Category Archives: Incandescent

Kind is the new beautiful

It is time for a renaissance of kindness. Imagine our world changed overnight and kind is the new beautiful. Imagine that being friendly, generous, and considerate is valued above and beyond just looks or even how much money you have. Give kindness a like, and subscribe.

Kind is the new beautiful

As fast as the consumerist and corporatist worlds think up gimmicks to sell us stuff we don’t need we’re burning-out and turning off from that white noise. You feel it too, don’t you, the barrage of the advertising and info-mercials, it is so untrustworthy. Increasingly we wonder if the news we’re getting today will be uncovered as a scandal or fraud tomorrow. We can’t help but wonder who funded a scientific study or who selected the people on a ‘think tank’ that’s making policy so we slowly wind ourselves in. We bring our attention and trust a little closer, we’re a little slower to give them, a little more discerning in where we let our attention linger. The shallowness of that aspect of the world can leave us jaded, or feeling betrayed or bitter but there’s a powerful antidote.

Kindness is both an antidote and a revolution

Powerful and transformative, kindness is vastly underestimated by people who haven’t tried it.  A cornerstone of kindness is the capacity to be considerate of others. That requires you to understand that other people’s experiences are different to your own. That’s a simple statement, isn’t it, other people’s experiences are different to your own and yet we see in our society that hurt and hardship come from ignoring that, from demeaning otherness or judging it negatively, or creating environments in which it is impossible for people to participate and be valued if they don’t have the right experiences (rather than, say, skills or capacities). This may have happened to you. 
When you nurture your own capacity for consideration, you begin to break that cycle. When you are generous or friendly to another, you are affirming a type of humanity and community which values people above business. When you can be considerate of others you begin to see how you might be considerate towards yourself too – a taboo in so many parts of the first world. Not indulgent, considerate. There’s a difference between buying new shoes you don’t really need and going to bed at a regular, reasonable time so that you get the sleep that you need. Self-sabotage is all too common and being considerate to oneself is a powerful antidote. 
These are just some basics on kindness. Think about the ripple effect of applying kindness to the Earth that sustains us. Think about the revolutionary power of being kind to strangers at the level of communities, states, countries. 

A kindness starter kit

  • Smile first
  • Slow down and listen
  • Let your curiosity unfurl and wander
  • Be generous of whatever you have in plenty
  • Be grateful for who you love, what you have, what you know, and smile from there
  • Take your time and practice, you probably have other habits that are stronger
  • Imagine that you’re a best friend (to the stranger or yourself) and that you love that person as a friend, from there, what might you say or do differently?
Have fun, and remember, you’re better than beautiful, you’re kind.

Let’s all win lotto

I’m just going to put this out there into the universe. I want things to change. I want to be that happy person that smiles no matter how things are going. I want it so badly that it is an ache every single day. The Happy Pills the doctor gave me aren’t enough. So it is time, time for the one ticket to rule them all and according to the internet, if we just want it bad enough we’ll attract it. So Let’s do this – let’s win lotto!

Will money make you happy

The internet also told me that to attract wealth I should be living as though I’m already rich. Huh? How stupid is that? Obviously I can’t afford to do that or I would be rich already and I wouldn’t be worrying about attracting wealth. Who writes this stuff? Sheesh.

Anyway. Winning numbers, happy days.

Why win lotto

Lots of people have thought about what life might be like if they win lotto. Here are some highlights:

  • enjoy life
  • no more money worries
  • freedom
  • help other people
  • more security
  • spend time with those you love

Great list isn’t it – so why don’t more people go ahead and win lotto? It is a no-brainer that you’d want more of that stuff. I’ve learnt how to get results and I’m more than happy how to share it.

Three amazing tips to buy the winning ticket

What I’ve learnt is that a lot of people don’t realise that they’re buying the wrong tickets. There’s a system to win lotto and a lot of it comes down to the ticket. I’ve been researching all the big winners and they have more than you think in common. It isn’t even really a secret but you have to know how to apply it. So how do you buy the winning ticket? Here are the three amazing insights and tricks I’ve learnt through my research:

  1. What are you buying it with? If you want your life to change, you have to pay. What are you really paying with and is it valuable enough to earn you a win?
  2. Who are you buying it from? Is the seller truly capable of giving you a win? Will they actually deliver what they promise?
  3. Are you in the right game? A lot of people mistakenly enter lotteries that offer cash prizes and this is where their strategy falls over, as even if they win, all they have is more money. #Fail

Apply the simple system for great results!

You’ve got to get more strategic, play the bigger game, make the move that addresses your needs at the right level. Here’s how to apply the simple three point system to achieve the results you’re yearning for.

  1. Pay with your time, your habits, your pride, your ego. Really dig deep to find what you’re willing to release.
  2. Get your entry from the only supplier who has the authority to deliver what you need. You. No one else can deliver the good. Don’t believe the hype or the sales pitch, it is just you.
  3. Be in the right game – ask only for the Bliss of Being. No amount of cash can buy this, nothing else is a prize worth winning.

Do you see how it all works together? Do you see the symmetry and logic of the system?! I’m playing again tonight, and tomorrow, and again until I get it right. Please join in and we can all win the lotto of the soul.

Share your sunrise smile

share your sunrise smileLast week talked about the bliss of being and how it is part of you wherever and whenever you are. Do you want a tip for how to connect with it? Like so many things in the world you have to give something up to get something else. This is radical, you’re going to love it, you need to share your sunrise smile. With strangers, whenever you can. Flagrantly, extravagantly, abundantly.

Feel the sunrise

Although sometimes you have a tough week the world doesn’t stop and wait while we pull ourselves back together but the mundane miracle is the each day really is a new day. Our habit is to carry the burden of yesterday forward into today and we open our eyes to the world already heavy with the weight of the past. Imagine that instead each morning your mind was clear like the sand washed smooth by the tide and you could smile radiantly with your whole being. Incandescent with joy, innocence, bliss. That is a sunrise smile, the expression that everyone who knows you and cares for you loves to see on your face. It is the smile that gives strangers a tingle and makes just about everyone smile in return. It is your expression it is your treasure and you must give it away every day.

The gift that keeps on giving

Of course it is also a magical smile in two important ways.
Firstly, like all smiles, it multiplies. The more you share, the more you get back. This is nearly always true. I work in a building with a lot of lawyers, they don’t seem to like people smiling during business hours. Tough crowd.
Secondly, and here’s the unexpected win, it makes you feel *amazing*. If you practice and reach into the place inside you where the sunrise lives, you’re shunting away the built-up grunge from yesterday and you’re not rushing forward into what might happen later, you’re holding a golden moment of utter “now-ness” right there in your heart and it just bursts right through to your face. Wow. Try it. It feels weird to begin with. Practice on your dog or a favourite tree.
It gets easier, and apart from the delight you get in having lots more people smiling at you more of the time, you’re also experiencing connection with your own bliss of being. Wins all round.
Share your sunrise smile as much as you can and live today from your bliss.

Bliss of being

Do you feel the bliss of being? Are you in love with the play of light and the feel of the earth as you move through the days of your life? Or do you feel that you’re missing out on something and if only you knew what it was you’d never rest until you found it? “Just tell me!” I’ve heard people plead, “I want to be happy, tell me what to do, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

bliss of beingActually, we’ve been talking about this topic for a long time here, it is why the quincunx model is so important, why we spent time witnessing our behaviours around debt and provisional living. All those topics are connected. They are all part of the incandescent line of who you really are – the part of you that is always enough. It is the part of you that knows the bliss of being, the part that is always already free.

As human beings we get caught up in the human parts of our lives. Our intellect is in charge, driving us this way and that that way, lashed invisibly to our powerful and cunning egos we are so busy in the four senses of the world and their pleasures that we lose touch with being. We look down on “just being” a bit. After all, why go to all the effort of evolving this giant brain if you’re not going to use it all the time? (Exacerbated by all those ways we have of proving how clever and giant that brain really is – MENSA memberships and official measurements of IQ and the university system and so on.)

The burden of the brain

So what’s the drawback of the valuable brain? Well because your amazing, unique, wonderful giant brain will never bring you bliss. Instead it brings with it all of the side-effects of thinking; constant thinking, over-thinking, worry, anxiety, living in the past by re-living events and conversations, trying to double-guess events and reactions that haven’t and may never happen, living in a future that is not certain (when I lose weight, when I have more money, when I have time).
Let’s come at this from a different direction for a moment, and use time as an example. We’ll use ‘human time’ and ‘being time’ to illustrate the difference. Humans used their giant brains to invent clocks so we could keep appointments. That’s handy and lets us get a lot done in an organised and efficient way. Independent of clocks, there is ‘being time’.
If you’re one of the lucky people who has ever shared your life with a pet or an infant human (or indeed a wild creature) then you’ll know that they live completely in ‘being time’. If you’re very lucky indeed and you’ve connected with them deeply and at their level, you’ve probably experienced the bliss of being.
In ‘being time’ you’re able to encompass thinking, but not react to it, you’re able to exist in that brilliant, fluid stillness that we in our impoverished spoken language just call “now”.
Once we give ‘being time’ a name, your giant brain tries to take over again and it interferes with experiencing the now by thinking about what it is that you’re doing while you’re being. Notice those thoughts too and let them go. What you’re after while you’re in ‘being time’ are gaps between thoughts and, if possible, letting those gaps become longer because it is only in those gaps that your being can blossom up into bliss.

The bliss of being

There is a vast something inside you that is brightly alive.

Let’s not give it a name today that will just set your giant brain off again. This aliveness is the source of true bliss in your life and it is always with you.
For a long time I thought that buying (and stockpiling) books would make me happy (at some point in the future) by filling a hole I felt inside of me. I thought that if I knew more, I would feel full but it wasn’t a hole, it was the ‘giant brain’ and the ego keeping me distant from Being. That’s how central it is to us, we know that we need it and yearn for it constantly in the background of our busy lives, our worries, fears and cluttered rooms. We can find freedom from that hurting chasm by re-uniting with our own being, with our aliveness in our center.

It is one thing to know this, but the magic is in feeling it. Seek and ye shall find.

The Time for Forgiveness is now

The time for forgoveness is nowLet’s take a moment to remember the importance of time in our lives. The present, right now, is the only time we really have any control over. Just in case you’re not sure what to do with the next five minutes or so, I’ll give you a hint: the time for forgiveness is now. If we want change or growth in our lives it starts with the forgiveness of who were or what we did in the past so that we can heal from the wounds we’re carrying. Don’t wait for divine intervention to make the most of now. Begin the process yourself with forgiveness and healing will follow.

Of course learning from the past is important. Remembering things, making amends for bad action, doing things differently, these are all critical aspects of growing up, maturing, being a decent person but staying caught in an emotional rut around past incidents is a trigger for repeating the experience. That doesn’t really help you to learn, it leaves you re-living things. You’re effectively traumatising yourself.

You need your energy

Do you know someone who is a bit of a drama-queen or an energy-vampire? They seem to always create a heightened state of disarray and then drag you into it – you feel drained by it – and the same thing happens time after time. You feel like you’re powerless to unhook from their drama, despite the knowledge that you’re really sick of it. You’re so nice, you probably even feel guilty too. You want to say something but you don’t want to be rude, or you’ve said something but they didn’t take it on board and here you are again going around in a circle, stuck in someone else’s story.

It isn’t always going to help just to remember that you’re enough, or that you want to feel centered and choose how you respond to a situation. There’s no single answer, we muddle on as best we can. You, all of you, the higher you, the you that needs to remember to pick up milk, the you that yearns for a quiet day at home in bed – all the yous – need your energy to come home. You need your energy for yourself. Sometimes you just need some time out. A time to come back to base. When you do, you might find yourself worrying, or judging your performance. “I should have handled that better.” “I wish I’d stood up for what I believe in.” “I’m tired of going along with his lies.” There are so many things where in the moment we do the best we can and move on. We spend our days running to stand still. Well here’s your invitation to draw a line under each day. Forgive yourself. The energy you’d use berating or judging or re-living can go towards resting, or enjoying some music or laughing with your best friend.

Now is the time of your life

Don’t wait. Don’t put it off as a special thing just for New Year’s Eve or some other special occasion. Our lives are made up only of now after now strung together as precious beads on a string. None of us know how long our string will be. We know from our elders that it nearly never seems to have been long enough once you get to the end of it. As you read this, forgive yourself yesterday’s stumble. Thread a fresh now onto your string. Connect with those who forgive you. Make amends if you need to and then shift your commitment into living your now with the center of yourself at the center of your day.

Perhaps you do believe in divine forgiveness, if you do, be generous with yourself and ask for it from your source. Our goal is to find our center, that place where we can find harmony in opposites and balance between the worlds we live in. The present you are in right now is more precious than money can buy. Be generous with it towards yourself and those you love.

Thank you for spending some of your time here with us. Please share this with someone you love. Oh, and have a great day.

Picture image source

We are all in this together

There is a team of people who help make these essays happen and it is probably the same for you too, that what you make is not done in a vaccum. Hmmm. Team sounds very sportsy doesn’t it? Maybe even with someone blowing a whistle and pointing and someone else keeping score. Imagine instead people choosing to collaborate and play together sometimes with one purpose and sometimes with another. Perhaps like a Sunday afternoon gathering of friends – you come if you can and contribute how you’re able. There’s always food and conversation that is delicious, filling, and unique.

That’s a nice image – all sitting around sharing good times, making art and memories. Those moments we can treasure. Days like today it is worth remembering how many more people there are in your world who contribute to everything you have and do. Most of them you’ll never have a chance to meet or know or thank in person but in our globalised and specialised world they are legion.

Who are these mystery fans and assistants? They are the people who grow your food, who can it, bake it, transport it, sell it. They are the people designing and making your clothes, your phones and computers, your books and movies. They are the people who sweep the streets, collect the garbage, unblock drains and watch over us through the dark hours. They do their jobs and allow us a place to do ours. Of course we expect that all those people paid to perform their jobs, and mostly they did, but should that stop us from being grateful that they did it with care or at the cost of being with their loved ones? Just because we use an economic system where money is the means of exchange it doesn’t make the people inside that economy invisible or unimportant. Or rather it doesn’t as long as we each remember them and honour them for their contributions to our lives, comfort and convienience.

The world is full of strangers who are on your team – in unexpected ways.

Thank you for reading and being on the team.
There are plenty more conversations and meals for us to share. Everyone is welcome because we’re all in this together.

With thanks to my Editor, Riley.
Riley drafting a new post

Your incandescent line

Three Moire of mythology measuring the thread of a life

There’s a lot of lines you need to know about in the world. Probably more than you realise.

There’s the line you shouldn’t cross in relationships or conversations, the line in the sand that defines an issue’s boundary, the lines that make the boxes we’re meant to stay within or think outside of (no one seems to be able to make up their mind on that one), lines on the road, lines to queue in and there is the dreaded end of the line.
So many lines! Lines that become bars to hold us in. Are all lines about rules, taboos and forbidden zones?

Thankfully not, there are some good news lines too, although we hear less about them. Think of dropping me a line, a line of reasoning, in the line of duty or your line of sight. Lines can sometimes be threads too, think of fishing lines and life lines from boats.

There’s one more, vitally important line that is good news for you. It is a kind of thread too. Mythologies tell us that it is a thread measured out at your birth by the Moirai.

This is your life. Right now.

There is no brighter future, you’re holding your own thread in your hands right now. Together we can share the choices we make, the twists and insights we experience. This line is all there is, it is enough, it is the only thing you truly own and one day it will reach its own end. Until that day, let’s live as if we know it is flowing through our hands.  Cherish the feel of the thread. Imagine it, maybe yours is silky, or rough rope, or high tensile cable.

This is your line and it is unique. It is your portion of life, to do with what you will, to enjoy and to share or destroy as you decide.

You probably prefer that your life’s line is rich in love, in shared experience, in fulfilment. Not a sad, drab or dark line (although we all have these threads), but a line aglow with vigour, with ardour and purpose. An incandescent line, thrumming and intense, joyful and bright.

If you’re searching for connection, throw yourself a life line, and let it be incandescent.

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Putting down roots

The tree in the Flammarion engravingI love spending time on Earth. The ephemeral nature of it reminds my soul of the precious fragilities of life. Earth shows us glory and wealth. Earth teaches us that everything has a role to play, that there’s purpose in all things and also that humans suffer most from their own making.

I love the way that all our ancestors that have ever been are right here, still with us. That there’s a little kink in our orientation so that as we spiral and circle and dance around the sun, beautiful repeating patterns are made for us to enjoy.

I mean this, not in some abstract, symbolic way, but in a literal, actual way each day, every year. The physical world of our lives, right here under our feet, is both the source and the destination.

I’m repeating this from last week because this is what is so liberating.

It is freeing to be humbled by the totality of the Earth and accept that the expectations we create, the measures we have chosen, the agreements we’ve made to live our lives the way we do, so many of the things that we crave or expect or demand are all of our own invention. Those things are superfluous. Seek them if you wish, but do so with the knowledge that you’ll be able to breathe anyway, that the sun will come up in the morning, and that the trees will fruit in season.

You have seasons too.

Wishing you were ripe in Spring is very hard to fulfil, creating tension for yourself and those who care about you. Likewise in Autumn to obsess about lost days in youth is so pointless. That’s not to say ‘don’t have them’. Create art with those longings, or seek a higher truth from the impetus to understand, work with what is possible inside the physical limits of our reality. That leaves a lot of room for emotional, spiritual and psychological maneuver, it leaves a lot of room for fun, and for the here and now. Sway with the breeze, drink from the rain, tingle with the fire in your sap. There’s freedom here. There’s liberation in knowing what is real, and what is a wish.

I love spending time on Earth with you. There’s nowhere I would rather be. We’re all in this together.

Image Credit

You are already home

We’ve come to the core, possibly the most important element that there is in reconnecting to your own soul, your own freedom. It is a bit counter-intuitive, because initially it will seem like it has basically nothing to do with you personally, but if you can stick with it is a big one. There’s nothing bigger in our world. Literally.

Earthrise photo taken by Bill Anders of Apollo 8 1968It is, of course, the Earth.

Our precious planet is so vast and accommodating, perfectly suited to us and so amazingly varied but even that sentence shows a human point of view. We are just one of the multitudes of creatures who belong here (and only here), we consider it ours, but we belong to it. We were born of this world, not just on it. I find this endlessly wonderful but I understand if you’re asking ‘What’s in it for me?’

Imagine you knew, deeply and without question where your loyalties always fell? Wouldn’t that make things clear? What if there was a really simple equation that could always inform your decision making at a fundamental level?

You are already home

The Earth is a single, finite planet. For all the rah-rah of astronomy in the almost infinite reach of the space we’ve been able to explore through our amazing technologies we’ve found maybe a dozen that maybe might do the trick. If we could get to them, which we can’t (the best candidates are between 20 and 1200 light years away). And I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty leery about signing up for a one-way ticket to even a hotel no one has reviewed, let alone a planet no one is confident can support weeds or insects.

What you can get from this is that the Earth is special. We all enjoy a nice Sci-Fi, just remember that the Fi part stands for fiction. The reality is that we are lucky lucky lucky to have this planet. More than lucky, without this planet nothing about us makes sense. We’re formed by this gravity, we’re formed of this chemical mix, and we find only a small range of temperatures and chemicals safe. So how does this help you? YOU BELONG HERE. The needs of the planet are your needs.

Pretty simple.

Anything that damages the planet is not in our interests as a species. Economy, culture, sport, fossil fuels, wildlife, tourism, smartphones, all of it, everything you can imagine is a fully-owned subsidiary of planet Earth. Look at that amazing photograph. Taken on Christmas Eve, 1968 by Bill Anders as the lunar orbit brought the NASA ship into sight of the Earth.

“For the first time in history, humankind looked at Earth and saw not a jigsaw puzzle of states and countries on an uninspiring flat map – but rather a whole planet uninterrupted by boundaries, a fragile sphere of dazzling beauty floating alone in a dangerous void. There was a home worthy of careful stewardship.”

What a lovely line there at the end, “worthy of careful stewardship”. I think that’s a much more graceful way to explain sustainability. No matter how many ways we describe the intricate interdependencies of related ecosystems, that single image sums it up so perfectly – there is nowhere else. It is all there, in that one ball. We are all in this together. Sustainability isn’t an ‘ism’ we should be into because it is cool or underground or a way to achieve carbon emissions, it is because it is the unarguable reality of a closed system. There’s nowhere to throw anything ‘away’ when you look down on the blue-green sphere.

To an individual human the Earth is so huge, so humbling. Our technology gives the impression that we’ve shrunk it, that we’ve tamed it and controlled it and put it to use for our betterment. Try walking somewhere. Try growing your own food. Try to swim to that island you can see. It is hard. We’ve created a tension between our physical and technical relationships to the Earth. They are out of synch. If you get back in touch with your personal, physical reality to the Earth, it can be so freeing. You know, deep into the core of yourself, that you are one of the stewards of the Earth. We all are, we’re born into that relationship. You know that there’s nowhere ‘away’ for (for example) nuclear waste to go – we simply bequeath that problem it to generations on from ours.

You and I, we’re part of this world. Our bodies come from the alchemy of our ancestors and the Earth. Physically and spiritually we are of this place. It is miraculous and obvious and comforting. In the words of Marshall McLuhan  “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”

I find that incredibly liberating because it reminds me that everything else is a form of consensus reality. I can choose if I participate or not. When you start with what is real – the planet and the gifts of air and water, when you live from those as your basis, the relative value of everything else is easier to gauge.

So take your shoes off and feel some dirt beneath your feet. Look up at the stars and the moon tonight and be glad for your beautiful blue bubble that holds you tight as you do.

The secret word is revealed

Imagine you knew something that defused nearly everything in your world that was stressful. That would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Today we’ll reveal it.

We’ll take a little pause from our series of explorations for a very important aside.

The Oracel at Delphi

There’s something we should have said at the beginning, it is part of the social contract of this blog, and we’ll just take a moment together to make sure we’ll all on the same page.

You already know this secret, and you’ve forgotten it. It is a single, powerful (dare I say magical?) word.

Not just anyone is going to get this, by the way. You have to be ready for it, in fact if you’re not at the right point of preparation, you’ll simply gloss over it. Lots of people don’t want to hear it or see it written down, they’re still addicted to the dramas that come from not knowing it, not using it, not embracing it.

If you’d like to stay wound up and frustrated by most things, click away now. Here’s a cute baby animal page to help you leave. (Actually, probably bookmark that page anyway for those black dog days.) But I digress.

If you’re interested in something freeing, revolutionary and free that you can do right now to start shifting into alignment with your values in every area of your life then read on.

It is radical. Subversive.

It is perfectly scalable and personalised to you, your situation, your specific story, your life as it is right now.

Are you salivating? Are you ready? Do you want the secret knowledge, passed down from the Delphic Oracle through the ages to the initiated? (I made that up in case you feel you need someone more powerful than me to tell you this is true.)

Before we reveal this powerful secret, there’s a few caveats:

  1. It is what it is
  2. It is not the same as ‘perfect’
  3. You are in charge of what happens next
  4. This is not a test you have to pass
  5. You can try again as many times as you like

Did you get all that? Great! You’re ready!

You are enough.

 

Yes, that’s it. You are already enough.

Anything else you want to achieve or accomplish or change or create or feel, that’s on top of this. You are enough.
No, not perfect, not ‘always getting better’, not a failure or a waste or too much or too little of anything. You are enough.

Now is the time for sitting with that idea and letting it play out for you. Reread this if you like. We’re all in this together.

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