The road to Biddydom and all of the swell stuff that goes with it has led me down the path to guided meditation. I take a few moments each day to listen to a podcast, courtesy of the Meditation Society of Australia. I have been doing this for a couple for months now and, like a hippie version of one of Pavlov's dogs, I instantly "go deep within my soul" on hearing a male Australian accent. A trip to Australia would spell disaster for me as a surfing lesson with a young blond surf dude would surely end in my drowning.

Through these meditation sessions I have trained myself to focus ... no longer does my mind wander to the grocery list, or to my imaginary life on the Yorkshire Dales. Instead, I concentrate on my breath and "breathe in the infinite peace of the spiritual universe".

I was a quick study at this meditation stuff. I thought I had it in the bag. Until I came to class twenty-six, a lesson ironically titled: Listening.

The dulcet tones of my Australian guru floated out of my super-cool burnt orange iPod ... wait that was very un-hippie and superficial of me, let me rephrase that ... the dulcet tones of my Australian guru floated out of my nondescript portable media player and into my ears and I immediately felt a sense of calm. I hung on to his every word as I sunk deeper and deeper into the inner depths of my soul:

"Listening is the foundation of change. Listening keeps us young and flexible - not listening makes us stagnant and unyielding."

I hear ya, mate. Stagnant and unyielding. NO to stagnant and unyielding. Ohm.

"Listening to others is the first doorway to flow of love between you. Listening to oneself is the doorway of infinite flow of love within and between all things."

The love is flowing. Infinitely. I am deep within myself. Ohm.

"For us to truly listen the first thing we must do is make ourselves quiet. Noise is all around and inside us there is a cacophony of worry and doubts and fears ...."

Yes I must make myself quiet ... wait ... did he say cacophony? Wow. That's a word you don't hear everyday. Cacophony. I like it. CaCOPHony. CacophONY. I must look that up later, get the actual definition. I know it means a hubbub of sound but I really like reading dictionary definitions of words. Who writes dictionary definitions anyway? It must be the best job in the world if you are a lover of words. I have a great job too ... being home with the youngsters is very fulfilling. Oh, that reminds me. I better not forget to help the Big Youngster with that French homework tonight. I wonder what cacophony is in French. I'll look that up too. Do we even own a French-English dictionary? I'll just have to look it up on the net. Or I can go to Chapters to get one. Ooooh Starbucks! Skinny Vanilla Latte - Mmmmm.

"Thank you for giving us your time, we know it is precious and we're honoured you've spent it with us. Namaste."

Huh? It's over? Oh dear. I wasn't listening.

I turned off my super-cool burnt orange iPod and contemplated how I had failed at listening during a class called "listening". But was it really my fault? Casually throwing a word like cacophony into the middle of a meditation lesson? What was my Australian man thinking? Cacophony? What's next? Phantasmagorical? Serendipitously? There is no place for words like these in guided meditation - they are far too distracting. How am I supposed to find my pathway to enlightenment when words like that are not flowing out of my iPod but romping out of it, loudly and rudely into my doorway of infinite love???

I took a breath and scrolled up through the list of podcasts. Time to go back to class twenty-two: Anger.