Shifting ...

Some shifting in awareness is observed and the Game has certainly sharpened listening skills ... leading to a disturbing discovery on BBC R4's Today Programme, itself best rationed, though the sound device purchased to enable uplifting music ( Leonard Cohen, Bach and so on) inadvertently allows in the hypnotic influence previously eradicated ... television and radio mainly, though similar dangers lurk in social media of course ... anyway, and not to go too deeply into the whole horror story of child sexual abuse and its occult side, it appears that a big story which broke a while ago disclosed a ring of abusers in the Westminster Establishment and the Metropolitan Police, many years previously exposed as thoroughly corrupted by Freemasonry and maybe cleansed of its worst aspects, launched investigations into high profile politicians ... the main witness, Carl Beech, was subsequently charged, tried and convicted for giving false evidence ... maybe correctly, maybe not (a conspiracy interpretation would assert the powerful forces have demonstrated their impunity yet again, as a warning to victims to stay silent) ... anyway, paying close attention to the interview with a QC (trained in logical thinking), he said that one of the errors of the Met was in failing to examine Carl Beech's computer, which subsequently revealed he was also a child abuser, and this fact would have undermined his evidence ... a faulty leap in logic unchallenged by the interviewer, though they are usually very quick to trip interviewees and score points in the rapid to and fro ... to be clear to readers missing the point, far from proving an adult abuser could not have been abused as a child, the converse is true ... not that it is inevitable, but that the traumatised victim very often sees the world starkly divided between victim and perpetrator and the only choice as remaining as victim or becoming the abuser ...

All of this not to give unhelpful attention to the very dark side of Power, since energy flows where attention goes, and paradoxically forensic attention to the reality of occult practices and twisted sexual urges is necessary to expose it and deal with it ... the point in this post is more to expose the very subtle power of language to create fictions ... freedomndemocracy being another example worth a look, three words rolled into one to press buttons in brainwashed patriots ...

Meanwhile misty, mizzy Autumn day encourages feckless foreign foray, whilst dear friènd, recently released from the slave world finds time for a visitor and a walk around the outskirts of Durham to see a Camino marker for the Ingles, a hint from beyond perhaps, though there are no plans to walk from here  ... always a warm connectìon and maintaining Game intention of engaging fully with other humans ... a shared look at the box game bought at the Phoenix shop on Wednesday ... the editor may note the blog reframed by the Game, though probably pleased that service has resumed after a slack August and September ... as for editing he has dodged the work involved whilst encouraging the book waiting to be born ... and expressed the idea of writing his own blog or book based on his post-slavery life in rural France ...

So, the Camino Ingles from Ferrol seems ripe ... train Tuesday morning, boat Tuesday evening, Santander Wednesday evening, Feve train along coast Thursday or bus probably quicker ... could be on the Way Friday first light ... let's see!

Going deeper with Findhorn Family ...

Playing The Game of Transformation over the past few days in the beautiful Cluny space has been rather wonderful ... the Game itself, with four players and two guides, opened each of us up to rich sharing, leading to new understanding and indeed the possibilities of psychological clearing and spiritual deepening ... the four who arrived as strangers quickly became a tight group, with diverse back stories, national, cultural, racial and religious identities ... explored inside the Game and outside too ...

Since clear intentions were required from the start, a form of words arrived after some resistance to the concept of having intentions at all ... "to fully engage with other humans" seemed concise enough and referred to the path in general ... an intention specific to the Game became " to listen actively, with compassion and insight, and offer my views appropriately" ... this after cribbing from the others and it seemed right ... with angelic assistance ( Light was given during the ostensibly random process and Clarity joined her during the Game ) ...progress is made through levels of the physical, emotional, mental, Love and Unity, according to the accumulation of Form and Awareness via dice rolling, coin flipping, random picking of Insight and Setback cards, blessings, miracles and more ... all chronicled by the guides ... a task increasingly complex as miracles within miracles within synergies evolved ... and at every turn sharing of experience, some very raw .... though all that stuff stays in the group, of course! As for the intentions and angels of the others, that's for them to share here if they want... 

Having set the intention of engaging fully with other humans, and mostly doing that, it is amusing to note that Daisy, the little blue Chinese car joined the fun and games and served the group willingly, with trips to the Park, the airport and even Glasgow ... and came fully into her name in relationship with the others though Dai-sy may turn out to be a more sensitive rendering what with her being Chinese ...

October arrived during the Game and a possible Walk before winter was already in the Field ... research shows a berth from Plymouth to Santander next week and a wander from Ferrol on the Ingles or another trip over the mountains from Oviedo are out there ... other humans have offers outstanding which may influence events ... indeed it has been observed that fully engaging with such entities does tend to complicate things .... there we are, the price of fellowship!

As for transformation, time will tell and each may report back ... for this player the first visit to Cluny, for Experience Week 9 years ago, turned out to be very transformational and this return, with three daily 6.30 one hour early sits in the magical Sanctuary, where so many have sat in silence over the past forty plus years, has surely been a significant step along the path ... or to expand the metaphors, a deeper exploration of previously hidden spaces ...

Tuning in ...

Yesterday's early departure enabled late lunch arrival at the Phoenix Cafe in the Park, via a brief nostalgic wander in Aberfeldy, last seen in 1968 when a few winter months were spent working as a waiter at the Breadalbane Arms Hotel, before the exciting adventure hitch-hiking around Spain, France and Morocco. .. this in lieu of academic pursuits and much more educational ...

Anyway, the Hotel is showing its age, though the town looks good, even claiming the title of Britain's first Fair Trade Town ... a brief excursion up the Birks alongside the rushing stream evokes memories ... before the return to the A9 north to Aviemore, then across to Forres ...

The Phoenix Shop provides a couple of books for the library as well as preparing the mind for weirdness ... Robert Ogilvie Crombie's tales of encounters with Pan and others from beyond the veil, and Dorothy MacLean's stories of the devas taking care of the plants ... all perfectly plausible and reminiscent of the relationship with an elf from Switzerland discovered at Findhorn a few years ago ... before that, during Experience Week 9 years  ago, Brian Nobbs, a Findhorn pioneer and potter, described his own meeting with Pan ... seemed perfectly plausible at the time ...

After the long drive yesterday a 10 mile round trip to Forres stretches the legs and offers the sight of geese in fluctuating formations, preparing to head south ... hmmm, why not?

Afternoon walk across the dunes and along the beach offers wild cloudscapes and extra exercise for the body before the 4 day Game begins tomorrow ... no idea how many or who are playing or much about it ... someone in the Park who has attended just said "intense" .... let's see!

September Fruit

September abundance is blackberries and daily forays ensure freezer has supplies until Christmas ... mushrooms less abundant this year, though woods provide a couple of meals of tasty Blewitts ... occasional driving duties with the elders provide helpful boost for illusion of being of some use in the world ... annual agricultural Shows enable further community contact as well as visit from daughters, both thriving in their different ways ... house feels quite like home, especially with alcove bookshelves and new carpet, though legs and feet ask about another long walk ... maybe an Autumn return to the Primitivo?

Before that, in order to avoid contentment slipping into complacency, a trip to Findhorn is planned ... 9 years after Experience Week a 4 day Transformation Game is booked to round off the month ... stand by for reports, it starts Saturday, with minimal research so that expectations are minimised, a couple of extra days are booked at the Park and the recently rather underused car is looking forward to a decent run ...

Politics, domestic and international, continues to raise questions about our credulity. .. the unlikely President of the BSA is joined by another clown representing the best the DUK can offer ... whilst the teenage terror of the adult establishment, Greta the Great, continues to gain access to gatherings of the powerful in order to berate them ... credulity stretched by her trip by wind powered boat across the Atlantic (details of return yet to be announced) ... well, Shakespeare did tell us that "All the World's a Stage" and perspective suggests that he was right ... the scripts become less and less plausible, though perhaps anything is plausible to the gullible ... the game seems to be to evoke emotional reactions in the audience ... and thus make us susceptible to the hypnotic techniques which enslave us ...

On the other hand, of course, it's all real, and your correspondent has literally lost the plot ... never mind, either way equanimity prevails, there is no pain in the brain and life continues to intrigue and amuse ... perhaps transformation awaits as the dice is rolled in the weird and wonderful Findhorn Foundation at Cluny on Saturday ...

August at Brockwood and Dartmoor

Since Brockwood Park School is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a grand reunion, and since volunteers are required to help with the expected 500 odd visitors, the opportunity is seized to spend 3 weeks slaving in the kitchen and sleeping in a tent in the shade of a 500 year old oak tree.
A whole day off is offered each week and the shifts are 5 hours or so ... a special kind of holiday and a chance to be part of an amazing event with philosophers round every corner ... some remembered from previous visits, some encountered for the first time ...

Two key addictions are confronted early on - WiFi notionally available but not so easy in practice, coffee hard to locate and requiring a trip over to the Centre or a personal stash (or indeed the purchase of a large quantity to leave out for the other coffee seekers) ... the addictive mind also has the chance to cope without, of course! As the reunion proper begins a coffee and cake corner appears in the marquee ... twin addictions catered for at a reasonable price ...

As for slaving, the kitchen job is swapped for the garden, since garden volunteer David does his back in and requests lighter duties ... meaning plenty of sunshine and fresh air along with a variety of physical tasks to strengthen the body and prepare garden and grounds for the visitors ... work which switches again during the five days of the reunion as all hands are required on deck to keep the show on the road ...

Wonderful to watch the reuniting students and teachers from the different generations, all tasked with the modest aim of creating a new kind of human ... to what extent Krishnamurti's vision has been achieved is explored with those with experience ... an ongoing experiment perhaps ... and heartening to hear the optimism of young students already reshaping the world ... the main task of we elders perhaps to listen, learn, and get out of the way ...

Meanwhile a reunion within the reunion occurs with returning summer work party folks, which is nice ... along with days off spent reuniting with family and friend ...

As settled weather arrives after the event and clear up, a dear friend arrives at the station for a trip to Dartmoor and her reunion with friends from fondly remembered summers of childhood ... poignant since three of four parents have passed in the last year or so ... the main event, an old community ritual, Beating the Bounds, shared with a hundred or so locals, incomers, grockles and a camera crew ... a strenuous enough amble over the moors, a picnic at the top, tea in the village hall to finish ...

Thoughts. ..

This morning's early wander was an opportunity to think about thoughts ... how busy lives cause them to race along without pause for reflection, joining forces to become ideas, finding comfort in familiar patterns and imagining evidence for their validity ... a concept and trap known to psychology as confirmation bias ... ideas, of course, lead to stories and beliefs, since language plays such a key role in our lives ... the trigger for this particular thought stream the reflection on recent return to radio, previously rejected along with television in an attempt to clear the mind of clutter and conditioning ... strangely, even though radio sets offer many channels, this one, bought for its ability to play CDs, stays tuned to BBC Radio 4 ... a sophisticated service offering lots of interesting information along with dramas and comedy along with "News" ... and it is the latter that comes under scrutiny as the latest versions of current affairs invite us to believe that the Benighted States and its implausible President is still a civilised country, despite all the evidence to the contrary ... a longer view might assemble historical facts to suggest, having shaken off the yoke of the British Empire, it steadily applied the lessons it learned from the erstwhile master ... timing military interventions in both major wars of the last century to allow the combatants to weaken themselves and then throw decisive force behind the likely victor. .. emerging as the strongest Empire, having sent a chilling warning to the world by destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants ... war crimes indeed, though winners get to write the history books and choose the language to be used ... further military adventures followed in the 20th century and into the 21st, all aimed to maintain economic ascendancy. .. gradually, as is the way with Empires, degenerating, though not passing the baton gracefully ... the BBC, meanwhile, offers ostensibly unbiased coverage, though certain basic assumptions go unchallenged ... its reputation for honesty enabling the smuggling of deception undetected ...

Anyway, the post is not meant to revisit the old stories, rather to reflect on the perspective achieved along the pilgrim ways, free from the daily dose of propaganda. .. which mostly led to the view that all the world really is a stage and cartoon characters in positions of power are possibly there to challenge our credulity and maybe invite us to look inside and see if there is any residual rubbish to clear out before we project it outwards yet again ...

Gala ...

July sees the annual gathering of socialists of various persuasions plus thousands of local folks from the surrounding area parading behind banners from their now defunct pit villages ... the Durham Miners' Gala, the Big Meeting, running on nostalgia and enthusiastic leftists from around the country ... attendance estimates vary between 100,000 and 200,000, which is a big variation, though even the lower figure is impressive enough ... the star of the show, Jeremy Corbyn, takes the tributes on the balcony of the County Hotel as the parade winds its way patiently through the streets, taking over 4 hours for the last banners to reach the racecourse and the speeches along with light rain ... plenty of tub thumping and rabble rousing from the platform, including a direct hit on the duplicity of J.C.'s disloyal deputy, TWatson, promoting the Big Lie drama of alleged anti-semitism, at the behest of its creators, Mossad, cleverly conflating anti-Zionism and anti-semitism in order to undermine Corbyn, a well known opponent of war crimes against Palestinians ... TWatson and others on the payroll as shown in the declared parliamentary records ... liberal sensitivities of public figures scared of being labelled anti-semitic harbour the plotters, prominent anti-Zionist Jews like Noam Chomsky are rarely heard in mainstream media or characterised as "self-hating Jews" ... and so the story runs on, along with the lie that Iran is destabilising the region, when some years ago the Pentagon plan to destabilise the Middle East was approved and has rolled out remorselessly ever since as the Benighted States and loyal allies, the Disunited Kingdom, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others have removed stable (not to say liberal or democratic) governments in Iraq, Libya and, maybe soon, Syria ... the economic war on Iran is well underway, along with gunboat diplomacy in the Gulf and threats of military intervention ...

Readers bemused by this diatribe need not fear that equanimity has been compromised by Saturday's day out with the comrades ... a cool head is still needed and old loyalties no longer hold ... polarised politics don't serve, Brexit is not the question, war is not the answer and neither is a centrally planned economy ... looking at the level of alcohol consumption and junk food at the Gala, despite the fine words, the vanguard of the revolution are in no condition to bring down capitalism any time soon ... still, capitalism is destroying itself through its inherent contradictions anyway ... all we need is a viable alternative which transcends the polarities ...

Proposals on a postcard please ...