Experiencing the Life of Servitude - Inner Gardening Series

I share another story within the Inner Gardening Series. This focuses on being in a service work situation, experiencing differing aspects throughout the evening, and traveling within to another time. It is in this journeying where I gained a broader realization and understanding of the true power of transcendance and how it frees and honors who we are in spite of our circumstances.

Tonight was a special catering job that occurred at the home of a radiologist doctor and his wife.  It was held in a pretty upscale neighborhood, a last-minute party thrown together for a golf tournament at a local exclusive country club.  The attendees were people from many differing perspectives on life.

The evening unfolded with serving platters of hot appetizers for a crowd which kept growing larger throughout the evening.  Several dishes were also placed on the dining room table.  The house was large and made of stone.  The rooms had high ceilings and stone floors with large windows, the kind that you would see in an old European villa.

Many times while walking through the crowd to serve the food, I would hear the conversations.  Most of the time the men were boasting of the golfing that occurred throughout the week and/or season.  Several were trying to play the game of egoic one upmanship.  The women talked about decorating or who was making changes to their homes, their own unique games of ego amidst the tanned bodies while refusing to eat any food in public.

Some people were very down-to-earth and polite, while a note of arrogance mixed with rudeness hung over the air.  While moving through the crowd to serve the appetizers, there were several individuals, especially the women, who were visibly annoyed when asked if they wanted an appetizer.  In some cases, the rudeness was so obvious that they continued to stand in the doorway of the room; and each time we entered from the kitchen to serve, we had to say excuse me in order for them to move.  Very slowly and with a look of annoyance, they would move.

Throughout the evening, I overheard a few ethnic comments, such as "it must be a Jewish thing".  I realized that when I looked around, I saw only white middle and upper class people.  There were no Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, etc.  More than likely the country club was equally as "white".

Throughout the evening, I began to step back in time; my consciousness shifted to a place when I was a woman of color who worked at these kinds of social events.  I felt the levels of invisibility as well as an awareness that many of these people looked through me as if I mattered very little to them.  I was a servant! They didn’t see me as part of their humanity!

After cleaning up, I was driven to the caterer’s studio to retrieve my car. As I drove home, an overwhelming sadness was triggered somewhere deep inside me.  It was difficult to see through my tears, especially while driving at night.  I experienced weeping and a grieving for all those women who endured what appeared to be inferior treatment.  I say appeared to be, because in that moment in my car, I was seeing it for what it was through my filter of transcendent consciousness. 

I know that I AM one with the Creator (Source).  No matter how someone views me, it has nothing to do with who I truly am.  I honored what a special and loving being I am and the gifts that I bring into the world.  I wondered how many women and men throughout time endured a level of dehumanization on the physical plane all the while truly knowing and appreciating who they were on the spiritual plane.  I knew that many had gone before me.  In this moment I was given a tremendous gift to travel and transcend time and come full circle into the present moment. 

Experiencing fully the I AM and knowing that somewhere in my past, somewhere in my DNA, somewhere in another dimension, I had known servitude in this way.  The beauty is that I also know the Divine Being that I AM and in the same set of circumstances, could be in the moment, bringing all the Divine Light and Love in my sacred expression of Oneness.  There was no one or anything that could interrupt or take away the essence of who I truly am.

In that moment of realizing how I experienced this evening, I also knew that in some other time and space, there have been others, who always knew that special spark deep within their own Essence.  They held this sacred as their "Home" whenever they were in what appeared to be moments of degrading servitude.

They truly received the gift of those that felt sorry or looked down upon them.  This, my friends, is the separation of the worlds that is occurring in this special time on this planet.  I and the Creator (Source) are One regardless of the filter of separation someone uses among the collective on the physical plane – be it race, gender, religion, social class, ethnicity, etc.  Those who live and breathe this truth know that no matter where they travel, they are always at "Home"!

Blessings...Susan 

© Gardner, July, 2002