Although we have lives of infinite potential, where we can be anyone and do anything, we cannot do all things. Necessarily, if we choose to be one thing, we exclude others. If we define ourselves in one way, we cannot be defined in other ways. If we play a handful of roles, there are infinite others than we cannot play.

And so, this is why it is wonderful to hear the stories of our friends. They speak of their experiences, unique to them, and we can get a taste of what it might be to be someone else, to have chosen differently and to have lived differently. We can learn about who our friends are, by hearing them describe themselves and the events that take place in their lives, from their perspective. Sometimes, we are inspired, we’d like to do what they do, and maybe we will make efforts to do so. Other times, we are grateful, learning from mistakes they have made, so that we do not have to experience them ourselves.

Listening in this way, we can become clearer about what is possible in life, and so about what we want out of our own lives. It is the same for movies, for books, and for sleeping dreams. We experience a different facet of life, and it can inspire or teach, or excite or horrify. We can live out so many emotions and feelings that our circumstances do not lend themselves to easily, and we can feel closer to wholeness. This is why these mediums are so popular. This is why, in the absence of our own life, someone else’s can be just as interesting.

As ever, there is a balance to be found. Don’t listen to stories so often that you end up with no story of your own to tell, but do remember there are billions of stories out there to be heard, and any one of those could make your own life richer.

On Paulo’s advice, I’ve been watering this sole surviving blue fir more regularly, and it’s shown in the upwards growth of the plant. Water is so vital a thing, that if there isn’t enough, growing energy goes into the root system, to try to reach more moist areas, and hence the lack of top-side growth I was seeing.

This makes me wonder about what sort of things we need for growth. Sure, like plants we can survive with limited resources, but we cannot thrive. What we need then, if we want to raise our level of experience from merely surviving to positively thriving, is to take care of our basic needs. Get enough water, enough food of good quality and varied vitamin content, enough exercise, and especially, enough sleep. Taking care of these basic needs - the foundation and root-system if you like - we then have the energy to grow topside, the area of higher ideals, dreams, emotional fulfillment, creavite pursuits, and good social interaction, sharing ideas and company.

Take care of your foundations, and all else will follow.

After some difficulty, I’ve installed a new version of Gallery, so if you’d like to check out a really unbalanced view of some of the things that I do and photograph, check it out here. I hope to intergrate it into the site a bit more, work on matching the theme up and perhaps even linking in the photos I use on the blog into the gallery. But I’ve done enough for now, no sense slogging myself to death on such a thing

Take a shower, and really feel the water wash you clean. Imagine all the dirt and tension and negativity and stress go trickling down that plughole. This is a great way of setting yourself up for the day, or refreshing you, particularly if you’ve become all crabby and tetchy. There’s little to be gained from holding on to the daily build up of grime, wash yourself clean at every opportunity.

And if you haven’t got a shower, use the air to wash you clean, or wait for the next downpour and get out there.. there’s nothing quite like it.

When the grasshopper sings,
It reminds us!

Sometimes there is nothing else to do but take the leap. A leap of faith, a leap of commitment, we must leave the safety of the life we know in search of the life we wish to grow into. I’ve spoken about commitment briefly, and the trouble I have with it. All sorts of fears get the better of me, but I don’t really notice them in detail, just an instinctual flinching and drawing away.

Having discovered what things in life really fill me with passion recently, I set out to chase them down. I saw that it would mean making changes in my life, and making plans and commitments to reach the goals that so easily materialized before my eyes.

* * *

It is the body that is my focus in life. It is my gateway into heart, into spirit, and into the pure pleasure of existance. I’ve practiced Tai Chi, been to Alexander Technique lessons, dabbled in yoga, taught myself some Pilates and have been learning to run and swim not just for fitness but for the challenge and joy of doing so with ever improving technique. I’ve been to the gym, lifted weights, cycled up and down hills, and fasted. I’ve learned some Reiki, danced the spirits in a yurt down in Brighton, learned some basic reflexology and indian head massage, and applied acupressure on myself. I’ve visited an osteopath, had acupuncture and been shiatsu massaged. I’ve moved my awareness along energy meridians and pathways, and I’ve gone barefoot for months at a time along street and mud and grass and stone. It’s all been a rich tapestry of learning.

Awareness of how I move has been a preoccupation of mine ever since I began those first few lessons of Alexander Technique, seeing for the first time how interlinked my thoughts and attention and awareness were with my body, how inefficient I was, and how efficient I could be if I learned to relax and bring awareness to the little habits that so often go unnoticed. As time has gone on, I’ve endeavoured to improve my posture, bringing strength and flexibility to my muscles and joints, breathing deeply into my lungs, and giving my organs the space they need to function at their best. I’ve relished massage, with its sudden release of tension and with it the ability to feel and sense the muscle once more. The more I’ve released tensions in my body, the more I’ve released them in my mind, and vice versa.

The body is a joy and a pleasure, a toy of the spirit and our only true possession for this lifetime. It is a miracle of such complexity that a lifetime of study would only scratch the surface. In a very real way, the more I’ve learned to get in touch with my body, the more I’ve learned to get in touch with the whole of me.

And speaking then, of getting in touch, I come on to this desire of mine, this sudden realization of what I want to do with myself: Massage. In short, I want to learn to heal with my hands. To provide comfort, relaxation, and enable others to share in the space and awareness of the body that is possible. Having been on short reflexology and indian head massage courses, I’ve learned some basics, and if I do say so myself, I’m pretty good at it.

But so soon after deciding upon this, and writing down a plan of action (research courses for getting qualified, what I’d need to do for funding, etc. as well as a timeline), I found myself fearful and despairing at the idea of it all. When I could take it no more, I spoke to Paulo, a good friend of mine, who became a sounding board for me, simply allowing me to voice all of my fears and verbalize things that up until then I’d only been feeling at a very unconscious level. In the end, once all the fears were out there, fears of failure, fears of success (and the change it’d bring), fear of making a wrong choice, fear of finding out it isn’t what I thought it would be, fear that in the end it wouldn’t change anything at all… I saw that really, there is nothing to lose, and everything to gain. If you carry on as you are, you’ll only get more of the same, and I know what that’s like, and I want something else. So the choice is obvious. Choose the unknown, the possible success, instead of the known, the certain failure. Rejuventated, I saw all of those fears, and though they didn’t go away, I saw that they no longer needed to stop me. I could meet the challenge of each of them.

And so, full commitment came. I finished my research, and went ahead and called up the Adult Education centre. I’m waiting now for an information/application pack, so I have done all I can for now. And I tell you, it feels wonderful. A whole new direction has opened up for me, and it doesn’t matter that I don’t know where it might lead, I know that this is what I want to be doing, and I trust that this step will be a step in the path of development, and the path of following my interests and passions.

So it is that I have taken the leap. And now that I have committed myself, that fear of failure has taken a backseat, to be replaced with a feeling of endurance. For surely to make this happen there are other things to be taken care of, including sorting out the money to pay for it. I like practicalities, and with the change of reason behind earning money, my ideas about it are different as well, no longer so idealistic, with different motivations come different parameters. So we could be seeing some big changes in my life there as well, having been getting by without regular employment for some months, even years now.

This has been a long and rambling post, and I’m sure I’ve been in and out of different tenses of language many times, but I felt it important to get this stuff out there, to show you that behind the well written spiritual wisdom and advice for practical living is a person who gets tangled up from time to time, just as we all do. I’m well on my way now to becoming the man I want to become, and for all of you I wish every success in becoming the people you want to be, and finding the things that make your heart sing and chasing them down with all the courage you can muster.

“Don’t ask what the world needs - ask what makes you come alive and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Martin.

And on the subject of commitment (a subject I find most difficult indeed), here’s a useful quote, written by W.H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951:

But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money–booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

May it inspire you, as I am hoping it will inspire me as well.

Breakfast over, I come upstairs to my room and without thinking, I switch the computer on. This is a habit of mine, when I have no specific thing in mind to do, I reach automatically for the computer switch. As it happens there’s often things to be done on there, from checking email and website comments, to leaving feedback on sales or purchases on eBay or Amazon Marketplace, and even checking bank details online. There’s chatting to whoever is online, and then of course, listening to music and writing these articles here.

Any habit such as this can lead to a very restrictive life, and a quiet force of restlessness under the surface, as a person continues to engage in things purely because he or she is used to doing it. It leaves little room for other things, things that are more fitting for the moment, and that won’t have that awful “time wasted” feel that whiling away the hours on the computer getting nothing of consequence done can have.

Still, I noticed it, so that’s the beginnings of change right there. And, as it happens, there were things to do on the computer that I got on with and felt good. I’m writing this up here, and then I’m on to drawing up today’s Q&V comic strip issue.

But, it can be said, it is good to have an intention in mind before getting on the computer, even if that intention is to have no intention for a while and just do this and that. And when there’s nothing else to be done? Switch it off.