14. Crumbs on Your Table and Crumbs in Your Life

This talk will help you realize where you may still be leaving crumbs on your table and crumbs in your life with unfinished relationships and unfinished Gestalts. “Crumbs on your table and crumbs in your life” reminds us to stay alert and handle our lessons as they come. Many students have called this lecture a gem and consider it Ruthann’s most valuable message. The impetus for this talk happened during a four week mystery school retreat I directed in Belgium in a beautiful natural setting. Everyone was taught to see perfection and create perfection in each job they were assigned. Yet every morning at breakfast I found myself cleaning up after the participants. There were watermelon seeds, peach pits and banana smearings in the kitchen and all the tables. After the third morning, I began to hear the catchy jingle: “Crumbs on Your Table and Crumbs in Your Life”. I recognized the pattern of dirty tables fit with the pattern of dirty karmic lessons individuals in the group had begun to recognize they had been avoiding for decades. I presented the jingle with a short talk. The humor of the title and the message began to help students recognize that denial didn’t really prevent their lessons, it just prolonged them for decades. People took responsibility for their life lessons, and the tables remained clean for the remainder of the program.