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.