This has been a very good year. It's been a year of really discovering myself - letting go of the past, and in a way, letting go of the future - embracing the Now - the only moment there is.
I have read some really interesting and challenging books that have stretched me and made me think, but the thing that stands out to me this year is a group of really good friends. My wife, my family, and a group of people that I have connected with over the year who have given me the grace to be myself. People who have asked me questions, who have challenged me, who have just listened. Friends who have pushed me beyond myself and have let me share their lives. To all of you that I have spent time with this year, in person or in cyberspace - I want to say a really deep thankyou!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Do you believe in magic?
Magic has been a part of my life since I was a kid. I remember watching David Copperfield on television and really believing in what he did. It was never about how he did it. It was about the experience of mystery. In a sense he gave me hope that there was more to life than the mundane. I must have been around 10 years old if I remember correctly. Now I'm 26 years older and I still seek out that experience of mystery. I enjoy watching people's faces as I perform and get a glimpse of that feeling - the shock to your system when you see the impossible.
So it's all an illusion? Perhaps, but a good performance usually points to something deeper. The illusions, or whatever you would like to call them, are just tools that allow real magic to happen. Real magic changes people. Real magic is about being able to see with different eyes, into a realm that is always there, but is easily forgotten. What we call 'reality' is the real illusion..
Think about this time of year, when we all spend money we don't have to get stuff we don't really need, singing songs we don't really understand. In the case of where I live, we sing about sleigh-bells in the snow in the middle of summer.
But behind all of that, the moon still shines and the world still turns. The trees still breath and nature is still and Present, while we try and find parking in a crazy shopping mall.
I have searched all my life to find real magic - to be able to connect with that constantly ellusive mystery. I'm starting to realise that it can be found by learning to be, that it's to be found by not listening to all the noise, but to tune in to the heartbeat and the rhythm of the Universe. To discover that I'm not other, but I am - connected and part of all that I percieve as around me.
The illusion is to see all of that as the mundane - when it is the real magic - and the very meaning of life.
So it's all an illusion? Perhaps, but a good performance usually points to something deeper. The illusions, or whatever you would like to call them, are just tools that allow real magic to happen. Real magic changes people. Real magic is about being able to see with different eyes, into a realm that is always there, but is easily forgotten. What we call 'reality' is the real illusion..
Think about this time of year, when we all spend money we don't have to get stuff we don't really need, singing songs we don't really understand. In the case of where I live, we sing about sleigh-bells in the snow in the middle of summer.
But behind all of that, the moon still shines and the world still turns. The trees still breath and nature is still and Present, while we try and find parking in a crazy shopping mall.
I have searched all my life to find real magic - to be able to connect with that constantly ellusive mystery. I'm starting to realise that it can be found by learning to be, that it's to be found by not listening to all the noise, but to tune in to the heartbeat and the rhythm of the Universe. To discover that I'm not other, but I am - connected and part of all that I percieve as around me.
The illusion is to see all of that as the mundane - when it is the real magic - and the very meaning of life.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Book knowlege vs. really knowing
I have a rather large collection of books. I love reading. I'm constantly on the lookout for that one book that will say all I need to know, the book that will resonate with me and give me the answers I need. Of course I know that such a book doesn't exist, although someof the books I've read come close.
Books are miraculous. The ability for me to connect with the thoughts, beliefs and experiences of someone else by picking up a book never ceases to amaze me. But...that's the thing. Reading a book is always about someone else's life, experience, belief or view of the world. While connecting with that is important, it can never replace the act of living life and experiencing it for yourself.
I recently experienced something that I had read about for over a year. It was an experience that I had heard about from a few people and so a whole lot of research on the subject - so much so, that I felt i really didn't need to experience it because I already knew so much about it. I was wrong. I was very wrong. Nothing I read could have prepared me for what I experienced. Everything I had read really only scratched the surface. In fact, much of what I had read only made sense once I had experienced it for myself. This has been an important lesson. Books can only really be signposts, pointing one to an experience of living. They can never be the experience itself.
This past week I went camping with my family. Whenever we go away I usually take a few books with. This time I took a notebook and pen. I decided it was more important to record my experience than to read about others'. I never wrote much. I was too busy having long chats with my wife, playing with my kids, and having a really great time. I did, however, write the introduction to a book I would like to write. Perhaps this will be the book that I've been looking for :)
Books are miraculous. The ability for me to connect with the thoughts, beliefs and experiences of someone else by picking up a book never ceases to amaze me. But...that's the thing. Reading a book is always about someone else's life, experience, belief or view of the world. While connecting with that is important, it can never replace the act of living life and experiencing it for yourself.
I recently experienced something that I had read about for over a year. It was an experience that I had heard about from a few people and so a whole lot of research on the subject - so much so, that I felt i really didn't need to experience it because I already knew so much about it. I was wrong. I was very wrong. Nothing I read could have prepared me for what I experienced. Everything I had read really only scratched the surface. In fact, much of what I had read only made sense once I had experienced it for myself. This has been an important lesson. Books can only really be signposts, pointing one to an experience of living. They can never be the experience itself.
This past week I went camping with my family. Whenever we go away I usually take a few books with. This time I took a notebook and pen. I decided it was more important to record my experience than to read about others'. I never wrote much. I was too busy having long chats with my wife, playing with my kids, and having a really great time. I did, however, write the introduction to a book I would like to write. Perhaps this will be the book that I've been looking for :)
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Time and Rhythm
What is time? We wake up at a certain time in the morning, we get dressed, go to work and need to be there at a certain time. We're expected to put in a certain amount of hours to get paid our salary. We get given a certain amount of time to rest, to eat and for some of us time is directly proportional to money. I can't help thinking that we are slaves to this thing called time, this clock that we have created to keep the machine moving.
The problem with time is that it is uniform and it is one measure applied to all people. Nature doesn't have time. Nature has rhythm. There is a difference. Nature is full of rhythm, different rhythms that move in and out of one another. The moon revolves around the earth, the earth around the sun. The tide comes in and it goes out. It's predictable, but not slave to one beat, second after second, minute after minute.
As human beings we try to live outside of nature. We have our houses that protect us from the wind and rain. We have shoes on our feet that protect our feet from the earth. When we sit down we very rarely sit in the sand or on the grass. We nearly always put something between us and the earth.
But our rhythm betrays us. The rhythm we naturally experience reminds us that we are children of the earth. Our heart doesn't beat in time with the clock that we have created. Our breath has it's own rhythm - and responds to our needs, which also vary according to the rhythm of our body.
Sometimes we can be so caught up in the ticking of the clock and the mechanisation of our daily lives that we forget how to see and feel who we really are. We think that our day-to-day life by the clock is real, but it is just an illusion, something we created to help us, but by which we are now enslaved.
Perhaps part of letting go is letting go of time, and finding the rhythm of the earth once again. Dying to that which is already dead and opening our eyes to who we really are.
The problem with time is that it is uniform and it is one measure applied to all people. Nature doesn't have time. Nature has rhythm. There is a difference. Nature is full of rhythm, different rhythms that move in and out of one another. The moon revolves around the earth, the earth around the sun. The tide comes in and it goes out. It's predictable, but not slave to one beat, second after second, minute after minute.
As human beings we try to live outside of nature. We have our houses that protect us from the wind and rain. We have shoes on our feet that protect our feet from the earth. When we sit down we very rarely sit in the sand or on the grass. We nearly always put something between us and the earth.
But our rhythm betrays us. The rhythm we naturally experience reminds us that we are children of the earth. Our heart doesn't beat in time with the clock that we have created. Our breath has it's own rhythm - and responds to our needs, which also vary according to the rhythm of our body.
Sometimes we can be so caught up in the ticking of the clock and the mechanisation of our daily lives that we forget how to see and feel who we really are. We think that our day-to-day life by the clock is real, but it is just an illusion, something we created to help us, but by which we are now enslaved.
Perhaps part of letting go is letting go of time, and finding the rhythm of the earth once again. Dying to that which is already dead and opening our eyes to who we really are.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Letting Go
A big part of drumming 'in the groove' is about letting go. If you try and control the rhythm you slip out of it or the rhythm never seems to have the same life that it has when you let go and allow the rhythm be what it is. Then it has a life of its own.
Humans beings are not very good at letting go. Life is full of things we want to cling to. They may be good experiences that we wish would last forever, or friendships and relationships that we fear will disappear if we let go. So we try to own and control these things. When we do that we restrict them from being driven by the rhythm of life as we try to make them conform to what we imagine them to be.
But it's not only the good experiences we cling to. How many times do we make a mistake, or do something we think is stupid and play it over and over in our heads, trying to re-live it so that somehow we can fix it, but then we find that we can't go back in time and fix it. So we need to learn to let go of these things.
And then there are the things that get done to us. Things that hurt or injure us affect how we see ourselves. And so we hold on to this image of who we are and build a shield around that part of us so that we can't be hurt again. These things are very hard to let go and sometimes you need someone to help you to do that.
What prevents us from letting go? Perhaps it's because we're afraid that if we let go of all these things then nothing will be left behind. It's a fear of losing ourselves - the fear of dying. But as we learn to let go we slowly discover that we haven't lost ourselves. Without all the illusions we cling on to, we find who we really are.
"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will find it. "
Humans beings are not very good at letting go. Life is full of things we want to cling to. They may be good experiences that we wish would last forever, or friendships and relationships that we fear will disappear if we let go. So we try to own and control these things. When we do that we restrict them from being driven by the rhythm of life as we try to make them conform to what we imagine them to be.
But it's not only the good experiences we cling to. How many times do we make a mistake, or do something we think is stupid and play it over and over in our heads, trying to re-live it so that somehow we can fix it, but then we find that we can't go back in time and fix it. So we need to learn to let go of these things.
And then there are the things that get done to us. Things that hurt or injure us affect how we see ourselves. And so we hold on to this image of who we are and build a shield around that part of us so that we can't be hurt again. These things are very hard to let go and sometimes you need someone to help you to do that.
What prevents us from letting go? Perhaps it's because we're afraid that if we let go of all these things then nothing will be left behind. It's a fear of losing ourselves - the fear of dying. But as we learn to let go we slowly discover that we haven't lost ourselves. Without all the illusions we cling on to, we find who we really are.
"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will find it. "
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