Debriefing a Magnificent Journey

This has always been my primary marker and to see it set before me was the highlight of this journey. I feel it now more than ever because for two weeks I spent all my time being entertained by angels...

Angels are everywhere...this is what I must never forget when my friends or I stand in the fire surrounded by wasps:

There is a time to fight back and those times feel very clear when you witness a dear friend swell up from a bite that threatens their existence. There is a time to burn things down...and then, there is a time to renew. No one knows this better than each new day that uses light to deploy its message...

I am here, a lonely sillouhette upon the horizon, but the day will bring even more light and better perspectives if you are patient, and even if you are not...it comes...

And then, you may focus on the Birdsong...

From Private Beach to Public Nudity

Okay, I cannot hide it any further. I am one of THOSE.

I began my life with a decided thirst for TRUTH, to discover there was a short supply. Mostly, there are numerous, conflicting, life threatening, mind numbing, irrational, unfounded (but, traditionally held) BELIEFS.

A BELIEF is not a reality. In fact, all BELIEFS are based on MYTH, facts are something that by simple definition can be rationally held by everyone who is alive.

However, more and more, I see people stepping up to act on BELIEFS, just like Anders Behring Breivik who make reality a living hell for an entire ‘fact-less’ planet.

For those who BELIEVE that Breivik's actions can in any way be justified, I hold a very special place in my mind that says, I am sorry you are so sick inside to not be able to balance the too much information you have received from so many sick, amalgamated, cluster-f***ed BELIEFS.

Our BELIEFS are now globalized, televised, and...becoming actualized so that we can all see the results of BELIEFS and their manifestations...

DEATH by those who take them as TRUTH.

I can think of no BELIEF worthy enough to take another’s life. I think people have lost something very important when they resort to violence to provoke, or worse, to protect a world they merely BELIEVE in.

Much of the world has lost control of one very potent mental function...they have lost their IMAGINATIONS, so busy are they BELIEVING something.

John Lennon knew how to IMAGINE properly.

Anders Behring Breivik lost his IMAGINATION to an irrational web of BELIEFS that should frighten anyone to entertain. And, how much more do we all need to WITNESS, before we turn off the pipeline of information that shovels BELIEFS into us instantaneously...

Turn off the pipeline...turn off the television, the mediated spaces, the fascination... and WRITE down your own BELIEFS...take a good look at them, and PUSH DELETE on most of them...especially the ones that tell you this...

That you are in some way more special, more enlightened, more saved, better off, smarter, wiser...AND/OR...that you are the opposite of any of these things.

BELIEVE the only thing you can prove...you are alive.

Many Norwegian youths cannot say that today. They were killed by Breivik for their BELIEFS, because of his BELIEFS...and, to throw ours into the mix to justify and or vilify is simply the destruction of more life. Just like every army in the world sets out to do...KILL those who do not share their BELIEFS, we each do the same by pushing a BELIEF of any kind upon anyone.

This is the result of globalized mediation. The media keeps the hellish fires burning, to fascinate us. And, who cannot be fascinated by this very well laid out script of BELIEFS that Breivik has left for the world to munch on?

I would suspect the answer to that is no one.

Even I have to write about it. But, what I can DECIDE to do is give no more responses to his fallacious BELIEFS and state nothing but the FACTS.

The FACTS are simple and few.

Beivik lost his mind.

He killed a lot of people because he lost his mind to BELIEFS.

The only thing any of us can DO about it...is INVESTIGATE our own BELIEFS and see if we hold any that might prove as destructive as his did...and, if we do...

Push delete...literally and quickly.

Then, IMAGINE something better.

This is not easy to do in overly mediated spaces. Sometimes it means you must walk on a beach alone, with only one person to THINK through.

But, THINK, you must.

What can I prove to be true?

And, if I cannot prove what I BELIEVE, perhaps it does not serve me or anyone else on this planet to BELIEVE in it.

Most of the people on the planet today... simply BELIEVE something that has been handed to them, something time worn, something traditional, something that goes back for generations, BUT...is still no more REAL than Santa Claus.

IMAGINE something different...it’s easy if you try.

And then, don’t BELIEVE it to be TRUTH either, but do everything possible to make it a reality as long as it leaves things just as you are, and just as I am...alive and happy to be so.

And for those who KNEW the victims of BELIEF by Breivik, I hope you will be capable of imagining PEACE, LOVE and HARMONY one day...I know it will be one of the hardest things you might ever have to do, but I employ you to try...and, my promise to you is this...I will try, too.

Random Thought and Other Matters (Including the Dalai Lama)

Today, on my youngest daughter’s nineteenth birthday, I reflect on many things.

For one, who are the people who matter most to me?

...and, like the Dalai Lama whom we just had the good fortune to see and listen to in real time, flesh and blood in Christchurch, New Zealand this past week, I would have to say...

all of them.

All people matter the most to me, whenever they present themselves, I am happy to allow them to matter and then decide later that they might not be agreeable to my day to day matters, but for the moment, that person, is very important to me, whoever they are.

Mostly, these days, that person is just me sitting across from myself on paper and reflecting my face back to clarify myself with anyway, I see no separation, but that’s another story...

and the reason I have so many stories is because I take notes, and I took notes while the Dalai was speaking (and when I first learned about Alice Walker), I listened to everything....

...anyway...I ramble so, in and out of my own home which is forever changing as we move physically and spiritually across the landscape of whatever town we live in, I do like most people, I do what I do until I don’t do it anymore, but the Dalai Lama (and Alice Walker) have a particular pattern that they adhere to for life lived with as much happiness as possible, this is what I see when I see their faces light up. And, their faces do, light up that is.

And the Dalai Lama was a leveller for me. He puts things simply, where everyone can understand, the only hard part is being able to hear everything he has to say because of the soft children noises overcoming the audio, the weeping men beside and in front of me and the noise my own handkerchief is making, which isn’t a handkerchief at all, it is a scarf I wear automatically when I feel good, it is turquoise, it is soft, it feels like New Zealand around my neck, a place I chose to come to and stay in for so many reasons it would take many lifetimes to express, just like any good feeling.

Happy Birthday My Beloveds! And, that means all of you who read this, CHEERS, and if you have any questions my girlfriends, I suggest you go ask Alice...

Been on a Journey

Brother John and I took to the road without a plan, following our golden thread and landed at the end of a rainbow on the same road as a 'Peace Garden' in a bach on an orchard at the home of a special friend who is the ultimate 'care-giver'.

Feeling cared for is wonderful and awe inspiring and makes one feel fully human...or better, beyond human, transcendent. We arrived and the birds greeted us, the swallow did figure eight patterns over our heads, the fantail sat on the fence and said 'you are very big bugs' and the tui perched at the top of the tree and cried, 'where have ya been?' It was magical.

The rainbow persisted and every day held 'sun showers' where the rain appears as gentle diamonds falling to the earth, the time of day did not exist and each walk was effortless in the land of the truly living 'good enough'.

The radio was 'in cahoots' playing Lennon's 'Imagine' and right then, it was believable...the home fire burned gifted wood and the table we ate at was gifted, too, there was nothing missing except YOU.

So, how do you get there?

This journey started many years ago with a phone call from a stranger answering an ad to help look after my children and pets while I went away from New Zealand back to America. I knew no one in New Zealand to help me and wrote an ad and answered the phone to many voices for days and days and then, finally, one voice emerged like no other.

That voice is now my special friend who is the ultimate 'care-giver'...we gathered a huge history that pleases all of nature. Rainbows and birds know her well...I cannot reveal her name, for to do so would make her disappear, there are rules for special friends you see, they prefer to live anonymously...

And, she does, on a hill at the end of a rainbow with a happy heart and a warm fire and a bath tub outside of all the barriers we humans try to build...

And while she does, she looks after people in her community just enough to get by and live in the sky, like a bird...

Anyway, it helps to listen for voices you have never heard and befriend them...then...it pays to throw away maps and plans and follow the feeling in the pit of your stomach that says, 'this way'...a hard thing to do when you are used to having information before you do what you do...

But, when you do...you can fly!

My friend taught me how to fly and then, how to come back down to 'earth out' as she calls it...a term us birds know well, and well, the rest is a restful story of shaking off earthquakes, death and destruction, family feuds, financial worries, human noise, tornadoes and all the chaotic treasures a world can turn with a switch inside that says,

'Brother John, it is time to take a road trip!'

Just do it, and we did, and now we have a story we can only share a part of, but the whole thing resides right where it belongs, in the hearts of friends who could never be better no matter what...

Thanking you, my special friend, and thinking of you and all the 'yous' who did not get to journey...take one! It's a 'good enough' plan just to do it! There are many gardens out there.