Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Maybe just do

Maybe it’s not about crazily dreaming and over-revving our vivid imagination, giving in to overwhelming passion, following the gut and the heart in galloping frency, — because we all dream and imagine and have passion and gut feelings and heart cravings and go overboard.

Maybe, in the first instance, it is about dealing with and getting through what has been put in front of us, — without too much fuzz and too many objections and complaints, — getting it done.

Maybe, rather than running or quitting, it is about facing and managing the situation we are in, which, in many cases isn’t even of our own doing. We had no say about the circumstances we were born into, and I don’t for the sake of brevity want to get into a discussion here that we possibly did have a choice. If we did would we be here? Case closed for now.

We are confronted, bombarded, exposed, to a reality that is fact and tangible. Here we are and here it is. Blaming anybody or anything else for it, keeps us stuck in the mud. Expecting a special handout because of x, y or z or a silver spoon feeding us, is like sitting my butt on top of glue. I will be going nowhere.

For many of us it is a royal f…up and for even more, it is unimaginable hardship.

Solace cannot be found in anything else but our own doing! Hear ye!

No big black books or decorated buildings or revered figures change anything in our lives. They provide a moral view or guideline.

Change only happens when we deal with the coalface of reality head-on. That is the horror of the moment, of the day, of our life. It’s the ice-cold truth or simply the frequency of life that we must accept and ride.
Argue against it, resist, deny, it still remains an immutable truth despite our rebellion. It is like gravity, but this time it is the gravity of life, inescapable like any gravity is.

Unfortunately for those of us who have created a view of the world so removed from this reality, so beautified and perfected and sublime, we are the ones in collision with reality every time.
Yeah. Bang. Crash. Ouch.

Sometimes asking questions is the most stupid thing to do. Too many questions have no (plausible) answers. I can’t believe myself saying such. The balance of answers to questions is not achievable in our life-time, — face it or forever suffer. A sure way of going in circles or staying stuck is to ask too many questions.

Halt that process of questioning, instead just do.

For a moment or two just do something about that which is in front of you and about that which you can do something about.

Having a master plan for life is a wonderful idea. Remembering, or understanding that life is a living thing and not a ‘rigid’ project on paper is important, because the scope changes or adjusts, — often.

I remain in the firm belief that this Life inside us knows what is best for us and that our circumstances can be different to what they are now. I also know that our mind and ego are not always our biggest assets but hardcore, MMA-UFC* foes we have to do battle with.

Maybe we should ask more often and then listen intently:

”Life, what do you suggest right now?”

* MMA = Mixed Martial Arts the sport
* UFC = Ultimate Fighting Championship the organization.

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quiet at the fifth 

I am not irrelevant but I have no say
Life treats me like a fray
It slithers down my spine ice-cold
A cheek to be so bold

Like wind purges foliage off a tree
Your voice strips my soul from me
Raging in its force, shaking determinedly
A piece of wood without a fire I cannot be

Stormy clouds race north to south,
across the sky
Sunlight is your makeup, 
impermanence your high
Everyday you tell me that nothing stays the same
You are the background,
the thoughts I try to tame

Incubated into a form whose shape has adopted me
Parents, people, prophets, telling me who I should be
Unique my spirit lies within the egg of cause
A shape the universe has used with great applause
Behind the shell an artist draws,
a never-ending picture free of any laws

A hunger gnaws to make it work
that concept called the ‘living bit’
To find a way and have my say
without this lifelong thought-delay
And bring about a wonder-hit
Board that private pleasure-trip
A knowledge in the egg was heard.

Thinking, waiting, spellbound by time
An echo from the shell I hear
The caller only I can be
It’s not the answer,
so I think
To thought and waiting I return again
An echo from the shell I hear
Around in rhyme in time I be

Life, ever partially in some control
I’d be a liar claiming it's on a roll
or thinking that I have it taped
It blows with gale and sleeps with the wind
A male drugged by a penchant for the scind

Opposing forces and extremes attract
The teaching is amok, it is a fact
Eyes squinting through a frame and tint
find written on my comets trail a goal
and where I stand
in the context of the whole

Dreams, the unhatched eggs
Soul food as they nourish me
A potential waiting for the crack and light
Mostly they define past my reality,
and let me write
Unhatched hatching eggs with fantasy

Upright in the chair of thought
a string of time some questions brought
Five moments later as my breath abates
the quiet mind with picture waits.
  Underneath a story reads:
    Vision: hot air for the thought-balloon.
    Imagination: the ladder to the moon.
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the ‘waiting’ in between

By that I mean the time ‘in between’ that it takes before I get what I want.
What if that waiting is actually just in my mind?
From the moment I want something until I have it, the clock ticks. But, should I really be a waiting?

You see I have this thing about time. It’s a dimension humans have created to dissect the present and in the process forgetting the whole.
Time is an industry that thrives on measurement and disruption. Time is fashion and villain. It’s impersonal and a pain, and it’s relative. Of course time is also a foundation block of my current reality.

Anyway, I like to simplify stuff. Therefore I like to remove one component from my universe: time.
No other living creature lives by a tik-tok. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
From very young I have heard it said: “This (or that) will take a long time?”
I’m not a physicist but after many decades of living by the rules of time I still have a problem being able to tell (the) time.
So to hell with time. Actually forget about speed and distance too. Drop the human constructs and just live without having to define everything for a moment.

I can see space clearly. It’s the transparent nothingness between objects. Some refer to it as the void, but this nothing is something.
Space is everywhere; it’s also between where we are and what we want. If we can make that space ‘work’ for us instead of seeing it as a hurdle multiplied by time, then we are onto a good thing.
In my book Austrafica I went into some detail what I perceive this nothingness, which I called ‘Invisibles,’ to be. Here is what I thought up.

Invisibles are not spiritual, religious, metaphysical or ghosty stuff. They are not a ‘them,’ ‘they’ or ‘it’ either. There are also so many Invisibles that if we would count them we would be countlessly counting.
Invisibles are never-ever visible to us, at all. If we can imagine them existing then we should visualize them as being entirely different to anything we know, which might be inherently difficult for various reasons, because they aren’t measureable in any way. They are not even noticeable to us and the closest thing is ‘no-thing,’ but even that means the opposite, the negation of a thing, which they definitely aren’t. Transparent dust maybe gives an idea, but don’t dwell on it because Invisibles are really indefinable. One can say that they are all the invisible stuff in-between all the visible stuff. They are not of matter and as soon as we think of them being something they disappear, and when they disappear chaos appears and the ‘waiting’ is back. So what are they? Because to the fleeting observer and thinker they aren’t, but we are trying to say they are, the best description is ‘Invisibles.’ You could imagine them as being connectors. The less definition we give them the more they exist, and the more we accept them, – kind of like allowing, – the more our life will run smooth.
Odd! I know.
By acknowledging ‘them’ we are at least not in ignorance or in denial of them and that is the important crux. Although we can never see them they are everywhere even where we think they aren’t. Because of that they have been given the name of ‘fillers,’ and the attribute of ‘smoothers.’ Without them there would really be nothing or in other words everything would be so dense that nothing could exist except maybe matter of the densest kind and chaos of course. Some might say chaos is the natural state, well, maybe here we are about to redefine its meaning. Regardless and nevertheless Invisibles are so important and yet so invisible that we tend to forget they exist. That is a problem we should seek to remedy.

The moment we acknowledge that the space ‘in between’ is filled with Invisibles, chaos ceases and smoothness takes over. Once there is smoothness all the invisible parts around us connect right to the end point of that which we want/think about and, that could be in another room, country, galaxy or universe. The unconnected pictures suddenly flow into one big ‘present’ for us.
So next time you stare at nothing acknowledge the Invisibles and imagine how it connects you smoothly to that which you want, without, aah, a second of waiting.

Acknowledging the Invisibles is the only practice required, others talk about subatomic sized energy particles and of consciousness and being aware.

“There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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get back inside

It’s the kind of words you could hear someone yell from the porch on a rainy day.
It could be the name of a bistro.
It’s a vociferous frustration when you opened something up you should not have touched.
It implies that whatever it is, whoever it is, it or they came from the inside.
Get back means to return, to the inside in this case.

Right now however, ‘it’ must be on the outside, because why else would I be reprimanded to get back inside?
The ‘it’ is actually a facet of me.

I was sitting inside the lounge on a chair. But I heard it clearly said, “get back inside.”
The time was just after 5am. Where is inside at that time of the morning? Cosy-snugly bed, no?

Admittedly the meditation was a bit, ‘all over the place.’

In my supposed mode of passive observation I had to rope-in my freely wandering thoughts time and again.
If it would have been a dream it would be called lucid dreaming, because you know what you are doing and you maintain some form of control.
I clearly was two things at once: observer and practitioner, and, I have on occasion caught myself being even more than two things at once.

During writing of my first book I have occasionally practiced spawning numerous thought streams at once and then sitting back to observe: i.e. traveling on the Orient express, flying an aircraft, having dinner and conversation and leaning a fast motorbike through the curves in Mpumalanga with Beethoven’s 6th (Pastorale) in the background.
Indeed I thought I was successful at it. I just worked up a voracious appetite for chocolate afterwards.

Multi-tasking, multi-processing, time-slicing, – fascinating ideas, computer jargon I know, but if a robot can do it surely I can too. Brilliant creation our brain is!
In short most of us will concur that I have probably never reached my destination on the Orient express, crashed the aircraft, was absent minded at dinner and an irresponsible danger on the motorbike. Yes you are right. I never completed any one of them except the Symphony, and why should I? There were another thousand other things to do and I was only interested in the highlights.
Such is the power of our beautiful mind.

Well, this morning an inner voice decided it was appropriate to remind me to ‘get back inside.’
Inside is where I truly am. The outside is a distraction and probably an illusion, – or all is an illusion.
While I am deeply anchored inside I can become a better observer and conductor.
I think what ‘it’ was trying to tell me was, “go outside by all means but stay connected to your true guiding self.”
I’m safely back inside now, peeping out occasionally till next time.

To Beethoven, to Me, to everything at once inside.

Get back inside now!

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Let go!

The concept of space, time and matter is an illusion!

Bang!
I’m dead as far as most physicists are concerned.

Aren’t those the building blocks of a universe?
Isn’t that the foundation of reality?

These learned folk won’t endorse this ludicrous idea of mine. Even less would they want to hear what I have to say.
But hey…

I can’t provide empirical proof and yet paradoxically my experience and observation is the whole proof.
Science lacks measurability in this area and therefore my statement is probably considered preposterous.
However, the experience that lead me to make this statement above is repeatable at will.
And, it doesn’t require the particle accelerator in Cern, a string of academic accolades or MDM or God.

Here is a synopsis of what I have observed:
I clasp things. I hold on to stuff. I impose my will. I force my way. I control. I want, want, want.
I fret, fear and become disturbed. Dis-ease sets in. I miss the point of my existence.
I buzz around a fictitious lamp till I expire.
Anxiety. Depression. Disappointment. Disillusionment. Darkness. Turmoil.
Nothingness. Cluelessness. Lostness.

During moments of such crude existential confrontation and the resulting confusion, what I need is often very close by.
Maybe even on my bedside table.

I picked up the book ‘Out of my mind,’ by Richard Bach, and just like the first time when I read it I could not put it down.

My meditation the next morning focused on only one thing:

‘Letting go.’

First I let go of the idea that I have to define an outcome. Any outcome. The outcome of my life mostly, when I really boil it down to the bare essential.
I decided to let go of ANY desired outcome in my meditation. Then, secondly, having pushed all expectations aside I observed unclouded what revealed itself.
As I let go of stuff: financial woes, creative block, hangups, karmic debt, material belongings, the devil…, – space, time and matter disappeared.
Suddenly I existed. I came to be. I was ‘without’ and that gave opportunity for me to experience unhindered what could be.

There was no physicality about me. Sure my body still existed, but the ‘beingness’ I experienced was not in the body. I was however not floating in space either.
Undoubtedly, I concluded later, there exists an unmeasurable dimension.
I integrated into a ‘substance’ of invisibility somewhere, where I then ‘became’ when I finally let go. And yet despite this state I was still me. A consciousness existed, like a nucleus without the earthly paraphernalia bogging me down. Not even my name came along so I am not sure now how I was identifiable to myself. But I very clearly was without social security number, passport, avatar, blog etc. etc.
Maybe more than ever I actually was I. Or was I? The sense of individuality that I had in human form was not there. There was no ego but there was a presence. Even though I haven’t any feedback from anyone else experiencing this, I felt a definition of ‘aware beingness.’ On reflecting afterwards I wondered if we all become similar in this state and that this is what ‘divine consciousness’ is about?

I have no idea yet how one makes contact, finds me or joins me when I’m ‘there?’ I don’t even know if such an interaction would still be desirable or necessary?
Perhaps that nonphysical consciousness is just another step towards other existii of myself and other realities in other dimensions?

It was quite apparent that I was still associated/connected with my body to this earthly existence of a reality, because the tune ‘By the Seaside,’ gently brought me back from yonder land.

I can’t even say with any certainty that ‘letting go’ is a sure fire solution of realigning myself in this existence.
I do know that an expansion occurs from this perceived, stuck reality into fantality and, upon returning, there remains the irrefutable knowledge of another beingness and a universe that functions way different to what we expect and have accepted.

I think the point here is not to overthink, rather steady the monkey mind and experience.

Let go and wonder for yourself.

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mornings – or the gift of time

Which other period of the day has the gift of time like the morning?

If I rise at four and go about my business I am never running late. Even when I get entirely absorbed in some activity and forget time, – when I look at the clock again, thinking, “gosh it must be late,” it is not half-past-six, no, it is ten-to-five. Quite unbelieving I can settle back relaxed and continue once more with my activity without any stress. And even if I feel the need to check again after a while, true to its promise to give me time, it will still not be half-past-six.

Early mornings miraculously give me the gift of time.
Don’t many of us just snooze through this period totally oblivious to its potential? When eventually we leave sleep behind we most likely are already running late. That means we are behind in time. We are trailing not leading. Having given the day no opportunity to present us with its gift we will conceivably never catch up during this day and because everything is late, and by some universal law just gets later as time goes by, the next morning sees little chance of presenting us with its gift either as we need to catch up on some sleep.

The morning presents me with a credit in time. Fortunately I have realised this early in my life already so I’ve made use of that ‘free’ present quite extensively.

I ask myself why would I not want to receive that present gracefully?
Somewhat greedily, hungry for more time, I look around if I can find more than one morning in a day. Maybe there are, I am still looking, based on the idea where there is one there must be more.

I do know about the relativity of time however. Some times are longer than other times, but, according to the clock they are the same time. I didn’t invent the clock, but if I would have, I know I would have not come up with something so pedantically accurate, monotonously torturous, boringly consistent, ridiculously invasive, stubbornly un-negotiable and unbearably, frustratingly unstoppable.

Maybe time exists? It’s supposedly one of the building blocks of the universe. Time and space. That’s according to man in his infinite wisdom. Hah.
But the clock can hardly be called an ingenious invention as far as inventions go. Inventions usually give me something. What does the clock give me? Time? You must be joking!

That is all besides the point now because contrary to popular belief, as I have found out, you can actually get some time back.
The earlier the mornings I can manage, the more credit I have in my time account.
And there is no currency that comes close to time. I am a ‘timelonaire,’ yeah, yeah!

Four o’clock going on half-past-three.

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keep on seeing

Zambia 2007 1247

 

Seeing ‘nothing’ unhinges me. Seeing ‘something’ grounds me. And yet, often I want to see ‘nothing’ or hear ‘nothing,’ even think ‘nothing.’ Perhaps that is why so much of ‘nothing’ happens in my life. Nothing actually brings a whole horde of undesirable things with it if you’re not vigilant. Clueless and lost are just a few.
Unless a pilot is qualified and the aircraft equipped, flying into ‘nothing’ generally means you have about twenty seconds before it all goes pear shaped and ends in disaster. In aviation speak they would say you have flown into Instrument conditions. So amongst other things, ‘nothing’ is actually also dangerous.

Seeing means stability.

Seeing however goes so much further than the physical sense of seeing with the eyes. We construct images before our m-eye (mind eye) too, when we think.
Remember the phrase ‘as far as the eye can see? Well, we all know that there is something beyond what the eye can see too. All you have to do is climb on a chair and suddenly you see so much more, and so on, and then of course there is all the ethereal stuff.
Now I close my eyes and I think. First I think of stuff that is tangibly real and that I have seen before. But, soon enough, letting my thoughts take wings, I think of stuff that is more and more far-fetched. I see stuff that defies laws of physics because I have left the physical realm. No matter where I am though, I always see.

In a sense I would like to say that seeing is being.

Just as I know that there is so much more to see which I can’t see from my present position surely I can also know that there is so much more to think which I am not thinking from my current standpoint. And we all know that there is so much more to know which we don’t know.
Knowing all the above, surely I can then postulate: that in everything in my life there is more to it than what I see at this moment, more than meets the eye.
It stands to reason then that all I need to do is shift my position to see more and different and think more and different.

And seeing is believing.

In other words even if I see it in my m-eye, in my thoughts, I can believe it. Often what I see in my mind is ‘unrealistic stuff,’ but it is only so because I measure it with the yardstick of what is possible in my physical reality and as I have just seen, just because something isn’t visible (climb onto the chair) doesn’t mean it doesn’t/can’t exist and be seen.
While my favourite is to say, ‘keep on dreaming,’ for those with the feet somewhat firmer on the ground I’ll say, ‘keep on seeing.’

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uhh what a drought

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I suppose El Niño and La Niña had a party again. There is not a full bottle in sight.

But alas, there is not just a drought in South Africa, despite the rainy season mixing in its gloomy, overcast, drizzly days. There is a drought in my life too. El Nothing, La Clueless, Lo Lost are wreaking havoc and I can’t say that ‘local warming’ has anything to do with it. All fountains have just about dried up bar the creative one. That seems to be the only one that barely maintains vestiges of sanity. A challenging task indeed.

Some book talks about the ‘seven year drought.’ Sooth sayers even talk about cycles and that misfortune happens in three’s. Well, Nothing-Clueless-Lost is a fearsome threesome. Not the best buddies to hang around with. I’m all cracked-up from this drought like the parched remnants of a once sparkling lake.

Oh give me those rainy days.
Hold on! I actually want sunny days too. Hmm, coming to think of it, I actually need both. But, if nature doesn’t even strike a balance, how am I supposed to? Didn’t we conclude that we are nature?

One think is clear, I actually meant one thing but they are the same: everything in nature happens in cycles. On this planet there is no getting away from it, I have tried. Even if I had an overflowing bank account I would still be exposed to cycles and my money too. If you doubt that then just look at life. It pretty much starts where it ends, – in nothing. That’s another cycle. We are a cycle within a cycle within a cycle probably ad infinitum. Or if that ‘infinite’ idea does not resonate then maybe we are a cycle within that really ‘one’ big cycle, you can call it whatever, like God or something…

Doesn’t a cycle kind of roll?
That would mean that we are never stuck because we are forever cycling.
I could hibernate in a vacuum tube and dig myself really deep away so nothing cycles with me. I guess by doing that I would escape some cycles that beset ordinary folk. But eventually some cycle is bound to get me. I might as well accept the cyclic nature of being-ness. Maybe the more I accept it the faster it will cycle into another cycle. A wave also goes up and down from crest to trough. Everything is energy, energy is frequency, frequency is a wave, a wave is a cycle and a cycle is an up and a down and around again.
I am all dizzy from cycling now.
Enjoy your cycle. There will be a better and a worse one. You will hit rock bottom and then serenade the angels again.
Keep on cycling.

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Perfection

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Isn’t everything that nature presents us with perfect?
I mean could you really find fault in something from nature like it is too small, ugly, messy, awkward, fat, colourless …?

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I have a beautiful garden and now in the rainy season, here on the southern tip of Africa, it produces beauty unimaginable. Not just the many plants but also the birds are magnificent. The sky is a theatre of cloud plays never repeated. The sun adds life and everything reproduces.

I can’t fault nature.

But, I do fault myself, and I fault others. I am actually especially skilled in the latter. Passing judgement on others is the easiest thing. I vehemently fault myself too when I mess up. Forgetting a wallet when going shopping, hurting myself, saying the wrong thing or not doing the right thing etc. etc.

I have another skill-set. I can randomly and entirely un-choreographed produce a string of expletives that I join to my judgements, and, should those word-bombs exceed my thoughts or become louder than a mumble, they would send others cowering.
I am also quite happy to run myself down. Slate myself. Curse myself. Knock myself on the head in disbelief and do even worse things when no one is looking.
But I find no fault in nature. None. I love nature. I have grown up close to nature and have never once that I can recollect, cursed or run nature down.

Aren’t we humans also nature?
If we’re not then what would we be?
For a while, when we are very small I think we are perfect. Then comes indoctrination from those around us and then our mind kicks in and pretty much shapes our behaviour. Now we become clever, judgemental and call others all kinds of names. We think we know a lot and yet we don’t even acknowledge that there is so much we don’t know.

I don’t want to think who and what you are and I don’t want to listen to what others have to say about you.
I want to see you as unquestionably perfect as I see nature.
I also want to believe that I am perfect.

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lots of lots vs enough

I have that feeling that many in society, me included, are generally not all that satisfied with having ‘just enough.’
‘Just enough,’ has a sound of being poor about it. Maybe even a bit stingy, but certainly there is a connotation of being a bit short-changed.

If you are invited at someone’s for dinner and want to go for seconds and the hostess says,”Sorry, we only made ‘just enough,'” it would surely raise your eyebrow.
It raised mine. There wasn’t even an apology, it was just accepted amongst them that there will ‘only’ be ‘just enough.’

Now why should that raise a question? Why do I want more than ‘just enough?’
I mean I had ‘just enough’ and that is actually more healthy than stuffing myself till I become un-moveable and sleepy and useless.
My grandfather practised what he preached all his life and his philosophy on eating was: “When it tastes the best, stop eating.” Something I have dismally failed at all my life. For him there was always enough and for me there was never enough, and that goes not just for eating. He wasn’t a masochist and I don’t think I am a glutton.
Those same people that had me over for dinner and had ‘just enough’ food, also had a ‘just enough’ car and ‘just enough’ furnishings.
It seemed they were happy with ‘just enough’ and they could have afforded better or more if they wanted to.
For them ‘just enough’ was good enough, however for many of us it isn’t.

I know of many people in Africa to whom ‘just enough’ would be a blessing. I know Africa personally because I live here, and then there are those with ‘not enough’ in South America, in Asia and the rest of the world.

What if I could have everything I wanted in ‘just enough’ proportions rather than wanting too much of everything? I would still be happy and nothing would go to waste.
That sounds like a good plan to me. But, I have a built in fear that ‘just enough’ just ain’t enough for me. I also have no trust that there always will be ‘just enough.’ I am so conditioned to lots of lots and seeing others around me who also want lots of lots. Imagine a kiddies party with ‘just enough’ soda pop and sweets, it would be a disaster, – or would it really?
The strange thing is that the leftover from all our ‘more than enough,’ eventually gets thrown out, – hopefully not into the bin but given to charity.

Somehow we have been conditioned to leave a handsome margin of tolerance in our vision of ‘just enough.’ Realistically however, coming to think of it, ‘just enough’ is actually ‘enough,’ so that there is nothing to worry about, right? Because there is some stigma attached to the term of having ‘just enough’ like you feel you are that little bit short changed, let’s call it just, well, ‘enough’ from now on. I don’t need ‘lots of lots’ or ‘abundant of,’ I need enough to live my life the way I want to live it. There is an enormous difference between excess and enough. Excess I can give away and I think we probably have an obligation to do so.

Isn’t the most rewarding feeling the one of giving, and, still having enough? That’s actually a life of abundance.