wise desire

I love that word: desire! It’s juicy, robust and compelling. It enlivens the senses, activates magnetism and puts a sparkle in the eye.

So, there’s a streetcar named in honour and the obvious lustful awakenings but, as one matures gracefully (!), desire can evolve to a tempered tool of mastery and must absolutely not be discarded from the magical tool box.

Desire is creative force. It’s us waking up and going “oh yes!”

Desire expands our lust for life and widens our horizons. It compels action. Its an electric current that puts spring in our step and enables us to walk around in a vibrating happy bubble! Its soooo good for body, mind and soul!

We have Needs, we have Wants – both of which are serious and responsible and part of Maslow’s Hierarchy blah, blah, blah - but, if we do not have Desire, we lose the exciting means to create fast and powerfully, and even more importantly, with joy!

You may have guessed that I am of the opinion that this world really needs more joy (I think the world not only needs joy, but wants and desires it too!) Joy is magnificence expressing itself and desire is the secret tool to its creation. But, it’s only secret because we forgot how to be wise with it. We mixed the sacred and profane (again) and turned magnetic power into the Cosmo-magazine-meets-Hollywood version of needy-sex….

So, be honest: how many of you think thing desire means lusting after sex? No, no no, that’s the introductory course (and so is chocolate)! Desire is when every part of you longs to fuse in delicious bliss with the source of fulfilment – in other words, desire is what your spirit wants you to experience (Of course, this may be sex, but then it has a capital S and is part of some huge juicy creation!)

When we are in baby steps phase, we feel desire and want instant gratification. Then, we do a bit of crash and burn and perhaps a whole moral reasoning about how dangerous desire is, which leads to all sorts of complications! We do a whole guilt number about why we cant and why its bad and all that other stuff, and it gets so convoluted that we eventually attempt to reject or hide desire by being reasonable and undemanding of life and love.

Bad move. This can only lead to little grey lives of unfulfilled yearning and much strict discipline to accept mediocrity (strangulated noises must accompany this last sentence!)

So, ladies and gentlemen, this is a call to Wise Desire. Feel it, feed it, indulge it, play with it! Pay attention to its call. Fill your body with the imprint of your hearts desire and create joy by being so magnetic with it, you can’t help but be happy.

Go on, it’s such fun!

watermelon

I'm gonna raise them on tigers milk and green banana
Mango and coconut and watermelon...

I remember dancing on a Thai beach long ago, sometime, whenever.

I was alone and wearing headphones (remember Walkmans?!) The moon was rising over the sea and I felt so free and full. Michelle Shocked was crooning in my ear, telling me that when she grew up she was going to be an old woman – Oh yes! Me too! Michelle was going to have loads of babies and raise them on all the wonderful goodies mentioned above.

That moment was when I first thought I might have a child. Before then, the idea seemed as alien to me as deep sea diving in sewerage. But somehow those olden-days Thai ways and Michelle Shocked combined to make me feel totally at ease and able to raise babies, wear sarongs and eat yummy food.

All my freedom moments have involved wide-open sea-scapes, warm weather and simple, casual sensuousness. I want brown children, earthy feet and a sway in my hips. I want tropical juices, cicadas and a lilting breeze.

I think I’m gonna run away to a desert island. If you look for me, I’ll be the one with watermelon juice running down my chin and a sarong worn soft and faded. My kids will be bleached blonde and my man will be happy and open.

Make sure you come and visit!

cosmic church

Last night, I stood on the deck amongst the trees. The wind was whipping branches against the tin roof as she called the rain with a zeal borne of the stultifying day. Wood smoke scented the air and the remains of logs glowed. Fireflies flirted, fairy-like, as they hovered and darted further into the wood.

I breathed deep and I thought two things.

My first thought was: this is my church. I smelled the life and my whole being exhilarated in response. Cosmos, nature, forces - being alive is how I know divinity. This is my prayer and my response.

Divinity is a parable of glory and meaning, principle and power, laid out in the living library that surrounds and enfolds us. Knowing spirit by loving earth - a planet amongst the stars, a spiral in the cosmos - is an experience we know regardless of who we are. Here are the books to be studied, the classes to take and the teachers to learn from. Here are the songs, the wisdoms, the challenges and the secrets. We are all part of this wonder, our substance is universal and our cells know the oneness.

My second thought was: I am so lucky!

The freedom of truth

Ha!

I love a truth telling. It may take me a while to absorb and digest, but I never regret the process of truth.

On Sunday beloved-lover-man and I were indulged with a rare treat of a three course lunch with wonderful ruby rich wine and an afternoon of languid conversation. After getting over the idea of uninterrupted conversation, the gentle silence became more animated and soon we were unravelling truths faster than streamers at a birthday party.

In a heart-felt moment he looked at me and said: “You’ve changed. You used to feel so free, but now you are tied to your baggage!“ He showed me how I argue myself out of what I want, by being fair and rational and considering the greater good of everyone.

Now, naturally, I had an argument for this, and a very good one. In fact I had many. But, as the sprinkle-dust settled, I knew it was true. I knew that logic was baggage that prevented me from making truly free choices and I loved him for reminding me.

The next day I went to work in a sacred dreaming place in the mountains. I cannot help but make love to this earth; I cannot help but open when I am out in these beautiful spaces. Being on wild land is a truth that my body heard and it defied anything my head could talk about. The pure act of walking this earth is love for me and it is a fundamental truth of who I am. No discussion, I just felt it.

The final piece of the adventure came in an experience with a Native American storyteller. I explained that I currently wrestled myself between trust and doubt. (Well, actually, that’s a bit of a summary – it involved a lot more snot and tears!) She heard me quietly and then, looking at me with her dreamy brown eyes, said gently: “if you say you trust and you say you doubt, then you are not who you say you are.”

BAM! That did it.

Three hits of “get over yourself, woman!” and I’m back on track. My head is quiet, my body sings and I’m still standing :)

Whoo!

Redemption songs

So won’t you help me sing
Those songs of freedom…

On the day of the fire, I had three lucid moments.

The first was as I went to the window, wet from the shower. In that moment, as flames tore across the field towards me, I knew a doubtless certainty. Every piece of my Being integrated into one solid Absolute. I Knew. I became calm, even as my exterior danced the fandango.

The second was as I carried our cat to safety, not sure if I could make it. The smoke was thick and the flames close. It seemed like a long risky run during which I could disappear in the smoke and get into trouble unnoticed. There was intense midday brightness, the heat of the fire was incredible and I had another moment of powerful clarity. I felt a surge of awareness. This was my pristine moment. I was flooded with joy; we would be alright; everything was for a reason and all is beautiful! I knew then that this was a promise.

The final clarity was when I was driven away by my beautiful, protective friend. Behind us the house was a smouldering wreck, the police interview was over, I needed to fetch the children and share the news. As we picked up speed, elation suddenly whipped through me. I threw my hands up and screamed: “Free! I’m totally free!” and then we laughed hysterically.

These have been my treasures, my sometimes secret truth. I have clung to them like a shipwrecked sailor in the middle of the ocean and I have used them as lanterns to negotiate dark tunnels. I have turned them over so much, holding on to the message with determination that is sometimes just plain stubborn.

Yet I grow weary.

Limbo dancing is for the lithe and I am fighting the inner rigidity of doubts and “what ifs”. I return to the moments, rolling them over in my hands. My thinking makes them cold and I realise: this is the challenge of freedom.

I know this because I watch my doubt fragment my experience of certainty. I watch my mind talk myself into logic; and sensibility; and taking certain care ‘just in case’. I gently remove my sense of joyous freedom like a mother taking a toy from a child. What if I hurt myself? What if I hurt others? What if I just can’t do it?

And then my dragon roars!

So won’t you help me sing
Those songs of freedom,
They’re all we’ll ever need-
Redemption songs,
Redemption songs.

Don't look back

I suppose these posts might seem morose. I don’t feel morose, just very aware of the invisible trip wires that exist as I hang suspended in mid-air from my web of creation.

“Don’t look back.” I think of Lot’s wife in the bible: struggling up the hill with her family, leaving her home to go to a safer place. She was an inhabitant of Sodom and Gomorra, infamous dens of iniquity, and the angels had saved her family because her husband had shown courage and grace. Behind her, her home town was aflame and in the process of being destroyed.

Lot’s wife (did she have a name?) looked back. Against instruction, the fleeing woman could not resist turning, one last time, to look at what she had left behind. Instantly she turned into a pillar of salt: immobilized, unable to continue, hooked by regret or nostalgia or a longing for something from her past. Poor Lot’s wife was left forever on the hill as a pillar of salt… I wonder about her.

Why salt? We have Salt of the Earth and it is a scared, purifying substance, much valued in the days of old. Salt is the substance in tears and ocean water. Salt brings out flavour. Why salt?

I amuse myself by spotting and analysing my trip wires. I see how we must leave negativity and free ourselves by moving away without return. I don’t consider my past negative, but I do know that what was, no longer exists and this includes the aspects I would have liked to change.

Like Lot’s wife, I can avoid the opportunity of a whole new reality by staying immobilised in old behaviours. That would deny the gift of the fire. I intend to use it to create an entirely new existence - a positive, clean new way. (I cannot imagine experiencing the total purge of our fire and then trying to reconstruct what was removed. It seems counter-productive. A clean slate is the gift being offered.) One of the ways I do this is to keep my intent pure – salt is traditionally symbolic of this desire.

I think the message for me from Lot’s wife, is not to become rigid with the act of purification that comes from leaving. I could become permanently set up in Resistance To Going Back and therefore still unable to move forward. I must carry my purifying salt with me, not become it.

I shall endeavour to remain fluid; tidal and tearful sometimes, perhaps, but flowing forward with the gift of purification as part of my whole self - not become so attached to the act of purging that I cannot move and become a rigid ‘phalleec symbol’!

I love it when I have become aware of another tripwire, or hook. It enables me to let it go.

Thanks Lot’s wife. I wish I knew your name.

information and sweetie wrappers

In the Information Age, information is hard to come by. It is becoming rare and precious!

Now, I’m not referring to the abundance of trivia masquerading as such – I mean the real hard stuff, like Yes or No! For example, I can find out anything I need to know about insurance in general, insurance companies, the basics of how to follow claims, the general benefits of such a process - it's like litter after Jazz at the Lake - but how do I process a ’life defining’ claim and find out what is actually happening? Ah…that’s a secret that no-one’s telling… yet.

Having spent the last few months chasing and waiting for information regarding our home lost in the fire, and considering that most of my decisions depend on the information received, I have come to know a few things about both information and the strategy required for waiting!

I realise that information is a game and how you play it depends on a basic set of beliefs. Some people believe in openness and clarity – these people willingly share information in the interests of effective outcomes.

Others believe in information on a Need -to-Know basis and use information as a negotiation technique with a bit of power thrown in for good measure.

Finally, there are those that believe that revealing any information is a loss of face and will do anything to be oblique, vague or deceptive. This is a complicated mix of ego, fear and power and seems designed to put others off.

The point is, it’s not personal - just part of the religion around information. Most of us do all of the above, depending on circumstance.

So having done my first grade in Information, I now get to the next bit: Waiting.

Waiting can involve giving power away. It’s an insidious little drug that acts innocent and then gradually diminishes ones sense of autonomy. It seems therefore, that waiting can be a very bad choice.

No matter whether waiting for a cashier, or waiting for an answer that may change ones life, we must always pretend to ourselves that we are not waiting - if we want to maintain our equilibrium!

The danger with waiting is that one risks becoming irritable, obsessive, disgruntled, or downright crazy-unreasonable. Avoid this at all costs, it can activate the information power-monkeys and sabotage bliss!

The effective strategy involves living life as if there is no tomorrow, distracting oneself with techniques like reading sweetie wrappers, collecting trivia and genuinely marvelling at every little thing (except the time it is taking you to get your desired results). Go about tasks and duties, decisions and plans as if the awaited outcome makes no difference. This (and surely only this?) can fool you into the lucky experience of delight: when the outcome finally materialises, it’s a pleasant surprise!

As Baldrick said to Blackadder: “it’s a cunning little plan, me'lord”!

The road less travelled

Sorry, Scott Peck, I know you used this title first and I use it in recognition, as I attempt to keep myself on this same road… perhaps there isn’t even a road?

I feel as if I have veered off my old well-worn highway and repeatedly find myself in some inner twilight, entangled in a scrubby bush with thorns. Its okay if I move slowly, but I just wish I knew which direction to go to avoid these scratches!

I felt so clear when I walked off in this direction, but now I am increasingly aware of the background hum of traffic, as that old highway continues to service my old ways. It becomes almost alluring, although I tell myself that this is merely my struggle to overcome my addiction to petrol fumes haha.

It helps to remind myself of all the good reasons I left that particular highway and why I have clung tenaciously to my vision of a new way and a new life. I tell myself that this is a conscious choice; there is another bright road for me to travel. But, and this must be said in a whiny voice, it would be so seemingly easy to run back to the order of that road. I could soldier on making nice out of nothing and settle into accepting discarded dreams as the reality of life.

You see, this is why I love blogging : its such a cool way to unravel my head. I mean a few sentences of unmitigated whining and even I get bored and would rather run for the thorny bush and get on through to the other side! Besides, it reminds me that I will not go back to ‘making do’ and ‘soldiering on’ which is what feeling sorry for myself makes me think I should do. Blogging like this reminds me that compromise is innately dissatisfying and compromise of the self even more so.

So I pep talk myself instead: Time, money or doubt (the dogs currently barking at my heels) shall not sideline me from keeping faith in what I want. They shall not prevent me from refusing to accept less than the promise I have made myself. Time is imaginary, money can be created and doubt is a waste of both.

Dissonant voices shall not discourage me either. This one is hard for me. I sometimes carry a huge iron weight of responsibility along this little-travelled pathway. I remain resolute, but - martyr to the cause - drag other peoples doubt along with me (in the interests of being open-minded, of course!) I think I’ll take an iron supplement instead, I’ll feel both stronger and lighter!

Note to self: The above is an elaborate construct of blame to allow self-pity and doubt, so I shall totally scratch it. I cannot make everybody happy, but I can be true to myself.

Anyway, that’s just a little rave from a woman who is trying not to lose it in the face of the great unknown! Sometimes all at sea without a life raft and other times centred and knowing beyond my wildest dreams, I’m working to hold my clarity.

But, I do know for sure that the big wheel is turning, all is well and every little ting’s gonna be okay!

Old stuff

The hummingbird’s nest was buffeted by a storm. The wind blew holes in the sides, twigs fell out and the little house toppled and fell soggy to the ground. To get over her distress, Hummingbird flew high, far and wide. She flew so close to the sun that her heart was warmed and her feathers brightened, but when she returned to earth, she could not find a place that felt like home. At first she was pleased to be able to rest and she stopped on branches and flowering shrubs and fluffed her feathers and closed her eyes. But, she could not quite settle. Seeking comfort, she flew around and finally spied her old nest half buried on a large moist compost heap. Chirruping with excitement she pulled and tugged, removing broken twigs from underneath rotten vegetable peelings and gathering them in a little pile. Her old friend the tree took pity on her and, leaning down with the breeze, caressed the little bird with her trailing leaves: “Come up into my high branches and make yourself a new home,” she whispered, “only this time, mark your place with one of your bright new feathers. This way, no matter how high you fly, you will always be able to find where you belong.”

Last night I was cooking and couldn’t get it right. I longed for ‘my pot’, the mezaluna that belonged to Omi, the wooden spoon that knew my hand. I felt that my old things would bring me the old feeling and together the spirits and I could dance and cook like we always did. Looking around I missed the things I used to have that had connected me to my ancestors, my travels, my life. I missed the richness of old stuff and the way things were.

Then I dreamed. I dreamed of old cultures that marked the bodies of the dead so that their spirits would recognise them in the afterlife. I saw how sometimes we need to know how to find ourselves, so we seek the comfort of the familiar after we have crossed over into another way. I realised that I was restless because I thought I couldn’t feel at home if I didn’t have my stuff.

I saw also the appeal and the futility of scrabbling together old habits and ways of being, just so that I would feel at ease. I saw that gathering up the past does not create a future and does not change the now, it merely takes us around and around one more time.

I decided to mark my new place of being. I found my brightest feather and marked the spot. I am here and my spirit can always return, because she knows that this is where I belong :)

Living the Life Dream

For those of us that have yearned for meaning, purpose and peace, living our Life Dream requires that we overcome the malaise of spiritual sickness. This socially acceptable malaise sweeps our inner land and has an incredible hold in our world and over our creations.

To create the dream and heal the spirit, we can begin with Bliss - conscious, centred, determinedly-committed Bliss. Of course, this is a choice – on a daily basis (sometimes even more often than that!) But, in my experience, its a tool that enables us to negotiate through the challenges of other realities.

Bliss is constant; a truth-teller; a guide to integrity of mind, body and spirit. Its totally personal, like a secret glow at the centre of our being. It seems to me, the guidance of Bliss is the key to freedom, personal power and health. It is the anchor during change. Finding our Bliss makes Now okay.

Living peacefully with change comes through making space for the acknowledgement of inner Bliss. The ability to find it in each moment centres and aligns us with who we really are. Bliss expands insight and unlocks limits. It reminds us of bigger visions. In an intense moment of discomfort I can lift my eyes and the sky is still blue, the trees are rustling their leaves, beauty surrounds me: I am safe. Or, I can close my eyes and my love is intact, my memories glow, my spirit strengthens: all is well.

We are always living with change. The more we align with change the more we take responsibility for managing the movement through our unique realities. This makes us strong. It enables us to create more clearly and in harmony with our deeply held convictions and principles. It fulfils us. Being victim to change and trying to manage it by resistance or denial creates spiritual sickness. It removes our ability to be powerful, expressive and true.

Day by day, I am charging myself with the feeling of Bliss. I am in training! I am building Bliss muscles and flexing them. I'm embracing my tasks and my purpose with big, strong arms.

My spirit is delighted: it may look a shambles, but I am living my Life Dream!

Purple passions

Rule number one: no sex, politics or religion.

Sexuality is about self expression. Shared, of course, but very personal and intimate and self-exposing, which is why I think its interpretation is also personal and as varied as snowflakes. Same with politics and religion.

So, I won’t talk about my discomfort when a facebook posting to raise awareness about bigotry against gay people became a joke-filled example of bigotry against the entire Middle Eastern community. No, I can’t, because that seems to be sex, politics and religion all in one.

Sigh.

I feel discombobulated. It’s a fabulous word, but it feels confused. And sad. Why create hate, fear and distrust, even as we become open, loving and enlightened?

Its such a waste of potential.

Sneezing

What do China, Poland, Luxembourg, Kenya and Israel have in common? Well, for one thing, along with South Africa, Zambia, UK, USA and Australia, they all have someone who reads my blog! Cool, hey?

I have discovered this wonderful gadget that shows a world map, stats on page downloads and other such info, and according to this gadget, my blog is going randomly global. I don’t know anyone in the first lot of countries, so this has got me chuffed. Chuffed and fascinated: how on earth does this work??! It seems to me that, like sneezing, a blogger has an outburst, and others randomly get the virus (or snot spray - sies!)

I am not the first to recognise this analogy. Malcom Gladwell talks about Sneezers who get excited about something and then infect others with their enthusiasm for a product. He reckons that the secret to modern marketing is to focus on tickling the noses of the Sneezers, as it were, rather than spending loads of energy and cash on getting the masses to move their minds.

This trick has worked well for trendy stuff like ipods and Ug boots. Only thing - its not guaranteed. The trying-to-be-trendy approach is embarrassingly uncool, so anyone who labours the Sneezer, is likely to have a reverse effect.

I love the stubborn way humanity can resist and accept, in spite of patterns, predicted trends and absolute dogma. It thrills me how an idea can spread like a virus. If its time has come, a good idea can randomly switch on in peoples minds and, bingo, we have a paradigm shift. Witness the mass addiction to little white earphones, or the way people break world records randomly around the globe at about the same time. I am excited by the subversive power of this phenomenon, and charmed by the way that it seems to be untameable.

Its all one giant uncontrollable paradox and I just love to go along for the ride! Hmmm, do you think I’m an anarchist at heart?

:)

Wisdom warriors

I have been thinking about the role of elders in my culture. Who are the ones in whose footsteps we follow?

I figure that elder women have a particular niche to fill. Women of my culture are relatively wealthier and healthier than many cultures both past and present, and they have loads more access to tools with which to share their wisdom.

Looking at the stretched, painted faces of the fashionable try-to-be-youngs, the cynic might question the validity of seeking wise council from modern day elders. But, plastic or not, women are full of rich experience. It is precisely this layering of personal experience that has the potential to shape new ways.

All women of the world shape and are shaped by others. Their roles demand relationship. The generations of women that have lived through the globalisation of sixties culture, CNN, Arnie movies, Gloria and Germaine, free sex, safe sex, TV dinners, the organic food movement, drug wars and no World Wars that are called such, have quite a unique take on the cross-over from old to new.

They have seen the flaunting of rules, the breakdown of codes of conduct, the shifting of paradigms and the unchanging realities. They have both witnessed and participated in the politics of culture; questioning, testing, trying, surrendering as theories and beliefs have come and gone with the ever- increasing speed of light. It seems to me, therefore, that reaching the shores after hauling youth and mid-life through their paces, these are the elders currently in a position to become unique warriors of wisdom!

No more fading into watercolour prints of a life once lived, waiting for whatever. No, its time for all those feisty, experienced intelligences to be put to a new task: standing up for what they know – even if it’s only to the cat.

Surely, after raising themselves and their families, the elders are at a stage where they can only live their truth? After rebellion, compromise, challenge, observation, action, creation, relations and all the other diverse experiences of being independently-minded, totally-surrendered Super-Women, surely the passions, beliefs and yearnings of youth can now channel into a powerful surge of assumed rightness? Surely, cantankerous or not, the experience of personal wisdom can now come fully into play?

We all know right action from wrong. We all feel love. We have all lived with extremes and polarities in our lives, our bodies and our minds. Elders have developed opinions and insights based on such deep living. Women with experience can say: “you now what sonny boy? That just ain’t right, practical or sensible. I know. I tried it once.”

In my lifetime, valued life experience has largely been based on left brain, middle-aged White Boy principles and the rest of us swallowed (comfortably or not) the advertising jargon. But now, as we work to heal our crazy upside-down separation from peace, earth centeredness and rational safety, we can learn from the ones who know. These are the women who tried to balance self, community, family and principle and learned a thing or two along the way.

Go grannies!

Creating tomorrow today

This evening my woman-child daughter asked me to buy low fat milk. This is not a phrase we know well in our house.

After reading the cereal box (bless them) she has taken the All Bran Ten Day Challenge and is going to eat All Bran for breakfast every day for ten days. She will also cut out all fats (including biltong fat!), do stomach crunches and take fructose instead of sugar.

You understand the conflict here? This is the nine year old wonder child who complains about phone costs by telling me she eats air time like ice cream (it’s a close call, although she does get ice cream more often than air time).

This is Ms Belly-Body-Beautiful who fights with me every time I criticise her habit of more than one teaspoon of sugar in her tea (she prefers three). It’s my babe explaining that she won’t go overboard, but she will make some changes.

I’m delighted about the health care and charmed by the emerging adulthood, but I have a few dogmas about diets and their insidious effect on self-esteem and body-love! So, I swallowed my screaming “don’t be so stupid kid, this will only lead to teenage angst” voice and we chatted woman to woman-child.

We discussed health and body types and media mis-information. We discussed the low health rates and high obesity rates of home of the Body Beautiful: America the Free; and how Western diet lore infects the rest of the world like a fashionable virus.

We talked about how our bodies teach us, and what we have each learned from listening to our own inner wisdoms. We even chuckled at my crazy-youth story of doing a pineapple diet and finding that my hair fell out (not to mention that I began the diet weighing about 35kgs, but, you know, it was the seventies – diets were the rage!)

It was very companionable. We agreed that she will explore this diet idea by listening to her body responses. She will pay attention to what her body loves for vibrant health. She went to sleep smiling and at ease in her body and I came downstairs glad that I remembered to affirm her wise self rather than preach to her inner Barbie.

May we all claim our inner sense and reject fake control and calorie counted freedom. May we all be at ease in our diversity and joyous in happy health.

Here’s to bodacious bodies and spirited minds! We sure need them.

The other side of fire

I have long been fascinated by a story told by Denise Lynn, author and shaman, by whom I was inspired in London (hey, vagabond reader – did you know she was shot by a sniper? Sorry, that’s an in-joke!)

Anyway, Denise told us of the time when the native American peoples recognised that their way of life was coming to an end, so the elders and wise ones from all the nations gathered to find a solution.

After purification lodges, consultations and deep prayer, the councils agreed on the way forward: an enormous fire would be ritually prepared, and with chanting and singing, the warriors, healers and those who chose, would walk into the fire.

This was an act of hope for the future. It was to keep the wisdom sacred and untarnished for future generations. The peoples knew (as has now been proved by genetic sciences) that their actions would affect seven generations. They wanted the seventh generation to have the power of this gift in pristine form. They knew it would be needed.

Nations travelled far and wide to be at the ceremony, and the ritual lasted for days. Many, many stepped in to the fire as an act of promise and a gift to the future.

The winds of change blew, and life for the native peoples was forever changed, but the story remained.

Many of us are the seventh generation.

So, the time is now. I am sad my old life must end, even as I rejoice in the change. Like the traditional Native American way of life, there was so much promise and potential, so many layers of richness and story, great intentions, deep experience – all stretching endlessly through timeless space. My home was another world, everything else faded and time stood still while we lived our lives there.

It’s over. The new intentions could not be made manifest in that way. It was a way of life that couldn’t quite fit all its pieces together – we’ve done the struggles, learned the lessons as realities inverted to become their opposites. Life stands still to allow for balance, healing and understanding, but if it stays still, there is no life. We must keep moving.

On the other side of fire, there is life. We came through fire for a reason. Luckily, we are surrounded by wild-minded creatives who, like me, are seeking integration. They carve a path of support – like the tunnels people make when they link hands for bridal couples to pass through on their way to a new life!

I hope the Indian warriors and healers of long ago felt carried by the sacred songs, in the same way that I feel carried. I hope we are worthy of their act of faith.

These are surely powerful times. I am ready.

Ashes to ashes

Depression came calling this past week. Knocking gently, attempting to embrace me while whispering sweet words about not knowing the future and regretting the past. I have a mental picture of this caller: a cartoon figure, all black, wild hair and an embracing smile. Seductive to lie in bed with him for a while…

But I didn’t.

I teetered around the many good reasons to do so, and came back to the best reason of all, which is the reason not to: I am loyal to the commitment I have made and he’s not in the picture.

I went to visit our land on Friday. The burned grass is turning golf-course green, the blossoms are coming, the wisteria is in full, fragrant bloom. Nemo, the incredibly large koi fish, flips lazily in the half-empty pool. The space is lit in familiar sunlight, the views stamped in my brain.

My feet know the land so well; I walk her intimately and at home in the steps I take across her curves.

My paths are burned away. In their place are the wheel marks of the people that have stolen the roofs and doors of the remaining out-buildings. It is so sad - a different kind of desolation. My land waits, as we do, for the next part of the story.

The children and I make dream lists for what we need in order to give meaning to each one of us in our next home: space, light, colour, views, place to keep pets, place to kick a ball, big windows, a small school.

It seems so hard to place this part of the dream anywhere on the map, because each placement has a long list of pros and cons, so instead, we leave the big picture to unfold without our clumsy attempts at control and work instead with five things that we each need to feel fulfilled. This will be our new core, wherever we go, we shall meet these basic requirements.

Father is still, but his list will be there too. He is paging through picture books of gorgeous homes and dreaming a perfect space.

So I shall continue to refuse to sift through the ashes of what was, I shall lie quietly and accept that sometimes I am so sad and often I feel lost. I shall not even mourn the loss of the positive surge that carried me so far from the fire. I shall be here now, eating chocolate, catching moments in the sun and staying fully present.

Because right now, we have all that we need.

Girl power!

My sister came to see me yesterday – thank god!

She has this theory that has now been medically proven: women are good for each other. Apparently, being with one’s women friends enhances general well-being. (Women must be some sort of medical wonder, because being with a wife apparently does the same for the happy factor of a man. Don’t ask me why she has to be a wife, that’s just what the theory says, but my point is: she’s female. Bless us!)

Anyway, my happy pill arrived in the form of my sister. The pervading gloom that had begun to nibble at my picture of light was dispelled to where it came from, and all my aches and pains vanished instantly. Suddenly I have time to be nice and kind again. I don’t feel like chewed string trying to be Christmas lights and my sanity is no longer just a picture in my mind struggling to be felt through vague snot. Yup, my crappy few days definitely came to an end.

Ah, thanks be to sisters!

I am now able to deal with today. My beloved is ready to retire to Antipodean shores after going back to our land and finding that the few remains are being systematically stripped by opportunistic scum – not exactly my choice of words, but who am I to argue? Our insurance claim is quietly going up by the day and we can only hope that one day all this detail will have noughts attached!

We move again next week. We have been staying in a beautifully quaint cottage opposite the mountain where the gold that began the Johannesburg gold rush was first found. Luckily for us, the vein was richer in Jozi and Magaliesburg remained a sleepy village with potential. (I have decided that this is not necessarily the metaphor I want for us!)

Anyway, we are moving next week to an airy architect designed home with an open plan kitchen and a wooden deck into trees. It’s walking distance from school and shall be home for two months – you see? Who says you can’t travel and stay at home!

So now this dragon is going to roll on her back in the sun for a few moments and then go and deal with the next dragonfly that needs attention.

Hasta la Vista!

Dancing in the rain

I have discovered a little known secret: when in doubt, ask a blonde. This sage advice was passed on to me by a feisty blonde (with purple bits) and has proved invaluable.

It came as a result of our dalliance with the challenging arena of technical wizardry. For endless days we have wrestled with the enigmatic conundrum of converting call time to data bundles. It must be said that we were disadvantaged by the fact that we do not really speak the lingo and so were blindly following the advice of those-in-the-know, without success.

Luckily, after a final two-and-a-half hour debacle that involved telephone calls to the techno giants of South Africa, a failed sim card exchange, several people wrestling with the doodads and advice to change service provider because what we required was unavailable on our network, we finally came across the blonde.

Oh relief, and hail to all of the pale variety! (I gave up blonde jokes even before I had blonde children, so I can hail without eating humble pie!) She looked at my frustrated husband and said: “Just put phone time into the computer and use it!” When he explained that this was not converted to data and all the technicalities that needed to be considered, she shrugged and said “well that’s what I do.”

Being an open-minded guy, he immediately switched on the computer, ignored all previous instructions and Viola! Connected! …Shew.

Dancing with blondes after wrestling with geek-speak brings me to the title of this blog. It is inspired by a dancer (a juicy red-head) who has a blackboard at the door to her house advising people not to wait for the storm to pass, but rather to dance in the rain. I love it!

Although I have lived through the eye of many a storm, I am wishing the rain would actually pour down and relieve me of my dusty, dry nostrils. But, metaphorically speaking, I am glad to be reminded to dance. I’ve been feeling a little beat this week, so shall turn that from ‘tired and giving up’ into a shimmy through the rain while imaginary drums beats patter out a rhythm. I am glad to be reminded that, if Fred Astaire could do it, so can I.

Here’s to blondes, technology and fiery rain-dances!

Less yadayada, more chingching!

Ever get the sneaky feeling that you're biting your own bum? I wrote a blog about computers and their ability to decide my future and now, even though all my previous fate-definers melted into contorted plastic blobs, I am still chasing rainbows at their beck and call!

I am in training with my new internet connection. I've introduced the computer to the cute little connector. So far, so good. Both the laptop and the internet dongle-thingy are love-gifts; one is black, the other is white - fusion is required. They get it, but often not at the same time - it's okay, some require more practice at these arts than others!

I am currently trying to get around the concept of converting airtime into data, and even though the blue-eyed technical modem genius insists that it's simple, the local purveyors of such goods are not so sure. We'll get there, but once again, the lesson for blissdragon and her followers appears to be patience and persistence! I shall get online with time.

I wrote a blog about Native Americans stepping into the fire to preserve their wisdom for the seventh generation (those of us born around the 60's). I have carried it around on my flash drive for more than a week! Finally, today after much work, I got to this point: a moment in time to upload the stale blog on someone else's computer. But no, no - not to be! It came out as computer speak - lots of little squares and binary coding and all sorts of complex ideas that I havent been trained to read yet. Make of that what you will.

Me? I'll just blog while I can and forget that I am supposed to be blogging every day! The intention of all this was to practice my skills. I am. I just didnt realise how diverse my skills are, haha! This is a fine line between allowing timing to unfold without creating fake stress about it, and being true to my commitment to blog.

I have been training in the city - loving the spark and interaction. We moved out of our temporary abode (move back at the end of the weekend, then out again in two weeks time). I packed and sorted our belongings, and crammed them into the trusty love mobile, wondering how we managed to acquire so much in such a short time! I left my kidlets for a few days and headed for the Big Smoke. Apart from the training, I have consulted insurance experts, sat in hours of traffic, read quantity surveyors reports, compiled spread sheet data, provided a few counselling sessions and caught up with friends and family. If multi-tasking were my practice, I would be ahead in the stakes.

Actually, being in integrity is my task and I'm hanging in with a few gold stars on my forehead! I have been so tempted to follow some well-worn paths that no longer serve me, but I am being strict with the monkeys on my back and pushing through for bright-and-shiny! I gathered my chickens back under my wings, got everything done and kept my eye on the prize: transcedence!

So, this may not be the story I set out to tell, but it is a blog and stories are for bed-time. We shall leave it at that and puzzle out a way to get data bundles at the cigarette counter.

Meanwhile, hang onto the dragons tail and remember: this too shall pass!

crazy bliss wisdom

I have work to do. I am sitting in the centre of a huge ball of fire, protected by earth dragons and quite alone. I got here through hard work and wild circumstance and now I must work. I must be the shaman of fire that I have become.

Jeez man… what do these words really mean? I am a woman with lots of words and they can both free me and tie me in knots. My eternal challenge is that my words don’t mean the same to anyone else as they do to me and perhaps now might be a good time for a few clarifications.

Okay, first most asked question: What is a shaman? A shaman strives to live truth as a changing search for integrity. Its someone who takes her truth and tries it out in every colour of the rainbow (just to be absolutely sure!) and then applies that full knowing in the simplest way possible, so as not to cloud it, or tarnish it - even when is looks like its exact opposite.

A shaman works to experience spirit in everything, especially the physical fields. We claim our connection to this earth and this body as part of our divinity. (These can be the hardest places to experience spiritual light… and the most awesome! Shamans are always Crazy Bliss Wisdom kind of people because it takes a lot of practice to experience bliss in all the details of the mundane!)

What are dragons? A simple, profound symbol of earth realities, physical powers, body, nature, form - this whole physical Being-ness is dragon. We are both spirit and form and the form is the dragon. How do we learn how to be peaceful as both spirit and form? Befriend the dragon! Love the physical, erase the difference between the seeming opposites, be One, here, now.

And bliss? Enlightened physicality - the principle of integrity as a full-body experience!

So then, who am I? A bliss dragon fire shaman! One who has done enough seeking and experimenting and has found her truth to be constant in the most challenging of realities, so must now apply it wholeheartedly. I am She Who Must Be What She Knows (please read in a deep voice)!

This is only hard when I run it through other realities (or try to shape it according to convention, expectation or common definition). However, being a caring, socialised kind of gal, that is exactly how I would like to do it. I would like to be normal and ordinary and just exceed all limitations.

I think everyone should feel free to dream glorious, whole dreams to make life simply blissful. Why not? Why argue with the voice in my head: don’t be weird and unrealistic, you had better do this, or that - just to make sure you don’t fall on your guava. I bore myself with this schooled logic.

I want to be used as an example of how crazy magic can free you. When someone has an illogical dream that is pure inspiration, I want them to be able to say: well, bliss dragon broke all the rules and she got there. And when they stumble, they can look at me and say: she did, too – it was a gift in the great plan!

I want the dreamers to say: not once do I have to compromise what I hold true to make it in a so-called dog-eat-dog world, not once do I have to sacrifice what is sacred so that I can be logical or normal. I can remain in integrity and shine, I can be balanced , successful and harmonious – just like bliss dragon!

Haha – I better get working.

Watch this space!

I am that I am

When Moses was confronted by a burning bush and told to get his people and go to the promised land, he apparently asked in whose name he should do this and was told: I am that I am.

Me too.

Since the day I left our farm, I keep having “burning bush” popping into my head. Finally, after a rather hectic day of justifying myself in languages that are not my own (ie: insurance, financial, legalese, Afrikaans etc) I lay on my bed with a picture of flames behind my eyes and the analogy hammering away. This is when I came to the idea of the Promised Land and started to wonder about the pristine ozone effervescence that I can see, feel, taste as my future.

I also came to the realisation that a girl like me is gonna miss those reference books that now lie in rows of talcum-white ash. Luckily I have a mum and she is now my official Bible reference. She told me about I am that I am and it just fits! I am that I am. The Whys and Wherefores and Incredibly Logical Discussions about strategies for our future fall away. I am that I am and here I am now. End of story.

I am aware that the message I get out of the story is purely mine. For me, it reminds me that there is no logic for the pure passion of inspiration and focus. It reminds me to follow my call to my Promised Land, without trying to fit it into a name that others can get.

The contorted logic of trying to puzzle our past life into columns has been consuming our time and explaining everything gets totally convoluted. How come I don’t care if someone steals the remaining scrap metal on our land? How can a bush woman shaman have a wardrobe worth so much? If we could hardly run our cars, why did we have a Pierneef and Loubser? And why the hell was that Baccarat paperweight not locked into a safe with double security bars? Jeez!

I don’t know what we shall do and I don’t know what will happen. I only know that I have a very pure, strong feeling and this is what I hold sacred. It is my message from my fire and it is what I shall seek out. It will lead me, pull me, urge me into my new life and I shall gladly follow.

And, if anyone asks me for a reason as to why I take a step this way or that, I shall smile calmly and say, you guessed it:
Fuck off!

Haha – only joking.

I am that I am.

My stomach is eating itself

I have a clear vision, a calm mind, a peaceful intention and a gut that won’t give in.

My belly refuses to work with me by ignoring the fact that this is supposed to be (and often is) a High Stress situasie! Damn, the body always knows.

I ride it well, mostly. I am a rodeo cowboy hooning around on the bucking bronco, and I am reasonably chuffed with getting this far between past and future. However, when I want to lift my hat and throw it into the air with a whoop, the bronco rears and I have to clench my knees and thank my stars that I am still in the saddle. Trouble is, this seems to be an endless ride, I notch up a score and find that I haven’t even begun. Shit.

Today I bumped into my neighbour in the Spar. She showed me an amazing National Geographic style picture of my house aflame. She is having an artist paint it for her, because it’s so spectacular. It is. It’s beautiful…and shocking. It turned my guts to acid, even as I am fascinated by the spectacle. Hollywood is the Zen master that teaches detachment – I mean, yawn, how many more burning buildings do I have to look at!?

I want to move onto another version of my life story now, but this is not such a fickle affair – I have to go over and over and over the details, the story, the plans, the lists. This is the bridge between what has been and what is becoming. It is an important and exhausting task. When we take a break from the paper work and go for a wander, we bump into someone and the whole thing begins again. Scream! I am never comfortable with laying out my dramas for general consumption. Makes me wonder why I blog??! Oh, I am a mass of contradictions.

And when we are not discussing the F-word, what is there to say?
Nothing.

Silence.

Peace? Almost,
sometimes,
not quite yet.

A brain full of blogs

It’s been ages since I could get to a computer and I have been experiencing the return of Itchy and Scratchy. Each day brings moments that I long to place in my own pattern of order by allowing the flow through my fingers, but no go and plenty else to concentrate on.

Yesterday there was movement. I was given this laptop to use – yay, a lap top! This is a significant advantage when one is living a nomadic lifestyle with a VW Beetle as chariot/caravan and little desk space to rest a weary hard drive! Then a pair of angels contrived together and the one inspired the other to offer me access! Access – a sweet word to a web deprived blogger. This means that I should be back in action in the next few days – a calamine balm to my jangled need!

So, today I write a pretend blog – I am not on line, nor can I get on line for a few days, but I do have a computer and this is too good an opportunity to waste! Now if I could just remember all the stories I have been gathering, we might actually get somewhere!

There was the fish-bowl story – an amusing tale of moving our fish from the ex-neighbours who had been babysitting them, to our new temporary abode. The fish bowl was in my lap and the road was contorted with gorge-like four-by-four-only chasms. Wet between the legs and smelling of fish has many connotations I am sure, but the moment has passed and I’m not going there now.

Then there was the very exciting story of being hit by a truck with full bang sound effects and absolutely no mark on my trusty chariot whatsoever! This falls into the spiritual experience category and, apart from giving me the shakes to rival Saint Vitus, gave me a solid sign that I am protected – and very gratefully so.

Two weeks after the fire and twelve years after we got married, to the exact day, we found a rescued brief case that has been occasionally used throughout the years and was given to me for my twenty first. On opening it we discovered the bill for lunch on the day we were married – laid out in the middle of the case as if left as a message by a secretary that had gone home! We just cried, clearly this union can survive the fire!

And on and on I could go, only I can’t because my brain is befuddled with detail and holding any more is a challenge. So suffice to say, I am glad to have access and shall be letting my fingers do the talking with relief!

Daffodils and roses

I come to this page ready to write. I have longed to get the time and access to a computer to do so. Now, what the hell am I going to write? I go blank.

So much has happened in the lifetimes since last Thursday's flamboyant purge, every emotion and insight has had profound value, I want to work and share, but I also think: so what?

Do I tell of the incredible messages that Huletts sugar keeps popping at me every time I grab a coffee with a little sachet? Take big leaps, truth is simple etcetera. Thanks Huletts, your timing has been good and the message clear.

What about the homemade meals that arrive anonomously each day at school for the children to bring home? Details like this can never be underestimated - we dont even know we're hungry until we eat, and then the care nourishes and strengthens us so magically that we cannot imagine how we did not notice our ravenous bellies.

How gently and compassionately our needs are met! I have soft, beautiful underwear, new clothes, cash, food, space to share in peoples homes, shoulders to cry on, words of encouragement and support. My children are clear eyed and brave, my husband heart-warmingly open. My family encompasses us in loving protection, my friends see our strength and vision and help us to maintain the forward motion. Life is dramatic, emotional, scary, yet poignantly very, very sweet. It truly is enough to turn a girl religious!

And then I have this incredible desire to be clean - not exactly OCD handwashing, but it could be the spiritual version. I have a sense of ozone-ping-shiny-sea-air-light(!) It is absolutely all I want to experience. Anything that is not of this high vibration causes a violent reaction in the pit of my stomach. I am searching for it in all that I do and decide - smoky is out, clean is in - with a vengeance!

On Thursday, spontaneously, I found myself at the sacred site of burned mass, walking with my sister at exactly the time that the fire began. I had been dreaming of planting a field of yellow daffodils and she arrived with yellow roses. We walked through the space that had been home, hardly believing that we couldn't sit down at the kitchen table to chat and save the world!

We laid yellow roses at the doorways, in the space that had once been my magic cupboard of dreams and on the still smoking tree outside. We held each other and cried. I raged at all the old shit I wanted to let go of and then we finished, closed the gate, placed a rose in it and left. It was exactly the time that I left a week before - a ritual good-bye.

We still seek a refuge, somewhere we can close the door and be just the four of us, yet we are learning that space, freedom and peace is inside of us and not reliant on our house. We need to deal with an overwhelming amount of details and I have to resist the urge to run towards the horison.

I shall feed on the clean, shiny light, it gives me the strength to do what needs to be done - it keeps me clear and focussed. And, at every moment, of every day, I shall love my tribe and give thanks in a thousand ways.

Blessed be, there is so much beauty in this wonderful world.

Ho.

The surreal strength of shock

So, we are homeless, if not landless, and floating on a surging river of love, support and community amazingness. The house is a scarred, charred, barren shell smouldering and creaking like some bizarre monster on a black, black landscape - I'm stunned.

I wake at night and rock with grief at the richness that I/we have lost. I step strongly through the reams of stuff to organise and do. I get moments of elation and moments of total, numb shock. I have a vague guilt - what I could have/should have saved, the heirlooms and precious treasures that I shall never see again and shall not pass on to my children, the unknowing knowing that I have carried, the blithe readiness to move on. Process.

This is to be a gift - I am so clear on that. I am not alone, either in my experience or my process. The grace, generosity and sharing is beyond words.

I was calm in the shower, I had a feeling. I stepped out and went naked to the window and saw high flames charging towards me - ah fire. Even as I heart-beatingly wrestled some clothes on, I calmly checked the file of important papers. Even as I raced through smoke and carried the animals to safety, I was saying thank you and good-bye. My last memory of the single-second moment is sinking onto the tarmac of the road as the flames lept in the rooms, poignantly watching my grandparents wooden bed catch flame through the window.

This was the bed I inherited. My son was conceived in it and has slept in it most of his life. Midnight Oil: How can we sleep while our beds are burning? Prayer, gratitude for the life we lived in the spacious, gracious home. Honouring for the home that had been our stage set for so much.

My last facebook post was that I was rearranging furniture - I had set up my practice room, a new counselling room and a new writing room that morning, the children had changed their bedrooms the night before, C had spring cleaned. I had dusted all my wonderful artwork, polished my beautiful trinkets and treasures. My house glowed with sunshine and sparkle. All the magic curled up to the pale blue sky in smoke.

Freedom, loss. Nothing but ash. And, ironically, the cotton hammock, hanging lazily over scorched earth, the wooden bench under a burnt tree and a metal mask and Benin bust - guardians at each door.

Walking around the outside of the smoky ruins, gaping holes showed our wonderful snugly 'bed' and my new lionheart 'computer' as still-smoking piles of ash. Somebody risked their life to save my ironing board! The window frames were melted and bent. No sign of life. Fire won.

Jeez, we always said our bed could smoke!

Fire!

House burned down. Ants gone. So has all our stuff. New life, clean slate. Have my family, my animals, my friends and my community. Wow.

May not be back for a while, Lionheart the computer, melted.

A reason to crow!

The roosters are rebelling. It’s that time of the year again.

Living with chickens is my social research. Social anthropologists live with people in jungles, I do chickens. Chickens live in traditional community, with the best and worst of communal, social behaviours (plus I can work in my dressing gown on the doorstep in the sun with a good strong cuppa).

I learn a lot from my chicken research! When food is abundant and the grass is green, they are sociable with each other and content. They do yoga in the sun, stretching out their wings, fluffing dust into their proudly groomed feathers and flirting and canoodling with each other. They are the most contented mothers, clucking to their ribbons of adorable chicks, following eagerly after small things that fly. The cocks, strut and call and take excellent care of the women and children. Their manners are as English Gentleman as the best of them and they are considerate, attentive, sharing and celebratory.

However, when I am budgeting on the grain and there is crunchy, dry grass and one cold morning too many… ah. Now we see the edge. The hens get nasty and refuse to co-mother. Child rearing gets competitive. Babies are killed and kidnapped. The roosters get aggressive; cannibalism, gang rape and fighting becomes common.

(Magnificently, some of the ones that I really admire, remain gracious and mannered. I soooo love those guys and gals - they break all the chicken rules.)

Anyway, context-setting aside, the roosters decided that things are not as good as they should be and that the time had come to don their warrior feathers. There was much cock-a-doodle-dooing and feather ruffling until everyone was ready. Then they decided that they needed someone to blame. I tell you, politics is rife in the chicken kingdom!

They picked on Jigs – long time consort of Reece the gender-crossing prince regent. They hounded him mercilessly, venting their fluster and overlooking any loyalties. They crowed and strutted and caused much cackling. They wanted to make a sacrifice of blood and glory. But they reckoned without the intervention of the deities of chicken land.

As Jigs lay in blood-gushing drama, the great chicken goddess, daughter of this very bliss dragon, swooped down in all her mercy and swept him into a very safe enclosure. Now it happens that this chicken goddess was rehabilitating Ginny, the house chicken by putting her into this safe space with two other juniors. Jigs landed into a palace with permanent food and water, fabulous roosting houses and three chicks! He was awarded the grace of the goddess!

Man, you should hear the celebration as he crows. You should see the consternation! How does the scapegoat get to heaven?

It defies rooster logic. I love it :)

Ants in my pants

Ants are persistent.

Every winter, when the fires and the wind turn the grass brown and the water no longer lies in puddles in the driveway, the ants on our land move into the bottom of the passage-way and build Dogon-style turreted buildings between the wall and the floor.

These magnificent buildings rise up on a daily basis. Filled with corridors and rounded rooms, the organic shapes of sweet smelling soil evolve from the crack at the edge of the carpet and colonise the corners and along the wall. Busy workers move about with efficiency and purpose, the whole tribe gets involved. This is an organized community.

The center point of this colonial power is four kilometers away from us, on a farm near a dam up the hill. The outposts of the kingdom can be seen far and wide, rising out of fields like fat brown rocks.

Ants will undo the work that humans have put in. They will eat the roots of the crops and digest the walls of houses. They will clear up all the kak and lots that is not. Like I said: they are persistent.

Along with other colonized locals, I can’t get rid of them - even if I poisoned all my land they would still return the next year and I am not about to do that anyway. One year, in a desperate attempt to fight back, I overran my non-interventionist and organic policies and resorted to localized toxins, but hated myself and the smell, worried about the kids and the chickens and gave up when the ants returned ten-fold soon after. Besides, I kinda like them, I respect that this is their land as well as mine and I do enjoy the eco-building tips.

So, what’s to learn here - apart from the fact that I’m learning to share space as I wait for my house to fall down?

Persistence. This is the lesson I want to learn from these mini-guru’s. Don’t give up – even when your house is pulled down and your babies are fed to the chickens on a daily basis. Even when you have salts, chalks and poisons used against you. Even when all your work is disrespected and rent asunder, don’t give up.

So, despite my inner two-year old and my demonic critic that sits on my right shoulder and pisses on my attempts – I am still going to do my 10 000 hours.

Yay ants!

Boring

Yawn. The day is too good to be self-reflective, existentialism is booooooring and examining one's belly-button whilst waxing lyrical is like pretending you're not looking in the mirror! Haha!

Remembering the Father principle

Our Father which art in heaven…

A few gals I know have been doing father stuff and so I’ve been wondering about this line lately. I mean, I know my dad actually art in heaven, but remembering and honouring the father role is something that I think needs a little earthing.

My life experience has made me feel able to parent alone and raise my children well, which is precisely why I grab the challenge to play into the mother/father combination and try to make the twosome work in a sacred way. I believe that gifts of life are symbolically and literally embedded in this magnificent fusion, even as I believe that being raised by women was a phenomenal gift for me.

If we consider our creation, father and mother are both essential for conception. (Well, nowadays perhaps we should say, the ‘masculine and feminine principle’, because when it comes to test tubes and genetics, we don’t need female and male bodies anymore.) But what is the pure role of the spark-that-is-dad thereafter?

The female body is the place of bringing conception to manifestation, she is the earthly expression of the cosmic bang. Is the father the spark that gets the idea off the ground and then that’s that? I don’t think so, and I think we need claim its power in a new way. While I can see that women can raise their children alone or with others, I can also see that there is a vital, divine spark shared by the father and I want to know how to honour it within me and my world. I’m looking for the qualities rather than the person.

The bond between mother and child is pretty fundamental. We’ve had immaculate conceptions and so, for a while, could downplay the male contribution and even the need for a father. Now we’ve discovered how to do without the womb, so mothering is as replaceable as fathering, in theory.

However, because relationships are basic to being a social species, the parenting bonds, or their lack, affect humanity. We all seem to have patterns from our idea of father. How do we model the role in its highest Truth? What is it about Fathering that is an Absolute for balanced, healthy communities?

I’m trying to move out of stereotypes and into blissful archetypes. Women play out their father relationships as they grow up, so do men. Is this socialized? I mean, truth be told, neither mother nor father should be able to impact us so completely for the rest of our lives - especially not if they can both be scientifically replaced! And, when we individuate from our childish needs, we facilitate healthy childhoods for others and fulfilling adult relationships

Perhaps we haven’t got the point? If our father art in heaven and our mother believes in heaven on earth, can’t we arrange something here? These roles in their current form can be both stifling and essential – surely there is a way through?

Perhaps, like the sun and earth, this male/female, mother/father dance will always have an aspect of unfulfilled yearning and learning. He is in heaven and She is earth. Perhaps she must always deal with her (inner and outer) male by turning to face him and then turning away on a daily basis. And him? He must just sommer shine!

Consumed by desire, need and the power of a force - there we all go, orbiting around this spiral galaxy, male and female, mother and father, god and goddess. This dance is an intimate reality. These roles are our freedom, our security and our trap.

Our father which art in heaven,
on earth,
in me.
How shall thy name be hallowed?

Spirit walking in circles

There is a native american saying: "no tree has branches foolish enough to fight among themselves". I see the deep wisdom in this, yet sometimes find myself like a frantic, branch-gnashing tree in a high wind. My branches don't really fight, but they sure bang against each other!

So, I consider this: what does one do when two different parts of life/self/experience/dogma/whatever start banging against each-other?

I've worked on this a little (aaargh!). I have negotiated, tried to choose and threatened hari kiri in order to reconcile different aspects of my life and live in peace, love, light, bliss and happily-ever-after. This has proved delightfully entertaining, but, as yet, has yielded unsustainable results! I still find myself with my nose pressed against different realities that I love, unable to move forward or backwards?!? Simultaneously schizoid...

Anyway, I found an answer (pregnant pause). Yup folks, this is it! I'm gonna transcend polarity and just be everything.

I reckon that if Mama Earth can be all things at the same time, why not me? She has no confusion about being summer on top and winter at the bottom. She can rage like a tornado and blow a balmy breeze without ever having to question her validity or reason. She'll spew oil and water, fire and ice, feast and famine and its just how it goes. Such is life. Such is me.

So here I am stronger than ever and shaking at the knees. This is my life and its rather colourful, a little dramatic and endlessly entertaining (for now, for me.) I remember my path, and its not a straight line (oh dear, you mean I'm not walking the straight and narrow?)

Instead of zooming along the timeline, I'm going to accept that I circle lazily around and make the most beautiful overlapping circles. No bringing two opposing spheres of consciousness together and then trying to negotiate the boundaries until they merge. No. I shall loop around so that circles overlap without ever banging boundaries. All the time staying centered on my spinning axis - just like Mama Earth.

Try it. Draw it. Imagine you're the dot in the middle of a circle. The circle is the boundary of your existence, it is the experience of life. Now draw a straight line to the edge. Bump. This is the part where I go "Oh dear, I must move, but I cant!" Backwards and forwards, same result.

You could go round and keep on going round in circles, or make opposite circles in the bigger one. This is fun but the bits inside the circles yearn for each other and joining them involves sacrifice and compromise! Its all stop-start, a lot of work and not entirely satisfying.

Now what if you keep moving within the boundary, but never walk the same path? You still circle but because its a moving, it becomes a pattern of overlapping circles - effortless, cohesive, sharing space, yet whole in themselves. This creates the Flower of Life - a pattern that the entire universe reflects. Everything from seeds to stars grow this way. Its a graceful dance of life, encompassing everything and yet conflicting nothing. This is better than head-banging! This is The Pattern!

Ah! I breathe a sigh of relief. I don't have to keep pushing myself through that effing boundary just to keep moving. I can spirit walk like my dear friend L, following well worn, but invisible pathways that move me through life with eternal, ancient grace.

Ho.

Admin

Hello fabulous followers and secret lurkers,

This is not a blog. This is an attempt at order and structure - these are qualities we all need in order to make our life function, and qualities that I constantly strive for and avoid. (If I follow that thread, this could become a blog...)

Anyway - complaints!

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Press the Follow the Bliss Dragon posh branding button in the top right hand corner and then follow directions. This seems to have a high failure rate. Keep trying and encourage google to make those Help instructions actually say something. (Shame, that's not really fair - sometimes they're really useful!) If you succeed, you will receive an email notification whenever I sprout forth.

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Lastly, Thanks! I love that you're there xx :)

Artificial intelligence

Well, you may assume from the title that I am talking about Western Culture's worldview, but no, no, no - this blog is about computers, cars and other such companions in our busy lives.

Ken Wilbur wrote about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) becoming enlightened before the general mass of humans in his very funny book, Boomeritis (I loved that book - all the arguments that run us around like hamsters on a wheel!) He points out that computers are as intelligent as the mind that programmes them, but then, once they have the basic pattern, they can compute realities faster than we can and so could, in theory, compute their own enlightenment (I swear mine goes Ohm every time I switch it on, never mind the flashes of brilliant light that could throw me across the room! Haha.)

Anyway, my point is this: technology-based doodats enjoy giving me a run for my money. As I have mentioned before, I am onto my fifth computer this year. Each one has had it's own sweet way of deciding when I should and should not go about my work. Some computers have been particularly discerning - allowing me, for instance, to email friends but not do my deadline, or visa versa, depending on the priorities of the day.

Lionheart, the current enlightened techno guru in my life, has decided that not a day shall pass without me redoing my screen connections. Each morning, without fail, I am informed that I have No Signal until I unplug and redefine for a good ten minutes. Lionheart is also adept at switching on my internet connection - sometimes without my modem connected - I take it that I am being nudged to get out into the great worldwide web!

Yesterday, after seeing only lions on the screen saver slide show, I was twice flashed with pictures of lightning while writing to a friend (and the screen saver shouldn't have even gone on at the time!) It made me notice what I had said both times, and re-consider!

My car has re-introduced the possibility of a flaming bum. Mechanics spent a morning poring over her in detail and swore that there is no leak - nor was there when she was with them. But now, depending on her mood, she floods petrol out the back, so that I can literally see it dripping, and then, if someone else comes to check, she squeezes that little hole shut and acts all innocent. Luckily the fumes and puddle stains give her away, so my sanity (with regards to this matter only) is unquestioned. I stay home on flaming bum days.

And there's my cell phone, which spent a year or two of screening all my calls. It would work randomly and only when there was something I really needed to know. Those were my hermit days. Even with my new one, I can make important calls without any airtime and sms's decide if they want to go through. Communication is a guided craft!

So, what is the deeper meaning lurking behind these divine signs? Follow the beast and see what happens? I have surrendered to allowing my AI beings to guide me (its all Oneness after all, and at least they have the programme all worked out). If I cannot call you, I'm just not supposed to. If you cant get through, I'm not your gal. Sometimes deadlines are important and sometimes they're not. I have become unattached!

Oh, and clearly petrol-fumes are a Beetle's way of saying: "not today, dear" :)

Change is a rare mutation

There is a ferocious strength emerging in individuals - a kind of leonine, dragonesque roar of power, yet newborn and still sweetly birth-smelling and vulnerable (for now). However, I ask you all to hold onto your hats.

Watch your friends, check your kids, feel the signs inside - those flashes and rumbles tell of the coming flood of forceful new energy.

Are you scared yet? All that phenomenal power hurtling towards you? YEEE HAH!

You know how it feels when you're going on one of those hold-on-tight-and-scream rides, then as soon as it stops you want more and you beg to be allowed to go again? Uh huh. Oh yes. We're going to get what we asked for. Yay! Shit! Yay...I think?

Dragons and lionesses represent a powerful, earthy feminine. They talk to us of qualities that have no words in our tongue. They are symbols for being our most magnificent self.

I used to dream mythological stories of twelve lionesses waking up after a long slumber. Each is a goddess in her own right, each knows ancient secrets. Each walks Africa and wakes up the women and teaches them to be real, to remember, to balance the power and heal consciousness.

The men respond. They do not want to tame or kill this force. Instead they marvel at the reflection of their inner truth as they watch it walking powerfully over the earth, and they know that all is saved.

Its as if the dragon sighed and rolled over in her sleep, the lionesses got up and stretched: time for the hunt to begin (no words, no frantic signals, just synergistic and functional action), the women felt it, the earth shook. 'Now!', they all say.

This is the power I mean. Its source is joy.

The lions on my computer have been compelling me. These are intimate photographs! (The Lionheart Project came out of a dream that G birthed, but that's another story and the most phenomenal body of work.) Then yesterday as I was working with TJ (God, that woman can use music!) I noticed pictures of lions on her wall. I mean, I know the kids are doing The Lion King as the school play, and L is Simba, but how far does an analogy have to stretch? Anyway, just to be clear, this morning I woke up and roared!

Lions have always had strong stories attached to them like colourful strands of ribbons. In Egypt and Rome they represented the sun god, in Middle Eastern stories they are the goddesses Ishtar and Astarte, appearing to humans riding on lions backs. The two headed Sphinx represents the Lions of Yesterday and Today and symbolises Time. The one headed Sphinx is the Destroyer. Lions are Power, Courage, Strength, Royalty and Deity. Lions have got a bit of a vibe!

And then, of course, there's the white lions birthed by golden lions. White lions with blue eyes are specifically sacred messengers to Africans. Along with other white animals (like white buffalo in North America), they have been mythologised as change-makers that bring gifts. Their coming was foretold.

So, today I hear about Nmachi Ihegboro, born of Nigerian parents. This newborn is white skinned, blue eyed and blonde haired. Her parents are black with no known white ancestry. The geneticists are amazed and this is certainly not how they explained it in school biology! She is not Albino. (They call her 'a rare mutation'- hmmmm). The striking thing (apart from emerging out of a black woman's belly) is her hair. Apparently it has a very specific blondness - more blonde even than blonde children usually are...

Possibilities of extra-marital nookie aside, Nmachi might just be another wonderfully sacred messenger. Her birth alone says "anything is possible, folks".

Really makes me wonder whats hiding in my so-called junk DNA...

Like I said, remember to hold onto your hats!

Song to silliness

Scene One:
Woman dons black hat, grabs her whip and stalks into the den of the innocent man. Seizing him, he gasps in horror as she yanks the scruff of his neck and snarls: "we need to talk". Blood fills the screen as he seizes up in fear. It is the night of "the difficult woman!" He hunches away from her, eyes haunted: "please, please," he begs, "I am totally innocent!" But hell hath no fury and he is not spared. Weeks later, he emerges into the daylight, eyes screwed up against the sun: "Is it over?" he asks. "Have I truly survived?"

(Blogging is therapy. You really should try it!)

Scene One (alternate):
The sweet princess, realising that it is time to share with her prince the yearnings of her heart and mind (as well as a few well-considered observations), happily slips into the room for some bonding and creative togetherness. But he cannot see the princess. She believes he must be seeing visions and sings inspiring songs. He cannot hear her. He moans in pain. She administers clarifying lotions and balms, but nothing soothes her tortured prince and, after a moment of confusion, she leaves her poor lover and looks for satisfaction elsewhere.

Luckily she has Lionheart, her gallant computer, and he has roast chicken to cook for school lunches, which is such a totally divine way for both of them to end the confusion. After minutes, she-devil, the princess, the prince and the garroting victim are all reconciled and happy, though no-one knows why she switched the soapie on in the first place!

Soap Opera's are so cliched. Total denial of the issues is comforting, but has a kind of weird side-effect which turns your mouth into a bitter twist. Instant Bliss works, but looks scarily like denial. Letting it out and re-framing is always good and, if done correctly can lead to slow-release bliss - that's the one I like the most... but blogging, love and a warm bath does the whole caboodle, so I'll soak a little, refuse to analyse and then cuddle all night :)

And to think, I was going to write about Teachers Evening!

Uncommon threads

Its time for a new way.

Some of us have taken brave leaps and now it's time to settle.
Some of us have worked it through, trying with courage to avoid disruption and now its time to change.
Some of us have done both and need the wise clarity to know what to settle and what to change.
However we all need to cross our line and journey into unchartered space.
This means that none of us know what to do, but we just know that we must.
Now.

Great! So here we all are, trying to get it together, keep it together, tear it apart. We are realising that it takes hard work to make beautiful dreams become manifest. The intensity is both stressful and exciting and its time for deep re-structuring of what we want and how we want it.

I, for one, am in need of a strategy (part of me yawns and says "again?") I have stopped fitting the shape I've made. I love it, but the pants are getting too tight and I'm just gonna have to find a new fit. Bum. No pun intended.

But there is a new vibe about this developmental stage. I am holding my own lightning bolts, I am concentrating on what I love and what fills my spirit more deeply than ever before. I am listening to the nuances of deep feelings, like I learned to do with the tremors of early pregnancy, accepting. I'm holding clear focus, so that I can hear the guidance and find the right pants!

I am led to some uncommon threads - colours I have rejected, colours I've feared. My pattern looks so much bigger than I expected and it seems to include an enormous jumble of everything I have ever done and been (quite a bit at this ripe, feisty age and stage!) And, while I haven't found my new-fit pants yet, I am suprised at where I'm shopping!

The thing is, I am so definitely not alone, and this is the magic. For while I go through my own pants shopping analysis, I dance with others in some amazingly co-ordinated Follies Bergere (or however you spell those high-kicking dancers I saw in my youth at the Moulin Rouge.) Its as if we're all lining up, holding our positions and ready to go.

Can you hear the music? Definitely! I can hear it loud and clear, I am about to sweep up in a crecendo swirl, but I dont know which steps to do when. And this is why I am looking for new pants - they're the next step in the big dance. They're my beautiful new costume for the dance thats coming on stage...

Ag ja, somersaults of thought have always made uncommon sense.

To me :)

Follow your bliss, folks. You may not always find it, but its so wonderful to try!

Lionheart and the ring of fire

I'm feeling all warm n fuzzy. The heater and computer are humming in harmony and I am back on my land in space. It's rather comforting to know that I arrived here without getting my bum burned. Fire and I - we dance a sexy tango!

I have been training in the Big Smoke, scrubbed up and centered in my new found ability to teach sassy young grads the fine art of negotiating with principle (wow, the artwork in that confident, expansive corporate space! A gallery to creative tax deduction and so wonderfully eccentric - the whole experience was another kind of fire.)

My point is, that after an inspiring day I was preparing to return to my two guys who had kept the homefires burning (haha - how to flog a fire analogy) when my faithful chariot, on the way from having her shoes done - no really, stalled at an exciting traffic light in rush hour, surrounded by the compelling light show of the red, green and gold lights of evening cars passing and city lives.

After much adventure that included my ever-wonderful mother begging temporary credit at the petrol station and fishing in a dustbin for an empty plastic bottle to turn into a funnel, a rather dashing, open-necked shirt, wavy-haired jaguar driver stopped to warn me that I should stop trying to get the still-stalled car going, because petrol was leaking out of my rear end! This, patient readers, is why I am relieved to be home without having my bum burned. He told me that as Beetles are rather fire-prone, I should park her at the nearby golf-course, which I did, and call the mechanic in the morning, which I did too. Thirty-odd hours later, I'm home.

So that's the ring of fire connection, but what about the lionheart?

I got another computer. This makes it five computers in the house now, but this one works for me! (I have this whole confoundingly wonderful relationship with these particular creatures of technology, but thats nog n yarn.)

This computer was gifted to me by my lion shaman friend and the screen saver is filled with the most gorgeous pictures of lions in all their glory. It goes on for ages with the most blissful effect and I am now officially in love and ready to commit to a relationship with Lionheart, the Fifth Computer.

So, dear friends, I am hoping this is the end of the computer saga. I shall now place the pentagram in the ring of fire and go to bed.

Good night.

Vibrant, schizoid alter-culture!

Woke this morning from a dream about flirting with a mechanic (as you do), the day wasnt over before I was visiting one in 3d reality.

The wind was blowing an icy shock and I was driving diligently to Joburg when I crested a hill and met the wind full on - either it nearly blew my car off the road or something happened to the steering wheel. Honestly! I had to grip it and wrestle the car away from the oncoming traffic and onto the gravel verge, which was no mean feat. Convinced I had a blow-out and finding nothing, I took it to a mechanic, because I could.

The thing that struck me is that I am definitely a simultaneous schizophrenic - you know, split personalities at the same time? You dont? Oh dear.

I feel like I am in a whole lot of overlaid opposite realities, the high stress situation just highlighted it: I sat calmly, holding the steering wheel, thoughfully analysing the cars and the possible causes, my other self shouted "shit!shit!shit!" and was amazed to find myself safe and all the while the rest of me just observed. I know this happens a lot during moments like these, but it about sums me up right now :)

Anyway, enough gossip. I think it would be churlish not to mention the World Cup soccer at a moment like this. I mean, we have passed July 11th, Spain has won, Madiba made an appearance and the world has realised that South Africa can offer some spicy action. Here we are - noisy, full of colour and drama, how much more fun we must be than the staid organisation of, say, Germany in 2006 (my kids have been training me in soccer facts!)

A while ago L, the kids and I drove though Joburg on our way to dragon country and were charmed by the fields of yellow flowers that curved around the highways in celebration of the WC. They turned out to be hundreds of large yellow plastic hands making "ok", thumbs up and sharp signs! I mean, how alternative and South African is that?! We truly are a center for vibrant alter-culture and the vuvu is just the beginning.

So, while I hurtle between realities and the world settles down to non-african boredom again, we can all say Yay! for this woosh of energy that has surged through the continent and wait and watch - cos surely something is hatching? Something alternate and energised that runs by different rules. Maybe we are all simultaneous schizophrenics - this whole country is vibrating with love and drama, and even I can talk sagely about soccer. When everything merges into a Catherine Wheel of happening realities, we must be getting to source point?

I know this is a haphazard blog, but my city-brain is like that. I have one more point to add: the billboards here tell me that Freedom is 72 DSTV channels and Joy is the new BMW, so maybe Enlightenment is a football?

We shall see.

Ancestral urgings

I felt soooo good last night after finally managing to blog again. I can't bear to dam/damn my flow, it makes me all itchy and scratchy (funnily enough, also the names of two donkeys that belong to the wonderful savage diva who lives on the hill. However, this has nothing to do with the story!)

I gather that I really need to express myself. I felt elated, light, bouncy. The kinetic stress and rush-rush mentality was gone and I landed back in my reality. Just like that! I mean, I wrote and I felt well. So Ho! to those of you who told me so :)

My mum wanted to be a writer. She named me after her chosen pen name and instilled her love of words and language. My grand father was a journalist and writer and my great grand-father translated the bible into Venda poetry. All those urges continue in me. I have ancestral love pulsing in these veins and it feels good to express it. This love is not only a personal urge.

All the sages and the success stories confirm with wholehearted conviction: Do What You Love. Its the only way to live and we all know it. I'm beginning to understand how doing what I love is not purely egoistic. It is service to others who have had great loves, too. Those who live in my blood fuel my passions (imagine the urge to share of a man who would translate the bible!)

Doing what I love is so self indulgent. It's like eating the whole box of Favourites. Exactly! Yet, it is also communal and honouring.

It is traditional to recognise that the love of those who came before us is a responsibility for us. We need to follow its urges and craft its wonderfulness. And we need to do it with zest and joy, integrity and delight, so that those who follow us can feel the surge right through their bones!

My ancestors are passionate, spiritual, creative people. Their loves, like mine, were many and varied. I like that when I act in integrity, their ribbons of colour and nuance add grace to my work. It is exactly what I have been intending: Happy, supported family space; and vibrant, focused, creative work (to think that I used to imagine that these two intentions were somehow in conflict - but that's another story.)

I may or may not write over the next few days. I am teaching a Principled Negotiation workshop and will be in another world. I intend to express my love, either way!

Eating Crow

The natives of America referred to humble pie as eating crow. it goes something like this:
Get dramatic - spurred on by inspiration and urging,
Commit recklessly to an idea you love,
Make promises to yourself and others,
Break them,
Eat Crow.

This is somewhat like my process with this blog.

I humbly apologise.

I went away convinced I would be able to blog every day and found, instead, that I could not. Ah - commitment and assumptions: a direct route to anguish. I wrestled the physical shimmerings that went down my arms and through my mind as I blogged in my head and talked myself down. I roped in some good guilt and spiced it all up with "but how could you commit and then not do it?!?" Then I relaxed. I was in dragon country.

I stayed in dragon country with two dragon women and seven dragon kids. We basked in that beautiful ancient countryside and ate wonderful raw food feasts, danced realities and negotiated community dynamics. We drank strong Mocha Java by the fire, made indulgent chocolate truffles, and absorbed the beautiful view. But we did not blog. Technology bows to the earth-love of that dragon place!

So, instead of writing words, I listened. Well... I talked lots, of course, but I also listened. I listened to Being There, the mountains and the space. I listened to old stone circles, rocks and water. I listened to the two most beautiful, wise women and I listened to the children. A lot of wisdom was whispered into my cells!

When they are not eating it, the natives of America also consider Crow to represent ancient wisdom. Actually, maybe even when they are eating it, they remember that we 'eat' wisdom when we surrender an ego attachment. The Europeans consider Crow to be a symbol of Death.

So here I sit, eating my ego, my promises, ancient wisdom and death. Its quite a good excuse for no blog for nine days, but I make no excuse. I walk on, eating crow and humble pie and getting damn full!

I'll be back...whenever.

The speed of light

So cool to have you all aboard the woo woo train for wonderland.

Did you notice that last definite affirmative about daily blogging? Yeah, well, I set myself an Absolute and immediately broke it. I went away and got no blogging time on the computer (although I did write quite a lot in my head!)

Anyway, I think the time has come to break some Absolutes. And I think that a few Absolute boundaries in inner consciousness would be a good start. I'm kind of gagging at an inner membrane and determined to break on through to the other side - oh, black leather trousers! (Sorry, I digress into a little Jim Morrissen memory - how ever many r's and s's you spell it with)

My point is this: As a species, a culture, a mind-set and a consciousness, we have become very aware and yet, we have not changed the fundamentals. We maintain ourselves in imbalance because we have not questioned the assumption of these fundamentals.

We work very hard at rectifying this imbalance, only to have it all go tospy turvy when we settle back to enjoy equilibrium. We have some deeply embedded patterns that we almost cannot see, because they are assumptions about who we are as humans. We re-arrange our Absolutes into different patterns and consider it advancement, but human archetypes (patterns of consciousness) keep playing out, over and over again - both the ones we have worked hard to claim, and the ones we have disowned.

Its time to blitz any residue of dis-functional humanity. Lets change our pantheon of human archetypes to ones we adore! Lets get with balanced, loving, earth-centered, connected existence. I mean, finally. Hasn't humanity been trying to live well since the beginning of recorded existential angst?! I mean, are we, or are we not, intelligent? Surely we can transcend our harmful ways?

The speed of light is not an Absolute - it can vary. This means that we get to choose the speed we want to travel at, and the kind of light we want to be. At some level of truth, we can change reality by changing the speed of light we vibrate at.

I say: unhook the comfort-zone of the Absolute and vibrate at the speed of any colours you choose. Let's get really considered, humane, balanced and true. Lets break the rules of the world according to mass-consciousness! Lets just make the world totally different and all live in peace on our beautiful earth. Okay?

Okay. Here endeth the lesson from my soapbox, See you tomorrow under the tree!

A call to integrity

So lately I am all excited: I am going to just do what I need to do, I am going to craft my integrity, I....am...going..to BLOG!

And you know what else? I am going to spread it like wildfire! I'm going to find my global tribe and connect and, well, I just want to see what happens when I practice a discipline in public! I'm even going to give up cynicism and reserve - read: limited framework - and open to the vast web and spread myself out into the world. Just 'cos I can!

Oooh, the fire of determination! For five whole days, I write daily. I get up and sit down and write. I ignore other deadlines and calls to duty - I blog first. I am focused. I will be skilled!

Well, naturally, flash-demon turns up in my spirit-ego and laughs quietly as my techie neighbour arrives on the doorstep last night. C has been serenading the nasal passages all evening and so luckily we eat first - guinea fowl with orange and rosemary (oh thank all that is glorious for a man who has decided to do his 10 000 hours in cooking!)

So, over coffee, now having a techie-type conversation subject to dabble with, I ask how to notify people when I have done a new blog. My helpful neighbour forgets to answer that bit and instead says to me:
"first thing with a blog: what do you want to say?"
Uhm...
"Next: you must tell people How To Do something. People want to know How To Do things."
Oh.
"Finally - News. What's going on in the world? This is what people want to know."
Okay...


There has been a long silence inside since. My computer refused to connect to my blog. I have done all my other deadlines. I don't know what I want to say now. I almost forgot why a bliss dragon does a blog! I cant tell you How To all-sorts-of-things, and you can find it all on the web anyway! I could tell you the state of the world, but I reckon you know that its in a state of flux?

So, I am afraid I have to say Fuck It. I am sure Google and my mother, and probably C, L and A would really prefer me not to, but every bliss dragon knows there is a time and place for everything. And now, five followers or not (five!) I am just going to have to let you all know that this blog is neither a How To nor a News Channel - although, of course it is both of those things! Sorry.

This blog is my challenge: Can I write every day - just because I want to, and it satisfies me? Can I show up without a dancing ego? Can I write without framing it for anyone else's paradigm? Can I go out into the Big Wide World and be good at what I do and in my integrity? Who knows? We'll see.

And I'm loving that Im trying.

PS. Go Followers! Yay!