Dear Guru
Okay, there's something you can enlighten me as to ... how does a man balance atop a pole for eight hours while still managing to think clearly? Nothing for nothing there, Mr. Freelance, but it's got to be pretty uncomfortable sitting up there in that position for that long? How does one achieve enlightenment without becoming impaled?
Inquiring minds wanna know!
Linda
I haven't actually 'balanced' for some time now. You may feel I’ve been lying to you, but that’s not true. Gurus never lie, they're annoyingly honest. We tell the whole truth to everyone. We can’t help it. Cheating husbands learn to stop their wives walking past us just incase.
There was a time when, a new naive guru, I did try to balance. I made it is as easy as possible. Many Gurus balance on flagpoles; I decided to balance on a telegraph pole instead.
But installing a telegraph pole in my back garden was no easy matter what with planning permission and architectural blueprints, not to mention the interior decorator. It took two cranes to hammer the pole into the ground, and by the time it was complete the neighbours had reported me as a public disturbance, although they claimed the noise had nothing to do with it.
When the pole was finally erected, which took 5 weeks for some reason, I grabbed Luke, my snake, and climbed its heights. Believing balancing to be an aid to meditation, I took a deep breath, enjoying the purer air, and raised my leg into the stance of the flying crane. I later learned this stance should only be attempted by professionals after years of training. And even then it should never be performed up a pole on a Blustery day.
Well no-one needs to tell me twice and, after 3 or 4 more attempts and several hospital stays, I installed a platform at the pole’s top, a job that required 4 men, 9 days and 54 unionised tea breaks.
I climbed onto my safer platform and stepped into my Tai Chi Kata. From the fighting monkey stance, I leaned forward into a punch slipping over on some bird mess on the way. It was probably the most dramatic Tai Chi Kata ever performed.
My wife asked me to stop balancing after that; it was ruining her lawn.
And so nowadays I sit. The pole, I’ve discovered, is the important thing. What you do at the top of it can be left between a Guru and his Snake.
Hope this helps
