Category: Diary of a Bodhisattva

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Dear Diary; Making his Own Way

He stands in his stripy blue yellow and white T shirt

Eating a bun

He walks slowly, exploring, examining the grass under each tiny foot fall – making his way… Unknowingly towards me… He looks up, suddenly – sees me in his pathway and stares, looking a little surprised.

I smile and say, ‘hello’ 

He says nothing, looks straight at me for a little longer and then turns away…To explore more of his terrain, the flower bed nearby.

In his world, his own world

No inhibitions.

A man is walking just behind him, he smiles at me, and they go off together across the park…. The big one and the little one.

The fruit of his loins I guess… Now living and breathing – a separate human.

On his life journey, an arrow from the bow of the big one’s heart…

Off exploring

Eating walking – nearly talking

Making his own way.

We are all responsible for our own way – in the end.

When we’ve worked out our hurt, when we’ve cried and we’ve blamed and railed against those that got it wrong, did us wrong, There comes a time when we’ve cried all the tears, and shouted all the anger, that we can be still

And we can see .

That all along it was us; our reflection staring back… Our wounds to heal; our hurt to mend.

To find who we are

Not

We are not our wounds and our beliefs – our values, our stories;

We are so much more;

Than all this.

While we are here we can experience and live.

We can create and make and love and live and be filled with joy.

We are consciousness, experiencing itself…

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Dear Diary; The Keys to Our Life

We all have the keys to our life…

All we need do is put them in the lock; turn them and the door will open to reveal a completely new landscape. In each moment the past completely vanished, just like the wake of a boat.

When I look back now at my life all I can see if the vast expanse of the ocean.

Of the life force.

Of infinity

Huge vast infinite… Lifetimes upon lifetimes. All happening here and now.

And at the same time all vanished into the no thing ness.

Each moment new, a drop of dew. Shimmering quivering with life. And in each moment limitless possibilities for something different to happen.

I am this moment.

I started writing when I was very small; I have lost the original ‘manuscripts’, but I can remember when I was eight years old I wrote a story about battle.

I wrote about the men praying for the battle to be over, and of their prayers being answered, but not as they might have wished; with an arrow through their heart – and they fell to the earth.

It was over…

I wrote about how if you were to look up there was beauty; sun blue skies, clouds scudding… Branches of trees dancing in the breeze; but then if instead you were to look down you would witness death and bloodshed; dying men and horses screaming in pain.

I wrote of how the battle ended, and the men went home to their families.

There were scenes of great joy and scenes of such sadness – some never returned.

Parting and re uniting all at once.

Life death and re birth.

I wrote about the yin and the yang; the samsara of this universe.

And for over fifty years, I have – in some ways – simply written the same thing;

Over and over again

And I have watched the yin to the yang reflected outwards in my life, as I swung with the polarity of this existence, until I could fully experience the silence beyond the duality, and so help others free themselves from fear.

Fear stops us from truly living and truly loving 

Ourselves 

And others

In perfect love there is no fear

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Dear Diary; The Earth Beneath Our Feet

Sunday morning dawned into a sunny blue grey cloudy bright day …  Anadi and I ran to Battersea Park for the start of another adventure…

We stopped there for a while, and I made a little video about grounding barefoot on the earth.

We are all made up of atoms, the whole universe is…

Nikola Tesla said – “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

In our body there are millions and trillions of these atoms … And every single one of them has a nucleus with protons and neutrons inside it… The protons have a positive electrical charge and the nutrons are neutral.

All around the nucleus there are electrons in equal balance to the protons and nutrons; these electrons have a negative charge – and so the body keeps in perfect balance and is as healthy as can be…

However when electrons break free, then they have a positive charge which now isn’t a good thing! 

They become free radicals, which can damage our cells and contribute to lots of the diseases we know about in today’s society…

In the past we all used to wander about with our feet bare – this kept us connected to the earth’s energy. 

Mother Earth has a negative charge…

But now – in general – we don’t do this anymore. We inhabit homes and offices – and we wear shoes!

There is much research into the positive effects of grounding – it is said that it can help neutralise these free radicals in the body.

Some say that they have noticed positive effects on their sleep, their pain and stress levels from standing with naked feet on the earth…  

For me it is simply a lovely feeling!

It feels free, I feel childlike…I like wearing no shoes, the lightness. The way my feet can move as they wish.

I have less pain in my body – but suspect it is due to the movement of my feet rather than the earthing; but who knows!

But for me it is a lifestyle choice rather than truly motivated by any health benefits.

It is simply a part of my expression

I met a woman in the middle of Richmond park, sometime ago now.

I was running around without any shoes on….She was pushing a pram; I was lost…! She pointed me in the right direction and then asked me about my bare feet…

After I had in essence said;  ‘I love it’…. She said ‘But I love shoes; you probably think that’s bad…’

‘No no’ I said ‘ If you love shoes, that’s a great thing, we all love different things; different things speak to us and express us, and we must honour that…’

We must to our own selves be true.

After making ‘the film ‘ in Battersea Park,  Anadi and I ran to Sloane Square; then a lap of Hyde park – on into Green park and straight down to Buckingham Palace, where we rather incredibly arrived on the dot of 11am…. Time for the changing of the guard…

I was immediately reminded of the poem…

‘They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace; Christopher Robin went down with Alice…’I was probably about six, or maybe eight years old the last time I saw this unique, and very British spectacle… And also when I knew more of the words to the poem…!

My little sister Rosy and I ‘did’ all the London sites with our parents, when we were young. There are photos of us at Trafalgar Square covered with the pigeons we were feeding…

Scattered people were watching the scene too, families with small children gathered, cyclists had stopped, runners like us, looking through the bars; listening to the crunch crunch crunch of the soldier’s boots on gravel as he marched and turned, marched and turned again….

All around people making their through the day, slowly or swiftly

All of us together, in the sun… So many lives, so many stories; so may tales to tell…

All united by this gift called life… All playing our part.

On the stage.

Learning the words as we go; making up the moves… Creating the scenes again and again.

Until the grand finale

When the curtain falls… On this particular play…

From birth to death…To re birth

The show goes on…

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Dear Diary; Teeming With Life and Potential

It’s late on Thursday afternoon, and I have been walking about, along the Kings road again; I walk about a lot now.

In this new phase of life, I like walking… I like journeying somewhere or nowhere.

I have often been happier journeying than arriving; perhaps because there is nowhere to arrive to.

There is no destination

No place to stop

Walking…

I like travelling, the space between; existence, no thought, no thing to say

Journeying…

There is only the inward journey to the centre point of silence  which is teeming with life and creativity… Silent, still, full of potential, awareness and aliveness.

We can experience everything, anything or

No thing 

From here.

This morning I ran intervals on the grass at Battersea Park… I love running fast; intervals can challenge at a very core level, because they ask me to be in the step without thought; and to stay still within the effort, the demand, the power and energy of the step.

Sometimes intervals are too hard

Sometimes life is too hard…

And yet we keep taking the next step – even if we have stopped – the step happens as the world turns… Time as we know it keeps moving and so to do we.

And yet there is no time

There is only now

Time an illusion

There is no time, and so nothing is moving… The real challenge is to be still within the illusion of movement.

Within the journey of this life; and to create from that centre point teeming with life, potential – energy.

Whatever we would like to experience…

In August last year, I experienced doing a handstand again, for the first time in thirty five years. I hadn’t been able to do one for all those years, because of my troublesome left side.

But I wrote it down ( in 2012!) as something I wanted to experience again…

I wonder if anything that I write down, as long as it comes from the core of my being – will happen?

That I will get to experience it in the body….

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Dear Diary; Who is Me?

Once again today has brought me here, to the blank page…

We journey each day to a new beginning;

A new blank canvas.

Journeying intrinsic to my being.

And running too, and being in cafes… ( or outside them at the moment!) in front of the Saatchi gallery on the Kings road, my regular ‘outdoor cafe’ haunt …

Training in a gym (virtually for now!) is intrinsic too. It has always been thus, from age fifteen years when I joined a group of men in a garage and lifted weights with them. I found I loved it, I discovered myself to be in my element. 

Journeying, running, ‘gym ing’ and drinking coffee…

And talking healing helping too…

This is my life

A simple life

And the more simple it becomes – the more ordinary – the more expansive it feels; from the inside out.

Freedom from within.

I also love writing and Spanish and being with Anadi (not in the order!)

There is nothing else.

Within this there is nothing else for me to do

Just to Be. Free. Me. Free…

Who is me?

Who am I?

Who am I really?

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Dear Diary; Limitless Possibility

The Kings road is our playground now. I love the energy…

I was first drawn to this place aged fourteen years. I went there for a shopping trip with £5 to spend.

I bought two pairs of brightly coloured loons (£1.99 each) – two bits of material sewed together serving as jeans – fashionable in the 70’s! And a T shirt…

And now years later, I love our weekly ‘outing’ to Pret for coffee.

Rain threatened in the cloudy grey heaviness, so we carried (well Anadi did!) the big purple umbrella I had immediately purchased on returning to the UK last year.

The heavens opened just as we had arrived, carrying coffees and ‘brunch’, to sit outside the Saatchi gallery – our ‘outdoor cafe’ for now.

We made for a corner, between two buildings, and sheltered on a dry bit of ground under the umbrella. 

A fun time – a dry and warm time – in our little den with the rain pouring down.

There was no where else I would rather have been but there, sharing a cup of coffee (and an almond croissant of course!) with Anadi – looking out through a glaze of translucent wetness.

We watched people running this way and that for shelter, under trees and shop fronts.

All of us being where we all were.

There is nowhere else to be but where we are.

From this place we can create our next moment and our next…

From this place of presence…

This place free from the pain of the past, stories, outdated scripts that feel to have nothing to do with who we know ourselves to be.

Here, right now, in the watery filled moment there was nothing but possibility, shimmering and dancing with the blowing leaves on the trees.

Where to now?

Which way will our energy glint and glisten to reflect another experience, another scene in the play of our life?

Do we want to turn and catch the light in a different way, from a different angle and see a new act playing out in front of us; or do we like the old?

Perhaps we didn’t we know we could turn a different way and see a different reflection.

In this moment, in this silent space there is limitless possibility…

And in the next

And the next. 

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Dear Diary; Life a Mystery to be Lived

There is a shop on the Kings road that I have been drawn to since living her …

The look of it anyway… I had never been inside; it was always closed when I ran by – morning and night – as I journeyed to and fro to work.

An Aladdin’s cave, a magical mystery tour awaiting me, a treat in store … And then it was shut 

Locked 

Down

A shiny orb – a  crystal ball emanating esoteric energy – sits still in the window… The colours, the vibrancy; crystals clustered… velvet drapes…

Beautiful to me

A world I have always loved…

But today as Anadi and I wandered by, the door was ajar… I peered in.

‘We’re open’, a man called, and so we entered to the experience of delightful be-jewelled joy, the smell of mysticism; books, cards, colourful clothes, silk dresses, striped trews… Hippy bags – I bought one; Joss sticks piled high – ‘Nag Champa and Palo Santo please’ I bought these too… Cards painted – swirling, shape, form, magic…

I spoke to the man who had beckoned us in – admired his ceiling, newly painted purple, yellow, black stripes in between… Anadi chatting to the other.

‘This is a haunt of Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger’ he said…

Ahh, kindred spirits – I mused, as we set off once more on our Saturday outing; along the Kings road.

Life unfolding, walking up a road…

Many buildings, with doors to walk through…

Which ones we choose determine the experiences, the lessons, the people we meet.

Other spirits who too have walked through that door; opened the way to new vistas and visions

Experiences to be had.

Many doors, many choices

No wrong way or right

All unfolding exactly as it is

In each moment

“Life is a mystery to be lived not a puzzle to be solved’

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Dear Diary; Life an Adventure

Sunday, shiny sunny beckoned us with his golden glow…

Life an adventure.

Every ordinary moment extraordinary.

While we’re alive, when we live, fully, every ordinary extraordinary moment is shimmering with its own unique energy…

Reflecting our own unique vibration; everything a hologram …

Anadi and I set off running up the Kings road… I padded off, my feet naked, Anadi in his Xero shoes ; out for a Sunday excursion.

I fancied coffee, and – it turned out – a biscuit…! We sat outside the Saatchi gallery, drinking coffee, chatting

Being

Together

My perfect life.

On we ran into Green park, along to Buckingham Palace, awesome in its grandeur and splendour.

A lap of St James Park… Green too, verdant alive.

Pelicans gathered on duck island – I was reminded of the limerick my Dad would recite

‘A wonderful bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can

He can hold in his beak, enough food for a week

But I’ll be darned if I know how the hellican’.

We ran up the Mall – the first time I’ve done so without having already run nearly 26 miles! Looped our way through Trafalgar Square and back to green Park.

A taxi driver pointed to my feet, slowed down and slid his window down…‘You Zola Budd’ he laughed with incredulity… 

On the Kings road again, we chatted for a while with Donny, he’s been on the streets just over a year, but is ready to get a job, to get back into society again.

He told us he had been angry with everyone and everything… He left everything…Being on the streets has restored him he said – he’s met nice people.

Zola Budd? He questioned glancing at my feet!

Life extraordinary in every ordinary moment… Every person extraordinary unique.

‘I succeed at everything I do’, Donny continued – recounting some of his past experiences in the workforce… ‘I’ve even succeeded at this’ he gestured to the streets and his two bags…

The paths we tread so different, yet the same…

Making our way one step at a time

My new friends in London, all homeless; Donny, Kev and Darren

Some resonance within me reflected in them

And so it is 

All of us a hologram

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Dear Diary; Creativity in motion

Yesterday morning I woke early; I cleaned my flat – in my pants…! 

Then put my running kit on, and by 8am, everything was all sparkly clean and I was all ready to run…

At the moment, I have no running  goals, no races that I am aiming for – But I like to run – for fun, for fitness.

My creative expression…

I stepped out of the door, no real plan in mind – not even a route.

I turned up…

In front of my own blank Saturday morning canvas

I also had no real plan for my ‘Conversations with a Bodhisattva’ group.

Where I intend to show up every day for a year – at least – to see what happens…

With my creative flow…

Where will it go?

Me in motion – my canvas….. The roads, the parks, the globe…

The video camera and the blank blog page…

Even when we are not sure – turn up at the page

Even when we are afraid – turn up at the page

Even when we have nothing to say – turn up at the page

Even when we don’t want to – turn up at the page

Because magic can happen in the act off stepping out of the door, up to the easel, to the kitchen to cook; to the piano to sing…

A space of finding out…

If we want to aim for the stars, run a race, create a home, a meal, a symphony, a song, pass an exam, change the shape of our body, learn a language 

We need to turn up…

And in turning up, we can explore what it is we might want… Investigate it more deeply, open the door to our dreams…

And while we are there look for where there are blocks, the incongruencies, the hold ups…

We want to start the day running – but we love to lie in bed

We want to be slimmer, but we so love to eat

We want to pass an exam, but prefer to meet friends than revise…

All of this must be brought from the shadows, into the light

In the light we can we work it all out; integrate it and we are set free

To plan the next stage… 
How do we do this dream? What do we need…?

To reach for our own star….

The plan unfolds… The journey has begun; we must give ourselves time – and relax in each step

Remember to breathe – and find the silence in the breath, stay in each step as we make our way to our goal….

Turn up each day with or without a spring in our step – a space in our heart to find out; to unravel; to turn this way and that …

To discover things we never knew about ourselves, about life, about others.

To uncover latent talents, inner strengths.

To learn new skills..

As our creativity flows…. And then the goal – whether we reach it or not – has served its purpose…

Our creativity spilling out

Us in motion each day

The blank canvas alive – with our energy and light.

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Dear Diary; Nowhere To Get To, Nowhere To Go

These past few weeks have felt like my life in the 70’s…

Lots of wandering about with my best friend.

No where to get to; nowhere to go… No real urgency or rush 

An enjoyment of being.

With a true friend… My ease in self mirrored back there .

I met Wends in nursery school – we were four years old –  and as the years went by and we were ‘let out’ alone, we started wandering about the village, back and forth to one another’s homes.

Spending some time together in one house – and then back again to the other – stopping to sit on the bench that encircled the huge old chestnut tree in the middle of the village. 

Talking and wandering, just being together – completely happy in one another’s company… Sufficient unto each other… And then back we would wander to the home of the other..

Hours spent chatting in our bedrooms, or just quietly lying about reading books…

Painting and drawing – writing stories…

Or planning our lives…

Envisioning what they would look like…

(nb, Wends life has turned out pretty much as she dreamed into being at age eight years – mine nothing like!!) 

And as the years went by we simply wandered further afield, caught buses and trains to meander about in other towns – supposedly on shopping trips that were in reality extensions of an opportunity to talk and just be together…

I learnt to drive the moment I was seventeen – and then we travelled even greater distances; down to Bude for a week once; where we did the same thing…

Wandered about the town, the beach; walking and talking and just being together…

And now, these past few weeks, Anadi and I are doing the same… 

When we’re not working – we wander about. 

Into the park, along the river; up the Kings road…

Walking and talking, just being together.

There is no need for entertainment of any sort… 

It reminds me of the past….

That is existing now; there isn’t any difference to the essence of us all.

Without any distractions we can know our self; enjoy our self.

Be our own true friend to our self… With another mirroring this back

Or alone

Wandering about… It’s what we’re all doing.

Experiencing a life.

Nowhere to get to

Nowhere to go

Being

Here

Now