I was born in the heart of Glasgow, Scotland in 1959 into an emotionally and culturally deprived home from which I planned my escape aged 8 and eventually made my escape aged 17. Not into the large, plush apartment of my imagination, not the one with the white leather sofa on which I reclined taking calls on my white telephone from my many friends while I lazily brushed my unclad feet through the deep luxuriant pile of my white carpet. (Too much T.V.) No, but I did manage to land myself a rather nice bedsit. A long room with a tiny kitchen in a huge old house in the West end of the city. Devonshire Terrace if you're interested, number 5.
The kitchen was a mystery to me as my Mother had provided only the minimum nutrition necessary for survival and had rebuffed my attempts to learn even that. So I lived on biscuits, of which I could afford rather a lot as I had also managed to land myself a rather well paid job at a tourist information centre. I was paid especially well as being only 17 I was, at that time, exempt from tax. So I took home a bulging paypacket each month much to the chagrin of some of my colleagues who were all a lot more heavily taxed and a lot more competent than me. Nevertheless, I made some friends at work and enjoyed their company and the freedom that comes with having more money than you really need.
One night I had a visitor, a friend from school. We had a nice evening, She stayed till quite late, so when it was time for her to leave, it was not only dark, but cold and rainy too. She was a bit spooked, but it was the kind of night I loved, so I said I'd go part of the way with her. We travelled by bus into town and I waited with her till her second bus came, then I caught a third bus and went back home. It wasn't until I reached the door that I discovered I'd forgotten my keys and was locked out.
Meandering round the hallway wondering what to do I met a couple who occupied one of the large rooms downstairs. I recognised the woman. I'd seen her when I came to enquire about the room. I remember thinking she looked interesting and wondering if I'd get to know her.
On learning of my predicament they offered to help, so we went upstairs to see if there was any way my door might be prised open, but it was shut tight. The man offered to smash it open anyway, he seemed very keen, but as I didn't fancy sleeping in a room with a smashed in door I said I preferred not, so they offered to put me up overnight and said they'd take me down to the landlady in the morning to get a spare key.
Their room was large and part of it had been sectioned off as a studio for the man who was an artist They gave me a cup of tea and asked me about myself. I wasn't used to people being interested in me and it was quite nice. I like them, specially the man. I felt very at ease with him and he also felt very familiar to me.
The plan was for me to sleep on the floor in the mans studio. When it came time for bed the woman came in to make up a makeshift bed from the cushions on the chairs, and some spare blankets and coats. She showed me a small painting and said her husband had painted it. I looked at it, but I had no etiquette with which to handle the situation, so I just said "I don't really know anything about painting". As I fell asleep my words returned to me "I don't really know anything about painting", Along with a restless feeling , and a strange disquiet.
It wasn't until years later that I realised something special had happened that night.
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As I came to know Farlan and Sofia over the months a different kind of world began to open up for me. Their responses to things were never what I expected and far from what I was used to. One day I blew the best part of a months wages on a gift for a friend. It was an impulsive act and afterwards I became worried that I'd get into trouble for being stupid. But when I anxiously told Farlan and Sofia what I'd done they just laughed indulgently and said "Well, that's what moneys for isn't it - making people happy." I'd been criticised relentlessly as a child by my Mother and sister, and other relatives too, so Farlan and Sofias responses to things were a great relief to my mind and spirit. They laughed at things I did where others had been angry, they were kind where others had been cruel and they approved where others had disapproved. Not unnaturally I blossomed.
We got to know each other well and became close, but there was one mystery about Farlan and Sofia that I couldn't fathom. If I ever called in to visit on a Monday or Thursday evening they were never home. And sometimes if I was already there other people came and they all went off somewhere together. I puzzled over it and eventually I asked, "Where do you go every Monday and Thursday evening?"
"We go to the latihan", came the reply,
"Oh, what's that?" I asked.
"That's the spiritual practice of the spiritual organisation we belong to",
"What's that?"
"Subud"
Well if I knew nothing about painting I knew even less about spiritual matter, so I just said "Oh," but I took to occasionally walking with Farlan and Sofia to the Latihan hall as it was a nice walk, and I met and sometimes had a cup of tea with some of the other members. I didn't ask much about the Latihan, although I knew I wanted it, something prevented me from asking to join there and then.
One time I got the idea that maybe I was seeing too much of Farlan and Sofia and that they'd like a bit of peace, so I decided to stay away for a while. After two weeks they came to see me curious to know where I was. When I told them my theory they were quite put out. It seemed they liked seeing me as much as I liked seeing them. So after that I happily visited whenever I wanted.
Around that time I began having a lot of very revealing dreams about my early life and my family. I discovered that Sofia, a fellow piscean, also liked to discuss and share her dreams, so we used to regularly meet in the mornings and share our dreams over a cup of tea. (I'd given up my job by then). I wasn't much good at interpreting dreams but fortunately I didn't have to be as my dreams were, on the whole, very literal. Farlan and Sofia where highly amused when I came down one day complaining that I'd had a weird dream without a plot. Sofia was good at interpreting the puns and the metaphors. Farlan did not share our passion for the minutiae of dreamtime though he had some great dreams himself.
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Time passes and things change. I'd turned 18 in February, Sofia was expecting a baby and she and Farlan were looking for a bigger place to live. It was summer and I was feeling brave. Time to leave Scotland and see what the rest of the world had to offer. So I packed my bags and headed South to England, via Wales.
After a while I ended up in Oxford, and decided to stay put for a while. I got a job in a bookstore and a place to stay, and as soon as I was settled I located the local Subud group and asked to join.
I was opened and began the spiritual practice of Subud two weeks before my 19th birthday in February 1978.
The Subud group were mostly friendly and treated me nicely. I was invited to peoples homes for dinner quite often, or to go to the theatre or the cinema with some of the other younger members. There were, however, two responses I got that seemed out of place. One was from the lady helper I'd first approached with my request to join Subud. (A helper is a person whose job is to explain about Subud to applicants and to arrange the opening of new members. Anyone who has been in Subud for about 7 years can perform this function. Ladies will usually explain to ladies, and men to men). The lady helper who'd arranged my opening behaved towards me with something I could only describe as slight deference, and I had an entirely opposite response from a married couple in the group who appeared to regard me with something like hatred. I was puzzled, but equally not that interested in either.
Farlan and Sofia came to visit once. They had lost their baby daughter at birth, and with that their desire to settle, so they were on the road again. Wild and penniless. They stayed with me one night. They had my bed and I slept on the floor. In the night Farlan woke and glanced over to where I was sleeping and saw a beautiful fawn step out of my body and go over to look at him. It was a very timid and sensitive creature and he knew he must keep very still as it would be easily startled. That was the origin of my sometimes nick name "Fawn". I had another nick name too "Siti Ferocity". I'll tell you how I got that one later.
It was lovely seeing Farlan and Sofia again. If I'd had a bigger place they could have stayed with me indefinitely, but with just one small bedsit it wasn't really feasible, so I asked the lady helper in the Oxford Subud group if she could put them up for a while. She agreed and as she had a lovely big house in the country I imagined things going well for all. My two favourite people in the world staying with someone who had shown me nothing but kindness...what could go wrong? Nothing I thought. But I was wrong. Farlan and Sofia were not treated to the same degree of consideration and kindness that I had been shown. In fact the mix proved extremely explosive and came to a head after the lady had been to a regional Subud gathering. What notion she'd gotten into her head I don't know, but she returned with a determination to separate Farlan and Sofia and unleashed her fury on an unsuspecting Farlan in the kitchen. Sofia heard the hissing and came through to find out what was going on. As soon as she understood the situation she said to Farlan "We're leaving" and with that they packed their backs and left immediately. I saw them once more and then they were off into the wild blue yonder.
In fact for all that people were nice to me I had no strong feeling of connection to any of the people there and after a few months I decided to move on too.
My Latihan experience was becoming stronger and I wanted to go somewhere there was a Subud group. I knew Cardiff had a group and I also had an address for Sofias sister Monica and her Turkish husband Mustafa, and I'd been told they let people doss with them. That was enough. So I packed my bags, upped sticks and headed for Wales. Shortly before leaving a visiting member to the Oxford Group told me that Farlan and Sofia were staying in her bedsit in Cardiff, and she gave me the address.
I arrived around 11p.m. on a dark and rainy night in Cardiff. I found Farlan and Sofia and spent the first night dossing on the floor of the room they were dossing in.
The next day I was introduced to Sofias sister Monica and her two little daughters Liliana who was two, and Sera who was just one. Later on I met Mustafa the Turk. Monica was strange, Liliana and Sera were adorable.
My time in Cardiff was notable mainly for my Latihan experience and my friendship with Monica and her daughters.
In the Latihan things were hotting up. My Latihan had become wild and very noisy. Hairaising to those outside, so I was told. But I never felt disturbed by anything that happened in my Latihan. Unfortunately the Lady helper of the Cardiff group did not feel the same way. In fact her response was not very helpful at all. She did not as she should have done explain what was happening to me, which was that I had entered a period of heavy purification. This is part of the function of the Latihan that enables you to clear out the inner spiritual faults that can bring chaos to your outer life. And just like any clear out, a messy room, or a messy pond for example, a certain amount of disruption and sometimes noise is inevitable But instead of explaining this to me, as was her duty as a helper, she told me that what I was doing was wrong and forbade me to do it.
Despite the difficulties caused by the helpers response I was pleased to be having such a powerful Latihan experience. I was beginning to realise that all was not as it should be within me and was starting to find aspects of life extremely difficult. But I wasn't too worried as I knew that so long as I carried on with the Latihan I had the chance to put everything right and get through.
I was getting deeper into life and finding the water extremely choppy. But I wasn't the only one experiencing difficulties. Monica and particularly her little girls were finding the going rough. Mustafa was drinking and misbehaving and Monica wasn't coping very well. I was only dimly aware of this. I heard people talking, Farlan and Sofia tried to help find solutions, tried to get Monica and Mustafa back to the Latihan, because Mustafa couldn't drink when he was doing regular Latihans. The emotional atmosphere I'd been raised in was so toxic that I'd become inured to it and anything else tended to look rather paradisiacal to me. Shut off as I was to my own emotional state meant that I wasn't fully aware of the difficulties facing Monica and her family, but I thought the world of them and was very open in my feelings towards them so was able to contribute something positive into the situation, specially for Liliana and Sera who I adored.
I continued to see quite a lot of Farlan and Sofia. They had dealt with the loss of their baby with great nobility. Perhaps this was the reason why they never received much in the way of sympathy or kindness from the people who knew them. Sofia was doing a lot of painting at this time, but Farlan had given up painting and was waiting for a new movement and a new direction. He had an inkling as to what that would be but he wasn't quite there yet, as a result he was restless and finding things a bit difficult.
After a while I developed a notion that I'd like to live in London and began preparations for another move. I plumbed some old contacts and found a woman who was prepared to put me up while I looked for a place of my own, so off I went.
London was nice, but cold. It was winter. I enjoyed the wintry journey to work, tube from Balham to the Oval then the bus to Camberwell. After a few weeks I realised I'd stop feeling cold if I got a warmer coat, so I got one, and London hotted up.
I don't know if it was London, or winter but it was around this time that I started to become aware of a great feeling of loneliness and isolation. Now the genuinely lonely may have cause for complaint here, and they'd be right. I had a place to stay, and while the Lady of the house made it clear I was not her favourite person in the world, we got on ok and the arrangement was only temporary. Besides, I'd quickly made friends at work and could always wangle an invitation if I wanted a night out. So it wasn't for want of ordinary company that I was feeling the pinch, it went much deeper that .
By Christmas I'd found a place of my own and moved in. I had work during the day, and in the evening I often went visiting or had people visit me. One of my favourite pastimes was to go to Brixton Market on Saturday afternoons, mostly just as an onlooker. I don't remember that I bought very much, except a little bottle of Amber perfume once that I loved and could never get again, and some sage green material that I made into a skirt. But for the most part I just looked at things and felt the distance between them and me. I had a great curiosity about these big green banana type things that all the market traders sold, but for some reason could not bring myself to ask what they were. I found out years later, they were plantain, but I still haven't tasted them.
I carried on with the Latihan and went to the Central London group. I was thoroughly ignored by everyone except one lady helper who offered to do extra Latihan with me to help with my exuberant Latihans. After my negative experience with the helper in Cardiff I was suspicious of any interference with my latihan and said "No thanks". However the loss was mine, as she was offering me genuine help that I could have benefited from. So I continued to Latihan anonymously with the group and to enjoy the bus ride there, past Westminster and Buckingham Palace.
In Spring I got the chance to go to America. A bad move. My dreams were screaming at me "Don't Go!" They spelt it out as plainly as a dream can get. But for once I took no notice. I severed my ties, such as they were with London and set off for the USA. Did I say it was a bad move? Well it was. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Two months later I managed to get it together to go home. The night before I left I dreamt that my BA flight was changed to a transworld Airlines flight which crashed into the sea. So it happened that when I got to the airport my BA flight was changed to a TWA flight. I got on anyway. Death was preferable to the horrible feelings that were threatening to overwhelm me. But the crash turned out to be an emotional one, and it was one that wasn't any use to me at all, and that I needn't have had if I'd only listened to my dreams.
Having given up my London flat I decided to go back to Glasgow for a while. I tried to stay with my Mother, but she refused to let me.
My Father was in hospital at the time, a psychiatric hospital having got there via Barlinnie Prison. It's a long story, and starts a long time ago... far far away from Glasgow, the Gorbals and Barlinnie Prison. It all began in the Highlands of Scotland. For my Dads people were Highlanders, the lovely wildmen of the North. Clansmen, before the Highland Clearances took place and the Clansmen were no more.
A lot of people don't know anything about the Highland Clearances. A lot of Scots don't know anything about the Highland Clearances. I used to be one of them. There are Highland Clearance deniers abroad, just as there are Holocaust deniers and there are those who say that it was a mere matter of economic necessity, and that the destruction of a people and a culture was a fair price to pay for economic progress. But there was no economic progress for the Highlanders as many of them were forced to leave their homeland. The ones who stayed behind were cruelly evicted from their homes to make way for the new breed of sheep that were proving so profitable for the new breed of landowner that had replaced the Clan Chiefs. Laws were passed forbidding the Highlanders to speak their own language, or wear their traditional dress, the tartans that had distinguished one Clan from another. With their land, their homes, their livelihood and their culture gone, they were driven onto the barren coastline and a way af life that was harsh and unfamiliar, where they had no rights and no laws to protect them.
It was to escape this situation that my Great Grandfather left his home in the Highlands sometime in the 1860's and came to Glasgow where he found work as a Mason. Just because he had left a poor situation behind did not mean that he was free. The devestation brought about by the greed and hatred of the Highland Clearances was in his soul and continued to be passed down through the generations.
This ancestral burden weighed particularly heavy on my Father, whose own life shadowed that of his Highland forebears. The world held no place for him and offered him no comfort. He walked a lonely road where he was misunderstood and reviled by people who were a lot less than he was. And of course such a state led him to a marriage with my Mother. A one woman Highland Clearance. A woman who knew nothing of love but knew only how to hate and lay waste to any that were unfortunate enough to come under her care.
Not long after my birth in 1959 my Fathers life began to close down around him as the negative feelings within took hold and he withdrew almost completely from life. He received no kindness, no understanding no support from any quarter. My Mother and relatives of my Mother held him in contempt and tried to encourage me to do the same.
My Father began to break out of this phenomenally restrictive state around the time I turned 16. Of course you cannot transform a state of that magnitude quietly, and my Fathers transformation was not quiet. Think Karakatoa in human form. It was scary, painful to watch, but also magnificent and heroic as he set about freeing himself from his crippling situation.
I won't tell you everything that my Father got up to during this time. Lets just say you had to rewrite the rule book. But anyone with a little compassion or a little insight would have understood, and at the very least stood back while Karakatoa blew. But not my Mother and Sister. They took the opportunity to have him arrested and sent to Prison in an attempt to halt the process. But he breezed it. He was free and no prison or mental hospital could change it.
He spent the last few years of his life in the psychiatric hospital. He didn't need to, but I think he preferred it to staying with my Mother.
The year that I returned to Glasgow was the last year of his life. He came home from the hospital every weekend and we spent those weekends together. The extreme nature of My Fathers difficulties meant that his feelings had been locked away from everyone while I was growing up and that included me. So while we'd always had a link we never had a proper Father Daughter relationship. But now everything was different. He was blown wide open and I delighted in his company. He had nobility, dignity, magnificence and great cheek. We explored Glasgow together, and I loved meeting people I knew and introducing them to my Dad. I was very proud of him. I took him to the theatre that I enjoyed and he took me to the pub that he enjoyed. He was embarassed that I only drank coca cola and urged me to have an alcoholic beverage. A whisky or at least a beer.
I continued to do my Latihan with the group in Glasgow. It was quite a small group, only a handful of people. One of the men, a very nice man called Leonard had experienced an extreme state of spiritual crisis, and ended up in hospital beside my Dad. They'd met and exchanged data on me. I'd taken a new Subud name, but my Dad, although he'd use it, still thought of me by my birth name. So initially there was some confusion till they sorted out that there was just one of me.
It never occured to me to get my Dad opened officially. I don't even know if he'd have gone for the idea, but official or not. it was crystal clear that just as I had received the contact from Farlan and Sofia the first night I met them, my Father had received it from Leonard. This was a great comfort to me when in November of that year my Father, John Munro, passed away. He was just 55.
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Go to Part 2
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