farmers gave away coffee, chocolate & food; musicians & entertainers gave their gifts in a complete celebration of life. A commercial market has become a field of giving.