Category: Diary of a Bodhisattva

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Dear Diary; Working it All Out

The scene that greeted Anadi and I as we arrived at the Pear Tree cafe in Battersea Park last night was of many people gathered together wearing summery clothes, and smiley faces – sitting about with bottles of beer and wine, homemade pizzas and salads, crunching on bags of crisps, dipping crudités of carrot into pots of homemade hummus…

 A few celebrated birthday parties; we caught glimpses of bobbing balloons, bottles of bubbles – and every so often the young man singing us songs while strumming his guitar, struck up ‘Happy Birthday to you…’ 

We all joined in…

The crowd around him near the lake had already started to dance and sing along when the familiar chords struck up and he sang us ‘Sweet Caroline’…

The crowd sprung into even more enthusiastic dancing – singing along, arms waving in the air to the chorus…

‘That song has spanned the 70’s 80’s 90’s 10’s and now the 20’s ‘,Anadi commented… ‘What an energy…’

‘And I was there’! I laughed… ‘I was dancing and singing along at the beginning of it all – in the 70’s… ‘ I turned to my imaginary assembled crowd with ( I would estimate) an average age of around thirty and announced ‘I was there…’

Watching the joy around us, Anadi said… ‘This is what humans love, being together, having fun…’

Yes, I replied with some alcohol and food, we’re easy to please’…

‘And a bit of “Oats and barley”/ “Charlie”  here I reckon too’ Anadi winked…

‘All of it part of the tapestry of life, our connection with one another, all of us journeying alone together…’ 

I continued to watch the atmosphere rising as Sweet Caroline reached a crescendo – the energy around tangible…

‘I have read how tortured he (Neil Diamond)  was’ I said to Anadi… ‘How guilty he felt for the end of his marriages, how we was working a lot out in his songs; how he engaged in ten years of therapy and found ease and happiness with the wife he is with now…’

We continued to enjoy sitting, enjoy the joy he has brought through his expression, his creativity, himself in motion, working things out, expressing, sharing himself, throughout his life journey…

I have also read how he embraced his diagnosis of Parkinson and feels good in himself now, even though he has retired from his life of touring…

Working everything out

He’s been working everything out throughout his life, and has done so in the spotlight of public fame…

Around his music tonight were gathered a few hundred young people…

Having fun…

But no doubt working things out too… 

We’re all here living things out, working things out, round we go…

It’s not different for others, whether they seem to ‘have it all’ in terms of success, looks, fame even…

We’re all consciousness experiencing form, having the opportunity through our body and our mind to work things out, to heal and free ourselves from inner pain, torture, guilt, any low vibration energies that spoil the joy of living… 

To fly free as birds,

And know that the cage door was always open, we just needed to se, to understand, to spread our wings… 

To fly and truly dance and sing in every moment…

Alcohol, music, drugs – in fact anything at all – can all be part of our investigation – or they can be a distraction…

Opportunities to reflect and become aware, or to turn away from who we are…

It is our choice

We all tread different paths.

We are all experiencing different things together alone

But within us all is the potential for bliss

To remember who we truly are 

To experience the joy of being alive…

And create our experiences from this place

Breath by breath

By breath 

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Dear Diary; Being Humans on the Stage of Life

Our Saturday afternoon date to  the Duke of York square is now like walking into the next phase of creating our play… 

Each Saturday for the past few weeks we have tramped up the Kings road, bought our brunch at Pret and then enjoyed a picnic in our quiet outdoor cafe – sitting about with a few others with the same idea.

On the bare floor boards of our stage- without a set… 

And then magic happened…

Our cafe had turned itself into a bright coloured show…

The set now boasts stalls selling amazing cake and salads, bubbles flowing in a golden champagne stream with brightly coloured bunting fluttering above us, sunshine fun laughter, sparkles …

People experiencing joy from Oysters and Champagne and Mango banana cake.

Being human – such a simple thing.

We like to be together… Sit about together and get intoxicated on coffee beer and Champagne

On life

On love

Such purpose in doing nothing 

Enjoying the best cake ever.

Later Anadi and I dropped into the supermarket…

A lady stopped us in the aisle – she wanted to know if walnuts were good for her brain, we assured her they were!

The man on duty glanced at my feet, so I darted away…

‘Why aren’t you wearing any shoes?’ a muffled voice from behind his mask, asked me…

He had tracked me down…

‘Because I like being barefoot…’I replied, ‘I ran across Spain without my shoes’ I continued as way of some sort of explanation!

‘Where did you start from? He asked

‘Suances…’ I replied; he nodded….

‘It keeps your feet strong doesn’t it…?  Very good for them, but you have to keep your eyes open…’

We had become the best of friends and I recounted some of my barefoot experiences, until Anadi found me and we continued on with our Saturday adventure…

Stepping out of the store – the Chelsea Hospital opposite us – we noticed a young woman on the other side of the road… She trailed behind a man, every so often stopping and holding her side, leaning on a lamp post, then the wall…

Slowly they walked up and down outside the hospital, he dragging a small overnight bag on wheels behind him.

‘I wish they’d go into the hospital’ I said… ‘Why do you wish they’d go in?’  Anadi asked;

‘She just looks in so much pain’, I said… ‘And, I think she’ll have the baby out here on the street, if they don’t go in soon’!

Human beings, being; Saturday unfolding, every one of us taking the next step and the next… So many of us here…. Partaking in life, with all its rich tapestry of difference, the scenes unfolding.

For each and every one of us

Being humans

Spiritual beings on a human journey on the stage of life.

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Dear Diary; This is Your Life

I am sitting in Pret, rather thankfully as it looks quite likely to rain…

Instead of writing my blogs whilst sitting on the grass or pavement; or a random bench, I am back in my usual office’…

My home, the coffee shop…

What has lead me to lifetime of sitting about in coffee shops?

My first cup of coffee ‘happened’ when I was twenty one years old…

It was 10pm… I was returning from a late shift at the hospital, during my brief spell as a nurse! Climbing the stairs to my bedsit at the top of an old house in Bristol, I passed the bedsit below me – empty ever since I had been there – and the door squeaked open…

A dark haired young man popped his head out… ‘Hello’, he called out as I was disappearing up the stairs…

‘My name is Steve, I’ve just moved in… Would you like a cup of coffee?’

I hesitated for only a second, and then said,’Oooh yes please’…  I liked the look of the tousle headed person standing below me; definitely worth experiencing coffee – never been had before – for.

‘I’ll just change out of my uniform, and be down in a few minutes…’

At 6am the following morning, many cups of coffee and a long and fascinating conversation later, Steve turned to me ( we were sitting on his bed, the only piece of furniture in his new home)  and said ‘I love you Julia’! 

I love you too’ I replied without hesitation… After all – we had spoken for eight hours – non stop – and I was drunk on the effects of coffee and connection! 

‘Then we must make love now’, he announced…

‘But I’m on an early shift – I have to go to work…’ I replied

‘I’ll come back when I finish…’

And so I climbed the stairs to my bedsit, changed back into my nurse uniform and retraced my steps of a few hours earlier…

And so that is how my relationship with coffee began…

And Steve as it happened; I wonder where he is now… ? That tousle haired twenty six year old, now a sixty six year old man.

I have generally followed my inner voice, wherever it has taken me

Often to places that others have not approved of…

But this taught me to eventually truly let go of the fear of what others may think…

To be able to say

‘This is my truth, in this moment

It’s my life to travel the path I must – even if I find it leads to a dead end…’!

Whilst also fully recognising and accepting that everyone has a right to respond as they choose…

To have another view

To see things another way

The freedom is in having the courage to follow your own road less travelled, when deep inside you know this to be true for you… Whatever anyone else might say of think of you.

To truly know

This is your life

To fully live

Now

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Dear Diary; Creativity in Motion

In large and small ways, in all ways…

Seeking to have something or be someone or do something important – or simply the desire that things be different than they are (even the weather!) – directs the course of most human existence…

When I have a car, a house, the new dress, the table the chairs those beautiful paintings – when the sun comes out –  I will feel happy, I will be at ease…

For awhile.

When I am rich, when I get a better job, top marks for my exam, a faster running time, become a famous musician, publish my novel and sell millions of copies, enjoy perfect clement weather at all times, I will feel content

For awhile.

It’s just that ‘they’ – anything outside us – cannot intrinsically lead us to pure joy…

And it isn’t the ‘things’ or ‘the successes’ that are vexatious to the spirit

It is the attachment to them, and the identification with them.

It is often because where has desire come from is not from our truest desire, but from our programming and conditioning…

We haven’t been going with the flow of life…

Instead attached to the oughts and the should of life, which is often accompanied by fear of not achieving or having what we want

Many people create back to front… They believe that when they have certain things, they will be able to do more and so be happy…

Whereas the truth is that when we relax deeply into being who we truly are, and do whatever we are lead to do from this place, then what we create and have is for our ultimate joy.

When we go with the flow, and hold less tightly to our dreams, then there is no struggle…

The fun of living, of being in a body, enjoying the creativity of consciousness unfolds with apparent effortlessness, even if we are working many hours on our project…

The ‘back to front’ way often ultimately creates tension and even misery, as well as feeling of envy of others if what we want doesn’t arrive; and the feeling of excitement and safety in resting in the bosom of success when it does; even an enjoyment of the adulation (and envy often) of others, can be swiftly followed by fear of loss.

But – when we know who we truly are, when we relax deeply and connect with our essence – when we are able to truly be our selves – and when we take action from this place…

Then we discover that the things we create and ‘have’ do bring joy, as they have been created from joy; from our conscious self…

From the I that witnesses it all; that watches as we journey. The I that knows we are unhappy or happy lost or found… The I that never says you are not good enough or the I that doesn’t know what being proud of you is… Who is that I?

The I beyond the I as we know it.

The I we I dentify with, our personality is not always our true essence

Clarity, silence, pure love, infinite awareness – this is who we are…

Our true nature, always there

We do not have to find who we are

We must simply let go of who we are not

Our essence, our true nature is already here

Now

And when we create from this place, we have already let go, we are going towards what we desire without attachment.

When we follow our bliss, then whatever we create is always in the now.

There is no past to be proud of, or a future destination that will make us immortal.

In the now our expression flows…

There is no ego attachment…

The only commitment

To be here enjoying the flow of creativity within us

Being ourselves in motion in our own true expression

Whatever that truly is

Now

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Dear Dairy; Let go, Now

It’s funny really, when I think of how many words I write about my life, when I do the same thing.

Day after day

Everything the same

I run, I write, I spend time with Anadi,  I work with my clients

And I drink coffee, too…

And when I am resting, I don’t really do anything.

I don’t watch television, I don’t even listen to music ( I used to when I had a car; in the car!)

When the theatres and cinemas are open, and the restaurants too…I enjoy those things.

But,

I like doing nothing, no thing at all

I like silence, to be silent, no talking, no sound around me

I like being alone

I like being

Alone


We are all alone really and truly, we came into this incarnation alone and we leave alone.

I remember reading the words of Rumi, about twenty years ago, I was forty one years old…

‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense’.

And I didn’t like the idea of ‘each other’ not making any sense then.

I felt a slight discomfort, a feeling of distress…

‘Each other’ having been my lifelong quest, love, togetherness – each other.

But I felt the truth of the words.

And so I knew there was more work to be done…

More journeying

To learn to be alone

And to know that field

To lie down in it and be free, to understand that ideas and language are just that, ideas and language and that the world is too full to talk about.

And so I make another cup of coffee and sit silently, sipping the black liquid, a place of meditation for me for so many years.

And I let go

Of all the pressure to do more, to be more, to have more.

And I understand in each sip, the one realisation 

The years and years and years of seeking, distill into now…

One sip, one moment

Now

This is all it takes, now, and now, and now

Our realisation, our freedom. all arise in an instant

Now

We are all free

We simply need to know this, see this

And let go

Now 

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Dear Diary; Time to Stand and Stare

‘Excuse me ma’am a voice above me spoke, as I sat on the step in front of an entrance to some flats

‘Sloane Square’?

‘Straight up’ – I replied after orientating where I actually was, and pointing up the road..

I’d popped out for a coffee at Matcha beyond, not far from my flat…

Just up the road

The rain had started in small spits while I was sitting on a bench enjoying my extra hot, extra strong flat white, with a matcha almond croissant – my second breakfast ( I’d like really to eat breakfast for every meal)

The rain got harder, and so I moved to sit on the ground on my rucksack handbag under a little ( closed) newspaper stand.

A man was sheltering there with me… The rain, a torrent now, was accompanied by claps of thunder, loud resounding powerful

Beautiful

The leaves dripped, shiny green, the park emptied of people and my companion drank his beer, smoked a cigarette and then began a phone conversation… Some in English… ‘ F***ing British summer weather’  metaphorically shaking his fist at the storm – magnificent in her creativity and energy…

Mainly though, he spoke in his mother tongue, (unrecognisable to me) and then after he had ended his conversation, he started to sing, loudly on and on

I got used to it.

I started to read Jonathan Livingston seagull in Spanish

He kept singing

The rain kept pouring.

I had to stand up, the ground under my bottom was becoming wet…

I watched the taxis go by and by

Perhaps I would take a ride…

Suddenly the space around me felt empty, different – I looked up and all was quiet and my companion was disappearing across the park.

I felt his absence

Entangled together for fifteen minutes under a little news-stand shelter in a storm.

The rain lessened and so I crossed the road, and sat down with my book in the entrance to the flats…. A young woman came back and let herself in to her home while I sat there…. She invited me in, to sit on a sofa in the entrance hall…

Another connection, strangers entangled for a moment

I thanked her for her kindness – but declined, I was enjoying my coffee break on a step in the rain…

It reminded me of my life always

Wandering about

Sitting

Watching the world go by….

With our dog Candy when I was eight, maybe ten years old… I would walk with him across the common land, three or four miles to Grayshott, then buy a drink ( often lucozade!) and some chocolate… 

And sit on a bench

Watching the world go by

My perfect life to sit and watch.

As William Wordsworth said

‘What is this life is full of care we have no time to stop and stare

No time to stand beneath the boughs,. And stare as long as sheep or cows’

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Dear Diary; A Never Ending Dialogue

‘Pelicans have a wingspan second only to the condor’, he said.

He was standing just near where Anadi and I had stopped on our run to look at the Pelicans in the Park – St James Park – and he’d been listening, and laughing as I recited ‘The Pelican poem…’

Eyes of blue; a camera around his neck

‘In about two months they will be completely pink’, he added…

‘There is one who is more intelligent than the rest, she’s really inquisitive, she keeps escaping and going off on her own adventures’…

I told him about the vision of pink I encountered ‘somewhere in Spain’ as I made my way barefoot from one end of the country to the other.

I had come over the brow of a hill, a huge lake lay to my right and there I saw an array of pink – “a brief”, “ a pod”, “ a pouch”, “ a scoop”,  “ a squadron” of pelicans! 

‘You’re brave’ he commented, pointing to my feet, as we crossed the road near Leicester Square Tube station… He was settled in a doorway, looking quite relaxed in the sun, a coffee in his hand. His belongings in a bag beside him.

‘Would you like some money?’ I asked, ‘no, I don’t take any cash – I drink and smoke’, he added as way of explanation; ‘So I don’t take cash’.

‘How do you live?’ I asked… ‘People buy me food’; he proffered his coffee, ‘I get by’.

‘Would you like some food then’? I asked…‘A croissant would be nice’ he replied

‘What flavour?’

‘Almond…’

‘My favourite’, I said…

We stopped near the end of our run at Pret for a ‘nearly end of run coffee and a cookie to share’… 

‘My African sister’ Akim, our new friend there, called out as we entered… And then as we approached the counter, he turned to his supervisor… ‘Guess where she was born?Africa’, he answered before she had time to guess – ‘“The” Africa where I was born… She is my African sister’.

He gave us an extra cookie on the house, and we sat in the sun in our improvised outdoor cafe in front of Saatchi Gallery…

My feet felt strong today, the terrain easy… Sometimes they are more sensitive than others, today everything felt easy. I felt strong relaxed and the miles floated by.

Conversations on the run.

The space between.

Twisting and weaving, creating new things, ideas and dreams full of colour and magic,  manifesting in the space between, the tapestry of life.

Our worlds expand or are limited by the amount of conversations we are open to.

Airports, taxis, shops, restaurants, on the street…

A never ending dialogue

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Dear Diary; Finding it all out

Writing it all down, pouring it all out

The stream of consciousness onto the page,

Finding out what is within.

This is my practise, to turn up and find out what will be revealed, discovered uncovered through the written word

Expressed on the page…

Writing it all down, can be a wonderful therapy too… It can be used as a way to clear away the anger the pain, anything within that is stuck and can’t get out… The written word holds so much energy, out out out and then it is gone.

Burn the paper, burn the page clear the pain.

Sometimes when we pick up a pen, or put fingers to keys we have no idea what is locked within; what ideas and thoughts, what deeper awareness we know.

What wisdom lies within.

The non dominant hand can reveal much too… Ask a question and see what the words will reveal.

We know more than we think we do

All there is to know is deep within the recesses of our being.

We are forever learning what we already know in so many different ways….

From a book in school, we pour over ideas concepts, lessons in maths and art and English; absorbing all this knowledge…

To learn to be a dentist or a plumber or an expert in physics; a teacher, a banker, a builder and on goes the list….

As we go we learn how to learn these things

So that we can continue to learn and grow.

In confidence, in self discipline; skills so that we can organise ourselves and our lives…

We learn to be reflexive, to think critically with our mind.

And our body teaches us to know things too… It has a wisdom of its own, it teaches us through dance, through movement, to release the knowledge from within…

And we can write it all down…All that we learn and know, find out, discover uncover

We can write it down. 

`So that other may read it 

And find it for themselves…

Because in the end; we let it all go…..

All that once made sense turns into no sense

And we are free

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Dear Diary; Souls Connecting

Julia Chi Handstands

‘A barefoot runner!

William look look – barefoot running’… William glanced at my feet as he bombed by on his bike…

Battersea Park resembled a holiday training resort today.

Sun burning down, hot already…

Crowds of people were on the main loop, on bikes, on foot, babies in running prams… A group posing for a photo- arms outstretched smiling, before jogging off together…

And on the grass, exercise classes dotted about, and pairs too; like Anadi and I…

‘It’s like Club la Santa’ I commented…’Minus the music’ Anadi replied, laughing…

And so we settled into our circuit… Which I keep extending 🙂

It’s grown to four sets of three different exercises which we do ten times each, twice round the three ( are you following me! 🙂 ) and now I’ve added an eighty meter stride along the length of the field in between the sets…

All this followed by handstand practise…

My ideal life

I love training

Always have 

All my life, right from when – age six years – I joined my Dad at 6am to do exactly what I am still doing…

A series of exercises to start the day..

For no reason other than the joy of moving, of being, 

Alive 

I am writing this in my lunch break… I’ve popped out for a coffee and a matcha almond croissant, the matcha somehow lending a healthy aspect to my choice of a second breakfast for lunch.

It’s midsummers day

June 24th…

10 years ago today I have discovered that I was doing this…!

Mark Cooper has just posted a memory on Facebook.

‘Marathon 49 done, 3hrs 33mins, loved running with former international marathon runner and top 10 runner in the UK for her age group Julia Armstrong, one more to go guys, what an unbelievable expedition, target is so nearly there now, thank you!’

I remember flying out to Girona, and on finding there wasn’t a bus for hours and hours, I had jumped in a taxi which smoothed me quickly to Lloret de Mar… As the car slowed into the town, Mark crossed the road right in front of us…

I had travelled out to make a podcast with him, as I was then producing my podcast series ‘Running to Learn, and I was also there to write an article about him for ‘Running Free magazine’… Oh; and to run the penultimate marathon of his journey of fifty, with him…

Mark had travelled on foot from Amsterdam and would be arriving in Barcelona, the day after our run…

He, his girlfriend ( now wife) Ferelith and I all went for supper together in Lloret de Mar… The next morning Ferelith drove Mark and I to Girona to the start of Marathon forty nine, and we set off to run to Feliu – 26.2 miles away – it in 30 degrees heat.

Mark and I had only met once before… I had interviewed him for a previous podcast in his home town of Edinburgh… We had spoken while he was actually running a marathon on a treadmill in a shopping centre right slam bang in the middle of the City….

And now we met again…

We bonded on that run.

We talked about everything

We shared ourselves, our lives.

We’d both experienced our mother’s dying when we were teenagers, and he was now running to raise money for the charity that had supported his family through that difficult time…

Far reaching dialogue, open hearts, two souls communicating through the run and on the run…

I’ve never seen him again…

We finished our run, we all had some lunch together, the three of us – and then Mark and Ferelith drove me to Girona airport.

And I flew away…

But our hearts are always connected

Sharing as we did for a few short hours 

On the road from  Girona to Feliu…

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Dear Diary; It all Comes to No Thing

It all comes to nothing…

I cried, but I also felt free.

With this realisation

With this acceptance…

My ‘conditioning’ was based on continual striving, somewhere… To do your best, to be a good person, to think of others, to achieve, to never rest, to never complain.. To keep going.

I recognised this very early; but freeing myself from the constraints of this energy – which of course was all mine, simply reflected back in the play out of my life – well it took time.

There was a cycle of letting go, following by a taking up of the reins once more, and a setting off with great enthusiasm and zeal.

Many projects, some begun and aborted… Many taking me on wonderful journeys of self discovery and growth, great learning and a gradually deepening of acceptance of my self…

The adventures were often rewarding, fun, successful… But still there was this nagging driving force coming out of the fear… The fear of being wrong

Not measuring up

Just not good enough….

This is a familiar energy in our culture – many of you will recognise it – and in our society it is written about too; there are courses and books and seminars designed to remind you that… 

You are enough, as you are.

You are who you are and it is enough…

But still the patterns can continue; the drive to succeed, to achieve not coming from the sheer joy of finding out, stretching and allowing the creative expression its arena…

I freed myself…

And part of the freedom for me came from the acceptance that when that final curtain falls, its all gone, it’s all come to nothing… This deep acknowledgement within me, somehow freed me to approach any endeavour or idea or adventure or project from a completely different position…

From one step to the next… Being fully in that step and trusting that the next would take care of itself..

Being in the flow and going with it…

Of course for others this isn’t always the case… The legacy they leave is important to them… The people they have given birth to, the books they have written, the businesses they have created …

We do not know the path another treads… We do not know what they have come to find out, to live out to experience

Each person’s journey their own…

But for me the freedom from feeling somehow wrong, that I hadn’t measured up, that I still needed to somehow earn my place came with that realisation

It all comes to nothing

There is no point

Its simply an experience 

Our energy playing out.

A deeper recognition of my soul in motion… 

A deeper connection to the no thing from whence we all came…

And I was free…

To play, to have fun, to let my spirit be truly free,

And; in an even better position than before to guide and support others in their own endeavours, and experiences and desires and needs to express and to find out.

In a better position to guide and support them to live and breathe and be here in whatever way they want to be here.

There is no one way.

Only the way within you.