Love and Light

week 24

LOVE AND LIGHT BRIGADE

I will keep it short. Saying love and light, peace and love or namaste after everything, doesn't make you a spiritually advanced or a better person.  Most do not have even a soupcon of understanding of what it actually means. They sure as hell do not practice what they preach either. In short, hypocrites.

Whilst I'm not decrying the idea of living life positively, I am denouncing the bloody love and light brigade. In the last ten years, every single playgan who has given me grief, who have levied hate campaigns against me and my friends have all been love and lighters.  I've never known such a bunch of twisted, vile individuals in  my life... and I've met plenty!  I'm constantly surprised they haven't bitten their own tongues and died of poisoning.  'We don't do politics' means they sit on the fence and slag it off from their higher position.  'We don't do bitchcraft' - ha! who are they trying to kid.  I have countless screenshots of messages, forum posts, emails and facebook comments to prove otherwise.

A couple of Jehovah's Witnesses knocked last week. We had a friendly chat about religion and theology in general. One of the ladies said 'I knew a white witch, they used to pay a farmer for a bull to sacrifice once a year'. I enjoyed our chat, I can't be rude to people cos they knock on my door selling God.

1. There is no such thing as a white witch!!!!!
2. People who sacrifice an animal in ritual are not practicing light magic! Bloody wiccaman has a lot to answer for! 
3. There is no light without darkness. You cannot have one without the other. They co-exist. Yin and Yang.  Balance. Sure, don't practice the dark but know it and shed light on it... but pretending it doesn't exist is not understanding what 'is'.  It's just following a movie script.

Example:

Michelle xxx - 'with all of us sending these GREAT thoughts of everything going back on track for you and so much more..there will be great change rapidly.. I can tell :D'

Me: 'thoughts won't buy parts though...'

Michelle then private messages me - 'just fucking amazing the POWER you think YOU have...whatever..well here is a good one for you FOOL..the Fool is the only one with an ope mind...& I KNOW somehow they will get the parts & funds & so much more..like really I'm sitting on disability and YOU assume that WE can ALL send some money? there are many who can & then there are many who can send the positive thoughts of the money flowing freely into his hand for EVERYTHING and beyond & MAYBE THAT IS ALL SOME PEOPLE CAN DO..how can you start such a fucking mess of telling me I was treating YOU like an IDIOT...YOUR projections and that I'm in a FLUFFY reality...wow just really good luck with your life ..go look in the mirror from now on when you go pointing your fingers and being so abusive..your kind of women just keep perpetuating abuses of all sorts...go fuck yourself'

Like I said, I have countless examples... bunch of fucktards.

Love!

Week 23

I wrote this Hub two years ago. Enjoy. Oh and my friend's list is now nearing 1000 lol

I love you! No really!

I love you. Three words that get said without being meant but which also scare the crap out of people so much, they run from them. What is wrong with telling someone that you have love for them? What can BE so wrong about being loved? And what about the many forms of love? Can we tar those three words with the same brush for such a magnificent feeling? No, well I don’t think so.

I for one have been emotionally retarded, unable to tell someone I have love for them or that I’m IN love with them. I source this to the fact we were not told as kids growing up, that is not to say we were not shown love but it wasn’t verbal. I shall leave my childhood issues there and move swiftly on to the now. Is it more acceptable these days to tell someone you love them? Scott Miles on BBC Radio One tells all his callers ‘love you’ and they say it back. I hear teens on the phone saying ‘love you’ after a call.... to me this is a strange thing. It’s not wrong, just a bit alien to me. I suppose I’m always afraid they may think I mean romantic love and that I want to ‘be’ with them, rather than just saying ‘hey you’re a funny sod, I love you for your humour and how you make me smile’.

Or maybe that’s just me and my underlying fear of rejection? Afraid to say those three words cos they might mean that person flees before your eyes. Been there, done that! This brings me to another poignant point – why do we give our love to the wrong people? At what point does the rose tinted glasses go on and we fail to see what that person is really like? Love like that is painful and dependant on the other person to validate you as a person worth loving. That’s not healthy love. That love kills the soul and pushes people over the edge – sometimes literally. We have all been there though and most of us are better people for surviving that kind of love. I know I have. I am faced with embarrassment the things I have done whilst being in love that in hindsight you recoil at the sheer cringe-worthiness of it all. Is that love though? It sure as hell feels like it at the time but once again, upon reflection it’s almost like an obsession party going on in your head and the other person isn’t invited! You know it’s true, be honest.

So how do you define love? It is the true meaning of life (or should be) in most spiritual and religious paths. I believe that love makes the world go round. Well actually it’s the gravitational pull of the Universe but metaphorically speaking, we all strive for love, we all want love, we all want to be loved - anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves. And I’m not talking about romantic love either, although that is what most people secretly yearn for. If you look at any book on Inner Child, or psychology it all points to the part in our lives when we stopped feeling loved. That’s when we developed our neurosis, our inner demons that we spend years and lots of money in counselling trying to overcome. Simply it boils down to the fact that love was removed, abused or denied. Bad things happen at the hands of messed up people because they are part of a chain of events that damaged them. So they damage others and the circle goes on. At some point though, we have to break the chain of our cycles and free wheel into unknown territory. It’s scary as hell. Knowing that at some point ‘love’ has damaged your hearts and minds will make you wary to love again, to give love, to be loved, to feel you deserve to be loved. That’s where I find myself. I have suffered and survived that destructive aspect of love. But what I realise is that is not what love really is. Love is pure and without cost, it’s an energy that we can all tap in to – it’s Universal. Without it we die or feel empty and dead inside. Oh you know that’s true too.

We love our new shoes, we love our cars, we love our new gadgets and we declare it to the world. But why can’t we declare that we love a stranger for making us laugh when we were at our lowest? Why can’t we say ‘you’re awesome, you make me smile – I love you for that’? Why are we afraid to express ourselves with those three words yet tell the world wide web what we had for breakfast? We share such insignificant things on these social networks but we don’t really express ourselves do we? We don’t tell these virtual strangers that are now part of our friends list that they mean something to you. I tried to have a cull of my friends list the other day, at nearly 700 it’s out of control. But I couldn’t do it. Even though I have never met the majority of them, in their own ways, they have reached out to me, they have shared their lives, they have listened to my problems and rants on my status updates and they have liked my life, my images, my opinions and become friends. People I will never meet are not without significance and cannot simply be culled. I have discovered a rich and diverse culture of people with so many interesting variances that I am richer from the experience. I can guarantee that when I am down, someone will say something to make me laugh. I have done the same for others too.

I said on my Christmas Day radio show that we are all connected and we should all take the time to observe the world around us. People fall and need catching. I have fallen and been caught. By a virtual stranger I added on the back of a comment on someone’s status. I let that person into my life and out of the blue, she read my cry for help and rang me up. That was an amazing thing to do. I felt elated that a stranger cared to do that. I am that stranger too. I have love to give the world but strangely enough, I give little to myself.

Now that’s another can of worms! How many of us have self-love? How many of us deny ourselves love because we don’t think we are worth it? How many of us don’t love ourselves? Now come on, be brave. Chances are if you are overweight you don’t like yourself much. True enough for me. But I know that love myself, I will feel better about myself, I will lose weight. But I don’t. I look at myself in the mirror and think ‘yuck’ why would anyone want that? And that vicious cycle is what keeps the weight on. And you know what? Love put it on. It did, honest. When I was in love and happy with myself, I lost weight. When that person extracted and denied that love to me, I turned on myself and gained weight. That weight is emotional baggage. And it’s so hard to lose, maybe I should take it to Heathrow, they lose luggage all the time.

You know you don’t need someone to make you feel validated, to feel loved but it helps. There’s no feeling in the world more euphoric than being in love. We shine and glow with it. And then it’s gone....here we are back to co-dependence love. How do you break a habit of a lifetime? How do you banish those demons that haunt you? How do you go on to survive a broken heart – romantically, betrayal of a friendship, rejection? All of these are ugly things. Yet we are reminded in Universal love when we stand in awe at a glorious sunset, at a babies smile, at an impromptu hug from a friend ‘just because’, a phone call from a stranger when you are down..... this is love at work.

I love you because you are you. I smile at your words, laugh at your humour and inspired by your life and what you do. We are all unique. Love is Universal and fills us all. Pass it on. It’s just three words and world may just stop spinning if we forget that. The best thing my sister Rachael ever told me is that ‘you get the love that you think you deserve’ – truth hurts. If you don’t think you are worth it you will continue to attract negative relationships. Love yourself – go on give it a try. I will if you will.

Let yourself be loved. Until you do, the weight won't shift, you won't find your true love and even if you do, you won't feel you deserve it and wil repel it. The hardest thing to do is to break the habit of a life time. It's ok, you are only human after all. Was that an 'aha!' moment? I wrote this from the heart. I put it out to the Universe. Lets see what happens... thank you for reading this. I'm great at giving advice, I just need to heed my own - don't we all!?

Love really is all around. Look and you'll see it.

Keeper

Week 22

I was just looking for inspiration for this weeks subject, when the word 'keeper' popped in to my head. I'm not entirely sure I can put this into words, as it's a deep rooted feeling.  I'll give it a try though.

I'm staring blankly at the screen here.... how do I word this? Ahhhh!

Ok it's nearly an hour since I started this....

Connection with the land. Being it's keeper. Walking the land, looking at the woods, seeing the energies, feeling the land beneath your feet and feeling it light up around you. You open up. You SEE. You FEEL.

For me, the place I'm Keeper of is the woods in the village where I grew up.  My meditation place is those woods, even though it's 200 miles away now. I grew up playing in those woods. I know all those trees, all those dells, all those paths and the secret places to sit under the big holly trees.  It's part of me.

I was trying to find the Terry Pratchett quote about Tiffany Aching but can't find the exact words. It goes something like this: She is part of the land, she tells the hills who they are and they tell her who she is.

That. It's like that. Memories of walking the Songlines sneak in .. and back out again. I will rediscover that memory when I'm meant to.

We all have that place we feel we are Keeper of.  Where we are connected to. More than other places we love.

Here's some pictures of my place. Those are all the words I can think of right now.. but you get the gist.

So peaceful here

Lightning oak - has since been chopped down.
I have a section of it which one day I may turn into a bowl..

The huge horse chestnut trees shadow

My old lady hornbeam. A really old one too. Diseased and since chopped down.
I collected drop wood from her for wands and staff

Under the holly trees canopy you can hide

Bridge over the 'river' it's actually a flood plain

Karma

Week 21

I'm well behind again! I've been chewing this over since my Justice blog. Then this month, something happened to my sister that really set my gears grinding and thinking about Karma. It's only thinking out loud really, I'm just going to put fingers to keyboard and see what happens.... much like my other blogs lol.

What is Karma?

From Sanskrit karman ‘action, effect, fate’.
noun
(in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.
informal
good or bad luck, viewed as resulting from one's actions.

I had a look on Google to see what I could find on what Karma is and there's endless popart dedicated to it. There are also Hindu and Buddhist websites that discuss it at length. Karma is very much part of the Buddhist way of life but it does say that Karma predates Buddhist teachings and originate in India. In the Hindu faith, there are three types of Karma. I'm not going into that here, but by all means, go and explore the definitions for yourself.

Keanu is a practicing Buddhist

So. Karma. If you're not Buddhist or Hindu, you pretty much think it's the answer to everything. Someone screws you over? Never mind, Karma will kick their arse. I think there's a bit of a cross over with the ol' three fold law too going on some of the stuff I found in Google images. Karma is seen as payback, as revenge for bad deeds done. It's a term banded about by every Tom, Dick and Harry and I doubt any of them really know what it is.  They just think it's something they can curse at you 'I hope Karma kicks your arse' and the like.  That's not what it's about. Not even remotely. That kind of attitude will only serve to have YOUR arse kicked by Karma for wishing ill right? That kind of attitude isn't a solution to the issues that have arisen.  YOU are responsible for your own actions. YOU are accountable for your own deeds. YOU get what you think you deserve. If you attract wankers in your life, think about why that is?  Sure, there's plenty of times in my life where I've been screwed over by people but I've had to look honestly at my part in that. What did I do to attract them? What lessons did I learn from it? Will I keep having to learn those lessons until it sinks in? Yeah! Cos that's Karma too.

In one script I read, it says about one person being very rich, whilst another suffers poverty. It says that Karma meters out a balance.  It's a nice idea. But lets face it, how many people die every minute from starvation, murder, poverty... ? How many of the rich seem untouchable? If Karma was kicking arse, it would start there right?  Alas that is not the way of this world.

Karma isn't Justice. Karma is Balance. Karma is Universal Law. Karma is Newton's law of Cause and Effect. What Karma isn't, is your bitch.

A warning from my own personal experience. I may have mentioned this in an earlier blog. When I started on this path a decade or so ago, I was told about Karma/three fold law. At this point in my life, I went through more in six months, than most do in two lifetimes. I wanted those people to pay for what they had done to me but I believed that by wishing them ill, it would bounce back to me. I really turned myself inside out with this! I was already in a bad place, but thinking that I'd get more unless I thought fluffy thoughts, made it a whole lot worse, caused a full nervous breakdown.  I firmly believe that if someone has wronged you, that you tell them. If someone harms you, tell them.  It's natural to want that person to suffer what they've done to you. When you do magical workings, you reflect back to the person, what they've done to you, the idea being that they will receive the pain they inflicted upon you.  This is why it's best not to hex people when you're angry and hurting.  You really have to think about it and that takes introspection.

Holding on to past hurts really does eat away at you too. Don't do it. I wish I could heed my own advice but I think I'm better at letting go of things these days, than I was 3 years ago.  A friend once told me 'that guy who just cut you up on the road, the one you're ranting and raving about, the one you're still pissed off about an hour later, he's already forgotten you. Don't hold on to it.'  I'm still not too hot on the forgiveness business. I will let it go, try and put aside the anger and move forward. I never forget though.. which means I've not really forgiven them doesn't it?  I'm still working on that lol.

Karma isn't going to beat the shit out of you for being a wanker. Karma isn't going to give you the winning lotto numbers because you're down on your luck. Karma isn't the answer to your problems. Look inside, you'll find them but you really have to look inside and be HONEST, the only person you'll be lying to, is your self.

Peace y'all