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Nothing is by chance
Louise Hopkinson runs an‘Awareness’ group in Cornwall called ‘Mandala’. She does ‘dream interpretation in the local radio and will be opening her home as an Oasis on the 22nd July. Louise will be giving a talk at the Oasis Meeting on Friday the 3rd August at the Oasis Centre in Reading.
NOTHING IS BY CHANCE“Be at Peace and see a clear pattern running through your lives, nothing is by chance.”
Many people, myself included, have repeated these words of Eileen Caddy’s as a way of describing the synchronicity in our lives. As each new part of my spiritual journey is revealed to me, I can only marvel at how very true these words are. I would like to share with you now some of the many‘coincidences’ that have occurred as I walk my spiritual path.
My name is Louise Hopkinson and I live just outside Bude in North Cornwall with my husband and two teenage boys. I run an Awareness group called Mandala, which meets every Monday evening in the kitchen of our farmhouse. However, I would like to start by turning the clock back to 1983 and describe to you what was, at the time, a very traumatic experience, although looking back on it, I now see it as a significant turning point in my life and one, which started me on my Spiritual Journey. I am referring to the ‘passing over’ of my mother who, not having been ill before in her life,was diagnosed as having a brain tumour and given twenty –four hours to live. She actually tried to hold on to life and although it was two months before she finally ‘passed’, it was still such a shock, as I had never had to experience the ‘death’ of a loved one before. As I had not been there at the passing, my father insisted that I spend some time with my mother’s body at the funeral parlour. I really did not want to do this, but it seemed inconsiderate to complain at such an emotional time.I now look back on the experience and feel grateful, for as I looked at the thin, wasted body of my mother, I realised that, as many more had done before me, the real essence of who she was, was no longer there. I was merely looking at a shell and I understood, for the first time, the phrase ‘ The Body is the Temple that houses the Soul”. This realisation helped me through the funeral and following weeks as I actually ‘sensed’ my mother around me. It also inspired me to start‘searching for answers’ and I was soon doing what many have called the ‘sponge’ act where I wanted to read everything that was directly or vaguely concerned with ‘death’ be it near death experience, life after death or reincarnation. I felt there was a truth in most of what I read and I felt that I began to understand a little more about the reason for life.
After a short time though, the pressure of being a mother of a two year old and a baby meant that my focus had to shift from the Spiritual to the physical aspects of life for a while. I can only describe it as putting it on hold; I now know that many people go through this phase for various reasons.
The next major 'coincidence’ came in 1987 in the form of the hurricane, or the ‘Winds of Change’. We lived in Essex at the time, right in the path of damage and destruction. Although we lived in a very built up area there were many beautiful trees in parks and gardens that is until the morning after the night of the hurricane. I cannot describe the feeling of loss when we realised just how many trees had been blown down. At the same time the destruction seemed to confirm the feeling I had been having in recent months that the time had come for a change. After visiting Cornwall for holidays in 1976 and 1977 there was a realisation that this was a place where we really felt ‘at home’ and we made a vow to move there one day. It looked like the day was getting closer. No sooner had we thought this than some friends returned from a holiday in Cornwall loaded up with details of properties. It appeared that there was a considerable difference in house prices and because the South-East was traditionally an expensive area to live because of its proximity to London, it began to look as if it might be possible to buy a place in Cornwall and have a little in reserve to live on for a short while.
I then began to sense the true meaning of the word ‘enthusiasm’ – connecting with the soul. A new adventure was beginning, visiting the area, planning etc. Don’t get me wrong;there was a little bit of fear too as we were taking a leap in trust and faith, as we had no jobs to go to. Several properties came and went in the process of 'being lead' to the right place' but eventually, we moved into Stibb Farmhouse, our present address in 1988. Our final challenge in buying this property had come when the vendors put the price up at the last moment and we reluctantly had to part with the last of our savings. It really was a time to trust that there was a reason for all this.
Things were difficult financially for the first couple of years but then I secured a full time teaching job and things began to ease. Once the emphasis was taken away for the physical aspects of life the Spiritual side then began to emerge again.
One warm sunny evening I decided to take a walk down towards the beach. There are only twenty-four houses in the village and I knew that one had recently changed hands. I was amazed to see that the new owners, who I had never met, had a notice in their window advertising a meeting for people who were interested in forming a Spiritualist Church. To cut a long story short, I went along to the meeting and by the end of the evening I had not only agreed to be a founder member of the Bude Spiritualist Church but also was the treasurer and one of the volunteers to chair the evenings.
For the next couple of years I saw many people have confirmation of what I had always felt, that there was life after death. Weekly development circles were held in our kitchen and I began to sense ‘ energy’ in the form of Spirit Guides. Although this stage of my Spiritual Journey was very necessary, I came to realise that there were many other spiritual aspects I wished to explore and being af full-time teacher in a local comprehensive school, time has always been in short supply. So it became evident to me that I needed to release my connections with the church in order to pursue other Spiritual work. As soon as I had‘let go’ in this way, the idea for ‘Mandala’ came into my head.
The aim of Mandala has always been to make people ‘aware’ of the many different aspects of Mind, Body and Spirit issues. We have been meeting in our kitchen every Monday evening for the last four years. Some evenings we have live speakers, sometimes discussions and meditations. We have studied different spiritual books and recently I have lead many evenings on topics like the Universal Laws, the Ascended Masters and the Chakras. As you can imagine, in four years, we have covered many subjects, i.e. most of the complementary therapies, Numerology, Astrology, different types of healing, visits from Quakers and on another night 27 people to listen to a Buddhist monk.
Nearly three hundred people have visited the group, some attending regularly and others choosing according to the subject matter. Everyone is welcome and it is not necessary to be an expert as we are all here to learn and share together. There has been a need to share knowledge beyond the Monday evening and as a result I have developed many courses, which I now teach at weekends. I have been able to combine my skills as a teacher with spiritual knowledge in order to put things over in a simple way,which everyone can understand.
Initially all my courses were taught at home, but then I began to be asked to take them to other centres and present talks to other ‘Awareness’ groups. One of the courses that I developed is called ‘Spiritual Awareness’ and is a bit of a taster course for people who are just waking up to their Spiritual Journey. After having taught it at ‘Mandala’ a few times, I then felt the need to approach the local Adult Education Centre with a view to them incorporating it into their programme of courses offered. I felt that there might be people out there who were interested but would not be aware of places like Mandala. As I was already a qualified teacher I was delighted to hear that my course was accepted and I have now been teaching it for three years, the numbers rising each year.
This brings my story almost up to the present date, that is, apart from the chapter that has been written about me in a book and the monthly slot I have been given on BBC Radio Devon. Both of these are other wonderful example of synchronicity but I feel I have taken too much of your time at the moment and hopefully I can share these stories with you on another occasion.
So may I end by sending you love and light, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you and hopefully you now see why I say there is no such thing as a coincidence!
LOUISE HOPKINSON
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