An Unlikely Guru Meeting (The Story of the Turtle of Love)

When I was younger, I went through a phase of lucid dreaming. It was very intense and it would sometimes take me days to process what I had experienced in the realms I visited. The really strange thing was that these experiences made the world I woke up to feel more dream-like than where I had been while I 'slept'.

One dream in particular affected me very deeply. I was in a room below-deck on a boat and there was a lively, attractive party going on. I wanted to be involved and move towards the other people there, but something was pulling me strongly to one of the portholes that looked straight out into the depths of the ocean.

Being in a ‘lucid’ state, I remember making the decision to turn away from the party and to walk over to the porthole. As I neared it, I saw what had been drawing me: it was a turtle.

I peered into the porthole and looked straight into the turtle’s eye. And, oh my goodness, the expansiveness, the oneness, the beauty, the depth, the truth that was transmitted to me by that turtle’s steady gaze. I was provided with the full picture. I had access to every piece of spiritual awareness and it all boiled down to one thing: LOVE. It was the most real, satisfying, nurturing, joyful, beautiful state I had ever experienced and it was ‘downloaded’ into my awareness by that turtle. And it was much more real and tangible than anything I had experienced in the ‘waking’ world.

Things did not magically become easy and straightforward for me from then on. I went through – and continue to go through - all the usual ups, downs, ins, outs of life’s bumpy path but, the further along this path I go, the stronger my connection becomes to That Place. And the more I realise that this place is the container within which everything unfolds - all the difficulties, positive experiences, joys and painful stuff, the more I see that this is why I chose to see what the turtle showed me. Not because I am meant to achieve some kind of permanently 'enlightened' state, but because I am meant to know that this container exists.

This is why I so love to read accounts by others who try to describe this state in accounts of near-death-experiences and time spent at the feet of gurus. I totally understand their frustration at having to use words to describe this blissful state. And I feel so grateful they have tried because I feel their intention and I know the place they are talking about. And with every affirmation of what I perceived via the turtle, another, stronger layer of plaster is added to the walls of the container. 

And I am sharing the dream here because, when I ask what my purpose is for my writing, my teaching, my sharing, it is to transmit the message of the Turtle of Love. (That sounds quite hilarious to one part of me when I read it back, but it is true so I am going to write it !) It is to realise my own true nature and share my journey as an invitation to others to remember this too. I say ‘remember’ with emphasis here. We are not learning from each other, we are reminding each other. This place is who you are, so there is no way you will not feel it if you try.

So, you see, this is what is behind all my words, pictures and stories. This is my intention. I hope you receive it and I hope, as you read this, you begin to experience even the tiniest fraction of the sweet, expanded everything-ness of that force of Love, and the compassion this force has for us in our perceived state of separation. And that you can accept where you are, how you feel, whatever you need to go through even more deeply because you understand that Love is the container for it all - Love that never changes or falters or stops being itself.

You are loved deeply, you are never alone and Love, your true nature, is all there is.