If you’ve ever found yourself thinking that life’s pretty ok, there’s nothing much pressing, no issues to deal with or problems to be solved, and then find yourself still reaching for that self-help book, stop! I find myself doing this sometimes, even though I’m exactly where I need to be and have got good plans sorted for myself and am moving in the right direction. The thing about it is, there’s always that thought, “Oh, but it could be even better, or maybe that next technique will save me or change my life and bring me eternal happiness”. There’s a fear of missing out, an obsession with figuring it all out, and an illusion that every second of life should be amazing (perhaps it could be, but you won’t experience that while using words like “should”). It’s procrastination too, thinking that you have to learn so much or be some certain thing before taking action, overcoming your fears, or being the person you want to be and living the life you want to live.

So, I put it to you (and to me), let’s stop reading for a while, stop trying to figure everything out, stop trying to get that next new technique. Let’s just play with what we have for a while, be content not to know the answers to all things, safe in the knowledge that those answers and potential solutions will still be waiting for us when we return to our questions. After all, who knows what you might learn from actually living instead of studying about life.

It’s popular thinking of late to let go of the past, to pay it no heed, and to focus on the future. Of course, if we dwell endlessly on the past and particularly our past mistakes, we will go on forming those things in the present and in the future, so letting go of the past in that sense is very wise indeed.

However, knowing where you have been can help you see where you are and where you are headed. It can provide for you a good benchmark for comparing things in the longer term. A great example of this is in terms of goal-setting. On a particular day, you might feel directionless and bored, feeling as though you have no goals and nothing to work towards, that you don’t know what you want and that you aren’t capable of getting what you want anyway.

“How can this be?” I thought. Only recently I had been so strongly motivated, and had spent much time working out what I wanted and setting down a few goals to that end. At this point, I looked through my old journal and notes that I’d taken back as far as the beginning of the month. And you know what I saw? I saw that a lot of the goals I had written down here and there I have actually already achieved or made good progress towards, in so little time! Here I am achieving goals and making great progress, and yet so forgetful of the past am I that it feels like I’m not getting anywhere at all!

For one thing, it is less than 2 weeks since I discovered and recorded that part of my Big Dream as it were is to get qualified in massage so that I can practice on the public (and of course learn the skill thoroughly), for their healing, for money for me, to have a skill there that I could take anywhere and use to provide a living for myself wherever I go. I’ve a passion for learning about the body and freeing it up to work as efficiently and joyfully as possible, so it’s very appropriate for me, and makes good use of my interests and talents. Today, I received a letter saying that I have been pre-approved for enrollment into the course that I wanted to take, which starts in September (some kind of interview is usually necessary, but not in my case apparently, I’ve had experience in other massage courses run by the Adult Education, so perhaps that’s why). So, I’ll register and pay for it on Monday and that’ll be that. Not bad for only a couple of weeks since setting the goal (and I’m hugely excited about it! Getting qualified for something is a major career move, a whole year commitment (well, school year of 9 months in this case), who’d have thought that of me?).

Of course, one goal does not a life make, and like many goals you can’t be working on them 24/7, so what happens to the space in between? There’s always other goals, and I see that I’ve made good progress in those too… freeing up my body more and more, growing stronger and more flexible, with greater range of movement, keeping up with my Tai Chi practice (and finding I’m enjoying it more and more), socializing more - I’ve been out and about a bit, and had friends to stay with me and more scheduled, I’m keeping up with the site here, and Q&V, my comic strip site (and again, it’s been under a month since I committed to doing that twice weekly regularly again). So there has been much change, much improvement, and much success and much progress with many of the goals I have set. And realizing this, of course I feel great.

What is needed then, to keep from getting these times of directionlessness is this: Really keep yourself clear on your dreams. Write them down, all your dreams and goals, and (where possible) timeframes, and keep them handy. Keep them visible. Keep looking at them every day, so you can see where you’re at. Naturally goals and desires change, so let your dreamlist reflect that, but with something so tangible there, it’ll be all the more easy to keep motivated, and to keep on congratulating yourself on how well you are doing. Because in the end, if you can’t feel good about your achievements, and you can’t pat yourself on the back now and then, why even bother with all this effort of achievement?

After some times of being very strict with myself in terms of diet, experimenting with no meat, no dairy, no animal products, no sugar, no artificial flavours or chemicals, no wheat, no caffeine, no alcohol, no unseasonal foods, and then times of being less strict with myself, indulging in just about any food I wanted, gorging on chocolate and sugary things and fatty burgers and regular tea and coffee caffeine pick-me-ups, I’ve tasted both ends of the scale in terms of how food affects a person.

In the end, a diet is nothing more than a self-imposed limitation, an invention of the mind. It is someone’s ideal of what is healthy, or what will achieve whatever ends you want to achieve (lose that weight, cure those health problems). As such, it doesn’t always fit in with what the body needs, nor what your instincts may tell you to eat. Like any sort of instinct, it’s not easy to trust in them when they can be so easily mislead, when you suffer from addictions to foods that don’t do you much good in the long run, or have gotten used to eating a certain way so that a move towards a more healthy balance actually feels worse and doesn’t seem better at all.

In the end, it is up to you what stance you adopt on the factor of food. Glutton, Puritan, you make your bed and you lie in it, you reap the consequences of whatever you decide. This is as it should be. A couple of things I would like to you bear in mind though, things that are often neglected, is that one, the body is a remarkably adaptable thing, and so seeking one single “perfect” diet isn’t possible or necessary. And two, being strict to the point of feeling like all you ever say to yourself is “no sugar, no caffeine, no chocolate, no tea, no sex, no sin, no fun” isn’t going to achieve the health that you might desire in eating so healthfully. Creative creatures that we are, this can be the case with any restrictive discipline. When diet becomes such an issue that the main feeling surrounding food is one of stress, then whatever good qualities that could be gained from such wholesome eating are somewhat tainted, and even completely counteracted. Though it is true that we are what we eat, it is also true that we are more than just what we put into our bodies.

Now, my times of puritanism have taught me a lot about what’s good and bad for me, and helped me to trust in my instincts a lot more, so that even if I’m eating a load of chocolate or piles of fatty meat, I don’t neglect getting my vegetables and salads and fruits in me, not so much because I think I should be eating those things, but because I feel it (and thus desire them). That said, the nature of a lot of the more indulgent foods is addictive and habit-forming if you aren’t careful, so when I found myself reaching for that cookie out of habit, looking for something sweet to “hit the spot” , I asked myself, “do I really want this? Do I really need it?” And, realizing I didn’t, my thoughts moved away from it and on to something else, the craving subsiding naturally. So began a short detox that I’ve begun. Nothing fancy, it’s really no big deal. Just eating wholefoods, fruit, veg, salads and a small amount of meat here and there.

We are always detoxifying ourselves. All we really need to do to get clean is to limit the amount of toxins we take into our body or create in our mind, and our natural processes take care of the rest. After a few days and some niggles and swings in mood and eruptions on the skin, I feel much better, and coupled with some Chi Kung and Tai Chi, and Alexander Technique and Pilates practice, I feel my body (and thus mind) arriving at a place of huge energy. So much so in fact that I don’t know what to do with it. In the end that’s what we’re after when we detox, new energy, to feel bright and shiny and clean again.

And so, in a new position of larger energy, like any positive change, the challenge is not so much in making it happen, but in not reverting back to the old way. When this new energy level arrives, it can be very tempting to start scoffing chocolate down by the boat load in a desperate attempt to quell the uneasy restless feeling of having so much energy, before you get used to it. But, I’ve managed to resist that so far, and I’m getting comfortable with feeling this way (it is becoming a part of the concept I have for “me”, as it were). Now, this doesn’t mean I’ll go on eating this way forever, almost certainly not, for attempting that would soon bring in negative consequences as well (and hey, if I like a bit of chocolate now and then, why not?), but I will always bear in mind the power of getting clean once in a while, and think it’d be great if you did too.

I’ve been informed that that last post was a bit out there, Lewis stepping out a bit too close to the edge, so now’s a good time to reel it in a bit, get down to some deeply physical matters. Let’s talk about food.

Next time you have a meal (choose a time when you aren’t being distracted by others or feeling rushed to get somewhere), really devote yourself to the eating of it. See the sights, smell the smells, and when you put it in your mouth, taste the tastes and feel the textures. Really open to it, take a moment to think about what it is and what it’s going to do for you (nourish you, I hope). Spiritualize it in other words.

Relax your belly, open your throat and nasal passageway, and relax your jaw and tongue. Relax your belly and breathe deeply, in and out through the nose. There’s absolutely no need to hold your breath while chewing, just find a comfortable opening in the rhythm of your breathing for the swallowing. The more you avoid holding your breath the more you stand to benefit in terms of improved taste and digestion, as well as general health.

Once you’ve eaten to a satisfying (but not excessive) fullness, just sit there a while and turn your attention to the process of digestion that’s going on. No need to be too specific, but just realize that there in your stomach and later in your intestines, food is being turned into fuel and energy for your systems. Imagine the increased attention you’re giving it helps to improve its efficiency. Hopefully at this point you’ll be experiencing a wonderful feeling of renewed energy instead of the often lethargic feeling that seems to come after a meal. (But even so, don’t go rushing off just yet).

So there we have it. Food made into meditation. Bow down to the god of food, nothing beats a full belly for feeling at peace with the world!

Sometimes I have moments where my consciousness seems completely transported. In a peak moment of relaxation or post-exercise, I can spontaneously get sucked into a memory, not just living it how was back then, or being a person thinking back to an old time, but literally experiencing that person again from my own timeframe. This is not some foggy and lifeless or rose-tinted memory but a direct experience of new consciousness. I have no doubt that this indicates an ending of time, a realization that all that we were, are and will be, including all that we could ever think or feel, happens at once, and thus simultaneously exists. Slipping through the cracks to other times and places and other versions of ourselves, and skipping the tracks as it were is thus possible, under certain circumstances.

Similar things can also happen in the space between being awake and being asleep. The sense of self we usually carry can slip away, and we can experience something else entirely, perhaps liberating, perhaps frightening. All we know is who we are, and the absense of this makes for some pretty wild happenings. You can be forgiven for thinking you are losing your mind, in a way you are. A leap in reality such as this is disorientating. It is not just this thought, then that thought, as per our usual flow of thought and consciousness, it is a complete break, a skip of the needle landing us back down elsewhere on the record. Without that continuity, life is not as we know it, and neither are we.

During these moments, we experience other parts of us, parts that are normally out of awareness. Needless to say, these can be most rewarding and educational, but also potentially debilitating, creating paranoia, delusions and even schizophrenia. Shamans of old would enter into this sort of thing by choice, to gain knowledge, healing and power for their tribe, and modern day practicioners can still be found, giving a new beat to an old tune, and journeying into strange lands with strange (or not so strange) animals to meet with, well, whatever they choose to meet with. In such lands anything is possible, like dreamlands, and symbolism abounds. I am one such practicioner, and I’ve been known to journey here and there to learn a bit, to step out of the box of my usual thinking and come back with some interesting insights and ideas (messages from me to me, I like to think of it as).

The key thing in all exploits into altered states of consciousness, intentional or otherwise, is to be prepared. And the one true preparation is groundedness. Being grounded and rooted here in this body and this life doesn’t preclude spirit journeys out and about among the wildness and weirdness of the universe and into other places, times and focal points and dimensions, but actually allows the possibility of it all the more, for being rooted, one can be more certain of safe return (and a part of us knows this before letting us fly off willy nilly never to return). Building a strong foundation is the key, learning to breathe deeply, to sink down well in your body maintaining balance and uprightedness (merging with gravity in other words), and practicing to focus your awareness on your thoughts, feelings and senses (your moment-to-moment experience of life, that is).

“The deeper the roots, the higher the branches.”

I can only guess at what’s going on here. A rare shot though, to be sure. The double spiral. The inward journey, and the outward journey. We travel on both of these, learning more about ourselves by going within, and learning more about ourselves by getting out into the world. And let’s not forget that double helix that’s so important for us biological types: strands and strands of DNA, the building blocks of life.

It’s amazing what can turn up indoors. This morning I found two of these caterpillars (could even have been these very two!), on separate occasions, inside my house. One had made it through the conservatory and almost into the dining room, the other I found later, crawling up the inside of the wire door to the conservatory somehow. I have to ask myself, what are these beautiful looking creatures so desperate to teach me that they’d come indoors, risking everything away from plant goodness (unless they had plans to get up into my bedroom and eat my plants there, that is)?

As you probably know, caterpillars create a chrysalis at some point, shoring themselves up for a while, and later hatch out completely transformed, as a butterfly or moth. So then, they are strong symbols of transformation, and particularly with the beginnings of transformation, the early stages where we have such fear of losing our identity if we were to become something new and different.

The beginnings of big change can be subtle, so as not to be seen for what they are. And in the end, who knows what experiences or moments will have the lasting impact, or will nudge us in a new direction? For me, it is a great pleasure to consider that I am beginning a new journey, even if I do not know where it will lead. It helps to be less anxious about getting there if you can keep it in perspective, and realize that the journey takes time - there is no hurry.

But, if you’re not at the wonderful beginning of the journey, but somewhere in the middle, feeling stuck and stagnant, do not fear. Remember, to the outside world the caterpillar appears to be doing nothing inside that chrysalis, but a whole universe of change is going on behind the scenes.