Create February Fabulous! - Retrospect

February has finally come to a close and the rest of the year beckons enticingly as I look back on a month of creativity. I started a project with just myself in mind. To create and share a piece of art every day in February. I ended up creating a page and sharing my idea with a few friends and the group has gently grown over the last month.

Colour Square Sphere - Olafur Eliasson

I chose February because there I was at the start of the month looking for something to do. February seemed to fit. It doesn’t have that ominous, quick to end, New Year’s Resolution disappointment. It is a short month and this year has that magical extra day. An extra opportunity to start new things.

I must confess, I did not manage to create and post a piece of art, writing, or music every day. I am what I would call, an awakening artist. Whilst I am not new to creativity, I am certainly new to treating my art as a daily practice. I am new to telling myself that I am a precious human soul that is allowed to create, dream and imagine. I have always been in that place of wanting, but some voices have often held me back from stepping fully into this artistic life.

Even though I didn’t create something every day, I can count numerous victories. I started my blog again which has been the primary commentator of this project. I have written some great poems this month. I finally broke through an immense barrier within me and busked on the street where before, there was enormous fear. I have started selling my photos online and have taken some great shots recently. I have baked some new things and improved my kitchen skills. In the last two weeks, I started practicing my guitar again, played a local open mic twice and got a gig off the back of it and have had the best time ever singing! Last but not least was the creation of a small idea which is slowly growing. Within that idea, I have met, seen and been inspired by a whole bunch of talented artists and their work.

Part of the reason I wanted to create a group was the benefit I could see from isolated artists and creators connecting in a safe, judgement free environment. I feel that creativity is the life-blood of humanity. It is our reason for being and we need to nurture, respect and cultivate those urges within us in order to connect. I wanted to create a group that welcomes artists of all levels, from beginners to experts, and maybe provide a future forum and support network for anyone that wants to begin exploring their own creativity. There are future plans indeed.

I have seen countless people hold themselves back from creating, art, music and dance. I have heard even more people tell me they are not creative, cannot sing or do not have an artistic bone in their body yet simply living is an art in itself. Creativity takes countless forms and we are so much more creative than we tend to notice.

We often tell ourselves we are no good much to the detriment of our own minds, bodies and souls. Most of the time we are comparing ourselves to others, whether it is their success, talent or material wealth we envy. Yet at other times, we celebrate art, music and dance with a fever only matched by the energy that created it in the first place.

"A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years." - Byron Katie 

I believe we can all create. I believe we can all aspire to whatever we dream of and be able to experience that desire in this lifetime. I think other people’s art and creative processes are a source of inspiration, unity and wealth. Even though I still struggle with that inner critic that tells me I will never be that good, brilliant, rich, healthy, successful… I feel that my heart speaks a grander truth.

Creativity is our birth right. Creativity is what makes life happen. Creativity happens on a far grander scale than we can imagine. We are creating all the time. We create within our day to day lives. With our words, our actions. Even our thoughts are creative. If we can encourage good thoughts, and a good environment in which to create, then I think there is room for us all to realise our hopes and dreams in a healthy and sustainable way that does not harm another or the planet. Creativity unites us. Creativity is versatile enough to accommodate everyone. Creativity is a sacred, life-affirming bond between us and the world around us.

So as I sit on the threshold of March, I can honestly say that it has been a joy to partake in this idea. I shall now change the name of the group to simply “Create Fabulous”. Over the course of this year I am sure myself and others will come up with some new ideas, collaborations and even workshops that encourage and support finding our creative selves. I shall be blogging more, writing more and singing more. The Facebook group itself will remain open to artists to join and share their work over the course of the year and next February, we will once again focus on every day creation and maybe we can make it a thing! Follow the link below to join the group.

Wishing you always, a very creative day,

Love, love, love…

Matt Rivers

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Create February Fabulous! is an idea or challenge to try and show up with your own creativity every day for the month of February. It is a simple idea. The creativity can take any form, and take any amount of time. Any media, any discipline, the only condition is to have fun. No critics, no judgement, just a celebration of our own unique human quality of creativity. You are encouraged to share your projects anywhere you like (only if you want) using the hashtag #createfebruary. Join the Facebook group, share on Instagram, blog about it, invite friends to some daily creativity. Let's see what we can create together. 

Matt is a singer/songwriter, musician, poet and writer of words. He is exploring the forests of consciousness, time and space, and surfing the waves of thought, love and being. Getting lost and wiping out are adventures in themselves!

Create February Fabulous! - Leaps of Faith

I have been undertaking a small challenge for myself. It is to create something every day in February. The reason for doing this is to create a new habit within me that is supportive of my dreams and desires. I have always been creative and have always had creative urges but like many of us, have lived with a number of fears that held me back.

Amongst other things I am a musician but have long been crippled by my own limiting beliefs. Voices from childhood, fear of others opinions, fear of judgement, of looking a fool and the big one, of not being worthy or good enough. This led me to completely stifle my musical urges because it was easier than face the voices, the risks and the edge of my comfort zone. I generally did okay at gigs but it took me a long time to build up my courage and play one. Not motivated is what you would call me.

The absolute worst thing I could do was busk. To me that was the pinnacle of vulnerability and risk. That was to lay myself bare to everything, to completely expose myself to the public without a reason. With this in mind, over the last few months, I have been working gently but consistently on loving myself, listening to the emotions that flow through me and just opening to my senses without getting lost in my mind. Sitting, being, allowing.

Lately I faced some big fears on a snowy mountain and made an effort to listen and relax. I let go of the tension in my body, I allowed myself to be in this moment and looked for things going right, right now.

On Sunday I finally played an open mic event even though I was scared, tired, and unpractised. I took a step forward with faith. At 3.30 in the morning, a local promoter who was also at the open mic (things start late in Spain), offered me a gig the next Sunday in a big Irish pub.

Today I decided to venture into town to practice my set. I found a nice spot in the park on the mountain above the Alcazaba. I had to practice anyway so I told myself I was just practicing outside. I happened to have my guitar case open and I offered my songs to the sea, the sun, the trees and the people who passed by.

Occasional moments of fear passed through me but I kept telling myself I was safe and loved. I sat for 90 minutes busking, out in the open. I didn't die. I focused on the task at hand, practicing my set. No one told me off. No one judged me. My music was a gift to nature. What I had held in complete fear and terror melted into total illusion under the beautiful spring sun. My fears seemed to pass like clouds on a windy day. I even made enough spare change for a few beers.

What I want to say is this... Those fears that you thought were big are probably not as big as you think they are. We are wonderful imagineers us humans. We are very good at giving substance to things which don't exist.

Love yourself. Nurture yourself. Listen to yourself. Take it bit by bit but step you must. However small the step. The step will give you confidence. You do not need to leap. Just step. Fears can be dissolved and put to good use. You can thrive and shine.

I wish you much love and courage and baby steps.

Love, love, love...

Matt 

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Create February Fabulous! is an idea or challenge to try and show up with your own creativity every day for the month of February. It is a simple idea. The creativity can take any form, and take any amount of time. Any media, any discipline, the only condition is to have fun. No critics, no judgement, just a celebration of our own unique human quality of creativity. You are encouraged to share your projects anywhere you like (only if you want) using the hashtag #createfebruary. Join the Facebook group, share on Instagram, blog about it, invite friends to some daily creativity. Let's see what we can create together. 

Matt is a singer/songwriter, musician, poet and writer of words. He is exploring the forests of consciousness, time and space, and surfing the waves of thought, love and being. Getting lost and wiping out are adventures in themselves!

Create February Fabulous! - Make Love to Life

Great sex is life-affirming, joyous and pleasurable. It leaves us satisfied yet eager for more. It puts us in a place of present moment connection with our lover and enhances the bond between us. Our lover thrives on gentleness and presence. Relaxation and trust allow us to let go and be ourselves whether it builds into wild passionate abandon or whether we flow and intertwine into a fluid and singular being, dancing with our hearts open. Of course, sex takes many forms and has many songs but the fundamental tenets of consent, trust, attraction and passion lie at the heart of our most natural and fundamental desires.

 Our relationship to life works in much the same way. Just like our lover, we cannot inspire the best within us if we are harsh, desperate, fearful or critical. We cannot expect life to yield to us ecstatic moments of pure joy if we have approached our experiences with anger, hopelessness or judgement.

Not that we should deny our emotions or pretend they do not exist. They must be listened to and they must be embraced and loved. There is great value in treating yourself as a precious object and embracing the difficult emotions in order to hear what they are saying to you. When we can start to hear the messages of our body, instead of reacting to them and throwing them outwards, we start to develop our relationship with ourselves and thus with life. All we have to do is become quiet and listen to ourselves and our bodies.

Life may teach us about sex but sex can teach us about life. A great lover is admired and loved. So too can we learn to admire and love the rhythms of life and the experiences that come to us. We can begin to admire and love ourselves. A great lover is caressed to lofty passion through delicate sensations that build over time; each of us preferring a different touch, a different way. Life touches us all the time and we reach out into life with our thoughts and perceptions. There is great value in allowing our thoughts to linger in places that feel good, in areas and subjects that allow our essence to flow. A great lover has rhythms we can tune into so that we begin dancing as one. Life too has a flow that we can choose to accept in the moment, not forcing or struggling, but following the tide, like water to the moon.

If we make love to life, we approach life as a lover. We are patient and artful. We are present in the moment, connected and trusting. We notice that our thoughts and words have power. We notice that our perceptions create realities and we adjust them in order to experience something new. We are free to choose new ideas and to focus on the beautiful aspects of what we see. Just as we complement our lovers, so we learn to complement life and look for that which arouses us, which ignites our hearts and sets our souls free. Just as we notice that appreciation affects our lovers, we realise that we too are affected by our own attitudes. We treat ourselves as we treat our lovers. We hold ourselves in high-regard. We are precious objects.

Slowly we realise that life is responding to us in much the same way. Slowly we realise that life yields and opens up to us as we open up our hearts to life. We approach our situations with new eyes, choosing to look for the silver linings as we listen to our intuitive guidance within. Life echoes us and just as we dance with our lover, so we dance with life.

Make love, in everything you do…

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Create February Fabulous! is an idea or challenge to try and show up with your own creativity every day for the month of February. It is a simple idea. The creativity can take any form, and take any amount of time. Any media, any discipline, the only condition is to have fun. No critics, no judgement, just a celebration of our own unique human quality of creativity. You are encouraged to share your projects anywhere you like (only if you want) using the hashtag #createfebruary. Join the Facebook group, share on Instagram, blog about it, invite friends to some daily creativity. Let's see what we can create together. 

Matt is a singer/songwriter, musician, poet and writer of words. He is exploring the forests of consciousness, time and space, and surfing the waves of thought, love and being. Getting lost and wiping out are adventures in themselves!

Create February Fabulous! - The Wealthy Life

Day 6

11 Suggestions for Abundance Consciousness 

Life is literally bursting with abundance. It is flowing from every corner of time and space and if we notice it then we take part. Each orange tree produces a plethora of leaves and a bounty of oranges. There are millions of orange trees on this planet and billions of oranges! Then there are myriad other plants, vegetables, species, animals and insects. That is just the stuff that lives on top of our beloved Earth.

Check out the grains of sand, the molecules of breathable air, the amount of life-giving sunshine that reaches us. We are in the midst of a reality so fantastical, it is laughable to think that we feel that we are lost, lonely and poor. We couldn’t be further from the truth. That is why it feels so weird and wrong when we contemplate such limiting beliefs. Our emotions are literally screaming at us that our thinking is not up to speed with reality. That is why sadness and desperation and despair hurt, because they are telling us we are in the wrong place in our minds.

This life is wealthy beyond belief. This life is filled with endless abundance and opportunities yet we have to switch on to them. We have to lift our eyes from our pain and shift our perspective. No longer should we continue to bang on about how shit things are because life emanates from the core of us. The 'shit' is created by how we perceive life to be. The more shit we see… the more shit we get. That is the basic law of karma, or resonance or attraction. It all has the same name. See shit, get shit; see love, get love. Very simple, very basic yet we have grand and strange structures of thought living in our heads, put there by generations of souls before us, by skewed education systems and archaic religions.

We can empower ourselves and let go of those old patterns. There is no point waging a war against old things, they are what brought us here but we can choose to let them go and move forward into a new paradigm of thinking and being. It doesn’t take much. Just a little adjustment here and there.

1.  Breathe – Calm your body and mind down with the most effective stress management tool you have. Your breath is directly linked to your autonomic nervous system and when you consciously step in to slow it down, your body begins to relax and your heart beat is reduced which will send calming signals to your brain. A ton of information flows from the heart to the brain all based upon your rate and depth of breath.
2. Be present – Use your senses to feel your current reality, smell the air, look at the shapes of things, the colour, the textures, listen to the sounds around you, feel the wind, the floor, the temperature. But more, be present with your emotions and thoughts. Don’t try and fix or push your emotions away. Just sense them in the body and breath into where any tension lies.
3. Sit – Learn to sit and watch. Watch your breath. Watch your thoughts. Watch life come and go. Watch how nature just flows. Watch yourself and how you are connected to everything. Allow yourself to just be, no distractions, no media, no activity, no television. 
4. Let go – Let go of judgement, especially of yourself. Let go of the need to fix everything. Let go of the worry about tomorrow. Let go of the pain of the past. Let go of the anger. Let go of the need to do something with your emotions. Let go of blame. Let go of criticism. Let go of ideas of lack. Relax. Breathing helps with this.
   
5. Meditate – Find the silence often. Especially when you catch yourself judging, criticising, or focusing on shit that pisses you off. Use all of the above to help find that silence in between thoughts. Don’t try and stop thinking, just start breathing, being present, sitting, watching and letting go. 
6. Appreciate – Look at what works in your life. Find joy in the moments you have, in the blessings and support that surround you. Find things in your life to feel good about. Friends, family, sunshine, drinking water, children, lovers, material blessings. All are things to appreciate. Even if it is just one thing, search for it, hold it close.
7. Fan the Flames – Make good feelings bigger. When you feel great, take note, explore it. Notice your thoughts. Remember it. Revel in those good feelings. Just because the world is full of things that are unpleasant it is not a good enough reason to not find things that feel great in this world. There is far more good than bad anyway. That doesn’t mean we should ignore problems, but rather, it means we begin to frame things differently and bring a different energy to problems so that we become solution orientated, able to find the gift in each moment.
8. Imagine – Use your greatest gift. Imagine solutions. Imagine well-being. Allow yourself to play again and imagine what you want in your life. Feel the changes in how you feel. Imagine your dreams come true. Imagine the person you would be when your dreams are alive. Imagine your joy, imagine your peace, your creativity, your light, your wealth, your health. Imagine what you would give and do for others. 
9. Trust – Your desires lead you directly to your purpose. Trust your heart. Trust that you are worthy. Trust that you are loved by so much more than you know or can see. Trust that well-being flows to everything. Trust that nature thrives and wants you to thrive. Trust that you are a powerful creator and your thoughts become your perceptions and beliefs and create your life. Trust in the power of your heart and what it truly loves - that spine-tingling, unity creating, present moment, deep breath flowing passion. Trust that when you feel it. 
10. Act – Sometimes you have to start in order to kick-start the flow of passion. Take baby-steps toward your dream or desire. If you don’t know what your dreams, passions or desires are, then act as if you do. Move toward clarity. Find a way to start acting as if the answers are there. Do what you need to in order to move one step closer to your visions, abundance and dreams, however humble or small the step is. Show up every day. 
11. Have fun – Most importantly, life is not a big serious thing. It is for loving and playing. Forget about the whole growing up thing. You are allowed to play. You are allowed to have fun. You are allowed to express love as loudly and as raucously as you want. Play, love, and have fun, even if for just one moment!

Experiment with this, see where it leads. See if you begin to feel better, more connected, more abundant with health, energy, life, ideas, love and wealth.

Love, love, love...

Matt Rivers

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Create February Fabulous! is an idea or challenge to try and show up with your own creativity every day for the month of February. It is a simple idea. The creativity can take any form, and take any amount of time. Any media, any discipline, the only condition is to have fun. No critics, no judgement, just a celebration of our own unique human quality of creativity. You are encouraged to share your projects anywhere you like (only if you want) using the hashtag #createfebruary. Join the Facebook group, share on Instagram, blog about it, invite friends to some daily creativity. Let's see what we can create together. 

Matt is a singer/songwriter, musician, poet and writer of words. He is exploring the forests of consciousness, time and space, and surfing the waves of thought, love and being. Getting lost and wiping out are adventures in themselves!

My Definition Is This...

There is a process by which we collapse the infinite field of potential  into manifest, temporary 'realities' that we call the physical plane. This is the realm of the tangible, touchable, observable Universe. Yet in our attachment to the seemingly solid, created reality, we sometimes crystallize the illusion until such a point that we forget it is merely an illusion. Nothing is solid. Everything changes. We are the interpreters and creators of our individual realities and each of us is contributing to the collective experience of the whole.

We are constantly defining our reality, distinguishing between one form of energy and another through the use of labels, perceptions, ideas and beliefs. Through this definition, we get to experience different states of being, different places, people, hopes and dreams.

As humans, we seem to have developed a habit of holding on. We hold onto names. We hold onto labels. We hold onto definitions. We hold onto memories. We hold onto habits - good and bad. We hold onto to fears. We hold onto to other people's truths and opinions and in doing so, we begin to limit the scope of our own perceptions and abilities to experience unlimited magic and joy. Perhaps it is our fear of the unknown or perhaps we are just not yet aware of our power in defining and creating our own lives - relying on the limited information we have been fed from well-meaning parents, mass-media and educational systems that do not serve the expansion of the human spirit... yet.

We live in a field of pure potential. For every single moment of 'now' that we live, the next moment holds an infinite amount of scope for us. The future is unwritten. Anything could happen! We can experience the same thing a thousand times and each time it is different. Take sex for example... each time the air you breath is different. Each time the situation is different, the moment is different, the date, the hour... Each time the body you touch is different. New cells, new skin, new person perhaps! You are new, in each moment, you have never been there before. You have never kissed in that particular way. You think you have but it is subtly different than the last time. No two things in the Universe are the same yet we all arise from the same infinite field of potential.

The Universe that surrounds us, our immediate 'reality' has a tendency to respond to our expectations. It responds according to our definitions, perceptions and beliefs. We hear what we want to hear. We see what we expect to see. We read what we want to read, filtering out information that doesn't fit into our paradigm and taking on board information that does. A song or an idea that we have just heard starts popping up on the radio, on the TV, on our Facebook feed or an overheard conversation after never having heard it before. A person you just thought about rings you. A close friend blurts out exactly the same sentence as you at the same time. How much longer shall we call these coincidences?

Our Universe is matching us. It is reflecting us. It is reflecting our limitations. It is reflecting our fears. It reflects our insecurities and apathy. It also reflects our joy, our hopes and our dreams. Nature seems set to flower, blossom and promote life yet we seem focused on entropy and struggle - the fight for survival. Our beautiful bodies are naturally predisposed to heal and most of us think that our bodies stop at our skin. What if our whole perception is our body? What if our body extends into life itself, our mind, our thoughts, our emotions - all that we touch, all that we experience... Then surely, our body is trying to heal our perceptions too.

If bad things keep happening to us, then maybe our definitions of life have become too limited. Maybe we are holding onto a belief, pattern or behaviour that needs to be accepted and dissolved so that we can move onto more affirming, unlimited thoughts. Maybe the things that happen to us are related to the definitions we hold about life and ourselves. Maybe it is time to start transforming those hidden definitions - 'I am not worthy, I am not good enough, I am always unlucky, I am lonely'. These are powerful statements of being. They are powerful definitions but remember, life is unlimited. Anything can happen. We can just as easily hold other core beliefs instead such as 'I am unlimited, I am amazing, I am confident, I am joyful, I am loved'.

Yes, reality seems solid. It seems sometimes that there is no way out and that things are serious. These too are definitions. They are choices of perception. Sometimes it takes courage to begin to start looking towards the sun instead of always looking into the shadows. Sometimes it takes courage to look within and accept yourself. Sometimes, it takes courage to let go of what you know and try something different. The Universe is a wonderful place though. It is full of love and will support your direction... which ever way you turn.

Change what you can see and what you can see will change!

R.I.P.

Death is a strange old thing. We love to not talk about it yet we glorify it in movies. We make it acceptable in video games and invent a million ways to portray it on screen. A violent death is more acceptable to watch than a steamy bedroom romance. One scene creates life and one ends it but in their own ways, both subjects have become taboo over the course of history when, at various points they were celebrated, revered and respected. Why do our entrances and exits into life cause the modern human such pains to consider and talk about freely and openly? I think a healthy dose of frank exploration into our endings is in order, without morbidity, doom and gloom.

Death came to my family early in my childhood. My grandfather died when I was just 15. This impacted my life quite heavily as he was my surrogate father and the rock of maleness that I depended upon. I was the son he had never had. It was a special relationship. Having such an experience at such a young age got me thinking very early on about death and what it meant.

At first of course, there was denial, guilt, pain, grief and a very large dose of abandonment. Being just a teenager, I masked those feelings with drugs, sex, alcohol and music. It took me a long time to begin to talk about it - 2 years in fact. Before I had moved much further in my life, a few other family members decided their time was up and off they toddled. Perhaps the greatest shock to my system was during University when 3 friends died in three successive years.

After all this time, I have come to some conclusions. Some are based on direct experience and some are based on the experiences of others. Some are based on the intuitions of my heart and the things I have read. Some are based on my meditations, and some based on my study of yoga. You may find these ideas soothing, cathartic and full of hope. On the other hand, you may think I am a crackpot - good luck to you either way. Test any idea in your heart for validity. If it appeals and feels good, then take it on board for as long as you need to. If it does not resonate and feels bizarre, then you can let it go. We never need to hold onto things. I have let go of things I held to years ago because they no longer applied. Such is the way of consciousness. Be brave...

The human spirit is unlimited and has a soul. Actually, more accurately, it is the other way round. The soul is a grand being that manifests a human body in order to have experiences in material reality. The soul is pure consciousness and exists in a greater amount of dimensional reality than that which our current perception experiences. We are far bigger than 4D time and space. 

We are interconnected to all things through our soul. Our soul is part of a grand field of pure potential and love. This field is everywhere, connected to all time and space. There is only one moment. Within this field, we are 'born' and 'die' in countless lifetimes in order to experience the joy and bliss of living. Some call this process reincarnation yet it is more than the limited ideas we might have. We create our lives, awake or not, in order to express and remember our true nature. Our soul is dancing within a grand playground and when we die, we return fully to this multidimensional field that we never actually left. From this field arises an unlimited amount of phenomena, realities, galaxies, and laws of physics, defined and undefined, imagined and unimagined. Anything is possible!

Our soul exists in many dimensions - our lives contribute to the expansion and experience of the Universe. Each of us matters. Each of our lives matter. Every thought, word, experience and action matters and we are loved because we are love and we come from love. Love and bliss is the core of our being. Our soul loves our bodies and lives, our hopes and dreams, our pasts, futures and presents.

We choose our parents and the conditions of our birth and death before we incarnate into our human bodies. Our soul has an overview of our life from the unique vantage point it has and knows what kind of experience it wants next. It has desires just as we do and those desires are the life force which drive the Universe.  In fact, our desires in each lifetime are simply an extension of our soul's desires for we are inseparable. When we begin to listen to our heart's yearnings, we are acknowledging our soul's voice. What you love most is what you are here to be...

Our bodies and egos are the vehicle through which the soul drives in material reality. It is a rush and a ride. When we decide to incarnate, we agree to forget the true nature of who we are so that we may experience time and space. We are locked into an illusion of limitation and duality yet we are unlimited and can create our lives. We begin creating from the very moment we are born and have the ability to draw our natural qualities of love, gratitude, abundance, peace, unity  and compassion through us using such tools as attention and meditation.

When the soul incarnates into the body, it forgets that it is connected to all things. We begin to think we are individual when we are really just individuated clouds of energy within a grand sea of energy. We are connected by our breath, by our bodies, by our electromagnetic heart fields, by our atoms, molecules, the Earth, the stars! We are connected to the infinite field where all souls reside, where past and present lifetimes collide and all wisdom is held. We can access this field of wisdom and love at all times. No one is lost. No one is left out.

We can begin to remember who we are in our lives, honouring our soul voice, living with love, enjoying each moment and trusting that the field of pure potential will provide for us because it responds to our thoughts. Our emotions tell us where we are in relation to our soul voice and help to guide us back to our centre. We can begin to remember our unity and connection to the field. To all things. To each other. We can begin to remember that love, bliss and happiness is our true nature and resides within us. We can contact those who have gone before. Souls simply step in and out of material reality. Death is just an illusion.

In our current paradigm, we seem to often forget who we are, living in an illusion created by others, told to believe truths that do not resonate or apply to us. We give away our power, follow directions we do not like, hold onto emotions that feel terrible and edit ourselves into acceptable but diminutive versions of our true self in order to be approved by a society that has forgotten it's own unlimited potential. This hurts. The longer we keep ourselves in the darkness, the more unbearable it gets. We stay in downward spirals, negative loops and addictions and all the while the reality of life lies just on the other side of our hearts. Life seems hopeless, empty and pointless. We suffer and punish ourselves or others - not knowing that we had the power to shift ourselves.

Sometimes the pain becomes too much. Sometimes the pressure of holding onto the past or future becomes too much. Sometimes the focus of forgetting who we are is so unbearable we come to a point of choosing. The soul chooses - we choose. We let go and return to the field of love.

I like to think that R.I.P. means Release Internal Pressure as our soul explodes outwards from the limits and pressures of being in an illusory state of duality back into pure consciousness and bliss. There is nothing wrong with this. It is the default setting of love. The soul decides the ride is finished and we return home. Life is a journey. Death is just a transition. Sometimes we 'die' because the journey became unbearable and sometimes we die because we have stopped summoning forth life force. Sometimes there is no more desire for life and sometimes the answers to the questions we seek lie beyond the veil.

Yet R.I.P. is a state we can achieve without dying. We have the option to explore our emotions - to own them rather than to lay blame at others feet for our states and tantrums. We can choose to embrace our darkness rather than hide it. We can choose to begin focusing on things we love and things that work in our immediate reality. We can choose to begin to listen to our soul's voice and start doing something we really want to do. We can choose to forgive others. We can choose to play instead of be serious. We can choose to praise and compliment instead of judge and criticise. We can choose to look on the bright side. We can choose to let the laughter out...

We are safe. Our soul and our consciousness goes on forever. Who we are now will remain forever in the grand memory of our soul and the Universe. No one we have ever loved is lost. They are here, within the infinite field, loving and supporting us, talking to us in the wind, the words of a song, the call of a bird and the play of light on the water. Dare to dream and laugh at death!

Release Internal Pressure!

You Can Go Your Own Way!

'Just be yourself'. How many of us heard that when we were growing up? Yet this tiny sentence reveals layers of metaphysical mystery as well as seemingly being at odds with the rest of the programming many of us absorbed as children and adults. I never really knew what it meant as a child and only recently have I begun to discover its true meaning. I wonder... How many of us are living the life of our dreams? How many of us are truly doing what we want to do, expressing ourselves in the way we want to, relishing life, feeling free, relaxed and healthy, blossoming and thriving?

There is a word that crops up in Indian philosophy - Dharma. Amongst its many layers of meanings and interpretations, it points to the idea of things being in their natural state. It refers to cosmic law and order, nature flourishing and supporting well-being. Applied to human consciousness, it can mean learning how to live in harmony with yourself, others and the Universe. Learning to discover ways to uncover your true self, your innate talents and how best to share them. 'Just be yourself' takes on a whole new meaning when we consider Dharma.

In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra says that the Law of Dharma brings together all the other laws. It gives us a reason to be alive. It helps us act with love and authenticity. It inspires us to move into the life of our dreams, full of motivation and inspiration, conscious of our actions, dancing through life with the minimum of effort, just as nature and the Universe intended.

I have just quit my job teaching yoga in Cyprus because it doesn't set my heart on fire. I love the job, but it is nothing compared to the feeling I get when I am writing or singing. I have often found myself doing jobs because I thought I had to. Working to pay rent, to buy food, to fulfill the voice of duty and obligation in my head. I never trusted my instincts when it came to my own desires. I always seemed to listen to another voice that said 'do something constructive, get a proper job, money doesn't grow on trees, don't be selfish'. We have an entire litany of limiting beliefs running through our heads that prevent us from acting upon our own desires. It has taken me years to learn to listen to myself and my heart. I now believe that true happiness and fulfillment comes when we discover our dharma and then act upon it.

In every day reality, it implies that whatever we find ourselves doing, whether it is a job that fails to set our hearts on fire, perhaps a relationship or a situation that seems stagnant, we have the choice to begin to acknowledge how we feel. Allowing ourselves the space to breathe. Taking at least five minutes for ourselves everyday. Maybe it is five minutes of meditation, maybe five minutes of exploring our desires and dreams. When we take a little time out and take responsibility for our feelings we can begin to transform them. We can clarify how we want to feel. We can work out which direction we want to go. Once we know that, we can begin walking the walk instead of talking the talk.

I am not suggesting that everyone quit their jobs, relationships and life immediately and tune in and drop out! I am suggesting that it is possible, from where we are standing, in the midst of our lives, to begin turning in the direction we want to go. If you dream of writing, make some time everyday and begin writing. 5-10 minutes is easy. Allow yourself to play. The same goes for art, music, sport, walking, sightseeing, adventure - whatever you want! If you want an adventurous life but cannot seem to work out how... just begin having mini adventures - now. Any step in the direction of your dreams will start you on the road. Of course, if you are thriving, full of joy, satisfied and happy then it can be said that you are already living your dharma - just keep going!

'Follow your bliss' is a much quoted phrase attributed to Joseph Campbell, an American writer and mystic. It holds the essence of Dharma within it and alludes to 'Just being yourself'. Our dreams are what make us unique and that brings magic and variety to the world. 

Nature loves to flourish and we sometimes forget that we too are nature. We hold ourselves back and allow others to make decisions for us, in politics, employment, love and education. Yet the Universe seems to support us when we let go of our limits and follow our bliss... 

Dharma is a natural law, one of harmony and balance, nature working through us and us working within nature. We are amazing and our dreams matter. They add to the diversity of the world. May we realise our true selves and our innate talents and have the courage to explore them and share them with others.

Love,

Matt

A Plan For All Seasons - Summer

Summer has come! Arriving with a burst of flame and a flash of colour. Green grass beckons and the beach pulses with promise. The cool blue sea is lapping contentedly against the shore line as we bask in sunshine that seems to last forever, sending us into dreamy wonderment. Ah me!

It has taken me almost three years to write the next episode in this series. It all started in 2011 with an adventurous year breaking free of the bonds that had kept me tied to a damp, dark basement flat in Brighton. I had spent a year and a half lost, recovering from a broken heart. I had been desperately trying to apply the principles of the Universe onto my life, in a vain hope to create an experience full of joy and adventure, convinced (as I have been since I was little) that there must be something more. There must be something deeper and bigger that we are all missing...

After that summer I wrote about my adventures in A Plan for All Seasons -Spring. I hoped to complete the series by the end of the year but it never seemed the right time to comment. I wanted to reflect on the new insights I was having. I wanted to put together a series that grew with me. I wanted to open myself up to the flow of creativity that I had alluded to. Three years down the line - I realise that I have remained in that long spring of awakening for a lot longer than a season. My journey thus far, whilst extensive, has been an extended version of the same theme. Summer for me is only just dawning and that is just fine.

I have criss-crossed the world over the last few years, working and volunteering my way around India, Thailand, Vietnam, France, Spain, Greece and Poland. I travel with my partner, lover and fellow soul adventurer Paulina. Somehow, the way has always opened up for us... eventually. Just when we think we are going to run out of money or get stuck, an answer appears. Sometimes straight out of the blue.

The defining factor in our adventures has been an idea that I realised in the spring of 2011 - there is nothing that says I have to stay in any one place... I am free. With this in our hearts, we unplugged ourselves from the idea that we have to have a house and a steady job and security. We put our faith in answers appearing when we need them (which can be daunting), and ploughed forward into the world. We have found jobs all over the place - the occasional job on Gumtree, volunteering on WorkAway, and rigorous Internet searches. When we managed let go of our fear and stopped worrying, the next adventure appeared quickly and when we held tight to worry and stress, finding jobs was hard.

Of course, the last three years have not been without their challenges. As spring turned into eternal summer, there were the inevitable weeds to pull out of my garden. I discovered - at first to my horror - that even though I was beginning to harness the power of intention and attraction, there was much work to be done in dissolving limiting beliefs. BIG core beliefs such as 'I am not worthy', 'I am not good enough', 'I am ugly', and 'It is your fault!' all jostled for space in my head whilst I had to chase them and consider whether I really needed them in there. They are sneaky buggers too! Often hiding behind protective behaviors and beliefs.

When adventuring into consciousness and considering our unlimited potential as humans, we have to also consider the limiting illusions we have set up around us. We can often settle in comfort and mediocrity because we are scared of the unknown or are unaware of our own creative power in our lives. As my friend Jamie Catto illustrated in his workshop 'Transforming Shadows', we have a choice to embrace our dark side, become self-referring and dissolve the old emotions that seem to hold us in a reactionary state. We can choose to stop barking at the world around us and find out why we were barking in the first place! Woof! If you ever want to explore your dark side and begin to embrace your whole self, I thoroughly recommend his workshops.

So what has changed for me that may add a spot of light to the great human experience - or at least to mine...? To be brief - some letting go, some embracing, some ah ha moments and some new habits. I let go of some arguments, I embraced some of my dark sides (there are many), I realised that I am full of power and potential and the next moment is unwritten... And the biggest thing of all, I have begun looking into this present moment and searching for my joy instead of judging it. This is by no means easy - sometimes my angry pitbull surfaces, barking like mad, frothing at the mouth. So I try and breathe. I sooth myself. Every day is a practice. What is beautiful now? What can I thank myself for? How can I smile into my body a bit more? Who can I say something nice to and mean it?

My summer is gently unfolding and instead of trying to force the Universe to twist to my desperate needs I am relaxing into the present and working on my emotional health, moment to moment. Then, when I achieve that subtle moment of joy, somehow everything seems a bit brighter, and, as if by magic, an answer appears or a door opens. Sometimes, the door just leads to a room full of relief from the last moment and sometimes it leads to pastures new.

All I think I know is that each of us is totally full of unlimited potential and love. The more we relax and breathe and work on making each moment as good as we can, with the tools that we have, then the closer to joy we will get. The road seems long but our heart is right there, in the middle of our chests. Give it a rub and say hello!

I wish you all the best in whatever you do and whatever path you walk.

Matthew

Never Give Up...

I made a decision to sit and write on my birthday sometime last night. There was a familiar stirring within me, a call for expression, for illumination and for acknowledgement. I needed to mark this birthday somehow because for me it feels significant. Some birthdays come and go, gently breathed into and released again as we sail through the oceans of our lives, weathering the storms and calm waters of our unique moments. Some appear lost in sadness and time, sunk beneath the weight of events that constitute human experience. Some birthdays are planned in advance and embraced in an oncoming torrent of celebration and alcohol. To be frank, that was the kind I was expecting, having had so much experience with that craziness. I am surprised and refreshed by what today is offering me though.

Today feels though my ship has come home. It feels as though I have returned to port after a lifetime of ocean sailing, of storms and freak waves, squalls and ocean deserts. 36 years after the event - the launch of my magnificent yacht - I feel as if I have completed a journey of epic proportions. 4 cycles of 9 have been navigated. For me 9 is significant. My birth date adds up to 9 today and did when I was born. My age adds up to 9 today and 9 is my numerological life path number. In truth it only serves as a marker point really and yet, somehow feels like a home-coming.

Looking back on my journey so far, it could appear that I have suffered my fair share of set-backs, heart aches, mind-numbing griefs, unprocessed emotions, broken families, dysfunctional relationships, and relative levels of poverty but that is directly proportional to the amount of adventures I have had, the amount of love and support my family have given me, even when I couldn't or refused to see it, the pathways that have led me to the most conscious and beautiful relationship I have ever been in, the countries I have visited, the amazing network of friends I have, the beautiful people that I have met through my life and the sheer amount of wisdom, love and support I have received on a thousand levels, from a thousand sources.

You see, those storms have shaped my soul and are now providing great compost for my new ideas and dreams. I was Prospero in my own Tempest and I wouldn't change any of it for the world because it is all me. I have not one single regret in my life because I know that all of it was me and I wouldn't be here now, in this moment without it. Regardless of how I feel right now, I can only ever be in one place, in this moment and that is the only place I am ever going to be. There is not a heaven or bright place over the horizon, next week, next year, where everything is peachy. Everything can and at least for me, is peachy right now because I have chosen to embrace all that I am and everything that has ever happened to me.

So, on this morning in the wild olive groves and pine forests of my mountain hideaway, amid the bird song and mountain goats, I celebrate and embrace myself for the completion of another cycle. For all that I am, was and will be. I celebrate the contrast of life for without it we would not want to or be able to move forward.

More so... I write with passion, love, inspiration and hope in my heart that my words may touch and inspire someone to stand up and embrace all that they are as well. The good, the bad and the ugly for it is all relative and is all a part of who we are. I hope that we, as humans may claim all parts of ourselves as beautiful because we are magnificent, creative, gorgeous creatures, whatever form we come in.

As I embark upon a new cycle, I wish you all well and wish you the love and joy that hides in your heart.

An Ode to Our Dreams

A wise sage called Lao Tzu once said that 'A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step.' Lao Tzu may or may not have been a mythical figure but his quote, which is sometimes attributed to Confucius, stands the test of time. In the 1500 years since these great sages lived, and endless time before and after, nothing can be faulted within this deep observation. In fact, taken more than literally, it is a marker point of thought to be ruminated and acted upon.

Often we may stand in the face of procrastination, unwilling to move backwards or forwards, caught adrift on a tide of inaction leading us into the doldrums of mediocrity. Yet, when faced with insurmountable odds, bad habits and fears, we can take in this ancient wisdom, sit with it and meditate for a few minutes, allowing its simplistic message to permeate through the thick elephant skin of our inaction.

In the weeks that have passed since I wrote about procrastination I have embarked upon a new form of creative endeavour. One that to me, reflects the very quote that has me inspired to write. Gone is the mind-numbing thought of the mountains I must climb... the unwritten book, the album's worth of songs, the masterpiece painting... the showstopping performance on Broadway! Gone is the confusion and fear of how I am ever going to achieve these goals and the opinions of others. In its place is a much more soothing rhythm that has me hungering for more, waking up eager to write, take photos, practice guitar and explore this amazing Universe we live in.


Source: Hubblesite.org

I have let go of the destination and the distance... the thousand miles ahead no longer matters. I know where I want to go but what is important now is taking the first step. So I have begun taking those single steps. Small ones, baby steps... steps that are possible, steps that do not stretch me too much but leave me wanting enough to get up the next day and have another go.

You see, true to the form of old wise sage dudes, the journey can be taken metaphysically within the mind, emotionally with the spirit or quite literally in the realm of the relative. But best is when we combine the power of the mind with the visceral reality of the body and the eager passions of the heart. This is true balance.

There are so many steps each of us can take toward our dreams. Such little things. Small positive steps in the direction we want to go. It seems quite simple when you pull it all apart. Open and trust your heart. It knows what you love and will show you the way. It points through good feelings in the direction of your dreams. Then, focus the mind in the direction you want to go, focus on the dream you want to express, achieve, create or be. Imagine it, play with it, pretend to be it. Finally, take a step... not a big scary impossible step... (that will draw you back to inaction) but a small, achievable step. You want to travel - buy a travel book. You want to sing professionally - take a singing lesson. Go even smaller... you want to speak Spanish - look on the internet for Spanish courses. You want a yoga fit body but are too scared to go to a full yoga class - do 5 minutes stretching at home. Take the step that you can take. The one that feels comfortable and easy to take. Let go of the doubt and make a small exploration of yourself. What could I do now that moves me one step toward my dreams? Then make sure you turn up and take it. And then the next... and the next... and the next...

Me, I want to express myself more fully as a musician and writer, perhaps explore acting again as I did when I was younger, travel more, have more fun, have more money. I finally got round to buying a book on song-writing by Pat Pattison that I had been procrastinating about buying for months! It was £9 on Amazon Kindle. Cheap to buy. What an easy step. Next step... read it! This is what got me started on those baby steps. The author said just write for a few minutes a day. So that is what I do. I sit in the morning and write for 15 minutes. Then I get up and walk away. I stop the timer. I stop mid-sentence. My writing is directed and focused and when I am done, half finished, I feel as if I have not said enough and I want more. So I come back the next day eager. No big moves. No impossible tasks. For the moment I am keeping those baby steps.

It is rather like training for a marathon. So many of us pin up our dreams to the board and expect to run 26 miles in an instant and when don't reach the finish line we give up. We shelve our dreams calling them hopeless. But they are not... they are the stuff of our hearts and our passions. We must hold onto them dearly for they give us life. They give us a reason to get out of bed. Be proud of your dreams and fight for them. Not with battles against others or yourself, trying to justify whether your worthy or not, but fight for them with a calm peacefulness within, taking baby steps, doing what you can. Fight your fears with a minute of meditation on your heart. Be silent and enjoy yourself. Take your baby steps... 5 minutes a day is better than no minutes a day and a damn sight more productive than trying to run the whole distance in one go.

I think every achievement is a combination of steps, a jigsaw puzzle, slowly fitted together, piece by piece. The joy is in the doing of the thing, moment to moment. That is why sportspeople keep on playing tournaments after they have won once. For it is not the destination but the journey that counts. The steps you take are far more important than the end result.

One last thing... it seems that when we get lost in the passion rather the worry, when we embrace the steps rather than result (or lack thereof), when we open our hearts to the moment rather than the unmanifest future... that is when the magic really begins. Perhaps this is summed up best in a quote that I have often written at the front of numerous notebooks. It is from The Scottish Himalaya Expedition by a mountaineer called W.H.Murray.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Procrast The Nation

A sheepish feeling runs through my body as I begin to type these words. I feel as if I have long been away, avoiding something that once started, quickly takes me over like a fever. I wonder why I spent so long away from this writing expression. I wonder who I let down after my protracted absence. Startled, I realise that the only person whose time I wasted was my own. The only person feeling sheepish happens to be the one who is writing.

The online Oxford Dictionary defines procrastination as 'the action of delaying or postponing something' and I have felt that feeling on and off for most of my life in various regards. Yet I wonder, who has not had this feeling from time to time and where does it come from? Procrastination seems to be a collective and individual response to a certain set of parameters that differ from our current state of being. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction, sometimes a habitual predilection, born of some hidden motive. Most often, procrastination is associated with laziness and an unwillingness to begin or complete a task. We find all manner of useless things to get on with before embarking, if ever, on the actual job at hand. Cleaning, watching TV, tidying up files, ruminating, staring into space, drinking beer, fiddling with belly buttons. I think I have tried them all and declared myself an expert in most forms of distraction.

Yet, in my travels, I believe it to run deeper than simple laziness. The call to action challenges us to step out of our comfort zone. It beckons us to move into a different frequency of energy. It requires us to make a subtle and sometimes major shift not only in our physicality but in our mental state as well. Often our emotions get involved, heart pumping fast, seeking a way out, some kind of fear or lack of motivation taking hold.

For myself, I have long sought creative expression. I have written poems, songs and essays and for long periods of time I have avoided writing poems, songs and essays. Even this blog, meant to be a documentary and showcase of my travels in inner and outer space has often been put on hold. Not through any lack of wanting I might add. I have been frustrated, depressed and anguished, blocking my art and flow. Finding rhyme and reason for all my excuses. I have embarked on courses to release my creative voice... To banish my artists block! In looking at the blocks, I am sure I created the blocks. In creating blocks, albeit unconsciously, I came up with the techniques to fill my time whilst I avoided my work. Up until only just a few days ago, did I fail to realise that the best way to break the pattern of procrastination is to take a deep breath and jump right in. You see, I was procrastinating about everything; making friends, making plans, practicing yoga, writing songs, booking gigs, playing gigs, practicing guitar, finding jobs and ultimately... feeling good. How do we even procrastinate our way out of feeling good!?

It is not all bad though. Through all this non-action there have of course been moments of pure clarity and purpose. There have been moments of daylight. Moments of pure creation. Moments of frenetic activity. The procrastination has helped me to grow. It has fanned the flames of my inner yearning to do more and be more. In fact, this blog is a reflection of the journey out of procrastination more than the journey into it. It is a call to hope. A herald of free movement, excitement and joy beyond the desert of distraction that so many of us find ourselves in. It is indeed, a proffered hand, offering compassion and understanding, declaring that we are not in fact lazy when we procrastinate but perhaps, more accurately, not quite prepared for the coming change in our energy.

Procrastination offers a way out of action. It is a coping mechanism that activates when we are not up to speed with the vibration and energy that is required of us to make that leap from the old to the new. Often we are stuck in the energy of another task. Often we are stuck in the energy of inertia... a paradox you might say. Yet inertia is addictive. The brain creates short cuts for ease of use. Maybe we fear, for some reason or another doing that thing we so want to do or that task we have set for ourselves. Perhaps that fear came from an early age. We might think we are not good enough. Perhaps we got stuck in a pattern of thinking that is opposite to the task. In this then, procrastination is an avoidance of feeling good. At least, it is an avoidance of feeling really good. We feel relief when we procrastinate. Relief at not having to face judgement, criticism or effort expended. But what is this feeling compared to a job well done, a song well sung, or a painting well hung? What are we missing out on? What satisfaction and joy are we sacrificing for a temporary moment of relief in which to goggle at the latest apps available on android before coming up once again to that same moment of terror and indecision... act or procrastinate, act or procrastinate!

I have explored myself quite fully up to this moment in time. I have no doubt that there is an infinite cosmos more of myself which I can explore. Much like looking into space and identifying most of the stars, declaring that you have now explored all that you can see only to realise that if you travel to the furthest star in your known universe, you will observe a whole new set of wonders that you couldn't see from your stump. Well, that's me. On my stump, looking up. In my looking I have begun to see that what I thought I knew is only the beginning of me. 

I have reached the edge of all I can take with procrastination. I have discovered that the best way to handle it is to love yourself and softly whisper in your own ear... 'This is going to be okay. I can do it. I am going to be fine'. Then you take a deep breath, imagine yourself doing whatever it is you were about to avoid, and with a massive smile on your face, leap right in and begin. In the ensuing moments, when the feeling of fear or procrastination is strong, you imagine the completion of the task and the joy you will feel when it is done.

I feel more positive and active now than I ever have done and it is growing day by day. Moving through procrastination gives you power to embark on new ventures. It gives you confidence because really, I think we are moving through fear into a place of action. But more so, I believe we are moving from a place of not being energetically ready into a place of preparing ourselves to accept life. I think, as we face our inertia, and first imagine our way through it, loving ourselves through it, we become more present. We can enter our bodies more fully and come more into harmony with our heart and our true self. 

For me this is the key. Becoming present and taking time to feel good. Beginning a dialogue with my heart, listening to my positive emotions and following the direction that they point to. Focusing on the aspects of my life that feel good right now. Entering the moment and enlivening myself with good vibrations and only then moving into inspired action. I do not force myself to act but I do leap. Once I have worked myself up into a frenzy, the only thing left to do is leap, and there I go! I love myself. I talk with myself. I provide myself with enough love and encouragement needed for the frenzy and ensuing vault into the void. Now when I hit the chilly waters of my mountain pool of action, I find them invigorating instead of unbearable. Bit by bit I have trained myself in baby steps. Sometimes it takes moments. Other times, when the feeling of procrastination is strong, it takes a day or two. But move through I will for I want to be present and I want to embrace life.

There is a greater dream self in all of us, that eager, excited part of us that yearns for greater expression. It yearns to have fun, explore the world, laugh fully and vibrate with joy. If we can begin that small step of breaking through the most mundane of distractive habits, what fantastic adventures could we then take ourselves upon?! What dreams may come...

One of You, One of Us

Sending out love to the courageous, the unique and the sad,
The angry and the weak, the happy and the bad.
Love to the weird, the wonderful, and 'wrong...'
Love to the 'right' although it's just a different song.
There's love for the sorrowful, the sacred and the scared.
Love for the lonely and the ones that live in fear.
Here is to the big, the tall, the shy and very small.
Here is to everyone, there is love for you all.
Here is to your ride, your path, your consciousness and soul
Here is to your everything, inside you shimmer gold.
There is love for our unity, the oneness in our hearts.
The barriers are coming down so here is to the start.
The dawn of you inside yourself, comfortable and free.
Unlimited and full of love, the bit that you call 'me'.
Here is to your confidence and burgeoning success
To be exactly who you are and love 'the way you dress'.
Sending love to the drum you beat and the rhythms that you sing
It's perfect for this song of life,
We love just what you bring.

Matt Rivers, 28th June 2012