The Winds Of Change

The winds of change are blowing strong through my hair and the ground on which I stand seems to be constantly shifting as if it is trying to unbalance me and make me fall.


As quick as I seem to adapt and accept one shift within my life another sweeps in to ensure I do not get too comfortable within my personal and private zone.

Even my beliefs that I use as an anchor for my sanity seem to keep changing and being challenged in what seems to be a deliberate attempt to stretch my mind and beliefs and to ensure that my mind is not that of a narrow minded self-centred Narcissistic fool.

I went to church last Sunday for the first time in over 15 years ( for my sons christening ) and over 35 years since I attended Church for a Sunday service.

Why did I go after so many years you may well ask, and that would be a very justified and reasonable question as it is one I have been asking myself as well.

You see the reason I went is because I am restless, I feel as if something is missing in my life and yet I want for nothing and desire even less.

I feel shallow and directionless; I have passions but no motivation to chase them. I want companionship in my life but am also happy to be alone in my thoughts and travels.

I am not happy and yet I am not sad !

My nephew Mathew and his darling wife Lilly are THE two happiest people I have ever known in my life and always exude love and happiness when ever I see them as if they are walking on cloud nine all the time without a care in the world and I wanted to know the peace and love that these two amazing young people know.

About 3 months ago I told Mathew and Lilly how they inspired me with their inner peace, calm and contentment. I told them how I felt and openly admitted that at 44 years of age, these two amazing young adults who are only in their mid 20’s knew something I didn’t and I wanted to know what they thought was the secret to their happiness and if they would be willing to share it with me as all I truly want in life is to be happy, happy like them.

Once the initial shock of the whole conversation subdued, Lilly simply said that it was God and her Church that gave her and Mathew their love for life and with that came the inner peace of knowing God and knowing that he and the church were always there and that they never walked alone.

Please don’t think the conversation was as simple as that and many other aspects were discussed but the point of her message was that their Faith was their reason.

Well, I stated there and then that despite their young age I openly acknowledged that they certainly knew something that I did not and asked if I could please go with them to their next church service to try and find the answers that they seemed to have found for themselves.

Now as life all so often does, I was then swept away in my reactive life and it was nearly 3 months later that I got a private message on my Facebook account from Lilly asking me if I still wanted to join her and Mathew at their church and giving me the time, place and all the details to make sure I was there the following weekend. I replied to her, accepting her kind reminder and left it at that.

So 15 minutes early the next Sunday I pulled up in front of the church and eagerly waited for Mathew and Lilly to arrive.

About 5 minutes before the service was to begin they arrived much to my relief and much to their surprise and joy they realised that I had made it.

They introduced me to a few people and went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and to feel as if I was home, home with them in their house. Words can not express my love for them for that, and how much of an exemplary example of they both are of all that is good within the human race, of loving life and of faith just by being themselves.

Well, I went again today ( the following week ) and I was a big boy and went by myself today. I tried not to just stand there like a rabbit in the headlights and I very self consciously participated in the service.

Now, I’m not going to try and tell you that I have seen the light and found the way, but I have found another way, another path to the one I have been walking in circles on for the last 30 plus years and I am open to where it may take me without expectations of it taking me anywhere.

I do feel that there will be many inner questions yet to be answered as I have always been a very spiritual person but have never really been religious and the joining of the two will certainly be a challenge and an interesting path to take.

One of my all time favourite poems is by Shel Silverstein called “ Listen To the Mustn’t ”, well I guess its time that this Ol’ Uncle listened to his own advise … anything can happen Uncle, anything can be !

Listen to the Mustn’t

Listen to the Mustn’t, child,

Listen to the Don'ts

Listen to the Shouldn’t

The Impossible, the Won’ts

Listen to the Never Haves

Then Listen To Me

Anything can happen, child,

Anything can be.

Shel Silverstein

I Had A dream

Yes, I had a dream !

It’s not quite as big as Martin Luther King Jnr’s dream and I don’t think it will affect or alter too many people’s lives other than mine, but it is an important dream non the less and it’s MY dream !

I used to dream a lot as a child. I would dreams so vivid that I could smell and taste them, dreams that were so strong that I could get up several times in the middle of the night, get a drink and walk around for a bit then go back to bed and jump straight back into the dream where I left off. A dream world filled with adventure and mystery, a parallel universe to my reality world, a world that at times helped me understand my real world and then at other times poked fun at my real world to show me that it wasn’t as serious as I felt it was at the time.

They were very rarely nightmares and were usually pleasant and insightful. My dreams always seemed to help me understand my real world better and in times of confusion they helped me find answers.

I’m not really sure when I stopped dreaming but I vaguely remember stopping around the time that I left school and entered the workforce, a long time ago anyway.

I’m also not really sure why I stopped dreaming but suspect it was because of a lost connection with myself, a lost innocence and connection to my higher self, brought about by my temptation of a largely material world which I had been introduced to through the entry into the workforce and a supply of income that I never previously had.

Suddenly I didn’t have time to sit and contemplate, I didn’t have time to relax into a deep and secure dream world, I had lost the ability to STOP! To stop and smell the roses, stop to actually hear myself think and time to listen to myself. I was too busy to connect.

With my loss of connection to my higher self was the loss to understand my real would with the clarity that I once enjoyed and it also heralded a period in my life filled with chaos and self-doubt.

Interestingly enough, the loss of my ability to dream also coincided with my loss of drive or ambition to artistically create. I used to love painting and I actually won a few encouragement awards for my paintings and drawings back in my high school days. I also used to write a lot of poetry and always dreamed of learning the guitar and putting my poems to song like one of my artistic Idols “ Bob Dylan ”.

I have attempted to reconnect with my artistic side may times over the years but could never find that river to tap unless I was in a period of turmoil and self-reflection. Now while I loved the artistic fruits of these moments of deep self-reflection they were more times than not painful periods in my life and it got to the stage that I preferred not to connect rather than take my mind and soul to these dark places to find inspiration. I wanted to connect in the light again and was not willing to walk in the dark.

Nude Lady 1985 By Andrew Swansson ( My Last Painting )

My life as it turns out has taken many rough roads over the last 5 years and in the process my life has fundamentally changed in many ways. With these changes have come the deep realisation of mortality and the realisation of what is really important in life. The realisation that life is limited and the most precious commodity that we could ever hope to hold. The problem with this is that we can’t buy more when we run out of our life’s allocation, once you have used, spent or squandered your allocation that you were given on the day that you were born, it’s gone. You can’t buy any more life, you can’t borrow any more life and you certainly can’t steal any more life once yours is gone.

So life is precious and the lives of those that you love and hold close are equally as precious. To share your life with another person, and to have them openly share theirs with you has a profound effect on the average life, it makes them Shine ! And when they shine they illuminate your world in such a way that it removes all the dark places and dark corners, it illuminates your life and allows you to see your world in a perfect clarity, it allows you to see the path forward.

Another thing I have learnt in recent years is that of priorities and the real importance of “ Stuff ”. It has magnified my “R.I.S.E” gauge. Now my R.I.S.E gauge or should I say “ Real . Important . Stuff . Evaluation ” is quite simply my assessment of what is really import and what is an illusion created by society and marketing.

For example, my awesome 42 inch Plasma TV can’t make my lonely heart feel any better on a cold winter night when I am home alone. Sleeping alone with 7 pillows in a top of the line king size bed and pillow top mattress is nowhere near as comfortable as sleeping in an old wire base bed and 15 year old mattress when shared with the one you love on a cold winter night. Having that impressive high flying corporate job that pays a squillion dollars means nothing if you go home to an empty house or even worse, a full house where no one knows who you are because you have so little time to spend with them and communicate with them. All that money will only help pay the solicitors arrange a settlement. Having a successful corporate career does not equal a rich and rewarding life. The sweetest sound is that of a child laughing, the most honest words are the words of children, the most important place to be is here and now, home is where your heart is, the truth is more valuable than the answer you were hoping for, Bigger houses are only better because they have more storage space for your stuff, cuddles are fuel for the soul, happiness is having yourself as your best friend and you can never lie successfully to the person in the mirror.

I wrote a poem a few years back called Love is Elusive and the first section goes like this “ Love is elusive, Love is a dream, Love is always there but rarely seen, our eyes are closed to the simplest of things, of what love is and what it means.” By connecting with our R.I.S.E Gauge we can all open our eyes and understand better.

As I started to say at the beginning of this Blog, I have had a dream again. In fact I have started to have many dreams lately and while I won’t go into specifics of these dreams the important thing is that I am having dreams again.

Partly due to being made redundant four and a bit months ago and partly because of changes in my life’s circumstances I have found myself stopping and listening to life. Listening to the birds in the morning, listening to my heart. I have been looking at life through the lens of my camera and actively seeking out beauty in this world. I have been listening to natures little clues to know which road to travel to find that next beautiful moment and to capture it in time with my camera.

I have been actively reducing my material possessions and distractions to a point of needs rather than just wants and I have been reducing my consumptions based on boredom and frustration until I reached the point of consumption based on needs.

All of this has made life a more real entity with purpose rather that a life based on distraction.

Now I don’t know if this is just a coincidence or an equal reaction to my actions but suddenly I am dreaming once again.

“ I Have A Dream ”

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Thank you for taking the time to read my Blog

Dohi

Love

What does it mean " To be loved " or " To love "

After all there are many different types of love, " Loving the taste of you all time favorite food ","The love that a mother has for her new born child "," The love of the trill "," That first true love ", " The love of a couple that have been married for 50 years through the good times and the bad times "," The love of the smell of the fresh rain on a summer day ", or " The love of hearing the songs of the birds overhead as the sun rises ", just to name a few.

Is love a feeling ? an emotion ? or is love a thought that we convince ourselves to believe in ?

Can you learn to love something or is true love a gift from above that you have no control over, after all they say that " Love is blind " & Love can be found at first sight.

Can love fade over time ? Or is it more the case that it was never true love that you had and only true love endures.

Can a person truely die from a broken heart ?

And can two people in love combine the essence of who they are to be greater than the some of each individually ?

No matter what love is to the individual, one thing is sure, love would appear to be elusive to the vast majority of the human race or at least the understanding and acceptance of true love would appear to be elusive.

Love Is Elusive

Love is elusive

Love is a dream

Love is always there but rarely seen

Our eyes are closed to the simplest of things

Of what love is and what it means.

.

Love is seeing the sun set red

The morning songs of the birds overhead

A gentle cool breeze on a hot humid day

Of watching the waves roll in all day.

.

Love is touching your new born child

With tears of pride and joy in your eyes.

Love is teaching them to grow strong and free,

And having the courage to teach them to dream.

.

Love is having you lay next to me,

The smell of your hair the touch of your skin.

The sparkle in your eyes so deep,

And holding you tightly as we sleep.

.

When I look deep into your eyes,

It's then that I realise much to my suprise.

That love to me can never be complete,

Without you in my life.

.

Love is elusive,

Love is a dream.

Love is always there but rarely seen.

Our eyes are closed to the simplest of things,

Of what love is and what it means.

.

Andrew Swansson

Copyright 2007