Going up . . . ?

May I ask you a question?

Tell me, is your hair growing more quickly than it did, say, a year ago?

I know that sounds a rather odd question, but I had a strange experience this week. Finding that my hair needed cutting sooner than I had anticipated, I went to my hairdresser for a trim. On making the comment that my hair seemed to be growing more quickly than normal, I was surprised to learn that I was not alone. All her clients, my hairdresser told me, irrespective of their age or state of health, were experiencing the same thing.

Why? She had no idea. As the scissors snipped we pondered on the possibility that it could be something in our food . . . something in the water . . . in the air . . . a side-effect of climate change . . . but we were doing no more than guessing. In truth, we were both completely flummoxed.

Is this phenomenon (beneficial to hairdressers, but expensive for the rest of us) restricted to Londoners? Is it general throughout the UK . . . throughout the world? And is it no more than yet another aspect of the speeding-up

process that we are all experiencing in every aspect of life?

Although it would seem contrary to logic, time does appear to be speeding up. How can this be when it should be the most constant and steadfast of our guiding forces? A process governed by the spinning of our planet and its rotation around the sun. Nonetheless, scientists agree that time has elasticity, and haven't we have all experienced some moments that seem to last for ever, whilst other hours have disappeared unnoticed?

If time is speeding up, then so, it appears, is our way of life. Before we have fully grasped their complexity, today's technical marvels will be relegated to tomorrow's scrap-heap. As for today's dramatic headlines, they will be chased away by tomorrow's dramas. What happened to those people who were suffering so badly on yesterday's front pages . . . ? Who knows . . . they've vanished along with the rest of yesterday's news.

Surely there must be a limit to time's apparent acceleration, an acceleration that could take us spinning into free-fall? On the other hand, could this very impetus, this increase in energy, be carrying us in a direction which many, far wiser than me, have named our metamorphosis?

If this increase in tempo in all areas of life is part of a build-up, a build-up to raise the energy frequency of existence . . . if, as many believe, we have reached a point which offers us the potential to make the so-called shift from ego to essence, to emerge from the state of rapacious caterpillars into liberated butterflies . . . then this time of rapid change that we are living through is critical.

The musician and teacher, Mark Romero, expresses it beautifully. The butterfly, he says, struggles painfully in its efforts to break free from its clinging chrysalis. Yet, were an observer to give assistance, the butterfly would die. That very struggle is essential in order to test the butterfly's developing wings and give it the strength to fly.

So, if we are finding it hard to lift our consciousness in the face of all the current challenges. If time, in its rapid acceleration is putting pressure on our lives - not only on our hair. Might it not be worth the stress and the struggle, if, like fledgling butterflies, we are in the process gaining the wisdom and strength that will eventually mean liberation and flight?

There is a story about two caterpillars munching on a leaf. A butterfly flutters past and captures their attention.

"You wouldn't catch me going up in one of those!" one of the caterpillars mutters with conviction.

Little did he know what the future held in store!

A Truly Rural Royal Wedding

Now . . . let me ask you a riddle. What is the link between a Royal wedding and a pregnant pony?

Give up . . . ?

I'll tell you the answer . . . cow parsley!

If that sounds a little unlikely, let me tell you a story.

Two days before the Royal Wedding I was in Central London. With half-an-hour to spare, I decided to walk through Green Park and take a look at the growing preparations.

Large flags were flying proudly in The Mall, excited visitors thronged outside the palace, whilst a positive encampment of international media had claimed squatting rights in the park.

But what brought me up short, and held me entranced, was something far less predictable.

I looked down in amazement. Had I been transported to a rural idyll . . . to a wildflower meadow?

Improbable as it sounds, the wide, grassy area that runs behind the pathway flanking The Mall was carpeted knee-deep in cow parsley!

Cow parsley . . . ? In Central London . . . ? Along the route of the Royal Wedding . . . ?

It was wonderfully incongruous, and quite ethereally beautiful.

With cow parsley in The Mall and an avenue of maple trees in the Abbey . . . this, it seemed, was going to be a truly rural Royal Wedding!

The sea of white blossom transported me back to a time when I lived in Somerset.

It was late spring and my pony, Jennie, was about to give birth to her first foal. During the latter stages of her pregnancy, she surprised us all by developing an enthusiasm for something that had never interested her before . . . Jennie had a pregnant passion for cow parsley.

In April the Somerset hedgerows are lush with cow parsley. Each day I would gather armfuls of frothy white blossom and take them to my demanding pony . . . who obligingly produced a beautiful foal to reward me for my efforts.

Yes, I know. It's a strange combination of images . . . a pregnant pony and a Royal Wedding.

It would have little to say to the majority of happy onlookers who lined the route, attended street parties or were captured by the events unfolding on the television screen. It would, in all probability, mean little to the bridal couple.

But, who knows, it might have a certain quixotic appeal to the horse-loving, country-loving Royal Grandmother!