Do You Trust the Media?

I felt the strong urge to write a blog on the media, as it’s been something that’s been on my mind for some time now.

I never questioned the veracity of the media in any great depth until I studied Press and Broadcasting and Sociology as part of my Social Science degree. It was during my first P&B lesson that the lecturer said something which had quite an impact on me: “you’re led to assume that the news you watch on TV or read in a newspaper or online is some kind of impartial window to the world, but it’s NOT. There is no such thing as impartial news coverage: news is always gathered and constructed according to a strict framework of criteria and agendas.”

The media is not your friend, and it’s not simply gathering news to “keep you informed”. It is selling product and it will use whatever sales techniques it needs in order to sell as much of that product as possible; whether it’s newspaper copies, TV ratings or website hits. In order to do that, the news stories they filter (the very fact news items are called news “STORIES” is incredibly telling in itself) are done so in accordance with strict criteria. I don’t recall the entire list of criteria, but very near the top is NEGATIVITY. Any honest news editor will admit that negative stories generate much more interest than those of a more positive nature. This immediately explains why we are bombarded by so much negativity in the news.

What’s also important to realise that the news editors will manipulate and distort their news stories in order to create maximum punch. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story” is the old journalistic cliche, but it is a sad fact - and so many people are still falling for it. “Stories” can be spun in any number of different ways; a positive can easily be re-interpreted as being a negative and also vice versa, as often is the case when we’re being fed propaganda.

I don’t like sounding so negative or cynical, but I feel it’s such an important understanding, particularly as so many people are mass-hypnotised by the media. The media is in so many cases simply POISON. The news editors are not just selling news STORIES, but also a WORLD VIEW; a certain way of interpreting the world and what’s ‘real’ and what ‘isn’t’. This is a dangerous thing, particularly when one of the top criteria of this world view constitutes over-emphasis of negativity and an almost complete ignoring of positivity. I’ve known far too many people who watch the news like zombies (and not just once - but they insist on soaking up every last news bulletin on TV like junkies getting a heroin fix). They believe everything they see and think that’s ALL that’s going on in the world. Personally I only have to watch 5 minutes of the news to feel a grim pall descending - but at least I’m aware of that and can fight it off while reaching for that all-important ‘off’ button.

Those people who aren’t quite as conscious of what’s happening are trapped in a horrendously bleak worldview and they live in a world of misery - even though there’s often VERY LITTLE WRONG in their own lives - in fact, these people often have countless blessings and live relatively easy lives. The grim worldview presented to them by the media blinds them to the beauty of life all around them and the countless things they have to be grateful for.

This is not to ignore the many terrible things that do happen in the world. There is of course much suffering happens in the world. But I fail to see how condensing every bad thing that happens in the world into a 20 minute new bulletin which is little short of torture porn is of any value.

It is for this reason that I REFUSE to watch the news or waste precious moments of my life reading the bullshit that gets printed in newspapers.

This would horrify some people. “But you have to stay informed!” “You have to know what’s happening in the world!”

WHY? The news almost brainwashes people into believing that the world is a place filled with NOTHING BUT murder, rape, genocide and inhumanity. It does sadly exist, but the fact is for every one act of cruelty there are a hundred small acts of kindness. I remember one time watching the hideousness of the evening news and feeling disillusioned with humanity, when I saw an elderly men walking down the road and stopping to kneel down and stroke a cat. It was a clear effort for him, but he still did it. A simple, yet everyday act of kindness and beauty. It made me realise how the countless acts of kindness, love and compassion in the world are deemed ‘un-newsworthy’ and so don’t exist for many people. Only the bad things matter.

In my experience, we each create our own worlds; there is no objective world out there. “Consciousness itself is the greatest painter,” Nisargadatta said. “The entire world is but a picture.” This should be self-evident really. The depressed, unhappy or neurotic person lives in a terrible world filled with negativity, tragedy and futility. A more adjusted, optimistic and joyous person lives in a world filled with possibility, excitement and wonder. They both might occupy the exact same point in time and space, but they live in completely different worlds. Most people are unconscious and believe themselves to be a helpless victim to the world in which they find themselves. However, the truth is that we are solely responsible for the level of our consciousness, for the thoughts and beliefs we entertain in our minds and ultimately for the very world in which we exist. Bombarded by the constant negativity and heaviness of the media it’s easy to fall into this victim mode and to buy the worldview they are selling. The ability to question, however, is the first step to freedom.

I strongly recommend that people try a complete news fast.

Try it for at least a week and see how different you feel. The rationalisation that you need to “stay informed” doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. Believe me, I hardly ever watch or read the news but I ALWAYS hear what I NEED to hear and am informed about the things that are RELEVANT to me and about which I can TAKE ACTION about. In times past, before the globalisation of today, people were only ever informed of local news and events which affected them directly. The rest was irrelevant - it was other peoples’ news. That still holds true today.

The bottom line is we are each 100% responsible for the level - and content - of our consciousness. Bombarding your mind with the hideous pictures and sights of the news is a sure-fire way to make you feel depressed, helpless, deflated and disempowered. Part of me sometimes even wonders if this is intentional in some way. How do you keep the masses weak and disempowered and completely under the thumb of the current status quo? Why, bombard them with a barrage of horrendous stories and images and make them believe that we live in a dreadful, hopeless world in which change is useless and nothing amounts to anything.

I don’t buy it. I really strongly encourage others to come to the same realisation, if they haven’t already. I don’t deny that a great many horrendous things happen in the world and I don’t want it to sound that I shut myself off from such things, because in truth I am more active in social, political and environmental causes than perhaps the average person who simply sits passively observing the television news as though it’s some kind of sado-masochistic entertainment. Perhaps they’re even desensitised to the images of destruction and tales of murder and woe? Some people even get a perverse kick from images of violence. That’s something else to be avoided at all costs.

The negativity and sensationalism of the media has escalated to heights of near parody - and government is often just as much at blame. The recent swine flu pandemic (if it is in fact a “pandemic” at all, the jury is currently still out) is a case in point and I will say no more than that. If, in the course of his predictions Nostradamus happened to have tuned into our news broadcasts then it’s no wonder he thought it was the end of the world. In fact, there are fewer deaths from war today than at any other point in recorded history. Statistically, people are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. And there is a growing level of consciousness and awareness taking place upon the planet; something which many believe is part of an evolutionary process, a shifting from egoic consciousness to a more heart-based mode of being. All of this, of course, is unlikely to ever be reported, acknowledged or examined in mainstream media outlets.

My ultimate point is simple: switch off the TV, put down that newspaper and be very careful as to where your web-browser is taking you. Stay in your own power; take responsibility for the world you live in, recognising that it is a fully subjective realm. Take action for the causes that are dearest to your heart but don’t feel the need to continually soak and bask in the agenda-driven news feed that continually blasts at you. Question the unwritten assumption that you have to stay informed of every single negative thing that happens in the world. WHY? Why do we feel that it’s somehow appropriate or necessary that we add further negativity and suffering to the world by subjecting ourselves to the media torture porn?

The following is a quote and I can’t for the life of me remember who it’s by, so a gold star for the first person that can tell me: “Think differently if you please. But in all cases, think for yourself.”

Beyond words

(This pic is one of my new 'Beyond the Form' series)

I have really done very little in the way of blogging for some time now; I guess when I resumed this blog earlier in the year it was as part of my ‘Artist’s Way’ program, which I’ve spoken of before (basically it’s a 12 week system devised to overcome creative blocks - and, by heck, it worked!). Right now, I have a number of different balls that I’m juggling - my new novel (I’m now 4 chapters in and I'm enjoying it, it’s fresh, fun and exciting!), my old novel (I’ve gone back to scrub it up, correct mistakes, change bits I’m not happy with and create a new cover - all in preparation for a new push to sell the darn thing!) and my artwork. I have plans for an exciting new website which are gestating and formulating right now, I am in the long and rather frustrating process of mastering and mixing my first album. Oh, and another new book is on the horizon - something very different, unique and personal, probably quite a small book but hopefully something very inspiring.

So, I’m trying to use what energy I have - and sadly it’s still very limited! - in whatever project I feel is most pressing. Pretty soon I will have a body of work that I can get out into the world, not just so I can make a living from it, but also so it can bring something to the world. As ever, I endeavour to make art not just for the sake of it, but that it might bring something beautiful or inspiring to others. There’s always a deeper level to my work, a deeper meaning or purpose. I don’t own it, either, it’s not coming from ‘me’, the little ego ‘self’. I simply open myself and allow life to create through me...whatever wants or needs to be created.

Well. I was about to say that I don’t have any more words to share today, but that’s probably not true. I have some words to say about...words! Earlier I mused that for some people words can be more hindrance than help. The mind was developed as a survival tool, enabling us to function in the world and we can see this rudimentary intelligence in animals. Somewhere along the line we humans developed language. We stepped from a non-verbal world into a verbal world. This had the great advantage of enabling us to communicate with each other; our wants, needs, desires, affections, dreams and hopes. It was necessary in enabling us to begin to create nation states and achieve the level of cultural and technological sophistication we now possess.

However, here’s something to consider: how much have we lost by entering this verbal world; a world in which everything becomes an abstract concept in the mind. We no longer relate to life, to things or people or nature directly anymore - we relate to them through the concepts we have of them in our heads, concepts rooted in language and the symbols we call 'words'. We slap labels on things and then think we ‘know’ those things. We call a tree a ‘tree’ and whenever we see a tree, we only tend to see the label we have of it (“oh that’s a pine tree”). We never really LOOK anymore, we never take things in or appreciate them for what they are. All we tend to see is a world of abstract concepts and labels. As a result we’re stuck in our heads. Eckhart Tolle sums up the human race in three simple words: “LOST IN THOUGHT”.

Now I’m not saying that thinking or language is BAD. I wouldn’t be here writing this without it and you wouldn’t be reading it. But, the essence of spiritual awakening is actually learning to stop identifying with your mind and its concepts and to come into awareness of LIFE around you and within you. To really SEE things, to FEEL and TOUCH and TASTE and to be aware of the spark of life which animates all, beneath and below the surface. Getting stuck in the mind, forever trapped in a world of abstract concepts and ruminations, relating to others and life only on a superficial mind-level is a dreadful affliction and one that surely strips life of all joy, aliveness and wonder.

Try living in a non-verbal world, at least for five minutes today.

Forget your name and whatever stuff is sailing through the sky of mind (if you ever stop to observe your thoughts, and I do recommend that you do, you’ll notice that they drift across your mind like clouds in the sky: some fast and filled with bluster, others lighter and more transient. But you come to realise that you are not your thoughts. How could you be if you are able to watch them? You are not the clouds, but are the sky in which they form. But don’t take my word for that, or anything else that I write - try it for yourself!).

Walk about your house or garden and be aware of every perception, every sight, sound and texture and don’t label anything. Don’t impose words or names or judgements of anything. Just witness, being open and alive and fresh with wonder. Instead of seeing trees and clouds and sky; just observe shapes, colours, textures and don’t name any of it. This is a wonderful practise. But again, don’t take my word for it...try it! You might just recapture some of the freshness, openness, joy and innocence that we all possessed as children...before we were taught to compartmentalise and cut up the world into chunks, using WORDS. Just because you know the word for something does not mean you KNOW that thing. Quite the opposite. I’m coming to see more and more that words actually come between us and a direct experience of life, as it is. Just be alive, be open to sights and sounds - and even people! - without having to plaster and strangle them with words. Words have their place...but when you are only living in a reality of words and abstractions, then I suggest that you are actually out of touch with the true essence of life, which is beyond words, beyond mental conceptions - and ultimately beyond form itself!

Upholding our importance

I read these words by Carlos Castaneda (I once read some of his books, which I found fascinating but difficult to get into at times). They really spoke to me, so thought I'd share them.

'Most of our energy does upholding our importance. If we were capable of losing some of that importance two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.'

Just liked those words and thought i'd share.

Byron Katie

I originally posted this on my old myspace blog, but I have re-posted it here on the off-chance it might be of help or inspiration to others.

THE WORK OF BYRON KATIE

I'd like to talk about a woman named Byron Katie, an incredibly inspiring woman who has achieved a remarkable degree of 'enlightenment' and a total peace and oneness with life. More than that, I want to share a simple process she calls 'the work', a process that has helped me immeasurably. Whereas once I used to suffer depression at various times in my life, I now find that depression is pretty much impossible. And although challenges and stressful things continue to happen in my life (for such is the very nature of life), I find that things simply don't 'get to me' like they used to. I don't get hooked and pulled in by them nearly so often and even when I do, I usually manage to re-align myself pretty quickly. The key thing I learned from Katie was to question my thoughts. The core of her teaching is that when you unconsciously believe every thought that passes through your mind (especially the negative ones!) you suffer. When you learn to look at them objectively and question them, you're no longer at the mercy of them. You are at peace with what is. Katie's process of 'enquiry' is an incredible tool that anyone can use and which cuts through suffering like a sharpened blade...

It's helpful to consider Katie's own story. As her website explains:

Byron Katie became severely depressed in her early thirties. For almost a decade she spiraled down into depression, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom.

Then one morning in February 1986, she experienced a life-changing realization. There are various names for an experience like this. Katie calls it "waking up to reality."

In that instant of no-time, she says,

"I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always."

She realised that what had been causing her depression was not the world around her, but the beliefs she'd had about the world. Instead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match her thoughts about how it should be, she could question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. As a result, a bedridden, suicidal woman was instantly filled with love for everything life brings.

The essence of Byron Katie's teaching is that suffering is the result of waging our own little war with reality. Not only is it a war that we'll never win, but it's one that will inevitably cause us suffering. "Any thought that causes stress is an argument with reality. All such thoughts are variations of a theme: 'Things should be different than they are.' 'I want...', 'I need...', 'he should...', 'she shouldn't...' It always hurts when you argue with what is.'

You stop arguing with reality by using a process of self enquiry called 'the Work', in which you identify any thought or belief that is causing you pain or suffering, and use four questions to examine it. Whenever you feel upset about anything, you can ask yourself 'what would I have to believe in order to be upset about this?' Ultimately we confuse our thoughts and beliefs and interpretation of reality as being reality itself. Believing that we know best, that are supreme arbitors of what 'should' and 'shouldn't be' is the ultimate delusion and it's a recipe for a life-long dose of suffering, because we suffer each time life doesn't match up to our mentally-fabricated story of how it should be.

"As you inquire into your own thoughts, you discover how attachment to a belief or story causes suffering. The mind's natural condition is peace. Then a thought enters, you believe it, and the peace seems to disappear. You notice the feeling of stress in the moment, and the feeling lets you know that you are opposing what is by believing the thought; it tells you that you are at war with reality. When you question the thought behind the feeling and realise it isn't trye, you become present outside your story. Then the story falls away in the light of awareness and only awareness of what really is remains. peace is who you are without a story, until the next stressful story appears. Eventually, inquiry becomes alive in you as the natural, wordless response of awareness to the thoughts that arise."

It's not about ridding your mind of thoughts; that would be like emptying the sea of water. It's simply about being aware which thoughts work for you and which don't. If a thought brings peace, it's working for you. If it doesn't, identify it and question it.

The Work involves taking a stressful thought and applying four questions and a turnaround. This is best done in writing rather than in your head (because as you know it's easy to go around in circles in your head, but on paper everything is given concrete clarity).

Stressful thoughts might include: 'he shouldn't have spoken to me like that', 'this shouldn't be happening,' 'I'm so useless,' 'I'm too fat,' 'my mother never loved me,' 'my sister should be more supportive,' 'I should have a better job by now.' You might already have a truckload of justifications to support each one, but let go of all your stories. You have to have an open mind to do this and you have to want to know the truth more than you want to keep holding onto your story. Hold the thought or belief and ask yourself:

1. Is it true?

2. Can I absolutely know it's true?

3. How do I react and feel when I believe that thought?

4. Who would I be without that thought?

You can then turn the original thought around; for instance, try on the exact opposite and see if you can come up with at least 3 reasons as to how this new thought might be as true as or truer than the original.

It's amazing how you can simply transform even deeply-entrenched thoughts and beliefs that you might have been holding for years. Holding them up to the light of truth you might immediately see how thoughts like 'nobody likes me' are ridiculous generalisations and yet you've believed them for years. Then there's the realisation that if we are really honest, we see that there are very, very few things we can be absolutely certain about in life...

When we realise that holding onto a thought that we probably don't even know is true causes suffering and letting go of it enbales peace and freedom, we can go onto the turnaround, in which we identify the opposite of your original thought and find at least 3 ways in which the opposite is truer or just as true than the original statement.

The process is elaborated more fully on Byron Katie's website (www.thework.com) and in her books 'Loving what is,' 'I Need Your Love, is that true?' (an excellent and ground-breaking look at relationships) and 'A Thousand Names for Joy'. The latter is the first book I read of hers and is an extraordinary portrait of a woman who lives at total peace with life. It's not as though she has had an easy ride either; she has suffered from Fuch's dystrophy, a corneal disease that rendered her intermitantly blind and in constant pain. The way she dealt with that was a total revelation to me. Inspiring isn't the word.

I hope that this has given people some food for thought. I really recommend that anyone uses the four question process anytime you are dealing with difficulty in life. I have found it incredible. When feeling very ill and down about it, I realised that the thoughts 'I shouldn't be ill' and 'this shouldn't be happening' were causing more suffering than the actual illness. I questioned them and let them go and felt a peace in spite of the physical symptoms. It didn't mean I didn't want to get better (don't confuse acceptance with apathy and giving up), because I still did everything I could to get better, it just meant I was at peace with what is - and that sense of peace surely did more to help my immune system than all the stress and frustration.

In closing, here are some quotes by Katie which I love:

Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.

The mind's job is to validate what it thinks.

There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not.

When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.

I realised that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing!

Peace is our natural condition. Only by believing an untrue thought is it possible to move from peace into emotions like sadness and anger. Without the pull of beliefs, the mind stays serenely in itself and is available for whatever comes along.

Who would you be in people's presence without, for example, the story that anyone should care about you, ever? You would be love itself. When you believe the myth that people should care, you're too needy to care about people or about yourself. The experience of love can't come from anyone else; it can only come from inside you.

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God's. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our business. When I think, "You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself," I am in your business. When I'm worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God's business. If I am mentally in your business or in God's business, the effect is separation.

Nothing can cost you someone you love. The only thing that can cost you your husband is if you believe a thought. That's how you move away from him. That's how the marriage ends. You are one with your husband until you believe the thought that he should look a certain way, he should give you something, he should be something other than what he is. That's how you divorce him. Right then and there you have lost your marriage.

No one has ever known the answer to why? The only true answer is because. Why do the stars shine? Because they do. Why is the glass sitting on the table? Because it is. That's it. In reality, there is no why. It's hopeless to ask; the question can't go anywhere--haven't you noticed? There is no ultimate answer to anything. There's nothing to know, and no one who wants to know. Just have fun with the asking, because there are trillions of answers, as many as the stars in the sky, and not one of them is true. Enjoy the stars, but don't think that there's anything behind them. And ultimately, do you even care about an answer?

Awakening

The following is a 10 minute excerpt from an interview with Adyashanti, a spiritual teacher from a zen/advaita background, conducted as part of a podcast (the full podcast is available for free on iTunes, under 'Conversations with the masters'). I put it onto youtube and now post it here because it had a profound effect on me. It really sparked something within me and, funnily enough, rather than 'adding' anything to me, it felt more like a subtraction, or a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders, or a massive screen of illusion suddenly dissipating. The point that 'enlightenment' is simply seeing the world as it is, rather than what we think it is, is almost ridiculously simple....and yet it is THE KEY to awakened living, to achieving inner peace and to actually being free from the perpetual pull of ego.

Adyashanti is a gifted teacher with an uncanny knack of cutting to the very heart of what all spiritual teaching attempts to point us to. No dogma, no mysticism or storytelling, just powerful pointers to truth. It really is time for us all to wake up. 'Step it up, step it up, step it up' is the mantra I keep hearing in my head. We've been asleep for so long - and the world has suffered so greatly due to our unconscious actions. We all have to awaken now. Maybe this short clip will help. It certainly helped me.

Advice to myself

Well, there's been no writing happening this week - and very little else, due to a nasty flu virus which has wiped me out. But I'm feeling more human now. And anyway, here's a question I was posed and I posted my response on a forum and I just wanted to copy and paste it here, simply because I liked what I had to say! Try it yourself. You might find it enlightening and inspiring.

The question is: if you could go back in time to when you first arrived on the planet and could give yourself a pep talk, what would you say?? (This is assuming, of course, that the baby 'you' could understand what you were saying!)

Well, upon some reflection, this is what I had to tell my younger self:

Welcome to life, buddy. It's not what you're used to - but it is what it is. It sometimes hurts, but again that's just the way it is. Try not to lose the innocence and openness you came in with, and when the mind starts to develop, just keep an eye on it. It, and its subsidiary, the 'ego' will want to take over the show. It will be desperate to impose its vision of what reality 'should' be and it will cause to to suffer greatly when its efforts are thwarted (and oftentimes even when it succeeds). You are not your thoughts and the world/others/life are not what you 'think' they are. Thought cannot ever encapsulate truth, so just remember to use the mind as the tool it is without being used BY it and thus becoming a tool yourself.

Let life unfold around you and enjoy it, without the need to overly control it. By all means change what you want, but don't base your happiness solely upon achieving those changes. Let go more and don't labour under the delusion that you have to work everything out with your head, that you have to judge, label, compartmentalise everything, including yourself and others.

'End the struggle and dance with life'...

Other people will often behave like jerks, but this is no reflection on you (or even, at a deeper level, them - at least not who they truly are. It's just unconscious, conditioned behaviour). So don't take it personally. It's never personal. You will be prone to chronic self doubt, but learn to see through it and follow your heart anyway.

Try to see the good in everyone, no matter how deeply it's buried.

Try to see the good in every situation, cos it's always there.

Try to fear and stress less and laugh and love more.

Try to let go of the past and future (they don't really exist, anyways) and stay fully anchored in the present moment.

Don't be blind to the beauty around you. Listen to great music (there's a fab music project named 'Enigma' that you might want to check out).

Make whatever kind of art and tell whatever stories you want to without any care to what the world might make of it. 'The world' doesn't know half as much as it would have you believe.

Don't eat yellow snow.

Creative unfolding

(One of my new digital art series, the theme being the formless behind the form)

The blogging has slipped a bit to the wayside. But that’s not really a bad thing actually, as I’ve been channelling my creative energies elsewhere. So sometimes no news is good news...and radio silence might simply mean that I’m engaged in some other project. I had the idea of taking some photographs of various flowers and plants in the garden - which is absolutely beautiful right now, and which I’m really enjoying spending time in - and to combine them with fractal images that I have digitally created.

The theme of this series is an attempt to capture or indicate the formless behind the form; the creative life energy which is responsible for the growth and flourishing of all forms of life. I’ve often stopped and wondered what it is that makes the flowers grow, the waters flow, and what it is that even makes my hair or fingernails grow. To me, this ‘life energy’ is what some have termed ‘God’, a term which I copiously dislike due to the endless abuse this term has suffered at the hands of limited minds and distorted understandings. This creative life energy isn’t to be personified as some belligerent old git sitting on a throne amid the clouds casting judgements and behaving like some vindictive old alcoholic...no, it is the ever-present force within and around everything, the creative force that unfolds the universe, keeps the planets in orbit, the seas flowing, and every cell of our bodies in perfect functioning. It is the Tao.......and I’ve long wanted to somehow capture this formless essence that interpenetrates and animates all matter. It fascinates and compels me, this in-dwelling creative force. Without some kind of animating spirit, nothing in this universe would have cohesion...

I’ve been greatly enjoying creating this series and I have, for the most part, managed to jettison that critical faculty which previously ran rampant and so often blocked me before I’d even begun (the whole “this isn’t good enough, no one’s gonna want to see this, you’re really not talented enough to do stuff like this”). I’m just having fun and doing it because I feel the urge and inspiration to do it. And I intend to bring this attitude to all future creative endeavours, including my next book which I feel I am going to start writing very soon - maybe even next week.

I’m no longer doing it for some end result; the be published or sold, or to receive praise or adulation. I’m just doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it, and because I feel a strong urge within me to do it - a deep, creative impulse which I know won’t go away and won’t permit me rest until I act upon it and create what it is I feel I must create. Ironically this book is maybe a little more immediately ‘accessible’ than my last, it might be a bit easier to sell as it’s a more straightforward story...but that wasn’t my intention at all. The story, the characters and the entire world and its history and conflicts pretty much came to me, fully formed. I didn’t so much have to create this book or its plot, as simply still my mind and be open to what images and concepts were coming to me. I’ve never experienced a creative unfolding as ‘easy’ as this...and hopefully the book itself will be easy and fun to write and not the all-but crucifixion that my first book was to write. The actual theme of this work didn’t come to me till a bit later - the notion of triangulation, something I won’t go into here - but now I know why I have to write this book, and why it has something important to say instead of simply being another fantasy book written for the sake of being written (or being sold).

I certainly haven’t given up on getting my first book published, and will continue to cast out feelers as I set to writing this other book, but I’m no longer as attached to the outcome. Either it gets published or it doesn’t - if it’s meant to be out there, somehow or other it will be. After I finished my first book it was perhaps akin to having had a hard labour, and it took so long and so much energy and love - and life - out of me that I didn’t think I could ever do it again. I’d written what I wanted to write, said what I wanted to say, and I felt I could die happily knowing that I’d created something special that had been within me for most my life. I really had no interest in writing anything else, and didn’t even think I had it in me to go through the whole process again. ‘The Key of Alanar’ was not an easy book to write, and I constantly had to battle my own chronic self-doubt, fear and lack of belief in myself. The struggle of darkness and light that my central character experienced almost mirrored my own struggles. Which maybe was necessary to make the book feel authentic. So, it’s nice and amazing that I have a new baby waiting to be delivered into the world. Hopefully this time the birth will be an easier one...although sometimes, I’ve learned, a little pain is necessary to a writer’s work. If we all lived ultra-easy, pain-free lives we’d probably all be hollow, shallow people and for an artist that’s tantamount to death...although some artists don’t know that. There’s enough hollow, shallow art out there.

Anyway, enough ramblings. It may be a slow process writing the new book. My energy levels dip very rapidly, in fact I’m tiring just having writing this blog. But if I can get a small amount written each day, the momentum will be built. Prior to starting the project I have immersed myself in some great literature, including works of Albert Camus and Herman Hesse, simply to ignite a certain spark within me. I’ve also been reading a brilliant book which is essential reading to every writer: ‘Becoming a Writer’ by Dorothea Brand, a classic guidebook originally written in the 1930s and one that has inspired writers for generations.

The next step is actually to create complete space for a few days and read absolutely nothing and spend much time immersed in stillness and silence. Then we’ll see how it goes as I put pen to paper and allow the words to come.

I doubt I’ll have much energy left over for blogging, but I may surprise myself. I will definitely write small check-ins and continue to share my own particular musings and perspectives on this remarkable thing we call ‘life’. I will also perhaps transfer some of my favourite old postings from my previous myspace blog which I want to preserve after I delete my myspace account, which I never use anymore. So I’ll still be here, in some capacity. In the meantime here are a couple more of my digital images...

There are no random events

Everything that has ever happened in the entire history of the universe has brought me to exactly this point, right here, right now, in this room, on this day, typing these words. There are no random events - everything is a result of countless billions of causes, interrelated, interlinked, operating together like the cogs in some kind of giant timepiece.

There’s a cobweb on the light above my bed and I realise that this is no random occurence either; a million different causes, different actions and interactions was necessary for precisely that cobweb to be here on precisely that light in precisely this house, in precisely this moment. The interrelated web of causes included this house being built, and all the countless people involved in that process; those that bought the land, constructed the materials and assembled them, fitted the furnishings, manufactured the actual light - and by extension, everyone that has ever been involved in the lives of the people that did these things: their families and the countless generations that led them to be there precisely where they were at the time of doing what they were doing, all the innumerable people that supported their lives, including the people that built their homes and were responsible for producing food and the basic necessities of life in order to sustain them, in order that they might live to one day assemble the house in which I live and the light at which I’m looking.

What is inescapable is that all our lives are inextricably interlinked with the lives of thousands - millions - of other people. Every action and reaction and cause and effect was necessary for anything and everything that you care to look at to be as it is, now. Every cause and effect that has ever been set in motion led that particular spider to be in my room when it was and to set up home above my light. Every cause and effect that has ever been has led me to be living in this house, as I am, and to notice that spiderweb.

This massive interrelation underscores the spiritual notion of oneness being at the very heart of our existence. There are no isolated occurrences, no random events. And moreover, it could be said that:

“There is not a single atom in the universe that’s out of place. How could there possibly be?”

Those words came to me a while back when I was in the midst of a particular turmoil and they hit home which such force and power that they cut through my feelings of resistance and melted my pain like ice in the sun. The mind loves to cut reality into bite-size chunks, to divide the indivisable and compartmentalise, label and pass judgement. But all these notions of ‘this and that’ are ultimately illusory; they are mind-created. They are stories. When everything is seen as it truly is, it is all part of a vastly interconnected tapestry, deftly interwoven and each part inextricably linked the other. There’s ultimately little point in focusing and isolating individual parts of the design and mentally designating ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It’s all part of the tapestry and everything is there, not by chance, but by a series of interrelated causes stretching back to the very origin of the universe.

Everything that has ever happened since the beginning of time was necessary to bring you to this moment now, sitting where you are, reading these words and whatever else you have been doing, thinking, feeling or experiencing. We’re all drifting in this vast ocean of eternity, gently being carried upon a tide of cause and effects, each moment birthing the next by virtue of an unseen multitude of invisible causes. When you observe the infinite interrelatedness of life and get an appreciation for the true profundity of it when mind no longer cuts it down into digestible, seemingly separate chunks, you get a sense of the infinite. It becomes easy to see why Byron Katie declares that, for her, reality (that which IS) is synonymous with ‘God’. You step out of duality and enter a state of oneness in which all is actually quite perfect as it is, even what previously appeared to be unspeakably ‘bad’. It’s all really just part of an unspeakably vast tapestry, dark threads and light, and when viewed from an elevated perspective we become less likely to chop that tapestry up with a pair of rusted scissors, brandishing handfuls of cut cloth in our raging fists and declaring that we KNOW what reality is for us, and what’s ‘good’ and what’s ‘bad’. From such a limited, grasping, delusional perspective we really don’t know anything at all. The mind simply doesn’t have the capacity to understand the totality of life in its true perspective; all it can do is grasp onto its erroneous concepts and judgements and continue to tear things up with those scissors.

Only the heart, or that deeper state of consciousness below and above mind, can ever grasp the expansive perspective of which I suddenly caught the barest glimpse this morning when looking at that cobweb and musing at the fact that everything that has ever happened since the beginning of time was necessary in order for that cobweb to be where it was and for me to be there in order to witness it. When you think of things along those terms....isn’t EVERYTHING pretty darned mind-blowing?

Time

I’ve been thinking about time. Well not so much ‘thinking’ about it as being open to insight...

And I had a flash of insight this morning when I recalled the old saying that we are born anew each day and that, basically, all that gives us a sense of the continuity of ‘time’ are the thoughts and thought patterns in our minds. Without thought there would be no past and no future. Past and future exist as nothing other than thought. All that’s actually ‘real’ is the present....it’s the only reality. It’s all that ever has or ever will exist in terms of time. Nothing ever happened in the ‘past’ (it happened in the present moment; the form of which simply changes). Nothing can ever happen in the ‘future’ (it can only happen in the present moment). Is it the human mind that keeps us locked in a sense of ‘time’ - an illusory sense that is glued together by mere thoughts?

In Eckhart Tolle’s ‘A New Earth’ he makes the point that if you were to visit a world where there were no humans; only animals and trees and could ask them what time it was (and assume that they could answer you!)...they would probably stare at you as if you were mad and answer simply ‘Why, it’s NOW! What other time could it be?’

If ‘time’ is simply a mental construct held together by mere thoughts...why do we cling to it so strongly? Is it because from our past we assemble a sense of identity (which can only be our ego identity, the false self, because the ‘content’ of this self is incidental and interchangable and therefore can’t reflect our TRUE, innate ‘identity’)? And do we need the notion of future simply to project onto it our desire for fulfilment and wholeness (which we mainly tend to seek by acquiring and accumulating ‘things’ and objects)?

Is this inability to be at peace, to appreciate and dwell fully in the present moment because we’re bound by the mental constructions of past and future an inherent human dysfunction?

When I say that past and future don’t really exist obviously I’m not denying the passage of ‘linear time’ as we experience it. Buuut....there is no succession of separate ‘moments’ really; there’s only one infinite present moment without beginning or end, and the form of this moment changes constantly (one moment I’m standing in this room, the next moment I’m moving into another room).

The thing is, we latch onto these changes and make stories of out of them and we cling to those stories and invest them with meaning and emotion and carve an identity out of them, rather than simply letting them go. We carry the ‘past’ with us rather than realising that it’s simply the movement of a dance. Once a particular movement has been performed it’s over; the present moment takes on a new movement. Why keep that movement alive in your mind and miss what's currently going on? And why project yourself into an imagined future to think about what the next movement will be, again missing what's currently happening?

I don’t know if I’ve expressed this with any clarity. But I know what I mean, at least. I remember Byron Katie explaining to Oprah Winfrey how we can deal with the ‘bad’ things that happen to us. I remember her saying that if someone hits you, for example, the good thing is that the moment it happens, it’s OVER. The only way it’s kept alive is if you keep replaying it in your mind and running stories through your mind about it. If you keep replaying it in your mind, then it’s not the other person that's hitting you - it’s you that’s hitting yourself. (This doesn’t obviously mean you ought not take action to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but it does mean that you immediately let it go, because it’s no longer real - it’s just a memory, which means it’s just a thought and nothing more). I found this tremendously liberating and something immediately ‘clicked’ in my mind.

Obviously we can't escape the measurement of time in this world of ours. We still need to operate by the clock in order to function in our society. There's no escaping 'clock time' But perhaps psychologically we can unhook ourselves from it and recognise it simply as a construct. The past is over the moment it happens and so we can just let it go. By all means, deal with whatever issues come up from it in the present, but then let that go as well. Just let go of all your baggage of ‘past’, and equally the baggage of ‘future’. Recognise it all just as thought. It has no inherent existence. All that’s real is this moment, right here, right now. The form of that moment is continually changing. Let's just flow with it and stop creating ‘time’ out of it.....

Waving the white flag of surrender

Been totally exhausted the past couple of days, which I can normally accept in itself but every so often it’s accompanied by terrible feelings of exasperation and hopelessness. And I just feel like GIVING UP.....now, some people might race over and beg me not to jump off the nearest cliff. It’s not quite that kind of giving up. Although the cauldron of emotion that precipitates it is anything but pleasant, it actually feels like quite a liberating kind of ‘giving up’....a surrender to what is. You see, fighting reality as it stands is just too exhausting and painful...especially if you have something like ME. You don’t ‘fight’ it to overcome it. Like I stated in an earlier blog, the tree that fights the wind has its branches cruelly snapped. The tree that surrenders to the wind and just ‘goes with the flow’, survives intact.

Sometimes the world seems like a bleak and lonely place and these past few days I have been confronted with the horrendous suffering that man perpetrates on himself and his fellow species (I’m always getting action alerts to sign certain petitions and support various causes, which I’m delighted to be able to do in order to help in some small manner...although when I’m feeling sensitive and get graphic and descriptive emails about how 36,000 dogs have been brutally beaten to death in China it hits me like a punch in the gut - maybe not everyone would particularly care, but I am an absolute animal lover and sometimes actually prefer them to people). I guess when you’re feeling low physically and emotionally you’re more liable to view everything through a certain screen, and the world can seem rather insurmountably hopeless.

But in order to feel like that I realise I’m attaching to opinions and mental viewpoints that are destructive rather than constructive. The moment I realise that the ‘mental bubble’ is back up and keeping me locked in a certain set of negative thoughts and the corresponding emotional ‘juice’ that keeps them afloat, I can just recognise this mindstuff for what it is - thoughts (in this case storm clouds) drifting across the sky of mind and I can let them go. I can burst the bubble. I do that by GIVING UP. I just....quit.

Quit everything. Surrender everything - all viewpoints, all mental interpretations, all judgements of what ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be happening, including all hopes and dreams...they all go into a big bonfire - and free up some inner S P A C E . I then feel that I’m no longer the one in charge - was I ever really? And just who is this “I” that “I” constantly attach to, anyway?? Upon investigation, there IS no “I”...and, mercifully, no “me” equals no struggle. There’s just a surrendering to life, and allowing the tide to pull me out to sea. Whatever the sea is, whatever it will be and wherever it will take me, I just let it be. I let go and I let life be whatever it wants to be. Ultimately anyway it’s aaall the same. No one gets out of this experience we call ‘life’ alive...how deliciously ironic. At least the ego never gets out of it alive...the deeper reality of unconditioned, undifferentiated consciousness, the formless that animates the form, was never fully born into this world and so can never die.

When I reach this state, a feeling of inner spaciousness and release pervades. The body can still be physically exhausted with little energy, but the ego-mind has ditched it’s struggle (why do we all act like petulant toddlers anyway; thinking that our mind tantrums and protestations will actually change life and it it what we think it ‘should’ be?). It is what it is and there’s a feeling of emptiness inside, but a good emptiness. If the body wants to be tired, it can be. The deeper part of that which is ‘I’ (the big Self and not the little ego-self, that is) doesn’t actually mind all that much, I don’t think. It just allows whatever is to be. I once heard this described as the ‘benign indifference of the universe’ and it’s a strangely comforting thing.

today the key is complete surrender to what is. completely letting go. giving up the illusion that reality should be anything than what it is. only mind would suggest otherwise - and my days of being completely entranced by mind and unquestioningly buying into every thought are truly over. what is mind anyway, but ripples on the surface of a pond; mainly conditioned habitual thoughts stemming from unconscious patterning. most thoughts are actually aimless, repetitive and destructive. once you realise that, i think, a portal opens to genuine peace and freedom....even in the midst of turmoil.