Still Here

Just a quick note to let all those die hard readers (thanks mom) that I am still here and kicking. Been an eventful time, too much to get into right now, as I lay on the floor with a 10cm long internet cable barley reaching my computer, preventing me from getting any sort of good posture. As a break down I’ve moved, bought a car, a phone and that’s about it. But for someone on the margins of society for so long, I am both happy and a little worried to be reintegrating back into the mainstream so fast. Well, not really. All was needed.  Keep checking back, this thing is far from done.

Happy Journeys

A Twisty Section

So I heard something very profound today and it made me realize I have likely been duped by myself yet again.  It kind of made me stop and think that all I have been doing and all I have been striving for is just another facet of the ego…performed by none other than his big brother and accomplice……the SUPER EGO!  S*#t just escalated.  The thief dressed as the police, stealing the happiness and completeness of this moment. I’m not professing to know or to fully “get” what was said but something rang true and it feels as though a weight has been lifted. Maybe it is a small weight, but a weight nonetheless. It’s left me very uncertain, as though what I believed has changed, but at the same time I feel some clarity. Before today I would have said chalk one up for feeling or the good side but why am I against the intellect or reason as if it is a bad thing?  I am both afterall.

That’s enough for one day. Tomorrow the journey continues but I feel it will be filled with a little less criticism and seriousness and a little more lightness. I don’t care whose brother says what this time, that’s a good thing to take on a journey, especially one as convoluted and tricky (but not!??!) as this one. Insert nervous laughter.

Just One Thing

That’s all I feel I have to do; one thing.  Not forever and at the exclusion of everything else, but just for now so that I know that I can do something. All the answers are out there, or as the wise would say, in here.   I have access to more than enough information that would completely transform my life. And I know information itself is not the key but application of the info, or on an even deeper level the absence of information and knowledge in the presence of pure awareness and presence.  With all the info I have accumulated I feel I could create an amazing life.  Yet I am like a taste tester of life, I like a little of this, a little of that, oh and I’ll try this and that over there, and sure, pass me the dessert with a little law of attraction sprinkled on top.  So why am I not able to use it all, to create the life of my dreams? I’m not sure but I have a theory that I’m going to work on prior to Peru in December and that is the application of one, just one tool that I know of.  Right now I believe it will be EFT, a simple yet profound means of releasing negative thoughts, stress, worry; virtually anything one wants to let go of or on the flip side, a way to enhance the positive aspects of life.  If anyone is interested in finding out more about EFT they can check out this 5 minute video which does a superb job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nRY3UtTHvo (I’ll make the link active as soon as I remember how).  Anyhoo, I really started to put some things in perspective today and it was with the suggestion of my girlfriend that I focus on one thing and still taste all that life has to offer.  Maybe it will be like some mental block I break through so that I then know I can apply anything that I learn.  I have used EFT in the past and I know it works, and I know it is powerful and easy to use…why I haven’t been using it all along, I do not quite know.

I also think that it is my ego that I have been filling up with knowledge because if I am always learning something new, I never have to take the time to do the actual work, the work that would diminish the ego and put me in touch with something deeper.  As I said all the answers are out there, all the strategies exist to achieve whatever it is one desires.  And by the mere fact that you have the desire, automatically means it is possible to achieve it, if one believes it possible.

I also realize I am always looking for salvation in the future, waiting for the perfect time to apply what I have learned.  And I often feel that once that time comes and I use all this info, then life will be perfect and I won’t want anything else. Well, as Abraham (not the biblical dude, even though I am sure he had some powerful advice) said we are eternal beings and we can never get it done, and we can never get it wrong.  And as soon as we achieve the thing we desire, we start from a new vantage point and create yet another desire.  It is as they say the perpetuating or expansion of the universe itself.  But there I go again, moving from one amazing bit of knowledge to another, never experiencing all the first had to offer.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step. Hmm, so what does a journey in eternity start with?

Happy Journeys

To do or not to do.

I’m really at a loss for something to write tonight. Which is fine. I feel kind of somber, not rushed to do anything as I usually am. It’s funny how I was hungover for one day a while back and beat myself up over it because I had things I wanted to do, yet I just took 8 days off and did as little of anything personal as possible and it was fine. I guess our perspective is that important. In one case “I” had judged myself as bad for being unproductive and not doing what I had planned, yet I could be totally unproductive for a week and feel great about it.  Funny how that works.

So instead of being too tough on myself for not studying spanish or catching up on reading, or doing any number of things I think I should do, I’m just gonna do nothing while it feels right enjoy it as much as possible. In the end it is the ego that drives us to create list after list of things to do, only to create another once the last is completed.  Not that doing stuff isn’t important, but I’m going to try to not let it rule my life and when it doesn’t get done feel guilty over it.

Like ending this short and somewhat incomplete… I’m alright with that, I think.

Happy Journeys

Word to World

Wow, guess the old adage time flies when your having fun really is true. I’ve been off work for 8 days as my sister, nephew and brother in law were visiting, and I kinda sad that they’re leaving tomorrow.  I’ve laughed harder, more often this past week  than I have in a while. All routine disappeared and it was great. It was so much fun to hang out with someone who is so in the Now and is excited about everything. Kids have so much to teach us.

And I have a lot to learn. I really have been weak on what may be one of the most important “rules” to live by; using your word as law, aka being impeccable with your word.  It is so important, and I know it but I haven’t been following it. I thought I used to, but having someone in your life to call you on it, and all of a sudden you see how many times your word goes flying out the window. And unfortunately with that, so do you. It’s very likely that our word creates the world we live in, and without it we really lose our power. And I guess it isn’t just about saying one thing and then doing another, but it’s how we use our word against others and how we gossip when others aren’t around.  I thought I had that part under control, but this past year I’ve definitely lost touch with that and I often like a good verbal beat down on someone as much as the next person. I know it has to change, and I know I have to be honest with myself and honest with those around me. I’m thankful to have someone who knows me and who can call me on it, otherwise I’d go on thinking I’m doing just fine and everyone else has lost it.

And so to conclude with my last post from a week or so ago, the decision by our client to limit our flexibility at work changed in our favor and i’m glad for that. I haven’t seen the guy who I have made into a villain since, and haven’t even thought about it since I’ve been away, taking advantage of the thing I thought I had lost. Hopefully I can stop slandering him with others, and begin to see him in a new light, someone who is just doing their job and has very different priorities than me.  It may not be easy, but the things that matter often aren’t.

Speaking of which, getting up 4-6 hours earlier than I have been for the past week. So hopefully sleep comes easy and I’m really thinking tomorrow is going to be a great day, despite being back to work etc., etc., etc.

If I have my word and my integrity, all else shall be easy.

Happy Journeys

A Pop Quiz

It’s so easy to be nice to people when things are going well. It’s also easy to be nice to people when they are nice to me. I’m finding it difficult to be nice to people when they aren’t nice to me, actually they weren’t even not nice to me directly. If that makes any sense.  This particular case has to deal with the client for whom our company works for. Throughout the past year this person has managed to piss off virtually everyone I work with, including myself on several occasions. But I always seem to be able to get over it and go back to a state of indifference at best.  And to be honest they hadn’t done a whole lot to impact me directly. Until now. Now they crossed the line of what I call acceptable and they have taken away what I deem to be best part of my job; the flexibility.  Without going into details, we are working on having it resolved but I am unsure of the outcome.

If it doesn’t get resolved I will hold a grudge against this person who I sense has done me a big injustice. But I know it isn’t the right thing to do. I know that my discomfort is causes by my resistance to the way things are, my inability to accept my loss. It makes me angry, to the point that if I explain it to someone I get really worked up.  I’m living in the story and the drama has taken over. I know of things I could do to get over it, things I have read, heard, maybe even practiced; but it is so much easier to stay angry and upset and blame this person for how I feel.

But even writing this helps change the perspective. Off the top of my head here is my plan to get over this and move on. First I’m going to try to understand that it’s not personal, what this person has done has nothing to do with me.  Then I could add in a dash of gratitude for having a stress-free job with great coworkers. After that I may remember that this is a lesson, a great opportunity to grow and know myself even more. Even better, it’s a chance to practice what on paper seems so easy. Forgivensss. How can I think the world is going to change if I can’t do it myself, if  I am perpetuating the anger and resentment versus learning to accept and forgive? I must really be delusional if I think the outside will change before the inside does.  But it happens all the time and the more I talk about it, think about it, get all worked up over it, the worse it gets.  Living in the story. Happens to me all the time.

One thing that always helps me is to think of people who have done what I currently think is the impossible. Like the American man who spent what I believe was 27 years of his life as a falsley accused political prisoner in China, to finally be freed and to be grateful for his time imprisoned and to hold no resentment against his captors. Or the man who learned to forgive and help out the person who randomly murdered his son in a nightclub, as he knew the guy was also hurting and if he didn’t help him there would be two families destroyed, not just one. Or the guy from New Orleans who was deliberately accused and convicted of rape and murder and sent to prison, only to learn true freedom. Shit happens, its called life. Some people deal with it a lot better than people like me. If I can’t get over someone taking away a perk of my job, I sure better pray no one sends me to prison for something  I didn’t do!

To be honest what always helps the most is to step back from it, to really look at it from a different frame of mind. Only then do I see how small I am being and how worked up I get over  things.  I’m not advocating letting people walk over you or not standing up for your rights, but in the case when you can’t change the way things are, you either accept or you don’t  One option is life, the other is not.

The real test is tomorrow when I see this person at work. Will he be a teacher or just a dumb ass jerk who pisses me off every time I think about him? I’m not sure.

Happy Journeys.

Looking Ahead

I think its safe to say I’m no Gandhi or Buddha and I’m not saying I strive to be either but I do have a strong pull to know myself in all aspects, especially in the “spiritual” realm. I’ve  punched some time reading, studying, pondering, doing courses, seminars etc, and although they’ve  had an impact I find I’m not where I would like to be (which I realize is the ego speaking as there is nowhere else we can be other than here and now and even though it may not seem it, it is the perfect place for me; it can not be otherwise.) Even as I work on recognizing and maintaining awareness in the present I know there is more and I’m open to experiencing consciousness in the fullest, hence my upcoming trip and one of the reasons for this blog.

I may have discovered a key that accelerates the whole process of development and I’m going to give it a turn, maybe two.  It’s something I have been familiar with for several years and something which the native peoples of South America have been familiar with for centuries, the vine of souls; Ayahuasca.  It is actually a combination of two plants which has the effect of producing a large amount of DMT (dimethyltryptamine; aka The Spirit Molecule).  Although it has been researched quite extensively by western science, our model of reality has no real basis to explain the utterly profound and lasting changes produced from its consumption.  I don’t feel the need to explain or defend it’s effectiveness or validity as I have some very strong opinions about it and I respect anyone who is able to form their own opinion upon doing their own research. Having said that I have never been so excited to do anything else in my life, ever. Having spoke with the only two people I know personally who have been there and done it for themselves, December could not come fast enough. Which is in itself providing me with a valuable lesson as I try not to wish away the present, but instead try to appreciate this year with all it’s highs and lows.

I have had people say, but isn’t this cheating? Is this a true connected experience or just the product of a chemical reaction. Besides the fact that we are nothing more than a series of continuous chemical reactions, it may not be so much about how you get there, but what you do once you arrive.  What do you do once you gain a sense of inner peace, once you rid yourself of that negative self talk, the doubt and self-sabotaging habits? What do you do once there is no more judgment, resistance and anger?  To know yourself, your purpose and to have a true feel of the bigger picture is in my opinion very important. And whatever can be done to achieve this as quickly and safely as possible, so that you can be the best version of yourself for yourself, others and the world at large is a very worthy quest. As with all quests there are closed doors, but with the right keys they open effortlessly.

Happy Journeys

The Highs and Lows

How quickly things can change, or at least appear to change.  Last week I was riding high. I started the blog and it felt good, I was uncovering some new neat sites which have some great info on them, my energy was through the roof, my little nephew and family were coming to visit, life was good.  Then I finished work for 4 days,  what better way to celebrate than head to a coworkers for a few drinks and bbq. Not sure what it is and why I always seem to end up doing it, but it turned into a very late night with excess alcohol, and thus the trashing of my energy.  And I went down hard, spending the next beautiful sunny day in bed feeling like I wasted it away, and it spread into the next day, tired, lethargic and not in a very happy space. I not only took myself down into a world of guilt and anger but I managed to suck in the people closest to me. This was also a rare time when me and my girlfriend were off together, and looking back she would have had a better time if I wasn’t around.

I’ve only come to terms with this trashing of my energy today, maybe because I have begun to rebuild it, but whatever the reason it leaves so many questions? Like where is my sense of self control when I drink? Can I even go out and socialize without getting smashed?  Is it even worth it anymore? Shouldn’t I be able to accept every situation as it is without passing judgment and saying this is bad, this is good. I mean it’s all life isn’t it, it’s all an experience? Is it just my ego that wants to go go go and do more, and if I don’t follow my plans then I’m a bad person? Where is the middle road and should I try to take that versus going high and thus setting myself up to crash lower?

Regardless of the answers, I can say for sure how I felt and I’m clear on the difference.  Contributing, learning and creating felt great. Being ill, tired, remorseful and angry…. not so much.   As hard as it may be, I’m trying  not to be so hard on myself for messing up. The blog is still here, those sites have only gotten better since I last checked, my energy will rebound and I’m still super excited to have my sister, nephew and family here. I’m also clear on the effects we have on those around us.  For the last few days I’ve been busy creating a world with more anger and remorse. Sorry about that. By being happy and peaceful within myself I’ve seen others around me lighten up again, and I’ve watched the  laughter reappear from behind the dark clouds.

Happy journeys, detours and all.

Blogs to the left, blogs to the right

What is this world I have stumbled upon? I’ve always heard of bloggers and blogging and thought I knew what it was about but in just the past week I’ve discovered this whole new world within the internet. Common, everyday people having their say and making a difference.  I mean I guess it is easier than starting a website, so maybe people opt for the simpler route. Whatever the reason(s) and I’m sure there are almost as many as there are blogs, people are having their say.  It’s refreshing, unfiltered info that is not created to perpetuate a sense of fear and negativity among everyone (but i’m sure you can find it if you looked)

Sidenote: I believe the simplest thing anyone can do to feel better is to cut out the MSM, aka The MainStreamMedia. I was at work a few days ago and for a hoot put on CBC radio for a NEWS update. I got a dose of terrorism, murder and genocide back to back to back. It made my lunch go down in lumps.  There are billions of things happening in the world at every instant, many of them positive, feel good stories but you would never know it by watching the news. Sure, I agree there are things we need to know, and it can at times be somewhat helpful but if anything is so important that it is going to affect you, you’ll hear about it.  Simple test to see if it is worthwhile to watch or listen: Does it empower you? Anyway, enough ranting, it’s just my opinion on the subject.

Back to the blogosphere. I’ve quickly skimmed some of the sites I have posted on the left and it has rekindled something inside. A fresh take on doing what you want and going for the gusto. As excited as I am, there is always that voice that pops up; what will you do, how will you do it, you’ve never done this before, you don’t know what you’re doing, no one else has done this…… the same voice that doubted the start of this simple blog and so many things before it. I can’t get rid of it, it will probably always be there and it will always sound reasonable. Luckily, I’m not interested in reason so much anymore.

Happy Journeys

Exciting Times

I’ve begun to use the Internet. It’s a pretty neat thing when you can start to organize it and tailor it to your needs. I’ve been surfing the Internet for about as long as it’s been around but never actually took any time to learn to use it effectively. Pretty crazy when you consider that virtually anything I’d ever want to know is right at my fingertips.  All knowledge amassed together about a foot from my face.  Not to say it isn’t full of s*@t as well cause it is but I guess it’s up to me to decipher what’s what.

I’m excited, feels good to be working on something creative and expressive.  Everything seems to be going good these days, (not that it ever really goes bad) I get to spend my days with great people, work is easy, the sun is up for 18+ hours a day and I’m looking forward to a trip later this year that I feel will alter the course of my life.  Yet as good as things are, and as good as I generally feel I am amazed at how angry I get over the littlest things sometimes. For example work is very simple and I often have to locate various instruments in the field. Sometimes like today it may take me a little longer that I’d like, and in about 3 second I can go from jolly to spitting fire and the longest string of curse words I’ve ever heard. I get so angry over nothing. I rarely get angry at others or even when other people are around but watch me drop something or have a problem closing a zipper and watch out!  May not last long and not sure why it happens, but I think it’s because I expect and want things to go smoothly and I feel that I’m in control. As soon as I lose that control my world gets flipped and so does my demeanor.  A friend once told me that if we can let go of 4 things we’d live in freedom; need for control, need for approval, need for security and I forget the fourth but I guess it may be true. Luckily I can catch myself in my tantrums now and as quickly as it appears it passes but there is a period there when I am genuinely mad.  Guess the inner waters aren’t as calm as I’d like them to be. Hence my desire to live in freedom and not have my being dictated by what happens on the outside. i.e loss/gain, pleasure/pain, shame/fame, and damn it all to hell I can’t remember the 4th thing again. Insert curse words, a few more, bonus curse, feel my blood start to boil.  See the rage, breath, laugh, ahh.. exciting times.

Happy Journeys