Kashmir's Shak

A Good English Condition

In a recent conversation with Robbie Stamp I found myself reminiscing about my teachers at school. For some bizarre reason, this run down multi-cultural school in West London in the late 70's was full of Welsh teachers.

They would joke to us about how our parents ended up in Southall because it was the first cheap town they came across after they got off the plane at Heathrow Airport. We would joke with them about how they had to hitch a lift down the M4 as it was their only way out of eating daffodils. At least our parents could afford an airplane ticket (the M4 motorway is a major highway that connects South Wales directly to West London).

I never did find out why there were so many Welsh teachers, but I will never forget the impression that this colouful cast of our very own under milk wood left on me: How could I forget…

• Our Mr. Mathias, a lyrical woodwork and metalwork teacher who would only stop singing hymns about the “the valley” at the top of his voice for the second it took to slap one of us across the head for not “filing in the right direction”
• Our Mrs. Williams whose English classes would be a dread each new term because she would dutifully bring back and force us to eat the home made caerphilly cheese from her village back in the old country. She would whine endlessly about how “those bastard heathen English steal the milk from our cows to make their cheddar”, so technically cheddar is Welsh (poor welsh cow). She never failed to remind us that Shakespeare’s grandmother, “the intelligent one that he got his genes from" and how his schoolmaster “who taught him everything he knew” were both leeks, sorry Welsh.
• Our Mr Gwyn Lewis (there were so many Mr. Lewis’s that we even got to know their first names!) would holler at us during Geography lessons, one week about how Gods own country was blessed with coal to keep those “British arses warm” then curse us the following week for not having to “study hard just to stay out of the pit” like his generation had to.
• Our Mr Morgan who took enormous pleasure in chasing us and if he caught us to beat us senseless during rugby practice in order to turn us into “real men” and then hurl cricket balls at us in the summer because “it’s just a poof’s game”.
• Our Mrs Price who quietly revealed to us in Religion class that “St. George was nothing but an effete wally who would faint at the sight of a real dragon” and dutifully taught us how to pronounce “saes” or “sasunnachs” a derogatory term for a Saxon to be whipped out and applied with venom if they were ever to call us nigga, a paki or a wog.
• Our Mr Rees Jones would make us copy out our entire History textbook through the year while he put his feet up to read the latest edition of his favourite porno mag. No one ever complained about Mr Rees Jones personal “mind expansion” because when he wasn’t sucking on his pipe, thumbing through Penthouse Letters or simply nodding off, he would break out into impromptu Tommy Cooper impressions. We had no clue about anything historical, but we would always leave the class in stitches – hysterical.
• How could we ever forget our morning assembly’s?  Mr. Mathias and Mr. Evans patrolling menacingly through long lines of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh kids ensuring we were singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” at the top of our lungs for fear of a short sharp boot up the rear end. In the middle of the hymn they would holler “dig in deep and put some heart into it for Pete’s sake boyo!”. I felt sure that St. Peter would be generally pleased with our efforts, even so, we would be brought to a haltering stop and ordered to “start right back from the beginning” because we sounded “absolutely pathetic”. Not that the white Christian kids were spared the ordeal, most of them were Irish or Polish “Catholics”. This somehow made them even more foreign than us, (something to do with a beef that Henry Tudor’s son had with the Pope about his bird back in the day).

These were not racists or bigots. They were not trying to convert us into Calvinist Methodists or Presbyterians. We understood what was going on. Their only sin was that they loved to sing (really loud) and scream (even louder) at kids. Equally their love of literature, singing, rugby and the poetry of WH Davies, R.S. Thomas and Dylan only enriched our lives.

Ultimately like all kids we did not learn from what our elders said only from what they did. These “bugger all” backwards were loud, smart, opinionated, passionate, eloquent, joyous and irreverently funny. Most important of all they were unashamedly, absolutely, completely who they were. This taught us only to be unashamedly who we were. If this is the only education they imparted, what more could we ask for?

Come to think of it, I can’t remember the name of a single native English teacher at school? I can’t even remember the name of our headmaster. I guess he must have been one of those dastardly Saxon immigrants! Darn saes!

"You thought, because he could not speak English in the
native garb, he could not therefore handle an
English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and
henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good
English condition.  Fare ye well."
Henry V,
Act V, Scene i

Heal but by degrees

I was born in England to Sikh immigrants. A good (whatever that means) English Christian schoolboy during the day, reverting to a ‘good’ (whatever that means) Sikh son of an honest immigrant farmer every evening.

For reasons I will never quite understand, this hard switch back and forth between day time obedient Christian and evening Sikh warrior was far more of a torment to me than either of my brothers or any of my close 'second generation immigrant' friends.

To make matters more colourful most our teachers were Welsh immigrants who despised the English and taught us how those "anglo-saxon immigrants" had taken over their "celtic homeland" and "weakened" their bloodline!

To relieve my silent confusion I would bunk off from school, use my lunch money to take the central line to Holborn Station and escape in the wonder of the Reading Rooms at the British Museum. There I dug through the brittle skin of what I was being told it meant to be a “Sikh” at home and what it meant to be a “Christian” at school and excavated my own darkness.

My private ordeal eventually turned from an elevation, to an elation and eventually a rev-elation. Both faiths, indeed all faiths are connected by a stream that runs deep beneath, in an undercurrent of latent truth that connects all humanity with or without our feeble permission. We should never trust what we see on the surface we are not that shallow. Our true task is to (if we are blessed or we are blessed if we) slow down long enough to drink from the sacred pool of truth rooted deep within us.

Baba Nanak Faqir followed the Rumi saints at the same time as he cleared the hindu cobwebs off the Vedic scriptures to reveal that "there is no moslem, there is no hindu". Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was equivocal about this, he taught us that if we have the courage to step beyond our social identity the shackles of our shallow social despair disappear, if we slow down long enough to allow the pool of our frantic mind to be still, then we will see that we are all uniquely one.

"How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know'st we work by wit,
and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time."
Othello. Act II; Scene iii

trickling tears are vain

“Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain”
Henry IV - Part One
Act II, scene iv

Moma butterfly is not consumed by conceited craving so dearly coveted by the rest of us. Her unfettered feast flutters only to awaken the best in us.

Moma butterfly’s flight has been ever supple strong, never brittle hard, her world could never be consumed by the coaxing flames of greed. Today, she has unclipped her wings, broken free of the unfinished symphony she cast so carefully to tame the toxic breed.

Seeds sown devoid of pride will take roots in her stride. Her passage to her next feast will be as turbulent and yet as certain as the morning tide. Moma butterfly knows only how to fly with titan heart, healing eyes and arms open wide.

“There is difference between a grub and a butterfly;
yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown
from man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a
creeping thing”
Coriolanus
Act 1, Scene iii

Listening To Our Own Strory

"The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King"
Hamlet
Act II, Scene ii

Gillian Stamp recently recalled a telling conversation she held with a miner in Papua New Guinea, after listening deeply to him, the miner said "Thank you for letting me hear my story and giving it back to me as a tool I can use to attend to my future". Listening to our own and each others stories is more than a flight of fancy, the miners response peaks deep into the joy and angst of our human condition.

Whether it was the age of letters, sitting in a circle around the fire, on vacation in the company of complete strangers or making our presence felt in facebook or myspace.com, the need to be heard and to be acknowledged is core to our very being, being heard is our social spine.

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Gillian reminds us of our four journeys and the importance of being in "flow" through our lives. The concept of flow was uncovered by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Mihaly’s research of highly creative people across all fields of human endeavor suggested that happiness is over-rated. It is difficult to be happy because the universe is not built for our happiness.
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While religions and mythologies have been created to provide some security against this fact, first-hand knowledge cruelly reveals this truth again and again. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that it is best to think about the universe in terms of order and chaos (entropy), not happiness and sadness.

The key is not to uncover the essence of happiness but to simply listen to our intuition, listen to our own experience without judgement, to examine what is happening around us when we and the people immediately around us are fulfilled or in a state of ‘flow’ .

The state of 'flow' occurs when we are engaged in a creative unfolding of something larger than ourselves; athletes call it 'being in the zone', actors talk about being 'in the moment', lovers talk about 'bliss', the mystics have described it as 'ecstasy', and artists as 'rapture'.

Flow is the illusive moment of truth when we are self aware but not self concious, we are so consumed with a challenge that we allow our magical powers take over to the point that we end up suprising ourselves with the gifts we bear to the world.

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During my work at NPR, Dana Davis-Rehm introduced me to the phrase “trusted space”. A trusted space suggests a sacred place that we all share and within which we are allowed and allow ourselves to be completely true to ourselves and each other.

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This is another space where we discover flow, when we listen to each others stories without judgment or precondition, when we open ourselves wholly to another person and are completely enraptured in their story rather than their telling of it, we discover flow.

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The story telling business is a booming sector, Hollywood and Bollywood consume themselves and us with as many stories about themselves as much as they do with stories from outside the industry, book sales grow at a time when everything was meant to have become electronic, magazines and radio shows flow with the endless stream lives that we can touch and enter in an instant. Flesh that perished many hundreds of years ago becomes our skin the minute we dip our head into their story.

What is a funeral? It is a tapestry of stories that made up a life. What is an anniversay, a marriage, a party? All these are the trusted spaces where we share and discover our story through the story of others. and perhaps if we listen deep enough, we will encounter the Truth inside these trusted spaces.

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I was very fortunate meet Mihaly several years ago during a conference at Harvard. Late in the afternoon Francis Fukuyama took to the stage to talk to us about trust. Fukuyama began to wax lyrical about how certain races are more trusting than others, Mihaly’s face turned raspberry red. Then Fukuyama explained that there are only three races that are high in trust, these are the German, American and Japanese race, and this explains why their economies are so strong. Mihaly got spitting mad. He turned to me and asked me “What is this fool talking about?”.

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Mihaly stormed out of the hall. I followed him out. In the empty corridor he paced back and forth as the drone of Fukuyama's presentation continued to boom from the hall. Mihaly told me that this was precisely the crazy thinking that had laid bare and destroyed so many beautiful lives in Eastern Europe and in so many sacred places throughout hisory and throughout the world.

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These were the eloquent lies that deaden peoples intelligence. But his wrath was not directed at Fukuyama who he described as an "imbicile" but he was angry at the placid audience who sat there, passively consuming Fukuyama nonsense, accepting his rhetoric as if it were a sanctified balm being laid upon their sleepy heads. This was the opposite of flow, this was dead time when no story was being told, no truth was being revealed, time and life were ticking away without consequence.

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Our stories are sacred. When we hear the voice of a young American solider, a grieving Iraqi mother or the victim of a far off storm, tell their story on NPR, CBC or the BBC, our hectic lives are put on hold. The pause button allows us to be present in the moment, to be part of a story that is bigger than the petty grief of our daily grind.

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Every life is a story that contains many moments of truth, moments of flow.

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When we relive our own story through a photograph, joke, video clip or long lost love letter we are in touch with a divine thread that runs through our humanity and connects our experiences as a set of universal, timeless themes.

When we listen to someone elses story, we enrich our story by honouring them with the gift of presence.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."

As You Like It
Act II, Scene vii

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A Jest's Propensity

I liked Alfred Hitchcock more for what he stood for than what he did. I admire his films, but it was the stand he took in his profession. He had no time for method actors.

He believed that he had paid his dues and that if he was qualified enough to hire actors who knew their craft, then why should he worry about their acting? Hitchcock said “I direct films not actors. Actors know how to do their job, I know how to do mine”.

He told the actors what to do not how to do it. He instructed them to move to the right place, which way to look, how to appear. How they did it or felt about it was not his concern.

When actors would ask WHY they were being asked to do this or that he would invariably say “because it makes a great scene”, …asked him why he would have to look over his shoulder “because I told you to” or “because you are paid to do it” and “because that is what the scene needs right now” and my favourite – “You are required to do this because the audience will love it”.

The actor in Hitchcock’s view is subservient to the movie because the movie is subservient to the audience’s response.

Hitchcock would get away with murder (not literally) because of his rapier wit and cockney sense of humour. example, having been nominate five times for an Oscar, but never winning it, he was asked how he felt, his response “Does how I feel affect me getting recognition, I think it is quite irrelevant to how I feel, the Oscar does not dictate what I think about myself, I know myself very well thank you”.

Many film critics would give savage reviews of his films while he was alive. Hitchcock was asked what he felt about these critics, his response was elegantly devastating: “They are decent, hardworking, considerate people who mean well, I don’t mean they are mean in that they don’t care about how others feel, they are not mean or bad people, what I am trying to say is that all they mean well to others. They are decent, ordinary people subject to the same foibles and frailties that we are all subject to. They do their job, I do mine. They cannot exist without the work I do, and I can exist very well without them. I am happy to give them something to do. I also mean well!”.

Hitchcocks play on the word ‘meaning’ and being 'mean' illustrates the bumbling genius of one of the great artists of our time.

"Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit, 
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace   
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.   
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear   
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,   
Deaf’d with the clamours of their own dear groans,   
Will hear your idle scorns, continue them,   
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,   
And I shall find you empty of that fault,   
Right joyful of your reformation"

Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act V, Scene II)

Houston are you receiving, over?

I was running late for my flight out of San Antonio, Texas this morning. I asked the cabbie to put his foot down as I did not want to miss my connection at Houston to London.
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The cabbie nodded his head, looked at me through the rear view mirror, then turned his head and he shook his finger at me.  "You really need to let go of your stress Sir, it will do you no good, no good at all?". In the meanwhile I peered at the four cars in front of us willing the red light to change so we could get onto the highway. 

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I rolled my eyes and grit my teeth. In every taxi ride when the driver kicks off the conversation there are only two options, take out my work and get like I'm busy working or engage.. I slumped back into the seat and went for it"¦ I asked Oh yeh? So how do I do that? It's fine saying don't stress, but tell me, HOW do it do that?"

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The cabbie twisted his head, smiled and said "Well, it begins right now, you have to stop stressing yourself over that red light, because it will change regardless of what you think or feel about it, that light does not need your stress and neither do you".

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The driver had my attention, I don't even remember that red light changing, the movie reel in my head of scrambling through check in and security to a final touch down at the departure gate before it closed evaporated from my minds eye. I was now in the taxi with this stranger wondering what made him so calm?

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"So how? How do I do that mate?". The Cabbie Philosopher grabbed my hand (not literally) and took me on a magic carpet ride. "Please sit back and relax, the airport will come when it will come, but I am going to tell you a long story" I sat back and wondered where was this stranger going to take me?

"You are from India correct?" I told him that I was a Sikh from the Punjab.  "Good" he said, "I am a Moslem from Iran".

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"The reason why I tell you I am from Iran is because I am going to tell you a story that made me let go of my stress and if you listen to it carefully it will help you let go of your stress also. If you do not listen to it, then you will keep collecting more and more stress all your life.

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"I emigrated to Am-erie-ca for 35 years ago. When I first come here, I loved everything, I loved the lights, I loved the tall buildings, I loved the fast food, I fell in love completely with the Am-erie-can Lie. I began to collect things, lots of things and then I began to compare things. I did not compare things with other things, I compared the things I had with the things that other people had. This taught me what to want. Then as I began to collect more things and even more things.

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Then suddenly one day, I got a letter from Iran informing me that a very dear friend of mine, a mentor who had been very important in my young life had been taken very seriously ill and that was in hospital.

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Suddenly could not see anything anymore, I could not see the things I was collecting, all I could see was that I wanted to be by his side. I went to Iran to visit my friend.

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Now, I have to tell you, you have to believe me, this was a very, very intelligent man, the most intelligent man I had ever met in my life. Yes, yes, my friend had an education from schooling, but much more he had the education of life, he was what you say street smart.

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Through all my university years he was my mentor. I loved him very much, like a father. When I fly to Iran I went straight to his hospital room. When I walked into the room he was sitting in the bed, he was being fed by his wife. She completely broke down and wept and I began to cry and his daughter in the room, she also began to cry very loud. All this time my friend sat smiling in bed.

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My friend could not understand why we were crying. His wife told me that he had lost his mind. I spoke to my friend but he just kept smiling and nodding his head like a little child. I asked his wife what is going on?

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She told me that he worried all the time, he was constantly worrying about his job, worrying about his daughter, worrying about his neighbors, worrying about Iran, his mind was always running, running, running, worrying about this and worrying about that, it just never stopped. She told me that he was so stressed that one day, just like that (snaps fingers) he just could not get out of bed.

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Then my friends daughter, who I had only seen as a little child began to talk about a lot of things. In her every facial expression, her words sounded just like my mentor Mohammed. In her I could see the young Mohammed, the teacher, the friend, the man that he was. This was one of the saddest days of my life. I cried all night and for the whole week after that.

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I am only human, I worry about my loved ones, get upset at religious zealots in America and my home country, but Allah is magnificent (index finger points to the sky). Allah is all magnificent, he allows us in a blink of an eye to go wherever we want to go.

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When I feel my stomach get tense, my breath tightens and muscles contract, when I shrink as a man, then right away I go back, in an instant of a blink of an eye I arrive back in that hospital room. I can be driving a cab, walking my grandchildren to school or watching a movie, but when I feel tense I go back in my mind and meet dear friend Mohammed and he nods and he smiles and then he sets me free. He is my constant daily reminder of the cost of worrying, worrying, worrying.

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We can control how we feel, but we cannot control 99% of the things that go on around us, I cannot control that driver in that car over there and whether he wants to suddenly cross this lane and take away our limbs forever, I cannot control politicians who make bombs and kills little children. I cannot control any of this, but I can control how I feel, this is my control and nobody elses.

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My friend, we can worry all we want but when the end comes, (claps his hands) it will come when it comes, and it will not come of our choosing otherwise why would we ever et it come?

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When it comes and it will as sure as the sun will go down into the night this evening. When we go, we go, we will take nothing with us, absolutely nothing. All these things that we collect, all the things we worry about in our mind, all of this we will let go and we will leave behind and it will not matter anymore, ever again. The things that we collect will gather dust, be sold, break or be thrown away. These things we collect, these worries that we collect, all of this does not mean a thing.

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I am a nothing more than a simple, humble taxi driver, stuck in this very small space (the car). I pick up many important people everyday, they sit there exactly where you are sitting right now and they talk and talk and talk, they talk about many things, politics, business, religion, families and they tell their wife tell her that they are missing her on the same phone.

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Yes, all of these important people, all their talk and talk and talk will mean nothing in the end. I do not listen to them, I do not care about what they are saying, but I do hear and feel their pain, I feel their anguish and need to collect this and that, to collect people that they want to control, to collect money that they do not know what to do with. They collect, and collect and collect until they are going to be collected.

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So, my friend, this is how you lose your stress. Let go of the 99% of things that do not matter and that you cannot control and that control you. Then get in touch with the 1% that does matter.

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The driver of this magic carpet ride had taken me to the airport, but he had taken me somewhere much more important. He had given me the keys to the real freedom that can only be enjoyed now.

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As we pulled into the airport and came to complete stop, I asked the drive "What is your name friend?" Without a word, he held up his ID card with his funny mug shot, it said "Syeed". I asked him "Syeed what makes you so wise?" and he said "We are all wise but we do not stop to pay attention to the wisdom that Allah has given to us, we take it for granted so he takes it back from us".

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The car pulled up at the Airport taxi drop off point, I began a new conversation with Syeed. I asked him "Syeed, I am late for my flight, but there will be another flight but I may never see you again, so tell me just one more thing, can you explain to me the mess that is in the middle east?"

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Syeed twisted his entire body over the seat and looked me in the eye, I opened my mind to grasp some sanity in a world gone mad, from the magic carpet ride man.

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"Mohameed and Jesus are the same, Moses and Jesus are the same, Jesus and the Buddha are the same. Yes, they came at different times and yes they lived in different bodies, but these were all the same, one spirit being guided by the light of just one god, Allah, he who is adorned by us feeble humans by a thousand and one different names but is just  only one god, creator of all"

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"The differences that exist were not created by our god, they were created by greedy religious people and greedy politicians who want to do nothing but to collect people into their control, to have power over more and more people. These politicians created the difference in our mind so they can collect our minds. The more minds they collect, they think the happier they will be, but these are fools, these greedy politicians, these greedy priests, they all created these differences in our minds so that they can collect us.

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They do this by taking us to the 99% that we cannot possibly control, they make us forget the 1% that we can control because this 1% that is given by God would leave them feeble and they would need to kneel and worship God.

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They collect us up and take us into the 99% and they make our mind unclean but covering it in anger, greed, lust, revenge, they preach to us to block out the light of Allah, they sow seeds of fear of being destroyed forever, when we will not last forever anyway. We let them do this by being feeble, by denying God the honour we owe him.

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The truth is very simple but living it is very hard. Allah made all of us with his hands, every one of us, Jew, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, we are all his children. How can I possibly hate something that Allah has made? How can I hate a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu, because when I hate them, then I hate Allaha's creation and when I hate Allah's creation, then I pour scorn on Allah, for he is the all magnificent creator of all things".

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The worshipping of Allah is the 1% robs the priests and politician of their power.

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That is all. Now go, get your flight and remember, do got collect that worrying, do not collect that stress, may Allah be with you"

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The taxi ride was showing $44 on the meter, I shoved a hundred dollar bill into Syeeds hand and curled his fist. He went to pick up the change and I wagged my finger in his face "No my friend, you have given me a lot more change than I bargained for today".

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I walked to through the airport as if a weight had been lifted off me. I got onto my flight on time.

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Here I am  buzzing 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean to England, scrawling out Syeeds words as fast as I can recall them. Deep down however, I know I will forget, it is highly likely that by the time we land, I will wallow back into the cave of the 99%.

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When I get off this momentary lapse of self awareness and self acceptance, the magical clarity of this carpet ride, I will succumb to the deep habit groove laced by the lure of the politicans and priests, because before I know it, I will be back to collecting, collecting , collecting and collecting, until as Syeed so starkly reminded me, the day I too will be collected, once and forever.

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But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.

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The Life and Death of King John

Act V, Scene i.

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Great Things Labouring

That sport best pleases that doth least know how;   
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents   
Die in the zeal of those which it presents;   
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in their birth.

Love's Labour's Lost
(Act V, Scene ii)

This painting is called Geopoliticus Child, it was created by Salvador Dali in 1943.  Dali’s home and mother country, Spain was engulfed in a bloody civil and world war, deep in a national identity crisis.

What does the crazed genius Dali do? He shows us mother earth pointing to a new child grapling its way into the world.  The innocent new born is the United States of America. The land mass of the United States is the body tearing its way through the earth (egg) into life. The new born grips Great Britain, as this is the lever of its roots.

The head of the ‘child’ is yet to grace the light of day, still to find its vision, realize it's focus, reason, purpose and identity.

In every ruling class and culture throughout history has established its presence through bloody mindless military rule, gained power by reeking fear and destruction, be it the Mughals, the Romans, the Greeks, the Mongols or the British. Each in turn brought untold suffering and devastation to the cultures and communities in their path, but in equal measure, they also co-mingled with the existing cultures and heritage to bring new depths of creativity, breakthroughs in the arts, science, engineering, social order, learning and growth have emerged out of this darkness, the genesis of which would otherwise have been inconceivable.

The industrial revolution and the British Empire may be two separate chapters in the history books, but they are one indistinguishable event. Economic power, military rule and the creative power of human creativity and innovation  are all one ying-yang whole.

Each of the ruling cultures have always been a mix of political and militaristic expediency (greed) and in equal measure the divine power of their artists, poets, thinkers, engineers, their builders of education systems, community and an advancement of the human experience. You cannot separate the two. Ugly as it is to admit, they are one.

The question that Dali’s painting begs – is that as this next child tears out of the darkness, as it spreads its desperate economic and geo-political grip on the world, Mother Nature can do nothing but look and point, natures other child (existing cultures and communities) cling to the mother earth, for fear of what will come.

We are left to wonder, WHAT will America’s contribution and legacy be? It is the utimate mystery of any new born child, its potential greatness and destructive powers are unknowable.

Over half a century after the painting was put on canvas, the U.S. is getting through puberty and only just beginning to shape its legacy, it will take much longer than our lifetime for it to make is true mark. This is the birth place of the internet, the global on-line community, the source of the new wisdom, the unexpected contribution of this child is only just unfolding before our very eyes.

This is a vision of America's legacy, one that reaches beyond the narrow politicians lens of greed and consumption, politicians come and go, the only thing that will endure is the value created by ordinary human beings, born in ordinary circumstances, the artists, poets, thinkers, engineers and builders of education, communication systems, community as these are the men and women who bear the burden of broadening the bounds of human experience.

We have no idea what will be created or what will survive once the Geopoliticus Child has come of age, or once it has passed through the usual passage, the life cycle that every empire that preceded it has been through.

All we do know for sure, is that once it has run its course and bites the same dust that we all have to bite one day, another egg will hatch and a new empire will clutch the earth through its birth pangs, to destory what has been created and plant new seeds of learning through its own lethally glorious legacy.

Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O! let us embrace.
As true we are as flesh and blood can be:   
The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;   
Young blood doth not obey an old decree:   
We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn.

Love's Labour's Lost
(Act IV, Scene iii)

Momentary Grace

"O momentary grace of mortal man,
Which we more hunt for than the
grace of God!"
Richard III (Act III. Scene IV)

What is grace? Grace is elegance, politeness, a generosity of spirit, the capacity to tolerate or forgive.

Being graceful, having poise and dignity is something we admire in others.

What do we need to do to be graceful? Wear the right clothes? Drive the right car? Walk with the right posture? Hang around with the cool people – in the hope that their sultry smoothness will eventually rub off on us?

We already possess this thing called grace. We only need to learn how to relax, take ourselves less seriously and it will surface - effortlessly. That is why it's called grace. It's natural.

Some people are better at trusting themselves than others, each of us have different situations in which we are comfortable enough to be ourselves. Some people are in this state for much of the time, others will pass through this life and only catch very brief glimpses of what it means to be human.

Children are graceful, the only times they are lose this grace is when they are consumed with fear, whether it is a bully in the playground, a teacher who takes themselves too seriously (ie lack grace) or an abusive parent who forgets they were a child once also. Grace resides in every child, in their every movement and every word, until we rob it from them.

Actors know how to be graceful, so do atheletes and artists, it comes to life when they abandon their fear and trust what is true inside them. We admire it, sit in dark rooms for hours together worshipping something that resides inside us all.

We may have forgotten what it means to be free, that's OK, but as long as we remember to forgive ourselves and cease bullying ourselves, grace is ready to surface. The challenge with grace is that the less we try the more we are. In a busy world ridden with rushing and doing, this challenge is tougher to bear than it should be.

"He hath a daily beauty in his life   
That makes me ugly"
Othello (Act V, Scene I)

No Fear In Marriage

"Get thee a good husband,
and use him as he uses thee"
All's Well That Ends Well
Act I - Scene i

Our oldest is going through the "love and marriage" phase. It is difficult to know how to advise an 18 year old about anything, least of all about love and marriage. Even if I could peel back the years and remember what would helped me most at that age (not that a guy at 19 has any sense of marriage).

This is more than a good old fashioned generation gap. Even if I could remember, how could the experiences of an 18 year old guy in London, England possibly compare or even matter to another gender of another generation in another continent in completely new century?

I gave my daughter the only advice that I could. My wife and I sat in a restaurant next to a beautful lake in Switzerland, two days after our public vows. Far, far away from anyone we have ever known, we looked into each others eyes and made five sacred vows to each other.

My marriage has stood on the rock of five sacred principles for over 18 years.

Our body is one. We live through each others senses, share in each others pain and pleasure be it a toothache or the ecstacy of each others touch. Ten thousands miles may stand between us but nowhere, nothing and no one will ever substitute or sever our physical union.

Our heart is one. The only truth that matters is the one we experience in each others heart.

Our mind is one. We think and see the world completely differently. Each and every passing day we discover something new about ourselves through each others eyes.

Our family is one. Marriage (even a so called "love marriage") is only complete when two tribes become one.

Our soul is one. Our physical, emotional, cognitive and social promises dance on an eternal plane that swallows our shallow imagination and soars through the feeble bounds of death and beyond. 

Love gets mushed into romantic ideals and the triviality of socially calandared events (commercially dependant anniversaries, valentines, birthdays...) where material gifts are exchanged. These shows of love are are as far removed from an authentic marriage as night is from day.

Only one gift matters, being true to each other. The rest is so much shows of fashion, a hollow surrogate to the truth of the matter.

There is a much confusion over the question of 'arranged' vs. 'love' marriage. This is because we are being taught to use terms that are borrowed from a western diction and mindset that does not apply to other cultures. So much is lost in translation.

All marriages are 'arranged' by circumstance and by the people around us in one fashion or another.

The real question should not be love vs. arrnaged, but rather - "is this a marriage between two individuals or two families?" I know of so called 'arranged' marriages where only two individuals got married, I also know of so called love marriages where two tribes became one.

We change every seven years (plus-minus 2), weaving a continously renewing relationship year after year. Marriage is more than a promise, it is the union of two souls into one. As we traverse through various stages of life, be they innocent lovers, the ignorance of parenthood, the tender steps of becoming in laws, learning to be grand parents and finally, the inevitable widow/widowership, each of these platforms represent different marriages in one.

I can only hope that my daughter finds a love with whom she can carve out a unique set of principles that allow them to discover the kind of joy that I have through my beautiful trouble and strife!

"If men could be contented to be what they are,
there were no fear in marriage."
All's Well That Ends Well
Act I - Scene iii

Thinking Makes It So

"For there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so"
Hamlet ACT II, Scene ii

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Self Awareness resides in three states.

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We encompass all three states, we can be enraptured in any one for an extended period of time (perhaps even as short as one lifetime) or we can gently waft like a summer breeze across the state boundaries in the instant of a thought.

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This is our dance of self and mutual awareness, this is our silly little drama of vanity, the thing we call so mightily "our life".

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LEVEL 1 - Unexamined.

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I am prisoner of my non-reality, a slave to my vain judgment, seduced by my own elaborations. I naively assume that everything I think and see iis real simply because I think and feel it. This cartesian illusion is so all incompassing that I share my grand illusion without impunity with my fellow travellers.

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I am trapped in the illusion that I am permanent, that I am perfect or need to be so perfected. I glibly assume that the memories that flicker in my mind are the reflections of my childhood, when i could not possibly recall accurately what is happening right now or what I said and did even yesterday. In this state I am transfixed deep in the fist of a shallow sleep. I am so crowded in by my senses that I have not sense of I, this life or this world.  There is no 'common sense' because there is no sense of commonality or connection to what is real.

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LEVEL 2 - Examined.

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I am in touch with reality . I realize that I am my environment because my environment is the projection I make of me. I am concious of an intuition, can tell stories about it, know it exists even if I cannot touch it. This is first order awakening, the barest glimpse of the doorknob to reality. I am connected to my connections, to the commonality, to the laws of self awareness, cause and effect and the law of appreciation.

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It dawns on us that we are caught in the rapture of an illusion, that all these definitions we hang so much meaning and faith upon are all false boundaries, these obstacles and emotions that we use as markers to define the boundaries of our existence, the passages in and out of our life are not as definitive and permanent as we think.

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This is the root of the energy that resides in decision and action. This is the power in "Boyd's Loop". The awakening to this unfolds the mystery and mastery of life.

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What are the factors that matter? What are people doing about it these days?

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LEVEL 3 - Unexaminable.

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I am free of naive notions of reality. I am nothing, this is all an illusion,  the thing I call I is timeless, its freedom resides in being detached from the limited frames of illusion of "I am" and "this is" happiness is a meaningless wave that washes between suffering (attachment) and awakening (detachment). We are free from illusion because we can waft between orientation and disorientation fearlessly.

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I am accountable, I possess the power and capacity to move through these gears. The only way to do it is to reset the default conditioning through reflection, sleep, deep listening, inquiry, authentic conversation, prayer, meditation, any act that snaps in the pre-ordained illusion, gives us a rite of passage back to our barest of elements that separates life and death, our breath.

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Decisions being made by and actions being taken other people, the drunk driving that car, that politician making this law, those neighbors talking to our spouse or total strangers who decide to carpet bomb our senses with advertising spin because they want us to own us, take our time, money or vote - that these other people out there - have as much affect on our mean little lives as anything we think or do.

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The notion of me, my life, my history is predominantly a clutching, clinging, modern, northern and western hemisphere construction, it is slowly but surely consuming the largely ancient, eastern and southern wisdom.

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There is a raw power to african, native american and incan shamanism, true celtic and pagan roots are not abstract, they are authentic to the point of being painfully real. The pure breathless beauty of zen buddhism, sikhism, sufism and the kabbalalist rights of passage are being crushed under the concrete super-highway of instant religion, this is the instant gratification, sensationalist, spiritual masturbation that pours out of the radio, television preachers and self righteous internet sites.

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The Bible mentions meditate or meditation twenty times. The Old Testament contains two Hebrew words for meditation: hāgâ (Hebrew: הגה), which means to sigh or murmur, but also to meditate, and sîḥâ (Hebrew: שיחה), which means to muse.

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We waft between these three states of self awarness, contrary to the cheap slick veneer of the new-age movement or the craggy mountain of freudian corruption - we do not need to reach outside to know what already resides inside.

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The unconcious kiss, curl of a babies grip on our finger, a poem that glimpses at us, intoxication of a fresh piece of fruit and the thud that comes with the death of a loved one. All of this and so much more can move us in an instant from the unexamined to the unexaminable, instantly. We waft back out as quickly as we move in.

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Chogyam Trungpa called it spiritual materialism.  Many monks remind us of the vanity and the constant proximity of these 3 awareness states, they are to us pressed up against our face and bodies from the inside out, we only need to quiet the chattering, cluttering mind and shut out the noise from the outside to discover the wisdom in our own silence, the whisper of truth that resides beneath and carries our every breath.

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"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool"
As You Like It

ACT V, scene i

make something nothing

So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,
Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Richard II
Act V, scene v.

A couple of days ago Kenneth Lay was laid to rest. Who was Mr Enron? Who knows or will ever want to know his rags to riches to ragtime life story?

Who knows how many good deeds he did, how many people he helped along the way? Right now, who cares? His life has been reduced to a brief slur. So much for one life.

Early this morning, my mother and I sat at the breakfast table discussing this and the other more mundane matters of our own routine little lives.

I told her about an individual am working with, how she seems hell bent on self destruction. I described how she has turned her life into an emotional roller coaster and how everyone around her has to go along for the ride on this free but very expensive, extensive, unnecessary distraction.

My mother smiled and said "You know, God is not such an idiot that he would go to every extreme to imbue me with such perfection and then leave the rest of humanity unfinished. Everyone thinks they are perfect and they are right. We were all made perfect at birth, but we go way out of our way to unhinge this perfection with our vanity and greed"

We are given everything we need to be healthy and successful. We undo our own perfection when we succumb to vanity and greed.

Greed binds us, blinds us, buries the treasure of our inner perfection, disconnects us from the design of our own beautiful simplicity and because of that we block each others greatness.

Vanity makes everything larger than it is. Every minor irritation matures into a sleepless night, every strange obsession melts into an addiction, every accusation spills over into a chemical imbalance, before we know it, we are buried in a mass grave of betrayal, divorce, murder and rape.

The excess of social upheaval and the manufactured nature of war is rooted in the ultimate seed of self destruction.

The seed is greed.

Once this seed is planted in the soil of vanity, from it grows the wicked invincible invisible weed that blocks out the light of our own wisdom, burns out the purity of our minds eye, stirs everything we touch into a torment and torments everyone we touch.

The ultimate vanity is the assumption that we alone hold the patent to truth. The ultimate greed is the assumption that we will or at least deserve to live forever. Was Kenny vain or greedy? I don't know, one thing for sure, like you and I, he was imperfect and awfully impermanent.

So that in venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
Make something nothing by augmenting it.
The Rape of Lucrece 148-4

Crouch for Employment

     “Out ye rogue! Play out the play!”
Henry IV, Part One
Act II, scene iv.

21st Century bureaucrats do not come in bowler hats, suits and ties. They wear khaki pants and trendy shirts. They read all the right business books and spin wondrous tales about brave new worlds. They talk about empowerment and enlightenment whilst they make everyone around them feel inadequate and afraid.

I encounter these modern day bureaucrats in my travels all the time. It is an occupational hazard.

Bureaucrats appear to be strong but they are the most fragile of creatures. They appear to be impenetrable but they quickly reveal themselves.

Instead of bowler hats, the new bureaucrats wear other people's thinking as if it is their own. They wear second hand knowledge with a style that becomes their own trademark. They form agenda's and hang onto them for dear life because once you borrow someone else's thinking, adapting it to changing circumstances and new knowledge is tougher - than to think!

Bureaucrats talk about business plans but can’t actually provide you one. They talk incessantly about the need for teamwork, culture, speed, empowerment, business results, innovation and accountability, in the meanwhile they create an environment of servitude, take every action possible to avoid these things as they fear them ever taking place as they will steal the one thing that they relish and depend upon - their own position power.

Bureaucrats talk about change as if no one except they understand it, but they don’t have a clue about what it takes to ignite it. They steal ideas from others who possess strategic knowledge, without ever giving credit to the source for fear that it may reveal their own frailty.

Bureaucrats never tell people directly that they will be fired, they are more cunning, they create the sense of impending doom, they create a culture where everyone has to pay homage to their every glance and word.

Leaders create leaders. Bureaucrats create followers. These sexy bureaucrats talk about innovation as if their life depended upon it. As executives they know that 'change' has become a procedural requirement. When they occupy the role of a CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, CHRO, CIO, CTO, etc... they C nothing but the power they can C-zzzzz.

If they occupy senior roles that do not have position power, in functions such as HR, OD, IT, Finance or if they are external new age, high tech consultants - they use jargon and power talk their way to a trendy obedience, that has become the fashion of so many organizations. Attend any conference, any day, in any town this week, you will see this lusty bureaucratic co-dependence on display on the stages and in the audience.

The modern day bureaucrat knows how to spin ideas and tell compelling stories about learning and change, but they are not prepared for the chaotic nature of the beast, the conflicts and confusion and unruly sense of surprise and constant unease that come with the ikky process we conveniently call creativity. If their agenda is questioned, they revert to wielding the club - their position power and/or connections to ensure compliance.

Modern day bureaucrats are worse than their pen pushing predecessors, at least they were transparent in their motives and actions.

The suave new variety play out their fantastic roles so well and are so enamored (addicted) by the compliance that follows, that they eventually convince themselves of the sanity (sanctity) of their plain faced duplicity. You can hold the mirror up in front of them, but they cannot see how they have created and perpetuate their own lie.

Here is how this game is played: The power of so many people paying attention and following your every word is over-powering. So much so, that it becomes difficult to think, explore, experiment, for fear of being wrong and losing face, so the double bind is locked in.

People who do the work, end up working twice as hard to succeed in spite of their so called leadership, only to have these same 'leaders' take credit for the work that they are making it so difficult to do.

Where or how could they even begin to unravel the threads of this plot? So the dance of folly goes on! Everyone knows and plays their part, even if it is killing them and the business they are in.

On the surface life appears to be smooth, below the smiling faces a rage is ready to explode. The environment of fear has its casualties, some people get ill, for others it disrupts or even destroys their home lives, others quit and stay, others move on, people eventually take out this rage against on each other, unaware of the root cause of their angst. The sexy bureaucrat in the meanwhile watches from above, wondering "what is wrong with these people?".

It does not take much to uncover the truth, scratch and sniff the surface and it unleashes months sometimes years of betrayal, bold faced lies and fear ladened duplicity.

The modern bureaucrat has only one pre-occupation, like Sméagol in Lord of the Rings it is all about ‘The Precious” the position power that makes them look so smart. Their sub conscious motive is to ensure two outcomes: Firstly to ensure people below feel inadequate and insecure and secondly to ensure the people above them (e.g. Board of Directors) buy into their spin city.

In a bureaucracy everyone stands in a circle and the first person to do anything that does not have the bureaucrats name on it, loses.

21st Century bureaucrats read all the right books and reports, but they are only as smart as their last conversation. They rinse and repeat other people’s wisdom. They are called leaders because that's their job title. They dispense witty sermons to keep the questions at bay and the unwashed masses at bay, as they weave their brand of soft terror.

Bureaucrats in our century do not wear bowler hats, The glance they wear is enough to command instant obedience. When they enter a room, everyone's senses shift to high alert.

Our newly fashioned bureaucrats apply the same ruse as their predator predecessors. Their position power and social authority serves one purpose, to become the central cog in the wheel of their own self-importance.

Bureaucrats think they are inspiring, passion and joy because they have made so many rousing speeches about the importance of innovation, but their deeds and the motives of their followers betray their carefully crafted speeches.

The trains run on time, but no one knows where they are going and are slowly forgetting why they are on board. The destination is the sustenance of the power monger. If I had my way I would tear off their khaki pants, rip off the trend shirts, hang a bowler hat on their inflated ego and send them packing.

    "O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of invention,
    A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
    And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
    Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
    Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
    Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
    Crouch for employment"
Henry V
Prologue

Action Is Eloquence

"For in such business
Action is eloquence"
CORIOLANUS
Act III, scene ii

Heraclitus wrote “We cannot step into the same river twice” 2500 years ago.

Did he mean that the water we stepped in is now gone, long since become the ocean? Or was it that the next time we step into the river we will be a different person?

Nature is in a constant state of flux. The only constant is our illusion of perfection and permanence.

We fix names on things and people to create an illusion of permanence. Constructs like 'river' allow us to possess or control reality on our own terms.

Whether it is cleaning dishes or altering the culture of society around us, our contribution to the world and people around us is the only true measure of our existence, the rest is all only so much talk that will vanish back into the same thin air from whence it came.

I am working with a small group of quiet revolutionaries. I call them the Omega’s because they are both the beginning and end of change that is underway in a major organization in America. When they buzz, the change flows, when they become mortal, the change evaporates into the sky.

Collectively, these six passionate, visionary individuals are the hub of a movement, a deep rooted change in an iconic organization, whose name I cannot share I am bound by client - consultant privilege.

The Omega’s power source is not in the formal delegation of authority by their collective boss, it does not come from their job titles or even the consultants that pursue their charge. Their power resides in their unified, fearless sense of the present moment and a shared sense of mission. Their power springs from the engagement of the hearts and minds of the people all around them.

The Omega's have created a trusted space to help hundreds of people to fashion a future in the new high tech, multi-media environment.

Like the rest of us, the Omega’s have their good and bad days, but when they set aside any vain pre-occupation with position power, titles and the temporal reputations that so often consume men, this is when they flow, this is when they reign supreme.

The Omega's disappeared for 7 weeks, melted away as mystically as they appeared. Suddenly, there they stood alone, six lonely, fragmented, powerless mortals consumed in their positions and roles. This was a temporary slide, thankfully they have found their voice once more in the past few weeks.

The Omega's power rises when they forget their individual power and forge a new reality through each other.

The Omega’s shift to a whole new level when they create a space to enable hundreds of people in their industry to find their own voice.

It is stirring to watch their individual intelligence flow through each other to create an ocean of energy and power. They grow as they wrestle and struggle through each others truths. I sense the pain as they they hit boulders and river banks of chaos, only to find a new reality rise out of the confusion. They become ordinary when they take themselves, their positions and titles seriously.

The focus on a new reality, the open engagement and genuine collective inquiry leading to rapid action through expeditions and initiatives has provided this small, conspicuous group the opportunity to do something that no individual genius or hero could dream of.

Victor Frankl reminds us in“Man’s Search For Meaning”

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways, through our deeds, experience of a value and finally through suffering…. Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way. What matters most, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

He goes on further to say:

“What man actually needs is not a tension-less state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

Every thought feeds an action. Every action create a new thought. This is the self-perpetuating water mill of life, the energy that flows from and through our nature, into and out of every precious moment that we are alive.

The Omega's are a temporary construct, they are imperfect and impermanent, but as they change, they change the world around them. That is what makes them the 'Omega'. As they grow, so does everything around them, including me.

The moment they combine their diverse experiences, strengths and styles through each other, they alter the path of the very river that they stand in. The Omega's embody the notion of moving from 'having', to 'being' to 'becoming'. Every time I step into them I am renewed.

“We, which now behold these present days
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise”
SONNET CVI (106)

Wheel of Fire

"Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead"

King Lear (Act IV, scene vi)

I was asked why I meditate everyday. There is a simple answer and a complicated one. The simple answer is it allows me to awaken.

The deeper answer is this... every day as we live and breath, grime builds up around our essence and being. It is the natural outcome of every day living. This grime blocks the pours of our spiritual, thinking, emotion and physical being.

At the end of every day our skin and our actions have had their day in the sun and beg to be washed away.

Sleep washes away the redundancy of the day that has is no more. Each morning we open our eyes to a brand new day, it is (or at least should be) a new brand experience of what it means to be me in this life.

If we drag the redundancy of the previous day or days (or even months and years), if we remain locked and pre-occupied with reliving conversations and actions of the past, there is no room left to experience today. Living in the past fills up the present, it is the most severe living, breathing death sentence we can pass freely upon ourselves.

This is the natural redundancy or by-product of living. It must be rinsed out and eliminated from our memories, bodies, houses and towns/villages. Processing this natural waste is vital to our health and well being. If we fail to eliminate it, we will feel its burden, we may get ill, but left unattended it will eventually choke us to a living death. We may become so consumed by the waste that we become the waste.

Cleaning a room, organizing our desk or workspace, taking a bath or shower cleanses our body, holding an honest conversation, all of this can be hard work, but it leaves us free, energized and breathing whole. The same is true for listening to a great song, watching a marvelous movie, preparing and/or enjoying a freshly cooked meal, going on vacation, even going on a shopping expedition, all these basic actions renew our focus on the present. These acts can be habitual or meditative. If they are on auto-pilot they are a living death, if they are concious, if they bring us back to today, they are a form of meditation.

How do we cleanse our spirit? We can't wash it with soap and water, we can't hoover it, put it in tidy little stacks and draws? The only way to reset the default on our soul is to withdraw, to draw a breath and then another and then another. Breathing is what it's all about. This stops, and everthing else ceases to matter. Returning to our breath reminds us what is really important, begins to put all other noise and clutter into perspective.

Meditation is a very deliberately way of not acting, allowing the dust of yesterday to settle. The dead skin of old actions and events needs to settle so we can see through it and move past it. What was once vital, is now rubbish. Once we are able to mark and discard the mental and emotional baggage, the noise or redundancy of our past, we are free to discover a new voice, in the new - present moment. This is a freedom that cannot be fought for or bought forth. It is there inside us all the time.

Our history is the rubbish of moments that have 'past' - we need to manage rubbish properly, extract it so that it does not contaminate the 'present'. We have to respect rubbish but not take it so seriously that we bathe our present or presence in it.

We can pull the resident energy from yesterday's rubbish if we apply a ego-free contemplation, refuse to justify or pass judgement. Making excuses for what we said or did yesterday is soiling our clean hands in a deathly smell.

Reflecting on the past and learning from our successes and mistakes is an act in the present, this also sets us free. It is not to be confused with blindly re-living old conversations and experiences. One is working the truth out of the past, the other is being consumed by it.

Learning from the past is hard work, but it is not the same as yearning for or becoming the past.

Our chief task is to create history, not to toil in it.

We wash out the noise of yesterday with the water of silence and contemplation. Prayer or meditation unlocks the hold that the past has on us. But it is more than faith, even the simple acts of cleaning tables, washing dishes, repairing cars are all a form of prayer. These act returns us to sanctity and allows sanity to prevail.

We create our sanctuary (home) by cleaning out the excess. Like a poet removing excess words or a composer extracting excess notes, we create space for ourselves by removing the redundancy (rubbish) around us, by tidying up, cleaning or renovating the space in which we live.

We cleanse our spirit through love. True friendship cleanses our emotional and spiritual grime,

For many years my mother has taught me the importance of "rehm-das" --- this is a deep level of empathy, a deep, authentic concern for the well being of others. This is not be confused with sympathy or charity. It is akin to the Golden Rule - of doing onto others as you will have them do unto you, except it is not about taking an action, it is a state of being that informs all our deeds.

I was asked why I meditate and my reply is this: "I meditate for the same reason I shower every morning and eat fresh fruit, it helps me enjoy a brand new day, experience a brand new way, allows me to be brand new - me". It all gets down to one simple word: FREEDOM.

Sermons In Stones

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head; and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it."
As You Like It
(Act II, scene i)

I am in debt to the many great physicians across Europe and North America who have instructed me through their practice, what it means to be a true consultant.

I have spent a lot of time in the health care system. MD’s all wear white coats, they all go through the same schooling and carry the same titles, but their practice exists along a spectrum, with prescribers on the one end and consultants on the other.

Whether it is the local GP, a specialist, a cardiologist, gynecologist, neurologist, psychologist, or (I am ashamed to admit) even oncologist’s, all medical doctors exist somewhere along this continuum between prescriber and consultant.

Patients also exist on a continuum between codependant and interdepandant.

Prescribers look at the disease first, then the patient. They attend to illness not health.

Prescribers diagnose the illness based on the best mix of solutions (pharmaceuticals) to ‘fix’ the patient. If the drugs don’t work they default to surgery or psychiatric therapy. A prescribers goal is to get through as many patients as they can in the shortest space of time.

The prescriber is the ‘wise one’ who has all the answers, his or her solutions must be obeyed. They talk at the patient, treat them like a child. They create a codependence that is the burden of any health care system.

Prescribers give patients more drugs than they need or often ever use.

Prescribers do not learn from their patients, they learn from the producers of drugs.

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie"
Alls Well That End's Well
(Act I, scene i)

Consultants look at the patient first, then the disease.

Consultants diagnose the patients thinking, work/play habits, diet, sleep, exercise, family history, environment in order to get to the root of the patient’s health.

Consultants know that the body is the world’s finest pharmacy. They help the patient build their self awareness and discover the own strength that resides within.

Consultants work with the patient to help them to raise their self awareness and take accountability for their own health and well being, educate and empower them to alter their own habits and take control of their own environment.

You can spot the diference between the consultant and the prescriber simply by the amount of medication they use.

Consultants free the patient from their dependance on the doctor, they lift the burden off the health care system and put it back on the patient's back.

I owe everything to these doctors. They taught me the difference between being a true consultant vs. a con-slut-ant. Realilze the difference between iiving a life and living a lie.

“Who worse than a physician would this report become? But I consider by medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too”
Cymbeline
(Act V, scene iv)

Friendship Makes Us

"Thy friendship makes us fresh"
Henry VI, Part 1
Act 3, Scene iii

We are born alone and will die alone. Whilst we breathe, our lives are defined through our relationships with others.

As true friends we do more than share values and appreciate each others strengths and flaws. We refine our appreciation of ourselves, re-tune what it means to be alive, like two hands that wash each other, we wash out the confusion, help each other to discover what it means to be ourselves.

True friends are mid-wives of change. Not the whores of influence. A true friend draws out the power that is concealed deep within us and gives it back to us. A friend does not expect perfection or for us to be like them, they lower their own defenses and allow us to meet them full head on, they do not waste energy fearing being judged or passing judgment on us.

Every day I am confronted by people tormented because they choose to invest every minute, their very heart and soul into cutting down, sizing up and placing emotional judgments on others. The people consumed by the futility of this foolishness, fail to realize the energy it takes to hate another human being and just how much this poisons their own view of themselves.

Every day I am confronted by people who are tormented because they will not forgive themselves let for being human. They heap shame on themselves and shy away from compliments, they are in a position to lead their tribe in a new direction, but do not know how to forgive themselves or others for being human or celebrate the greatness that resides in their midst. Rather than enjoy whats going on, they are too busy rushing to the next big thing, heaping even more self criticism on for good measure. This activity tap spurns more time poverty, consumes them with negativity, which in turn gulps up precious time and engulfs their ability to do it right once.

The headlong obsession with activity is an addiction to self annihilation. The busy-ness runs so deep that interrupting it is more painful than continuing the pointless punishment, so the beat goes on.

We are born alone and will die alone. Whilst we still breathe, perhaps our lives should be lived and defined through our relationship with ourselves? By be-friending ourselves, we can get past the poisonous self to the real self imprisoned beyond our rational reach.

Perhaps we need to do more than wear our values like a worn out fashion accessory? Perhaps we should challenge others to be more of themselves and if we care enough about each other to do so, perhaps we need to give the same gift to ourselves?

"To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
But where there is true friendship, there needs none"
Timon of Athens
Act I, Scene ii

Hidden Worthiness

CASSIUS: Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;   
  By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried 
  Thoughts of great value, worthy