14a - No-thing is the Key to Something

Within one’s life there comes an important moment.

It is the moment of NO-THING

It is easily confused with NOTHING

They appear very alike. Yet while one is doing NO-THING, the wheels of indolence are grinding away deep within the well of one’s creativity. Grind grind grind they go, revolving and machinating. It’s a curiosity that even while one is doing no-thing there is always something going on. If it were not so then why would it be so pleasurable to rest after doing no-thing?

So. Just so in fact.

This all brings one to wonder what NO-THING is. Well, I believe it’s a threshold state. Those indolent wheels are doing whatever mysterious work they need to do to make one simply stop the nothing and start the something. Indolence does not answer to the laws of societal gravity. Instead Indolence revolves in the dim light of Languid Languishing. And by that light many a fancy is considered and laid back down to rest, stillborn as an idea of the world. Until one among them all provides a spark to ignite the fuse, blow the keg, burst the dam and flood across the realm of action. Whether enough water has flowed under a bridge, off a duck’s back, or a coil is wound, a bridge crossed, an empty glass half-filled who knows. But the period of no-thing ends in a flurry of activity.

Becoming ok about being in a state of NO-THING is a necessary precursor to returning to the world of SOMETHING as an inspired contributor.

I have thrived this year by having to hand a ready clutch of handy yet flexible plans. Its meant my course has had motivation. This course has led me to munch my way through one tasty experience after another just like the hungriest of caterpillars. It is no surprise to me that this period has contained many references to The Little Prince. It is my favourite book. And within it my favourite line is: “Everything that is essential is invisible to the eye”. Caterpillars only feature in it quite early on when the author speaks of the questions that adults find important. He ridicules adults as being interested in things such as a person’s age, or how much he earns and so on whereas adults ignore the most interesting questions about a person such as whether or not someone likes caterpillars or what their favourite colour is... Mine is normally a deep emerald mossy green like in this picture of these stones...



Thus far, this year I have been in all 4 hemispheres of this Earth. I have been under the Moon, ridden the waters of 3 oceans, climbed a mountain, paid tribute to my tribe, established love within some stones, buried the ‘parents’ of my childhood and loved the parents I still have, forgiven everyone and myself, faced death and ‘died’ only to rise refreshed and aware that I am able to use my past to brighten my future. In doing this I harmonised the 4 parts of my being and received planning permission for the necessary character building still to come. All of this has added to an understanding that there are alternate realities. And the knowledge that one can move between these as required. It’s an exhausting list and I feel like a crazed prospector dusty from blasting dynamite yet laden now with the chore of collecting and refining many tons of experience-bearing ore. But being so used to blasting I was a little uncertain of doing this NO-THING.

You see, right now I have no specific plans or goals, I am waiting to hear news of a film, which if it happened will provide the necessary emphasis for another phase of life. Oh sure I have SOME plans but they are just a week in Shanghai area around 22 July next year for another eclipse and Burning Man at the end of August but other than that I am shamelessly lounging in Los Angeles. But here’s the catch… the loot is running low so I am accepting that another film is a good idea in order to restock the coffers… and it does limit me somewhat in where I can go and for how long…

But now I know the way the spot a valley - having nothing to do but everything to choose from. Thus I hold in one hand my powerlessness and in the other my destiny.

So, for now, I really am going to do NO-THING. And I am going to feel good while I do it.

Provided I stop eating so much dried mango too... My tummy hurts. I wonder if a caterpillars tummy hurts before they cocoon themselves? Maybe I should have just one more piece of mango…

But as I wrote above I believe NO-THINGNESS is an exciting threshold period. It’s just like being a pupating caterpillar. Its lethargy could be the hallmark of succumbing to banality or death or it is the prerequisite stage before an improbable metamorphosis to a creature wholly and entirely different. Time will tell. And if it is metamorphasis it will also be interesting to see what emerges – butterfly, moth or fly!



Seems like i do not have a shot of a moth with which to represent that possibility...

Now move on to Scales of Reality

14b - Scales of Reality

Last week I realised and made great use of the ability to shift realities.

I was being set-up (by myself) on the advise of society to deprive the world, myself and others of an excellent friendship in the name of the pain of rejected intimacy. That one needs to retreat into solitude to heal when one has been hurt.

You see Society’s advice by necessity has to work for everyone within it. As such it needs to cover the lowest common denominator. This generally makes its methods cautious and time-consuming. I am not saying that Society’s advice is wrong just that if one is cunning one can usually find a better way to do it. Though I will concede one does run the risk of falling on one’s face. And only time will tell on THAT.

For my own part I was also allowing some pretty low-level patterns to intrude on my life and cause some trouble. These are patterns that I regard as relatively childish and puerile.

They are in no particular order:
• Not accepting no for an answer
• Melodramatic / have to push an issue
• Stubborn
• Must have my own way
• Moping / Sulking
• Holding a grudge / lash out / get vengeance
• Things have to be bad
• Backed into a corner
• Self-destructive
• Obsessed with sex and possession

Earlier in the year I completed the Hoffman Process (I'll post something directly about this soon) and did a lot of valuable work disconnecting from these patterns. That they rose again is testament to the strength of the lessons learned in our childhood and just perhaps I was reverting to ‘type’ after the very successful conclusion of all my life’s plans for the year!

Anyway I was able, through a very conscious decision, to sweep these aside and be the bigger person I’d like to be. This was also assisted of course by the lessons of the year’s travel – that alternate’s to this default reality do exist!

Some of the core loopholes I used were:

1) I live life according to my own rules

2) I make them up as I go along.

3) I will give as much as I can to this world for as long as my heart beats and there is a tooth left in my mouth with which to gnaw on the bones of life in search of marrow.

4) Basking in the afterglow of Burning Man and the Eclipse trip to Mongolia. These heady experiences make it difficult to mope about for very long as they were so inspirational and give one an enhanced appreciation of absolutely EVERYTHING

5) Yoga – hard Yoga, every day. I find the power of sweaty focused exercise an incredible resource for guidance and enlightenment.

6) The negative provides a perfect starting point/mirror from or in which one can see the positive alternative. Anything DEFINITE provides you with a platform to know what you do NOT want and then you can use that as your pushing off point to go somewhere (anywhere) else positive.

7) If your only tool is a hammer you will treat every problem like a nail. If you only have bristling defences then you will treat every interaction like an attack.
Have no need of a defence by not being a target. And if you aren’t a target you’ll not get attacked (so much if it after all is in one’s own head)

This last corresponds to being a victim and the pattern of ‘things have to be bad’. They don’t have to be… so when they are not don’t try to make them.

It worked for me. And I think the key ingredient’s are loophole 1 and 2.

Returning to the concept of scale and this year. Most of what I have done has given me a substantial appreciation for scale. Eclipses hint at the size of the galaxy by making it just that much more obvious to observe things such as the sun and moon. The Hoffman Process showed the wonder of our inner workings and how an unkind work spoken at the wrong moment can cast a longer shadow than a kind word said at the right moment! Mongolia’s landscapes are all about crazy scales. And Burning Man – well it’s an event on a scale in a location that defies belief.

What is also remarkable is the way in which we are so damn tiny and yet all of this practically infinite multiverse can be rendered utterly irrelevant simply by one of our own experiences or emotions.

This piece of writing is not exactly about very much. But that is just the way it is... just some creative writing for its own sake really. As after all I am clearly doing SOMETHING not nothing...

Next up some stuff about Burning Man...

But wait there's more... have a look at this image below…

Now click on it and see the real scale!