Angggeerrrrrr !!!

I came across some words I wrote a few years ago, and it struck a chord as I have been going through a similar state of emotions of late. I am reminded of the cycles that my life and emotions go through. I am reminded that in the similarity of the events my emotions and struggles have a pattern to them. The story feels very similar ... and yet buried within there is a difference also.

Here's how it starts ..."This last week has been another roller-coaster ride. Once again I have been experiencing the ups and downs that life offers, yet each time it is somehow the same and somehow different. I have an opportunity as Satish might say to consider what is triggering my emotional reaction to events happening around me.

When my head feels like it is stuck in a vice that is being gradually tightened and my heart feels heavy with the doors closing shut and all around I sense my withdrawal I know that my emotional trigger is going off and my futile attempt at damage limitation is only serving to manifest my worst fears. Rather than protecting myself and others from my anger and frustration I am instead acting in a way that is not only harmful it disconnects me from those I love.

Instead of having the courage to reveal my vulnerability I withdraw or push people away, thus creating that which I fear - disconnection. Why can't I slow down and listen to what I am feeling in an open and inclusive way and try to seek greater harmony and connectedness? Why am I so afraid of looking foolish, of being judged, of being perceived as being selfish for wanting something different to that which is happening? As I write this it feels like I am being arrogant, like my ego is calling the shots. It's this ego-driven part of me that I dislike in myself and that I project onto others.

Aarrggggghhh !!! I can't deny there are times when conversations become intellectual gymnastics and I feel this monster rise up in me, it's if I am a tiger trapped in a corner by someone cracking a whip. I feel this anger welling up and in the most ridiculous self undermining way I want to come out on top fighting.

Living with uncertainty, stepping towards the unknown and looking into the centre of the abyss and not running or turning away, not judging or separating myself is so hard to do. Holding my hand up to others and admitting I am scared is nearly impossible. 

Scared to tell someone I love them for fear they use it against me, take advantage or ridicule me. 

Scared to tell someone I'm scare for fear they use it to destroy me. 

Scared to show my vulnerabilities because I don't want to face up to the parts of myself that can be harmful or negative to others. 

Scared to be rejected, ignored, unseen."

I have come along way since writing these words. Yes I still get triggered and overwhelmed by life and my emotions. Yes I do get scared, sometimes frustratingly so. Yes my pride can get the better of me. And yet the story is not entirely the same. I recognise the dark clouds more and more. I can accept they are as much a part of life as the rainy days, stormy nights or the sunshine. Life is a complex kaleidoscope not a two dimensional checker board. Not only that the dark clouds foretell a bright new dawn is approaching. That I have lessons to be learnt. It is quite exciting to know that life is an eternal unfolding. A state of constant coming into being, wanting to know itself more and more, with surprises to be received, and jewels to be discovered. Now when the quiver of uncertainty sails close by I still feel the passion and fight in me rise. If I'm truly honest even moments of resistance rear up inside. And yet from within I can also sense my engagement and tussle with the challenge. I  can also feel the exhilaration of transformation and change loom up far over the horizon.

What is to come this time? I do not know. Something will shift in me, around me, through me soon enough. Patience is the watchword in these times. No amount of haste, willingness or enticement on my part will bring the breakthrough any soon than it is due.

All I can say is watch this space. And in the meantime, please forgive my probably intolerable presence.

what would you like to do if money was no object?

Now there is a question that really, doesn't get asked honestly or genuinely very often. I am wondering how many times I have asked myself this question. There is another question I have asked myself quiet often, which is; why am I doing this stupid and seemingly pointless activity that is giving me little to no joy? And on those occasions, when I can, I pluck up the most courage and do my level best to stop doing those stupid, meaningless and vacuous activities. From this I have been given some idea of what it is I do not like to do.

For example,  I do NOT like to:

• Live someone elses dream.
• Pretend that what I am doing is making a difference when it is not.
• Sit in a room all day listening and talking endlessly stuck in my head.
• Be under the oppression of someone else.
• See prejudice and exploitation going uncontested.
• Be part of unwitnessed suffering.
• Be part of a system that is doing harm to others.
• Be unconscious of my actions.
• Be working for money alone or working without being valued.
• Be bored for too long.
• Be unable to express myself or be creative.
• Be in predicatable, mundane and routinised situations.

 ... this list could go on.

And yet, if I asked myself, what would I like to do if money was no object? I worryingly struggle to connect to any deep heartfelt response. It's like there is part of me that simply does not compute what this amounts to in actuality. I believe I have experienced a sense of doing something where money was no object? I can remember times when I have enjoyed doing something where money was no object. Such as,  playing sports, taking a picnic on a warm sunny day, strolling along the beach, watching a sunset, walking in the woods, swimming in the river, volunteering, planting trees, walking with my dog, hanging out with fun people, writing ... essentially playing with no fixed outcome ... during these moments I have felt what I might describe as freedom, a lifting of the cage.

My struggle is to know who I am.

A simple question. Very straightforward really. I am realising more and more that for me it is not so simple to answer. I sense the parameters that I use to answer this question has been set outside of myself. So instead of listening to my own inner voice I compare myself to others, listen to others, allow my expectations to be set by others. All of which prevents me from knowing who I am and what I would like to do if money were no object. Where do I start to find an answer? This is where Alan Watts comes back into the picture. The philosopther, teacher, Buddhist who has asked this question of many has some wise words to share.

Take a listen.

that was no small snake

Yesterday I was taking a walk through the Lost Gardens of Heligan. At the lower end of the Jungle area a path called the Georgian Ride takes you through some beautiful woodland blanketed in wild garlic and bluebells. At the furthest point south a charcoal sculpture by James Eddy can be found.

As you can see I was drawn to take a closer look at this fine work of art. Depending on the angle the sculpture took on different appearances. From one viewpoint it looked like a witches hat. From another perspective it looked like a mountain top. And then from another outlook it took on the shape of a helter skelter.

While walking around the back of this giant edifice I stepped off the trail into the brambles and nettles to respond to the call of nature. Three steps into the undergrowth and the ground started unravelling and moving before my eyes. In the blink of an eye I focused onto the movement and realised it wasn't the ground moving, it was a snake! Over the years I've seen a few small snakes slide across my path. On these previous occasions no alarm was triggered by such experiences, that is until today. For this snake that unfurled itself in front of my foot was huge. A scream of realisation and a sharp turn of foot and I was out of the long grass back onto the path gasping for breath. The last thing I expected to encounter down in the depths of Cornwall was a massive grass snake.

On returning home recounting my story I learnt that when a snake appears in your life it is quite auspicious. It is for some the foreteller of transformation, rebirth and change. Bring it on I say. After the last couple of weeks I am up for some life shifts. Watch this space ...

If you are wondering what a grass snake looks like, check out the picture below.

to be in the flow or not in the flow

Flow has often been the word of the moment. especially in the first quarter of this year. Do I even know what it is? It seems to me Flow is to be experienced, lived in, moved by. The rain is falling, being caught by the leaves of the tree outside my window and slowly dripping down to the ground to flow further still into the ground below to continue on its inextricable journey back to rain again. Water is flow. Without water flowing there would be nothing. I dream of being in the flow where the ego sense of me disappears, time disolves and I flow along in the energetic field of life. Wow flow is awesome. That's where I want to be. Simple.

I'm lost, feeling disconnected from someone, from myself. It's because I am resisting the questions I want to ask, the actions I want to take, the place I want to be. I am resisting because that is what I do. I want to live by my intuition, my instincts, my senses and yet my intellect gets in the way and filters what I do, edits what I say and diminishes my experience. I need to be more couragous and trust myself more. Really there is nothing to lose except my inhibitions, my fears, my shadow. All of which I would be better without.

and then came love

Out of the Occupy Movement came a message of hope, a spark of creativity and an invitation to LOVE. A great antidote to all the doom, gloom, heaviness, suffering, pain, despair that I and maybe you can sometimes feel. There are ways to transform our experiences and to find ways into relationships which are caring, nurturing, generative, healing and loving.

For an insight into this Movement check out the trailer for the film Occupy Love.

Deflated balloon

Ever have one of those weeks :(

when nothing seems to flow?

the scales of justice tip the wrong way

and you feel like Sysiphus pushing a

large rock up an unfeasibly steep hill

if you were a party balloon

all your air would escape

you know

that deflated feeling !!

well that's the kind of week I am having

no pity-me party here

just a sense of ennui

stuck like an elephant in an alley

no place to go

like all uncomfortable

unwanted experiences

it will pass

ssssooooooooooooonn I hope :)

I don't want to be the energy vampire

sucking the life out of the room

overwhelmed by gloom

like grey clouds looming on the horizon

rain pending

no way not today or tomorrow

or the day after that!

I want to be able to pat myself on the back

say 'job well done'

you are the one who came through

yes you - thank YOU

let's get out the balloons

and have a party,

make some noise,

pop a few corks

and celebrate

now that's the kind of turn around

that I can support

I want to report my dreams have come true

that I've had a red letter day

and that between me and you

Life is GOOD

if only I could, 

I would be the happiest person I know

so what am I waiting for,

let's go ...

from one of those balloon deflating weeks

into a dream creating week.

Garbage Warrior - Michael Reynolds

For all you tech-heads out there you maybe interested in the work of Michael Reynolds, aka the Garbage Warrior. Michael is a trained and practising architect in the US. He has developed carbon zero low impact houses that have a gentle eco-footprint on the planet. As he says, 'the technology is already here'. What is getting in the way is the will to use it. The emerging new housing is springing up all over the place. Know as earthships, they are off-grid responses to a peak oil world. Earthships are built using waste materials, including tires, wines bottles, tin cans and plastic bottles.

There are many ways to checkout further information. For example, you might like to watch the documentary Garbage Warrior, you could click on the youtube video below or google Micheal Reynolds - The Garbage Warrior. It's controversial and yet worth consideration.

 

Space the final frontier

With my word of 2013 being spaciousness my senses become attuned when this term appears before me. This week it happened in a circuitous way while watching Iain McNay interviewing Dr Amit Goswami on youtube (search 'Consciousness, Quantum Physics and Being Human'). Amit referred to the idea of consciousness being the ground of all being. Further to this he was drawn to the idea, the observer is the observed introduced by J Krishnamurti. Following up on this I found the connection to space.  

In this sense Krishnamurti says "Space is necessary. Without space there is no freedom. We are talking psychologically. It is only when one is in contact, when there is no space, between the observer and the observed, that one is in total relationship - with a tree for instance. One is not identified with the tree, the flower, a woman, a man or whatever it is, but when there is this complete absence of space as the observer and the observed, then there is vast space. In that space there is no conflict; in that space there is freedom. Freedom is not a reaction. You cannot say, " Well, I am free". The moment you say you are free, you are not free, because you are conscious of yourself as being free from something, and therefore you have the same situation as an observer observing a tree. He has created a space, and in that space he breeds conflict.
To understand this requires not intellectual agreement or disagreement, or saying, "I don't understand", but rather it requires coming directly into contact with what is. It means seeing that all your actions, every moment of action is of the observer and the observed, and within that space there is pleasure, pain and suffering the desire to fulfill, to become famous. Within that space there is no contact with anything. Contact, relationship has a quite different meaning when the observer is no longer apart from the observed. There is this extraordinary space, and there is freedom."

Inequality coming to a place near you, if not already, then soon!

Like most children in the UK I was introduced to a board game called Monopoly at a reasonably early age. I can distinctly remember playing this game with my family one Christmas when I was about 10 years old. My dad said to me at the beginning when I asked to play - "you're not going to like this". Being as stubborn as I am I insisted on playing anyway unconvinced that a board game was going to upset me. And he was right, eventually as the game progressed I realised my Nan was going to be pushed out of the game because she was running out of money. And I did not like the inequity. What was most annoying is the rules did not allow anyone to help my Nan stay in the game by giving her some of their money. At this point I tipped the board up in the air in protest and left the room in tears.

Put simply Monopoly is a child's game that teaches us from the cradle how the economic system works. Money accumulates. The wealthy get richer and the poor get poorer.

Which brings me to the many recent reports, surveys and questionnaires on inequality, like the youtube clip above. I am astounded why so many of us are incredulous, surprised and shocked by what is an inevitable consequence of the economic system we live in.

I'm not for one second condoning neo-liberalism or the capitalist system that produces these inequalities.The system does absolutely what it sets out to do - make money. It doesn't for one moment make claims to make anyone healthier, happier or more whole. It is a money making machine - the end. So if the human purpose is to make money we've done well. However, if like me, you think the human purpose, our reason for being is something other than making money, then you maybe asking yourself what is the alternative.

And that's when I think back to my childhood and wonder what games I played that showed me another system other than the capitalist one. Well there were lots of sports games where we had to compete against one another, outwit our opponents and strive to be number one, the winner. I'm not sure if that is much different to the game of Monopoly. Then there were games like pass the parcel or musical chairs, where again one outright winner would emerge. I suppose the lesson was to win and lose with grace, whatever that means.

How about hide and seek? We begin in a hidden unseen fragmented state and slowly by searching the group comes back to wholeness. And yet we still define the winner as the last person to be found. Nevertheless, it maybe that we are getting closer to an alternative system. We could explore all the cooperative games. Few spring to mind, although I know they exist. Such games teach us how to have fun, be ourselves and also play together for a shared experience. No winners, no losers, simply players. Maybe in this type of system difference would still occur, but it would not present itself in the form of inequality. Just a thought.

I am left asking myself the question, how can we transform -them / us- dualistic thinking into -and / both- non-dual thinking?

Answers on a postcard to ...

 

Horse Sense

This afternoon we went up close to Dartmoor near Hembury Woods to meet three amazing horses called William, Henry and Arthur. Despite the freezing cold temperatures we managed to spend a couple of hours hanging out with them in the fields. There is something special about being with other animals. It allows us to drop the human-ness and be our animal selves. William, Henry and Arthur live in the present moment and invite our authenticity. It's okay to be nervous, especially for someone like me unused to being around horses. They led the way in being natural, real and simply themselves. Our desire was to get a little closer to experience life through their eyes. To know the world in the way horses know the world.

Arthur has recently been brought back into the herd to be with William and Henry. This is a video of the moment they greeted each other again after a gap of 4.5 years.



Who said animals don't have feelings, emotions, cognitive awareness ... these three horse pals are as excited to be with one another again as any human reunion could match.

We spent a brief few hours with them today, saying hello, being amongst them as they ate their hay and walking them into their paddock while a few of us got to lead them on and ride on their backs. The horses are ridden mostly bare-backed. It looked so natural and from where I was standing they appeared to be enjoying themselves. I have a long way to go in building up my confidence around these huge powerful beauties. Their independence was quite apparent to me and yet them were playful and curious of us. A willingness to interact and communicate was palpable. William and Arthur adored the attention. A great way to spend the day!

Yellow

What a difference a couple of days make. Yellows brilliance can change everything. Travelling through the Cornish countryside we came across a field of daffodils. Never before had I seen such a sight. From a distance it first appeared to me like a field of oilseed rape. To our surprise and joy as we came closer we realised the yellow was that of daffodils in full bloom enjoying a rare moment of sunshine.

Such strong unabashed displays of yellow can lift the soul to soaring heights of glorious joy. It is a colour of sheer unadulterated happiness. This field of golden yellow daffodils is yet another clear reminder that spring is here.

Snow Easter Like a Cold Easter

Deep snow is blanketing parts of the country, making beautiful patterns on trees and forming natural frozen icicle sculptures. Biting winds from the north are cutting through cosy woollen coats. According to weather reports this is the coldest Easter in the UK since modern records began. Hold on to your hats this is not as astonishing as it might sound, as modern records began in 1960. We are not going back hundreds of years in our collective climatic memories. Nevertheless, average temperatures are down by 3 degrees Celsius, which is enough at this time of year to chill the average person to the bone! In other words it feels very much like winter is still amongst us.

While sleeping last night the clocks sped forward one hour. Alas this was not sufficient inducement for the sun to make an appearance today. The tiniest glimmer of sunshine and blue skies is all the encouragement needed to entice our mortal souls outside into the world to take advantage of the lengthening days. My body is missing the feeling of warm sunshine and the caress of a delicate breeze. I declare it is time for spring! The trees are in bud, their leaves pending, willing to burst open in verdant splendour. Seeds planted back in February are doing their utmost to emerge from their darkened blankets of soil. Slowly they grow their green tentacles towards the smallest hint of light whilst carrying with them our dreams and wishes for the year ahead.

It's all pendant, the pent up feelings of springs potential is pulling us into the days and weeks ahead. A readiness is palpable. The yearning, longing for the transformation from death to rebirth, renewal and celebrations of Eostre are upon us. Never mind these arctic temperatures and the wintry scenes outside our windows. Bring on the sunshine to go with the springtime and happy days are here again :)
   

Living with the mystery or what does it mean to be?

The closer I am to the unknown the more challenging life can be. And yet that is where I keep finding myself, sitting at the door of the unknown wondering whether to open it and step inside to be with the mystery. Each time I go through agonies of indecision, of not knowing. In the end all I need do is open the door and step inside. Sounds so easy when put like that. Each time the mystery gets a little closer it appears in a different guise. A new set of clothes to fool me and I reacquaint myself with self doubt, indecision and procrastination. How do I stay in the flow and keep moving? Daily I have to commit to revealing myself. Which part of myself do I have the courage to be? The closer to me I can dare to be the more of the mystery I can turn and face. There is my challenge each and every day … to be me … as simple as that.