The Cry of the Mountain

The Cry of the Mountain

I woke up and I was giddy with excitement and euphoria. I knew what it was I wanted to do! But then I looked at how difficult it would be to begin, I saw the mountain towering above me, and as I gazed toward its lofty summit, I knew that it would be impossible to reach it. "Madness!" I thought, "Utter madness to even think I could do it." I started to turn away and as soon as did, I began to feel a sense of relief wash over me as the mountain slowly faded from my sight, and with it, my dream, like the leaves of autumn, falling slowly around my feet to be lost, and reborn in another time and another life.

In that moment of turning, through the waves of relief that washed over me, I sensed something else. I caught the sound of faint cries carried on the wind. I paused to listen because my instinct told me that someone was in great distress, someone was out there, floundering and lost, and if I could do it, then I was going to help them. The cries were coming from behind me, from the very place on which I had just turned my back. I felt a compulsion to keep going, to ignore this cry for help, but I could not. I had to turn around and to see what I could do.

The act of turning would not come and I stood, frozen in space and time, as the last cry echoed and died away around me. I knew that if I did turn, towering high above me and bearing witness to my cowardice, would be the mountain that I knew not how to climb. I was caught in hesitation between that which scared me and the cries for help, and the compulsion to keep going, with my back at the mountain, and to ignore everything and to pretend it had never happened, that I had not heard the voice.  The cry came again only this time, although it was fainter, I could discern its urgency and dire need.  

I cannot explain why I did what I did.  I've looked back upon this moment in the times since and I am still unable to say what happened.  I recall taking a step away from the mountain only to stumble at taking a second.  It felt as though the entire universe was watching me at that very moment, I could feel the weight of its gravity pushing down with such crushing force, piercing my soul with its gaze.  For an instant I stopped.  There had been no further cry for help and perhaps it was this that gave me pause.  All I know is that pause I did and it felt like the universe held its breath in unison. I moved again, only it was not to take a step forwards as I had been expecting, it was to turn myself about, to look upon the lofty peak of that impenetrable mountain once more.  

I waited and listened for the cry, my eyes searched the trees, scanned the lower levels of the mountain, looking for anything that would give me a clue as to the location of the helpless victim. I saw no one, I heard no one.  I walked forward a few paces altering the angle at which I was looking into the trees, hoping that perhaps I would see some colour that would indicate an item of clothing.  Nothing.  I stepped forward a little more, scanning the mountain ridges, looking at the gullys, fixing my eyes on the trees. Still there was no one.  I decided that I would give it up, that I had perhaps heard the cries of an eagle or some other bird of prey on the wind, on the hunt.  I looked once more time and then I saw it.

There, in among the darkness of the trees was an opening I had not seen before.  Could it be the way through?  I tried my best to guess the direction it would take through the forest and I lifted my eyes up to scan the lower slopes of the mountain. There!  Could it be?  It was almost too good to be true.  What looked like a trail, barely visible, wound its way up the mountainside for some distance before disappearing.  I could not have seen it from where I had been standing before.  It only became clear once I had taken a few steps toward the mountain.  

I began to walk forwards.  I do not recall being aware of this until suddenly, looming up before me stood the trunks of the ancient and mighty trees in the forest.  Now I stopped once more, not in hesitation but so I could remember this moment.  I turned and looked back from whence I had come and I saw that already I had travelled some distance along the path.  Perhaps it would become harder now.  I tightened my pack, took a deep breath and plunged forwards into the forest, into the unknown, taking one step then another along the path.  

It was then I heard the laughter all around, coming from everywhere all at once and I knew that the laughter was from the same person who had cries out in distress before.  I smiled and then I too laughed and I laughed with great and profound joy.  There had never been anyone else.  The cries, just as with the laughter had come from within myself.  My heart had spoken, my heart had known the suffering that would have occurred had I walked away from the mountain, and it had known that my dream would have been lost, perhaps forever.  Now, it was full of joy because at long last we were together making the journey, our journey.  We were on the path towards our dreams.  Perhaps we would never reach the top of the mountain.  Perhaps the trail would stop part way up.  But at least now I was going to find out.  I would discover all there was and I might find out more than I could ever have realised.  This was an adventure.  Together, my heart and I, we were on the path.  We were on our true path, and now the possibilities were endless.

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What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

That's the question that has come to my mind over the last few days.  What have I gotten myself into?  Now I think about it, and I was thinking about it on my walk over here to the cafe, perhaps the question is not so much what, but rather why?  Why have I gotten myself into this situation?  I guess before we could begin to answer the question, it is necessary to define the subject matter.

It's Sunday 29 December.  This means that I am now less than two weeks away from my embarkation on my next adventure.  Thirteen days more and I will once again leave England after yet another short stay, a stay that is either too long or too short - I can never quite decide which - and I'll head off to New Zealand to begin my cycle tour adventure.  In less than three weeks, I should be on the road, spinning those pedals that turn the cranks that turn the wheels, that will speed me along the roads.  Exciting isn't it?  A dream realised.  Surely this is the epitome of what life is all about.  Throwing oneself into the unknown and the challenge of never being sure of what each day will bring.  It does not matter how many times I have done this now, each time the departure date approaches, and for some reason that tick to thirteen days seems to be the event trigger more than any other, I begin to grow concerned, I start to fret about what it is that I am doing, and why I am going to do it.

I believe it is the same for everyone.  No matter what they will tell you, no matter how gung-ho and cock sure they appear to be, I have little doubt that underneath there lies a swirling, tumultuous flow of worry, a constant and raging stream of concerns, that are held in check only by the dam of outer calmness.  Columbus, Cook, Scott, Shackleton, Earhart, Hilary, Armstrong (of the Neil variety), Yeager, Baumgartner and any one else you may wish to include in such exulted company, I can guarantee that although they may have appeared to be the perfect picture of composed, mill pond surface calmness, below that exterior lurked the questions, the fears, the doubts, and the constant nagging of why am I doing this and what have I gotten myself into?

It's only natural.  I know that.  I also know that it is going to be okay.  My own adventure is nothing compared to some, but it is my own adventure, my own decision to step outside of my comfort zone, to go off in exploration and in search, to confront my fears, to extend myself, to find out who I am, to know what mettle lurks under my flesh.  No matter how seemingly small and insignificant your own adventure may appear to some, to the person at the centre of that story, it is the greatest undertaking in the history of humanity.  Imagine for a moment a person who suffers from acute agoraphobia.  To this person, even opening the front door of their house can seem the most daunting decision to take, let alone stepping across the threshold and leaving the secure confines of their home.

Road To Nowhere by Talking Heads has just begun to play on the sound system of cafe.  Is it coincidence that I happen to love this song?  Doesn't road to nowhere sum up my journey, all of our journeys?  We're walking our paths, thinking that we are headed some place special, striving to get to a certain point, mulling over decisions that we believe to be of the utmost importance, but in reality, we're all headed to exactly the same place, no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try.  That may lead you to ask, well then, why bother at all?  And the answer to that my friend is that it is the journey that is the making, it is the space between two places and the manner in which we cross that space that counts.  It is that crossing between points that generates experiences and memories and those are the very things that define us, that change us, that allow us to discover who we are, who we were truly meant to be.  It is the crossing of this distance, no matter how great, no matter how small, that reveals our inner truth and shows us the true path.

Oddly enough, the thought generated by that song has answered the questions hasn't it?  What did I get myself into and why have I gotten myself into it?  Answer: because if I do not, then I will never know my answer.  If I do not, I will never grow my soul.  If I do not, I will never experience the magic that is created when a person goes off in search of adventure and daring.  If I do not, I will reach the end of my days and I will wonder what could have been.  If I do not, I will be left with a regret, knowing full well that I had the means necessary to achieve my dreams and I chose an early death instead.  And why would anyone chose an early death when there is so much life out there, within your grasp, when all you have to do is to stretch out an arm, reach out with your finger tips and grab a hold?  I choose to grasp onto life.  I choose to see the miracles and the magic of a life lived.  And just as Renton said at the end of Trainspotting, "Choose life." Amen Renton, amen.

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The End Is Only The Beginning

The end is really only the beginning.  That's certainly one way to look at it.  As one moment ends, we find ourselves already in the midst of another.  Countless millions of moments that together make up a life story.  One moment is all it takes to change the world, to alter the path of destiny.  One moment, one opportunity, one life.  It always comes down to that one single moment, a point at which your future is being decided, even if you are not aware of the consequences that surround you, of the swirling mass of possibilities that are lining up, taking order, falling into place.  And on we go, oblivious, until with hindsight, we look back down the road, and there, basking in all its glory, finally revealed to even the most blinkered of eyes, is that one pivotal moment that shook your world, that altered the course of your destiny and that brought you to the point at which you are now.  Sitting in a cafe in a seaside town in England, on a cold, wet, and dreary December day, staring out of the window at all of the activity in the street outside.

My time in Costa Rica has ended.  In fact, it was over on 5 December, as the plane hurtled down the runway of San Jose airport, as the wings lifted with the air velocity and pressure differential, and the wheels touched Costa Rican tarmac for the last time that day.  Airborne and with it, my future changed, it shifted.  Plans that had been made started to become a reality, thoughts, electronic pulses stored in my brain, turned into tangible occurrences.  This journey across the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans represented both an ending and a beginning.  This is life.

In death comes life.  Perhaps, with it being the day before Christmas, my thoughts turn to Jesus, which makes me think of the Resurrection.  "In death, I become life." (I just Googled that phrase in the belief that someone must have said it before, but my search brings forth no such findings.  So, I am taking it as my own creation.)  In other words, I must die before life comes again.  That is the way of our dreams.  We realise one dream and that dream must end before another can come to fruition. 

I have died many times in my life, I have experienced many endings.  With each cycle, I have changed, perhaps imperceptibly so, but I know that the person who began this odyssey into the unknown is not the same person who sits here in this cafe today.  How could I be?  I have seen and experienced too much.  I have opened myself up, I have given myself over to life, to the possibilities of something more, I have witnessed miracles, known people and cultures, suffered, cried, loved, and laughed.  Every thing and every person I have ever had contact with is some how now inside of me.  Maybe this is how we grow as people?  We internalise everything with which we come into contact and every emotion with which we experience.  We take a part of it all, a part of life and we bring that within.  At the same time, we are imparting something of ourselves to each person, to each experience.  Our soul is nourished and in turn nourishes those who we meet.  With each experience, we leave behind a trace of our soul, a signature that lasts an eternity, intrinsically linked to the time, to the place and to the participants.

Maybe what I am talking about today is the soul of life.  What if all of life shared a single soul?  One elemental force that linked every thing to every thing else.  People, animals, birds, fish, trees, shrubs, grasses, oceans, rivers, rocks, mountains, sand, clouds, rain, sun, moon, stars, air, Earth.  It's all of life in perfect balance, the soul is one, it is whole.  It leads me to something I have written before, "I am in everything and everything is in me."  I am in no doubt that when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), what he was referring to was that every single one of us has the power within us.  In the heart lies the truth.  In the heart lies the way.  In the heart lies the life.  It is in our hearts that the power to become all that we were born to be is to be found.

Well, as always, I begin to write, unsure of where I will go and something always comes.  The flow of the mind is often a surprise to me and that is why I love to sit in a cafe and write.  This will probably be my last post of 2013 and I look forward to continuing the journey in 2014.  I hope that you will stay with me as we each travel down our own unique path.  It all begins again on 1 January. A turning of the page. A new chapter to be written.  An ending and a beginning.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all.

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My Crazy Life of Dreams

There are some words that you never think you'd find yourself saying.  Some years ago, in Brussels airport, I remarked to a colleague that I couldn't wait to get back home to Budapest.  Those words came straight out with out a second thought, without a moment's hesitation, and it was to mark a significant shift in the way that I saw my life.  Now, some years later, living a very different life, I found myself sitting here in Costa Rica, casually telling a friend that I was heading up to Nicaragua, to renew my tourist visa the next morning.  My life, my crazy life and everything in between.

I always had dreams.  I don't know when they began or how they began, but that really is not important.  All that is important, is that they did begin.  They were not grand dreams, there was no master plan, there was no specific journey that I wished to make, there was nothing that I wished to accomplish.  I was just a boy who gazed out of the car window, who saw mountains, hills, valleys, water cascading down the side of the mountains after a rainfall, forming itself into babbling streams, and I knew that I wanted to be out there, I wished to walk amongst the nature, to be out of doors, a wanderer perhaps, but something more, something much more, an adventurer.

In one of those quirks of fate, I found myself as a ten year old boy, in the classroom of Mr Noon, my year six teacher.  Had my parents not decided to move to the south of England, I would have been sitting in a different chair, a different room, a different teacher.  On the side wall of the classroom, stacked in random order on some shelves, were some tattered, well read, old paperbacks.  Each week, we were allotted reading times and were required to select one of the books and to sit quietly and read to ourselves.  I began with Biggles adventures, following the exploits of the daring World War I fighter ace.  Perhaps I read something after, I do not recall now, and then I picked up one of the books that would change my life.  I pulled it at random and as it slid out from the bookcase, its back cover was facing me.  I turned it over to see a picture of mountains and its title: The Hobbit.

I had no idea what this story was about, but I began to read nonetheless and as I did, I found myself utterly transported into another world, a world that, even though I never knew of its existence before that time, I wanted desperately to find.  Bilbo Baggins is a reluctant hero who seeks out the comforts of home, who revels in them in fact.  When the chance of adventure comes literally knocking on his door, he is afraid of change, he is risk adverse, preferring to stay in the confines of his own world, the one that he knows, that he understands, and that is safe.  Here was something that instinctively I found myself saying, "I would go!", "Oh, for the chance!"  I longed for Gandalf to come knocking on my door.  It was impossible of course.  As I read of the adventures of Bilbo and his companions, I longed for the mountains, for the passes, to see valleys and great forests, to become lost, to fight for a greater cause.  My fires were ignited, yet they would slumber for many more years before I would begin to realise my own dreams and for adventure to come knocking on my door.

JRR Tolkien awoke something inside of me.  His writing, his stories, they created in me the adventurous spirit. But wait a minute.  Did he really, or did that already exist?  Hadn't my mother already been a key factor in that, taking my brother and I off on crazy late night car journeys, spontaneously jumping up to give chase to the sirens of an fire engine, so that we could investigate the goings on, taking me for walks in the woods with the dogs, across the fields, filling my head and my heart with the beauty of the out doors?  In my mother I had a kindred spirit that also sought out excitement and adventure.  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Tolkien fanned the embers of a fire that was already there, it was already in my heart and in the blood that I inherited.  Those embers smouldered away just waiting for the right moment to leap up and burn bright.  A fire that was born in the very fibre of my being, and a fire that would eventually consume my heart, and become my life.

Dreams do not need to be big, nor do they need to be significant.  In fact, a dream can be anything that you choose it to be.  Let me rephrase that because this is important: you do not choose your dreams, they choose you.  A dream is anything that fires your heart with passion and desire, one that fuels the imagination and lets it run wild and free.  You know it, because when you think of it, you erupt in a spontaneous smile and a joy that flows from your inner being.  One of my own dreams was nothing more than a desire for adventure.  I didn't know where I was going to go, I didn't know when, nor did I know how I was ever going to achieve it.  I held that dream as a young boy, gazing out of the car window as we drove through the mountains of Scotland.  I yearned to lose myself amongst the mountains, to climb their lofty peaks, to travel the passes between them, and to be out in the wild. 

I think this is also a very important point to make.  A dream does not need to be a complete story, whereby you can see all the way through to the end.  A dream can begin with the first step and nothing more.  I decided to go travelling.  That was all I had.  What happened after was beyond my wildest imaginings and in no way, could I ever have imagined it.  However foolish your own dream may seem, it is not.  It is your dream and as such, it is your true calling.  To not begin it, is to deny yourself the purest form of happiness and the ultimate gift that you can ever bestow upon yourself - the love of self.

I am still in my dream and I never wish to see it end.  My dream is my life, my life is my dream.  They are one and the same thing.  I could never have foreseen this.  I do not know what will come next, I do not know where life is going to take me.  I try not to plan too far in advance, since I wish to live as much as possible in the present moment.  Life will take care of me, as long as I follow my heart.  That is what I have learned on my own particular journey.  Your heart knows what is best for you, it will never lead you astray, it will never betray you.  I know that if I have the opportunity for a new adventure, then I will take it, I will seek to suck out the marrow of life, to take the road less travelled, and to continue to live as deliberately as possible.  The words carpe diem are tattooed on my left arm for a reason.  I live by them.

It's a funny thing this thinking business.  I just had to stop and let a thought run its course, a thought that produced a big smile on my face, and that originated in my heart.  I realised that my quest for adventure will never end.  What will cease is my quest for travel and for the constant change that I continually put myself through.  At some point, I will have had my fill of that type of adventure and I will seek out a different one.  You see, one of my other dreams is the dream of fatherhood, which is perhaps the biggest adventure of them all.  And that is the one adventure I never want to miss.  The one adventure I must not miss.  The one adventure I will not miss.

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Knowing The Path

Today, I experienced a moment of epiphany.  These moments never quite occur to you where you might believe.  My moment did not come as I stared out across the vast expanse of the ocean, nor did it arrive as I gazed up to the stars of the heavens, there were no snow-capped mountains in view, no deep lush jungle stretching off into the distance, there was no tumbling cascade of a waterfall.  Instead, it came to me as I stood in my kitchen and I poured out my ritual after dinner coffee.  So, just what was this moment of deep realisation about my life, that refused to contain itself, and that rushed at me, before I was able to add the milk to my cup?

There will always come moments when the light shines forth from within.  These times occur when we are most deeply connected with our hearts, when we are in synchronised rhythm, heart and soul as one.  I've experienced moments of epiphany before and I've written about them previously - standing in the middle of a square in Budapest, sitting on the wall at the waterfront in Wellington.  They never come when we expect them, they arrive unbidden, a moment when it feels as though lightning has struck you, or someone has turned on a light in a darkened room.  I know these moments because when they dawn on me, I cannot stop myself from smiling with a deep sense of pleasure and joy, I want to laugh, to shout and to sing out loud.  This can only come from the knowledge that the thought that is now in your head, originated in your heart, that the thought is the very essence of who you are, who you are meant to be.  That thought is you.

For many years of my life, I was in denial of who I was, who I was born to be.  I was not myself.  I was an imposter, or rather, the imposter was me.  I acted out the life of another person because that is what I thought I should do.  I was a good actor because I fooled many people, I fooled myself.  I could not admit to myself the very thing that it was that I wanted the most in life.  Why?  Simply because I was afraid of what it would mean to me, I was frightened of the consequences.  I lived a life where on the surface at least, I appeared to be happy, but underneath, I never truly was.  My true self was buried deeply within me, covered over, so that it was carefully hidden away, lest it should escape.

I could not have been more wrong.  The journey of my life, the story of my life, is essentially one of discovery.  It seems to me that life had a plan and it was not going to let me go quietly away.  Through so many seemingly random events, meetings and happenings, life found me, it caught me in its grip and it would not let me go.  Life reached through to my inner being, it touched my heart, and it rekindled my desires and my passions.  No, not rekindled, since it implies that once there was a fire and I do not recall there ever being a fire in my soul before life took hold.  But once it did, I was like a piece of driftwood, caught up in the current of a river and unable to reach the shore.  I had to go wherever the water of life took me.  Everything that happened to me, the good and the bad, became necessary parts of my journey, shaping me, helping me to learn, to grow, and to evolve my soul.  This river brought me to a place in my life where I was finally ready to admit to myself who I really was, and to become the man I had been born to be. 

Since this time, I have lived my life as deliberately as possible.  As Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden; or, Life In The Woods, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."  I have made decisions to do those things that I wished to do, no matter how ridiculous or foolish they might seem.  My journey has taken me around the world, I have been a backpacker, a dive master, a full time student, a project administrator, a charity street funds collector, and a diving instructor.  I have lived for a time in Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and Costa Rica.  I have visited and had short stays in many countries in between.  I have experienced things I never dreamed were possible.  And I have met many wonderful people.  All of this was possible because of one thing: I dared to try.

Back to now.  Nearly eight years since my true journey began, I have found myself wondering what I should do next.  I know full well that I cannot do what I do forever, that the physical nature of the work will take its toll on my body.  I have been giving thought to the need for a retirement plan and a pension, that I will need healthcare in the coming years, that really and truly, I have had a lot of fun and that perhaps finally, it is time to stop and to go and do something far more sensible.  With that in my mind, I have begun to think seriously about becoming a school teacher.  It is something that I believe I would be good at, since I love passing on my knowledge and helping others to learn and to grow.  I have even been complimented on my patience, care and teaching skills.  It seems to be a good fit, a way of returning to normality, of a secure future with a steady income.  But something just hasn't felt right.  As much as I believe I would make a good teacher, the thought of it has not fired me with enthusiasm, the way that I fire up when I talk of scuba diving, the ocean, care for the environment, or travel.  I have been puzzling over why not, when teaching would appear to make so much sense?

This evening, as I stood at my kitchen counter, coffee slowly filling my cup, my moment of epiphany arrived.  In that moment, I knew the path of my life and I knew why teaching is not right for me at this time.  More than this though, this thought that came to me hit me hard, and I smiled because here at last was the truth.  Life is short.  Our time on this planet is but a fleeting moment in which to make our mark and to leave behind our legacy.  There are things that I want in my life: a wife, children, dogs, cats, a family.  Right now, I do not have them.  Why do I want to return to the lifestyle I had before, where I was conforming to what society expected of me, when it went against my true self?  I know that it will make me unhappy.  It will slowly but surely tear my soul apart and it will destroy me.  All that I have learned will be lost, forgotten, and things will be just as they once were, before I began.  I cannot let that happen.  I will not let that happen.

There will come a time when I must forsake this particular part of my journey.  This I know to be true.  That time will come when I have need to take care of something more than myself, when my purpose in life shifts to the provision and care of others - my wife and my children.  Until that time, I am going to go on doing what I have been doing.  I am going to see the world, to travel, to enjoy new experiences, meet new people.  I am going to continue to take a chance on life because I do not know when my last day will come.  I am going to have an adventure.

Thinking of this makes me happy.  Knowing why I have struggled over the last months to understand my direction in life brings me great comfort.  I am still going in the right direction.  Life it seems, is not yet done with me, nor I with it.  The road less travelled beckons to me still.  My heart is singing right now, it is joyful, hopeful and it is ready to go on again.  One day, my heart will be joined by another and when it is, we will journey together, we will make our adventures to share with our children.  And at the moment that she enters my life, those two hearts that have beaten for so long in separate rhythms, will beat to the same tune.  There will always be two hearts, but from that moment on, there will be only one soul.

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The Seven Rules of Life

I got to thinking about the rules of life today and I came up with the following seven rules.


1: Be yourself.
The most important rule of life is to simply be yourself.  No matter what any one else thinks of you, or says to you, no one can affect you, if you remain true to yourself.  Listen to your heart and always, no matter what anyone tells you, follow it.  It will never lead you in the wrong direction.  It will always lead you to the places that are right for you, and only you.
 
2: Do whatever makes you happy and do it often.
Why spend your time doing things that give you no sense of achievement, worth or pleasure? Find what makes you happy and do that as much as you possibly are able. If you can make that your occupation, so much the better.  When you are happy, your heart and mind are open and though their openness, you are more able to perceive opportunities and to read the signs that life is placing before you. 

3: Never be envious of another person. Your time will come.
The path is a long one and every person experiences highs and lows at different points along their journey. When you see that someone is experiencing good luck and fortune, be happy for them.  If they can find it, then they are the proof that the rewards exist, and it follows that you too can find your own rewards. Persevere and your own time will come to walk in the light.

4: Never live with regrets.
Living in the past is wasted energy.  You cannot affect the past, but you can affect the future.  If there is something that went wrong, can you make it better now?  If yes, then do so.  If no, put it behind you and move on.  See every lost opportunity as an impetus to make sure it does not happen the next time.  And rest assured, there will always be a next time.

5: Learn to forgive others. 
Forgiveness is a strength.  Those that can forgive the wrong doings of others, are more likely to be positive and happy people.  Harbouring ill-thought,negativity and malice towards others is maintaining a negative energy within yourself, which will ultimately become detrimental to both your mental and physical well-being.  Better to let go, to forgive and to move on.

6: Learn to forgive yourself.
Perhaps more important than forgiving others, is the need to forgive yourself.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Every person has their own unique set of flaws.  Come to terms with who you are, what you have done, the errors that you may have made and then learn to see yourself as the beautiful creation that you are.

7: Never stop striving to reach your dreams.
No matter how hard the path gets, never stop believing and never stop striving towards your dreams.  Walking the path is an equally important part of life as the attain of what it is that we seek.  Along our path, we learn many important lessons that will shape us and help us towards our goals.  The moment that you give up on your dreams, you also lose the opportunity to learn the lessons that you need to learn in order to evolve your spirit to its ultimate point in this life.  Dreams are achievable.  Keep walking the path because all the time that you do so, the path is illuminated with your light.  And that is a wonderful thing.

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Some Days The Clouds Appear

Not every day walking the one true path can be filled with carefree days of brightness and sun.  There will inevitably come days when the clouds form on the horizon, and no matter where you try to go, there is no way of evading their ever present threat.  Soon, you find that the light begins to fade as the clouds cover the sun, the gloom descends, and with it, so too comes a feeling of despair and hopelessness.  You begin to question the direction in which you are walking.  You wonder if you have made the right choices in life, made the right decisions.  And you lose sight of where you were headed.  The tendrils of doubt creep around your heart, squeezing tight, injecting an inky darkness to your thoughts.  The light fades further and with it, so too does hope for the future.  You feel alone and lost, ready to give up the fight, ready to relinquish your dreams.

The other evening, I began to feel myself becoming lost.  I started to question my purpose in life and my reasons for continuing to exist.  I asked myself what it was that I was doing and what it is that I am trying to achieve with my life.  I reasoned that I had already achieved my dreams, that I have led an incredibly blessed life, that I have reached so many of the goals that I have set for myself.  So why should I continue?  Have I not been a warrior long enough, fought enough battles, and is it not now my time to take a well earned rest?  Why should I keep pushing myself forward along my chosen path?  Why should I keep on raising my shield to fend off the blows of my enemies and why should I continue to swing my sword to strike my enemies down?  Would it not just be easier to lie down, to sleep and to rest.

The reason for these feelings for me was abundantly clear, as it so often is.  Love.  Or rather, the lack of love in my life.  You see, I thrive on love.  Love is the force that propels each and every one of us through the universe as we travel on our journeys, as we each walk our own unique path.  Love is what fuels us, and despite what Red Bull would have you believe, it is love that give us our wings and lets us fly.  In short, love is the reason and the sole purpose of our existence.  Love is life and life is love.  They are inseparable, they are one, and that is the miracle. 

For my entire life, I have struggled with love.  Everything I have ever done in my life, I am now able to see, was driven by a desire to be loved and to find love.  Ultimately though, I have always been doomed from the beginning, since it is not possible to make other people love you, not matter what you do, no matter how hard you try.  And I have tried.  From my weight gain as a young child, to my moving overseas, and even the discovery of my passion for scuba diving, love was the key driver.  Through the last year, and as a result of beginning to write this blog, I have unlocked many deep thoughts and come to the realisation of many things that were previously stored away in some dark recess of my mind.  Locked away and hidden, they may have been, but I think perhaps I always knew deep inside of their existence, but was afraid to recognise, give legitimacy to, and give voice to them, from fear of the consequences and what it would mean to my life.  Knowing and understanding what has driven my entire life is both a great comfort and an incredible curse to me.

On the one had, it gives me immense pleasure, joy and comfort to know that love is what drives me in my life.  I know that I thrive on the greatest emotion that there is, and that it pushes me forward, ever on.  I am of the belief that it is because of my deep connection with love, that I am able to connect with the world around me in a strong and meaningful way, that I am able to truly see life and the simplicity and miracles that are present in each and every moment.  I recognise love in the world and I speak plainly and openly of it, and it has given to me many unbelievable moments of pure high and elation.   

Then there is the curse.  To know that love is the driver and the very substance that gives my life so much meaning, and to comprehend and understand that my life has been deprived and is devoid of knowing love from the hearts of other people, fills me with such sadness, sorrow and despair.  When I look back over my life and realise how I gained weight as a child to attract attention and love, how I put up with name calling and teasing because I felt unworthy of anything else, how I have constantly sought out the kind of love of which I felt I deserved - the unhealthy, one-sided, unrequited kind - how I have tried so hard to make others love me and have failed time and again, and how I have spent so much of my life living alone, then the dark clouds gather to obscure the light that gives my life its balance, purpose and meaning, and I fall into deep, dark, despair.

And this is what has been happening over the last few days.  I have been caught and trapped in self-pity and remorse for my life and for my existence.  Everything has become obscured by the mists and the dense fog that appeared in my mind.  My heart wept tears of great sadness at being so alone and knowing that it has been so completely and utterly unloved.  I really did question my purpose and the point of it all.  But I understand my heart very well, since we have been ever constant companions on the path and the journey on which we embarked, so long before.  There is a reason I still raise my shield and swing my sword, there is always hope and the faith in love and life, and knowing that the darkness will lift and the sun will find its way back again.

Yesterday evening, I sat down at the beach alone, and I gazed out over the ocean, across the great expanse of ocean, towards the slowly sinking sun.  Flocks of pelicans flew across the sky, one after another and I sat and watched as a child watches, with delight, with marvel and with wonder, at the amazing sight of a great bird on the wind.  In this moment, I smiled and I laughed.  I may never have known the long-lasting, true love of a woman, but I have discovered love nonetheless.  I have discovered the love of life, I am able to see the world in simplicity and as a miracle, and for that, I shall always be grateful.  Because of that, I shall keep on walking my one true path, until one day, the other kind of love will appear.  And I know that it will.

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Blond Hair And Board Shorts

A man with shaggy, blond, unkempt, sun bleached hair, who is wearing nothing other than a pair of board shorts, is walking barefoot along the sand of a tropical, palm tree lined beach.  He walks close to the waters edge, so that each time a wave breaks and pushes up the beach, the water covers his feet before once more receding.  Running around the man, bounding into the water, running back to the sand, barking with fun, is an equally scruffy looking dog.  On the faces of both, to be seen clearly by any casual observer, is written joy and contentment with life.

It is a summer's day in England. An adolescent boy sits on the pebbles of the beach and watches the waves lapping at the shore.  The boy has just been swimming and beads of water run from his hair, over his shoulders and down his back, but he does not care.  The sun is warming and he knows that he will soon be dry.  He stares out across the calm and flat ocean, that is constantly changing shape, undulating with small movements, as each swell attempts to break the calmness but lack the power to do so, dying on the pebbles of the beach as if collapsing, exhausted, over the finish line.  The boy's mind begins to drift, to wander and he imagines where his life will lead him and what it is that life has in store for him.

The winds of the dry season blow, lifting sand from the beach, stirring up the dust of the roads, across the land comes the wind, dropping these tiny particles of the rocks and earth across a parched countryside, that is now into its fifth month without the rains.  Barren is the ground, brown is the grass, and withered and lifeless are the trees that the wind passes over.  The wind brings no cooling relief from the heat of the sun, the air it brings is stifling and serves only to increase the temperature, like a breeze that fans the smouldering embers of a fire.  On the beach, barefooted, blond haired and wearing only a pair of board shorts, approaches a lone figure.  At times he gazes out across the ocean, he stares up at the clouds, sometimes marvelling at the exquisite formations, sometimes he sees in a cloud the shape of an animal, and he watches mesmerised as a pod of pelicans launch themselves from the surface of the water, and take to the air in flight.  The man might walk alone but he is not lonely.  He smiles and laughs to himself often and people look at him and think that perhaps he has been touched by the hand of madness.  And they would be right.  This man has been touched by the madness that comes of having pursued a childish dream and of turning that dream into a waking reality.  This man walks in the knowledge that life rewards those that seek out the truth for themselves and discover their one true path.  It was insanity that drove him onwards and allowed him to find the light that was within.

I had a dream once and I dismissed it.  At the beach in England, during the summer months, my heart was always so full of joy, content and happy.  I could not think of anything else that would make me more fulfilled than to live by a tropical beach.  I dismissed this dream because I thought it was stupid, I believed it was unachievable, but more than this, I thought that it was not what I was supposed to do with my life.  For me, life was all about finding a job, earning enough money to support myself, leaving home, raising my own family.  I managed the first three of those, the last eludes me still.  Those were the things expected of me.  Everything else I was told, was foolhardy and stupid.  When I had the vision of the beach, I would say to myself it was impossible.  I would ask myself what would I do there?  How would I live?  How would I support myself?  I have a logical brain and because of this, I could see no sense in my dream, and so I dismissed it as the foolish thought of youth.   

However, what I had not counted on, was that this dream was so deeply rooted in the core of my being, that my heart never let it go.  From my teenage years onwards, everything that I have ever done, was completed with the ultimate goal of achieving my dream.  I was not consciously aware of this.  Some other power drove me in that direction and I subconsciously made the decisions that led me there.  Some how, I ended up where I always wanted to be.  The journey was not straightforward.  In fact, I could not have taken a more convoluted and twisted road if I had tried.  And it is this fact that brings me great joy and hope in my life.

I did not set out for my life to be the way it is.  So much happened by chance and opportunity.  Everyone has those same chances in their lives.  I am no more unique or blessed than any one else.  What this tells me, is that if you have something inside of you that holds deep meaning for your life, then there is a power that is going to steer you towards it, whether you are conscious of it or not, and no matter the decisions that you take.  That power could be given many names but I like to think of it as simply, love.  If you believe in love, then you can achieve anything.  If you believe in love, then you can accomplish your dreams.  Love is the force that drives life.  And it is life that brings love.  The eternal cycle will always go on until the ending of the universe.

You have the power to accomplish your dreams.  All that you need can be found within.  Search your heart,  listen to its voice and act on what it tells you.  Create the life that you want, not the life that you think you should have.  Those who dream are not fools, but those who dream and do not act are the foolish.

Dream.  Dare.  Walk.  Love.  Light.

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What Is Written Is True

It has been a little while since I have posted on my blog site. It is not because I have been lazy or lost interest, far from it!  My efforts have been diverted towards finalising my poetry collection for self-publication, a task that is now very much near completion.  Working on my poetry has been an insightful experience.  I've learned new things about myself and rediscovered some that I had forgotten.

I've written in a previous blog about how I write from my heart.  This means that whatever I write contains a part of me nestled between each of the letters, a small part of me hiding in the blank spaces between words.  I invest myself into my work.  That has always been my way.  It is completely unavoidable for me.  Working with my collection of poems meant that it was necessary to re-read and review all of my work.  My poems date back to my time in Budapest in 2003, since this is the time when I first began to write in earnest and to keep my writing, rather than discard it as nonsense.  I started to write as part of the process to unlock my creative side, something that I had always thought did not exist.  It seems that I was wrong about that.  This was also the time when I began to understand the path that was set before me.  I was not actually walking my true path at the time, but I was beginning to comprehend that the life I was leading was counter to the one that my heart desired.  This was the time when my eyes were being opened to life.

So, I began to write poetry as part of the creative journey and not because it was ever my intention.  Poems flowed from me and I felt compelled to write down whatever words formed in my head.  The collection that I have put together spans ten years of my life, from the early days of discovering my creative talent, through the discovery of my true path, and along the journey that has led me to here and to now.  Throughout that time, I have been discovering the truth about myself.  I was able to categorise the poems into four clear topics: love, loss, life, the path.  These poems read like the story of my life and through them, I release my emotions.  What became evident when I went back and read my poems again, was that many themes recur throughout my writing.  Broadly speaking, these recurring themes fall into these topics:

 - The search for love
 - Feelings of self-loathing
 - Self-image
 - Feeling undeserving of love
 - The path
 - Oneness

My realisation has been that, by revisiting my poetry, the truth, the truth of my life, has issued forth on to the page.  I know without a shadow of a doubt the rightness of this.  When I lose myself in the process of writing, in the art of creation, I create an incredibly strong and deep connection with my heart.  In these poems that I have written, you will find my heart.  What is written, is true.  It is undeniable.

There is one thing that connects all of the themes in my poetry.  It is the same thing that drives us ever on.  Whether you know it or not, whether you are conscious of it or not, does not matter, it will exist any way.  From the moment we are born into this world, until the moment the flames of our souls are extinguished and we take a step on to a new path, it is the one thing for which we all seek.  That one thing is love.  Love is truly at the heart of everything.  To discover it, you need only look inside of yourself.  For you are love.  Do not seek love elsewhere until you have found in first from within. Once you know this, once you accept that you are love, your life will change forever.  When you understand that you are love, then you will know that you are walking your one true path.  And from that moment on, all things will be one.

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