Mechanics of my mind

I realised today that i keep getting stuck in thinking i have to everything at once. And then i spiral into despondency quickly afterwards. There is such a thing called a plan, and a plan that isn't overloaded. I'm thinking it's like when i started to take my spiritual practice seriously, i decided that the minimum i had to do was one minute. It was the most liberating, and motivating thing i'd ever done. There have only been a handful of days in the last 10 years that it's been that short. The joy of the approach is that everything above the one minute is because i want to, not because i have to. I recognise that in the world of obligations it's not always that easy, but to be honest i think if i'd had that frame of mind for the last couple of years i'd have got a lot more done, and been a hell of a lot more relaxed, and possible got a lot more things done on time. So often it's about the first step: it can be so small, but so hard. I'm looking forward to January and having some time to recalibrate. And the picture is because i watched a bit of Ocotopussy and it was filmed partly in India and REALLY made me want to go back.

How great are cats...?

Really, how great are cats? They're sleeping away in my room, cuddled up together on my keyboard case, sending out very chill vibrations. It reminds me of miso, my old cat, best friend and spiritual mentor. He was always telling me to chill out, right up until his last day, i can still feel his mind drilling into mine.

These guys though are reminding me how lush it is just to be, and enjoy just being. And how much i'm looking forward to being able to do just that.

wandering mind

The cats have been a bit frantic today. Is it the chicken mince i got them, emotional stress or worms? Hard to say. Funny because i've been the opposite, i've hardly eaten a thing, well until dinner at least. There seems to be a relationship between eating less and brain activity. Perhaps its because i'm not distracting the blood from my brain.

All very fragmented and words not motivated by inspiration, but by keeping the practice going... i guess that's the whole real point of it though isn't it?

eeep

Late night mind mashing working to make happy goodness waiting for inspiration space time would only stop and let me rest.....

Sunshine

It's a beautiful day. The sun shines gently warming the earth once again (as opposed to the backs of rain clouds), the pool sparkles and ripples, the air is full of the sounds of spring: birds, bugs and rustling leaves.

I'm dreaming of being out in the sun rather than at my desk admiring it, a dream that is increasing in potency due to both its closeness as well as my growing enjoyment of not having as many things piled up on the 'to do list'. I've ticked a few things off and it feels so exceptionally good, just like this sun shiny day. Strange how i can forget so easily what can be so good for me, but like the rain it's necessary too, but unlike the rain it's not necessary for ever.

Clockwork

There are some things that make us less that we could be. I wonder if it's the same as what makes us what we could be? Or at least the flip side. I sit here wondering if my capacity is exactly my chain, my brilliance exactly my weakness.

A day of confusion has ensued after a couple of days of blazing activity. The cycles i find hard to ride, part of me wants to be able to hit the on switch on demand but the turning of the earth seems to have different ideas. I am not clockwork, but it seems that would be ideal.

Somewhere...

There is a golden red sunset going on somewhere right now, and a soft dawn full of gentle pink hues. There is rain soaking into soil as someone huddles resentful of the wet and cold, and someone a smile dancing as the earth and plants drinks deep. There is sunshine somewhere right now warming the skin of someone dreaming of their lover, and someone hiding from the brutal onslaught of the suns rays. There is someone inspired making real their very life's purpose, and there is someone hiding desperately from the deepest whispers of their soul trudging out the hours. There is concrete encrusted on now barren lands, and rainforests exploding with life. There is someone completely unaware of their own mind, and there is someone totally aware of everything. And there is everything in between, the dawn, the dusk, the sun, the moon, the dark the light. And patiently i can't help but feel the earth gently watches lovingly encouraging of everything, and the sky holds open the very heavens, waiting for us to allow grace, to find ourselves.

Holidays and the return

Mind slipping down slopes of egg filled belly tiredness. Glasses hold my head in comfort seeing only their own need to be useful.

The house is strangely quiet: we all miss the O'Foleys, the animals all feel a bit lost, the house itself doesn't quite know what to do with itself. I hope the sock monster in the roof doesn't starve.

Fresh back from Adelaide, as we drove along the freeway the intensity of anxiety hit me like a wall, un-checked messages on my phone lurked grinning at me evilly, a mountain of work, such a different world away from a romantic holiday on the Great Australian Bight where the wind smelled of the crisp salt ocean and the light sliced right through my mind cleansing, refreshing.

Waking on the coast

Pine trees stand tall in front of the southern ocean, white fluffy clouds float in blue skies and birds lazily circle. Even through my fuzzy short sighted eyes the world has a clarity, a sharpness that has nothing to do with focussed edges. There is something magical about the coast, and especially about coastal Australia, there is a feeling, a spaciousness, a sharpness, a freshness that i've not ever seen anywhere else. Not that i've been lots of other places, but enough to get the idea that here is not like that many other places.

Victor Harbour is a curious place. It has a centre which oozes old world charm which qucikly slips into modern boxes of drap latte lifestyle minimalism, then into either bland burbs or classic 50's to 60's sea side holiday house architecture.

But now to breakfast!

love and loss

I'm at once very aware of the loving goodness i have right here on the SA coast with a woman who makes my heart sing, and also of the sense of loss as a part of my family is flying further and further away from me. Well, physically at least. Its part of the danger and joy of loving is the increased capacity for all emotions, but also knowing that when that love is without boundaries and really doesn't end just because someone isn't there.

I'm looking forward to flying myself to New York, but am also looking forward to being a custodian of their home, and their hearts.

Art of Mind

The art of the mind is a strange and always changing thing. Today it feels like a a thousand fragments of crystal spilling light in all directions, yesterday it felt like a laser beam. What has changed?

A shift of thinking from my frontal lobe to deep inside the middle of my head has been transformative over the last few days, but today i feel unable to pull the various streams of light together into a whole. I'm tired, and feeling that rising sense of panic i so often struggle with: understandably so, i'm really pushing the extended deadlines now.

Perhaps there is no reason, it's just how i am today. A very inconvenient thought.

Brain water patterns

Today i'm coming from a place deeper inside my brain than i normally think, a place whose patterns would seem to form a link deep down inside my body: i feelthink! And it seems to work like some break in a circuit finally soldered, a puzzle whose pieces finally start making some sense, a new pattern emerges blossoming in my sun.

Water from the rainwater tank my body craves like a sponge lying dry on a sun filled kitchen sink craves the taps love just a short distance away.

Something is different, but again i will turn up with only just enough done... we shall see how the fruits of the inner struggle taste over the rest of the week.

Cold summers eve

A cold wind rustles the grass, its fingers finding my feet sitting idle under the desk. An overcast sky is reflected in the rippling of the pool, in the coldness of the bricks, in the dullness of the light. Pink flowers smile into the grey day, the green grass vibrant still in the dull light. The day slowly turns, the birds singing and squawking as they settle in for the night.

My brain did not really turn on today. There has been a dullness, an inability to really think articulately, to find clarity. I get a sense of clarity when i go into my body and listen to it, which is why i'm at home rather than with so many of the people i love at FRL.

The challenge is not to feel negative about it, to just feel here and enjoy it.

Family Love

Curious watching those you love slowly leaving, holding an open heart and knowing that my saddness will be deep. Holding space while watching television, being one of the kids and one of the adults both at once. I wonder how long it will take before some part of my brain stops wondering when they're going to get home.

I'll miss Katherine's shy excitement about life, Tim's enthusiasm for sharing his world of computer games, comics, superheros and zombies, and Erin's love, wheelbarrowing, trampolines and love of attention.

And Stephen and Leanne, who have taught me how powerful love can be, and how love can be so deeply transformative, holding each other to the alchemical flame of transformation. The heart, crucible of transformation.

So much to miss, but so much to hold in my heart, keeping it glowing. I'll miss them, but i'll always feel so close to them.

The Brain

The Brain works mainly in the sloshing of spinal fluid. Apparently the brain is highly advanced bone marrow. Does that mean my bones can think? What would they be thinking about then? Is that why when i smile into my bones it feel so good, it is a bit like smiling at my brain in how it makes me feel. How would i be if i thought with all of my bone marrow?

Hmm late night delirium and blogs made up a whisker before midnight in the quiet of the house broken only by the slap of finger on plastic and the hum of machines waiting...

Processing...

I'm tired. I've been processing like a madman while my obligations to the world go stale. I've seen my demon lurking beyond my current project which is my fear of having the time and resources to actually really do what i want. This is a very real possibility and a very real fear. Also facing my every key stroke is the fear of inadequacy, the fear of driving myself beyond the limits of my body if i really let myself go into it and get inspired, the fear of failing to do any good and feeling that hollow feeling of defeat when i feel shattered.

But what i'm excited by is facing my demon lurking in the field of doing what i want. Is that motivation enough? Perhaps, i hope so. But then so is validating the fact that despite my beliefs around being a failure and feeling like i've not and will not live up to my potential i've done a lot of amazing things, had quite an interesting life, and have pulled of some remarkable adventures and created some really outstanding things in the world.

Holding the whole picture of me is something it's taking a lot of awareness to do, but is really quite enjoyable.

Change

A mountain smiles cheekily at me. A fear of being ground to dust, of failing.

The sun beams gently down on the rippling pool; puff daddy clouds linger casually in the sky; it darkens like it could rain; the sun emerges again and my heart lifts.

I love this place but i feel the impending loss of my family, and am all too aware of spending hours tapping away at a computer rather than being able to fully enjoy them. All things change, especially children. At what point do we start trying not to change? Very strange behaviour that runs contrary to everything we see around us. And i've been just as guilty as the next adult of trying to hold on. And now bravely embracing whatever is i'm overwhelmed at times. Like now.

My little jade/money plant struggles back to life, just two little leaves on the end of one branch a bunch of little buds that have not moved in weeks. A little more love, a little more light, i want it to change, to grow.

Persistence

Persisting is not really not one of my best attributes. I'm more like the autumn leaves making swirls of crunchy colour in the wind rather than the damp incessant persistance of winter rain. Both have their place. Perhaps i should go more for the intense persistence of the summer sun, or the boundless persistence of the ocean waves.

I come back to the breath

I’m in a sea i’ve not navigated before; wrestling with a demon in whose grip I’ve been helpless for what seems an age. The gusting wind brings the stagnant comfort of familiar smells just often as the enticing fragrance of undiscovered flowers yet to bloom. The sea surges, fear ebbs and flows; at times the water towers above me; at times I sit, slack sail going nowhere; at times I bend into the fast wind of change; at times the sea drops in sheer cliffs either side.
Drenched and weary from the last storm, raw from the confusing chaos of stress, memories, emotions, work and dreams, my anxiety squirms and wriggles, trying not to be seen. I keep looking, holding it in both hands, breathing, aware of the ebb and flow of panic underneath wrenching in my gut, eating at my mind.

And I stay with it, out of sight of familiar land. At least the stars are still familiar; well as familiar as a sky only a couple of months old can be – since the last time the sky slid into the ocean leaving an infinite black dome through which stars slowly, mercifully emerged: pin prick holes into worlds of light.

And as it always will, the sun rises, eventually. I know that chasing it just lengthens the night. You do not find the sun by hunting it, but by being open to the dawn while hunting in the world of shadows. So I stay with it, riding my anxiety with my breath, going deeper into places I’ve not dared tread before, consuming and being consumed, knowing that something, somewhere, will change, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Knowing that dawn will come, I come back to the breath.

Body thinking

The rain soaks into the earth. The earth moves as one body, the sun shines with it's whole being, everything dedicated to the task.
I need to think with my whole body. When i sit to work my awareness tends to concentrate rapidly in my head, i lose connection with my body. I lose presence. This phenomenon is, i would think, not an uncommon occurrence. For me it manifests in distraction, in skipping across the many things i have on and struggling to immerse myself in any one task. I boil rather than simmer. In other people i'm sure it manifests in all sorts of other ways.
A fun challenge.

Lost

Lost in the mazes of my mind, the world slips away from me.

Saying what you need to hear

I've been telling her everything i need to hear.

Persist. Keep going. Of course having a vision is going to kick your arse - it's the point, just keep going forward with open eyes.

Strange how we do that, and totally sensible. People and situations show up that help us to find exactly what we need to hear, even if it's out of our own mouths. Even if it takes us a while to realise it. Even if it's a tsunami bearing down on us. Such strange parallels shifting past within around each other.

I stand knee deep in a shallow water of pool gazing blankly at my reflection. The water creeps slowly up my pants like wax up a wick. Transfixed i try to work out who i see, lost in trying to see the depths of my reflection while the fish wriggle past and the stars wheel slowly overhead.

Depth isn't enough.

The act or art of doing

...i don't think it really matters what i do, it is more that at some point i must do something, and hold the course, and feel the world change. But the more what i do is from my heart, the more likely i am to hold the course and persist, and i know it is only in doing my purest heart desire that i shall attain the vision i hold of myself.

But to find that purest of intent? Ah, i must act....

Screen Grime

I cleaned my screen t0day, cleaned it of the dust and grime that had built up over weeks and weeks of waiting till i got exactly the right thing to clean it. It was a mere 10meters away from my desk.

Trolls and bricks

Failure lurks like a troll under the bridge, and not just failure but totally screwing up. The mash up of amazingness and stress is the pressure cooker of find myself in, more interesting at least than just stress. A lot more interesting.

The troll, however, has a magic and story all it's own and it's eyes glimmer with the memories of life, love and loss.

Words fall like bricks from a wheelbarrow, clumsy and not really what i wanted, i was carrying them to make a bridge.

Exhaustion

My brain falling into little pieces from exhaustion and stress,
Love, chocolate, sugar and alcohol all taking their toll
On what i think i should be doing, on who i think i am.

Everything feels thin, shadows dancing on a piece of paper
Torn out of an old crumpled up exercise book
And i too feeble to do anything but make rabbit shadows.

There is a way in which i betray myself by pushing too hard
My emotions scattered like toys in a playroom at midnight,
Yet the sharp edge lets insights out i normally would not speak.

There is a strange wisdom in exhaustion of not caring,
Of seeing things in a harsh light and not taking them on
But really i want to sink into the deep sleep of the ocean depths.

The simple pleasure of just doing what needs to be done. Of persisting till the work is complete. There is a deadline, a natural gas BBQ that needs to be converted to LPG so we can have a weeding party and sear flesh (both meat and vegetable) in the way only a BBQ does.

And so the nozzles i need to get are really rare, and after 3 days of searching i give up, and of course that's when i find them, and they fit. Then when i fit them, the BBQ doesn't work because it was wasp nest at somepoint in it's life and i have to clean out dead wasp bodies and hive dusk from the whole thing.

But then, voom and whoosh, it works, and i feel happy, satisfied.

However i know that if it wasn't for the deadline, it wouldn't have happened. And i wonder why this was so easy to do, and other things are so hard.

Quiet Melodrama

The house is quiet, black and white comic book film noir flickers through my head like a cinema scene from a slick film. Today was a skin of the teeth kind of day, making ends meet by doing way more than one day of work: in a focused flurry getting just enough words typed out to keep people happy, to keep afloat, to maintain the illusion that i'm not struggling with my demons everystep of the way, that i've not spent most of the week distractedly searching my soul and not being a well oiled cog. I wish i could focus like that everyday, but i guess if i did i might burn a hole right through the screen that my life plays out on; either that or get or so caught up in the flickering images i burn myself dry. I've done the later, and more than once. Now i fear it. I guess i don't have the faith i can do the former. Perhaps i don't want to. I guess i don't because i haven't, but then again i know i do. Or perhaps i believe that it will also burn me dry, that i'm afraid of my inner life being exposed as just so much tinder.

Or perhaps i just like being melodramatic sometimes, enchanted by my contradictions.

Work.

It feels like a fractured landscape, a world that struggles to keep its morphic field intact: doorways to other places and other lives keep opening and closing beckoning and demanding; I try to hold it to some consistency, focus this place into a coherent whole that can contain my attention till I choose to step out – which I can do for a short time – but inevitably it crumbles again when the slightest bit of attention wanders or the will wavers.

I must ask myself: is this the place for me? Or should I Alice in Wonderland like follow the rabbit hole and see where it leads, and how much how deeply do I need to trust and let go?

Again and again we start again

Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Again and again we start again
Until....

The script

There are some events in life that are so deeply shocking, that expose behaviour patterns so fundamentally and so nakedly that we have to drop everything to pay deep attention to them allow ourselves to change. It has been such a time.

I'm sitting in San Francisco, in the Angel Cafe. An Arabic language cooking show is on, the roof and walls are draped with hessian, there is a little water fall feature in the corner with plastic plants and there is a soup on the stove that seems to involve lots of green beans. There is something familiar, almost Brunswick about the place.

I feel like i'm in some waiting room, waiting to enter back onto the stage after some time in a sub plot off the main stage. Most of the other actors and audience are expecting the same character but i've rewritten my lines and don't know how it will go. More than rewritten my lines though, i've found the motivation and behaviour patterns need to be different to fit the new purpose behind the character.

My hope is that i won't be forced back to the old script, my hope is that i'm able to really able to fly with it, and that my new script will change other scripts also.

Change is such a strange thing. In exposing the beliefs i had to change, i was faced with the question of what do i replace them with? This haunted me for some time. In the end i went back to intention, what is my intention, what lay underneath the beliefs? It is this i have tried to change, trusting that my behaviour patterns will change to fit a new, clear intention. It is this that causes me some trepidation about what has actually changed. What if, in the challenges of my usual life, i go back to the old ways? And what does that mean. I cannot spend energy worrying about this, but it sits there, and i must acknowledge it.

Change is such a strange thing. I shall find out how strange soon enough.

Adventure

I'm an adventurer. This now i know deeply. I have, after a long struggle with myself, finally surrendered to this fact, and that surrender has been through stepping into my power. I was challenged deeply to step into it in the place where i usually don't, in the place where i'm most vulnerable, and it was exactly there that the power lay.
And the adventure? It's an approach to everything, and has been my path for a long, long time. I am other things too, and of course fundamentally i just am, but it is an aspect of consciouness i manifest with intense presence and purpose.
I am discovering in this an immense appreciation and love for myself, and am in deep gratitude for the gifts i've recieved, and the power i have to play my part in catalysing real change.

Wow

Wow, i'm feeling so powerful, and so in love, and so loved, and so many boundaries are just dissolving and am healing on such a deep level.

Longing

The yearning of the sea for the clouds,
The devoted adulation of the clouds for the forest,
The ecstatic embrace of the forests and the earth,
The surrender of the earth to the river,
The longing of the river for the sea.

Spa of life

Being stuck in our shit is like being in a spa and seeing only the bubbles and froth on the top and thinking that's the spa, that's what's important, that's what's going on. When underneath them there is your whole body, and the spa jets, and simply just the glorious life giving water all holding you and giving you goodness without judgement. But mostly we wouldn't do that in a spa, we'd see the bubbles as just the froth from a deeper process, and sink back in and joy what is a glorious spa. So why then do we do it life? For all sorts of apparently good reasons i guess, but i'm beginning to think that maybe it's actually no where near as hard as we think to sink back into the spa of life and enjoy the journey.

A beautiful day

A day of transformation. Suddenly everything that was bothering me so much just doesn't seem so important any more. It's still there, but i feel like i've got a new tool to be able to quiet the clamour, and that new tool feels lodged deep inside in a column of pure light.
It was a beautiful day today, the sun, humidity and breeze a gentle caress as light as the brush of lips on the skin, flowers in bloom but passing magnificently into autumn, the leaves just starting to yellow and float gently to the earth, the little cat still playing hard to get, the bugs buzzing and whirring in a chaos of excitement.

Long way from home

I'm a long way from home, tired, wired, vulnerable and praying for the courage and clarity to surrender to this process. Today was a big day, and i've been clearer with my shit than ever i've been... and tomorrow, well i just try and hold an open space, and after that, well i'll just sit with the fears chewing in the back of my mind uselessly churning away. A path has been set, and surrender to it i must.

A bit of a ramble about tantra, sex and politics

If everyone felt the kind of playful, clear, loving goodness that this really deep work brings then the world would be one very different place. Not that we wouldn't have shit to sort out, there's plenty of testament to that, but it would be different. What if every politician or executive had to go on a tantra retreat, or a meditation retreat, as part of being qualified for the job? What if the will to enquire of the self was seen as a fundamental part of assuming positions of power. The world would really be different. Many of our greatest and most inspiring leaders have had a spiritual perspective (for want of a better word) and have been at least partially involved in or influenced by a movement with an aim towards some kind of gnosis of the human spirit. Fundamental would be not being so messed about sex - it's got be one of the greatest motivators of human disaster, from the very small to the very large. The further i go in this journey, the further i dare to dream of a world that is very different to this one, where respect is the main currency and love the central bank.
But then i think of my greatest spritual teacher (pictured above) and i remember to slow down, stop struggling, and sleep more.

Ipsalu level 3 day 1

And so it begins...

The memory of being in a week long workshop with a group of people stepping into themselves and willing to go deep had faded. It's alive and very present now. It's an inspiring place to be in. Just a few hours and a clarity of thought and mind and connection is already apparent. Doubts and fears drop away, just excitement, anticipation and a willful determination are left. And a deepening openess. Everyone here has consciously engaged with their journey, it's not often you get the privelege to be in that kind of space. I guess it's part of why i love teaching.

My mind and body are still feeling stretched from jetlag, but now more grounded, more whole. I do love this stuff, it's like a holiday but better.

Hope Springs – Holiday USA

Yes, it does. Today we drove through the weird wilds of mid western Ohio. Very surreal stuff it must said, i felt like i was in some b-grade american movie where KKK sherifs ruled the town and the local equivalent of the mafia are a bunch of inbred hillbilles riding utes and cooking up mischief in the lab back at the farm.

The houses by and large looked run down, weather board mostly, all sort of bunched up and two stories the way American houses tend to be. There's not a single storey brick veneer in sight. The frayed lawns complimented the frayed houses, the frayed looking people, but were in contrast to the shiny new cars, well utes mostly, and by utes i mean big half truck things that were dreaming of growing up to be monster trucks.

There was a festival going on, or about to be going on, in one small town, hmm don't remember the name, half the town had turned out their sheds for garage sales... er thats yard sales here... there was BBQ corn a cooking, and a big sign saying God Save the Children. Lots of stalls with hand crafts, nic knacks, fried things and white bread. Sadly they didn't have a supermarket - we were on a mission for something not involving white bread and hot oil, but we managed to get out of there by promising that if we came across anyone thinking of opening a supermarket, we'd tell them to open it in that town, whatever it's name was.

San Fran Airport

The mind bending effects of time travel. And place travel. Aeroplanes.
And the airports that are kind of the same no matter where you go, the only thing that really varies is the number of boutique stores.
We went to Berkely today, it was the first time in the US that i felt a depth to a place, a vibe, saw a critical mass of open (and hence spunky) people. Wierdest are the times where i forget I'm in the US, and then something really USA happens and i get startled into remembering. Like seeing US flags hanging out of a shop, or the cars are coming at me on the wrong side of the street as i go to cross, small things, but jarring.
And then there is the accent. It's like the US and Aussie accents are opposite each other, we are nasal with our vowels, they are nasal with their consonants. It's disconcerting to say the least. But the wheather is hot, and i'm tired and jet lagged and about get little sleep in a tired old plan where i can see putty in the joins of the walls peeling away and brown grime in the corners of the buttons on the arm rest.
Yay USA.

JET LAG

Jet lag is my dominant modality tonight. The day has swung between intense tiredness, delving into Chaos Magic theories, a beach trip, an underlying flatness and the occasional bout of confusion. Oh and my organs aren't happy about having to adjust to being here. The hotel room is nice and i've had some great food. Sleep, sweet sleep, honey you never smelled so good...

Airport waiting lounge

Sydney airport, awaiting to board a great flying beast that will take me to unknown shores, to an adventure that will take me to some of the deepest parts of myself. Excitement, trepidation, weariness, resignation, i feel like appreciating this time with myself is important, because i'm not sure i'm going to walk out the other side quite the same. In fact my intention is to not. My intention is to walk eyes full open into the pain that lurks at the very core of me. We'll see.

Gluing the wings on

It always takes so much energy and effort, wondering if you've got everything, leaving so much behind, spending hours making sure the computer is backed up and i've got enough music on me to spend the entire trip listening to it when i'll just scratch the surface....
And there's those things you just let go of as you weren't going to get them done anyway.
And there is the process already begun of delving into the deepest recesses of the heart and throat chakras.

And the overwhelming, simultaneous and conflicting desires to go to sleep and stay up all night manically doing stuff.

Cats, friends, man and magic

There is a cat on my lap. She purrs and wiggles and paws and snuggles on my lap, loud and proud and knowing exactly what she wants: a warm lap.

I walked along the Yarra River today with an old friend who i have a deep and, walked in the dusk as lights glistened, past the ferris wheel, the river lay rippling slowly like a molten mercury. Some friends you love and perhaps in another life you would fall in love with them, or have, and it resonates. This happens a lot.

As i rushed today my heart hang tattered in the breeze. It was nice to have so much to do otherwise it would want to eat my mind - it's hungry to be filled.

Today i met with my magical men and talked of magic and power and testicles and sex and drew runes and cards and resolved to keep grounded and hone our metal. Magic is the ability to will a change in our perceptions. I saw an oracle machine today, a fragment of chaos magic about to be released into the world.

I take another step, a step into tomorrow, a tomorrow of dreams and adventures and a tank full of juice with the brake cable gone.

Unsettled

Tired and unsettled, nurtured and held, pain and love, a strange dance with that which i fear to dance with, better to walk powerful alone in tattered robes noble in your brilliance it says rather than dance with danger resplendent in the palace of desire: there is no fork in this road, just ahead with eyes closed or open, naked, stripped of my power, just human, alone. Loneliness sings her siren song and i sway helpless in her cold embrace, no matter how loved and held.

sleep and flood

Slept long finally last night and now the next day sets sun and thoughts of storms and floods down melbourne streets hang in the edges of my mind. Of what do city streets dream? Of the creeks that once bubbled along their length, now drainage pipes like salt hardened arteries, or of the ghosts of creatures long gone and living a half life still in the darkness, nightmare creatures with no eyes like fish from the deepest dark of the sea, or of the return of the fish into pipes and drains and mating high up in toilet bowls and drain holes in a city consumed once more by Her loving but savage embrace. Indeed, of what do streets dream?

Loose ends and waterfall in Collins St

Celebrations for my last day, wine and fine people, and suddenly i'm whisked off to help on a research project and writing an art submission about fish, pipes and waterfalls in Collins St. The power blog, oh yeah.

Rain, a bridge and a goddess

Rain seeps into every crack as crickets rasp their noisy legs in frog like sounds; the distant murmur of the olympics and the noise of words struggling to wakefullness; a strong desire for bed and a road stretching ahead; accomplishment of sorts and failure of sorts the usual preserve of the perfectionsist; shakespear in aussie accents with teenagers and someone doing egg farts in the audience; pine veneer desk scattered with papers and a litter of electronics; a bridge to cross foundations rickety and it looks so luch on the other side; understanding slowly what it is to live with all my heart and seeing a joyful shining all around me; there is a goddess living inside me and in everyone i see and she whispers to me of love.

Wilful Surrender

A new experiment, a new inspiration, an emerging yoga: wilful surrender. Our Ipsalu workshop tonight was the first step in exploring an idea that, in foresight, has been lurking behind a number of conversations Leanne and I have been having over the last few months. The basic question is: can you teach/support someone to want to go into their shit?

At the heart of that, of course, is how do we do this for ourselves?

The program tonight was great, inspiring and a great bunch of people with a willness to go in deep, it never ceases to amaze me how closed and crumpled up people can be walking in, and how open and sparkling they can be walking out, it's one of the things i most love and value about this work of teaching.

But this new yoga we are exploring, it feels like it's emerged mushroom like from the compost of our discontent around a few issues, but also from the sunshine and rain of our enjoyment of teaching and exploring and creating. It's an exciting adventure in conscousness.

The invisible stairs

Twist, turn, walk, run, go backwards, dig trench, fill trench in, dig trench again... the feeling of report writing, i just want it done, i've had the idea, gotten my head around it, know what needs to be done... surely there's a program or a machine that will just write it for me... but i guess that misses that feeling of satisfaction you get from having done it, the hard slog, otherwise you could just get a machine to live out your life for you but then again having a machine to do all the hard work and i get to just play... is that such a bad idea? Or should i just play? Why do i keep feeling the need to work hard... i stand at a fork in the road, down one road lay rest, play and poverty, down the other lay hard work and success... i close my eyes, breathe deeply... i open them, 'ah!' there it is, the invisible staircase going upwards out of this dualistic delusion, upwards to a place of play and reward where the sun shines from every cell of my body and i'm filled with laughter and my work is continuos with joy and a natural product of my existence: but it does take courage and a trusting childlike joy to climb those stairs... i breathe deeply again and put one hand on the rail...

Killed by clouds

Nearing the end of my project, there's writing the report. Writing the report and trying to pitch it just right so that something is actually done. I've gotten so immersed the subject matter, i really just want changes to happen now. For some people it's a matter of life and death whether our institutions choose to spend resources on heatwave adaptation. But there are constraints, the constraints we perceive, the constraints we create, the constraints of the real world: the 'real' world that looks increasingly flimsy the deeper my awareness and exploration of consciousness goes.

But does it really matter if we're killed by clouds? The earth will still turn, life will still grow wherever it can, consciousness will still arise in remarkable ways. To us it matters, but so often we act as if it does not. And is death such a bad thing? These are not thoughts that make it into the report (and they are just the light through the keyhole), and barely in the office, although i let them creep out now and then and i can see that people know exactly what i'm talking about but they don't want to think about it.

I do want to think about it, but the energy and effort it takes to stand in two worlds, to be able to put aside the more subtle wisdom, to be able to act and produce within our institutional constructs that simply cannot deal with this kind of fundamental questioning, takes an increasing strain on my being. What would happen if only spoke from this deeper place? That is the question of the moment....

Tired and ecstatic

Magic on the lunar eclipse, sleep weariness, qi gung and testicle massage, energy and intention, an inspiring weekend, and now for the pressure cooker this week...

Lunar eclipse

Moonshine, rain pelts, men gather, the soul of the world calls, siren song to our sense of adventure, fruition, challenging ourselves to the very depths... gifting ourselves with the power to be fully ourselves.

Listening....

OK, so lets start that again... each day a blog.

But what i noticed in not doing my blog is how much i don't notice sometimes the little subtle urgings and prompts that encourage me to do, the guides to the way of least resistance. There were a couple of times where i had the thought to do my blog when i was on the computer, but i thought no i'll do it later, when i've finished what i'm doing (which was struggling with my heatwave adaptation report).

There in fact times yesterday when i thought to do a number of things that would have been more successful and productive and interesting than going nowhere - i got the wind up me for the report later, but so much of the good juice was just tipped down the drain. And this happens again and again and again.

I think it's time to leave behind doing that, and to start dancing with the muse on a bit more of a whim... after all if it's evolution in 5th gear that's going to be going on in the near future, we're all going to have to really learn to go with our subtlest intuition. A world where everyone listens deeply would be a really intersting place to be...

Return of the harmonicblog

It's been a while, the ebb and flow of so many things, and i've missed writing everyday, there is something within me that deflates slowly the further i am from just letting my creative spark speak through my hands. Being moved is such a delicious act of love.

But today, a new little adventure in blogging starts, and it starts right here in this dim little office where i've been frantically typing out a report on heatwave adaptation. I'm keen to explore in more concentrated depth the interface between climate change, culture, evolution and consciousness. And i've got the challenge that i'll be in the USA in two weeks time and i'll be in a tantra workshop for a week... going to have to work out this mobile blogging thing. Will be interesting to see what i write in that context!

Words glorious words.

Dreams

Strange Dreams last night. In the middle of the night sometime I half awoke, and was caught with a strong urge that to roll over and look behind me. I didn’t. I don’t know whether my intuition said don’t do it, or whether my fear said don’t do it. They can be hard to tell apart sometimes, and sometimes they seem the same.
I awoke this morning startled by my alarm and not knowing where i was or in which direction I faced. Feeling half in a labyrinth of dreams, I stumbled up, and headed out into a world that’s the common reference point we call reality, a thin slice of mind wedged amongst our dreamings upon which our feet tread so heavily.

Caught between

I feel today caught between. Caught between wanting to stay in bed, go out and see friends, write, play music, eat, fiddle around on the computer.... mostly from going too fast all week. But, it's a beautiful day, a beautiful house, a beautiful world.

But i'm really feeling the call of adventure, and something deep inside is whispering to me of blue skies, endless scrub and a deep subtle sense of humour.

I don't want a lover

Sometimes it's the very simple things that escape us. Sometimes it is that which we keep saying to others that we most need to hear ourselves. Often, actually, if not almost always.

So i've been in a heavy slump the last week, feeling the loneliness that is as familiar as the underwear i put on everyday, feeling the weight of 18 years of short lived and painful romances. Well, all except a couple that were longer than the rest, and proportionatly painful. And only long because the rest are so short. And i've been talking a lot about finding the gift, finding the gift in any situation, accepting it for what it is, and that things are as they are because we want them to be so. And meanwhile i've been struggling and raging and despairing about my own reality.

That reality is that i don't actually want an intimate relationship/partnership/lover. I know this because if i really did want one i'd create it, i'd make it happen. If i really wanted one i'd will it to be so. And i do create the beginnings of them, but that's really about it. The feeling of openess and peace this thought has brought me is immense, even if it's realisation was the feeling of a wall being sundered apart. Now that the wall is no longer there, i realise how much it was bothering me, how much it was blinding me. I still don't know why i don't want a relationship (oh of course i've got ideas, and associated memories, but there is something deeper), and i do know why i want one, but it doesn't really seem enough compared to the strength of the counter current.

So, having eaten my own words, i feel an openess, a peace, a new beginning to i know not where. I finally listened to myself, to the words i needed to hear: this is, therefore i will it. It's almost a whole practice unto itself, an exploration on the sharp edge of acceptance that feels like a fresh breeze blowing over a new day.

Thoughts on Love

Living with an open heart, living with love, can sometimes be brutal. We close down, hide our hearts away when it all gets a bit much, a bit too intense, or a bit too threatening to our identity. And sometimes, perhaps, we need this. Perhaps. But it also closes us off to learning about ourselves.

There is room for little else on this path. Not if you want to keep your feet on it, not if you want to fulfil your souls deepest evolutionary will. The only other thing is awareness, consciousness, and that, when held gazing steadily on love, becomes love, and love becomes consciousness. I guess that's kind of the point of the whole existence exercise.

But love is not demanding, it is our choice, suffer or love, and love is quite happy to have us suffer as she knows that our suffering will just make our love all the more profound when we finally turn our whole selves to her. But she demands, in the end, everything. To surrender totally, to see only love, to be only love, and it is this that we resist with a will powerful enough to stop the universe, for it threatens the fragile identity we invest so much in - an identity that seeks to claim the gifts given to us as our own.

But to remain open when those deepest parts of ourselves hurt with a sharpness that cuts the very fabric of our hearts, hurt with the pain of our resistance to those beliefs about ourselves to which we cling so dearly. Loneliness, rejection, doubt, alienation, fear... they stir, sentinels guarding a self from that which both heals and destroys.

Remaining open and dwelling in pain i can see Love clearly, and i want to run from her consuming embrace (like usual), hide myself away, but i do not, but neither do i know how to embrace her. And still it feels like i live half a life. But at least i can see clearly for once the hopelessness and potential of my very human situation, and am keeping my heart open no matter how much it hurts.

Another step, another layer peeled painfully off my beating heart.

New Moon

New moon, time to create: To live as my whole self with a fearless, powerful, open heart. Continue opening and strengthening the connection (much atrophied) between my heart and my sex. To have a lot of fun, stay relaxed, and be focussed. To fully set up Tantra Bliss and resolve a clear shared understanding in the Ipsalu community.

That'll do quite nicely.

Curiously Silent

A curious silence today. I left my mobile phone at home. Not that i use it everday necessarily, but it's not there, all orange, silver plastic and glass. It leaves me with a strange silence, and a little voice in my mind wondering what i've missed, who might've called. I guess it could be quite traumatic for some people. I'm just relaxing into it, but it is like leaving a finger at home. There is an interesting silence in the part of me that waits for someone exciting to call, something interesting to happen and be communicated. I guess i've never really had a good look at that corner of myself, even though i've been aware of that tendancy at times.

What would happen if one day all the mobiles went silent? Some sun flare or such and they all go out. Pandemonium? Gnashing of teeth? Global anxiety attack? A feeling of peace? A collective sigh? Nothing much different at all?

Except perhaps a curious silence.

Relaxing, flipping coins and listening

"You're too tense". It was third time she'd tried to catch the coin sitting on her elbow in her palm, and it was the third time it had hit the floor or cupboard. "Relax your shoulder".
She tried again, "you're tensing up your shoulder, relax and trust, don't try to catch it", swoop, chink, "YES! I did it".
"Woohoo!"
A couple more tries and she'd mastered it, "I'm going to try 5 coins now". They splattered all over the floor.
"You're trying too hard again, just relax". Bang.
"I did it, i did it", the excitement and enjoyment in her voice were infectious. Within 5 minutes she'd done 10, i felt so strangely proud of her, her ability to really listen and change what she was doing blew me away a little. Is it something that comes easier when you're 13 as opposed to 37?

It made me think. Sometimes you tell others exactly what you need to hear yourself, if only you'll listen. I just couldn't get the event and conversation out of mind... i'd been trying very hard at work over the last few weeks and i felt i was barely keeping my head above water, just getting done what i needed to get done. Just.

So before work i went for a coffee, and sat and thought about how i lose contact with my body, how the energy and thoughts go running madly around my head and i struggle to focus. So i sat for a while, wrote down all the things that i needed to do outside of work, and then set my intention to stay relaxed, in my body, and conscious.

I've had an incredibly productive couple of days. Interesting thing this human being gig.

Worlds Spinning

Does the world get dizzy from spinning so fast? Or does it feel still as the heavens hurtle past, looking out upon the majestic sweep of the galaxy as stars burst, comets collide and planets form? How does it feel the brief forming of a strange hard crust blistering upon it's surface, of being pricked and penetrated and pumped on it's outer skin? It would love the sun, keeping it warm. Maybe one day we'll design rotisserie deck chairs so we can enjoy an even sunning just like the earth. Of course we'd have to be careful of ice forming at our feet and head, and of sprouting strange little creatures from our pores that proceed to try and choke us to death. I suspect that after a few billion years of spinning everything would feel right somehow, that there would be a sense of deepest harmony amongst the chaos, of quiet amongst the noise, of everything having it's place.

Saving the world one report at a time

Report by report we think our way into the biggest hole we could possibly concieve, afraid to act as we are lullued by the comfortable waves of our own contentment, our own fear of doing anything fundamentally different. Our collective behaviour seems to so reflect the processes of our own egos, of our inner worlds. Inside our lives we build carefully, or not so carefully, a construct we call ourselves, and we then expend incredible amounts of energy protecting that self conception, ensuring that it stays in place, that it is justified, that it is validated. And we even tell ourselves, convince ourselves that we have no choice, that this is the only way it is, that this is how it has to be, that this is not what i want but just how i am. We disempower ourselves, and don't acknowledge the fundamental truth of how incredible, how powerful we are that we can shape reality, change our very perceptions of events, deny nature, stop our own evolution to maintain our own internal identity and the fictions we hold onto. Is this any different to what we do in the world? We have all the information at hand to transform our culture, society, economy and politics to tackle the challenges we face, yet we tread carefully, walking like a sleep walker while a tsunami rears on the horizon. And politicians and large corporations sit on our collective shoulders like demons telling us we can't change, that the econo0my will collapse, that we have to make change gradually, concerned only for their own existence and wealth not for our collective wellbeing. We research every step we take to death, like walking crouched down with a magnifying glass in hand inspecting every step we take. You could die on your way to the supermarket with an approach like that. Are our feet so delicate that the way must be paved with mountains of paper? Lit with a million pdfs?

Will the human race be remembered for the sheer number of reports that charted a different course, that told of a different story, but were ignored?

RIP Human Race: Wow, really nice reports

Weekend

Right now, i'm just holding out till i go away this weekend. Not the way i like to live my life, but common enough. It's all feeling a bit too much right now. I want hills, trees, fresh air, sleep. Mostly sleep....

Kung fu Panda

Today i saw Kung Fu Panda with Erin, Tim and Katherine. Great fun movie, had all the classic elements of a great martial arts movie with a big dash of humour. Awesome animation, the animators really made use of the kung fu genre to do some amazing movements with plenty of cinematic license.

These three kids are a part of my family. I have become aware over the weekend of how my reference to and feelings about my housemates can effect those seeking intimacy with me, and even i guess with my friends. But my home is, and always been, a place of family. It's what i seek to create in this space, what i value there. Being challenged on it has put me even more strongly in the place of valuing and i love that i do have, and do create, a family.

I create intimate connections around me. I value that. And, yes, run from it on a regular basis.

Discontinuity

Discontinuities in relationships always seem to hurt even when you know it's the right course of action. The heart doesn't like sharp turns in the road. Or is it just our inclination to adapt to what's going on as that feels the safest and to take the path of choice exposes us. The road goes ever on.

The point

So my blogging has been a little slack of late, so last night, while waiting for $10 to magically transform into yellow curry and rice, i wrote this this (and i'm going to try post retrospectively, i post on the written date date rather than the typed date. Oh yes, it's a very exciting day!):

The point really of blogging everyday is to write everyday. So blog or no blog, internet or no internet, here i write. Sitting in Thai Thani surrounded by uber craziness of clattering woks, frying meat and vegetables, sizzling sauces and thai flavoured accents... there is a particular intensity to the flurriness of activity here that in itself is a signature dish, it's got to be the loudest kitchen (and totally open to the restaurant) that i've ever experienced. And all the cooks wear baseball caps, which i really like for some reason. And the food is always plentiful and great.

My stomach is a flap with hunger. "is this mine yet?", "is this mine yet?"... it keeps going on, the smell of food infusing my every breath is getting almost unbearable, the juices of my st

And at that point my number was up and i eagerly grabbed my plastic containers of goodness and took off to eat.

The last thought

She walked smack bang into her last thought. No warning, no 'hi how you doing?', just wallop, last thought. It got stuck in her hair, just above the ear where she had hit it as she turned her head as she tried to avoid it. And when she brushed it out, it got stuck on her fingers, then when she wiped it off onto her pants it lurked there glowering at her, then she washed her pants but it held its breath (last thoughts can be incredibly tenacious like that) till the washing mashine emptied onto the garden where it promptly snuck up on to the leaf of her silverbeet where, the next morning, she had her last thought, looking suspiciously like a silverbeet leaf, on toast where it promtly got stuck in her throat and strangled her to death.

The life of the heart

Today has been bouncing around from a deep sinking heart ache, to anger, to love, to playfulness, to productiveness, to defeat, to fear... and in amongst it all i hunt for the truth. I've felt at times myself caught and skinned in my own cunning net, and at others the adventurer going deeper than i've gone before. I guess all this confusion means something good is going on, like when you've got the tail of a great big beast and you're getting thrashed around... if you don't get your brains bashed out on something you'll pull off some killer move and take the beasty down. Well, maybe not so great an analogy, but it's been a day like that.
Just trying to be true to whatever the hell i'm feeling has been a wild ride, and i hope, through it all, to refine my consciousness a little more, to understand myself a little more deeply. It seems to me more and more to be the main game. Consciousness, that is. It is the most incredible thing in the universe (or at least top 5), and our curious culture puts so little emphasis on it. If meditation is the technology of consciousness, then, from the way we marginalise this in our culture, we must be in some kind of stoneage.

How beautiful life is

Tired shattered but cracks
In the outer casing show the light shining beneath
Home beckons love and bed
My pillow my lover
Happy dogs and demanding cats
TV and beautiful children
Warm hugs and friends laughing
With something deep within me
That somehow they always see
And me bucking twisting running fighting then...
Stillness as i return
And looking out of the cracks
See how beautiful
Life is.

Will

Again, will. Yesterday i lapsed, i didn't write my blog as i'd set my will to do everyday for a month. A failure or a lesson? A lesson, a lesson to understand how better to apply my will, how better to focus it as a pure sharp light that the world responds to. A flicker, a missing frequency, a weakness, a gap of foresight, a desire to nurture a tired being at the end of the day... none of which matters, it is simply to be learnt from.

I am beautiful?

I expend so much energy making sure that i do not challenge one of my core self beliefs. That belief is that i'm not beautiful. That i am not a powerful amazing man. I can feel my reaction, my attempt to dissociate from these words even as i write them.

I feel i'm walking alone, and i think i walk alone because i believe i'm not lovable, i'm not beautiful, i'm not what's really wanted no matter what words are said. I work hard to ensure i don't invalidate this perception.

Just to live, to walk, to work, to play, requires a huge about of effort to build around and maintain this belief, as so much in the world is screaming at me: you are beautiful. To act requires heaving this huge edifice over the smallest of obstacles... i look forward and see mountains, i look back and i see rolling hills.

I see a day one day soon, that mountains or hills, i simply admire how beautiful is the journey.

Do we dare hunt down the storm?

Let me ask you this. Imagine, for a moment, that you are on your death bed. You look back at your life. You look back to now, and the choices before you.

What response do you have?

Do you wonder what might have happened if you had hunted the storm? Is there that feeling of deflated unlived possibility in your breast? Have you lived a safe life where you can die content that you haven't really actually changed much? Do you heave a sigh as you think about what could have been, as you wonder what might have happened?

Or

Do you smile with every cell of your body, feel the joy of the hunt in every cell of your body, an ecstatic tide of knowing what it is to surrender yourself completely to the hunt, and hunting with everything you have to find surrender. Do you know the intensity of being completely with everything that is present, a deep light illuminating every corner of your soul?

But what is hunting and what is resisting? Now that is a deep wisdom to have.

But what is more important is not what you do, not what you hunt, not what you surrender to, but how deeply you surrender to what comes up for you. The hunter seeks experience. The hunter seeks to loose an arrow at the very heart of existence and to eat that heart... or put another way, to become one with the very heart of existence, because of course the only thing the hunter can hunt are disowned aspects of him/herself, until at the last the only thing left for the hunter to hunt is the hunter. Key, is surrendering completely to the journey of the hunt, and to what is hunted: to be eaten when you eat, to be hunted when you hunt.

Nothing is invalid. The path even of no courage, of not hunting the storm, when hunted with every last bit of yourself is just as powerful a hunt as hunting the unknown, for in the end there is only you looking at you, arrow notched, bow bent, asking yourself 'do i have the courage to die?'

Evolution

My head is full of climate change at the moment. I was at a talk this morning put on by the Brotherhood of St Lawerence and the VLGA, Coming Together for Climate Change Equity. One of the speakers, from DSE, said that one of the difficulties of adapting to climate change was that human beings had evolved in a stable climate and so were not used to adapting, to coping with change.

I couldn't disagree more. It's factually and conceptually incorrect, even if the conclusion is near to the truth.

Human beings evolved in a highly variable climate, we came through an ice age or two (i really should research this) and adapted successfully to an incredible wide range of ecologies. In fact, the reason we have become such a dominant species is exactly because we are incredibly adaptable. It's why we have a large brain - we are able to assess and adapt to changes in our environment in a way that few other species can.

The problem is that we've adapted to a freak patch of stable weather that's been going on for a few thousand years now. Adapted incredibly well. And combined with our increasingly sophisticated ability to control and alter our local climate (ie buildings and air-con), hey presto we've become incredibly resistant to change. Our own brilliance is, in fact, threatening to trip us up.

We must learn to adapt to change again, rather than adapt to familiarity. The best preparation for the unknown is an openness and a courage to acknowledge and learn from what ever happens, and whatever it brings up for us.

Garnaut Report

I don't usually look forward to government reports. If what was needed was a nice hot cup of tea, they are usually more like having a tepid cuppa that you left lying around a bit too long and that you find a moth floating in when you clean out the pot. You just know it's not really going to do the job... and can make you feel a little bit ill afterwards as the moth lay crumpled up in the plug hole.

OK, that might have been a bit melodramatic, but you get the point. The Garnaut report is not, it would seem, the tepid mothy type. Ross Garnuat has just come out and said that we will probably lose the fight against climate change. Hooray for him, and from a mainstream report, commissioned by the federal government, not some radical who can be dismissed as crazy. It's frankly about time we started calling it like it is.

What exactly he means is a bit open to question, and is a fairly one dimensional way of looking at ecological catastrophe. After all, without a few ecological catastrophes in the earth's history, we wouldn't be in the position we're in... err the position of being able to create our very own ecological catastrophe.

I agree entirely with his findings and his premise so far. Check out the Garnaut Review, it's well worth it. And what i particularly like is how public Ross Garnaut is being, he is really going out of his way, it would seem, to make sure the report doesn't get watered down as it filters into the bureaucracy by being very public about his progress and findings.

However, what would be more interesting than saying 'we're probably going to lose the fight..' would be to say that we're most likely beyond the point of being able to stay the way we are: culturally, economically, spiritually, and even, perhaps, biologically. It turns a sense of impending doom into a sense of opportunity and possibility. Dangerous, possibly deadly opportunity, but opportunity nonetheless.

Ironic, really, that our desperate clinging to our identities, our feverish desire to control our environment, our deep desire to replicate the familiar, has in fact hastened our own evolutionary challenge.

New Moon

New moons are a powerful time to set an intention. And yes, it's the full moon. One of the wonderful ways in which technology has made me more aware of the natural world (rather than less) is through having a 'current moon phase' gadget on my igoogle page. I always know where the moon is at and i find myself looking for her and admiring her more than i used to. Of course, what i really need is a 'go and enjoy the sunshine' gadget that helps me to not while away some time in front of a screen and go and while away some time in the sun instead.

Anyway, that said, i've been conducting an interesting experiment with myself that i spoke a little about in my first post that i'm hoping to find a little more committment to through using the newness of the moon-ness.

I've been asking myself, whenever i've felt stuck, or down, or held back, 'what would i do in this situation if i really beleived in myself?'

And something has really shifted for me, i can't entirely say what it is, but there's a renewed strength to my sense of self, to my confidence. It all makes sense really, i guess i'm just a little surprised it's been so easy to find results with such a simple practice. So my intention, now that my little experiment seems to be meeting with some success, is to set my new moon intention: to drop my self doubts, to continue my deepening awareness, and to believe in myself - and act as if i believe in myself.

Man-ness

So an experiment has it's next chapter. A small group of men quest for power: what does it mean to be powerful, compassionate, sexy, empowering men? And how do you avoid it turning into a crochet circle?

In fact, one of the primary motivations behind this gathering has been that our primary experience of so called 'mens groups' has been the crochet circle phenomena, which appears to come from a desire to emulate what women's groups do, and turns into self indulgent emotional wallowing that doesn't challenge, doesn't push our edge or have a will to change.

And we ask ourselves: what does it mean to be a man in this day and age? The answer we seem to be arriving at is that to be a man means to take full responsibility for our lives, our loves, our demons, our angels, our pain, our bliss, our nurturing... to hunt those things we most fear because they are exactly the food on which our souls thrive, and to bring the spoils back to enrich, feed and empower our community.

Why settle for a life of dull acceptance? We are men, we are hunters of dreams, loves, food, prosperity, security, fear, power, magic, mountains, ocean depths and consciousness. The kind of manhood being sold to us through mass media is either a pale shadow of a man or a hero who serves, ultimately, to highlight our perceived inadequacy by being superman rather than man.

The mind too easily goes to the obsessive culture we so idolise, of the man working himself to death in some corporate high-rise mausoleum, sacrificing family and health to be a success. It is not this i wish to find. We with to find a path, and tools to help others on the path, to be empowered to follow our deepest inspiration and yearnings, to work in a way the nurtures and empowers all those around us - that is true power, the power of we, not I.

I think, therefore i am; i feel, therefore we are; i intuit, therefore everything simply is.

Body image and bulge

I'm having an interesting struggle with my self image. I've got a wee bit of fat on my belly, and my sides bulge ever so slightly. Yes, ridicule my miniscule plumpening if you will, but this is new. I've never softly bulged about the belly before. Well, not since i can remember. My self image as an adolescent was poor, to say the least, and a big part of my growing has been an increasing happiness with my physical self, increasingly stronger, more agile, more able, more confident, feeling sexier and more self assured. And now this. Yes, my city edge lifestyle has left me more car bound, yes my tantra practice is less physically rigorous than my martial arts, yes i've been eating too much sugar. It's easy to be fine with body issues when you don't have to worry about them. I mean, i'm even fairly comfortable these days with the 'hole' in my chest. My reaction is perhaps more about the state of my fitness than about the actual body stuff, but i sit here feeling plump, bulgy, unfit. It's quite weird. Anyway, a fine motivation for getting back into more physical activity, and good to know that i'm quite attached to my body image - an interesting avenue to explore.

Fog

Fog settles on the city, a blanket damp and magical. An underwater wonderland (of very thin water mind you, or perhaps that's water with lots of really big air bubbles) where sounds and lights whisper of a realm of dream, a world only half seen. Sounds echo in a way that draws your attention to the silence between, lights hang suspended from droplets above the city.

A service station glows like an outpost floating in the mists, headlights slowly resolve from a faint blur to two burning eyes as the tail lights fade back into another world.

The rattle of trams far off coming and going along roads that weave between worlds, boom gates clang lonely in the mists, calling as their love speeds past, devoted, looking on as the train skirts between stations, between worlds disconnected by dreams.

Dreams floating in the mist, echoing the silence deep within our souls.

A day, a night

What is a day? A day is when i get up and when i go to bed.

I've been at a party, a party i nearly didn't go to as i was feeling tired, a bit shattered. But i'm so glad i went, lots of good people, good vibe, a backyard fires and funky tunes. It's amazing how getting out and talking to a bunch of great people can really shift your mind-state, can loosen you up and help you remember that life isn't all toil and work.. it's fun, and the exact reason i do the things i do is because there are all these wonderful people that i care about, that inspire me, and that matter.

Great friends make everything in life worthwhile.

Adaptation

Are we the first species on the planet to be able to anticipate our own evolution? See it coming, plan for it, use it, go as far as we can with it. Or will the very irony of our extinction be that we had choice?

Will we, in our exhaustive flurry of largely pointless activity, fail to even get onto the track for the next leap forward? This sort of stuff has been wandering around my head in the last while, with climate change getting all frisky on us and meteorologist starting to say that the 2007 IPCC report is out of date, that in fact we're looking at the worst case scenario for 2070 happening in 2050. And all of those scenarios anyway assume nothing catastophic is going to happen like the antarctic ice cap cracking or the peat bog methane giving the clouds a big high five or the carbon hydroxide hanging at the bottom of the oceans giving up the aquatic lifestyle... it takes me back to being as present as i can be, and exploring as deeply as i can my inner space, my vehicle of earth bound experience.

It's a bit like being welded into a car on a highway thats slowly melting and their ain't no off ramps.

Phlegm

My energy is consumed in the fight
Against beings i cannot see
My body the battleground
My enthusiasm the casualty
More phlegm to cough

Will

Sometimes you need to do what you've said you're going to do, even if it's a bit half arsed because it's important for one's sense of will, the sense that if you say something is going to happen, then it happens. Hence doing my blog with, now, minutes to spare to keep my commitment to every day for a month.

I had an arm wrestle the other night, not something i usually do, but it reminded me how much it's really all that much about your muscles, it's more about your will. I lost only one contest, and that was because my focus, my willpower, faltered. I got distracted for a second. The other's i stayed totally focussed on, there was no doubt in my mind that i could, and would, win. It is easy to lose before you've even begun. Harder to win before you've even begun.

If only love was as easy as arm wrestling.

Resistance and self belief

So i've just signed up to NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. An amusing way to actually get myself to do this thing, more because i have a huge resistance to putting myself 'out there' in the world... it's where my resistance is.

I've been feeling really deeply into, and experiencing, my resistance over the last few days. Well my whole life actually, but feeling it with awareness is the key difference. Resistance to doing what i really want to do, to express who i really am, to feel what i really feel, to shine as i really shine. My resistance to believing in myself appears to be at the core of it... I've been feeling really dull and blunted of late... classic in the grip of the city feeling for me that reminds me of before i went away to India, of before i threw it all in and ran away for a while.

It is, however, gripping me with less life draining vigour, it's like my determination not to get in all the crap that i was in before i went away actually required of me to come back and be caught in the crap and find a deeper learning than that which i'd attained. Still brings up my desire to bolt and go adventuring. Sigh. But i made a challenge to myself for this week: to ask myself, whenever i feel blocked or lacking or uncertain: 'what would i do in this situation if i believed in myself?' It has helped me to push through to get a few more things done rather than putting them off and getting mired in my doubts. So it's been a more interesting day than usual, and has really short circuited some of the usual crap that goes on in my head.

Which all up, you've got to be happy about. So, hence, also doing this blog.