tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70453658002722491012024-03-05T07:53:20.916+02:00shiva's lightsaberShiva uses his sword to penetrate reality, and I like the merge with the Luke Skywalker. It brings it (occidentally) home. "Saber" in Spanish is "to know". Light needs dark matter to discover itself. In the interplay of shadows and light it´s not what you look at, but what you see.www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-41123810723432225002017-06-13T16:06:00.000+03:002017-06-13T16:55:33.058+03:00ON INTIMACY - Bringing Back the Gods<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="border-top: solid silver 3.0pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm;">
<h2>
<b><span style="color: #999999;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXchemb57Ztr7AlVT1royNlWFzcbVYoVJyaggiybczDadahISHIR9MXgbqAomssbGc5ymVy0_2MlJNRUYYUDaD4NyINLjqpmlUnLfman2zhf_ak9oV_cjQaL1mrKEol52ysX4OX38RrD5/s1600/JuliaCover8+%25281%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1115" data-original-width="1600" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXchemb57Ztr7AlVT1royNlWFzcbVYoVJyaggiybczDadahISHIR9MXgbqAomssbGc5ymVy0_2MlJNRUYYUDaD4NyINLjqpmlUnLfman2zhf_ak9oV_cjQaL1mrKEol52ysX4OX38RrD5/s640/JuliaCover8+%25281%2529.png" width="640" /></a></div>
</span></b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-large;">Chapter 1: In the End is my Beginning </span></div>
<br /><b><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></b></h2>
</div>
<div style="border-top: solid #7F7F7F 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-top-alt: solid #7F7F7F .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm;">
<div class="introductionparagraphofchapter">
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="introductionparagraphofchapter">
<br /></div>
<div class="introductionparagraphofchapter">
<br /></div>
<div class="introductionparagraphofchapter">
<span class="big1"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">Delving into personal intimacy <br />
that weaves in and out of a poem <br />
written in 250 BCE.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></span></div>
<div class="introductionparagraphofchapter">
<span class="big1"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<span class="big1"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></b></span>
<span class="big1"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="firstpoemchapterheader" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before Knowing You</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I yearn to write lines of love</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of you adoring something</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">so simple</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as how I clean my teeth:</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">beholding me through the mirror,</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">my back resting on your fortress
chest</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">my spare hand stroking</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the warm forest arm slanting up</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">through the valley</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of my well explored breasts;</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a funny smile,</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">obstructed by the drawbridge of
my toothbrush,</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">becomes four</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as we marvel at how</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we both see reflected</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the other’s eyes</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the flecks of life</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">glistening in our own.</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beautiful thoughts</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">bringing empty, stony echoes</span></span></div>
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">into this chasm of lonely
wilderness.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 1pt;"></span></span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 1pt;">
<br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
</span><br />
<div class="firstpoemofchapterbody">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk6I9RgOkxjtLsdOs2pipIUxqiUhFXTwXZxoSH-97i63jsuRlP_3RlGRs9EYCRJUcrjcT4IMWyyhktm_HFtdm2ZhnVYo8UzXvA0cEDOlwJjAOU92TejyJfWCAx9TtD3m-_1qnRgyGDP5og/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk6I9RgOkxjtLsdOs2pipIUxqiUhFXTwXZxoSH-97i63jsuRlP_3RlGRs9EYCRJUcrjcT4IMWyyhktm_HFtdm2ZhnVYo8UzXvA0cEDOlwJjAOU92TejyJfWCAx9TtD3m-_1qnRgyGDP5og/s1600/th.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN"> </span><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"> </v:shapetype></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="BigTextChar"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;">I walk through the valley of death, poetically,
internally. </span></span><span lang="EN">You did it for real, in California,
with your ceremony in the desert, allowing your beautiful high, your deep
connection. Sunrise sees you drinking in the red of the sky after taking
medicine. You. All alone. Beautiful you, young you, walking, lithe like,
through the desert. Slithering snake. I bet you were naked. I imagine you in a
space where god becomes like man for the sake of man and man becomes like god
for the sake of god. In my mind you are a moving Greek myth bending to become a
flower, to dance your minute delicacy around its giant stem as it grows dancing
light into your heart.</span><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then eventually the come down, back to the
tent, the winds picking up. Zipping up, coming in from all that expanse, faced
with the confines of canvas, forced to go within in a different way, alone now,
disconnected from that other world.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I remember being startled when Prof. Amador
Vega said that the pain of being a god for a moment of eternity is in the
return and realising we are not god: the pain of our humanity. I can see you,
through time and space, sat back in your flayed human skin, raw rubbed by sand
and sun, feeling denser now, separated from humanity. Feeling small now after
the ever expansiveness of space, feeling the terrifying immensity of the skies
suddenly so far away, sensing the beating heart of the world that had been so
tangible before, now dimmed, hiding back behind the flowers. Brutally forced
out of power, out of the expansion of being everything, to return to small.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel you aching for people not present. You
are left only with You. Nothing but you and your beating heart, getting faster,
and your drained energy seeping into a hard desert floor under a flimsy, dog-eared
camping mattress, accompanied by nothing but your breath; wondering how long it
will continue. When will it stop? How long is a night? Where will you go? The
desolate desert winds mirroring your soul. Whirlwinds of thoughts bringing
ramshackle fears into your dream world.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The void slowly opens her devouring orifice.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Under the twilight skies you desperately pack
up, wind whirling sand into the crevasses of your skin, your gear, your soul,
and you hike back to your little, fragile car. To drive. To calm the mind.
Drive. Looking for friends. Drive. Looking for company, looking for anything
but this emptiness. Drive. Hours of long straight highways, the dotted lines on
the dusty road coming into the windscreen like stars in a space ship.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zip</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zip</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zip</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zip</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zip</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zip</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hypnotising yourself out of that dark fear,
running, running, running away. Wanting to know what it is all about, too
afraid to find out.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span lang="EN">You
tell me years later</span></b><span lang="EN">, two decades later, mid forties,
that you understood something more. Before going into the desert you’d asked to
know direction, you’d asked to be shown what to do, who to be. You’d asked for
guidance and it had been given to you, if only you could have heard it: allow
yourself to be vulnerable, allow yourself to sit in nothingness, to be alone in
meaninglessness. Be brave and walk through the valley of death, alone in the
dark of the deepest night, without even the stars to guide your way; to have
the courage to be alone within yourself, to sit in the confines of that tent,
to sit in yourself, and face the screams, face the gargoyles of your fears and
walk through them to the other side; to withstand aloneness and the fear of
being alive, to know that you can, so as to never have to run away – ever again
- so as to not base a lifetime on running from fears, running from the
nothingness, from crazily grasping onto sands of meaning as they slip through
your fingers and you scream for time to stop running through your being.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But you didn’t.</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You tell me all this as I cry down the phone.
I have been alone for so long; so long I have been forced to make company only
with myself: years of meaninglessness, of non-producing, of waking day by day
with nothing to do, with no reason, drowning in the fear of worthlessness. How
many hour-long moments have I gazed through the glazed over glass of my
windowed eyes, blank walls my mirror, the aspects of my mind my only
companions, forced into conversations with the within?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have developed relationships with trees,
taking me to a place where seconds take years, yet I am invisible because I
move a billion times too fast. I move at the speed of human, where I cannot see
the immense beauty of their dance, for a step takes one of my lifetimes. I have
been dragged down, kicking and screaming, into the beauty of presence, into my
own beauty that comes up from the presence of the world.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; margin-left: 43.2pt; margin-right: 43.2pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 10.0pt 0cm 10.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 18pt 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the Beginning of Beginnings was the
Void of Void, the Nameless.</span></span><span style="vertical-align: super;">1</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<sup><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></sup></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I scream holding onto my name, which dislodges
off its hook. I want it to fit; I want my name for myself. I scream, a child
clinging to a broken toy. Irreparable, this distance cannot be returned. I have
stepped too far and seen too much to claim ignorance. I must continue.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Into Nameless, without body, without form,
into where this one Being gives all the power to exist. The flower is my
cousin, the moon my mother, in this loneliness I become all of humanity,
leaving behind all that I am not.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My presence becomes unwrapped from its covers
of meaningless meaning; my presence is allowed to breathe.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am in the first breath. Is this a second
awakening?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A baby breathes her first breath and timed
with the stars, with the moon’s gravitational pull, with the energy of the sun,
becomes unique. When did I first breathe a second time? Who have I left to
become who I always was?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dionysus was born a second time out of a
thigh.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Outside in the far distance I still have my
body. I recognise the hand, but not the sensations. They are constantly
birthing. Eternally anew. I think about all those times I do not recognise the
details of my face in the bathroom mirror, new lines, my eyes constantly
changing their vision. They staring into me, asking me to open as I cling
still, afraid of presence. Why afraid?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I remember bliss. How many people have
experienced it? Do the flowers live in it? Are we unaware of it like fish
cannot see water? Would the flowers be shocked to feel what we humans want to
feel, as we endlessly repeat fears, anger, jealousy in some vain attempt to
control life and keep everything still. We seem to do anything but allow
ourselves to see presence in the void of our hearts. Why do we struggle so hard
to push away from all this meaninglessness and so blind ourselves to our true
beauty, our own true selves? Why are we so unable to let go even as we are
dragged through life backwards, clinging desperately onto the monstrous shapes
of ignorant fears?</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘I should have stayed in the tent’, you say.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; margin-left: 43.2pt; margin-right: 43.2pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 10.0pt 0cm 10.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 18.0pt;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He who obeys Nature returns through Form
and Formless to the Living,</span></div>
<span lang="EN"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And in the Living</span></span></div>
<span lang="EN">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Joins the unbegun Beginning.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><strong><span lang="EN"><br /></span></strong></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><strong><span lang="EN"><br /></span></strong></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><strong><span lang="EN">I awaken to my presence,</span></strong><span lang="EN"> sat in this nothingness of a day, beside these white painted walls,
behind the pane of glass, watching rain pour, watching trees dance; too still
for any thoughts, emotionally exhausted, unable to feel, to think. I lie, my
body a stone, as if on medicine. Movement zero.<br />
I shudder. Is this death?</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I shudder, panic, feel strangled by the close
confines of the meaninglessness of my life. My mind screams suicidal thoughts
in silence. I have no place to go. Birds soar; I feel my inescapable heaviness.</span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I can no more. I unzip this tent of self
constriction. I leave my room and go walk in the rain.</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The woods find me. Their boughs are the
embrace that keeps me from madness. These are my family. I slink to their feet,
feel wrapped in the curves of their trunk. In the out-breath I feel their green
soothing. I slow down again, back into the rhythm of life.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I gaze.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is beauty. Far away from an art gallery,
I am surrounded by true art. I think of fairies. Moss green curves in the
interplay of trunks and earth, the intricate work in the strokes of branches,
interweaving patterns of delicate vision. My head is supported by a loving
trunk, my body by sub-stance, by the mother of all. Matter matters. It is
meaninglessness that is meaningless.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; margin-left: 43.2pt; margin-right: 43.2pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 10.0pt 0cm 10.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 18.0pt;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The joining is Sameness. The sameness is
Void. The Void is infinitive.</span></div>
<span lang="EN"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The bird opens its beak and sings its note</span></span></div>
<span lang="EN">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then the beat comes together again in Silence.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I hear my breath, a river of calm, caressing
my body, allowing air that was not me, to come in, what was not mine, to be
touched by me, to be changed, to be warmed by my presence, to become me. I
cannot hold onto this gift, but return it, return myself, to the one breath
that moves the patterns between the branches.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the end of one breath, a slight pause: I hear
silence.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next is quieter. Each breath dying down
into a deeper place, softer, harmonious.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Until it would seem my body is so relaxed it
is not breathing. I hear it from a distance. A complete openness in my belly to
all that is, digesting silently as my presence plays communion with Presence.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I realise I am:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">alive.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My body is vibrating, the heavy solidity
lifting away.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My breath circulating freely, silently,
lovingly.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am balancing on the edge, becoming fully
alive. All that I was only moments ago is dead.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I tingle. I am Joy.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel the tree, breathing into me. It kisses
me.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I would stay here forever.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; margin-left: 43.2pt; margin-right: 43.2pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 10.0pt 0cm 10.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 18.0pt;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nature and the Living meet together in
Void.</span></div>
<span lang="EN"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like the closing of the bird’s beak</span></span></div>
<span lang="EN">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After its song.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Imagine if every human felt this…how life
would change…I feel myself slinking down, opening.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I fall into a womb. Above I feel my body
taking on all responsibility. I surrender. Once I get out of the way, my
muscles unspring returning to their natural state. In this deeper relaxation,
Peace flows.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It knows.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The psyche knows to heal itself.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When ‘I’ am not.</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My lips smile</span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">down here all makes sense.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A still sense of a soft diffused light called
Love.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why would I ever block this out?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is this my presence? The presence nourishes
me, gives me strength to show myself, to grow into my own, to shed my bark and
become a supple nymph in the river of breath.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Peace seeps into my body, bones relax.</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I sink further,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">on the edge of being able to stay awake as I
awaken to this:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">nameless.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I let myself become one with it.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; margin-left: 43.2pt; margin-right: 43.2pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 10.0pt 0cm 10.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin-bottom: 18.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 18.0pt;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All is foolishness, all is unknown, all
is like</span></div>
<span lang="EN"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The lights of an idiot, all is without mind!</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fears push on my bladder. I know that old
trick. It is not real.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4472C4 1.0pt; margin-left: 43.2pt; margin-right: 43.2pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #4472C4 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 10.0pt 0cm 10.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoIntenseQuote" style="margin: 18pt 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To obey is to close the beak and fall
into Unbeginning. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I fall into myself. Soft velvet.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Time dissolves, meaningless.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is all there is, this is all I am.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I become smaller, going further and further
within to who I am, I expand out into all that Is.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Blissful nothingness.</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jaw softens</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel myself as one</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Swimming in the see-through-ness between inside
and out, I remember myself.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I sink in my own simplicity.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How could I ever have forgotten?</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gentle.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Open.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Empty.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Time slows into the Eternal.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am filled.</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink">
<br /></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Through the silences I hear car, wind, birds,
the rustle of animals. There is another world.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don’t want to return.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel the father, my thoughts, coming to pick
me up from school…coming to take me back to the land of the living dead, to
the meaninglessness, to words and ideas and the projections of mind.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel the bark of the mother softly push me
onwards, telling me that I am. I can deal with living in her, in her material,
I can deal with the hard flakes of deathful unconsciousness gnawing on the
edges of words, I can deal with demons that fling themselves at me, my own or
others. I can deal with it all.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I can separate with my sword of discernment, I
have the protection of the father now, of feeling my presence, of the Spirit.
All I need do is return and allow myself to be met, allow myself to be seen,
only my own dragons can be dominated by me, only my own world can be healed by
me.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I cannot heal anywhere else but in myself.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thoughts are coming in faster now. Are they
insight or poison?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think of the minute doses of poison that can
heal. I think of my responsibility to experiment into the right dose that is
healing for me, that will open me up within and without, and also know the dose
that will bring me down, into a world of depression, of becoming closed down,
lost in self-referencing mind-stuff, of being closed in the circle. In-firm.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am coming out of this deep wellness of
being, back up to the dreaded surface.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I open my eyes. Breathe out deeply. Am greeted
by green beauty. A balm for this deep wound I have again come out of. Seeking
the healing, far within.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I stand shakily. Head rush. Knees ache from
inactivity, I take a tentative step and continue onwards.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></span></div>
<div class="centerBink" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="PoemTitle" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Cocoon</b></span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Inside</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">there is a place</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">full of light.</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It strokes me back</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">into comfort</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">heals me.</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Embalmed</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in trust</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I float in hope.</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Too soon the ephemeral eternity</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">turns to dust in my hands;</span></span></div>
<div class="Poem" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am left only with me.</span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span><br />
<div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Emma.JULIA/Desktop/on%20intimacy%20kindle/OnIntimacyFixes%20(JR1)%20FINAL.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "arial unicode ms" , "sans-serif";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 11pt;">Thomas Merton’s translation of Chuang Tzu’s poem, ‘In the End is My Beginning.’ 250 BCE.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="border-top: solid silver 3.0pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border: none; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; padding: 1pt 0cm 0cm; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<h2>
<b><span style="color: #999999;">_______________________________________________________________________________________________________</span></b></h2>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: right;">Contents</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border-top: solid silver 3.0pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm;">
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12pt;">Dedication</span><br />
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">By Way of Introduction</span></span></span><br />
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART I</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 16px;">Chapter 1: In the End in my Beginning</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 16px;">Chapter 2: Time Travel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 16px;">Chapter 3: Holograms and Pool Tables</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 16px;">Chapter 4: PMT and Ovulation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART II: MAKING THE PATH BY WALKING IT - FINDING OUR
OWN WAY THROUGH THE WILDS OF RELATING</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 5: The Boundaries</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 6: To Love</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 7: Maps</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 8: Vague is Vague</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="X-NONE"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART III: REALISING THE POWER OF CHOICE AND LETTING GO</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
</span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="X-NONE"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 9: Defining The Prince Within</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="X-NONE">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 10: In a Nutshell</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 11: Cinderella and the Animus</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART IV: GOING IN - SEX AND LOVE AND ALL IT SPEWS UP</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 12: Awakening</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 13: The Mystic and the Logic Experience</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 14: Being Burnt by the Light of the Sun</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 15: Hand in Glove</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 16: Not Too Much</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="all" />
</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART V: RAW LIFE-GIVING VULNERABILITY</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 17: Moving Points of Balance</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Crack Into: Raw Exposure</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 18: A Dizzying Mix of Power and Impotence</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 19: Freedom and Sex</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 20: Walking the Knife Edge (Part one)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 21: Walking the Knife Edge (Part two)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART VI: REAL INTIMACY</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 22: This is It</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Not Quite a Chapter at All: ‘Who I Really Am’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 23: Real Intimacy</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 24: Dropping the Potato</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART VII: UNDOING</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 25: Ego Death</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 26: Meaninglessness</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 27: The Eternal is Ephemeral</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>PART VIII: ETERNAL BECOMING</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 28: Moonrise in the World of Slow</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 29: Enthusiasm - <span style="letter-spacing: -1.0pt;">the</span> Rainbow between Heaven and Earth</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 30: Cars and Seeds</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter 31: Will you Marry this Moment?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">About the Author</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">List of Illustrations</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Footnotes</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "sitka banner"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="border: none; padding: 1pt 0cm 0cm;">
<h2 style="font-family: "times new roman";">
<div style="border: none; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; padding: 1pt 0cm 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
</div>
</h2>
<h2>
<b style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: #999999;">_________________________________________________</span></b><b><span style="color: #999999;">______________________________________________________</span></b></h2>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">About the Author</span><span style="font-size: 24px;"> </span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOS-bgFet-wFi_d6jIqwGfkmSUD0wSvyNlzZHNZwYEhwMB9x7UGBatpTUKS9kdNlY-r5iQb0mMPSukFf13Hyu4egUuygvL6jpbFMXA_UpqxePBjsltDILK8omPlRChirFGuzrF3TV_FpB/s1600/Julia-Robinson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="1000" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOS-bgFet-wFi_d6jIqwGfkmSUD0wSvyNlzZHNZwYEhwMB9x7UGBatpTUKS9kdNlY-r5iQb0mMPSukFf13Hyu4egUuygvL6jpbFMXA_UpqxePBjsltDILK8omPlRChirFGuzrF3TV_FpB/s400/Julia-Robinson.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">Author photograph copyright. </span><span class="il" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">John</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">D.C.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"> </span><span class="il" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">Masters</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">, all rights reserved, 2013</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN">Julia Robinson has spent her life out of the
box, hitchhiking around the world, floating down the Amazon in a self-made raft,
selling roasted chickens in Argentina, working at an orphanage in Nepal,
studying Jungian psychology in Catalonia, going to art school in Greece,
writing and dancing in Colorado. Now back in her native England, she expresses
the breadth of her experience in her poetry and writings. She has written this
book around her poems to give them context and accessibility.</span><span lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She presently lives in Totnes, Devon and is
gently, slowly, allowing a new adventure to enter into her heart. Who knows
where it will lead…?</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For further information or to buy the book please go to:</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">on-intimacy.com</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></div>
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-52612512429950009152017-04-13T00:47:00.001+03:002017-04-18T00:59:05.484+03:00Honeymoon: Ready for any Eventuality. 10 April 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="es"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmgxCZ4UIgr-UdkwFbEqkoi_FZgC5FJTJBKNJzm7fUToNOD7QGfBCNsizC6t7oO3AY7abOki0Tt3H9QEau0ol8C_TE-cJ_HlCaV4m4EYqX8PMDahCYzQLSrfXXsdhRFaOfUXElxozWdpEW/s1600/17361586_10155206333327835_2785246232971491361_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmgxCZ4UIgr-UdkwFbEqkoi_FZgC5FJTJBKNJzm7fUToNOD7QGfBCNsizC6t7oO3AY7abOki0Tt3H9QEau0ol8C_TE-cJ_HlCaV4m4EYqX8PMDahCYzQLSrfXXsdhRFaOfUXElxozWdpEW/s320/17361586_10155206333327835_2785246232971491361_n.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="es"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="es"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">´We are going to have such a good time!´ through the skype screen he
brims over with joy. We are imagining how it is to actually be together, to be
able to touch, to be able to not have to find wifi to be able to talk, to be
able to eat together, sing together, and other things together. ´Wow...´<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Meanwhile Fabian is in a moment of transition, like so many I have gone
through, like so many he has gone through. We are veterans of moving lives, of
sudden changes, of creating changing in the field of our own realities, riding
waves of the everchanging. Which is why, suddenly, I feel enormously grateful
to years of experience of travelling and being able to survive under often
extreme conditions: the honeymoon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After a little more than a week of fantastic shows, eating out and
loving each other in Buenos Aires, the moment arrived for The Transition. Months
before Fabian had decided to make the jump and move from the Capital to the countryside
and begin a new life - closer to nature, living under the expansion of wider
skies, connecting once again with the stars, tracking the phrases of the moon,
feeling the warm, green blanket of being surrounded by trees, reconnecting – at
last - with Essence. Which is exactly what has happened - but in a way so
dramatic that neither of us really fully expected it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuJ3rSzXnIs-JOTyFFnY277J-D16ITeAxmAK1QiYVvSpAkG5c8xYnWutu3vIwV2YkfEXKkE1gWRaUrXF5H8ydpjVdLqMBZ33n2KN2wRZDPmgVKBL1VK78YR6LSxLEZqQ4gpGOj4C4GMuL/s1600/IMG_20170410_190322.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuJ3rSzXnIs-JOTyFFnY277J-D16ITeAxmAK1QiYVvSpAkG5c8xYnWutu3vIwV2YkfEXKkE1gWRaUrXF5H8ydpjVdLqMBZ33n2KN2wRZDPmgVKBL1VK78YR6LSxLEZqQ4gpGOj4C4GMuL/s320/IMG_20170410_190322.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One night the sunset was so bright we really thought there was a forest fire.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Welcome to the house in the countryside, just beside Mercedes town. It
is a 20 minute car ride down a dirt high way...never before have I seen a dirt
road so wide...it would be enough for four or five lanes of traffic. A car
passes every half an hour, or less. The little neighbourhood road to the
country home where we are living, is grass, like driving on a lawn. Quite
beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWzkSjKHxnweVeBX2FfrnbhWkJiOwvOi5RtJkHyi557gJJ-ANJ_GgKP6dQgbLQeaOFeW8OeIOqSNH4DhV7OXAC53E1RankhZ_fZdMOf1PeLjL5Widnfw-FQl1rRif53aLvAsEOuaTV1iV8/s1600/IMG_20170413_170256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWzkSjKHxnweVeBX2FfrnbhWkJiOwvOi5RtJkHyi557gJJ-ANJ_GgKP6dQgbLQeaOFeW8OeIOqSNH4DhV7OXAC53E1RankhZ_fZdMOf1PeLjL5Widnfw-FQl1rRif53aLvAsEOuaTV1iV8/s320/IMG_20170413_170256.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is a canvass swimming pool that we managed to get into on the
first day, wonderful cold feeling of being alive in the middle of a hot sunny
day and given our full motivation to enjoy ourselves I used a lot of self-control
to ignore the hundred or so bees from the neighbour´s honey production outfit
that were buzzing over the water. It was the next day I started to feel a
little more reticient after a sting that took four days for my hand to return
to normal dimensions. Of course, we both concluded laughing, making light of
the situation, that it was actually a gift since the sting was actually
activating a meridian line cleansing an energy line through my body. And maybe
so. It was later - when we discovered that a neighbour had been rushed to
hospital after a bee sting in his throat and would have died apparently if he
had arrived five minutes later - that we stopped using the swimming pool.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjpNbMLVbVkYl5xJ0QZcuFdJn_isGg5ddjkZee3UaTK-41Ar_4N1oYrzkxugcvwb0oD3CIjsjg8HE2YQuM1hlhqtHfVgVuPJFHwSEVBHMSW7LuCc74UuyAJQnOkPAl8ZL2s0vJeELWKSmP/s1600/IMG_20170402_183524.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjpNbMLVbVkYl5xJ0QZcuFdJn_isGg5ddjkZee3UaTK-41Ar_4N1oYrzkxugcvwb0oD3CIjsjg8HE2YQuM1hlhqtHfVgVuPJFHwSEVBHMSW7LuCc74UuyAJQnOkPAl8ZL2s0vJeELWKSmP/s320/IMG_20170402_183524.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We discovered within a week that the lawn B roads are much easier to
drive on when the rains come, which they have. The main five-laner road
becomes, under the effect of rain, a mudbath churned by the occasional passing
tractor...I would estimate it in places to be 30 centimetres deep, and when a
car gets stuck and revs its wheels into the ever deepening hole (as happened in
the car we were in) estimations to the possible depth of mud exponentially
increase. But being in love, we laughed in the rain, pushing the car out of the
continually occurring predicaments while singing Waltzing Matilda. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtChkeR_4tuDSYLnnWiSxvO89BxYskMXP55eN1-MYESczc5twIZcFdHd4RkTmkmRgnxqTSQV23FLCQEgKAFsMAK-2FF8RDE4M_iUGJui0P5H869k_fKibDTKZ0mvroPuv_1xK4z393ZjT/s1600/IMG_20170411_152730.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtChkeR_4tuDSYLnnWiSxvO89BxYskMXP55eN1-MYESczc5twIZcFdHd4RkTmkmRgnxqTSQV23FLCQEgKAFsMAK-2FF8RDE4M_iUGJui0P5H869k_fKibDTKZ0mvroPuv_1xK4z393ZjT/s320/IMG_20170411_152730.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">We managed
to turn the car around, and our friends found a four by four to pull them back
to safety to gratefully make their way home to Buenos Aires as we continued
back to our love nest with our thumb with front and rear traction coming to us
like an angel descending from the sky. Another sign that we are on the right
path in our love story.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74tT4hJvHre73GVdkC3EO9pmh8hpRTIZ-v08DO6g9ePvaaW-nnyGR-pJ5FVj-mIQQzeyklVCYMrVCeKuRDU_CYEfj7UpcUm3AAJxTbbwPstffPgT8qlSKEDslKaHQqnWaTLpwiT0RzQbW/s1600/IMG_20170409_133233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74tT4hJvHre73GVdkC3EO9pmh8hpRTIZ-v08DO6g9ePvaaW-nnyGR-pJ5FVj-mIQQzeyklVCYMrVCeKuRDU_CYEfj7UpcUm3AAJxTbbwPstffPgT8qlSKEDslKaHQqnWaTLpwiT0RzQbW/s320/IMG_20170409_133233.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Road impossible to walk on and keep shoes to feet</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<a class="aQy aZr e aZI" data-tooltip-align="t,c" data-tooltip-class="a1V" href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=a65bbca8dc&view=att&th=15b6409906b0e7af&attid=0.2&disp=safe&realattid=1564507385801990712-local1&zw" id=":ny" role="link" tabindex="0" target="_blank"></a><br />
<div aria-hidden="true">
<div class="aSI">
<div class="aSJ" id=":nw" style="border-color: #fff;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<a class="aQy aZr e aZI" data-tooltip-align="t,c" data-tooltip-class="a1V" href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=a65bbca8dc&view=att&th=15b6409906b0e7af&attid=0.2&disp=safe&realattid=1564507385801990712-local1&zw" id=":ny" role="link" tabindex="0" target="_blank">
</a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I have to commend Fabian for maintaining a depth of character, of a
consistent fibre of being able to look on the bright side of things, with only
a slight wobble one lazy afternoon at the sudden impossibility unfolding as
possible that we had ran out of yerba mate (it was quickly overcome, spare
yerba (traditional Argentinian infusion drink) was found lurking in a rusted
tin box). While Fabian quickly recovered from his fear of not being able to
drink mate back into a world of pure honeymoon, things for me were beginning to
tarnish around the edges.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLF3iCXto1wHo3UaRu6Llz-Sbm-faABTeZzp3sbKlAtnhR_AOs8BrgwfhRL20eadF6Cs5hZ5HChNjL63fjAgIq-2zmgCb5H14ZAepeKRWRHZR_Q-kzIY3_H_lw9QKhWazsc3euKbDMaSk/s1600/IMG_20170413_170321.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLF3iCXto1wHo3UaRu6Llz-Sbm-faABTeZzp3sbKlAtnhR_AOs8BrgwfhRL20eadF6Cs5hZ5HChNjL63fjAgIq-2zmgCb5H14ZAepeKRWRHZR_Q-kzIY3_H_lw9QKhWazsc3euKbDMaSk/s320/IMG_20170413_170321.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Fabian kept up the illusion of the love nest for a heroic number of
days, while I began to wonder if it were me being pathetic, unreasonable or
just plain mad. The tension between imagined worlds collided about a week in,
at 4 in the morning, where having been bitten by a league of mosquitos rioting
on English flesh without yet the antibodies to avoid pyramid red lumps of
agony, and sleeping in a bed that I didn´t feel one hundred percent
comfortable, and having survived without a single word of complaint during the first
days within our new home - I broke. ´What is the matter my amor?´ Fabian asks
surprised, filled with innocence. I hold back from screaming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">´I am on the edge of my level of tolerance´ I say, as spiritually as
possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Next day Fabian, a man able to rise to the challenge of finding
solutions, manages to get to Mercedes and buy, not a mosquito net, but a whole
reel of beautiful material from a fabric shop closing down. He comes back,
triumphant, still holding onto the illusion of perfection, and begins to create
with branches originally destined for our parilla (bar-b-que with wood) a
resemblance of a four poster which seemed to stay up straight only due to the
friction between us working together to create our own little haven. Heroically
on both sides we manage to not have an out and out slanging match, and satisfy
ourselves with only a small parlay of somewhat measured wording.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv01mIwsWhA5qnJ0l0aKiN7gVm4D-DPQra4ObBe89CgI5WNI8uQHF7ldbSCfnKN7YubxIZc2IxMNAPGdoewR9DAWmLTiiG1ds9yWa9CaVEe6-ytKQi1ndomHBGDBl7kNnYFTDZewQIa4SN/s1600/IMG_20170412_235427.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv01mIwsWhA5qnJ0l0aKiN7gVm4D-DPQra4ObBe89CgI5WNI8uQHF7ldbSCfnKN7YubxIZc2IxMNAPGdoewR9DAWmLTiiG1ds9yWa9CaVEe6-ytKQi1ndomHBGDBl7kNnYFTDZewQIa4SN/s320/IMG_20170412_235427.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But once inside this four poster luxury, our joint imaginative creative
minds become filled with images of five star hotels, of Venentian boats, 1001
Arabian Nights, in short: pure luxury...an oasis within disaster. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Disaster? You may ask, you´ve not talked about disaster? No...we
hadn´t...at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We didn´t seem to have the energy do even do so as we both struggled
under the stress of individual survival. In the safety of our classy material,
sedated by the smooth fabric, I manage to admit that the conditions under which
we are living has turned my state from one of falling in love to one of sheer
survival and how to escape. He hears. He defends. I feel like the son </span><span lang="EN-US">in Benigni</span><span lang="EN-US">´</span><span lang="EN-US">s</span><span lang="EN-US"> ´Life is Wonderful´,
having to suckle on the idea that the world is all fine as it collapses around
us. But I am not a child, I can see for myself and I cannot keep the cotton
over my eyes any longer. I get tired listening to him being so positive, so
loving, so adoring. Flying on the broken wings of such pathetic positivity,
seeing him leap mindlessly over the face of the sheer facts of reality, is shaking
me up, scaring me, making me wonder who this man is, what kind of life can he
offer, it is all an illusion of his mind? I feel myself crashing against such outrageous
pretense reinforced with the steel of not accepting what is actually going on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I basically say that I want out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">He basically says he wants in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJaT1Urz5-2Cunus3jRHFmpMcri9ahc5g-IfdygpwG3tpYQjuOqxGmWFkxoxZTkGtxiR85tDxMleDsrhZmHT1vNmq-JNOEtY6r4XFFrbyjq-hzO1niMM8Zkp6NofFwdwlj9Z_qJbERyvRX/s1600/IMG_20170412_104450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJaT1Urz5-2Cunus3jRHFmpMcri9ahc5g-IfdygpwG3tpYQjuOqxGmWFkxoxZTkGtxiR85tDxMleDsrhZmHT1vNmq-JNOEtY6r4XFFrbyjq-hzO1niMM8Zkp6NofFwdwlj9Z_qJbERyvRX/s320/IMG_20170412_104450.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We struggle out of bed, me wiping tear stains from my cheeks, and
prepare breakfast in the dirty kitchen to take out to the ramshakle garage,
where the rain leaks through the tin roof less than in the inside of the house.
As we sit down heavily onto our newly dried plastic chairs, forks in hand,
ready to eat our eggs, it is a relief to be out of the dark house. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenkWXGa-gtFFWfhvccSPskFa2QxKwf8ccbuu-rv45k8Y5Pw5-YEal9tMhNLlqnDpaioqWt_Hoi1o19t4B_VlQZEYBYPwNnB8OQfcPEkNX3UBbOEBVhQvgEkt09CviafGzjYe8KjkRqJkO/s1600/IMG_20170413_172020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenkWXGa-gtFFWfhvccSPskFa2QxKwf8ccbuu-rv45k8Y5Pw5-YEal9tMhNLlqnDpaioqWt_Hoi1o19t4B_VlQZEYBYPwNnB8OQfcPEkNX3UBbOEBVhQvgEkt09CviafGzjYe8KjkRqJkO/s320/IMG_20170413_172020.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">As we do we
slump in synchronicity, feeling the upcoming delight of eating we look into each
other’s eyes and a volcanic bubble of laughter explodes between us both. It is
hilarious. Here we are huddled against the rain, besides a run-down house in
the middle of nowhere, unable to get out as all the ´roads´ around us turn into
progressively stickier vortexes of mud and dark matter, here we are sat under
corrugated sheets of metal, listening to cacophonies of raindrops as if
everything were in perfect order.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Eros comes back.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihnwk6wkyemDicnyOVWut-IEkf7WbmHpU4cveGGIFes9W97D744tu96xmD-dAT41akoZh_8EqNnqSudnwhix6FwNI3prO8umPzr4-dGax65-gcipxRN0tLLput73VwUVaHUeqh73Bu79A-/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihnwk6wkyemDicnyOVWut-IEkf7WbmHpU4cveGGIFes9W97D744tu96xmD-dAT41akoZh_8EqNnqSudnwhix6FwNI3prO8umPzr4-dGax65-gcipxRN0tLLput73VwUVaHUeqh73Bu79A-/s320/1.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US">The rain ceases for the day, and we simply enjoy ourselves, laughing,
talking, explaining where we are at, with honesty, taking ownership of our
emotions, no blame, no guilt, just how we feel. We dig deep into who we are,
find that so much is about what we are thinking and not actually perceiving.
Deep sharing. Present versus fears. Expecting outcomes based on past
experiences rather than just being where we are and accepting it, unable to
enjoying where we are. Fabian shares a saying of his from Tagore, ´If the
violation is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.´ Suddenly everything comes back to
life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Then a delicious roast lunch, wine, another bottle, relaxing, laughing
until, ending up back in our love nest we can begin to accept where we are,
both within our created reality of love that is oozing out from within the
silky walls of our four poster - and what is happening outside where it is dark
and grim and damp. The ashes of the deceased grandfather in the varnished
wooden box placed by the plastic flowers and the Virgen of Lujan, look on, with
an encouraging smile, maybe, or perhaps a rueful smile, patiently wanting us
out.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaz17LYgvc5CGcRI2DJAe6bhbWzY_YGafHIuVOcmbhY015ycKh_lfRCME78CRB1bedofmJEuqnVzzQorAojq-BME5cqrbUe_3zJE9_1OMlNXYmEi0Ou_NTJYAJ0dpo-lHn-yO_9Gf6wrM-/s1600/IMG_20170413_165441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaz17LYgvc5CGcRI2DJAe6bhbWzY_YGafHIuVOcmbhY015ycKh_lfRCME78CRB1bedofmJEuqnVzzQorAojq-BME5cqrbUe_3zJE9_1OMlNXYmEi0Ou_NTJYAJ0dpo-lHn-yO_9Gf6wrM-/s320/IMG_20170413_165441.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In the comfort of our self made cube of alternate reality, we were
suddenly able to be honest with each other, with ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For me it was the toilet that would not drain after having done a
morning discharge that made me start to feel shitty in this place. The day the
car got stuck in the mud the water table rose so far that after throwing the
bucket of water down the toilet (please don´t be silly and imagine there was a
flush system in operation), there was no place for the water in the cesspit to
go. It was like that for a day. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjr0SkPaZOhVDErckrk5K_likse7-gEkH07N01z5nybPC4cqfpYPGAZbBCsAQF3R7IkQwQgrryxBn_mbFM2srdrRkJIb5T16yAcFEzoQ7NXLNbtDJnGc9Ls1yiszsY7erRPFUGIrxRrTGG/s1600/IMG_20170413_164653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjr0SkPaZOhVDErckrk5K_likse7-gEkH07N01z5nybPC4cqfpYPGAZbBCsAQF3R7IkQwQgrryxBn_mbFM2srdrRkJIb5T16yAcFEzoQ7NXLNbtDJnGc9Ls1yiszsY7erRPFUGIrxRrTGG/s320/IMG_20170413_164653.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">You may say that was an exaggerated response of
mine, but it takes a while to get used to the idea that on the way to the
toilet at night each night, I manage to kill one or two cockroaches - as if
that were a normal nightly sport. Last night I trophied seven - the present
record. Or that the moths that have colonised in the roof (the flapping of
wings kept Fabian awake more than me) seemed to have kamikaze missions in the
middle of the night, not to bring down the twin towers, but by aiming for our
faces would bring down our psyches. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEideRuvsTnM6kF17Y9JYHjARFX0ofV7NRCrClHxHcsZMG5ZULJQTWHnUFSZvOcQUkDQZK4YiM4c4tLVy8OX3bBQRrOdoaLqF6AElnRn5BiWUIchzeGqRloewnu2B_dILszoQTkMyjMJfKgw/s1600/IMG_20170413_164901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEideRuvsTnM6kF17Y9JYHjARFX0ofV7NRCrClHxHcsZMG5ZULJQTWHnUFSZvOcQUkDQZK4YiM4c4tLVy8OX3bBQRrOdoaLqF6AElnRn5BiWUIchzeGqRloewnu2B_dILszoQTkMyjMJfKgw/s320/IMG_20170413_164901.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Previous reparations made cunnily to the bedroom roof (to keep out rain)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But then there is always the day time, easier no? Of course, and when it
is not raining, the beauty of the eucalyptus trees and the lawns that are
really roads and the setting sun, and the village dogs are sheer beauty:
nourishment for the soul. But it doesn´t cover up that I have had to cover over
two or three places where the village dogs did not recognise private property
of our lawn and where Fabian wondering around the garden searching for traces
of wifi was in danger of stepping into. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I mean you get used to being dirty, to having everything you touch be
dusty, dirty, of the body cringing into a kitchen that looks more like an
animal stall. I think I can cope thanks to the years of experience of travelling,
in Nepal, in Blackpool, of remembering previous times in Argentina, of practicing
with the power of Vipassana meditation practice how not to over exaggerate the
cold of cold showers. I thank my creative powers of imagination as I find a new
way to wee standing up over the toilet bowl so as to not have to sit on the
seat.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv44kLe68OYBjLs1267EvMEnIvQuFpver6N2P_UHMs16KjcnoG7C9LuS-L8Yl7EdH7PgaTgEnYsyT7pSAXbdqqMtvze1T2Xo8D8wFnHC0HISsiaWLx23D-mpm_bF6QycCXoQr0jteTGIt5/s1600/IMG_20170413_164500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv44kLe68OYBjLs1267EvMEnIvQuFpver6N2P_UHMs16KjcnoG7C9LuS-L8Yl7EdH7PgaTgEnYsyT7pSAXbdqqMtvze1T2Xo8D8wFnHC0HISsiaWLx23D-mpm_bF6QycCXoQr0jteTGIt5/s320/IMG_20170413_164500.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Sometimes we forget to turn off the water pump. The first time it
happened I heard a LOT of water on a tin roof. I look up and see the water tank
on the roof copiously over flowing...so run into the house, to the switch, and hear
on the way sounds of a room being flooded.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3n60LaMta_Iw5uGl4fDU2iKqYqiTIU6phQGx6q2MHJtye-t8XVy5UnY3yvIg98MXTTE6YGyXfywZBi_kyfVNxEsuIzCrNTNU4-5eFuvP4lzrvpqPBCfwmrQMOvO6-UyWYPrb3yWr-3nY/s1600/IMG_20170413_170007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3n60LaMta_Iw5uGl4fDU2iKqYqiTIU6phQGx6q2MHJtye-t8XVy5UnY3yvIg98MXTTE6YGyXfywZBi_kyfVNxEsuIzCrNTNU4-5eFuvP4lzrvpqPBCfwmrQMOvO6-UyWYPrb3yWr-3nY/s320/IMG_20170413_170007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What more can go wrong as we adapt every other hour to resolve
situations with the merest of resources, tools or knowledge? And yet somehow we
do. Eating, making love, surviving, laughing, storytelling, killing
cockroaches, building up antibodies to the complicated constellation patterns
of mosquitos bites that swell less and less on my legs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There´s no drinking water, Fabian goes without an utterance into the rain
to fill up the plastic bottle from the hose (the only drinking water for some
unexplained reason), in my heart I thank him, he forgets to turn off the pump,
the room that we don´t use gets flooded again, I turn off the pump, he comes in
from finding wifi and tells me that I have a new message, and we high five our
teammanship. All is still well.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMgczXaikIz1PqV6W9qO7stI0w3aFXj1ChLnXXzXslDdNEKwk11ZD5w3ayXimf56XnQV3AMZkhlgBPoNwUj00SwdbCJXl9Cm50Lcrf5Tlb4kmRCKJINfjP1kowdjEO1ToyaVK7C-gqiHKW/s1600/IMG_20170413_164834.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMgczXaikIz1PqV6W9qO7stI0w3aFXj1ChLnXXzXslDdNEKwk11ZD5w3ayXimf56XnQV3AMZkhlgBPoNwUj00SwdbCJXl9Cm50Lcrf5Tlb4kmRCKJINfjP1kowdjEO1ToyaVK7C-gqiHKW/s320/IMG_20170413_164834.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But it was in our love cube of a four poster in la suite presidencial,
fully imbibing of our five star experience when we broke down, without falling
apart, into the laughter of fully accepting our present physical, psychological
and amorous situation, as Fabian described our luxury experience with the
addition of cascades as a natural feature down the bedroom wall itself as we
listened to the music created only for us of rain collecting in ever increasing
drops into the battered pans we had left on the floor...<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdUtS-1vjJz2u2koYET0kA8fRTf_Ff2CZVdaFNPEgy6SRWX8s9yZLEmu9jOrk66gToThLQSQvTuEUkdoY519Pf07dfrvaEEDVwTHenBsY8cqqtU8IRHpHbAVjZ1PMOc022gE1qy7J3FAOJ/s1600/17991839_10211206573493838_3289134550773703589_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdUtS-1vjJz2u2koYET0kA8fRTf_Ff2CZVdaFNPEgy6SRWX8s9yZLEmu9jOrk66gToThLQSQvTuEUkdoY519Pf07dfrvaEEDVwTHenBsY8cqqtU8IRHpHbAVjZ1PMOc022gE1qy7J3FAOJ/s320/17991839_10211206573493838_3289134550773703589_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The amazing creation of a Love Cube by A. Fabian Marcovich </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is something quite deep going on. What is it? We have created our
own reality on top of reality within the five fabric sides of our cube of love,
and as long as I don´t smell too hard the damp that smells like a dog in the
rain, that arises in waves from the old mattress that we are lying on. With the
correct concentration I can actually, really, FOR REAL, imagine that we are in
a place of great comfort. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvExBlR-rm2-VIwvRV7YGD936MjqjVlyvdsePEZZbYvoid_yqfk6Kdmx0lzVqNQEwdxvUTLMCeMo8JvvUdyDtWjUbYAPTjcFDoM3QWNAqQlT_uCH1DhasrHmIIYhuL-mT9CsjMVhgUX04/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvExBlR-rm2-VIwvRV7YGD936MjqjVlyvdsePEZZbYvoid_yqfk6Kdmx0lzVqNQEwdxvUTLMCeMo8JvvUdyDtWjUbYAPTjcFDoM3QWNAqQlT_uCH1DhasrHmIIYhuL-mT9CsjMVhgUX04/s320/2.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But what is more amazing, for him as much as for me, that within this
tumble down house of horrors, where is it difficult to stay clean for more than
fifteen minutes, where I have been reduced to enjoying the street dogs licking
my bare skin (even permitting in one rare moment of pure acceptance, on my face??!!)
where the full fear of the harshness of nature is ever present, we are able,
honestly and truly, to enjoy ourselves, to feel as if we are actually <i>privileged</i>, feel ourselves being
showered by blessings. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Just eating is amazing. <br />
Just feeling comfortable for a while, is amazing. </span><br /><span lang="EN-US">
Just being together and smiling into each other´s eyes, is a miracle.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVEkJGvjkqlcbDpQck3wKD4txOG84gFyaZLoHn5BwDjDJcLS3OncdJ-aDZVv2DK9ZTcpA60QueuHGE-QVRa2XT6pwAmesNOysLeQXQwQEVRQjs1FRGxKnZWN9u61mbwVzdZsXnrMBEN23l/s1600/IMG_20170411_154723.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVEkJGvjkqlcbDpQck3wKD4txOG84gFyaZLoHn5BwDjDJcLS3OncdJ-aDZVv2DK9ZTcpA60QueuHGE-QVRa2XT6pwAmesNOysLeQXQwQEVRQjs1FRGxKnZWN9u61mbwVzdZsXnrMBEN23l/s320/IMG_20170411_154723.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">The beautiful grass roads, Negrita the dog, holding hands walking into the sunset.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For suddenly all veils are stripped away. In the conditions in which we
are living there is no other option but to admit: we are together because we
want to be - because no one in their right mind would stay here for any other
reason. There is no doubt that we are not attracted to the other for money
(because there isn´t any) for a luxury of living (because frankly we have hit
rock bottom) for contacts (we are completely alone) for opportunities (isolated
without road access), for any reason at all that could radiate from our
egos...our egos under any other circumstance would be screaming to get out, not
to get in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And in the middle of all this, like a lotus rising out of manure, we are
both somehow, so far from the marketed civilised idea of a honeymoon, so far
away from any illusion of photoshopped self images, so far from the matrixed
world, as we live in the bare bones of a broken down reality, we are
miraculously staying open, staying open to what is, staying open to each other,
staying open to love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And suddenly everything that is happening to us, inside and out, is a
miracle of a gift. How else could we have got here, so deeply, so innocently,
so full of love? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlJPVsPDmYAce0jjVeqpE4qAXczgRlQMi5w2I1s32cAr4qerSjK1_VqGmpwn7jjY8L694M7LaMF1cMCuBMC2RSHP-hFd3NeZ4c6vT_WywXs3SwlR4Ex7rLyzHsShZBuNf_pzfnKWGZ3GJ/s1600/17426178_10155218762187835_1839055634073302744_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlJPVsPDmYAce0jjVeqpE4qAXczgRlQMi5w2I1s32cAr4qerSjK1_VqGmpwn7jjY8L694M7LaMF1cMCuBMC2RSHP-hFd3NeZ4c6vT_WywXs3SwlR4Ex7rLyzHsShZBuNf_pzfnKWGZ3GJ/s320/17426178_10155218762187835_1839055634073302744_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-16301479323493361512016-12-24T17:32:00.002+02:002016-12-24T17:40:51.201+02:00Happy Xmas - May you Shine as Brightly as Tinsel!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dear All-est!!!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thank goodness that the days are lengthening again, we have gone through the stable depths of the darkness and are coming out again into greater light. The Sun has returned! Horus has overthrown Set! Bravo!!!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And so in this time of Winter Solstice we are thrown into the dark. What shall we find down there? How will we cope? Do we have the tools/gifts to be wise, kind, compassionate? You don't know? Well soon you will, because Xmas is here, a traditional time for gathering of fam-damn-ilies!!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So before my mother tells me off for not using Christmas. I learnt recently that Xmas comes from the Greek letters X (which in the Roman alphabet is Ch) and P (which in the Roman alphabet is R)...hence Ch-r for Christos. So it is OK actually to write Xmas...take that Catholic Primary Schools!</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-PKn3Ji2fWmT8BJcp3H5XfXqCGT4pkusYddM2I0WGNnGt_Ur4TyFGvrkjYwXICry-nM_nL3XpYPfFhYO-mnps9Cx8srof4byAgRrWKCKHDhGdM7w1hJ_hrsQYVQlmNCYaN0KLC102M8KK/s1600/monogram-of-christ384x389vatican.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-PKn3Ji2fWmT8BJcp3H5XfXqCGT4pkusYddM2I0WGNnGt_Ur4TyFGvrkjYwXICry-nM_nL3XpYPfFhYO-mnps9Cx8srof4byAgRrWKCKHDhGdM7w1hJ_hrsQYVQlmNCYaN0KLC102M8KK/s320/monogram-of-christ384x389vatican.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
And here is an experiment, instead of writing I've decided to ad-lib on video. No videoing editing skills are currently available so what you see is what you get. Uncut!</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/75ROdM2YLxM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/75ROdM2YLxM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
There is a sort interval in which drinks and ice creams are served. If you have 50p you can even have a Cornetto.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/huLfHgeW8e8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/huLfHgeW8e8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
...and an extra bit on the end to try as succinctly as possible to say that it might not be that Jesus as a baby was born at Xmas, but the birth of Christ still holds for Winter Solstice, if we take it symbolically. The (baby) Sun born again, the Light of the World. And on another level inside the light is born: in the depths of darkness it is where the Light emanates, where we can uncover our gifts, where we can find the birth of our own Light. I'm not saying that Christmas is not about Christ, as in the Christ State, as in the State of Light, just the little baby Jesus as a human, wasn't born now. Would have been a hell of a coincidence, but let's not throw the toys out of the pram.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VkT6x8gkQBs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VkT6x8gkQBs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-73851647065956271542016-06-04T21:40:00.003+03:002016-06-04T21:54:44.064+03:00It's only failure<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLaIGGM5kO7pREp6NKlKDb5EG8hyphenhyphen4vp6pdnRH1MijcYgg5qRAArdTfg_KmDeYNoMYTblkKBMKVP1Dx_7QQQq0Z-8WC79bNsr8qApKLpHLuk2ghOsvCoyqWDbyIAH1n1YMFylov2YoDw8d/s1600/dali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLaIGGM5kO7pREp6NKlKDb5EG8hyphenhyphen4vp6pdnRH1MijcYgg5qRAArdTfg_KmDeYNoMYTblkKBMKVP1Dx_7QQQq0Z-8WC79bNsr8qApKLpHLuk2ghOsvCoyqWDbyIAH1n1YMFylov2YoDw8d/s400/dali.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last
night I did something really, really brave and it went tits up.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There
is a wedding on today in the Monastery, in the <a href="http://living-arts-base.org/" target="_blank">Living Arts Base</a> and we have around 70 guests, plus our resident 12ish. There was a little
‘concert’ in the theatre and we were asked if we wanted to sign up. Never shy
in wanting to perform, I was on the lookout for adventure just as Nirvan, a
wonderful improviser, asked if I wanted to do an improvisation act with him. I
got a rush as I remembered, years past, clowning and the audience laughing
their heads off at me being normal. Easy. Fun. Yes let’s do it!<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We
decided to do it in the toilet, because we’d had a little interaction in there
that same day and thought we could use it as material from the real world. In
the afternoon Nirvan asked me if I was ready. I had forgotten it was...erm...anywhere
but in ‘the future’. So now a little nervous, I set to work in imagining
scenarios, and even took some props. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However,
at the time of the performance, Nirvan, without knowing it, disarmed all my
props and also my story line. I walked in, with, nothing. At all. That’s not
strictly true, I had a cold sweat. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Improv
is something that happens out of thin air. Something (for me in the past) has
always popped up. Something or other to spin a yarn with, to exaggerate our
sense of pathetic human beingness, to be vulnerable with and so make people
laugh. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But
in the toilet last night, nothing happened. At all. No spark. No movement.
Words fell like lead without even making a crashing noise. Silent void. We
laboured on through, staying firm in our selves. I remember at one point
looking into Nirvan’s eyes with rising panic, but I got through, feeling it,
not reacting to it. Eventually we found ourselves sat on the separating wall high
above. I looked down and there in the antechamber to the toilet were forty or
more eyes looking at me: looking at me with anticipation; looking at me as if
something was going to happen; looking for something, anything. I sat there my
stomach filled with an empty feeling of nothing. Words had turned into white
noise in my head. All I could associate with was the clammy cold sweat.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sat
there on that wall, in zero, being witnessed by so many people, I realised that,
‘I am OK with this.’ And that ladies and gentleman was a breakthrough for me.
Being witnessed failing. Failing to produce, failing to be witty or wise or
stir even a small pot of imagination. Failing with huge amounts of eyes on me.
The result? I can take it. And I can take it again in the future. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After
the ‘show’ Nirvan and I checked in. ‘How do you feel?’<br />
‘Like a failure.’<br />
‘Me too.’<br />
‘But I’m OK with that.’<br />
‘Me too.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The
power of it! The power of having stayed emotionally sound through the abject
storms of nothingness gives me courage to do it again. It can’t get worse (can
it?) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Where
I’m starting to feel a deepening confidence is if it does get worse, I can
handle it. It’s only failure.</span><span style="font-family: "leelawadee ui" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-2223682191515820482016-03-23T23:02:00.000+02:002016-04-25T06:16:30.628+03:00Who's on the cross?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkKWWNh2OuozEeRLnK_f9pPvmMtRSYvGuWP4fjKcv6I7R5ecLYB-TI7pk6W7OtvEqlrQSdM0gfXEcHr1tsJYu_zVtNnfqxhNIREcl1bUZL9ikiqWAIzmYhDCUaczaScV0kLP2Lh9uj2FL/s1600/mark%2527s+temple.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkKWWNh2OuozEeRLnK_f9pPvmMtRSYvGuWP4fjKcv6I7R5ecLYB-TI7pk6W7OtvEqlrQSdM0gfXEcHr1tsJYu_zVtNnfqxhNIREcl1bUZL9ikiqWAIzmYhDCUaczaScV0kLP2Lh9uj2FL/s320/mark%2527s+temple.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is a mattress on the floor. I am naked.
Nine clothed people are watching. ‘Lie as you want.’ I flop. Arms outstretched,
one leg straight, another bent, right foot on left knee. <br />
‘Like that?’ I ask. <br />
‘Yeah,’ says one of the men a bit too eagerly. Not cool.<br />
‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ says another older man, posh, slow accent, ‘it’s
perfect for Easter.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So for forty-five minutes I lie like JC. I
watch people’s eyes moving from their pencil to my body, pencil, body, pencil,
body. Negative space. Curves. Lines. Their pencils forgetting I am a person, forgetting
it is a body. Only seeing. Virgin like.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I say to the class that I would like to
send an image of the drawings to someone as an Easter card. Would they mind? Perhaps
Facebook it. ‘Facebook?!’ the art teacher laughs, ‘Really?’ I suddenly realise
this could be so easily misinterpreted. Obvious to them. I suddenly realise
that I am posting myself naked. Hmmm? I also start to worry that I could be
misinterpreted as feminist ruining Easter for the religious folk. I go red. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I’m actually operating here from the
deepness of my own personal religion, I’ve just sort of forgotten the surface
social stuff, unconcerned with the Eternal Return, nor the ground breaking idea
of it being the path of the feminine. Really, could I? Should I? ‘Seems a bit
too much doesn’t it?’ I ask in all honesty. Naked. Facebook. But I really want
to do this, because it is right. But it’s going to look wrong. I need to write
about it. Blog it. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The model inside nods. I quiver, feel nervous.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once clothed again I do take the photo. I
know whose I want to take: the two men who are constantly looking, like air
controllers, backwards and forwards between pencil and body; their flickering
eyes seeing, not letting their mind invent. Mark’s work turns out to be just
the ticket. He got the perfect perspective: the vagina is at the centre of the
cross. Perfect. Underneath he has written, ‘The Temple’. Yes! Yes! That’s what
I’m talking about.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">People balk at Pregnant Virgin, at the Immaculate Conception. ‘You can’t be pregnant and also be a virgin! You just can’t!’ say the ones who are not prepared to go any further into something they think is codswallop. I sigh. It’s not worth it. But once in a while there is a shine between the clouds, normally a quieter person, sensitive with an inquiring mind, who is not so quick to label. ‘For me,’ I say to Barbara and my mind wanders momentarily. She plays the second cornet in the Brass band, one of the people that I most like. Even though she barely talks she emits a wonderful presence, a deep personality. She reminds me of the phrase, ‘If you can’t understand my silences, you’ll never understand my words.’ When I stand by her I feel calm. I feel a soft, quiet, strong love that is stable, understated, real. ‘For me,’ I repeat to bridge the gap as I waivered in the silence between worlds, ‘it is when we become so empty, so void like, that we have gone through any thoughts, any feelings, to the other side, to nothingness. You know?’ She looks at me meekly. ‘Like when you lose yourself in prayer?’ I have to translate what I would call a blank mind of meditation into terms I’m guessing she would use. She was a high ranking Officer in the Salvation Armist. She nods, eyes full of warmth. At the end of the day it’s amazing how we are all talking about such similar sentiments, only with different words that all too often trigger us into opposition. ‘So we become a temple. We are nothing, nothing but a container.’ She nods again, smiles. I start to talk faster, excited that someone wants to listen to religious stuff, ‘Only when we are in this state, where our ego is waiting at the doors outside, can God enter into us,’ I say ‘God’ instead of ‘The Divine’, or ‘The Great I Am’, or ‘Higher Consciousness’. It’s easier to talk to religious people about god if they are thinkers and have jostling space around their words - God is not a scary word to them, no need to edit. Of course there are hours of debate behind what ‘It’ could be, but for sake of the argument we skip that question. There are plenty of ways up the mountain, there is no reason that her path be better or worse than mine. It’s just her way up. On my path God is often a tricky word, a rabbit hole; on hers it’s a signpost. I’ve gone off on one in my head, so I recap, ‘Only when we are pure of mind, pure of heart, can we open the doors for whatever is greater than us to enter.’ She nods again, from a place of deep recognising. We are still there, connected. ‘Sometimes ‘he’ won’t come. Sometimes ‘he’ will.’ I don’t say the inverted commas, but I think them.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I want to talk about Corbin who calls the place in the middle – where Man becomes Divine for the sake of Divinity and God becomes Human for the sake of Humanity – ‘Mundus Imaginalis’. Not imagined world, because it is not of the imagination, but imaginalis world. A place that is. A place that is not tangible, at least by the common senses. It’s a place that has sometimes opened to me after sitting ten days in silent mediation twelve hours a day, when by what feels like a miracle I manage to become empty inside - no desires, no needs, no thoughts, no emotions, no ME! - and I feel myself become nothing but light. Light coursing through me like a rushing, ferocious river. Voracious roars of silence. When and if it occurs, each time it is different. I guess in each person it is different. And, like in all great truths - the opposite is also true - it is a unifying Universal experience.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s like when you look at a baby, and suddenly you are floating in where that little soul has just come from.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s that place, we’ve all surely felt on our different paths up the mountain: moments of eternity that last minutes and change the rest of our lives.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Child’s play is wonderfully simple - once you get there. It’s getting there that’s blummin’ difficult.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It takes a heck of a lot of processing. ‘She’, the feminine that we find in all of us, men and women - our soul - needs to rub off the dirt she’s picked up of who she is not. She has to find how to brush off the psychic dandruff that burdens the shoulders of our egos.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘As a society,’ says Thomas, ‘we are in the hero or the maiden, that place of adolescence that feels entitled.’<br />‘Yes,’ I agree. How can I not?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘You know how you feel if you’re danced by a man who is firm and yet gentle?’<br />‘Ohh yes...’<br />‘That’s how it is to be conducted well too in music. If a conductor is good he brings out from the depths the very best of each of the players. It’s like we are all birds flying in formation, all intent on one goal.’<br />‘Wow!’<br />‘Yes wow!’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘For me,’ I say to Barbara, ‘A key point in purifying ourselves into a temple, is embodying that what we do for others we do for ourselves, and what we do for ourselves we do for others.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have all the holographic ideas of the universe flash through my head. But I don’t mention it. The sandwiches are coming round.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I see one of mates from life drawing class in Curator Cafe. I always love talking to her. I’ve asked her what she thinks about posting a blog with a picture of a sketch. ‘I’ll write about what I’m trying to say.’<br />‘Do it!’<br />Somehow we get onto the holographic Universe and fractals. ‘They are patterns within patterns, I tell her.’<br />She looks at me with her beautiful blue eyes.<br />‘Remember the hologram of Tony the Tiger on the side of Frosties?’<br />‘Yes,’ she says and smiles,<br />‘Well,’ I swallow, ‘if you cut it in half then you don’t cut Tony the Tiger in half, but you get two, complete half sized Tony Tigers. Cut it in four, you get four, cut it in sixteen you get sixteen...cut it into a million you get a million tiny perfectly formed Tony Tigers.’<br />‘Wow!’ she says excited, ‘I want to try...’<br />But the wow is coming: ‘Yeah! But listen to this, if you put them all back together into the original hologram, and you look at say a whisker on the end of his nose, it’s just a whisker, nothing special, but inside it has all the information of the whole...’ I can never get over how amazing that is.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Change a part within us, and we change the whole.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That’s massive. That’s us in the Universe.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘The cross,’ I say to Thomas, ‘for me represents the four elements, you know?’<br />‘Earth, water, fire and...’<br />‘Air.’ In my airhead I also parallel earth with sensations, water with emotions, fire with thought, air with intuition, ‘Jungian Psychology talks a lot about the balancing of these elements so that as they all align we rest in the very centre of the four directions,’<br />‘The centre of the cross?’<br />‘Yes...that’s where the fifth element arises, that of Ether, reminding us that we are part of the universe.’<br />‘I believe that since the times of Democritus it’s been considered as an esoteric place where atoms move,’<br />‘Yeah!’ I love talking to Thomas, he knows so much.<br />‘And where light is transmitted,’ he is turning me on, ‘where waves propagate.’<br />‘Exactly. And Higgs boson...’ I have to be careful being sapio-sexual. I could explode right now.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ether allows us to feel we belong to a whole that is greater than our body, our surroundings and our planet. Ether gifts us with the physical sensation of our belonging to the Universe, Uni (One) and Versus (Version). So as we feel certain in ourselves forming part of the whole, <i>we</i> <i>cast off forever the sense of existential loneliness.</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Life is continually and eternally transforming and we become certain of our part to play in this party. We find we are certain that we are part of this whole that we know nothing about. We become more and more certain of belonging to humanity, to this living world, to the an organic world and in turn to energy and matter. We begin to feel this non-separation, no difference, the impossibility of isolation, which inevitably leads to religious feelings. Religion (re-ligare) means to re-bond, to unite again, and yoga means to re-yoke. We return to a sense of belonging to the Whole.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The actual Easter is today: the first full moon after the Equinox. The earth is receiving the most amount of light it has since the sun bedded down last Autumn. Horus has won over Set. Christ has won over the Devil. We celebrate the Light of the World.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In Wagner’s Parzival, Kundry suddenly finds herself splendidly awake in the middle of Spring. In The Magic Flute, Pamina comes alive in Spring. The Feminine. Spring. Flowers. Opening into a better world. New world. Fresh.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Flowers buds burst in gleeful surrender to the erotic nature of Spring in a virtue of giving. Nature bursts with joy, with life, with juiciness. Colours abound as the feminine, our Soul, awakens and comes into the world, sharing the creativity of her womb.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She circles around the truth, dancing, moving her body in closer harmony to her own nature, allowing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She becomes less complicated, less ego controlled, more flow...she perfects herself in her purity.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By perfect I mean, in perfect harmony with what is. By pure, I mean of heart, of thoughts.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By all this I mean virgin. I mean she becomes the temple.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the centre of the cross the Soul allows her ego to die.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She opens the door for God to impregnate her with its Light.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Soul is once again a pregnant virgin.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘Yeah, because as we surrender,’ I say to Thomas, ‘on the cross,’<br />‘Into Ether?’<br />‘Yeah, and into the heart of the matter at hand, or into our own creativity, into our own life...’<br />‘That’s beautiful,’<br />‘Yes, it is...’ I smile, I feel there is a beamingness between us, ‘it is as if we were allowing life to express through us.’<br />‘As if, we are!’<br />I nod, so glad to be accompanied.<br />‘I also believe,’ he says, ‘that when we express ourselves we are expressing and thanking Mother Earth...’ I love the dance of our conversations, ‘because effectively we are celebrating new life, after having survived winter...’<br />‘And what would we do without Mother Earth?’ His face is smiling, open.<br />‘And also fractally, within ourselves, the Spring of our Souls after the long Dark Nights of San Juan de la Cruz.’<br />‘It’s time to celebrate the light Santa Teresa!’<br />‘It is – that’s why I’m going to put that picture up...’<br />‘From your art class?’<br />‘Yeah.’ I go red.<br />‘That’s daring.’<br />‘It’s just, well, ascension is connected to the virgin temple. The vagina...’<br />‘The vagina?’<br />‘Yes, as true creative expression. The lower mouth as the Mellisae called it.’<br />He looks at me, a little shocked. Silent, slightly uncomfortable. I wonder whether to stop? ‘Well like,’ I continue, ‘as a portal into a deeper place...’ Blimey. I remember when Raimon Arola would get into similar tangles in his university lectures on Alchemy. I go even redder.<br />‘A celebration to the Earth of our bodies,’ he says kindly, coming back onto safer, more plough land.<br />‘Well yes,’ I say, ‘just a blog to wish people a Happy Easter and sow some seeds to flower into new, fresh concepts of who we are.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiu_VARZVCRQJKx8ctedwAeNavmAH2KNzYTaI3Nire4JtzqFTjOIfT3xZBPLTBwEGLjO73GSAuIDd9hhrKJ8tUoz4lspIsP7VegdADZh4zTsmrXGFT0X6GHRBCleqZumZM5GkSjuX52e-i/s1600/20160323_205316+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiu_VARZVCRQJKx8ctedwAeNavmAH2KNzYTaI3Nire4JtzqFTjOIfT3xZBPLTBwEGLjO73GSAuIDd9hhrKJ8tUoz4lspIsP7VegdADZh4zTsmrXGFT0X6GHRBCleqZumZM5GkSjuX52e-i/s320/20160323_205316+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'The' Moon heralding Easter above Riverford Farm 9pm 23 Mar 16</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-87611090361338407632015-04-13T01:19:00.000+03:002015-04-13T01:28:55.374+03:00We are the change we wish to see in the world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpwtvNvoELrx3bReYnr3jxGKK9OP86wmsG3QFp9ZN_Ao0XUak5wTi5ECVHpki6sqmDKG_M0GlHK7jzb1mceoBzJJ2nkk3gv_-zlnqXKb_4aBf6vBCTai25G9tU3RY-GFS0DgoLe9Oq1Qs/s1600/in+india+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpwtvNvoELrx3bReYnr3jxGKK9OP86wmsG3QFp9ZN_Ao0XUak5wTi5ECVHpki6sqmDKG_M0GlHK7jzb1mceoBzJJ2nkk3gv_-zlnqXKb_4aBf6vBCTai25G9tU3RY-GFS0DgoLe9Oq1Qs/s1600/in+india+2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Chris in India</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I went through a ‘phase’ in my life where I
adolescently rejected any English in me and declared myself a citizen of
Europe. I didn’t want to be associated with stiff upper lips, dysfunctional families
nor bad food. I did not want to identify with people who sit outside pubs, next
to strong heaters, trying desperately to feel like they are on holiday because
they are eating humus with chorizo and olives. Trying so desperately to relax
into relaxing. ‘Want another?’ </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8rIhTMKWVae3_RCH6DSfjr0ka8QXIj4WmuXBJvRfjQc9WI8-BiIyejcUyZvJgQPE4lO4s2xPXCNR8AB8f27GoxFKUKOGMza5gETEQQ809wxMcgdd3qTxP4CZWOXuXEdBPp-cnRw8w_vi/s1600/in+bolivia+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8rIhTMKWVae3_RCH6DSfjr0ka8QXIj4WmuXBJvRfjQc9WI8-BiIyejcUyZvJgQPE4lO4s2xPXCNR8AB8f27GoxFKUKOGMza5gETEQQ809wxMcgdd3qTxP4CZWOXuXEdBPp-cnRw8w_vi/s1600/in+bolivia+4.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bolivian ladies, (the one of the left was our age 25 ish, the one of the right 35 ish...hard life)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: left;">So living abroad I once got a job on a yacht
for two weeks going around Menorca, making sure rich summer school kids stayed
talking in English. No one really cared, it was glorified babysitting: the
school cared about the money, parents cared about time off for them and cool
stuff for their kids; it seemed only I cared. I spent a long time on deck
saying ‘In English!’ and was met with annoyed replies of </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
‘Jessss’, ‘Jessss!’ </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">
‘Yes,’ I would say, trying to help their pronunciation, but by then they
weren’t listening. It was a harrowing two weeks, cooped up with teenagers
wanting crazy nights, too tired to barely function in the day, a
claustrophobically small yacht; but it paid reasonably well, and to boot I came
out with a really good suntan.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYEIBN7YuHLSDY1-zczw80whtzJQUdwvmhUvrRlxEvIzsRK9b_nmfiuWhQXQorGjNoluD6QMu7UT2aECWBT9omYcdGcFSQnr_engDxR8IZ844HhHbF49BCcPGWfH1jg_mPvxmCH5-rrFJc/s1600/543362_10151039823527835_1757092161_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYEIBN7YuHLSDY1-zczw80whtzJQUdwvmhUvrRlxEvIzsRK9b_nmfiuWhQXQorGjNoluD6QMu7UT2aECWBT9omYcdGcFSQnr_engDxR8IZ844HhHbF49BCcPGWfH1jg_mPvxmCH5-rrFJc/s1600/543362_10151039823527835_1757092161_n.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Back home in Barcelona, I strutted about
the streets with my original boiled chicken skin now somewhat close to being
nearly roasted: I felt great! Even beside olive skinned naturals. I felt so
super great every time I looked in a mirror, and yet I also felt a growing
uneasiness that I simply could not place. There was a tension somewhere in me
that I didn’t know how to deal with, couldn’t grasp, couldn’t see far enough
into my shadow to even make out its form.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A few days later, trying to relax in a
queue, an English friend bumped into me! ‘Hulia!’ </div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Hi! How are you?’</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Fine. Look at you!!! You look so brown!’</div>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><wham bam=""> in those few milliseconds the
days of pent up tension flooded out through the pores of my being, evaporating
into the cloudless sky. And there, in those milliseconds, did I realise, as
much as I may say I am not English, I have inbuilt structures that are the fabrication
of English society: 1) we go on holiday 2) we get brown 3) we expect to be
rewarded for our hard work of trying in all that sun to relax through the sweat
and come back needing various jealous compliments about our more browness than them.</wham></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Memories of delight of being seven, ten,
twelve of returning after three weeks away, and being told <i>I am brown</i>, surged through me again: in the post office ‘You look
good’; comparing my arm with my best friend to see who is browner; glee of
peeling off skin; glee of sunburn (it’s true - really - we get excited by
sunburn: it’s a step closer to the desired goal). We really are hijos de gamba
(children of prawns), we really are rrrostbif (roast beef).</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Stood there proudly in the queue, faced
with my English friend’s jealousy of my tan, I realised that I cannot continue
to ignore the fact: I am English.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqeduANIMhRhJaupObajjdxihshhX5Qn1LjtEQ3HOz0M1kE90dDRdGb0nIb2jUtnLhO4aFzfvwO6HShIH6NZDORzgN8lb5tij9gfEWa4pN6brKlbHoVJOhe2PTaujT9uaICy6LxSQBEBCA/s1600/In+siberut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqeduANIMhRhJaupObajjdxihshhX5Qn1LjtEQ3HOz0M1kE90dDRdGb0nIb2jUtnLhO4aFzfvwO6HShIH6NZDORzgN8lb5tij9gfEWa4pN6brKlbHoVJOhe2PTaujT9uaICy6LxSQBEBCA/s1600/In+siberut.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">19 years ago: In Siberut we lived for two (long) weeks like locals, foraging in the jungle, fishing...sweating. This man was the medicine man.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ironically from that moment onwards I never
really got down to the work of sunbathing again. I don’t need that confirmation
of skin colour any longer (??!!!)...it’s as if that deep programming has left
me and was able to surge out through my ever-renewing cells into the fresh air
never to return.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But the idea that I am culturally
programmed, however much I like or dislike, is still there. It only takes the
discomfort of putting on a sari in India to know I am not Indian. So after
fifteen years of living abroad I decided that I need to come back and live on
the British Isles. I need to stop running. I need to let myself be English.
Just to experience what it feels like to not be the eternal foreigner,
‘gringa’, ‘guiri’ ‘ξένος’, and not have to explain where I am from all of the
time. Manchester United? </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ironically it took about five months for
English people to stop asking if I were Dutch. I think I was speaking too
clearly for an Englishwoman. One guy said ‘I thought you were a foreigner who
spoke English really well.’</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_cZJEL5POPFIjVL8Qp2aL290IsphucRBtsqUMPOQjG7wg_PFeZ7gkUZUaq6LUMGDnAdHSqWIbczvidw8j_K1VxlR5AYXGt2kY2JCoc7XyPH44DGm_rLOWK9l5GMVBhwYE2Hj8e3uv2y6/s1600/in+chicken+stall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_cZJEL5POPFIjVL8Qp2aL290IsphucRBtsqUMPOQjG7wg_PFeZ7gkUZUaq6LUMGDnAdHSqWIbczvidw8j_K1VxlR5AYXGt2kY2JCoc7XyPH44DGm_rLOWK9l5GMVBhwYE2Hj8e3uv2y6/s1600/in+chicken+stall.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Chicken Stall Adrian Crescini and I set up in the back yard. We sold 1500 chickens between Xmas and New Year 2001</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But perhaps fifteen years is too long a
time. How long did the prodigal son stay away? He worked with pigs. I worked
with chickens. I came back here to rekindle ties with my family. I have always
felt guilty that somehow because I didn’t live in England it created distance
in our relating. Fifteen years is a long time, habits form, become incrusted.
My mum can call me whenever she wants to, now for free, even to my mobile
phone. She can. But habits are habits. I too forget. My brother, who used to
constantly say that I wasn’t a good enough sibling to him, now apparently
doesn’t want one. Do I? The only person who I feel closer to, is my father; we
live on different planets, we always have done, and I give him respect that our
relationship has not got worse the closer geographically that I am. It is a
relief to realise he still expects nothing of me. It seems that I was running
away, living abroad, trying to make the distance that came between what was my
close-knit family, purely geographical.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">After seven months here I have made a few
friends. Acquaintances more than close friends. It is all one can really expect
in a foreign culture. It feels that I am doing well. But I have not really made
any close enough friends to stave off gripping feelings of loneliness, of
incomprehension, of a desperate need to communicate deep down from within my
soul, to open up down to the bones of my psyche. To put it bluntly: I have
returned to adolescence, which is from where I left off. Fifteen years is a
long time on the surface of the earth.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, underneath the surface, I am
returning with a light of being that I have tended to all of these years. A
light of who I am. I have often gone far within, and I have gone inside with
others too. I have gone to dark places with people, and I have allowed myself
to be elated. I have opened my heart. I have seen so much of the world, that I
cannot actually, just come back and ‘fit in’. I cannot just settle down, into
what I see as a lack of freedom for nothing other than fear of what the
neighbours might think, for fear of the fuss that may happen if one declares
freedom from the rule. In seven months here I have had five people explode
their anger at me after having come close to them, four of which their main
gripe is that I am ‘too free’.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">What to do?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYgR3xe4iAuKb9ZUTFANFxaVgDm7BoOdOkDH8Ymu7wfBnR8Q-j3-PPB7WyTT6Xkpt0LamZlScPEPS5tTrOcvHyWG8Yc9xkUc99nGaiKppBZTkpWrwqBj_Wb9aIDYAEz6cQtH4E-h3Mnqu/s1600/in+rio+madre+de+dios.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYgR3xe4iAuKb9ZUTFANFxaVgDm7BoOdOkDH8Ymu7wfBnR8Q-j3-PPB7WyTT6Xkpt0LamZlScPEPS5tTrOcvHyWG8Yc9xkUc99nGaiKppBZTkpWrwqBj_Wb9aIDYAEz6cQtH4E-h3Mnqu/s1600/in+rio+madre+de+dios.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rio Madre de Dios, we went down it for 8 days on those logs.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">And so I begin to reclaim myself in
solitude and allow myself to differentiate. Having tried so hard to connect to
others in the only way I know...I have scared them. I express myself
authentically (why would I do so in any other way? Why would I repress myself
to fit in with the repressed?) and as I express feelings it seems that I open
imaginary doors inside of them, doors they have had long held shut, hammered
and jammed chairs against the handle. They suddenly feel naked, exposed,
threatened. They think I want something from them. They think that I am a
(psychic) thief (yes, I have actually been accused of this) and have been
pushed away; that I am a bitch, a control freak, a narcissist and (yes this is
true) someone said I make them want to vomit after dumping me for no apparent
reason; that I am simply bad, bad, bad (without any objective reason) and
thrown out of the house; that I am too open and dangerous so that I attract all
sorts of bad types (though I haven’t as such but ‘believe you me if you
continue like this and you WILL’) and have been asked to leave. Which lead me
to believe it may be better after all to live alone. Ohh and there was one (an
extra for free) this week in which a person declared that he had been to court
for four years for similar situations (a hairdresser who cut my hair, we
flirted together, and yes it was outrageous (ly good fun), but is that really material
for a legal court case?) He has sadly said he cannot see me again. I thought he
was my friend. But it seems English men can get very, very jealous. Good women
act shut down.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">What to do? I want to go home; but I have
no home. Home is where the heart is. I have a heart. But do I really have to
live in it on my own?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtXu2J3AuLTaEySfqubAWXgKyLXzjOLhMj-4RGItl3OnLoRdUf2iQgvvIeE9TWpAEXn0XsvM9NUrF7kONDsY3f8V1zDS4ST_TCoQr-t0YXotiG9Wj2I6ZxgOqbCSTq-7yRPZgU6rK3kcI-/s1600/in+nepal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtXu2J3AuLTaEySfqubAWXgKyLXzjOLhMj-4RGItl3OnLoRdUf2iQgvvIeE9TWpAEXn0XsvM9NUrF7kONDsY3f8V1zDS4ST_TCoQr-t0YXotiG9Wj2I6ZxgOqbCSTq-7yRPZgU6rK3kcI-/s1600/in+nepal.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In Nepal with the children in the orphanage. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So, before getting too down in the dumps I
put out a facebook message to my friends out there, scattered around the globe,
in which I expressed how down-to-my-bones alone I feel. How I really need (emotional)
support. (Was that risky? Was that too open? Is it really so bad to express?) A
friend of a friend responds - I don’t know her - ‘Come to my house, have
coffee.’ Now an English person would find perfectly good excuses why it would
not be possible. House? The brave ones may ask to go to a cafe, for safety. I
run round.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwlMFXCcEcnlM5zQYHpMRtqBoHO5yjY9DAKYchuE-vKak2_JG6Utyzy2SEkPtj98X2p_45Fsh2soKtheX5dgXhpABOEMDI2x9IJDHjODZ4dZF0MfvOkcEtPMRnhPYRPDRmjwbgty5LXly4/s1600/in+argentina+on+the+rd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwlMFXCcEcnlM5zQYHpMRtqBoHO5yjY9DAKYchuE-vKak2_JG6Utyzy2SEkPtj98X2p_45Fsh2soKtheX5dgXhpABOEMDI2x9IJDHjODZ4dZF0MfvOkcEtPMRnhPYRPDRmjwbgty5LXly4/s1600/in+argentina+on+the+rd.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hitching in Valle de la Luna, South America, the first car picked us up, four hours later.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I have hitched all of my life. I have
stayed in strangers homes often. I have slept top-and-tail with lorry drivers
(with a girl friend in the bunk above). I have found that if you are aware of
the dangers, hitching is a way of meeting the kindest of people, people who are
willing to stop their momentum and give a stranger a helping hand. That’s nice.
There are tricks to weed out the undesirables, ask them where they are going, check
them out, tell them thanks but you’re not going that way, stand back, close the
door. Easy. It is SAFE. I have also realised that if you expect people to be
wonderful and kind then it often brings out their wonderful kindness naturally.
They feel good about themselves. And why not? Why not goddamn enjoy being
ourselves?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfN3g940_RZb7zZ5pBIfTEdm0xoYm2mDtFwHQMpW_g-pmKRE9gdXzkVHBTHBJoTrGUd8EhWftf3tvjlR63lZF-du8bnT9ic5fMpqQc5SaNLrdDC2gcdDn7fEo0HF_kR5CNlxKq0gkjFQX/s1600/clown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfN3g940_RZb7zZ5pBIfTEdm0xoYm2mDtFwHQMpW_g-pmKRE9gdXzkVHBTHBJoTrGUd8EhWftf3tvjlR63lZF-du8bnT9ic5fMpqQc5SaNLrdDC2gcdDn7fEo0HF_kR5CNlxKq0gkjFQX/s1600/clown.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clown workshop somewhere near New Mexico, US.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So I go around to my friend’s friend’s
house, and meet a woman who is my mirror. Thank you Lord of the Universe and
Stars and the Higher Consciousness from which all sources. Thank you. My body
feels different vibrating in gratitude. I am open again. It turns out she is
Swedish, lived in India for a while, has been married twenty years to an
Tibetan, lived in Germany, and also lived on my beloved Paros (hence the link).
She now lives in England. She obviously speaks a few languages. She feels the
English society is very aggressive.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Thank you Shiva, Astarte and Jesus, Horus
and Hare Krishna. Thank you. I am not going crazy.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirBUdNXE0Asqm2_gZztkYeoCGKV4yD7VlAJsAeSOV2agl6YiA5cVBCSqap3pK4RAr-ityUnSnlwlpYwCd8O0_t6HXFLsapJ_jxJfm017u0fg2Yt_pbAAoogvtXD5hAdEVt3CuJRsFMBlkv/s1600/in+nepal+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirBUdNXE0Asqm2_gZztkYeoCGKV4yD7VlAJsAeSOV2agl6YiA5cVBCSqap3pK4RAr-ityUnSnlwlpYwCd8O0_t6HXFLsapJ_jxJfm017u0fg2Yt_pbAAoogvtXD5hAdEVt3CuJRsFMBlkv/s1600/in+nepal+5.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Kali.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I realise that actually, even though 13
years ago I had an English reaction to people not complimenting the colour of
my roasted-chicken skin, I really am not culturally English any more. I don’t
know when I split off. Maybe it was when I stopped making attacking comments
that I called ‘jokes’ to my American boyfriend? ‘I say this to you to show you
how close we are. Someone else would not accept it.’ </div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s not funny.’ </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘It’s just a joke!’ </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After a while I started to realise that he was right, it was not funny, it was
me putting him down in a silly voice to make me feel superior and on top of it
all saying ‘it’s a joke’ as if I were really smart and he was reacting like
some jackass. Perhaps it was when I stopped sunbathing for more than an hour
and a half on the Costa Brava, and only did if there is shade to avoid burning.
Perhaps it was when I stopped drinking to get drunk, trying to ‘get away’ from
all that had happened in the week. Perhaps it was in the beautiful nights
listening to classical music and being loved and loving on our <i>patio interior</i> sipping red wine and
chatting about philosophy into the warm night. Perhaps it was when, in
Argentina, by osmosis I realised that the objective of life is not to get to
the top of the ladder, especially if when you do there is a super-inflation and
it gets crashed over night. Perhaps it was in art school in Greece feeling that
it is ok to have a non-utilitarian life style? I don’t know, but it happened. I
am not English, I was just born here.</div>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8XJhd2PWK6nd_7PRt6iXPRYOk0QIzplG4a_8jxEyhm_HXM9aElW74bkCHym4DGT1CDIdQFmcEpdTAV2oX8prxy8mriU-h0cADg_5N41sK2qXue9cBmApRzUq4vpQ3JVzFsfJkAdIqUMyB/s1600/in+salar+de+ayuni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8XJhd2PWK6nd_7PRt6iXPRYOk0QIzplG4a_8jxEyhm_HXM9aElW74bkCHym4DGT1CDIdQFmcEpdTAV2oX8prxy8mriU-h0cADg_5N41sK2qXue9cBmApRzUq4vpQ3JVzFsfJkAdIqUMyB/s1600/in+salar+de+ayuni.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the Salt Planes of Uyuni...miles and miles of blinding white...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Thanks to my Swedish friend and her Tibetan
husband, I have realised that I am an international. That I relate to people
who have lived in lots of different countries, fleeing from the prison of
origins, and have had to adapt to the external, not once, not twice, but nearly
every day of their adult lives, having to realise that we cannot carry our own culture
with us like shields against the ever-changing nature of reality. What is right
for once place or time is not right for another. The people who are my clan are
those who have had to learn a foreign language, who have gone through the ego
bashing of sounding like a complete idiot, not when discussing philosophy, but
when trying to buy a sausage in the ‘butchery’.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">My clan are those who understand that πολλά
(polla) is ‘many’ in Greek, but polla is not the same as pollo in Spanish and a
wry smile comes to their lips, remembering their own similar fuck ups. My clan
is formed by those who have experienced learning foreign languages and felt the
opening of a mind-door to a tropical garden of a new culture. My clan is made
up of people who have morphed themselves so differently through so many
different cultures, and have become as comfortable living in nature and knowing
how biogas is made while not freaking out about washing pots in the trickle of
a stream right beside the cows, to surviving on mountain tops, to hitching in
desserts, to getting through horrible amounts of hours of meditation, to living
once in a while in the splendour of Jacuzzis and body work and absolute utter
pampering. </span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIqWQDrY99z40JOjsavqZGUo-CZ7WUDyZPRhDoF53oWmgkzw_wTkbqjkE2_Sg9Ykydv0cRcYKJeqAg4lQ5GLBH9sbHE_R_3xZREd-XCbK5lQD456n2Avm9YTcKQ-Ck0zp9ihr9zUjmqHUq/s1600/in+nepal2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIqWQDrY99z40JOjsavqZGUo-CZ7WUDyZPRhDoF53oWmgkzw_wTkbqjkE2_Sg9Ykydv0cRcYKJeqAg4lQ5GLBH9sbHE_R_3xZREd-XCbK5lQD456n2Avm9YTcKQ-Ck0zp9ihr9zUjmqHUq/s1600/in+nepal2.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Utter pampering! A ''sauna' with Doctor Gopal the Ayurvedic master.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk9V-UsMTqCLFhJ9RPoGegkNrUm5mlfxRGpVIqqIQV1PBP6NOyoWT5m3INd3w17SnofBqylmMuC51WSKDogGQGVZ81nKEa-VRU7Rc5S09klZoJ_zxYcUcZQAZQXtdaTg38UrCBzjF7dj4f/s1600/luxoury.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk9V-UsMTqCLFhJ9RPoGegkNrUm5mlfxRGpVIqqIQV1PBP6NOyoWT5m3INd3w17SnofBqylmMuC51WSKDogGQGVZ81nKEa-VRU7Rc5S09klZoJ_zxYcUcZQAZQXtdaTg38UrCBzjF7dj4f/s1600/luxoury.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So nice to chill out in the luxury of Ibiza</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">My clan are those who have wandered around
the inner world and have realised that mono-theism </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
has its reality but that it
is a partial reality, that the mono god of the Christians is, deep down in the
mystic realms the same as the Muslims and the Jews and the Hindus and even the
Buddhists who have no god. My clan are those who feel the nature of reality and
realise that there are millions of realities, one per person, and within that
millions more, and that each reality has a mini god. My clan connect with
earth’s bountiful nature and that they are open enough to experience life right
now, as it is, as it unfolds.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzcegcdUxGHIjo2wg4kzv8St6TZqsVgGqCZWpeuHXZHiE8ErSMWRoLuxu97wOtzpC6iZSj9wn2Yb54blryf8noofqwN7iTAZfXRy6sSq4AS5Axeb5yNXxL6SloxvYcXC2hsmXiIFWN7Om/s1600/in+salta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzcegcdUxGHIjo2wg4kzv8St6TZqsVgGqCZWpeuHXZHiE8ErSMWRoLuxu97wOtzpC6iZSj9wn2Yb54blryf8noofqwN7iTAZfXRy6sSq4AS5Axeb5yNXxL6SloxvYcXC2hsmXiIFWN7Om/s1600/in+salta.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lyndsay and I on the top of the world. The Andes, two days train journey up from Salta, Argentina. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">My clan having morphed ourselves through so
many different versions of ourselves, realise, in the same way that a knife is un
cuchillo, una cullera, une cuillère and a μαχαίρι, that the essence of the
metal utensil is the same wherever you go; and that all of the versions of
ourselves are nothing but names on top of something that underneath is
essentially the same wherever we go, whoever we are manifesting as. My clan are
those who know that we are all one, even when separated by culture.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">My clan are those who understand that there
is a shift happening and it seems we have to each go through it alone, that the
new critical mass hasn’t quite happened yet, that this new energy we are
becoming has not connected between us yet, that we must stand firm in the
lighthouse of our hearts as it feels the earth around us is going up in psychic
quakes, in sun flare storms of the heart, as mass destruction of what was purifies
into something we cannot yet imagine. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I feel we must believe in ourselves even as
we all float, scared out of our wits, around and around in black holes of
absolute unknowingness. While the only knowing that I feel I can know, a frayed
insecure life-rope, is that we cannot identify and cling onto where we have
come from, resort back to an upbringing of right and wrong, of countries being
our identification, of single culture perspectives, one set of rules, one form
of family with 2.4 children, of parents understanding more about the world than
internetted children. It is now, simply old hat.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Children of today around the world quite
commonly speak two or three languages by the time they are four, have brains
that connect to technology, and understand that a person living in the same
town may be as intimate or not as someone living on the other side of the
world. War cannot happen as it did. We don’t fit into the slots anymore.</span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDRJDpWCNRWs8IH8Jaip5nVjbqK41H7DEjV5Yx_H5IgHcObMHoBL3kqGY4kth9LjYokZUAwnp8V0E2R01udLIAX6-yEKbhuDbe3oIjqY_wmkj7iEdMCqlr9YS1PvbyWQxkodOAryJf07l/s1600/biogas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDRJDpWCNRWs8IH8Jaip5nVjbqK41H7DEjV5Yx_H5IgHcObMHoBL3kqGY4kth9LjYokZUAwnp8V0E2R01udLIAX6-yEKbhuDbe3oIjqY_wmkj7iEdMCqlr9YS1PvbyWQxkodOAryJf07l/s1600/biogas.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Biogas heaven. These kids speak three languages: Nepali, their own dialect and English.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We are the change we wish to see in the
world. We are changing.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am open. I am proud of it: it is my gift and my curse. I am grateful for it.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Namaste very mucho. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Xristo Anesti. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Orthodox
Easter, Sunday 12 April 15.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhki009ZljocsQq482_KQZWsJj1FPCSEjxt4YFQD6PYqPRW5st8UFQiS7RdOOiuQ8FLTgrtGdGB06H_Vj0PPbmWq2c9PDahIZKpqpsw3DFOAA0dycLpUczKjOuIEreQjP93GjIuDqMTE4A0/s1600/20140514_152749.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhki009ZljocsQq482_KQZWsJj1FPCSEjxt4YFQD6PYqPRW5st8UFQiS7RdOOiuQ8FLTgrtGdGB06H_Vj0PPbmWq2c9PDahIZKpqpsw3DFOAA0dycLpUczKjOuIEreQjP93GjIuDqMTE4A0/s1600/20140514_152749.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orthodox Church, Parokia Greece.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-30014314897687528742014-10-30T17:20:00.002+02:002015-04-13T12:30:09.111+03:00Oct 9th - In Someone Else's Chaos.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Falling into eternity</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Sparkling dots</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">enveloped in a</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">billowing vacuum;</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">through the cool night air</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I breath in</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">thousands of light years </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">of this elegance</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">of something</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">more than I am.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They say that if you fear something enough
you will bring it into your life. I have feared, all of my adult life, that I
will be on the streets, homeless. And here I find myself. Worry being a prayer
to the higher consciousness asking for what I do not want. I wonder how many
others fear the same, how many people accept jobs they do not want, to avoid
this fear? I do not know if I am a brave lightworker, struggling through
unchartered darkness of the soul, or if I am simply disconnected from reality,
irresponsible and as my father and brother love to label me ‘a failure’. I
don’t feel like a failure, even now, travelling into London on the National
Express to do a course in Hakomi, Applied Buddhism within the psychotherapeutic
world. I am not sure where I will sleep tonight. I have a pretty sure
possibility of staying in Welwyn Garden City, an hour outside of London, and a guy
interested in mystism and Sufi has somehow popped up and offered me a place on
couchsurf, but no address and no dates.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I feel like I am in a big game, where I
need only trust. So simple, it is hard to believe. I remember countless
occasions of travelling and never knowing where I would stay. It was a way of
life. Something always turned out...I always found a play to stay, even when I
was travelling on bike with 5 others in a place without hostels or hotels, and
we ended up sleeping in an old folk’s home. I had asked for directions from two
nice looking younger people on the street and the girl’s mother ran a residency
that happened to have 3 double rooms free. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I want to believe that this is happening
for a greater good. I feel often sick in my stomach, and breathe through it,
and as I do I seem to be constantly transported back to being a child. I’m not
sure if it’s because I’m in England now, and England is only the place where I
grew up, or if I am working through limited belief systems created as a child.
All I know is that I am being forced to break down my (Buddhist) ego, and
though it hurts and I feel in a state of constant alert, it also feels as if I
am breaking away from old patterns, letting past chains fall away like brushing
dandruff away from my shoulders. The old, is simply the old. I’m sure I needed
those limits, those defence systems, at the time, or I felt it to be true, but
now, is just now. I am not the little girl who was bullied by her Dad, nor the
older sister who was never enough for her brother, nor the daughter of a woman
who really wanted a son. It is not relevant any longer. I am me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The last two nights have been
psychologically hard. I met a girl on the counselling course who invited me into
her house, I liked her, she seemed the most ‘evolved’ on the course. I started
to get a whiff of something not quite right when I couldn’t get into her car
without stepping in rubbish that didn’t look too new. She talked incessantly,
for hours and was very attentive to me drifting off and not listening...she
would bring me in every time with a ‘Julia look....’ and a trick with the
dog...she is shaking his hand now, she is kissing him now, look she says I can
make him talk to me...etc etc. Trying so desperately to be friends. Trying too
hard, so that I was exhausted. I didn’t feel I could have a minute to myself,
and yet I needed to sort out accomodation in London, which just hasn’t
materialise as yet. It was stressful, and probably well summed up by an email
to John ‘Is it ok to kill the dog?’ It’s hard to keep stroking an incessant dog that is giving me allergies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I recognise all this
patter, recognise it in a past good friends, one of whom by weird coincidence
contacted me that same day. I wonder why I keep attracting this chaotic female
energy into my life? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Last night the little one Pauline, had ballet. I know that
because Edith had got Wednesday mixed up for Thursday and had thought it the
night before...so ballet time comes, Pauline has been dressed for an hour...she
has come in and told me at 3.30pm about her 5pm ballet...at five to, Edith is not
moving. Pauline is dressed but not for walking, she’s got a little leotard on
and Edith’s night dress, because Edith will not buy her ballet stuff until she
goes every week. Pauline says ‘Are you ready mummy to take me in the car?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">
‘Not in the car...we are walking...what are you doing dressed like that?’ It is
the best that Pauline can do - there is fierce competition in the class to look
good, Edith has already explained that to me. I had watched Pauline check
herself various times over the last hour in the mirror. ‘We are walking!’<br />
‘But mum it is five to! We are going to be late!’<br />
‘Then I am not going to take you!’<br />
‘Mummmmmmmm!’ Pauline holds back her, obvious habitual, frustration. I feel it
as repressed rage.<br />
‘No.’ Edith says waddling like a duck in power.<br />
‘It’s your money, you have paid and it is a waste! Mummy please!’<br />
‘Do not talk to me like that!!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Etc etc. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eventually Pauline puts on some
leggings and they walk there and must have got there late.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the morning just before time to go to
school, Edith decides to call her mother in Poland, because she is in a panic
that she may be in hospital because she didn’t answer the phone a couple of
days previously. I don’t understand why she waited, in this emergency, until
now. The children get alarmed, try to talk to her while she is on the phone. Edith
cannot hear anyone, everyone is shouting over each other. She puts down the
phone and starts screaming at the children not to talk to her while she is on
the phone, that it is rude, that it will make nobody happy...she does this, in
her Polish accented English for a long time, going in cyclical mind troughs...meanwhile
they are becoming later and later for school. The children are quiet. They’ve
been here before.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I think about my fear of leaving the
house...it’s not a fear of being out, and not of being in, but of leaving the
house, of going through the front door. And I remember all of the stress that
happened every single time. How we were always late for everything, how my mum
would be in a constant stress about time, how she just had to wash up, to not
return to a dirty house, how suddenly she had to attend to a cake that she had
forgotten about, how she just had to do one more thing and she will be with us...and
I thought that getting to somewhere meant going as fast as you could in a flap,
watching the seconds on the clock and feeling that the red light was being
totally unfair to us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So, I wonder if this journey that my soul
is taking is about trying to explain to me that the past is the past, that
people are not perfect, that it is ok, that now is now, and that it is actually
completely ok. Good enough.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I mean I totally respect Edith, she is
bringing up two children, with an ex who is really not helping. No details here,
but imagine the worse. And they are safe and clothed and fed and schooled, and
they obviously love their mother unconditionally. She is doing far better than
me right now. I can only just put someelse's roof over my own head, let alone two dependent
children.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As Pete Robinson said 1. This is not
heaven. 2. You are not god. 3. Try and not be an asshole.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’m trying. It is not easy. I'm doing well just not to express it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: purple;">3 positives from the day</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="color: purple;">I watched a nice film called Julie and Julia and also I noticed at the
beginning that one of the names on the screen was May Robinson...it is about
two women struggling to make sense of their lives and become writers.
Uplifting.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">I have accommodation at last for tomorrow! I have been saved by a couch
surfer who lives in Welwyn Garden City, and who is appanrently, according to
others, a really great host. I will get to that Hakomi course!</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: purple;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="color: purple;">I have been able to delete a comment which made me into a victim...I received
a wonderful message from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/prem.arpan">Prem
Arpan</a> who reminded me that life is just a game, not to be taken too
seriously, and not to make myself into victim...and I have managed to do
that...even when I'm tempted to say 'Ohh look at me victim.' I am not. This is
a gift situation and as I stay calm within, it will heal all this that I
manifested this situation with. Shed the old!!</span></div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-55742798609099651312014-10-30T17:13:00.003+02:002014-10-30T17:13:46.419+02:00Oct 8th - First Day of Homelessness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">It feels good to be out of the toxicity of my brother's home. So good not to have to breathe it in and use all my energy to stay centered and at the same time I feel like I'm in a cloud of non-reality. How did all this happen and what is going to happen and will I be OK? Going with Trust.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">To Magaret </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The pop song.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I sing with her</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">the girl who </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">on the school pick up</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">looked alarmed</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">to see me, this stranger </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">seat-belted beside her mother</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br />the little girl<br />who got into the back seat<br />and refused to talk.<br />we sing on her sofa<br />her emotions<br />weaving sounds<br />felt so deeply<br />too grownup<br />for her to have lived them<br />and I sing her harmonies<br />sitting in a welling<br />of magic<br />feeling our roots<br />connecting<br />momentarily<br />as one.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB">three wonderful things today</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
1. I helped in a PhD study into mindfulness. Wow, wow, wow. We meditated
together and then Willeke interviewed me, about any detail of the
meditation...and then stuck with it, asking all sorts of questions about those
five seconds when it happened. I have never looked at life so closely, didn't
have the words actually for a lot of it, and suddenly I realised how I
experience myself, how that mini experience actually had all the information of
the<span class="textexposedshow"> whole...how MUCH info was there. We spoke about
those 5 seconds for 45 minutes!!! It was really really mind opening. In short
conclusion I realised that life can take so many forms that as a human being my
mind cannot even start to conjure up, and so I can leave the idea of what is to
become of me to a higher wisdom, and simply stay present in this present. Words,
words, words, but how to convey those messages that come from within? Thank you
so much Willeke for opening up a new world to me.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">2. On the bus to Winchester, that went from outside
Willeke's offices at the University (love it...couldn't have planned it so
well) there was a beautiful rainbow.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">3. Edith, my class mate in the counselling course,
opened up her house to me.She has two daughters, the eldest (10 yrs old)
refused to talk at first. I felt a little uncomfortable suddenly in an almost
strangers house, and we stumbled around a little in awkwardness...then Edith gave
me a glass of wine without offering (I like to say that I don't really drink)
and half way through we relaxed. Another woman came around to collect her son,
who didn't know either of us either, and we had a wonderful candlelit night
talking about life, honest, funny, uplifting. Afterwards Edith and her eldest,
Magaret, (who didn't want to talk at first) sang together and we did
different dances and I taught them to do the upside down asana. It just felt
really really magic.</span></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-66777053102690731192014-10-30T17:05:00.001+02:002014-10-30T17:05:53.431+02:00Oct 7th - On Overload.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I go to a counselling course that I am deciding if I want to do. It is based on older fashioned ideas that the the past is the root of the problem, and goes there. I want to do present mindfulness. I want to do T-group, I want to be sensitive. We have to talk to another as if in a session. It is still very much introduction time, which is starting to drag, when one is used to T-groups, or Circling, or Contact Improv. It feels quite clunky, like using an old mobile phone. I tell my colleague, who I think it is the most sensitive of them all, that I am homeless and have nowhere to stay as of tomorrow. She instantly, bless her heart, invites me to her house. Phew. I've bridged this lilly pad. Later in the group psychology the two people who I don't consider to be very self aware, go into attack mode, and project like an automatic gun, at something I had shared last week (which two other people afterwards had applauded me for, thank god). I hold up. But reel. There is something I am doing wrong in this culture. I am being too honest. I am used to sensitive authentic communication that is not afraid of not always being super brilliantly positive, but excited to explore other possibilities of new self images of greater clarity. I am used to people knowing what projection is. I am used to people dealing with their own inner conflict more peacefully, wisely, delicately. I am tired of this shit.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Culture shock</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Everywhere I go</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">walls of silence</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">shroud hurting hearts;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I sing my song </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">through them, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">but my alegre</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">soon turns flat.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">In parlour reverence,</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br />I whisper now<br />soft words<br />that somehow<br />twist into thorns;<br />stunned into silence,<br />I sit exhausted<br />and become them.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Three blessings for today</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">
1) A wonderful breakfast with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peter.n.robinson.96">Peter N W Robinson</a> who
told me some wonderful words that someone had recently told him <br />
a. You are not god. <br />
b. This is not heaven <br />
c. Try and not be an asshole. <br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Great advise!!! Realised how much I wish for an
idealised world...while actually I should be just accepting this one. Really
great to talk to a sensitive friend and be recognised. Thanks Pete.</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow">2) Phoned the meditation center and there is a
possibility of doing a work exchange with them at the end of the month...which
meant that my accommodation needs for tomorrow (argghhh) weren't quite met. I
spoke with a guy who had said I could 'crash' at his, things had
changed...feeling the dread of the black void, I went to the counseling course,
where we had to draw how we feel. Art school paid off and I managed to express
my hopes of all this shattering, shedding and falling away of the old and the
pain healing into a personal blossoming and as I did, the person I partnered up
with offered for me to stay in her house for two nights. Yeah!!! Thank you so
much Edi. Thank you Universe.</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow">3) Sat on the sofa with my nephew he found an
excuse to scuttle across and to nonchalantly snuggle together. I love children,
it was just what I needed. Thank you Joshua!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-39134835918701940572014-10-30T16:47:00.001+02:002014-10-30T16:51:53.104+02:00Oct 6th. Staying out of the house.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
I awake. There is no one in the house. I can breathe. Thank god I have a coffee date with Walter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
I manage to stay out of the house all day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
The question relates to the root of the problem with my brother and sister in law. I asked the mother in law a question that was not meant to be asked. I had forgotten what English culture really means. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
Keep a straight face, stiff upper lip. None of that emotional delving. Please.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The question</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I find a club in my hand</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">not a feather</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I meant to prise open</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">soft and slow</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">to allow you to unfold,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">not to smash you </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">into this submission</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">violated</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">- red -</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">in sudden exposure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Three wonders filling me with gratitude:<br />
1. This morning I met with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wwboyd">Walter W.
Boyd Jr.</a> who gave me a wonderful healing session in the middle of the
coffee shop Costa. Yes! I learnt that all I am projecting onto the outside
world, is of course, coming from within, and not finding a home is actually not
feeling at home in my own body. Something that I can work on right now! Thank
you Walter for being tribe, for resonating me back onto a firmer path.<br /><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">2. I splashed out and gifted<span class="textexposedshow"> myself a lunch in a
cafe.As the salad arrived John and </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/anne.k.bruce">Anne Kathryn Bruce</a><span class="textexposedshow"> called and I had lunch with them over skype! Afterwards
the waitress came across and spoke to me like we were old friends, long enough
for me to get a crick in my neck!!! We had a right good chin wag about living
out of the system and gardening and going slow and working less, and I suddenly
realised that I really am not alone.</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow">3. It was really nice to go to chanting and meet
new people, to connect to good inside to empty space, to trance out a
little...and to be in my body without all that monkey mind...and when I got
home, I found a message on facebook from a new friend who has hopefully solved
my housing problem!!! Wonderful! I think that I can go and live in a meditation
center!!!!! I am so happy. I'm feeling so good about staying open during
particularly difficult times. THANK YOU UNIVERSE!!!!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYFQmrW2R8hG1mq5c-I3FMKMCIequdeRzeDDwlq5i9zpmtD9BlwfI0rHBUFS8dHm1cpJxpBZeNo-o43qlKzr7rd96iVa_1fH6YfQ5q82vRP3PEeMcckbExZ6HhGm1qxLZQjIuoRo0PrfaQ/s1600/from+walter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYFQmrW2R8hG1mq5c-I3FMKMCIequdeRzeDDwlq5i9zpmtD9BlwfI0rHBUFS8dHm1cpJxpBZeNo-o43qlKzr7rd96iVa_1fH6YfQ5q82vRP3PEeMcckbExZ6HhGm1qxLZQjIuoRo0PrfaQ/s1600/from+walter.jpg" height="400" width="353" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Walter<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">I awoke this morning and I was asked to pass this to you, its an image I received from my healing transmission last week.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">"I give myself full permission to be true, safe and comfortable with myself and within myself."</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-12673596833436302142014-10-30T16:36:00.003+02:002014-10-30T16:51:34.796+02:00Oct 5th. Becoming alone again.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
Dealing with being thrown out of my brother's home. I return, after being away with John, to my parents like flies at the front door. I wonder if they breathe? It's not good. My brother continues to refuse to even look at me. Speaking is out of the question it seems. It makes me feel like I am a devil risen from the depths to reek havoc. I also try not to breathe. It's infectious. Later I am sent an email giving me two days to find somewhere to live. So many friends around the world but here I don't know anyone.I'm on my own. Advanced course on trust.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I see in the other</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">an angry mirror</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">and stay breathless still</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">vulnerable in terror,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">childhood trauma</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">rippling distortion</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">contorting images</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">into monsters.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">No longer expecting </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">childhood demands</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br />to be the fairest of them all<br />I find the courage<br />to recognise myself<br />and from the depths<br />of my childhood heart<br />manage to forgive.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
3 good things today</div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">1.After tears in the underground as my love left to return to the states, I
came out and managed to remember mindfulness and looked to the blue skies and
found inner calm knowing that the love between me and John is deep and
nourishing even if we never see each other again. Instead of crying I managed
to shift myself into gratitude for the delicate and intricate growth we have
both helped each other through. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">2. Walking down the street I asked the Universe<span class="textexposedshow"> for signs of how to manage logistics for next weekend's
Hakomi course in London. I walked into a restaurant and asked a woman with
beautiful eyes, to fill my water container. She was of my tribe. She asked me
if I wanted ice and gave me lemon too. I asked her about cheap accommodation
and she offered space for me to sleep on her sofa! </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="textexposedshow">3. I found a wonderful cafe
full of artistic creative people and sat outside on a cobbled street in Camden
without any sounds from machines...bliss!...I overheard my coffee neighbours
talking about a documentary that they are doing and a conversation ensued. I
had decided to try and sell three poetry books, and I mentioned my challenge
and they bought one! After a rather income stagnant extended period, I feel as
if I am entering into the flow of sustainable abundance.</span></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-39787778745417153242014-10-30T12:22:00.002+02:002014-10-30T17:21:18.950+02:00Oct 4th - Shocked into Deeper Sensitivity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
Deeper into sensitivity<br />
<br />
I fall into the stream of life<br />
Torrents force off<br />
All that is not supple<br />
Brittle screams<br />
Screech from my<br />
Putrid stomach<br />
Drowning with the old.<br />
<br />
I endure the pain<br />
Of flayed skin<br />
Ripping through my psyche<br />
Only because<br />
I have no choice.<br />
<br />
After the storm<br />
Raw naked skin<br />
Gleams<br />
As I birth into<br />
The new unknown.<br />
<br />
<br />
I had planned to start the three positives on my birthday a few weeks earlier. All was going well then. I had just returned from the states having loved and been loved. I returned to my homeland. It wasn't easy. Culture shock is not easy in foreign places,but within the place I have been calling my country for 15 years while living abroad, it affects my self identity. Am I English? Who am I? What am I? And why won't this debit card go in that slot? 'Face down madam.'<br />
<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, my alien presence is affecting where I have been invited to live: my brother's. He and his wife, coming out of several difficult years, find that they cannot cope with another in their house, and in panic, decide silence over overt aggression and give me three days to find a place to live, by email. I am thrown out. Guilty without trial. It is hard to stay quiet. But I do. John my companion through life at present, explains a Buddhist therapist once asked him 'Life is not fair. What problem to do you have with that?'<br />
<br />
<br />
I become homeless for the first time. Really homeless. Like I don't know where I'm going to sleep each night. I have no friends or community to call on. I have reduced my suitcase to the minimum. Nothing of value, just in case. In case of what? I dare not let my mind go there.<br />
<br />
<br />
Meanwhile I have started a project to send out gratitude to the world. And it is saving me. My mind wanders around positives, sniffing, savouring, recognising. They are sparks of light in this dark night, through stomach clenching fears, through this passage of life. <br />
<br />
<br />
Welcome home.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjnIBjq8YbDjox5KcJ9HYgzhwN00fqpQlP8rCmnNBDSpAY3gBanRyaIDchyphenhyphenj3I9p5Hqv4VDaB5KfAV-3aW-ag55CO0x8NIn6F7pqdgoN0Tlf6lGahXnAHGkmOvBWKOY_oUldp-BX18amD/s1600/2014-10-10+16.50.11.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjnIBjq8YbDjox5KcJ9HYgzhwN00fqpQlP8rCmnNBDSpAY3gBanRyaIDchyphenhyphenj3I9p5Hqv4VDaB5KfAV-3aW-ag55CO0x8NIn6F7pqdgoN0Tlf6lGahXnAHGkmOvBWKOY_oUldp-BX18amD/s1600/2014-10-10+16.50.11.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">Don't worry England, you're guarded.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-jnKLxXTcWfc%2FVFIQSjrs1UI%2FAAAAAAAAEdI%2Fp_jbS2G5x8w%2Fs1600%2F2014-10-10%252B16.50.11.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjnIBjq8YbDjox5KcJ9HYgzhwN00fqpQlP8rCmnNBDSpAY3gBanRyaIDchyphenhyphenj3I9p5Hqv4VDaB5KfAV-3aW-ag55CO0x8NIn6F7pqdgoN0Tlf6lGahXnAHGkmOvBWKOY_oUldp-BX18amD/s1600/2014-10-10+16.50.11.jpg" --><!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjnIBjq8YbDjox5KcJ9HYgzhwN00fqpQlP8rCmnNBDSpAY3gBanRyaIDchyphenhyphenj3I9p5Hqv4VDaB5KfAV-3aW-ag55CO0x8NIn6F7pqdgoN0Tlf6lGahXnAHGkmOvBWKOY_oUldp-BX18amD/s1600/2014-10-10+16.50.11.jpg" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjnIBjq8YbDjox5KcJ9HYgzhwN00fqpQlP8rCmnNBDSpAY3gBanRyaIDchyphenhyphenj3I9p5Hqv4VDaB5KfAV-3aW-ag55CO0x8NIn6F7pqdgoN0Tlf6lGahXnAHGkmOvBWKOY_oUldp-BX18amD/s1600/2014-10-10+16.50.11.jpg" -->www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-24369182653594283792014-10-29T14:21:00.000+02:002014-10-29T14:21:47.645+02:00Oct 3rd Avesbury<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Avebury<br /> <br /> We stand in a circle of stones<br /> Nothing known of them<br /> Lost to the past<br /> Nothing known of us<br /> Unformed future<br /> Bridged only in imagination</span></div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-58550251419163524272014-10-29T14:17:00.001+02:002014-10-29T14:17:23.125+02:00Happy Birthday to me! A new thread into the social sculpture: 3 gratitudes per day.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Oct 2nd 2014<br />
<br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Happy birthday to me</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">With the stars</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">in the firmament</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">my birthdays</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">come and go;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">today a blip on </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">the horizon of time</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">but the sing song</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">we all know so well</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">delves deep within</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">to the eternity</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">of same moments</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">silk ribbons </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">of memories past</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">connecting me</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">to the magic</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">of this creation </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">ever birthing.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
1. A really soft gentle day...thank you to <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1052988209" href="https://www.facebook.com/john.caron.77770">John Caron</a>
for his gentleness and being able to share sensitive delight of
sunlight shining through the budding leaves of the new forest and within
ourselves, for adve<span class="text_exposed_show">nture of wrong turns that are right turns in the end and birthday suit beauty. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">2 Deep thanks to <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=510658143" href="https://www.facebook.com/adrian.robinson.319">Adrian Robinson</a>, <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=504575939" href="https://www.facebook.com/debs.robinson.5">Debs Robinson</a> and <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100002896272011" href="https://www.facebook.com/ruth.robinson.5055">Ruth Robinson</a>
and Brian Robinson, for all your gifts, balloon ride, bracelet and kind
words of deep love in your card, the GPS that helped us make less
mistakes on the road, the cake and more than anything else all of your
presence at the birthday table. I love you all. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">3 Gratitude for being
showered in love by friends from all over...</span></div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-56276302760152259672014-10-28T14:16:00.002+02:002014-10-28T14:16:15.459+02:00Staying alive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So, mission completed. I have a room. I am
not really happy to hear traffic at 6am in the morning, and I promised myself I would not stop until I found a
place I am happy in...but suddenly the issue is not of the same urgency as yesterday that I
find a place to sleep that is not on the streets. I am one step up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’ve realised that by this constant search
for a safe place, I am able to avoid all other responsibilities of life. By
continually placing myself in positions of having to cover such base needs, I
do not have time or energy to place my energy into projects that are of a
higher nature that are more than just a safe place to sleep and eat. I am not able to
consider what I am here on this planet for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Nepal I realised that people were
generally as happy as people in the west who had so much more: their
own bed to sleep in, electric cookers, and non alcoholic husbands. It seemed as
if they were happy to have simply survived yet another day against the wilds of life. Their challenges,
though difficult, were achievable most days: food, shelter, raising children. I
have reduced myself to this level of living where staying alive each day seems
to be my only purpose thankful to not have anyone dependent on me, but reeling in the lonliness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Now I have covered myself, for a couple of months. A
month of deposit and a month of rent paid. Suddenly I feel empty. I am sat in the vulnerability of an empty mirror. What to do? Who to be?</span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-3302739799439560852014-07-22T03:08:00.002+03:002014-07-22T21:53:14.315+03:00Seeing now rather than then.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So I found myself, as usual, late. No car,
it seemed too far to cycle, and so I decided to hitch. Hitching is easy if
you’re a nice looking young woman. A smile works wonders. Normally I have to
wait about 5 minutes. On fast roads cars often go by too fast for the driver to
consider a change of action but normally after 5 minutes one stops. On slow,
empty roads, the first car comes by and picks up, usually after about 5
minutes. Always with really nice people in them, the kind that want to help by
giving others a lift. Big hearted people. For me it is heartwarming to hitch,
to meet wonderful, kind people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So I step out of my house, in the middle of
nowhere, onto the slow, empty road, and start to walk. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">No car. <br />
No car. <br />
No car. <br />
Car, wrong direction. <br />
No car. <br />
No car. <br />
No car. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I realise it is a Sunday. It is a Sunday
lunch time. Not much chance. I’m getting later than late. Will he still be
waiting for me where we said? I imagine having to walk all of the way. Of
course I have no phone. So I make an executive decision: I will walk across the
mountain, on the dirt road, to the main Nauossa road, and there I am BOUND to
get a ride. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So I do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">And I do so like a little pig, squealing
all the way, bottom jiggling, eye-balling my watch, panting, stressing and
looking straight ahead at the dirt road as if my vision could pull me forward
faster. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">After a while of this, I suddenly start to
feel like a fool. It is Sunday lunch time, the main time in the week for
relaxing, and I am surrounded by this wonderful Greek countryside, all these
spring flowers springing...meanwhile I am looking only at my watch and the dirt
road and sweating, and panting more than is really absolutely necessary, as if
it will help somehow to be exhausted and sweaty when I turn up...evidence of
trying against the tides of life...</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I realise I am thinking more bullshit, again.
So I decide not to slow down, but to stop stressing, to walk fast, in an
enjoyable fashion, as if I had chosen to do sport for my own pleasure instead
of self torture. My whole body relaxes, I look around, I like it, my legs are going
in a nice rhythm, a pleasing velocity of flowing power, and I began to enjoy
myself without stressing about being late. And in that very moment, I realise:
I can do nothing now.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I can do nothing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">This is it. I’m really doing all I can. I
can only walk fast. I cannot do anything else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">And a space opened up in my mind and I
realised with my heart: though I can do nothing I can actually chose how to
feel inside, how I will experience this moment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I can either stress out because I am bound
to be late and my friend might not be there and all is heading into certain
disaster and I am a mess, and how had I allowed myself to get into this
situation once again, this is so rubbish, I’ve been sitting around all morning
doing nothing, what a disaster (I’m well versed at this one)...OR...I can calm all
the inner shouting down and look about and ENJOY the journey, because there is
nothing more to do but to walk fast to the next junction where will be able to
make decisions and affect change.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">Wow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">It’s really true. When we can’t actually
change where we are, or what we are doing, when we are stuck in a situation, we
can choose how we will live it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So I walk, and enjoy myself, and forget
about being late until I can actually do something about it, and enjoyed myself
so much that I really did forget about where I was going. I am power walking
through the beautiful mountain behind my home, where the flowers are greeting
me and I am smiling at the view, with the sea and the bay of Kolimpithres
shining their colours for my pleasure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZLoGR-jrXiSRkH-wKcaAUvwPhoR0ejxGj6ScqCzu1qSpUoojKo7p8QslzkHUxyw66cpEj7qAA_PwfnNqZSTypNf4wtYXWFj6tq-0N2Nhwv2iYnr4z602tuVd0_braEz31k4lsOOS6F46/s1600/view+of+sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZLoGR-jrXiSRkH-wKcaAUvwPhoR0ejxGj6ScqCzu1qSpUoojKo7p8QslzkHUxyw66cpEj7qAA_PwfnNqZSTypNf4wtYXWFj6tq-0N2Nhwv2iYnr4z602tuVd0_braEz31k4lsOOS6F46/s1600/view+of+sea.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">When I get to the main road, I get to a ‘power’
point of being able to change the course of my ‘destiny’. I had to put my hand
out, and do the smile, with the puppy dog eyes...but there are no cars. Again,
I feel myself getting ready to stress out. I had now re-remembered I was late.
I look at my watch, for the third time, checking if time was speeding up or
slowing down. I am late. There are no cars. No cars. No cars. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I can do nothing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I decide to relax, given my recent pleasure
walk, and look closely at some flowers growing beside the road. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFtIhq1Jrex7a_IVnV7W2yw2_Fl9YC_ramHgqmrfdG7iwrNyo-WJqD9goHTx-fO3QdPQ7RDKDANYw-7p0r7sim50AWAUfJexOROs8iMYK2FDzeJBHiOLyCUXn8solAKcz-0lhgaS9-7On/s1600/kamares+flowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFtIhq1Jrex7a_IVnV7W2yw2_Fl9YC_ramHgqmrfdG7iwrNyo-WJqD9goHTx-fO3QdPQ7RDKDANYw-7p0r7sim50AWAUfJexOROs8iMYK2FDzeJBHiOLyCUXn8solAKcz-0lhgaS9-7On/s1600/kamares+flowers.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">A car comes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">Doesn’t pick me up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">Another car comes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">Doesn’t pick me up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">A car comes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">Picks me up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I sit in the car. Was I going to be late
now? My mind makes calculations as quick as possible. Time and clocks and
numbers have never been its forte. Yes, I’m going to be late, but not half an
hour, only 10 minutes. Time somehow had sped down. I sit there, and consciously
don’t eyeball the road trying to make it run under the tyres of the car faster,
I just sit there and enjoy the view, and talk my ohh-not-so-fluent Greek to the
driver.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdMx02s8ge-WYM4lk_YC9Gz8byakgl-mGsmI-rymIwu8zRF99OWHQkkeFzizD9evYSLEl_dqo_EktfKBecVhzM66QAiszGFYc5G8kwrew9QgUecNV8X9I_7u7MWukbbV5O6dzk2Q0cf944/s1600/kamares.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdMx02s8ge-WYM4lk_YC9Gz8byakgl-mGsmI-rymIwu8zRF99OWHQkkeFzizD9evYSLEl_dqo_EktfKBecVhzM66QAiszGFYc5G8kwrew9QgUecNV8X9I_7u7MWukbbV5O6dzk2Q0cf944/s1600/kamares.jpg" height="312" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">We arrive at said destination. And he is
there. My knight in shining armour, holding high his sword of a telephone. He is
still waiting for me. I mean, of course he is. He had little choice given zero information.
There was really no need to have worried at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">It was all a big learning for me: when you
cannot do anything about something, you can choose to enjoy or make it
horrible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So a month or so later, I begin modelling
for the life drawing classes at the Aegean Center. It is a rather strange
sensation standing in the middle of a room lined with friends and dropping the
sheet from around one’s naked body. I handled it by disassociating, a great
defence mechanism I would heartily recommend. Slowly I began to get used to it.
To come back into the room. I remembered from a couple of semesters ago, being on the other side, being the student who
would look at the lines around the model, at the negative space, at the shapes
made in space...only a few times would I jump out of that consciousness and
think ‘Ohh my! A naked person!’ But she wasn’t naked actually, she was nude.
So, nude me, began to get used to it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">It’s not easy standing still. Really it’s
not. And so I began to meditate to relax myself into the stance. It was then
that I suddenly really did feel naked. Psychically naked. Here I was meditating
in front of a group of people. Could they see in? And as I focused into the
room, I realised they weren’t looking at me at all, they were looking at my
body. I was inside invisible. They couldn’t see the ‘no-thing’ inside, not
much.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_NZnqRlzwt98ohLJpQKFVeq27jQ2yeWvTSe6EUzxOdf-dL-kebKoVgWC7U1uuYfkk-ErSetfdSwYnPMPlrMwto_UyC0EUxUOgE23J28dBulXrwI6vHxMLF07CouAa08TbTpl40J0Q91_/s1600/DSC_0009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_NZnqRlzwt98ohLJpQKFVeq27jQ2yeWvTSe6EUzxOdf-dL-kebKoVgWC7U1uuYfkk-ErSetfdSwYnPMPlrMwto_UyC0EUxUOgE23J28dBulXrwI6vHxMLF07CouAa08TbTpl40J0Q91_/s1600/DSC_0009.JPG" height="420" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So, three modelling sessions later, now more used to
the whole affair, I am standing there nude, unmoving, in a delectable posture.
Until then I had found it all rather exciting and relaxing at the same time. I
mean you really cannot do anything. You cannot even lift a little finger. This is
the state I like to be in! And being forced into it, 20 minutes at a time, had actually been really calming. I was face to face within myself. What to do? I had
meditated most of the time, other times mused on how I was feeling in that
rather unusual situation. Power balances around nakedness and nudity,
wobbly balances of my body, how my arm is starting to hurt, how a part of my body has gone numb etc.
Sometimes I got so relaxed (in the lying postures) that I was half asleep. But not this session. Not
so one day before my big journey back to England. I was freaking out. I was
ovulating. Not a good combo. Really, not. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">At all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">But being professional I let down the blue
sheet and stood there naked for all to draw, and inside I am all over the
place. I bemoan romance, is this man right? Is this what I want? Can it work? I
go over all the problems I can possibly have, all of the emotions I don’t like
having. I worry about the flight and the weight allowance. I try and hold back
that terror of the ‘airport people and their rules’ that somehow I think could
kill me, or my laptop, or dent my trumpet. I worry about moving house and what
to leave behind and if I will be ok on the journey and if I will make my
connections...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">It goes on continuously for some time, a
quantity of time that I cannot measure, because I cannot move to look at the
clock behind me. It feels like an eternity. Feeling bad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I had a little break in the clouds and
remembered where I was, that I was being divine for all to record on their
papers, that last week and the week before I had found it exciting and
relaxing...and here I am having a right tantrum...and I can do nothing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">It was now that it began to sink in: I can
do nothing; but I can chose my inner world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I was choosing hell.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">So I relaxed, in my nothingness, in the
stillness of time, in the unable to move a muscleness...and silenced the
within. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">Ahhhhhh. It was like hearing next-door’s
lawn electric mower being turned off. It was like the silence after the
birdsong, or bird fight. It was like being able to turn off heavy metal music
and sit in the silence of a deep forest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">I relax, and become calm. I can do nothing
and right now I’m going to enjoy it. And how about the worries? Well the rest
of the day just went swimmingly. I did all that I had to do, but I had lost
that hysteria of feeling all those panicky emotions all of the time...and now
that I had myself under control, the points in time when I actually needed to
do something were easy, (almost) panic-less...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: large;">And now I am in England. There was nothing
to worry about at all. Did it, it all went smoothly. Managed to get all that I
needed and wanted across, and myself. And even when it actually well less than perfect I was composed enough to let time flow through me, knowing
I could do nothing at all. Not right then.</span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-32920958781744520722014-04-17T17:40:00.002+03:002014-04-17T17:42:41.493+03:00Are our stories real?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMVGWeXFow5sNHVPxNNGUinl3YBNqx6RxNPqTI71mezmZKvjxT6-uJbkmMAEJHCfE4aY09VE1ey3tmsNlRVgNSK5ddiiE0m7pyMJhz9YODHC0yxitbBAz50MOwBn5t3oQo6C0EFo1-XPk/s1600/i+love+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipahmAHof1nysczaDQSjSwGzWwZPS3MOVPTc5tuBU1MsBbpN5KsJvwGoFFEMnLqNGOlOKV-ZqW1O8kGJPMwpT59C-70_IWbzprWSygj8DDCNh64jRtyPhNu-AY5H6XIAHBLjU7aXotmzTX/s1600/st+annes+square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipahmAHof1nysczaDQSjSwGzWwZPS3MOVPTc5tuBU1MsBbpN5KsJvwGoFFEMnLqNGOlOKV-ZqW1O8kGJPMwpT59C-70_IWbzprWSygj8DDCNh64jRtyPhNu-AY5H6XIAHBLjU7aXotmzTX/s1600/st+annes+square.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Anne's Square, Manchester</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span><span lang="EN-GB">My mum said she’d buy me a pair of shoes
for Christmas, and so we wandered around, but all I really wanted was a pair of
Campers. I like them. They are cool. They remind me of my friends, of my life
lived in Barcelona. I’ve never had a pair. I warn Mum: ‘They are expensive! I
could pay for half.’ But as my wonderful mother would have it, they are a gift,
and she would not gift only one shoe. We find the Camper store in Manchester’s St
Anne’s Square, and they are just perfect. They are the colour I want, they are
the type I dreamed of, they are leather on the end of my legs that make me jump
into a silly looking dance straight there in the shop. I love them, I love my Mum,
I love the world, I even, in that moment, love Manchester.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMVGWeXFow5sNHVPxNNGUinl3YBNqx6RxNPqTI71mezmZKvjxT6-uJbkmMAEJHCfE4aY09VE1ey3tmsNlRVgNSK5ddiiE0m7pyMJhz9YODHC0yxitbBAz50MOwBn5t3oQo6C0EFo1-XPk/s1600/i+love+man.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMVGWeXFow5sNHVPxNNGUinl3YBNqx6RxNPqTI71mezmZKvjxT6-uJbkmMAEJHCfE4aY09VE1ey3tmsNlRVgNSK5ddiiE0m7pyMJhz9YODHC0yxitbBAz50MOwBn5t3oQo6C0EFo1-XPk/s1600/i+love+man.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A couple of walking weeks later, I stay
over at my friends’ house, and Claire in the morning says sheepishly, ‘Sorry
the dog took one of your shoes to bed.’ I was alarmed. ‘She didn’t do anything,
she just likes sleeping by shoes.’ But when I picked it up, we both saw, quite
unexpectedly, that the inner side of the shoe was of a completely different
leather to the rest. It was old and wrinkly, and I did not like it one bit. Though
‘til then I had never actually noticed it, now it was all I could see.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpTsjzjlUNIiRMNuhlOrJA9XFggg1wMpy7kLnt8il6I1U3tTAOrFRQ22_il2pStWYMPED3nk4nL_WzniAHlQdb52at2TdeM0VeZm8jWbG8KCTsznO0ZuSdRVKPAQo_QvNEWQohJEyuPC_/s1600/obvious+disparency.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpTsjzjlUNIiRMNuhlOrJA9XFggg1wMpy7kLnt8il6I1U3tTAOrFRQ22_il2pStWYMPED3nk4nL_WzniAHlQdb52at2TdeM0VeZm8jWbG8KCTsznO0ZuSdRVKPAQo_QvNEWQohJEyuPC_/s1600/obvious+disparency.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So, I went back to the shop. It was not
clear what could be done. They gave me the standard line ‘They are made out of
natural leather, it varies from piece to piece. Look it says it is here in on
the shoes’ he fingers a tag on a shoe in the store. ‘But,’ I claim ‘they are SO
different!’ I do puppy dog eyes. The shop assistant seemingly obvious to my
deep inner pain, drops any responsibility claiming ‘The people making the
decisions are in Spain.’ We come to an impasse. I pull out the oldest trick in
the book ‘What would you do in my position?’ and look down sadly at the two
shoes on the shop counter that is now manifesting as court house, and hold my
silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So he took photos of the ‘obvious
disparity’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It got escalated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I got an email from the head of the store
about two weeks later, which I read while my feet warmed the wrinkled leather
of the shoes. Yes, he writes, natural leather varies, but in this situation
they would be prepared to exchange. So, I went to the shop, walking in a pair
of flip-flops as my only substitution. I mentioned at the now, familiar counter
that I had talked to the boss. Julie? No it was a man. He says ‘I mean is your
name Julie?’ ‘Ohh,’ I say ‘yes.’ We both ignore how stupid I have just been.
Nice man.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He has the shoes waiting for me. As he
bends down into the cupboard I blather on about these shoes not being the same,
that I have always wanted Camper shoes, that I really like Camper, what a good
company it is. Etc etc. I was so pleased that a company was prepared to see from
the client’s point of view. And with baited breath I watch him deftly open the
shoe box. I don’t continue to breathe on seeing them. They were...? The manager
says ‘Ohh these are different too!’ and he goes on about leather again, and
natural leather, and explains that if we were to skin a human the leather on
our hands would not be the same as if we skinned our forearms...he realises
he’d gone a bit too far then and shuts up. I look at these new shoes...one was
almost entirely ‘old’ wrinkly leather cut from the face of a cow that had used
botox all of its life. The saving grace is that it is fortunately the left while
I had a problem with the right. So the manager says ‘You could take just one if
you wanted?’I look at him quisitively.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘As
you like,’ he says and stands back for me to make a decision.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the outside I look calm, apart from my
eyes darting backwards and forwards, but inside I have the whole of the court
house yelling a cacophony of completely, contradictory ideas. They are not
right! They look like really old leather! You could take the new pair! Stay
with the old pair! Would you believe these are really expensive shoes? Take
just one, keep the other! I imagine a woman not concentrating at her shoe sewing
machine. Was there no overseer? Is there not another pair that has nice leather
all around it? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Is there another pair in the shop I could
compare with?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No,’ he says calmly (quite incredulously
in my opinion), ‘these are the last, I saved them for you.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I breathe in deeply, hoping to get some
oxygen to the decision.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ll take the new right foot and keep my
old left.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘As you like,’ he repeats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As if in a sort of dream world, I take the
new right shoe, give him my warm one and put them on my feet. I take off the
little tag that tells customers about the values of real leather, and the
warnings...and walk out of the shop. I feel like a prize wally. I just broke up
a perfectly decent pair of shoes, and are they right now? I look down. They are
hand-made and as I look more closely these hands on the right, had a different
idea of dimension to the ones on the left. The stitching goes further up, the
distance above the tongue is different, and is the colour exactly the same? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I stand there in St Anne’s Square, looking
down at my shoes trying to use my heart. I stand there long enough to worry
passerbys into thinking I’m a weirdo. But I can’t get my head around it. These are
not perfect either - My dream - My Camper shoes!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eventually I start to get too cold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I return to the shop ‘I’ll just take my old
shoe back. I’ve broken up a perfectly good pair you can sell, and they are no
better than what I already have. You are right,’ I admit, proud of my lack of
proudness ‘natural leather really does just vary.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘As you like,’ he says placidly. This has
obviously been no rollercoaster for him, and gives me back the shoe that has
been slowly shaping into the form of my individual, unique, foot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Thank you’ I say. The skies have rightened
themselves. The court house is happy at the justice and my heart suddenly
realises, as if entering into a brand new field of vision: ‘Life is not perfect
- it is as it is.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And now I love my shoes even more. As I
start to get freaked out about life not being as I have imagined it should be,
as grapes are not lowered into my mouth, as I travel to Greece to sing but
don’t get into the choir, as I wonder about a man and if he will be wonderful
company both day and night, I start to realise that life is not as I imagine
it. It is aspirin taste hard to swallow; it is hard to realise that what is in
my head is not actually real. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And what is?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I walk around in my shoes, wondering about
what I have thought and held to be God’s own Truth (capital t) just because I
have thought it, and things start to emerge out of the woodwork. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A couple of weeks later I go for a walk by the sea, and in a moment
of heart connection realise that the stories in my head are actually ego
stories that support my whining complexes. Somehow it is comforting to be a
victim. Somehow it is comforting to feel that I am not worthy. Somehow it is
comforting to feel I am not loveable. I get something from it. It needs so
little effort and excuses any real lack of responsibility to my own creation of
life. I realise to maintain all these ego thoughts, all these self limiting
belief systems, I need to create stories in my head. I like to daydream of
perfect worlds and perfect shoes, and perfect relationships. And then I look on
at the world around me and in the gap between what is, and what I would like it
to be, I fill with monsters. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I wonder, can I stop telling myself all these
stories of doom and glory? Can I let go of my stories where I am who I think I
am, along with the glorious victimhood, superior inferiority, of a
misunderstood poet? Can I let go?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Well, yes, I say, I’ll give it a go...but
like, erm, how do you start? Let go of ‘what’ exactly?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And it slowly dawns on me, as the sun
begins to set, that I have to forgive the world, for not being perfect. As I
sit there in the glory of nature, where the death of the seed creates the
flower, where dry brittle stems co-exist between young spring green. Can I
forgive?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Can I forgive people in my life for hurting
me, for not being who I want them to be, for not being perfect? Can I...?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And as the sea breaks softly on the shore,
breaking down hard rocks into sand, I feel myself slowly softening. Can I
forgive people for being human?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yes, of course I can! I feel an expanse in
my chest, my heart is wonderfully dipped into deep peace as forgiveness floods
through images of myself, and my stories of past pains dissolve into stories of
humans doing their bestest and managed to wholly mess up. The facts of the past
remain the same, but my perspective of them is suddenly very different. I
realise that no-one wanted to cause me pain. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I sit there on the coastal path, and feel
connected, feel expanded, feel more like I feel I am.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But still I am not done...I feel it in my bones...there
is something more here...I look at my Camper shoes. And stay still, allowing
the question to arise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPE16oJmw4YdyLNWR-EBQsw_1-l3_mUoEU2JySj_n2P_9HLP7xLs76hCxqIH-FkrwXUYKZKTKdn3ft791Sa7BSDD16ez_F9iHhHijWtK0D7qzUP1BBGsP8b3ZTmESPvWtDoiZt4sO2uv8x/s1600/forgiveness+by+the+sea.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPE16oJmw4YdyLNWR-EBQsw_1-l3_mUoEU2JySj_n2P_9HLP7xLs76hCxqIH-FkrwXUYKZKTKdn3ft791Sa7BSDD16ez_F9iHhHijWtK0D7qzUP1BBGsP8b3ZTmESPvWtDoiZt4sO2uv8x/s1600/forgiveness+by+the+sea.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Add caption</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I breathe in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What is it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I breathe out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Slowly I start see my stories from the
other’s point of view. I see my own actions not from my own story board, but
from a higher place. I see that I have not been so absolutely perfect. It is
shocking. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The questions come up fast and furiously
calmly: Can I let go of my story that makes me ‘right’? Can I allow myself to
be honest with myself? Can I forgive myself?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Uf. I dont’ know what you are talking
about. What? I start to get tired of this internal conversation and feel an
itch on my body. My leg hurts. I notice I am now sitting quite uncomfortably by
a beautiful sea. Ohh what is going on over there? I peer into the distance as
my left hand tries to remove a stone from under my buttocks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-2RHVgcJuXK8g8XZpI59ymYxWcwn2Op4tgkwgFUhFAGKyxCegAcF-87LfuAUnu-6LjHvcswC7v-8w8f97HOijFSfW8EoqhNU6YdDwlJfgnU7wB7RiHSJAJaPeQH6AXViTDNBGojE6hII/s1600/what+is+that+boat+doing.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The actual boat at the actual time (which is sort of evidence that I did actually take a photo...again, my story not quite in line with reality).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Peering at that little boat on the horizon
ideas continue to come into me. I realise that I straight-jacket myself into
trying to be so f%*king perfect. And when I’m not I come down like ton of
bricks on my own head. I push people away. I don’t like it: it is not my dream;
it is not perfect; it is not what I have imagined. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But can I forgive myself? I continue,
pressing myself for an answer. Can I forgive myself for not being perfect every
minute of every day...?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I want to float off, and pretend that I
want only to look at the white clouds in the ohh so blue sky. I wonder about
taking a photo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But I don’t. I continue with task. I realise
that if I can forgive others for absolutely messing up so much so they get a Scout’s
badge for being so terribly imperfect, then, well, actually, yes, I can forgive
myself too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">If I can forgive others for just being
imperfectly human, I can forgive myself for being an imperfect human?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yes. I say suddenly letting all this weight
of heavy stories float off my shoulders. Yes I can, and, Yes I do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Feeling almost weightless, apart from a
slightly numb bottom, I float in a cloud of love and feel really, really good.
Feeling just how I want to feel normally. Thinking ‘this is real’, this is
being alive, this is being true. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Nothing is perfect, not me, not them, not
this world. It is, just, as it is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And in this wonder of experiencing deep
forgiveness, I brush off the little stones and branches from my grateful
bottom, and continue walking in my naturally disparate leather shoes barely discernible
within the picture of the whole. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]--><br />
<br /></div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-82497081579123040372014-03-04T16:25:00.002+02:002014-03-05T13:43:42.476+02:00Being together<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMKGgEfX5Cfgk_3FWfOJqziK6WnvfqnLEyZWoNxNK3eTGrLPb1MetbZA25afQHvd6Lzbb9lgTOjFyW0hs8xII5W2gi18yE4R2c4Hrx2EunR_lGZv_3Ym6kHkoM-buAXhX2UkS88Mv19MF/s1600/parsival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMKGgEfX5Cfgk_3FWfOJqziK6WnvfqnLEyZWoNxNK3eTGrLPb1MetbZA25afQHvd6Lzbb9lgTOjFyW0hs8xII5W2gi18yE4R2c4Hrx2EunR_lGZv_3Ym6kHkoM-buAXhX2UkS88Mv19MF/s1600/parsival.jpg" height="291" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Morris, Vision of the Holy Grail, 1890</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">In Barcelona we studied Wolfram's 'Parsifal', the
oldest book in the Western culture. Perhaps the first book ever to be written.
Eduard, our kind, deep, speaker, showed us through the myth, and being a doctor
brought it down to a cellular level. Fascinating. One such delight was him
explaining how the innocent fool (Parsifal) enters into the Magic Castle of the
Fisher King that arises out of the middle of the mist in his search for the Holy Grail. He explained how a cell protects
itself from invasion by setting up a bouncer-like immune defense, hence the
invading cell cannot jump over the moat of the castle, nor ram through the jammed-shut big wooden doors. However a cell does allow fusion with another
cell when the cell appears to be exactly the same. Out comes the red carpet.
Wow! </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Mind blowing! The power of the innocent: of
being nothing more and nothing less, of being just exactly the same allows
entry to that healing place, to sup of deep connections, of deep love, and
really what else are we really looking for? We are nothing without our connections
to others. We are nothing without being able to connect to something bigger
than us.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">We are allowed entry when become unthreatening, when we
are simply the same.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">-</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">If I were to think that I was to live in a
foreign country, even a place like Nepal where I’ve already been, I would still feel nervous and worried. But I wouldn’t be surprised to
feel knots in my stomach. I would expect to feel different in my western
clothes, I would expect not to understand with my different language, I would
expect my body to react in rather unpleasant ways to the incomparable food and
hygiene levels. And I would consider this all part of travelling.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">But not in England. ‘England,’ is the
response I give to ‘Where are you from?’ England is the place where I took my
first lung full of air. England is where I was brought up on baked beans and
jacket potatoes with cheddar cheese. England is where no one takes the piss out
of my accent.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5Y4Q7Emk9eFdlHhGeTjlXyGG-1AWdog5ub-eSx5lF48_Qc7aP9MkP6prDQx7u6cugFPOZFz3SFz7f1Sz7Zb7UhAx1G4JM32EMJpFCImAO4kYvxHnbsyA5cQDcJ3YetcW17MQc-CW-1LQ/s1600/baked+potato.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5Y4Q7Emk9eFdlHhGeTjlXyGG-1AWdog5ub-eSx5lF48_Qc7aP9MkP6prDQx7u6cugFPOZFz3SFz7f1Sz7Zb7UhAx1G4JM32EMJpFCImAO4kYvxHnbsyA5cQDcJ3YetcW17MQc-CW-1LQ/s1600/baked+potato.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At England's finest</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">But when from the age of 21 you’ve only clocked four years in
the country, with the other fourteen years being in
countries recovering from dysentery, or selling chickens in the street,
learning how to communicate in different languages, or learning new value
systems, England is suddenly as foreign a Timbuktu. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I am still struggling to turn on the
television. In my own mother’s kitchen I can’t work out where she puts her
stuff, how to use the potato peeler or where the recycling should go, my piano has gone, and I have no idea
what people are talking about when it comes to culture, TV, bake-offs, and
other such stuff that without knowing has become a national secret code. If you
don’t know who Gary Barlow is (not to be confused with Ken) you will be laughed
at, stared at in amazement and asked ‘Where the blummin’ ‘ell ‘ave you bin?’ To
which I have learnt to be quiet.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Quite frankly. I am out of it. I am wearing
the same clothes, I am speaking the same language, the food warms my innerds
with childhood memories, and yet, I just cannot get 'in'.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">And so faced with tremendous nothingness
month after month I found myself dribbling on the dirty floor of my psyche
rolling around in moderate to severe depression. I was drowning in feelings of
being pathetic, unworthy, despicable. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Plunge. Into the dark.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">It was while I was slobbering into my
isolation that my good friend Rafa shouted down the ravine ‘Julia! Julia! Get
up off the floor! Get up, stand up!’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">He told me that it was horrible to see a
friend wither away. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">He told me he knew he could do nothing. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">He told me to stand up. On my own.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I told him I couldn’t. I had no friends. I
had no resources. No car, stuck in a village. No nothing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">He said ‘Excuses! Get up!’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">It was such a harsh message, with an
undercurrent of deep love that - I <i>heard</i> - I heard it in my heart - and from
behind the waterfall of snot and tears, I managed to shakily stand and take a
few gingerly steps back up into the world.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I thought about how I would have reacted if
he had told me what to do, if he had given me direct instructions, or if he had
simply gone ahead and done it for me. I would have wondered ‘Is this right for
me? Is he seeing me and my situation properly? Is he projecting his situation
onto mine and trying to heal himself vicariously? Is he trying to manipulate
me, consciously or unconsciously, for his own ends? Where is his motivation
coming from? Can I trust him? Can I trust these actions that I am taking
because of him?’ etc etc etc Is he being guileless?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">The thing is, him just being there in Spain,
saying ‘I’m here,’ was enough for me to feel him. Any more would have
jeopardized the whole thing. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">And so, feeling his innocent support, I went to a
psychologist for help, and she invited me to a <a href="http://pessoboydenuk.org/" target="_blank">Pesso Boyden</a> workshop the next
Saturday. It is a marvellous technique which, to my eyes, was like family
constellations except more directed, deeper, more healing. I felt it was more
contained. I shan’t go into more details, else I’ll be off through other fields
and valleys, but part of the workshop was to stand in on the others</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">’</span></span> ‘structures’
as their significant others.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I found myself being a woman’s mother. She
was in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">desperate</i> need of being
accepted, of being unconditionally loved. And so I set to task. I sat behind
her, along with ‘her father’ with our hands on her shoulders and I channelled
love, feeling it, really going for it, pouring it into my hands to enter into
her body. But she wouldn’t take it. It was like pouring my all into a black hole,
nothing coming out. It was swallowed whole, without a chance to shine even a
little bit. I kept trying, I keep <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i>
trying, until I started to feel frustration and the welling of anger.
All she had to do was accept and she wasn’t. She was consuming and destroying.
Resentment. It slowly dawned on me that me sitting behind her in her healing
session with my hand on her shoulder sending frustration, anger and resentment
was not exactly textbook. So I gave up. I just sat there. I thought it was
better than anything negative. Her shoulders suddenly relaxed. Her muscles
allowed entry, her psyche opened just a little to allow in a shaft of light. I
didn’t do anything, because I’d got myself into this new posture, of just being.
I just was. I didn’t try and force love onto her, I didn’t force her to accept
my offering. I just sat there. I was just was. I am be me. I mean it is difficult
to put into words, because it is so simple. I was just present without forcing
me or anyone else into what I thought should happen. I just was there. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">And I learnt for the first time to be in this powerful place: healing
power.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">-</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Being in the north of England, back to
my roots, I have had the pleasure of reconnecting with Brass Bands. If you don’t
love brass bands, then it’s a sure bet you’ll dislike them, scoff and jeer. But
if you love them, you’re in the secret society of loving something that is
heritage, that is part of our northern English blood, that has been with us
since we were all in villages and down the pits, in the mills and building
canals. This is flat cap and steak and kidney pie. This is authentic. Brass
bands are like folk music compared to Opera. Opera is fine. It
is beauty close to the sterility of perfection descended from heaven. Folk
music is the gut of music that has come up from the ground, fertile in its
natural knobbiness, along with the potatoes that kept us alive through the
winter. Like Tim Blanning quotes in ‘The Romantic Revolution’ (p122) ‘It was the
innermost emotions of the folk that created folk songs and so the folk sees
them as its children and loves them with its whole heart’.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-W-FBHkH3XCM8c_4cuN4wfglQfBoFclqyaepG2l_N4OUrYotE4cZ8OScVdUyDyHO4x0hWWQpF8LgZJQK7a6wyJ5hbHok9x_HTG8Vb8zpCJGjY7fogis7gHKXxjVj7-d968dNKzJjRuds/s1600/strike+up+the+band.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-W-FBHkH3XCM8c_4cuN4wfglQfBoFclqyaepG2l_N4OUrYotE4cZ8OScVdUyDyHO4x0hWWQpF8LgZJQK7a6wyJ5hbHok9x_HTG8Vb8zpCJGjY7fogis7gHKXxjVj7-d968dNKzJjRuds/s1600/strike+up+the+band.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First row second to the left: that blob over a Tuba is my head.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">So there I am, suddenly playing music again
with people I had played with when I was a teenager in the National Champion (...pause
for surprised admiration...) Stockport Schools’ Brass band. People keep asking
me ‘Is it Julia or Julie?’ until I get confused myself. We’re practising for a
contest. It is starting to get hairy. We are down to last minute detail and
three rehearsals a week. We’re off to Blackpool ready to put ablaze the Winter
Gardens this Sunday. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I really want to give it my best, for the
sake of Marple. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">So I do.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">But last night, after a rather disastrous practise
concert on Saturday night in Crewe, we were all very sensitive, open to change,
because we know we have to. We didn’t show hardly any difference between ff
(double forte) and f (forte) nor mf (mezzo forte)...nor did we have a range of pianos
(quiets). We are just blasting it out; all of the time. This is not colouring; this
is that grey brown muck you get from muddling colours. So, I decide I am going
to soften all of my dynamics (which to be fair I think the other members of the
band do too...all of us a bit afraid to play out, to become exposed). I stop
putting so much into it, I stop blowing so hard, I just ‘play along’ with the
others. I stop trying so hard. I can barely hear myself for I’m merging in with
the others’ sound. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what you need in a cornet
section, and in the band in general: one sound. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I realised I’d been trying too hard. We all
had. We now have the notes down pat. We know the piece. Now it is time to allow
it to breathe, rather than the asthma attack we were giving it before. And suddenly
the band, for my ears at least, had a step change. The music became subtle. Parts came out and flew above in wonderful somersaults chirping spring without being
stepped on by the heavy giant feet of us blasting out our parts. Music began to
happen. We played as one.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">-</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I don’t know if I’m getting my point across?
I have had so many conversations with people, who deep down are afraid of being
mediocre. I strive. I strive to stand out, to be something. I want to be noticed.
I don’t want to just merge in. I want to have an active role, so that I have a
chance to stand on the pedestal and receive the jubilee cup prize amid crowds
of applause. Of course in my speech I don’t talk about how brilliant I am and
have been, just how it was thanks to the effort of the team - and that makes me
all the more brilliant. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Ego bullshit dreams.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Is a better perspective that our power is in simply knowing who we are and being it, unashamedly,
quietly, gently, kindly, boringly even, without forcing ourselves to be anything else? Is not our part
in humanity to sing our song in delicate harmony with the others so that we
merge into the symphony (‘syn’ together ‘phone’ voice)? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">In this
communion of simple silent being is the role of the innocent, guileless fool, characterised by
Parzival, where we are at our most potent?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwNOfeN1z5DnKfh5cSAIkUzwkQ5yEU20tHO-dBRIMrXtDMAT8LluzL5KVfFqxRGwikMM_Hz9ac-PMWZhLECy7fOrcrvoqKo4R3zGc4VKSQbVri_qzo8e2Hd1OLd33a3UTUZEAFr13R0Hp/s1600/guileless+fool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwNOfeN1z5DnKfh5cSAIkUzwkQ5yEU20tHO-dBRIMrXtDMAT8LluzL5KVfFqxRGwikMM_Hz9ac-PMWZhLECy7fOrcrvoqKo4R3zGc4VKSQbVri_qzo8e2Hd1OLd33a3UTUZEAFr13R0Hp/s1600/guileless+fool.jpg" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">....and will it work in England?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-20030753189488886382013-12-21T17:22:00.001+02:002013-12-21T17:45:41.982+02:00The Secrets of Santa Claus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">On 21 Dec
2013 at 5.11pm we celebrate the winter solstice. It is our darkest night, the night when Father
Christmas originally came down the dirty chimney. We could say the story
represents an experience that comes down through the spinal cord, through our
head, heart and body. It comes down from the world of ideas and lands, stumbling in the dark all ruffled and
rumpled, into this present reality. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If we have
been good through the experience, we are given gifts, and if we have not: coal. Coal is the unworked philosopher's stone.
My mates in Catalunya, Spain, have the added twist of the danger of receiving a plastic
representation of, erm, merda.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nc7AYXfZY3HU8oJMHPoD9-9eE6S5ptSvIVC3hNYIklMxn0EAByGnCl9AhDx-6BQwmekmUwVuByDH1CdaLpYN44_67gqeJ-Y1FG3UeGZ21QeQIJJbGy6YfR4-s4oSxxsLyO5oHEP5MHQt/s1600/cagatio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nc7AYXfZY3HU8oJMHPoD9-9eE6S5ptSvIVC3hNYIklMxn0EAByGnCl9AhDx-6BQwmekmUwVuByDH1CdaLpYN44_67gqeJ-Y1FG3UeGZ21QeQIJJbGy6YfR4-s4oSxxsLyO5oHEP5MHQt/s320/cagatio.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption">The Caganer in Barcelona this year. They also have Cagatios (logs that children bash the shit out of, which is where their presents come from) but often in the ferias (Christmas fairs) you can just buy the plastic excrement for the children's stocking.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
experience of being ruffled up happens to all of us. Life has its ups and
downs. The question is - Were we able to keep equanimity during the storms?
While going through a torment in Vipassana I wrote:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Even in its
strength</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The lighthouse</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cannot control
the waves.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
lighthouse doesn’t freak out. It stays there, quietly, calmly, persistently,
accepting the waves, knowing that nothing is forever. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">While we have been living life, the question
Santa wants to know is, ‘have we been good?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Did we freak
out when someone messed us about? Did we collapse in tears because we were
premenstrual? Did we rise into road rage at the knob-head who cut in front of
us?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Or,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Did we listen
and try to understand? Did we…erm…<u>fill in gap</u>…instead of collapsing into
hormonal imbalanced tears? (A sooty hazy point for me…advice would be appreciated)
Were we driving calmly enough to see the crazy driver and gracefully give him
the space he and we needed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In our
experiences if we did ‘good’ we get gifts. Not presents, but gifts.<i><b> </b>Instantly.</i> They
are created by Santa’s helpers, good-hearted spirits, dressed like the original
Father Christmas in green, who from their workshops in the trees
represent the help of Nature. There are a myriad of gifts we can receive, such as compassion and understanding of others, the ability to see things from increasingly different angles, </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">strengthened
patience,</span> or even
the gift of feeling good about staying calm and being able to do dude-style
surfing on hormonal waves. The list of life enriching gifts goes on and on…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And if we didn’t
manage, then we tend to feel a bit of a merda, sat moodily in the coal shed of
life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Through the
dark times when we manage to keep it together, we are able to unwrap, to
uncover, our gifts, dis-covering that we actually always had them in our
nature. By having used the gifts of patience, for example, we realise we have
patience. Lao-Tzu said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Treat those who are good with
goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is
attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not
honest. Thus honesty is attained. </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With these
gifts recognised, uncovered by ourselves within, the very same gifts enable us to
climb a little higher in the tree of life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAi4rgDJPTZUZGhjjEG5NBO_rxR6ih5VRyWyxPzre9oPjlft3pz3FvfbSa4RsQdHjysbkhC1_LP5-_QisvWQbnQt6QaLS8V11llJ3Yrr5k3QubA5t3xJYUT2XRkNO5a0Oin9ENloeW5cYD/s1600/christmas+tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAi4rgDJPTZUZGhjjEG5NBO_rxR6ih5VRyWyxPzre9oPjlft3pz3FvfbSa4RsQdHjysbkhC1_LP5-_QisvWQbnQt6QaLS8V11llJ3Yrr5k3QubA5t3xJYUT2XRkNO5a0Oin9ENloeW5cYD/s320/christmas+tree.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Along with the
fairy lights our sparks shine out fueled by moments of being good to ourselves and
others, the satisfaction of dealing well in a difficult situation, being aware
enough to stay open and loving even when all seems so dark around us, etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As we go
around life, with each new experience, down the chimney and up the tree, we are
given the opportunity to learn to use our gifts with ever more loving kindness.
As we strengthen in these roots, we ascend the tree of Life. The sparks of
consciousness connect more and more lighting up our path until it is so bright
we are nothing but a star! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1ZieAcR2fQR-9CeIrFYoGnHyE7VaqNgY7s33gFUkTOvgrYk86oNTbWYtcRte8FQy1wDv7lkMQvsUNn6j5ggvzjYKwSW-yIwYHK-E-cS4k331b2ZIHTbIy6ACLyppRn9J-NWXS64KLu8r/s1600/the+star.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1ZieAcR2fQR-9CeIrFYoGnHyE7VaqNgY7s33gFUkTOvgrYk86oNTbWYtcRte8FQy1wDv7lkMQvsUNn6j5ggvzjYKwSW-yIwYHK-E-cS4k331b2ZIHTbIy6ACLyppRn9J-NWXS64KLu8r/s400/the+star.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The star at the top of the Christmas tree is our
higher selves connecting to a consciousness that is greater than our individual
selves - which is where Father Christmas, in all his generous nature, flew down
from.</span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-9356870264229533092013-11-28T18:08:00.001+02:002013-11-30T14:49:37.728+02:00What will you allow into your mind?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I lived in Argentina we would watch the news daily. It
was in 2001, the height of the Cavallo financial crisis. The news got personal.
It wasn’t that a politician had been found to be corrupt, a law change or lacy knickers found in the wrong place, it was much more personal. They didn’t say ‘Julia you will not be
able to get your money out of the bank tomorrow there is a freeze’ or ‘Julia’s
bus was held-up today with men with guns who went round person by person taking
their wallets’ or ‘A lady in Julia’s village, Maipu, was killed today by
children because she would not give them sweets.’ They didn’t use my name, but
they could have. We were all watching, eyes glazed with fear, about what they
would say about our worlds, about our lives.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That was how we began to walk with hunched backs, constantly
looking over our shoulders. I didn’t like to stop at
red lights in my little blue Fiat 500 when other cars weren’t around: it was just dangerous. My boss’s son
had been shot like that, and it was only the fact he jammed on the gas knocking the barrel of the gun from his temples to his leg that he wasn't killed. Our very own road-side chicken stall, Angelitos
Parripollos, was held up twice, while we, the proud owners were on holiday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first time Pollo, my cunado, in shock,
just handed over all our hard earned cash, the second time, feeling indignant,
he didn’t and el suegro (the father) got shot in a lung and my brother-in-law
in the leg. By sheer miracle the suegro’s workplace, a bodega that he had been working for for 40 years, had paid his social security
that month (they hadn’t paid any wages for about 5 months) and he was able to be admitted into
a hospital. If not?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was life. It was scary. It was impossible not to be aware
of what was going on, you could feel it. Watching the news only made it worse: I started to become paralyzed and in that shut down state couldn’t bear the
thought of leaving my own house.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I made a decision to stop watching the news, and if it
happened it happened. But when it didn’t happen (which in my case was never): it
didn’t happen. I decided I could NOT stop using the bus to get into Mendoza
just out of fear. We had to continue to live, to work, to meet friends. I mean,
if it’s going to happen then it’s going to happen, independently to if you have
read the news or not. But while the horrible, terrifying things weren’t going
on, why live in terror as if it were?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had a similar experience in Nepal in 2004. There was a
Maoist uprising, and often we couldn’t teach in the orphanage’s school. We were forced to ‘strike’. If they found you teaching they would burn down the school. We all
heard, as the news spread from village to village, that there were riots outside
the University. This went on for months. Meanwhile we had to continue to live, to eat, to
play, to teach the children how to draw.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One day I had to go into Katmandu. I wanted to buy games for
the children, I was starting up play time, something the orphans had never
heard of. Trundling back to the bus, I took the direct route back by the
University. And as per the grapevine, there were students out there burning tires
and making black smoke, and police men at the end of the road trying to look
important, but actually looking a bit bored, while students in the university
threw toilet paper out of the window making waterfalls of white paper stream through
the black smoke. They had also thrown nails down on the road so that cars would not
be able to circulate. To me it all seemed rather pathetic to be honest, a sort
of crazy bonfire night, though it was a street I really wouldn’t want to walk down.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I got home to the village and visited my friend who happened
to have the television on. I saw footage of the riots in Katmandu, they had capture that fear of being too close to death and my mind
said ‘Ohh I wouldn’t want to be there, that looks so dangerous!!’ until with a
jolt I realised that I HAD been there, only an hour before, and that it was
nothing like they were reporting. It wasn’t safe as houses, but it wasn’t the
war zone they were capturing. I wondered what angle they had used. How they had
managed to ramp it up so much?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I realised that the media’s direct effect on me caused either
unnecessary fear, or escalated my fears into immobility. It seems to me that the real
danger of fear exists more than in the mind. I mean, last
year many, many tourists (millions) didn’t come to Greece because the media
showed it to be so dangerous. I walked through Sygmata Square in Athens and
thought it was exciting. It was just like the week before when I had passed through La Plaza Catalunya, in
Barcelona: tents, and camp stoves
and hippies all smoking joints and lots and lots of people getting excited,
thinking they were making history. Knowing they were making news. And then
once in a while some uncover cop would come along, be violent and create a
problem to stir everything up, so the media could put the wrong slant on it all.
Again.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It started to get really ridiculous thinking about the ‘danger’
reported in the news while swimming in the beautiful clear azure seas, still
and peaceful, and wandering back to my little sweet house in the lazy sun, past
Micro Café to say hi to friends who were contentedly having a little drink as
the news continued to say how dangerous Greece was, even away from that
one square in Athens. The worst that could have happened is that you could trip over a
bougainvillea bush.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ohh the news! The news! Telling me how to look at the world
around me! Why listen? I don't need messages that say I am impotent
to change the world, even my own world. I don't need messages based on fear,
impossible situations and no solutions warping my views of myself and the world into weakness and uselessness.
I refuse.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why allow ourselves to be disconnected from the peacefulness of natural reality, making us forget
the quantity of love that flows through the world and of communities all over the planet making a difference. I will not allow the news to make me think that I am
not powerful within myself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
But when my own mind does it to me, for some absurd reason,
I believe every word.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA6PHEefBSqehTPWWoqTTNMuDc2kNUxZnMXiEPqOQQRxZmaCeAhWc_xxuUu1OTBU70SIGQ31eOGt7tUjOyuBg9NnV-OAH0Vo0K7K7eK3WA2UQfhdhJfjEfhmaJ-O9bWmdeuXqYdO794KhD/s1600/scan0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="545" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA6PHEefBSqehTPWWoqTTNMuDc2kNUxZnMXiEPqOQQRxZmaCeAhWc_xxuUu1OTBU70SIGQ31eOGt7tUjOyuBg9NnV-OAH0Vo0K7K7eK3WA2UQfhdhJfjEfhmaJ-O9bWmdeuXqYdO794KhD/s640/scan0001.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and my mind. Not listening any longer!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
PS A lot of people responded to this post in private messages as if I were going through a 'dark night' but the idea came to me while on a 10-day Vipassana...it is an idea of liberation! A way out of the monkey mind. I know I have one, and I'm pretty sure everyone else who hasn't worked extensively on their inner mind does too. Opera's such as Wagner's Parzival and Verdi's Magic Flute attest to the feminine character sleeping or under the harsh rule of a cruel tyrant (ego impurities of the mind), Sleeping Beauty awakens from her curse, Snow White gets out of the woods (the unconscious) with the help of her 7 little worker dwarfs, Psyche on her journey separates the grain from the chaff with the help of ants...<br />
<br />
I feel as if facing the monkey mind as a monkey mind is an awakening, knowing that the mind sends these messages and being able to stand firm enough to be able to see them for what they are: propaganda not based on reality. It is liberating (to me at least) to think we can begin to recognise what is and what is not real.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-84922977739616899792013-11-04T16:47:00.000+02:002016-11-13T21:15:49.407+02:00Being Oneself in a Relationship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We met while I was having an English cuppa in front of
my Greek white-washed flat on a tiny cobbled street too narrow
almost for bicycles. Bourganvilla pink and purples brushed against the white
walls that wedged my house besides a little orthodox chapel where I was sat
under the orange tree. He was a tourist, and I was not into having relationships.
End of story. I was out of the market. The last one had burnt me so deeply that
I had decided that I could not be me AND be in a relationship: I needed space
and time to develop myself, and stop being so utterly and completely lost.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Later by email (yes I admit we swapped contact details) he
invited me for a drink which seemed safe enough because I thought he was gay. He
also seemed to be one of those interesting people who you wouldn’t want to
miss, especially when living in a small society where the social offer is not
exactly continually dazzling. This guy seemed to have intricate ideas and an
open mind, and mentioned being a dancer, but even so last minute I tried to get
out of it, but my mobile wouldn’t send a text to his American cell phone. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He clinched it later though, after the drink when we
wandered up to the church on the top of Paroikia. Overlooking the expansive
Aegean horizon of the dark, moonlit sea, and I found myself in his arms, being
twirled through the air, and all I could see was a palm tree coming in and out
of my vision as I circled, flying almost weightlessly in the air. If a man can
lift this sturdy lass, he’s worth looking into. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2sZlW6pKdHUMZ24ogPhU_KfGNnyfJYATJmKF1u4xycIv3BuaPyb2TI06rM_c5d9wtHVV3Ewu_e1Xi3sUImmpl5tMuTbNVqpRjOag3SSCIfWJnVAplmQZU8e6C1PEf5fJ2Nve5_1Oz9rQ/s1600/where+we+danced.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2sZlW6pKdHUMZ24ogPhU_KfGNnyfJYATJmKF1u4xycIv3BuaPyb2TI06rM_c5d9wtHVV3Ewu_e1Xi3sUImmpl5tMuTbNVqpRjOag3SSCIfWJnVAplmQZU8e6C1PEf5fJ2Nve5_1Oz9rQ/s320/where+we+danced.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Church where we danced that night.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the following days we went swimming in the sea with a
full moon lighting our return along the cliffs, had a secret breakfast where
all my friends spotted me, and walked hand in hand down the little Greek
streets, laughing because once again he had thrown me over his back as if it
were completely normal and nothing had happened at all. The big turn on was
discovering he was actually as intelligent as he seemed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so those three heady days spent together turned into a
risk: after a month of email addiction we wondered about a three month ticket
for me to go stay with him. I looked at the photos of his picturesque house in
the first range of the Rocky Mountains, a cycle ride from Boulder, Colorado,
and did a ping pong game of yes-no for about two weeks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It turned out to be a good bet: I learnt ‘merican words and
ways, we fell in love more, got on well, argued well together. During the end
of my stay his work asked him to go to a world-wide conference. It is held at a
different location around the world, and this time was in Nottingham, an hour
and a half from my family home, a week after I returned. Surely this was meant
to be? We both saw it written in the stars in <b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arial Black font</span></b>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But no. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like attracts like. He also seems to think he cannot be in a
relationship and be himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hmmm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, instead of going for the dramatic surges of hormonal
addiction to inboxes, we decided to be strong and separate: to walk our own
paths. Sensible perhaps. We both sighed with relief, it had all been starting
to get quite intense. It was beginning to be real.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so I sit, hours and hours in the <a href="http://www.dhamma.org/" target="_blank">Vipassana center</a> as a long term server and ponder all this, when I
should in fact be not pondering or thinking at all but just quietly,
equanimously, observing sensations arising and passing away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Out of the meditation sessions, as a dhamma worker we can
talk (imagine the disasters in the kitchen if not) and so as a children’s
course ended I chatted with a woman who told me ‘It’s all about loving yourself.’
She said ‘Go travel alone, live alone, find a friend in yourself.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hmmm. Have done. Didn’t make the grade. I mean how much
travelling alone must one do?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She says ‘Ohh but did you do it from love of self, or from lack?
Running towards or running away?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hmmmm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thoughts flash of travelling alone and yearning for contact,
for an arm to stroke, to feel someone’s hands on my lower back walking down a
street.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘Maybe you need to learn to live alone?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think of the isolation in the other house I lived in on
the Greek hillside, hours playing the trumpet, painting, meditating, and doing all
sorts of stuff that I like, thinking how much better it would be with someone
else. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She suggests baths, with Chardonnay and candles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, that would be nice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But still it doesn’t get down to the bottom of it for me.
Everyone has their own root causes, and sitting so many hours with myself, in
that hall, is still not bringing out the love. Everything but. I’m finding that
I am addicted to yearning for a man. I find I yearn for him more when I feel
insecure. So I’m yearning for security. I yearn for him when I am tired. So I’m
yearning energy. I yearn for him to tell me that I am funny, and bright and
that I am worth keeping alive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s not really a positive point of view.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘Uff,’ I say ‘why is it so difficult?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We look into each other’s eyes, sensing we have gone through
the same: beating up on ourselves for no apparent reason.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘I would never to talk to a friend like I talked to myself,’
she admits.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘I know,’ I collude. I’ve thought that many times before.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘But now, I’m pleased to say, I hardly beat myself up at all.
I am loving to myself, I am soft, and as I become softer, the outer world does
too.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I realise in that wide, deep, chasm of comparison, that I
have barriers to that inner calm, to that inner peace, where the mind is at
rest. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘I think I’m addicted to yearning for men,’ I admit for the
first time out loud, as much to myself as to her. I shrink back wondering how
she will react.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘Who isn’t?’ </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I feel the relief flood through my pores.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Over these meditation days I have realised that I’m addicted
to the fantasy of relationships, to craving for a man, as if ‘the one’ were the
key to my everlasting fairytale happiness, where no longer will I need to sit
through the agony of facing myself and my shadow: a magic cure for all. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I mean actually when you think about it, it is so
embarrassing infantile, that you would only really want to admit it to a
stranger at the bus stop.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘You can spend half a meditation session dreaming about a
man,’ she says. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I look at her alarmed, only thirty minutes? She senses it
and amends, ‘I guess we can spend half our lives wasting away with all that
craving.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so, the wonderful woman with the calm, deep still eyes,
continues. ‘When you can love yourself, you begin to really get to know
yourself, who you are, what you are, and only then can you set healthy limits.’
She pauses as if laughing inside to herself ‘I thought that I couldn’t be
myself, and, be in a committed relationship at the same time. I travelled the
world alone, I wrote a book, I did research in the United States alone…’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I look at her, wondering if she is going to add anything
new. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With a blast to my innerds she says, ‘That idea of not being
able to be in a relationship and be yourself, I realised, was just more bashing
up on myself, more self abuse.’ </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Wow, what a turnaround!…Maybe it’s not always such a brave
thing to march on alone with the banner of ‘self searcher’. Could it be just be another
subtle way in which we can abuse ourselves, telling ourselves that we can’t be
in a nourishing relationship? Perhaps being nourished in a relationship is
actually what we need to allow ourselves? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘Because, actually,’ she continues ‘if you love yourself you
can, you really can, maintain that relationship with yourself, while setting
healthy limits and creating space for your own growth while in a relationship with
someone else too.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I checked. This seemed too good to be true, ‘Are you in a
relationship now?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘I’m going into the beginning of a relationship.’ </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nice.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">‘But of course setting boundaries might sometimes mean
leaving a relationship with another if it is not as nourishing as being by
yourself.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I nod, suddenly eager to move onwards into the bubble bath,
not alone but by myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV4rLBPDEkaiBGqlNX67iy5-cOXhSZDM7_16QCF8G1eO7nEHcAFuQL5LX9bxAjuIhanCSN36JTrZmMle14M3um05q53rmyvjs7zoHk8eb0kDfsOXvhJmLLakxzAUodJuhzaZUwBM2iTKhB/s1600/bubble-bathvintage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV4rLBPDEkaiBGqlNX67iy5-cOXhSZDM7_16QCF8G1eO7nEHcAFuQL5LX9bxAjuIhanCSN36JTrZmMle14M3um05q53rmyvjs7zoHk8eb0kDfsOXvhJmLLakxzAUodJuhzaZUwBM2iTKhB/s320/bubble-bathvintage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Post Script</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So of course I didn’t go into a bubble bath, there are no
baths in a meditation center, instead I went into a ten-day silent course. In between
one of the breaks I walked into the fields and stood there, it had gone dark
and the stars were shining in that way where you wonder how so many fit in and
yet still maintain the deep dark velvet space around them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was alone. And I
found myself wanting to get to the end the course so that I could tell someone
what I had done so they could say ‘Well done! I’m so proud of you!’ when I
realised there is no-one waiting for me at the finishing line. It was then that
I realised that actually here, deep inside this meditative place, I could say
it to myself.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>‘I’m proud of you,’ I
said to myself, and suddenly I realised that actually I really am. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It is not easy to do ten and a half hours of meditation each
day, going into the depths, facing myself and I do it patiently and persistently,
without complaining, waking up everyday at 4.15am even though I really don’t
want to. I put in all my efforts, even when I’m exhausted. I keep chipping away
into deeper concentration, observing, feeling sensations. It is not easy and
yet I do it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I really am proud of myself. Really. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And suddenly I don’t need anyone to tell it to me.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-25676220774644354112013-08-20T02:32:00.000+03:002013-08-20T20:54:33.362+03:00A Thorny Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz32gDTsTllt-B7BM44cIOqb5I91jNnu8iOb9ww983e1alIAb-4FHzYFaGUS_YP1ahoJRDmL9MjND5Zrz957b7M-VK3BYdokLN5YZYYd02AMdZEgpJ7SHcgbhomPr5u7A4imV2Cq3tH2r3/s1600/gossip+girls.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz32gDTsTllt-B7BM44cIOqb5I91jNnu8iOb9ww983e1alIAb-4FHzYFaGUS_YP1ahoJRDmL9MjND5Zrz957b7M-VK3BYdokLN5YZYYd02AMdZEgpJ7SHcgbhomPr5u7A4imV2Cq3tH2r3/s1600/gossip+girls.png" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm feeling a little tipsy, for I have been for a drink with a girl friend. It is
great to able to be wonderfully honest. You know those moments when you are able
to just admit to being human? Able to take off the cloak of wondering if you
are good enough, if you will be accepted, and simply say ‘This is how I feel:
what’ya think?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So this was one of the (many) issues:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have discovered recently that I do not express my needs,
and therefore they are not met. Let me be totally candid about it: it is not
his fault. It is the other person’s fault in the relationship, who would be,
actually, and quite exactly, me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“But…..” I say extending the u of my northern accent and
stretching my neck to look into the skies, while multitasking with a deep breath to be
able to say many words in a torrent, “if you tell a man to buy you a box of
chocolates and he does, is it the same?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The issue has actually come up from my friend’s story, about
her life. That’s the beauty of these girl chats, you can never really tell who
you are talking about…so I launch into advice mustering up my bestest
woman-of-the-world wisdom wondering if I’m talking to my friend or myself, or
both?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“My mum and I have this silly tendency to hide within our
psychic shells. Then if a man comes along and ‘finds’ us, then we have ‘proof’
of his love.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Ohh I think lots of women do that, don’t they?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Yes, but we aren’t 7 years old any longer. Hide and seek
went out long ago as a regular pastime for me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“So you think we have to tell of our needs?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Well…” I say breathing in deeply again with the sheer joy of
communicating “I’ll use an example, because you’ll be able to see that I’m talking
parallel - being a woman.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We laugh voraciously with the idea that we can talk in
many-tongued similes and chat about several things at once, without having to
actually ever finish anything we are saying. But this time we don’t go off on a
tangent. What we both know right now is that have already discussed that you
cannot ‘tell’ the man what you want by expressing your need in parallels or
analogies, they don’t hear. They think you are actually talking about a bike.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I look around for an object as an example, “Take a bike,” I
say, she nods, “lets say I really want one. So I don’t say anything, I hide
myself and my need inside, and then if someone, by sheer stroke of a miracle
gives me a bike, it is ‘evidence’ that he is THE ONE.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“But,” she says mimicking my accent “the chances are that
you will never get one.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“That’s right. So we have to say “I would like a bike.” And
then he goes off dutifully and buys you a bike. Does that mean that he loves
you?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We both ponder the situation, it is a bit sticky.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Well, yes, to a degree. He wants everything to be good for
you.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I guess. But it is all rather perfunctory don’t you think?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And then I get this flash of brilliancy and pretend that I
have known it all along, “The deal is, that we don’t actually want the ‘bike’,
what we want is to be recognised within.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Ah ha!” says my friend “Wow, yeah, wooo.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I just made that up.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Sounds right to me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And so, given this encouragement I feel the permission to launch
into a myth with total freedom to ad-lib to my heart's content.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAqjRxxT0gO9h5H1f7uO4lKt4z2vbZoPCg6CZvmpTvLpPZdEn3qjSYadUCJEbu8uRbudw9OMQs6ymNKiQULF5kmetz8rdRkNJZmxWPHbOBh-ETMFLZejoimKTC15Pmq8P0cGGVi1joAa7/s1600/Sleeping-Beauty-Spence-Thomas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAqjRxxT0gO9h5H1f7uO4lKt4z2vbZoPCg6CZvmpTvLpPZdEn3qjSYadUCJEbu8uRbudw9OMQs6ymNKiQULF5kmetz8rdRkNJZmxWPHbOBh-ETMFLZejoimKTC15Pmq8P0cGGVi1joAa7/s320/Sleeping-Beauty-Spence-Thomas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sleeping Beauty is dealt her destiny by the fairies who say
she will be fair and gentle and good and intelligent and great at cooking and
creative and a wonderful friend and intrepid traveller, until the bitch fairy
says ‘She’ll die on a prick.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Everyone gasps, there is no way out. Or so it would seem,
until the littlest fairy, who everyone seems to have forgotten about, pipes up,
‘My wish is that she doesn’t die but falls asleep.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So the court, the family, keep all pricks away from their
precious little baby. All men are vetted and none are allowed in through the
back door. But as the story would have it, she is in some dark dusty old place and
finds a prick and it is a really nasty situation (each and every one of us has
a story where we were hurt to some degree, we are talking about any kind of
abuse from any kind of person). Blood falls to the floor and she falls asleep.
Of course she doesn’t fall asleep really, that would be silly, but part of her,
the part that has been damaged, becomes closed off, that bit falls asleep. In
its moment it is a good defense mechanism…but if it goes on too long without
resolution the area becomes unconscious. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The whole court falls asleep. The family refuses to talk
about it, the psychic energy gets frozen, nothing is flowing. Everyone is
trapped in the horrible situation and no-one is prepared to talk about it,
afraid to open the can of worms. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyaFOeYIDnXR1_3hkvhezJu73u0Job4ZSzZVimus9yzs8m34NcEpRu5EhG05Dp76r4Gsbu9QJDtPNhHYJkzzXcf4atFsLsvt6gV6SLXrpu3KtpVHpS3dpmma8SUN8ZCf5Rz5iJBsCfMM-I/s1600/court+goes+to+sleep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyaFOeYIDnXR1_3hkvhezJu73u0Job4ZSzZVimus9yzs8m34NcEpRu5EhG05Dp76r4Gsbu9QJDtPNhHYJkzzXcf4atFsLsvt6gV6SLXrpu3KtpVHpS3dpmma8SUN8ZCf5Rz5iJBsCfMM-I/s320/court+goes+to+sleep.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thorns start to grow outside the castle into a
veritable forest. She becomes so sensitive to anyone approaching the area of
damage that she has thorny words to say. She becomes adept at putting people off,
leading them astray, creating smoke screens: anything to keep people at a distance.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Until, that is, there is a man, within her or without, who with
his sword of understanding, can swipe through the thorns and get to the other
side. He gets in through her defense mechanisms, and once inside, (if he isn’t
a dick so that she throws him out and puts up 24/7 surveillance mines, barbed
wire and mantraps just for measure), if this guy who got through her thorns by
understanding her is also actually loving…wooowww that can be so, so, so
healing. The prince kisses the princess with a good dose of love, and she
awakens. She begins to live a full life again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlP2oU94sbsgm7yXWAEcvf2hCWM5nANNpKsBUCbq5d9AvAZRfoAH-Lr2TluR-ooo1rcjht-lhfvVO-MtptyHz9n6m-J-ve8QRS-rJTArYOLpjE3PSzevNO6iGuD5XIhRoZp7ZHaXika_w3/s1600/prince+kiss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlP2oU94sbsgm7yXWAEcvf2hCWM5nANNpKsBUCbq5d9AvAZRfoAH-Lr2TluR-ooo1rcjht-lhfvVO-MtptyHz9n6m-J-ve8QRS-rJTArYOLpjE3PSzevNO6iGuD5XIhRoZp7ZHaXika_w3/s320/prince+kiss.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And, unless I am the only one, I think many of us women are
operating on this fairy tale. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fairy tales are actually, though it make shock,
pre-Disney. Sleeping Beauty was first published 1697, and who knows how many
times it was told before then. There is a reason why it keeps going and why
people like telling it, passing it from generation to generation: it has psychic
content that somehow comforts us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But can we keep living like that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Can we keep wanting men to come and recognise us, to fill in
our gaps. Or has it got the point, where we, god-damn-it, have to find the
prince within, and do it for ourselves?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the ways we can become our own prince is to speak out
our needs, instead of expecting a guy who we’ve met for 3 days to magically
know what we want. We can wake ourselves up out of own unconscious state, by
giving up the fantasies and deciding what we need for ourselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDNKJ3H64UdyCfODdfyUM5HnDBhm2BUk97M27X3Kj8AuI6Na0lC2U2xp3WHChXkwzXuoTJDv6UAKVVNaA0Bk4WTJWCspvYh7j26ih1uTVT4NeEysxg6MjzhKu9x6LT2Lr0NhasDqKVlrPn/s1600/Sleeping+Beauty+Sun+moon+and+Talia+castle+overgrown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDNKJ3H64UdyCfODdfyUM5HnDBhm2BUk97M27X3Kj8AuI6Na0lC2U2xp3WHChXkwzXuoTJDv6UAKVVNaA0Bk4WTJWCspvYh7j26ih1uTVT4NeEysxg6MjzhKu9x6LT2Lr0NhasDqKVlrPn/s320/Sleeping+Beauty+Sun+moon+and+Talia+castle+overgrown.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last night, in despair, I practiced it. I was feeling
ignored and unloved and wondered if everything was going wrong between me and
my love-bird. Weeks ago he had told me to state my needs, but I had found
myself so unpracticed in actually understanding my needs that I was unable to until it was too late, like weeks too late…until last night, sat on a terrace restaurant,
both of us in silence after me declaring my hurt emotions, I suddenly realised
I needed reassurance. Through the silence I launched my words “I really need
reassurance. Like right now. It’s a state of emergency.” The silence melted like
butter under the sun, and after his wonderful words, which the thorny silence
was preventing, we ended up snogging in front of our king prawns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back with the conversation today with my girlfriend, she says “You
see this guy, the one I went on three dates with and who hasn’t even tried to
kiss me yet…?” I nod in a recognising fashion, “all I want for him to do is to
claim me. To come up to me as a Man and say something like “I want you. I
desire you,” without me having to feed him his lines. I want to feel myself as
an attractive woman. I want to feel recognised that I have opened the door to
him and my body and that at least he sees me, there in my psychic negligee,
panting slightly. I’m not even sure if I want sex with him, but…I just want the
situation recognised….or,” she says in a grave tone “are we just friends?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We both know that this cannot, surely be the case. She asks even
though we both know he is calling every day and taking her out for meals. Which
friends do not do. Friends meet on the park benches, cos it’s cheaper.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Tell him what you want maybe. Tell him how you feel. Ask
him how he feels.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“He would freak out!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“Do you want him?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“I don’t know.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My wise woman comes to the surface again, probably talking
to myself more than to my friend “You want him to make the decision, you want
him to be the instigator. You want him to be “the man”. But maybe before asking
him if he wants a relationship with you, you should decide if you want a
relationship with him?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">She darts a murderous look at me, as if pained that a friend
could be so cruel, “Yes,” she says “yes, maybe you are right.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The thing is that if we don’t become our own princes we’ll keep
asking men to validate us, to heal our pains that manifest in unworthiness, in needing
constant confirmation of deserving to exist, or in feeling unloveable etc. We could
be putting ourselves in a position where we aren’t actually seeing the man as he is, but a
potential magical prince who is going to make us feel good about being
ourselves and live happily ever after. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If we ask him, stating our needs,
to fight through our complicated defense mechanisms and tell us that he wants
us, that he desires us, that he is willing to run barefoot to the end of the
world for us just because we want a banana straight from the jungle, once he
actually does it, (and it is really no mean feat), if we have not done our
homework beforehand, we might just find out, once he is within our inner
sanctum, on the other side of the thorns, once he has validated us and calmed
our fears, that he is a complete knob.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If we only ask him because we want to feel accepted and to
be seen by someone, we’d better be ready for a surprise once he gets manly. He
might not be the prince we were waiting for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If we can validate ourselves, while looking at the man, as a
man, and decide for ourselves if we would REALLY like to have a relationship
with this guy using our logic swords of our animus princes within, then there
is a good chance, while we are dreaming and throwing the I Ching every second
day to find out if he actually likes us, that he is actually a decent catch.
Then it really is worth stating your needs risking rejection and recognition
(that we are also now providing wholesale to ourselves) and asking him to get
his electrical chainsaw out to cut through our thorny fears of intimacy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So my girl friend and I, two girls talking with beers between us, in a balmy
afternoon sun, didn’t exactly talk in a direct logical fashion, but instead
came to conflicting conclusions quite happily:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The other can never fill the void that is in us. No one can
but our own selves. That’s it. We may all be addicted to oxytocin, the ‘love
hormone’ that regulates orgasms, social recognition, pair bonding and
anxiety…we may all be addicted to the bliss of being intimate with someone…but
at the end of the day we have to deal with our own relationship to ourselves. For
as much oxytocin that you create together, he is not going to sort you out,
fill your (psychic) hole and turn you into the pretty woman princess you know
you can be: beautiful, sexy, daring, adventurous and successful in ways that
people never thought possible. We have to do that ourselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“But,” says my friend “we do need relationships to be able
to grow personally.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And then we had to leave. Of course we were twenty minutes
late, and had to go to the toilet, and continued talking rapid fire through the
cubicles despite the obvious noise interference. Waterfalls aside, as we got
outside and as we were unlocking our bikes I said “I feel a bit high.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“You don’t get oxytocin just from men you know! You get it
from doing what you love.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Which is maybe the actual answer. Just to make life into
what you love. Because no one else is going to do it for you. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Vvzpvzj93yOtI3sX5-PfNaS98FpzWc2nILPFOmPpdUmIL9ODTZk5ngQCJ5E_qqtxhW5fLZeFksk_NTcGGKJ3_vAkkNir7cmPpjMlV01GUXS-DtcDH7EdgMRq-NkBhp9jwTUGONcGTUE4/s1600/jung+sun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Vvzpvzj93yOtI3sX5-PfNaS98FpzWc2nILPFOmPpdUmIL9ODTZk5ngQCJ5E_qqtxhW5fLZeFksk_NTcGGKJ3_vAkkNir7cmPpjMlV01GUXS-DtcDH7EdgMRq-NkBhp9jwTUGONcGTUE4/s320/jung+sun.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-38565840098115085742013-07-12T02:58:00.001+03:002013-08-20T20:55:53.456+03:00Knowing oneself enough to shoot down paranoia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ4XSSFEF6vwoiRPN4g_5NSes_9FVLkYBIvFMyu752zpIoxnFlZleSQsMt3oQvAdkhCGznqnvxXJ-zxQCumDpuLEcbm1uYIidlMtePwjIHrwvMAoIBg0tggW89M6Lsa3FsiPT8NYitXsPx/s1600/shot+down.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ4XSSFEF6vwoiRPN4g_5NSes_9FVLkYBIvFMyu752zpIoxnFlZleSQsMt3oQvAdkhCGznqnvxXJ-zxQCumDpuLEcbm1uYIidlMtePwjIHrwvMAoIBg0tggW89M6Lsa3FsiPT8NYitXsPx/s320/shot+down.jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover of book by <a href="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/jonathan-mary-todd/">Jonathan Mary-Todd</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is not easy to enter into a new culture. No matter how
many times one has done it before. One knows only too well the rings of fire to
jump through, but they are all slightly different. Last time they were jumped
clear, and this time? I am comfortable almost in being uncomfortable, entering
into new groups of people, into new relationships; but it does not stop me
being afraid.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Boulder is a great place. I love it. But it does not reduce
the fear, nor the psychological mind fucks. If anything it increases them.
There is a great community of people here, who are pushing through their
boundaries, in that paradoxical way, to find their own centers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Everything is so different in this bubble within the US.
There are unspoken bike rules, the way one talks in a group (here all must be
in the first person to only vouch for one’s own personal experience, whereas in
other places it would seem somewhat ego-centric). Here people are expected to
be ‘cool’ and accept as perfectly common place such practices that in other
cultures would be simply and utterly taboo: naked bar-b-cues, omm meditation
where the man who could be a stranger gently rubs the woman’s clitoris for 15
minutes as she meditates the experience, and poetry readings left, right and
center.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is a place where I realise I have been unconsciously
heading toward for a long time, little facts suddenly start to make sense, like
standing up in a hairless urban society for underarm hair. Learning to dance free
in a safe environment on a Greek island suddenly transforms into a useful, if
not necessary, tool here. Miles of cycling are remembered in my aching calves. And
thank god I can do energy talk. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is a place where I would like to stay. Suddenly I wonder:
Can I? Will I be accepted? Am good enough? Will I be allowed back?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So the defense mechanisms come out to further confuse the
day. Extroversion goes into turbo mode. “Scotty, Scotty turn on the
extraversion defense shield!” “Aye aye Captain!” and then I am left, after jabbering
on in a group of new people, alone, wondering if they had understood what I was
saying, how they saw me and if this time I have made an absolute and utter dick
of myself.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I was in one of those moments yesterday. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is a trend
here for ‘Threshold Choirs’ which are little groups of people who go to
hospices to sing to those on the threshold of living, entering into the other
world. Singing eases their way into conscious dying. Given our singing we will
definitely help them to go faster. There will be a mini presentation which
could also be called a concert next week in a synagogue, in front of doctors. In
the rehearsal our leader as much as she was trying to stay calm, was nervous,
and it showed. Memories of past last minute rehearsals sprang to mind. I felt
her emotions in me, twisting through my stomach. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I didn’t know that I was on the edge of ovulation and
unconsciously opening up to the world - to all of it, not just the nice
cherries on the cake, but to the roots of fear.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After the rehearsal, sat on a sofa, one of the singers
wondered why she was so tired when normally, after singing, she felt
invigorated. I mentioned stage nerves. She denied them. I mentioned concerts
where beforehand I had thought it would be completely embarrassing, only for it
to turn out reasonably well and that ... She got up, nodding and saying ‘Yes,
yes’ and left mid-sentence. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I felt like a right dick.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Rejected, mid-sentence. She didn’t say goodbye.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Ovulating, I wondered if I was really so rejectable. Should
I have been so truthful?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But then, a thought broke through the clouds of my mind. I
had had it a week before, entering into other groups. I had had it once before
then as well, telling my new love that he was the only one responsible for his
relationship with me, that it had nothing to do with me, and that I was the only
one responsible for my relationship with him. They are mutually exclusive. It
is something that I have learnt to believe now for years. It started after
seeing how Melanie in ‘Gone with the Wind’ maintains her faith and trust in
Ashley, to the point of apparent absurdity in the face of reality. However it was
this faith and trust that kept Ashley faithful and trustworthy against the
onslaught of Scarlet. Melanie keeps her relationship safe in her vulnerable
innocence, staying as a lighthouse for him in the middle of wild torments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We are only responsible for our relationship with the world.
We are not responsible for the world’s relationship with us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And there I had it. This simple, but powerful feeling of
keeping my energy, my own perspective, grounded in my center. I kept faith and
trust in my own viewpoint, instead of hysterically running out of my own safety
zone trying to work out what others thought of me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I sat there, post stun, regained posture and realised, ‘I
like her. She is fine’. I like that scenario, I feel comfortable liking her,
even if she is tired and possibly negating nerves. I want to have good
relationships with people from my point of view. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And that is all that I needed to know, because I believe that
having spent 38 years with myself I have a better picture of who I am than she does
after having known me for a single rehearsal. Paranoia shot down square on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I sat there knowing what I had said was from a good heart.
Perhaps she had misinterpreted me. But that is her responsibility.</span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-90833313703416544722013-04-23T15:15:00.002+03:002015-04-23T01:20:54.945+03:00Saint George and Alchemical Union<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB">23rd April. Today is a day for lovers, for the lovers
within ourselves, as our masculine parts descend and our feminine parts rise to
join in amorous harmony. The union of the heart and brain. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEgvXhC8XoqqHPUEQ3Vsg5PuFmh60kzjuFXRpCruYcad3Hvolv2vwcCp7ImKdt1zSO35dKx1wPekik9thr3VOfPInYECgFAam1vORmVgWtbjPFGa0ddAeltIbn5Ub1H6O7HeNHHsHHjq1B/s1600/EdwardBurneJones-St-George-and-the-Dragon-1866-93.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEgvXhC8XoqqHPUEQ3Vsg5PuFmh60kzjuFXRpCruYcad3Hvolv2vwcCp7ImKdt1zSO35dKx1wPekik9thr3VOfPInYECgFAam1vORmVgWtbjPFGa0ddAeltIbn5Ub1H6O7HeNHHsHHjq1B/s320/EdwardBurneJones-St-George-and-the-Dragon-1866-93.jpg" height="320" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Burne Jones dipiction of George</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The prince of the skies, Saint George came down from
the air. He fell from paradise, from the place of union of light, flew down
through intuition and found himself confronted by his own earthly reality. Suddenly he is no longer the prince of the
skies but now a (half) human (half) being. Woaah! What is that dragon? </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">They say that we are born on earth impure. The
Catalans would say malparits, which is literally born badly, figuratively
translated as “in a sorry state”. We come out a little monstrous, not quite as perfect as our minds would like. We are our own Frankensteins. We are
not in harmony with the universe (One- version) but we pipe our own out-of-unison
song. The cosmos flows around in orderly lines, like a ploughed field, in
harmonic unison with each other, like an orchestra with each musician playing
as one creating a beautiful uplifting piece of music. And then we are born and
get out those party <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP4Va75FLBo" target="_blank">horn things</a>. And blow it. But it's not exactly Mozart.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The dragon is a representation of this rather
uncoordinated clumsiness. We are all made up of the four elements, everything
is. In an enlightened state, the four elements are equally balanced and working
together: Air (intuition), Water (emotions), Fire (thinking) and Earth
(sensations). We need to balance our four elements. Ether (the belonging to a whole greater than the sum of its parts) is impotent without the others in balance. It is the secret of
physical and psychological health. None of us, as far as I can see, are
enlightened: we've got work to do! We’ve got our dragons to face.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfP792ioSHfq-JDQCmBMT3P83u9oIl6KHXFDQ4atVAAhZcX99clgrL37FKBQAUxR3W8kjjMKT5TstTdIpo4ikB0HoVVEJKKQeYjPghPwlPiVezRKxf7z7j16wh__D__EtgnK8k11vOmjQ/s1600/four_classical_elements.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfP792ioSHfq-JDQCmBMT3P83u9oIl6KHXFDQ4atVAAhZcX99clgrL37FKBQAUxR3W8kjjMKT5TstTdIpo4ikB0HoVVEJKKQeYjPghPwlPiVezRKxf7z7j16wh__D__EtgnK8k11vOmjQ/s1600/four_classical_elements.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Aristotle's elemental qualities</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; text-decoration: none;"></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The dragon is a representation of the four elements,
he blows fire angrily out from his mouth, his wings allow him to fly clumsily
in the air, his claws grip into the earth and he cries big baby crocodile
tears. But his elements are all badly born. Clumsy and angry, his elements are
all at odds with each other, like trying to light a fire in the rain or flying
through tarmac...</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, Saint George finds himself in a predicament coming
up against this dragon (inside of himself) as he heroically admits to discovering his instincts. And as all cavaliers, to
save his good name, he is faced with one option: </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Slowly, calmly, he gets out his sword and shield. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkk-nflGtizFduX_OEc4HE4pMXP4xG7KBBVmbd6ZNb-09r_VD-RUcJzgcCjT0bmOJoIJ6sVEmeTsFvmyHM3PVIDnHcPCTb4fLZ0nPV4WmJTqd8iLy_gDkjLrazxHbB3LV8FYo78fcnl9Cp/s1600/st-george.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkk-nflGtizFduX_OEc4HE4pMXP4xG7KBBVmbd6ZNb-09r_VD-RUcJzgcCjT0bmOJoIJ6sVEmeTsFvmyHM3PVIDnHcPCTb4fLZ0nPV4WmJTqd8iLy_gDkjLrazxHbB3LV8FYo78fcnl9Cp/s320/st-george.jpg" height="250" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He fights nobly from the top of his white horse of the
mind, just like all of our fantasy heros do, and with his
sophisticated sword work he manages to slice through the reality of himself
(like Shiva´s sword) getting a little closer to the truth to give him a little more strength to dominate his dragon. Some stories just go right ahead and kill the
dragon off, but how can instincts be killed? It is impossible. Some Granddad got carried away retelling the story…so in the mystic story, the
dragon is dominated. Saint George is able to dominate with his mind the
impulses of his instincts. Dominating the dragon he has aligned his four
elements to be more in harmony. They do not fight so much anymore, the dragon
is a little more docile. Ether is given a chance.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Saint George finds himself in a more balanced state,
and as a result, from the mouth of the cave, steps a beautiful maiden now that
the dragon is not ferociously guarding the entrance. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqYDi7L60hRyL8rLxhfdu6UIluOfN36qXzJvYiX_0DryiGY5n7BUq0UCLNEbxiPvCfulKjqCvTTsGNxxmf4LCka1C9fk1U6qev91v3Nm2mgrSKEXdQbAyJ2Higc0_pBgNqNG5s_cbmTYKu/s1600/jung_blue_figure1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqYDi7L60hRyL8rLxhfdu6UIluOfN36qXzJvYiX_0DryiGY5n7BUq0UCLNEbxiPvCfulKjqCvTTsGNxxmf4LCka1C9fk1U6qev91v3Nm2mgrSKEXdQbAyJ2Higc0_pBgNqNG5s_cbmTYKu/s320/jung_blue_figure1.jpg" height="298" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jung's dipiction from his Red Book</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Saint George is rewarded by glimpsing his soul. His Anima, the feminine within, influences
his interactions with the world giving them more meaning. Allowing him to begin to conceive of himself in the Uni-verse. It could be
considered the path to our creative gifts. From floating in the mind, suddenly
Saint George is using his heart, and if expressed in a harmonious way, while
the dragon is comfortable domesticated, it is beauty and truth and purity and
wonderfully creative expression. It is being fully and ecstatically alive.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We can have as much information in our brains as we
can fill, but until we have understood our knowledge through love, it cannot be
comprehended. Those moments of eureka when suddenly you ‘see’, when you ‘click’
into what you you know is true because you remember somewhere knowing it once. You feel it's truth, because it is so obvious, so simple. It is like peeling away an onion skin,
or taking off a veil (revelation). Normally we are left with something so beautifully simple
that we secretly wonder if actually we knew it all along and had just somehow forgotten.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If we only understand our world with our brains, it is
dry and unconnected. Comprehension is with our hearts and we connect with our
profound memories, with our entire being. This connection of knowledge and
heart is represented by the union of Saint George with the beautiful maiden,
and how lovely she is! She allows us to leave the dark depths of the cave and
resurface to fresh air where we can wake up and smell the roses. (The
Rose is the western equivalent of the eastern Lotus flower). </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The masculine and feminine come together once more,
the sky and the earth rejoin... They have sex (alchemically speaking of
course...)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHYqlt4kV6B-K16fHWUeqGAd1xvlc3pLQ07gSMKiC-VgSfVxfR1BltkcHbJA9p4uZr6CX5SYuFyDIsEYMWPFTl5EX4XqeAJJMWh2ADxPbndgP3Fa0Os3HfpFs2y3P3BxZ3KYxhCixThIrs/s1600/Rosario7king+and+queen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHYqlt4kV6B-K16fHWUeqGAd1xvlc3pLQ07gSMKiC-VgSfVxfR1BltkcHbJA9p4uZr6CX5SYuFyDIsEYMWPFTl5EX4XqeAJJMWh2ADxPbndgP3Fa0Os3HfpFs2y3P3BxZ3KYxhCixThIrs/s320/Rosario7king+and+queen.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Alchemical union of the King and Queen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; text-decoration: none;"></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The union of Saint George with his maiden creates a
third, a rebirth. This time the birth is a little better. They are transformed
into the new castle and live happily ever after according to Walt D (....No!!! Don't believe it!!) The
castle with its slightly better squared four walls is a representation of the four elements in slightly better harmony. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And the cycle comes to a close, but not an end. Like
any spiral, Saint George is back where he began, at the same point but not the
same man. Now he has aligned himself a smidgen more to the UniVersal, he has
dominated his dragon for a while, and he has incorporated the Beauty of the
glimpse of Truth into his self thanks to his inner maiden emerging from the cave of matter. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But too much of a good thing is never good…Saint
George soon falls back down through the clouds, motivated by the image of a
greater world…to go delve in the realms of his dragon land. Saint George is in
constant movement, never getting stale, constantly birthing in another weird
but wonderful way as he and his inner maiden evolve in greater and purer love.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Happy Saint George's<span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-size: small;">day</span></span>!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWKi5SGeqUc8UWHPGwQNzojV9xuuaQNV_-aF8mcevZ1XF-d7t9tcfSSPuKYaI_tUk704r5gP0L1dpfbjBr_VumJ1tZ5m9wkZ2XJUrBfy6C9S4zRq_FHNnLR3oS33pyDHqSOZh2lJQoBL4/s1600/carpaggio-st.george.and.dragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWKi5SGeqUc8UWHPGwQNzojV9xuuaQNV_-aF8mcevZ1XF-d7t9tcfSSPuKYaI_tUk704r5gP0L1dpfbjBr_VumJ1tZ5m9wkZ2XJUrBfy6C9S4zRq_FHNnLR3oS33pyDHqSOZh2lJQoBL4/s640/carpaggio-st.george.and.dragon.jpg" height="232" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carpaggio's dipiction of Saint George</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7045365800272249101.post-16839720114034872792013-04-09T00:22:00.001+03:002013-04-09T00:40:37.890+03:00Breaking through limits into the beauty of the unknown<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXxlwoPcFT7cRK4ZjsChPvHcEfNDa80DBSVSAP9iOmdPxfvQqosgDm1Mjg83ekuMOJOjgZqQhq2JRFjLw5lHgxEhJr_O9RJssbPDnQlv7chuvKuf4RgzuS8lO-F0E0yV0X69fXjtKLlRX/s1600/study-abroad-greece.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXxlwoPcFT7cRK4ZjsChPvHcEfNDa80DBSVSAP9iOmdPxfvQqosgDm1Mjg83ekuMOJOjgZqQhq2JRFjLw5lHgxEhJr_O9RJssbPDnQlv7chuvKuf4RgzuS8lO-F0E0yV0X69fXjtKLlRX/s640/study-abroad-greece.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Many of the fellow students at the Aegean Center</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">John Pack at the <a href="http://aegeancenter.org/" target="_blank">Aegean Center</a>, the art school where I have been welcomed as lovingly as I could have imagined in my wildest dreams, says “Create yourself a limit and
it’s yours”. Pushing through, opening the door to a new place is difficult
regardless of the task at hand. But, what I see around me are brave creative souls pushing through, limit after limit...for what is on
the other side?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Art to me seems to be a path into
ourselves, into greater consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But what does that mean? One analogy is the ability of our heart to hear.
As we step along the path our hearts open up to more and more subtle sounds, discovering
worlds that were previously deaf to our ears. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">The singers experience this
directly in the ensemble with Orpheus. I remember a conversation with my mother
after the first class “It’s really fun Mum, you can pretend you are an opera
singer and in public! You HAVE to pretend, it’s like a serious game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love it!”...and that was it. As I began to
sing out operatically, I felt like I had pushed past the barrier of feeling
like a prize idiot, warbling out notes, to be able to sing seriously in a choir.
End of hard work, bring on the pleasure! I was pleased I was in tune and
singing more or less at the same point as everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite successful I deemed myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then, the ear jumps on a little bit...and
suddenly I hear breathiness in that warble, that indeed there is a warble and
that the vowels are coming out warped by my broad northern accent. I hit the
despondency key, a minor third, and worry if I am simply not in the right
place, or the right class. But I keep going and slowly pick up confidence again
to sing out. Ohh how glorious to be weaving sounds! But almost as soon I am
back into imagining big audiences, that little bugger of an ear jumps on ahead
putting into painful display that I don’t have resonance, that my throat
doesn’t know what open at the back means, nor how to push air into my nose
cavity or sinuous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Head voice, what? Too
bedazzled to even tackle the idea of vibrato, I still somehow forget to
remember to breathe. And so it goes on, through perilous peaks and fertile valleys.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">The safe conclusion would seem that, being
on a path, any path, and especially the artistic path, one is never in their
comfort zone for very long. It takes discipline just to keep going and to
concentrate, instead of collapsing on the floor in your favourite type of fit,
blaming the world for being unfair.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Sometimes in the choir it feels scary, and
more so when you have to sing alone. Sometimes it is just downright frog throat
embarrassing. I often have attacks of feeling simply ridiculous. But somehow I
get the musical backpack on again, and again, and again, each time starting anew.
And curiously through this process I am learning to sing! I am finding my own
voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I come out, having sang with
others, feeling loved and loving, feeling high. As I deconstruct my ego fear of
the unknown, I have another thin veil lifted, so I can see myself a little
clearer, it is a mini re-velation (re-veil-ation).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consciousness is not only the heart hearing,
but also the mind seeing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">What I really admire of the people around
me here in the Aegean Centre if that they are prepared to go through these unveiling
limits into the new unknown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see it in
their eyes when Jane or Jun hold up their work as an example for others to see:
it is exposure, it is uncomfortable and it is scary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In each piece, each person is expressing
their real selves to the world, and it feels as if the light of attention would
burn us alive naked without our blanket fears to protect us - and yet on the
other side of that woolly limit we keep discovering that nothing happens at
all: we are not rejected, but instead feel closer to the others, nor do people
snigger at our lob-sided proportions, but are supportive...They know too well
how we feel and that underlying a botched up expression are shifts and changes
within helping us along the path to Beauty. Each class we discover that our drawings
parallel how we are learning to see more consciously, when marvellously,
magically, we are taught to allow our inner figures, once dull and flat, to
dance into new dimensions onto the pages of life.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">The same fear knocks about in the writing
class. Unusual it is for someone to read without a slight quiver to their
voice, a shaky hand, or having to repeat bumbled lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is really scary, especially the first
couple of times, where one feels like throwing down the paper and collapsing
into the rapidly forming pool of sweat beneath one’s chair, or screaming out
“Fire! Fire!” and jumping out through the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But thankfully, one does not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One continues through the torture, only to
realise that the discipline of getting to the other side brings a deep sense of
satisfaction.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">On one public reading there was a girl who
didn’t want to read, but Jeffery announced her to the public, unbeknownst to
her, no prior warning. As she dazed to a stand her work was shoved into her
hand. Crikey! I can imagine how she felt, the energy for holding her legs up
disappearing into thin air, eyes unable to grasp that simple idea of focus,
hands suddenly forgetting how to hold onto paper thin dimensions and the mind simply
collapsing into autopilot, blindly flying through a war zone as all on board
have fainted under the pressure. But did she scream and shout at Jeffery
afterwards, accusing him of being a psychological criminal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, she did not. She thanked him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had pushed her through to greater self
confidence, because she experienced in her body (she in-corporated) the fact
that her fears were not real, that actually nothing had happened at all: she
didn’t die, or faint, or collapse, she read her work, people liked it, and
everyone moved on.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">I think everyone can relate to feeling
uncomfortable expressing their true selves. I was brought up in a family where
farty is the adjective for arty, and where collage is something kiddies do in
primary school to fill in time before they are able to do proper studies like
maths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been difficult to fully
believe my own belief that art is useful, but harder is the idea that I will
not be shot down by some World War II fighter plane for enjoying myself.
Somehow it feels like a crime to allow myself to become more who I really am. I
struggle through this limit, wondering about bills, my waist line and raining
bullets, and yet, nothing dire happens at all. Quite the contrary in fact: it
is me firing up, exploding with excitement, and I find that instead of bullets
raining down, work comes in. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">My right brain is so thankful that after
years of being tied up in the dark, damp dungeon of my mind, it is being given
fresh air, it is allowed to go out to play...class after class, singing,
writing, drawing. This intuitive, random, holistic hemisphere is being asked to
take over, something that she has been ready to do for years, waiting for the
day she can shine. As I continue through the exhaustion of dealing with the
constant new, class after wonderful class, each little step is adding up. I can
feel a shift in my brain, I am seeing a little more of this wonderful world
that we live in, as new ideas greet me changing my inner landscape. I feel something
in the world within me that I have never met before and yet feels like an
age-old friend: I am contacting with my own creativity. It breathes a sigh of
relief as I breathe a sigh of deep gratitude to the Aegean Centre. I am sure I cannot
be an exception to the rule. Feeling the others as they walk along their paths beside
mine fills me with confidence that after exposing my inner world not only to them,
but to (fear of fears!) to myself, I will not burn in the flames of chaos, but
instead will come closer to a deeper understanding of who, and more importantly
what, we are. Each class, each step takes us a little closer. Stepping through
limits into a new open space, we begin to feel more confident expressing
ourselves, motivated onwards by the joy of creating...until of course our ears
open a little more, our eyes see wider horizons or our pens dig to previously un-delved
depths, throwing us back into that un-comfort zone, into that red rawness that
gradually, our brave creative souls, get more and more used to rising through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
</div>
www.intenselypersonalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342907541275934871noreply@blogger.com0