Wednesday 25 July 2012

Letting go

Self hypnosis...

Letting go now...

Breath out deeply.

Letting go now of anything that was making you stressed, feeling calm now.

Letting go.

Breath in deeply.

Feeling your stomach fill with air and your lungs inflating, sending an influx of new oxygen into your system.

Breathing out slowly and deeply, letting a pause enter that cycle, in pause out pause.

Pause pause in pause pause out pause pause in pause pause out.

Letting go of the old, letting the new in.

Out, In

Old, New

Calmer now, less concerned.

Out with the daft ideas, the daft programs, the racial stereotypes, the judging, the sexual inuendo and sexist crapola, out with all the stuff I never wanted in the first place, I got back the freedom to choose my direction.

I choose on, not backwards.

Not staying put either neither...

I am hoping for a chance to give my life saving someone elses or in some other heroic way, but not the way I would day dream about in the past, because that would be like asking for someone else to be in trouble, like a fireman waiting for a housefire, like a bouncer waiting for someone to kick off, or provoking it.

No one day I will have a chance at redemption, I chose to come this route, I chose to be here.

As much as I give up my hold on so many old ways of seeing the world, I still remain convinced.

This is a prison of sorts and I'm determined to get out for good behaviour or just die in the attempt.

If there's eternal life around on offer, I'm not sure I want it, or another go on this old merry go round.

I haven't managed to love unconditionally, I'm fucking shallow and looks obsessed, and unloving again.

Kick my arse, my thoughts into touch, kick start a new me into being before I get drawn from the deck.

Light &
Love
Jon
x

Capturing the Public Imagination

Oy let it go it's own way, don't try to capture the imagination of the public, let them imagine whatever they like ;)

I feel at times a lot like superman when he asked and succeeded having his powers removed...

These days everything seems so hard, so much like hard work, so difficult to get off my ass.

It's like I've gone back in time, been given a new chance to make old choices and fail again.

So as much as I am trying my best, I know I'm still making mistakes, lost faith in everything.

I used to have a very strong in built faith, trust, intuition and all I did was ask a question.

The answers would flood in, I would think about them all, research them, ask more.

Then I would see which one felt right, I would feel which one seemed right.

Now it's like my feelings have been cauterised although perhaps not.

Not completely, or maybe they're regrowing, out of the darkness.

You see I'd gotten to the point of disinterest, stopped reading.

Stopped searching for answers, my brain still speaking rude.

Still coming up with pieces of old conversations that are out of place, still suggesting things to say that I don't agree with, still there are chances within to ignore those ideas, ignore my fears which always seem unfounded in the end.  As much as I am a pattern recognition matrix as are all of us in ways, I keep seeing things progressing in certain ways that are suggestive, and yet as profoundly disturbing as some of those suggestions are, I'm calm, even though I have ideas that are so far beyond the pale about myself, it's a nervous anxiety feeding those times when I'm silently alone.  The rest of the time as tired as I often am, I persist, as much as I fear stepping into the future with any certainty, I'm falling forward into the following day and then the next.

So calm now, no sweaty palms, although I must admit to losing my conviction when it comes to arranging a get together here, just things that need doing before and I don't know whether I need the stress or the extra things on my mind, and then there's the fact that without something, fuck, someone else, to think about, it's just me.  Wake eat work eat drink work eat drink sleep wake eat work eat drink work eat drink sleep etc.

Just me, connect, watched some things to ground my arse in reality, lots of this lately, finding I felt the energy of compassion, the feeling down my spine, seeing someone else in jeopardy, putting themselves up for medals, doing something they love, doing something worthwhile, doing something ;)

Loving the energy I get when I think of my friends, and I keep thinking of different ones, the ones in Dursley, the ones in Wales, the ones in Bristol and surrounding areas, ones I've met not enough, ones I've met loads of times but not spent quality time with, ones I would like to see more of, one i wish I didn't lose touch with.

It's all been such a muddle, and rather than keep on about me, I should have found earlier than this, that it's others, the others, all the others, all the people who should be but aren't in my life, who I should and could be closer to, who I should and could have spent more time thinking about and doing things for instead of feeling sorry for me.

Actually looking forward to the Olympic Games now, glad I've missed most of the build up though and don't watch the news.  And that 'cult' comedy 2012 which I saw most of an episode of last night and wondered why it was popular.  It is merely a fantastic impression of what really goes on today, in environments where everyone is in competition and not healthily, where they are all out for what they can get not give, for the ways in which the caricatures really made me desire for a complete change in the way that everything is done in this world.  People led choices at a local level not nationally organised anything.

The world was a far better place when everyone had a say and everyone was listened to.

Now what happens is that everyone thinks they have a say but a far fewer number of bods at the top, ignore that and paper over the cracks in a system that falls far short of any promises it's ever made and doesn't stand for anything other than profit.

Get rid of the lot I say, and as soon as we have, the people will be happy and content.

Let's get the idea of a new way of doing things into the public conciousness, let's drive forward the meme of a new life for us all, as individuals, recognised as unique and wonderful components of a larger whole, not as voters, not as merely workers, not as slaves to a ryhmic system of noise making governors.  As people, each one governing themselves, each one working together, each one proud to be a human being.

I'd get up in the morning for that and I'd sleep peacefully and soundly at night too, and I'm sure I will.

As much as there are signs of discomforting 'so-called-progress' there are also signs that this reality will fall apart and a new one will coalesce, to grow together into one body rather than a snake with two heads.

You see there was a time when we would never have dreamed of such freedoms.

I've been told I have big dreams, all the better to come true my dears ;) <3
Love
Jon
x

Friday 20 July 2012

so onwards ever onwards

onwards ever onwards we go,
can't keep my eyes off the stuff.
New ideas, new informations,
old thoughts reverberating again.

I have these crazy assed ideas,
I don't really believe they're true.
Don't actually think you're evil,
but it crosses my mind we all are.

We're not very bright or clever,
we're killing the planet so quickly.
There isn't much that isn't toxic,
quite enough to go around already.

Spread from Japan east to west,
radioactivity and debris tsunami'd.
That's a start and an ending too,
what began with midden mounds.

Humanity makes rubbish pile up,
we produce much more than shit.
No animals makes such a mess,
without someone to clear up after.

S'hard not to be happy for us,
when seeing the world dying so.
we're doing it more every day,
so it must be what we want right?

I can't keep on dying every night,
can't keep on waking to such terror.
Don't want to listen to it anymore,
feeling the mother's pains and fears.

As much as I say that I know too,
I'm facing who I really am not the script.
The shadow is now so clearly lit up,
will it resolve itself or was that the joke?

To make us see a happy ending,
put us into a false sense of security.
Make us think everything'll be ok,
when it's ready to end forever badly.

Is my outlook coloured by so many years of negativity?  I have despite my eternal optimism, certainly never expected anything good to happen to me, in terms of the things I would have liked to have achieved.

My fears have always disbarred me from entertaining certain notions when it came to myself.

I slowly challenged those doubts and was on a journey of discovery and progress.

But one thing is certain, I didn't have enough friends, real ones.

Good ones, knowledgeable ones, close ones.

The kind that would have helped me to understand certain things, the kind I could have trusted.

My fault, I let my anxiety prevent me from maintaining ties, I let myself down not gently.

I let myself get comfortably numb, and I didn't do anything until it was nearly too late.

Every time I met with certain death, I got off my arse, but to let that be the case,

Ain't clever neither, to put oneself in the position of a risky business,

isn't smart and it ain't clever, and I Don Quixoted me a good 'un...

So I don't blame anyone else but myself, as much as I'd like to.

I did too many things, I tried to catch up too quickly,

I went from listening to everyone, trusting no-one.

To listening to no-one and trusting everyone.

Silly Billy, Jonny No Mates, you pop into my head when I'm not asking the greatest questions in the world, of the world and its inhabitants.

And when I am trying to accept that it would have been nice to have had some company I realise,
yet again what a foolish fool I've been, probably missed lots of genuine opportunities, to be happy.

There is a process underway, whereby I recognise aspects of male tendency, behaviour,
that I never liked or agreed with, never could do all that "I'd like to fuck that".

Don't believe in lust and yet in private I only had that to live with,
true love in my heart and a fantasy elsewhere.

Passion not lust, love not lust, unconditional  love not co-produced co-dependant reality,
The aim to grow into someone I could love first, then you'd get a look in.

And so back to square one again, recognising those traits, eyeing up here and there,
despising those aspects of myself, but this time not denying them their time.

The shadow self is strong and devious and it's the cold dead black dark night of the soul,
from which I am emerging having known evil, having felt the slimy wet hand on my skin.

Having given myself a chance to believe in god and the devil and ask myself which,
which, which, which now, which then, which soon, which forever?

Die the parts, use the parts, kill the parts, send them packing,
Let's hope it's permanent this time a transformational ageing.

Grey hairs in my nose, I didn't have to look before,
I knew I was somewhat of an older person.

Now I know and feelit again but still,
fighting back, stop eating shit.

Get some fucking will power,
Learn again and relive.

From my birth to my death,
the trip I went on before.

From the beginning,
to the end of time.

Light &
Love
Jon
x

Friday 13 July 2012

Without You

Without you I wouldn't be here,
without you I don't know where,
without you I hesitate to think,
without you I hasten to add.
There'd be no happy days,
Not for a very long time.
Without you I won't know,
Without you I daren't guess.
Without you I haven't a clue,
Without you I would be lost.

You made me and I realise,
that I took that for granted.
Took you and him and us,
left thinking about today.
So many things are clear,
now illusions disappeared.
Going back to square one,
Finding the pieces mishapen.

I wandered far and wide,
came back and took stock.
As for my travels they were,
here, there and everywhere...

For all the reality I feel now,
I wonder where I was and why.
It feels as though I would prefer,
to go back to wherever it was....

As much as my fears drive me,
on, back, on, back, seeing things
in a new light not always a good one
the shadows are lighter now and clearer.

I doubt the way things are going,
got to transport myself back again.
To a place where I can reside again,
without all the angst and fear so do I?

Just insert myself into the mainstream,
plant myself in a little piece of earthy soil.
water and feed that area and hope it blooms,
Avoid the outside influences and information...

I keep wanting to know the answer,
but surely I can't ask the question.
Because I fear the answer more,
I search and have found stuff.

I don't agree with what I keep telling myself.

The people I talk to suggest it can take a while.

I don't like the way the world is going and I'm left with a few alternatives...

Either this whole place is a playground for ideas, for the universe to experience itself, but then surely if this isn't ultimately 'real' then all of the nasty, bad, downright evil things that have gone on are just differences in perspective, two sides of the same coin, a dichotomy between unity, resulting in opposites like male / female dark / light...

If that's the case then it becomes a sick joke the whole thing, we're supposed to be some kind of energetic being trapped within a pretend life time until we escape birth and death, somehow the new age world suggests we're somehow evolving into a new stage of life, a new way, we're really some part of a greater whole, we're really just here to experience things that ultimately we will or have already transcended.

If that's the case then surely it makes us all apologists for the holocaust, for world wars, for famine, and that makes us pretty nasty pieces of work, cos to say that all the bad happens for a good reason, to say like some of the new ageists that to wake up from this dream, this co-created reality we need to do it on our own or have ourselves forcefully woken up by events, sounds so harsh on all the people suffering pain.

If this is some kind of dream world,created by our own expectations then surely it should't be as dreadful as it is in so many ways, and look around, it's getter worse by the day, madder, less sensible, more extreme, less moral, less kind.  It gets better in places where people are realising sustainability, a more natural way of living is key, connection to nature and the natural intelligence therein, both things are happening at once.

New ways of choosing a partner through genetic testing, and technology will continue to create new moral challenges and temptations and a way for the haves and have nots to get further apart as we don't seem to be making any effort to actually solve the problems of the world, they are just getting worse.

Greed is getting greedier, and it's openly out there, we all know how bad it had gotten already, or do we?

Will we keep having new truths shock us out of complacency?

I hope so, I want the truth, THE TRUTH, the inescapable underlying truth of everything to come out.

We need to know so that we can make the right choices, for our children's sake, for their children's sake.

What will the world be like in a few years if the current trends all carry on?

I don't know and I'm not sure I want to, makes me all the more sure I want to get away, go somewhere natural, work hard to grow things, make things, not buy things unless I need them not want them.

I'm on edge, on the edge of reason, looking again at so many things with fresh eyes and wishing not to in lots of cases.

Just as guilty, I go around the shops, finding it hard to see why we need this or that, seems like we're buying for the sake of it, and even if we need it aren't we just using up stuff that will never be reused or will have to be replaced and just going through motions preprogrammed and yet I see the choice of cereal and I want the one with chocolate bits in not the healthy option.

We're all in this together and yet I know that it's so hard, cos we've got this mob mentality, set on a course that isn't going anywhere good, I hope we can avoid the potholes and will we find out what we're doing here?

Why are we here?

What are we?

I've learnt so much about those questions and starting to wish I hadn't now, finding that doubting everything makes it hard to work out what is good and what is bad, am I good am I bad?

I've done bad things, and good things, I know I won't succomb to old temptations, I'm not that person anymore, living a truly moral life is hard though, 'here have some money for doing nothing' that doesn't sit well with me, although I am a lazy person in many ways.

Caught in the web with the spider slowly approaching, wasting a good morning now it's raining again.

Off for a walk anyway sod it, I'll wear a hat or just get wet to be in nature, she always sooths my mind.

I thought I was a good guy, but I've been quite selfish, although from my point of view that was me finally living my life and getting somewhere towards making my own way in the world, I thought I was facing challenges that gave me opportunities to have fun and help people at the same time and that was true.

I have to be careful not to get overexcited and just try to step back, see what happens.

Feeling much calmer about things that were causing me anxiety, still having trouble getting to sleep at night but finding solutions, so easy to put cream in the cereal and put on weight, not working as hard physically, I'll get fat quickly, put on a stone and a half, 'you look really well'  I feel overweight and my trousers are tight but hey, so let's go walk off something, hear the birds, find the beauty, wait for fate to intervene.

Will the Olympics go well and no problems?

I hope so, I really do, and yet in some ways I think do I only care because my parents are working there?

No, my empathy is real, I've felt it and not just as a way for me to access my own emotions,

I'm working on that too, so many options, so little time, so little work, this summer has made a mockery of gardening, grass cutting, it's so long and so wet, and yet I'm starting to free my mind, I'm starting to believe again, I'm starting to feel as though miracles are possible again, it feels as though everything is on a knife edge.

Will we survive and thrive in a good way or just go down the route of the god of technology and eventually just kill off the planet or end up with tiny pockets of biodiversity or just turn into robots who don't care?

It's all so interesting in a scary assed way, I can see the future from where we stand and it's a Golden age of Shit Storms all at once...

What will it be?

Que sera sera,  I hope I'm not here for too long if it's the Shit storms but do I deserve to enter the Golden age?

Probably not, do any of us?

Light &
Love
Jon
x

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Re-collection Re-connection Re-constitution

I dreamt and held the belief that we should march on the parliament, and ask for then demand that the government step down.  After that the people's assembly would be created made up by normal people from each region, from each county, from each town village and hamlet.  The politicians, economists etc are all left by the wayside, wondering who is going to look after them now that big business has no say in their future plans and vice versa.  We are of course...  No-one will go hungry, no-one will lose out.  Everything shared on the basis of need, the new setup a very green resurgence of values and standards.  Maybe it's a dream for us all to live alongside one another in peace and harmony, maybe it's just not going to happen this way, but I hold out hope, and that dies last...

Re-connecting to my hopes and dreams, re-imagining the way I wish to see the world change.

Re-collecting my thoughts, re-alising that as before when I'm struggling, my friends are too.  When I feel like I need help the most, they are feeling the same...  If only we reached out instead of curling up in a ball and wishing someone would come to our aid.

So I'll reach out, knowing that I'm probably too late, now that I'm actually starting to feel capable again.

I have doubted my friends sincerity, I have doubted that this place, the world, this universe is good, and maybe that stems from a severe lack of confidence in my own self, my own integrity, my own capabilities.

I've never been down this low, although I have been to the point of asking to die before and got ill, and then I asked to be allowed to live long enough to pay off my debts, and then do what you will with me...

I need to find a way of making recompence, of redeeming myself, of working harder to do the right thing.

I feel old, lazy, greedy, fat, unable to make the changes in my own life, fearful although there is a glimmer of hope still,  a slight resurgence in my feeling that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Getting my hopes up and having them dashed has been a life-long habit.

I would get myself all worked up on a night out, or when going to a function, or when seeing someone I loved.

Would see it going one way and it always went the other, sometimes because it should.

Sometimes because I didn't make the effort.

Got to make the effort now.

Doing right by family.

Now I want to start over again, get out there, trying to keep in mind a positive attitude.

It's hard having been so negative for so long, s'like why should I even try?

Much easier to keep on expecting disappointment, less disappointing then, when you are ;)

But I always end up being the eternal optimist, something will come along

Something will turn up

Somehow it will work

Someday it will change

Not if we don't get off our asses and make the change

The march onwards begins with but a single step

Stomp stomp stomp, let's make that change

Dancing our way to a new way of being

I finally am off out to a trance party

And it's in my spiritual homeland

South Wales somewhere secret

In the meantime I'll work hard

Hope something comes along

Some work I can do

See some friends

Smile again

Listen

Be the old me and the new one, somewhere nice inbetween
Light &
Love
Jon
x

Sunday 8 July 2012

Fucking travesty / Waste Not Want Not / Crisis of conciousness

Think about it would you?

The ammount of time that people actually spend thinking is minute, the rest of the time subconcious programming allows us to drive from home to work without noticing very much or even remembering the journey.  So it should come as no surprise to me, really, given the number of times I mention issues such as waste that nothing changes.  Because you are blaze about this stuff, you don't care, you don't think...

I want to cry when I see rotting food in the cupboard, and can't work out why in a household of four family members, three of us need our own carrots and the other one needs another supply, and even then most of them are thrown into the bin.  I've said before that you need to open the bags when you get them home or they can't breath, plastic bags are an awful place to store vegetables anyway.

What happened to making a shopping list and buying what you need?  Looking in the cupboards to work that out first before you leave?  I suppose you're too busy getting the shopping out of the way so that you can sit on your fat arses watching t.v. or going online to watch cookery programs or look at recipes you'll never make.  It sickens me and you should be ashamed of the waste, of time and effort and resources.

Water isn't becoming more abundant, it is far less so, the water companies have been dredging it up from far below ground for years and using up supplies that will not be replenished for hundreds if not thousands.  That's a far cry from places in the so called third world where they struggle to get enough to drink...


Your mothers and fathers would be ashamed of you if they were here now.  So why wouldn't they have created such waste?  Because they couldn't afford to, because they weren't pursuaded to do so by supermarket over subscription where you don't buy what you need, you are offered much more for an ever decreasing price, for products that are factory produced, picked before they are ripe so that they have no flavour and if you want something of a good quality you pay more for something called 'finest' or 'the best'.

WAKE UP FUCKWITS!

The planet does not have the resources.

Any top predator, anything at the top of a section of the food chain in any environment, whose prey species, or the resources they rely on are no longer available dies off.  No rabbits, no foxes.  No water, NO US!

We are dying daily and wasting our only chance to make a difference.

And we deserve to do so.

WAKE UP!

I want to live somewhere where people make concious decisions, on a planet where the bottom line isn't price, or profit but sustainability.

We are unsustainable and as such deserve to die off in huge numbers.

So let's see that happen in our deathtimes because our lifetimes are going to become far less long soon.

On that cheery note,
Light &
Love
Jon
x

Walking from Reading to Avebury

Day One - Heading to Reading

Me and my mate Andy got a lift off my Mum, well I drove us there, to the local train station at Kemble.  After a while we arrived at Reading station and found our way out onto the street.  I'd been to Reading before a long long time ago for a training course when I worked in computers but didn't know the town well at all, we walked in the general direction of the town centre to look for somewhere to get some food bought to keep us going until the afternoon, and I saw a sandwich shop with an offer on and went in.  I'm guessing by the fact that their sales patter wasn't up to scratch that both of the people in there hadn't worked there long.  It's amazing how many people, especially in towns I suppose, seem to have come from abroad.  I make no judgement in this case, just noticing the situation.  So I had a hunch as we walked on that if we went down a particular alley we'd be going the right way and we popped out onto the towpath and straight over the first bridge over the Canal, as for part of the city centre there's nowhere to walk alongside.

From there it's easy to keep on towpath so we followed it right along through and out of the town, finding the surface easy walking, tarmacced and once we were out into the countryside it was really tranquil.  The main train line from the West to London does follow the canal quite closely, as does the M4 Motorway at times and also the old A4 main road so there is often traffic noise or trains passing by but apart from that the canal provides lots of opportunities to see nature, from ducks, geese and to my great surprise and delight three sightings of Red Kites by the end of the first day!  I'd never seen one before, not so close that I could say for certain, and not as close as just above the trees over our heads.  The day passed smoothly, the weather was cool and cloudy so not a big struggle to make progress and not getting too hot under the collar.  We took our time and got to a pub by just after 5, called the Butt Inn, stopping there for a natter with some locals and a fine Steak and Ale Pie.

So the first day had gone very well indeed, the first night however was a disaster.  We didn't plan very well, or test out camping equipment enough times or in a variety of locations.  The woods to the side of the canal are swampy to say the least, the ground was already soft and I could put that down to the rainiest June on record but I'm guessing that's the case as there are rivers running through it and alongside the canal.  Our campsite was put up in good time, in a place we were able to find by wading through the tall weeds, however the trees were quite small so our hammocks weren't as stable or as comfortable as they could be, mine seemed to create a banana skin effect, where I couldn't find a nice way to lie there, the trains going by seemingly hourly, noises in the woods or people going along the towpath closeby, the mozzies attacking me through a growing hole in my hammocks built-in net and the fact that our tarps weren't setup in the best way and created a growing pooling of water right above my head.  Basically everything that could go wrong did.

I don't think I got any sleep, my mate got a bit here and there but between my efforts to remove the growing flood waters above us, and some water going over him in the process and the weight of the water messing up our setup, it was a pretty disastrous night.  By the morning morale was not good, in fact between the aches and pains associated with carrying quite heavy packs, sore shoulders, sore hipos, knees and other hurty bits, we were both suffering.  My legs and ankles were covered in bites and a few elsewhere on arms and head and goodness knows where.  The main thing I learnt from walks in the past is rest, rest, rest!  Even if you can't sleep for whatever reason, take the weight off, rest your weary body...

We walked into Newbury and there's a lovely tea shop next to the canal.  Full of memorabilia associated with the life and times of the canal and decorated in a lovely style by the owners.  Sitting in there eating breakfast while we waited for the Tourist Information Office to open at 10am, just yards away, across the car park.  Discussing our options, the idea was to ask the people in the T.I.O. to arrange rooms at a B&B further along the towpath so that we could both get a decent nights sleep and get that well deserved rest.  There is a situation that happens when you are walking long distances over a prolonged period.  The aches and pains of the first few days soon respond to the rest you get in the evenings and also your body gets accustomed to the effort.  However my mate had hurt himself which is easy to do when you've had no sleep and bad decisions and mistakes are easily made, he decided he couldn't continue and to go home.  I considered my options and thought it best to travel back with him.  We got the train back to Kemble, via Reading in a peculiarity of the rail network, also stopping at Swindon to change onto the branch line.

I went to sleep and got two nights worth in the hours available, and despite lots of aches and pains woke up with the idea of carrying on the walk as I felt much better physically.  Got the train from Kemble back to Reading and from there back to Newbury, retracing my steps from the previous day to find where I'd left the towpath.  So onwards I went, following the towpath out of Newbury and back into the countryside.

Stopping in pubs for food, in shops to buy provisions for those times when I would want to eat something first thing in the morning before getting somewhere to have breakfast, the towpath is quite rough in places, the weather this year surely not helping that situation with some very muddy sections.  The best thing about the towpath walk is the peace and quiet, there are very few other people walking or even using this route.  Cyclists more than anything and the occasional people where the towpath has become well used by dog walkers and by locals who live close by, some commuters to work who would rather walk in which is brilliant to see and by the people who have a boat on the canal and travel into the towns along the way from their moored vessels.

Walking through Hungerford, stopping at a hotel in the highstreet for some good eats, through Pewsey finally arriving on the Friday afternoon, after walking in the midst of a daytime thunderstorm and torrential rain, I arrived at Honeystreet, the Barge Inn, and right into the middle of Crop Circle Country, I find myself rained off, amongst a group of people gathered there, all memers of the David Icke Forum... ;)

I was trying to while away a few hours and hope the rain would stop so I could continue on to Avebury or at least in that direction.  My original plan was to walk with my friend Andy onto Bristol or at least to the outskirts where his girlfriend lives and from there travel back home.  However I'd been contacted by an old friend and boss and was now headed back home via a northwards stint and a lift to be back and recovered for work on Monday morning.  I was approached by a woman, she just came and sat next to me and started to make conversation.  I don't know her name, but the chat was open and interesting and mind expanding and just mad, but in a nice way.  The more I travel in such circles the more I find myself drawn to, drawn by, next to, involved with, connected to, energised and made to feel better by, people who much as others might find them a little off, are nonetheless quite sane, if a little altered by their experiences.

We talked on such subjects as 'them', the weather this year, all sorts of subtle and less so differences in our outlook.  The afternoon turned into the evening and the rain didn't let up enough for me to get away, I setup my tent and resigned myself to staying there and making my way onwards the next day,weather permitting.

The other members of the Icke group were more interested in talking about black panthers near Stroud, survival and military techniques, self defence and combat, guns and all sorts of variously less interesting things.  However my own resistance to and undoubted shyness when it comes to hanging out with new people lead me to sup quite a few pints of Croppie Ale and end up avoiding a mission to their part of the water logged grassy carpark / campsight for a late night barbeque, instead opting for something off the menu and a while spent people watching instead.  Retiring to my tent and making the best of it there, having ditched hammock / tarp combo for the ground based alternative to save any part of me suffering further insect bites.

A pillow will be a must have the next time I try this sort of camping, although my soggy rucksack did the trick and I awoke at 8 oclock feeling pretty fresh considering the level of noise from other tents and camper vans the previous night.  So getting onto the trail, I left Honeystreet and headed north away from the Canal and the towpath for the first time, direct to Avebury via Alton Barnes, famous hills called Walkers and Knap, the White Horse, a Crop Circle above Alton Priors, leavin the main road and rejoining to take on part of the ridge way, following my nose and instincts (and some choice directions given via text message from home) to walk through, now quite painfully from the first arriving blister and heavy legs, East Kennet, West Kennet, Silbury Hill and to Avebury Stone Circle.  Made the most of my stop there, by avoiding even more rain, that to be fair to them didn't seem to put off the tourists, more people watching and taking in the atmosphere inside the Red Lion, some more cider and black, more food and walked on to Yatesbury and The Silent Circle Cafe.  Filled with middle aged, mostly, and boring sounding folks all perusing prints of Crop Circles, books on the various subject, and it really goes out there I can tell you.  From information from channeled entities and videos on dvd, with a sticker on the back that says 'after putting this disk together we now refute the reliability of the Galactic Alliance and put our faith in some other channeled disencarnate entity...'

Let's just say as the world seems to get madder and it is nonetheless undeniably fine and sane for people to believe in all this stuff somehow and continue to lead more or less normal lives, I find it feels so similar to the times gone by, a past when all sorts of prophets and people held wide ranging beliefs and all sorts of possibilities seemed quite likely.  These are strange days indeed, who knows what the future will bring?

I hope for something new to emerge, I still hope for transformation, even if that means an end to some of the possibilities that seem likely to make way for something more sensible, more sustainable, more desirable.

As for now, all I can do is keep on working hard, trying to extracate myself from the things I thought I had done with already, thoughtforms, habits, greedy ways, so much old stuff that is no longer good, or has been corrupted and yet so many new green shoots, new chances, ways in which things are getting better despite or because of efforts, mistakes, who knows but these are surely the most interesting times ever!

Light &
Love
Jon
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