Black Friday...

***Great Sigh***

I can't help thinking our society is devolving as the years go on. 

Viewing footage of people on news reports fighting each other, getting trampled and some being seriously injured to get a 'bargain' is more distressing to me than I can say. 

What do we feel in ourselves and more importantly what do we feel about ourselves that makes us believe that buying a new television at a reduced price is going to make us better? 

Year after year supermarket chains exploit our feelings of inadequacy, of failure, of hopelessness through marketing ploys and made up days such as Black Friday to gain a profit from people's misery. 

There is a void inside when we use such insignificant 'things' to define ourselves. Who are you when everything is taken away, your belongings, your job, your friends and family, what are you? 

You're beautiful, we all are and we shouldn't allow corporations to dictate how we define ourselves. The modern world believes too much in individuality, a notion which acts to separate us from each other. This illusion of separateness causes too much individualistic thought, which removes the 'togetherness' from our lives. When we feel best is when we are connected to one another, not when we isolate ourselves for the purpose of a relationship with an inanimate object such as a television. 

If you feel like something is missing, that there is a void or a yearning inside of you, the momentary happiness that shopping brings will not help. It will fade and again you will feel the emptiness you experienced before. So lets look at ourselves and look at each other and reflect on what is really important to us this holiday season. Lets look within ourselves and try to resolve some of these negative feelings by focusing on what is really important in life. 

Re-defined

I've always believed there is so much more than what we can see. I have felt the presence of energies around me from a young age positive, and at times negative, however these experiences and intuition have always made me feel a connection with something spiritual.

To me the practice of spirituality in any form allows us to recognise our own impermanence and irrelevance, which is healthy in consideration of our place in the world, where we fit. Through introspective thought and the exploration of our consciousness we can recognise divine beauty in our selves and those around us, providing us with a fulfilment that cannot be replicated by anything else. 

...

Look around you.
The horizon, trembling, shapeless.
We are all of us brothers.

Truth...

What Happened...

Reading, A Tale of Two Cities when I travel is one of my favourite things to do.

"It is a far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. It is a far greater rest that I go to than I have ever known". Charles Dickens

Morning jog..

Ninja..

Cody Bowl...

^.^ Perfect timing...

Shred...

Hoback...No way back

Hot-tub

From the plane...

Cloudtopping...

Jackson, WY

As soon as I saw you I knew a grand adventure was about to happen...A.A Milne -Winnie the Pooh

They Found me Asleep by the River Bathed in Moonlight Listening to you Breathe...

Not a Plan...

In these next few years or so I'm going to have a little one (God willing). I've always wanted children, but when I was younger I couldn't imagine when, it always felt so far away. It doesn't now.

I would love to have a big family like my parents have, where all the children are friends and grow up to be close as adults as well.

I know I wouldn't raise my little baby conventionally, they would grow up with travel and nature all around them, and the ocean always near by. I've imagined being pregnant, having a little person growing inside you, I wonder what it feels like. Some of my friends that have had children said there's nothing better than being pregnant, and said it feels so nice, my mum said the same. I'm sure it would be super exciting.

One of my close friends went to a clinic to concieve and from that has had little Thomas, who is the cutest little boy ever. I've spoken to her about the process, it seems a little scary but it's obviously worth everything and anything.

So this is not a 'plan' per se, but it seems closer in my future than it did before now....

On That Midnight Plane to Georgia...

What world is this, what time...

The King's House, same birthday, same time...

I wanted to set them free, but to where...

What in God's name...

The things I want and the things I need are the same... I don't want anything more than I need

...and when the farmer gets his home, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be not he that has the house, but the house that has him. This is the reason he is poor and for similar reasons we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by luxuries -Henry David Thoreau

Journey...

I've been avoiding confession for a while now,
I finally went the other day.
Even though it took me like 5 minutes to start,
I blurted it all out eventually.

As they always are, the priest was quiet and kept looking forward.
I could see his faint outline behind the screen.

Confession would always scare me as a child, I'd rarely done anything wrong so I'd work myself up into this panic, then eventually have to lie about doing something wrong and then confess to the lie I'd just told. It seems so silly now, but it still always worries me.

I don't often have reason to go and haven't been for over a year, but this time it felt like I was getting some things off my chest and thinking about it now, I realise that's what it's really for.
Even though I cried and was a bit emotional, I feel much better now.

There's something so comforting about religion, even though people have used it to cause a lot of trouble around the world. To think there is someone with you all the time no matter what religion you follow, especially when bad things are happening to you or even for when you're just lonely, is such a nice thought.

I always remember when I was little right after I got out of hospital, one of my teachers told me that story about footprints in the sand...

So when they looked back on their life they said to God, you were always there for me, except when I needed you most, see, look, there was only one set of footprints in the sand through all the bad times in my life.
God said.. That is when I carried you.

There's a Way of Getting Through, One Step at a Time...

When you've only ever been with one person and for so long were a part of a perfect life with them, it's difficult to see anyone else in the same light (I'm sure some exceptions apply). Most of the time you walk around with your eyes closed, as though the light they had blinded you and now you can't see a thing.

I said to my mum, when I told him to leave,
now everything is in black and white. 

Anti-Consumerism...

Even though I have hardly any possessions and rarely go shopping, I'm going to try and not buy a single thing this year (except food, obviously). Anything I need I will share or trade with friends, swapping something I already have. There's nothing I need and the only things I ever buy really are books. Each year I have become more and more saddened by the inequality and waste the First World perpetuates, and the constant cycle of consumption we are all involved in so I'm going to try not to be involved.

If Only You Could See What I See Now...

Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing. No one's perfect, but I think a lot of times good people make mistakes in life because they're hurting. A lot of human behaviours are born out of frustrations, related, I think to the way we live our lives. Most people don't want to live their lives working so hard in jobs they don't really like feeling as though they're never really achieving anything. It's because we're not meant to be living our lives this way, being slaves to our employers and forever worried about how we are going to pay our next bill, missing all the important moments in-between. So sometimes we gravitate towards danger and become reckless, not because that's who we are, but because we're trying to find a way to break free, to feel something.

We're so far away from what was intended for us and our children, like fish out of water.
It's a choice though, we don't have to subscribed to this life of consumerism and "keeping up with the Jones's". Things that will full-fill us much more than material wealth, is working less, having more time for us, our families, our relationship, and having more time to help others, being able to travel, have adventures and be kind to one another is the only way we will be truly happy.

So don't be upset if you're having a bad day, week, month or year because life will give you whatever experience is necessary for the evolution of your consciousness, and all the pain and sadness I've felt, and all the bad things I've been through have led me here,  to this point where I feel less burdened everyday.