Growing up in England

Every now and then, after lights out, whilst still a baby in my cot, a small spirit friend would alight on the ledge outside my bedroom window. Her form was gossamer green and dusky pink. She told me her name was Misty, and that she lived in derelict churches. Each time she came, she opened my young self, during our interesting conversations, to understand a little about the nature of our fleeting life here. At the end of the war period into which I was born, she disappeared, and I never saw her again.

When I first told my mother, being only 1½ years old, she was a little hesitant, and asked me to define the word ‘derelict’. So I did. And she believed me.

My mother was a London Guildhall School of Music (LGSM)  graduate, and was then teaching drama, poetry and dance at a small Froebel School in Nottingham. Our house was full of wonderful classical books, and I began reading by myself quite early at the age of two, starting with Alice in Wonderland. A few months later, I went to my first ballet class, and continued dancing for many years to come.

One of my earliest memories of my father was of him looking at me lying in the pram outside in the porch. I had been following the black and white criss-cross woven patterns on the inside edge of the hood, and listening to the rhythmic sounds of what I soon learned were the trains on the railway line at the end of our road. On my first birthday in September, he came home on leave. He was stationed in Coventry working in aeronautics with Frank Whittle, who invented the jet engine. I remember being on the sitting room floor, not able to walk yet, and my aunts and uncles on the sofas, leaning forward asking me to repeat words which became progressively longer! Then my uncle bent towards me with “Suzie, say antidisestablishmentarianism.” I repeated it correctly, and they all fell back on their seats howling with laughter. I became very serious, because I didn’t understand why it was so funny. My father then carried me to sit on top of the toy chest, because a photographer had just rung the doorbell to take pictures of the occasion. I wouldn’t smile because I was still puzzled as to why, when I had repeated the words correctly, all the adults had laughed. (There were no children there). My father then went to the next room, and made rhythmic tappings and sang funny songs through the wall, but still I wouldn’t smile for the stranger photographer!

At the end of the day, he showed me my little ceramic lamb present that magically shone in the dark, and we climbed upstairs, past the black-out curtain on the landing window. In my bedroom, we looked at the nursery rhyme stories in turn that were depicted on the colourful wallpaper, and we sang about them together while he was hugging me in his arms….

When the raging war was finally over, he came home for good. He sketched little booklets for me of amusing cartoon stories that he invented and drew a wonderful picture of a boat on the high seas. Physically he was very beautiful and agile. As well as swimming faster than anyone across the river Trent, he loved ballroom dancing with my mother, playing badminton and sailing with her at the Plaisance Yacht Club.  And together they also became table tennis champions of the whole of Nottingham. They both listened to classical music records, and I loved hearing the stories and dramas and range of feelings depicted within them. My mother began choreographing solo dances for me to perform on stage, and I learned about myths and archetypal journeys, from tragic to wondrous.

During the day, whilst both parents were out working, a housekeeper was hired. I noted that she was very nice on the outside, but underneath seemed angry and troubled. I would often hide behind the settee by the French windows, and read a book. One day she hovered menacingly above me, and hollered, “If you’re ever naughty, God will come down and beat you with a big stick!” Although I knew that couldn’t be right, I was apprehensive of her manner, and stayed out of her way quietly in my story book world.

In May, 1946, my father developed a cough. He would always go down to the end of the garden, so as not to disturb us. Some weeks later, he was (wrongly) diagnosed with tuberculosis and put into hospital, treated, and then transferred to a convalescent home. Children were not allowed to visit in those days, so I remember, in the August, we drove there in our Morris Minor, and my mother said to me, “Wait inside the car for five minutes, and then step outside and I’ll get Daddy to wave to you from that very high window up there”.  I did so, and saw him in his white hospital gown, waving to me and smiling happily. That was the last time I saw him. The next day, he was dead. My mother told me later that he had just been served breakfast sitting up in bed and made a joke with the two nurses, and that one of them had had a strange feeling as they were walking away. She turned to look back, and he was suddenly gone. I have missed my beautiful daddy, and his hugs, all my life. He was only 32, and I was not quite four years old.

A few days later, my heart-broken young mother, whilst she was driving us along the road and just about to enter a long dark tunnel, suddenly decided she wanted both of us to die as well. I realised in a flash that she thought he was gone forever, whereas I imagined he was somewhere above the highest trees in the sky, still loving us. I comforted her, and we survived…

Three weeks passed, and she enrolled me with her at the Froebel school.

After 2 years, we move to Wells, In Somerset. And after a while, she met a good man, whom I liked very much. One evening, in front of the fire in our attic flat, she asked me if I would like her to marry him. I was delighted. And by the time I was 8, I had a new father.

Like my mother, he was well versed in literature and philosophy. He wrote and directed plays for the local Palace Theatre, and had his own photography studio capturing stunning black and white portraits of characters in the community. He had also been a conscientious objector during the war. Best of all, he played the drums in a Jazz band, made me a see-saw, and taught me magic tricks!

That autumn, since my mother had instructed me how to make wishes every time I saw haystacks carried along the country lanes (but you mustn’t look at the back if you wanted them to come true!), I began secretly to wish for a baby sister, and by November of the next year when I was nine, the sweetest little girl, Harriet, was born.

We all moved to a terraced cottage on a hill in Glastonbury that led up to the Holy Thorn, reputed to have miraculously arisen after Joseph of Arimathea had planted his staff there, above the Vale of Avalon. We had lovely country walks, and I often ran up the Tor, where, in those days, there was usually no-one, and played in fields with friends, making up so many imaginary stories. My parents and I acted in a drama group there, and we also participated in evening pageants, in one of which my father was playing Death riding through a row of trees on a black horse! I had lots of adult friends there, as usual, including an artist who not only freed up my painting abilities, but also showed me a secret underground tunnel in his garden, which the monks had used as a pathway to the Abbey. Another friend worked for the BBC and gave me opportunities on the radio up in London.

I continued to take the bus every day to my lovely Primary School in Wells, where I had been a pupil since I was six. We learned there how to make colourful raffia baskets, and how to gather sheep’s wool from the country hedges, and then card, dye, spin and weave it on to our looms. We played ‘jacks’ and marbles, made long friezes of paintings round the walls, and danced intricate patterns around the Maypole each year in the Market Square by the Cathedral. As I particularly enjoyed long jump, I kept trying to beat Mary Bignall in the nearby recreation ground, but never quite managed it. Later, she became Mary Rand, an Olympic champion! But I did become adept with making up complicated moves with the skipping rope, and fancy moves with the ball up against the wall in the playground, as well as daring to do somersaults in the air, handstands and cartwheels.  We all loved playing happily together outside and there were never any quarrels. All our lessons from our three friendly teachers seemed to stir the imagination, and encourage independent thought. My father had made me a pen with an italic nib, and I loved dipping it into the inkwell on our desks, and seeing what beautiful manuscripts the pen could make.

We sang a variety of songs to start the day, (rather than hymns) and one morning, I suddenly became riveted to the piano, and knew I had to learn to play. I was seven, and went home to ask my parents if I could have lessons. They said that would be lovely, but they couldn’t afford to buy a piano. I said if I find a piano teacher for not too much money, and a place to practise every day after school in someone else’s house, then could I learn. And I did. I found a piano teacher in Vicars Close by the Cathedral and a house to practise near the school. After a year, my teacher’s husband offered me violin lessons. For free!

At the same age, another good friend of my parents became, as I see it now, a good philosophical mentor to me. I used to walk quite a few miles after school on my own to spend time in lively discussion with him. I am so grateful to all my mother’s and father’s group of friends who generously enfolded me into their creative and spirited worlds. Through them, I was able to act in theatre productions, shows, and Eisteddfods, and go to a number of classical recitals, and open-air Shakespeare performances. I also learned how to do tap dancing in red shoes, and was inspired to put on double ball-bearing roller-skating dances with a school friend on the ground floor of a Tate & Lyle factory next to where she lived, which included, rather haphazardly, throwing big hoops into the air!

Both parents, with their life-long interest in promoting new educational ideas, and a more inclusively international vision, were often out in the evenings either teaching, or in study groups, as well as rehearsing plays, so I had the bounty at a young age of learning to be responsible and use my own time fruitfully and wisely. They each actively demonstrated by their interests and nature, how to offer their best talents in service to society. Neither of them had materialistic or limited goals, so I witnessed, by example, how openness and creative giving can provide its own uplifting momentum throughout one’s whole life. They were the most ethical and vibrantly alive people I knew. Neither of them espoused a religion because they could see how the many man-made misinterpretations had led to divisive sects and little true understanding. This, in itself, was a marvellous springboard for me to explore that whole field freshly to my heart’s content, with no restriction. I investigated local churches periodically, from age six or seven onwards, but none of my questions were answered, and I certainly didn’t like seeing grown-ups dressed up and posing as priests or clergy, or watching congregations being passively led, or drinking red ‘blood’ wine at an Altar!

At 10, my parents asked me if I’d like to become a boarder at a girls’ Grammar School twenty–two miles away. They took three boarders a year from Somerset and Devon to live in a Lodge a mile away from the School. Adventure! Exciting! My mother and I rehearsed the possible questions the Trustees might ask me, and I made a haystack wish! They awarded me a Scholarship and a free place! It was great fun, with midnight feasts in the dormitory and other daring nocturnal escapades, and the main school was full of music, operas, plays, choirs, gymnastics and even learning cuneiform writing and hieroglyphics!  We were all happy with our wonderful teachers, and wore red, yellow, purple, green or blue gingham dresses as our uniform. The boarders had to go to Church or Chapel on Sunday mornings. I chose Chapel because it was a small quaint building in a country field! We had £1 pocket money to last all term, and perhaps an occasional letter from our parents before going home for the holidays. My mother had said if I ever wanted to talk to her, I could find a secluded spot and listen very hard.  We could then be in touch, and have a conversation without words…

Sadly for me, when I was 13, the family moved to Cheam village in Surrey.

I bicycled to a more strict and academic day Grammar school, in the grounds of Nonsuch Palace. Luckily. I soon made a variety of friends, and readily adapted to a more intensive study schedule. Outside school, I acted in my mother’s Youth Theatre company, continued violin and piano lessons, and joined Youth Orchestras. At 14, I also started evening classes in Psychology with the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) to which organisation, of course, my parents belonged. In the holidays, we all went to the National WEA Summer Schools where we could choose between a variety of subjects to study for a glorious week, and in the evenings, participate in variety performances. It was always a very exhilarating experience for all of us, and as ever, I became friends with many of the tutors there, who were well-known for their original and keen intellectual acumen. My best friend at school, with whom I played piano and violin duets, was often envious of my holidays, because her own parents, in the rich part of Cheam, made her go on cruises with them!

By the time I reached the sixth form, I was ironically made a prefect, and we always had to be on stage with the terrifying Headmistress for morning assembly. I had defiantly stopped singing hymns by then to the delight of the giggly first formers (who developed crushes on me), but when it was my turn at the lectern to recite the Bible lesson, I did so with great feeling and dramatic expression!

At 18, I unexpectedly won a bursary offered by the WEA in conjunction with London University, to live for the summer at the Pestalozzi International Children’s Village in the mountains of Switzerland, whilst writing a psychological research paper that I had proposed concerning the developmental growth of perceptual and conceptual thinking.  I was in touch by letter with Jean Piaget, the well-known pioneer of child psychology at that time, and instead of working with him, as I had at first hoped, he suggested that Pestalozzi would be a much more fruitful context to write an independent research thesis.  And what an exhilarating and uplifting experience it proved to be!  Now I knew for certain, and directly, that children from all over the world, from England and Europe to Tibet and beyond, could be wonderfully and wisely educated to live as one, and to have such great love for each other in their enriching diversity.  And as soon as I arrived, they surrounded me with happy excitement and made me into their Pied Piper!  It was my first, and never to be forgotten, upliftment into the certitude of humanity’s true potential, if the peoples of the world could only be guided aright.

At 19, I now became very sure that I wanted to do a Degree in Psychology, and hoped I might be accepted, after stringent interviews and a compulsory IQ test, to be one of only a few students who were then accepted into a university course. I bungled the IQ test, because I couldn’t understand the heavy dialect of the interviewer, but amazingly, the Head of Department saw through that, and I was accepted with a free scholarship that paid for the whole three years. I also studied Ancillary Philosophy and Aesthetics with a very eccentric tutor.

I only just made it to the beginning of the term, because, with my parents’ affirmative blessing, I had been on one of the early Aldermaston marches to ban the bomb, where I was able to talk with Bertrand Russell and Canon John Collins in Trafalgar Square, and was inspired even more deeply to reflect on actions needed to help bring peace to earth.

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How I became a Bahá’í in Canada – autumn 1971

One night, I had a dream.

I was upstairs in the beautiful four-poster bed we had built, in which I experienced so many, many dreams which I wrote down every morning, reflecting gradually upon their possible meanings.

This night, a Majestic Figure of great Beauty appeared, and poured out rapidly a succession of spiritual Truths. I listened intently, and wondered how I was able to absorb such rapid speech, which didn’t happen in the earth world.

During that day, I had found myself sitting alone on a tree stump in the hundred acre meadow. I had been living in our wilderness haven for a few magical years. There were seven of us, friends from university, who had discussed the venture at length, and then two of us set off from the city of Vancouver in our truck to find some land, and pioneer a new way of living. Hundreds of miles away in the Kootenay mountains of British Columbia, we stopped driving as we finally noticed a ‘For Sale’ sign, and met Hilda and Ernie, the owners of 333 acres of unspoilt wilderness. Ernie spent six months of the year living in a small dwelling on the highest peak acting as a ‘Look out man’ for any sudden forest fires, whilst his wife and two daughters stayed in their small modest home at the edge of the property. They were all friendly, unassuming and natural, and had lived there a long time. That very day, we drove to Vernon, a small town, ninety miles away, and drew up an official contract with them for us to move on to the land. We paid them $100, (£33) which was all we had.

Soon, our five other friends joined us. We quickly built several different shaped cabins for ourselves, and then began planning where we would lay the foundations for a spacious five bedroomed house where we could all live together. It was June. We had to finish it by October before the snows came. And we did! We dug a well, put a pump in the kitchen, built an outside loo, moved in two wood-stoves, and added an outside deck. Periodically, seven wild horses of many different colours and sizes would come cantering down from the top mountain finding delicious morsels from our outside open food store. They were astonishingly beautiful. Likewise, the bears would appear from the forested areas, and we learned easily how to respectfully honour their territory. And to protect them from hunters, we placed ‘Wild Life Sanctuary’ notice boards strategically around the perimeter of the land.

We all worked hard together building our timber home from the different wood on the property, including cedar shakes to cover the roof, and inventing unusual styles of essential furniture! Rusty, Hilda’s brother, red-haired, Scottish descent, practical, would sometimes come over to give us a helping hand. In due course, we planted a large variety of vegetables in the fertile soil, and acquired a rooster and chickens, all of which were named after the Canadian affectionate names for the toes: Rudi Wiffle, the rooster, down to Little Pea, the smallest hen! As well, we had two beautiful Samoyed Collies and their puppy, Duffer, who was cute but not the most bright, and several cats; ours was named Shimi, (Tibetan for ‘cat’).

Of course we had no electricity or gas, just kerosene lamps, and thankfully no phones, or means of contact with the outside world, apart from a rare letter placed in a wooden box way out on the highway leading down to the lake and the ferry to Nakusp. But every now and then, one or two of us would return to a city or town or the coastal shipyards for a short while to earn some money, and bring most of it back to share with our fellows in order to buy extra tools or sacks of grain from a local warehouse a few miles away in Edgewood, which stored everything any isolated mountain dweller, few and far between, might need.

One of these long-term dwellers was Ambrose with his native Canadian Indian family. We became friends. And a few months later, he did, in fact, save my life. I had contracted a serious attack of pneumoconiosis or pleurisy, and he spent a whole day in the forest finding the right combination of herbs and roots, which he infused and gave to me as a curative remedy. I was restored within a week.

So, time and seasons passed, as we all settled in to our new way of life and little by little added some more basic necessities. One of which was a canvas bath that ingeniously folded up like a camp bed when not in use! We would open it up, pour in vats of water heated on the wood stoves, surround it with different coloured candles and give the lucky person, whose turn it was, a selection of home-made fragrant soaps. In the hot days of summer, we had a large bucket launched up high on wooden posts, having drilled holes in the base for refreshing showers. Out on the deck, we placed a hand-propelled wash tub for our clothes. And for the kitchen, we made a sturdy oval table, painted bright yellow, where we all ate together, shared many thoughts, and when needed, held consultations on plans for the future. Upstairs, one bedroom had a water-bed, the other, where I was settled in with my man, had a lovely eiderdown, gold on one side, silver on the other, covering our home-made four poster bed. And we built a balcony outside overlooking a splendid view across the meadow. Our extra good fortune was that Hilda and Ernie had grown to love us all being there, and there was no pressure concerning more payments for the land for the time being.

It was now another Autumn with its stunning display of colour in the misty mountain air. We had accomplished so much, and yet, ironically, on this particular day, here I am, sitting alone on the tree stump in the middle of the wide hundred acre meadow, surrounded by the high mountains. I felt very sad, as if everything had been brought to nought… overwhelmed by an onrushing feeling that everything had come to nothing.

I reached out to God. I had reflected about the meaning of life since I was nearly four years old when my young beautiful father suddenly died. Later, from about age 12 onwards, I studied various philosophers, visionaries, famous psychologists, great classical composers, outstanding heroes and scientists, and absorbed many tracts from some of the great religions. Searching intently. And now nothing. I asked God for help. There must be more that I have not found. I can go no further. I had studied and learned. And now I was empty.

I returned to the house, and helped make supper. We chatted, and then all went to bed. Sleepless myself, I waited ’til the house was silent, crept carefully down the staircase to the kitchen, and fell on my knees in front of the wood stove.

“Dear God, please help me. I don’t know where else to look.”

I stayed there crying out silently for some time. And quietly returned upstairs to bed.  Still feeling very alone.

And then I had the dream. The beauteous Majestic Figure came to talk with me, pouring out so many Truths that I’d never heard before. He came for the next nine nights. To teach me. I felt that my days had become full of darkness, but my nights were full of Light. On the ninth night, He said that these were the last words He had to say to me: “I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things.”

I awoke with a start. And was so excited that I visited each of my friends’ bedrooms one by one. It was morning. I explained that in my dream, a Beauteous Personage had said “I am the Primal Point”, and I wanted to know if anyone had any idea of what that meant. I felt that it was very urgent to know. But nobody did.

Nine days later, I managed to get a ride in a truck all the way from the Kootenay mountains to Vancouver. My heightened relationship with my Canadian man had broken down disastrously. I was now in my late twenties, and felt abandoned, and desperately upset. It was the first time I had fallen in love, and I thought it was forever. I had lectured in Psychology in University at 22, been a Head of Department in a large hospital for the mentally handicapped, done research work in a Psychiatric Institute, played violin in Symphony Orchestras, performed in theatre groups, been a ballet and tap dancer, a pianist, written poems and stories, and spent a few exhilarating months living in the Pestalozzi Children’s Village high up in the Appenzeller mountains of Switzerland writing a psychological thesis in return for a bursary I’d surprisingly won when I was 18 which had been open to anyone in the UK between the ages of 18 and 80 who wanted to submit an original idea for a research project. I’d had a full life, both before and after emigrating to Canada, fallen in love there for the first time, and in due course initiated the mountain adventure to create a new life, away from civilisation but learning to live amicably with bears, wild horses, coyotes, and even cougars making an occasional appearance.

I now needed a few days respite away from the wilderness to try and think as deeply as possible what I was going to do. For the few weeks before I left, Rusty had helped me begin building a separate log cabin in a secluded spot high above the main house as a workable solution to my relationship dilemma, and it remained for just the roof to be finished on the morning I walked across the fields to the highway…

I arrived in the city, and stayed the night with an old friend, Rhea.

The next day, whilst she was at work, I was still somewhat distressed, and wandered in to a big department store downtown. I thought, vacantly, that perhaps if I bought a pretty dress, maybe my man would love me again. I found one, tried it on in the changing cubicle and went out to pay for it at the counter, but there was no-one there. So I found another little item, tried it on and returned to the counter. No-one there, again. And then a third one. And still no-one. So the last time I was in the changing room, I suddenly thought I’d forget my payment then if nobody wanted it, and with my packed bag, walked downstairs to the front doors.

Thereupon, from behind me, I felt heavy hands on the back of my shoulders stopping me from walking out on to the busy Vancouver street. I froze. Two police officers led me upstairs to a small room where the store manager was seated behind a desk. The two officers stood in front of me. The manager offered me a chair, and I was questioned. I came clean immediately. The manager was kind and told me that when I entered the store, my face and demeanour looked distressed in some way, and they had let the cameras follow me, and deliberately removed the staff from the counter each time I went to pay as I came out of the changing room with my new little purchases. They wanted to see what I would do. The manager then said I was free to go home, as long as I never did it again. He knew, of course, that I had never done it before, and it had come from my emotional distress and sudden decision. I was immensely thankful, and relieved, and chastened, and got up to leave. But.. the two police officers then requested a clothes search. I was ushered into a cubicle in the corner of the room. I gave them my blue velvet dungarees, which had two tiny pockets in the front bib. Inside one of them, there were two small leaves of marijuana, home-grown by our mountain lakeside, which I’d brought as a gift to Rhea. I was arrested on the spot, and taken to the city Police Station. There, the two said they didn’t really want to see a person like me go to prison, but they had to obey orders from a recent decision in the law to be more severe with anyone carrying marijuana. I was shocked. They continued to interview me personally at length, were very warm-hearted and genuinely sorry, and agreed that I could go to the Donovan concert that evening that I’d looked forward to, as long as I promised to return to the Station first thing in the morning.

At the concert, I sat cross-legged with Rhea on the floor at the front to watch Donovan. Thrilling! Rhea thought they’d just give me a fine the next morning as a penalty and all would be well. And so we had a wonderful and memorable evening with Donovan and his sitar, and then a peaceful sleep.

I walked to the Police Station next morning with hope in my heart, and ready to pay my debt. The two men said they’d stayed up all night on my behalf talking about how they could help a nice English girl like me avoid the newly decided crackdown on weed, especially such a tiny bit that I’d had on me, and simply go home. But they couldn’t. My bags and my purse were put in a locker, and they drove me in a police wagon to the women’s prison on the outskirts of the city.

There, I was summarily checked in at the front desk, and taken to an empty room with an old-fashioned bath in the middle; four women staff poured a large amount of disinfectant into the running water, asked me to undress, watched me like guards as I was made to soak completely under water, roughly took me out, and dressed me in a gloomy green uniform. They then marched me to a small single cell, and locked the door loudly.

I sat on the hard single bed. There was one chair, and a narrow window with strong iron bars on the outside. I sat there for hours ’til the early evening.

A prison matron opened the door, and led me upstairs to a common room. There I met my fellow criminals. They all stared at me as I walked in. And then we were ushered into the corridor where we lined the opposite walls. I had been given a tin mug like the others. The girls opposite me were whispering and looking me up and down. Hoping I was a lesbian like them. “The screws are coming,” they said, and we were marched down to the refectory for a meagre supper. I ate a few mouthfuls.

We were then chaperoned back upstairs, and I was shown to another room. It had a bunk bed in it. Mine was the top, I was told. A young eighteen-year-old native Indian girl, Frieda, was lying on the lower bed. She was very beautiful, and eight months pregnant. She told me that she had ‘taken the rap’ for her boyfriend’s crime, and was serving time for him because she loved him. We became friends.

Before bedtime, the whole group along that corridor was ordered to the communal showers. Stripped naked together. I was thin, about 6½ stone, due to my harassing last weeks in the mountains. Then we went back to our cells, and the loud, heavy bunch of keys locked us up for the night. My days of confinement had begun. I thought of my mother in England, and the Majestic Figure who had come to me in my nine nights of Light in the mountains.

My job for the next few weeks was to scrub the corridor floors and the stairways. I started to become quite ill and weak. My skin and eyes were beginning to turn yellow, but I worked conscientiously.

I learned that a doctor came in once a week on Mondays. I asked if I could see him. He said there was nothing wrong, and I resumed work for 8 hours a day. I went back the next Monday, and again with only one glance, he dismissed me. I had found out meanwhile that he was used to inmates prevaricating, for obvious reasons. Much weaker now, just as I was at the door leaving the doctor’s room on the third week, he asked me to stand under the ceiling light, looked at my eyes, said I had infectious hepatitis, and would be placed in solitary confinement immediately. Downstairs.

There I was locked in 24 hours a day, and a small plate of food on a tray was quickly placed on the floor inside three times a day. No-one was allowed to touch me, or talk to me, as I was infectious. I was given no medication or care. Out of the window, all I could see was a yard and high walls. I was allowed no books, no writing materials, no radio, nothing at all. And the same ‘no visitors’ rule would continue to apply.

I was now very thin, had raised yellow lumps all over my body, and was in and out of consciousness lying on the hard bed.

Days passed. I no longer had strength to eat. I woke one morning hearing the sounds of breakfast being delivered further down the corridor. I turned upside-down on my bed with my head in front of the door. I thought I was on the brink of losing my mind, that it would fade away and I might never recover. The door opened, and one of the long-term inmates from upstairs, who was allowed to work in the pharmacy, was there with one of the staff. I pleaded, and pleaded, “Please leave the door a bit open. I promise I won’t escape. I can’t bear being locked in any more.” I reached out my arms. “Please help me…”

I was moved to a cell near the front door of the prison, where I could watch the staff coming in to work, and look at some beautiful trees. It was snowing heavily by now, and the sash window opened just enough to allow my finger through. I could touch the snow on the ledge. It felt wonderful, and life was beginning to return to me again. I even decided to do some yoga every day on a few square inches of floor near the door. And I was allowed out of solitary for 20 minutes each evening at about 10pm to walk up and down the corridor. There I met two Doukhobor ladies, also in solitary, who were allowed out of their rooms at the same time as me. They were Russian, and had been imprisoned for setting fire to certain buildings as a social protest. One was 80, the other 78. That’s all I knew. They were both very feisty, and taught me some Russian songs, which they wrote down for me every day in their own language. I’d always wanted to learn Russian ever since I’d auditioned for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain when I was 14 up in London, and was one of five out of 500 violin applicants that managed to get on their waiting list. I was excited because they were shortly to be doing a concert in Russia.

So the evening escapade into the cold empty corridor singing at full volume with the two strong and fiery Russian women became something to look forward to, and filled all our hearts with warmth and laughter.

Also, thankfully, Sandra, the member of staff in charge of my first group placement upstairs, had managed to smuggle me in two little books of precious spiritual Writings.

Let me now tell you what had happened up there before I was diagnosed with hepatitis, and transferred to the ground floor.

I had learned that my trial would be in three weeks after I had arrived. I was settling into the routine, making friends in the common room where fortunately I was liked, especially for my English accent! It was a prison where, in those days, we were totally deprived of everything, so sharing our stories in between our hard work schedule, was crucial to our survival.

And then there was Sandra, sitting at a small table in the corridor at the top of the stairs, assigned to keeping an eye on our group. She called me over on the first morning, as I was the new arrival.

Our eyes met. At that very moment, I knew she had a message from God for me. The thought was unbidden, and exact, and had never happened before. She began writing her notes whilst checking me in, and informing me of everything I needed to know about the rules, and the duties expected of me whilst serving my time.

But deep within my being, a note of destiny had sounded.

And I waited.

On the third night, we all had been ushered into our cells ready for the final lock-down and silence. Frieda and I were settling in our bunk beds, the lights were out, and after chatting amiably for a while, she fell asleep. I lay there reflecting, perhaps hoping that I might have a good dream.

Quietly, the door opened. In the chink of light, I could just make out that it was Sandra. She asked me if I’d like to go to the common room with her. It was empty of course, and she asked me to sit across from her at one of the tables. I complied obediently, she being staff, and me being an inmate.

She looked at me, paused, and then said, “Have you ever heard of the Bahá’í Faith?”

“No”, I said, and became very still.

With great sensitivity, she spoke a few words. I listened intently. She gently asked if I would like to hear more. I nodded. The atmosphere was beautiful. A deep intimacy between souls. Inside, my inner voice kept saying ‘This is it, this is it, this is it’; and ‘yes.. yes.. yes…’ I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.

When I was returned to my cell, I stood motionless by the window. Looking up. I was no longer a prisoner…

Days passed. I was due to go to trial. I stood alone before the Judge. I felt that I was standing before God. Accountable for my actions that had brought me before the court. He bent down from his high dais, and asked me questions. I was ready to answer clearly, and with complete honesty. No words came. He suggested that it would be best for me to have a barrister, and booked me for another trial date. I genuinely imagined that I was quite capable of doing this alone. Simply stating the facts. But the questions seemed diversionary to me, and didn’t appear to relate to the straightforward facts, so I became unsure of what he wanted.

A week later, I was back in court, with an allotted barrister. I had talked at length with him beforehand. At the trial, he took over completely, and to my relative surprise, narrated that I was a lovely, well-educated English girl, who had simply fallen in with the wrong people and become upset. I wanted to correct him about ‘the wrong people’, (who were my friends), but there was no room given for me to speak. The judge was kindly. He gave me a three month sentence. I was truly amazed, because the statutory penalty for carrying marijuana at that time was at least a year, possibly more.

I knew that all my fellow inmates back at the prison would be so happy for me. That morning they had stood at the upper windows waving goodbye to me, and had said they hoped I would get the nice judge, and not the nasty one.

And so I returned to the welcome. And the daily chores. And then the belated diagnosis of hepatitis. And immediately being put in isolation downstairs. With the door locked 24 hours a day, apart from my 20 minute reprieve of walking the corridor late each evening with my new Russian Doukhobor friends.

From my window, I could see the staff coming to work at the front door. I watched for Sandra, hoping she might be able to visit me somehow, but knowing it was unlikely as I was in quarantine, and seriously ill, and untouchable.

One day, that miracle happened! And she quickly posted me in the two small precious books. One red, the other green. I opened them lovingly, expectantly. The green one was called ‘The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys’. The red one was called ‘The Hidden Words’. Both were by Bahá’u’lláh.

I studied them daily, and kept them safely under my pillow at night. I was enthralled. Bahá’u’lláh was in prison and exile all His life. And here am I, also in prison. I had a wonderful dream one night that His son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, came and took me graciously by the hand, and lifted me higher and higher above the earth. Flying. At the highest point, He gently let go my hand, saying, “Now you are ready to soar alone.” And I did!

Upstairs, when Sandra first told me about the new Revelation from God, I could hardly believe, after all the books I had read in my life, I had never even come across a Bahá’í book, never even seen the word Bahá’í. Notwithstanding all the libraries and bookshops in which I had been gloriously immersed since I was a very young child. And all the inward searching for the meaning and purpose of life since my father had died just before I was four years old. That was indeed a mystery to me, after all the incessant questioning and looking and studying and talking to people.

When Sandra had taken me in to the common room that night, and asked me “Have you ever heard of the Bahá’í Faith?”, I knew instantly that this was the end of my long search. I had no questions to ask her, because I had no doubts. That was why I had, so unusually, become so very still. And what a delightful surprise it had been to learn, as well, that there were thousands of Bahá’ís in all the countries of the world, and now I was one of them. What a joy that would be when I was released! To be with them, work with them, and to discover in what ways I could be of some service.

My heart and spirit were ablaze! My nine nights of Light with the Beauteous and Majestic Figure during my last dark days in the Canadian mountains had now been fulfilled. In this prison, in this prison of the self, He had graciously prepared the way, assuaged my longing spirit, and opened the door to hear, at long last, that the Word of God had been renewed. The Promised One of all the great religions of the past had now come.

And my eternal gratitude is for Sandra, the bearer of this great Message, who, somehow, for the one and only time, I believe, in that particular lowly place of a prison, was guided to impart it to me.

The Words of the Báb, one of the twin Manifestations of God anticipated by all the Founders of the great religions at this time, 1844, and the Herald of the Bahá’í Revelation, had been spoken to me in that final dream of Light in the Canadian wilderness, “I am the Primal Point, from which have been generated all created things”.

And now I had found Bahá’u’lláh, the Glory of God.

After my release, I never went back to the mountains.

My real life had just begun.

When Sandra first appeared in my life.

Into the uncertain morning

perhaps a little suddenly

you stole upon my fleeting soul…

and though the sweet new world

had scarcely stirred

I glimpsed within your eyes

the dance of spring

 

And at your glance

my spirit shied

and poised between

the moving veils

of some ethereal dream

that tells of moonbeam’s playful light

in a forest

filled with sleeping birds

 

Falling stars

were on my mouth

and petals

danced against my hands…

Up and down

the singing reaches

of my heart

you traced

your seatide sounds

till I was clothed

in gossamer

and lay in wings

of silver dew…

 

Softly would I gather

of love’s flowing life

whilst your hands

grow roses in the night…

And ride upon

the big white boats

of all the newest moons

with a sky-child

holy and fair…

 

And forever

lie within your smile,

a flower

of so pure surprise

and the tumbling

shyness of your hair…

 

For my dearly loved Sandra (Messenger of His Most Glorious Revelation on 5/11/71)

And a Great Circle

closed itself around

To leave me high

upon a barren rock

Wrapt in blue green rhythms

of evening air…

 

A snow flower fell…

silently upon the candle

And I glimpsed

between the corners of one eye

My sable

brief identity.

The seamless night lay dark

about my shrine

 

I woke at dawn

to feel a gathered radiance grow

As gentle as a morning star

you came

Through trembling diamonds

and tears

A smile of spring

 

How tenderly and true

He brought you near

A touch of seem…

our hands before perhaps

In some forgotten dream

Our souls within

The selfsame mist

dancing to meet

The fairest green?

 

O my heart,

to see the silver rings of light

Falling

from your ancient eyes

A ritual

from deep sea-time

A song

from forest sleep

 

Soul-flower

and deepener of my love

Arise, with armfuls of laughter

and sweet poppies

And we’ll fly

upon the fragrant winds

To seek the sounds

of Seven Valleys

And the Land

of Our Beloved Lord.

 

The deepening of gold

around your face

Mellows my longing heart

to come….

And last before we leave

the candle and the shrine

You put your arms

about me now

And softly turn

my shining eyes to see…

The splash of Sun,

the Blesséd Day.

 

_________________________________

1971 – 2019

A few days after I was released early from prison, Sandra invited me to a large Bahá’í gathering at her home in Vancouver. It was the 24th December. Seals and Crofts (Bahá’í singer-songwriters) were there, and I was thrilled! During the evening, I noticed some small cards on a study desk. Sandra told me they were to be signed if you wanted to register nationally as a Bahá’í. So although I ‘knew’ I was a Bahá’í already, of course I did so. And suddenly, the whole house erupted! I was hugged and loved by everybody there, and a celebration to welcome me into the Faith began. I was overawed, and immensely happy!

Afterwards, I returned to White Rock, by the sea, where I was now living with a lovely Bahá’í couple, originally from England. The husband was an Oxford graduate and his wife was a ballet teacher. She kindly offered me a job playing the piano at her ballet school. One afternoon, whilst at home looking after their infant son, I noticed a Canadian Bahá’í Journal on their living room sofa. Suddenly, I came across a quote from the Writings of the Báb, the Herald of the Bahá’í Revelation. It began, “I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things”. I looked through my Dream Journal to doublecheck the dreams I’d received in the mountains from the Majestic and Beauteous Personage.

I was speechless…

Several months later, I heard from the White Rock Local Spiritual Assembly (LSA) that a well-known Bahá’í from further north was grounded in Vancouver for just one night, because his plane had unexpectedly broken down. There was an open invitation to visit with him. I was the only person free to go. During our conversation, he told me that there was a group of Bahá’ís presently travelling across Alaska teaching the Faith, and helping to consolidate newly formed communities. He asked me if I would like to participate in the project. I immediately said ‘Yes’, and in a few days, a member of the Bahá’í National Assembly came to drive me all the way up there. Knowing I was a new Bahá’í, he gave me a book by Howard Colby Ives, called ‘Portals to Freedom’, and also taught me so much more about the history of the Faith, including the evolution of its principles and laws manifested within its growing Administrative Order. When we arrived, I met many more Bahá’ís from a great variety of different backgrounds and places, and together on our travels, we attracted a good number of souls into the Faith, and helped them initiate active communities.

After a bounteous few weeks, I left for home via Ketchikan, and then to Prince Rupert, where I had been invited to stay overnight with a wonderful Bahá’í couple called Fletcher and Eleanor, and their family. The house was high above the ocean, and I noticed it was number 909. I was born on the ninth day of the ninth month, and I had always been aware that the number 9 had kept recurring throughout my life in significant ways!

That same evening, they happened to be hosting their last Local Spiritual Assembly (LSA) meeting because one person from the nine members was to be moving away. I waited upstairs, reading. And then Fletcher knocked on the door, saying the Assembly would like to meet with me downstairs. At that moment, I had just finished looking at a framed quotation of Goethe on the bedroom wall.

It said: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

The shining faces from the nine Bahá’ís there greeted me warmly. They asked if I might be able to stay in the town, so that the Assembly could remain intact, and able to keep functioning. I joyfully accepted straight away. My friends at home in White Rock were really pleased, and said they would keep my few possessions safely until I was ready to return.

Eleanor and Fletch offered me a room in their attic, up a ladder, and I lived there for the next incredible nine months. I found two jobs, one working in a shoe shop, and the other, washing dishes in a restaurant, and met many people eager to hear about the Bahá’í Revelation. I also travelled to the outlying Queen Charlotte islands during my spare time praying to be guided to people who were ready to hear about Bahá’u’lláh. In my lunch breaks at work, I began receiving a story that turned into a book called “The Rainbow Rings of Time”. It was about a soul, envisioned as a tiny rose-seed, who journeys through nine cycles of time until she finally, in the last chapter, reunites with the true meaning and purpose of her life, and becomes a beautiful rose flower.

I remember our Assembly meetings being full of laughter, and openness of views, and together we created a diversity of ideas that were put into action. The house was often full of enquirers, and sometimes we would have picnics and Feasts [1] down by the river. Many people were attracted and some became Bahá’ís. At work, I used to wash the dishes as fast as possible, so that I could spend time in between making friends with people who came to the restaurant. Neil Young’s song, “Searching for a Heart of Gold” was often played on the juke box!

Also, Fletcher had a seaplane parked down on the beach, and, with room for three people, we went on teaching expeditions mostly over the border to Alaska. One morning, we climbed aboard, each carrying books by Bahá’u’lláh, wrapped in gold covers, and flew up and away towards the mountains. We recited prayers, and asked for guidance as to where to land. After a while, we looked down to see a small cove with a few native Indians standing on the shore. So we touched down. And forthwith, the whole family tribe came running out to welcome us! The Chief said that they had received a shared dream the night before, saying that a message from God would arrive at noon the next day on a yellow bird. The seaplane was yellow, and it was exactly noon!

In the Chief’s house, we shared wonderful conversation and delicious natural food. They all became Bahá’ís!

In the evening, we had word that there was a storm brewing. We had to make a rapid decision as to whether to stay overnight, or leave right away. We left, hoping we could just about beat it, but we were caught! By then, we could see nothing at all out of the windows of the plane, but knew we were somewhere in the middle of the high mountain peaks. At that point, Fletcher let go of the steering controls and surrendered, saying we were now in the hands of God! I was completely unafraid and thinking how incredible it would be to die out here after such an exciting teaching mission! Amazingly, we made it back to Prince Rupert, and Eleanor, who had heard news of the bad storm, came running down to meet us, in great relief that we were all alive!

Back in the attic, in the midst of all these exciting times, I became increasingly aware that there were now more than enough Bahá’ís to carry the movement forward, and I felt I would soon have to heed Shoghi Effendi’s [2] behest to pioneer onwards to a place where there were only a few believers, to help build a new community. I gradually prepared to wrench myself away, and take action, as I was freer than anyone else to do so. On the last day, I packed up and boarded the boat for the long journey down the West coast, and back to White Rock to make plans. When I came out on deck, all my friends were on the harbourside waving to me, each holding a red rose! I left with many happy memories of extraordinary experiences, forever saved in my heart…

After consulting with the Assembly back in White Rock, we decided I would move to Vernon in British Columbia. There, I luckily found a job in educational psychology, and a room to rent in a meditation centre. And there I also completed the last chapters of “The Rainbow Rings of Time”.

Almost straight away, I met an American Bahá’í who was an exceptionally talented musician. We both played in the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. In July 1973, we decided to have a wedding whilst we were at a Bahá’í Summer School, held on nearby Silver Star mountain. In the middle of the week at dawn, everyone there climbed up to the top with us and we arrived at sunrise. There, around a small patch of lingering snow we said prayers together and sang songs, and came back down to the School to have breakfast, after which we entertained everyone by playing some duets for violin and piano.

At the end of the week, we returned to make our home in his lovely caravan near Lake Kalamalka (lake of many colours). Within days, I had a powerful dream of Bahá’u’lláh, the only one ever. He was sitting on a simple wooden dais, and spoke to me for a while. Then finally He said, “It is now time for you to bear a child. I, Myself, will cradle him in the love and knowledge of God.” A son was born to us in April, and we called him Caeli.

Before too long, we pioneered to Grand Forks, a largely Doukhobor town, where there were no Bahá’ís. Whilst taking Caeli with me around town in a baby carrier, I had interesting spiritual conversations, and quite alot of borscht!

When Caeli was 12 months, his dad was at last allowed back into America after the general amnesty for all draft-dodgers of the Vietnam war, and we went to stay with his family in Colorado. And from there, as I had become quite nostalgic for England and wanted Caeli to be brought up there, we flew back to the U.K.

Sadly, but with an enduring friendship, when Caeli was six, his dad wanted to return to his own homeland in America.

Caeli and I went to the Isle of Wight, where he completed his primary school education, and then, by a series of astonishing coincidences, we were guided to Clifton in Bristol to a top flat a few doors away from Wellesley Tudor Pole’s house, where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh, had stayed twice, in 1911 and 1913. We were the first Bahá’ís to live right there, in Royal York Crescent!

Caeli went to America when he was just 17, and lived in a number of different Bahá’í communities for 20 years. And for myself, I have experienced so many more adventures sharing the teachings of the Faith, including going to Iceland, Ireland, and the Yukon.

At the present time, amazingly, after more than 25 years, Caeli and I both live very near each other in Somerset. He is a creative musician, and I continue to write, study with the University of the Third Age (U3A) – which my father had helped to initiate – and share the Bahá’í Revelation with many others. I also help people with their psychological and spiritual needs, having gained more qualifications in a variety of therapeutic disciplines, and play the violin in Symphony Orchestras.

So…..since I became a Bahá’í in Canada, nearing 50 years ago now, my life has been blessed both with manifold, inevitable, worldly tests, and with wonderfully evanescent highlights, which have embraced such a plenitude of unusual and deeply enriching experiences whilst being part of this wondrous, unifying and expanding Faith that is laying the strong foundations for a new spiritual civilisation in every country of the world.

Recently, “The Rainbow Rings of Time” has finally been published, and also a book called “Wine and Fire”, comprising all the poetry I have written in my life since I was nine years old.

I am still learning and growing, and watching for those incredible portals to freedom that gradually open our souls to the gifts of eternity.

_____________________________

Suzie Townley

Somerset, November 2018

[1] Feast – a gathering of Bahá’ís every 19 days. The Bahá’í calendar has 19 months in the year, each lasting 19 days, with intercalary days for service, gift-giving and hospitality, just before the last month of the year. Baha’i New Year is celebrated on March 21st, the first day of Spring.

[2] Shoghi Effendi – eldest grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Guardian of the Baha’í Faith from 1921 to 1957.