Create February Fabulous! - The Music Inside

Day 9

There is something fundamental within a human to want to create. As children we are forever in our imagination, creating at will and we are often coerced out of these habits as we grow up – whether by ourselves or the influence of parents, society or religion. But what happens if that creative urge never left us? What happens if we are all meant to be creators from the moment we are born until the moment we die but somehow we just left it by the wayside. Perhaps it is time to reignite the fires within and let out the creative genius that you are.

“Don’t die with your music still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul. Listen to that inner voice, and don’t get to the end of your life and say, ‘What if my whole life has been wrong?”

– Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Create February Fabulous! was born of an idea I had to produce something creative every day in February. It is my idea of showing up to the page because I have often stuggled with wanting to create and not being able to. It is a way to be accountable and to challenge myself a bit. It is turning into something more than that. An exploration of creativity and a sharing of art with other beautiful creators around the world.

Procrastination, contrary to popular belief, is not laziness. It is fear. It is the ego fearing to let go as we dive deep into something transcendental like drawing or meditation or music. A favourite teacher of mine Jamie Catto helped me to see this. Perhaps many of us let go of arts and creativity because at some point we ‘grew’ up and got side-tracked. Now when we think of art, we either do not have the time, disregard the urge or intuition or suffer in silence, knowing not what ails us.

So how do we free the artist inside? How do we even know if we want to create something? Well, noticing any attraction to colour, music, dance, movement and words is a pretty good sign that there is something resonating inside that would love to create, make or take part in something. Think of how good it feels when you join in a rousing chorus at a celebration with friends, a concert or down the pub. That is pure creative human spirit! If you have the urge to sing, to write a book, to take dance classes, act, or make something, then that is your heart and soul speaking to you. You will feel much better for listening and taking action.

“Every child is an artist until he's told he's not an artist.”

John Lennon

I have heard many people utter the words ‘I wish I could do that but…’ The truth is, you can! The key to it is to just start and to embrace and dissolve those demons and voices that hold you back. And by embrace, I mean give those lost and cranky parts of you some love.

Here are some voices I have had in my head over the years. ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I am not talented enough’, ‘I will never be that good’, ‘I don’t have enough time’, ‘I have other commitments’, ‘I should be doing something else’, ‘I am not rich enough’, ‘there is no money in art’ and ‘what is the point!’. They all seem like valid arguments but the reality of squashing that creative urge or tingle down is not pleasant. It feels horrible. It feels like I am missing out on something. Here’s some suggestions for what to do if you have a hard time starting out.

• Try out something when you have the urge, however small and humble your beginnings. It may be one line of verse, a haiku, a doodle or a dance step. Just try it for five minutes. No more. 
• It is better to try something every day for five minutes in order to build up a habit than not at all. You will begin to create an energy of wanting to do more. 
• Everything you enjoy has been created by someone or something! Creativity is the base code of the entire Universe.
• Keep it simple at first. Simple ideas, simple tools. Just enjoy the moment.
• Look at life in front of you. Use your senses. See the colours and textures. Hear the sounds. Feel the wind and smell the smells. That is where inspiration comes from. 
• Get silly, get inventive. I once worked at a creative retreat where a woman was fascinated by a crack in the concrete. She followed her artistic urge and painted that crack loads of times. She loved it! 
• Try to let go of judgement and your inner critic. Be kind to that voice. Say ‘thank you dear crazy voice but even though you think this is rubbish or stupid, I am going to do it anyway just to see what happens. Don’t worry, all will be well.’ 
• Don’t compare yourself! You are UNIQUE! There is nothing compared to you or to what you will create! 
• Love the process but don’t worry about the result. The more you do, the more the work will develop. 
• Get risky and juicy. Be daring. Write, paint, dance whatever you feel, whatever you want to say, however crazy, dark, edgy or risqué.
• Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to move you, it tends to flow once you get started. 
• Great art doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in small increments, step by step. Day by day. 
• You are allowed to create and dream and imagine. 
• You are allowed to be an artist and create whatever you want to create! 
• If you just got the best idea then go with the flow! That feeling that comes with a great idea is your heart and soul saying yes, yes, yes!
• If you really want to dive deep with any art, have a look at 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron.
• If you really want to learn to draw have a look at 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' by Betty Edwards.
• If you really want to write have a look at 'Writing Down the Bones' by Natalie Goldberg. 

If you have any other great tips for getting into the creative flow, please leave them in the comments below.

Good luck and good creating. Let the music out dear friends!

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! - 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!

Create February Fabulous! - The Darkness: Side One

Day 3

Create February Fabulous! is developing very nicely. Today has been a mix of writing and photography. It is not without its challenges as today's poem will attest to but that is the journey I was hoping to walk.

The little community of creative people around this project is slowly growing and people are contributing to the creativity in beautiful ways. Sewing, felting, poetry, photography, illustrations, baking, growing babies and growing ourselves! We are inherently creative beings and some great conversations are starting to blossom.

The Darkness

When darkness falls and comes for you,

He knocks on doors, it’s creepy true,

He slides through cracks and drips down pipes

And floods the cellar in the dead of night.

The darkness grows inside your mind

You search in vain but nothing find…

You start to tremble, moan and jerk,

The creeping doom is such hard work.

The moon has gone, the sun no more.

Shadows spread across the floor.

He fills your bones with a sense of dread.

You clench your jaw and bang your head.

He’s closer now, you feel his breath,

Cold and fog, it smells like death.

It’s all too much, you start to run,

This life has been too short of fun!

But wait, what’s this? A chink of light?

There’s hope still yet in the dead of night.

Tip-toe you step toward a flame,

A mirror dark reflects your name.

You stand and gaze upon yourself,

Dawn glimmers like an inside wealth.

The night you brought is clear to see

Waiting for you patiently…

Matt Rivers

3^rd February 2016

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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!

The Forty Pilgrims Project - The Rift: Part 2

Day 26 to 40

We are living on the edge. We are poised at the forefront of consciousness, soul adventurers awakening to our true nature yet something feels wrong. Within us we feel a discord. We feel like we are incomplete and disconnected from something we cannot explain. The disconnection we feel is like a tide. It ebbs and flows, coming in waves as we satisfy our hunger through material, emotional and spiritual desires then battle the emptiness from not having our needs met.

There is a rift within us all. A rift born of our own minds. One that must eventually be crossed if we are to feel connected and whole again. A rift born of looking out into our reality searching for answers that can only be found within. All of us will get there. All of us will stand upon the edge at some point, looking into our darkest chasms, wondering how to cross the void.

No master or teacher can make us cross. No one but our selves can make the journey through that cavern of loneliness within. We are always searching for answers and confirmation of who we are. We always seek to fill the void. The mind, in its illusion of separation, seeks to fill its reality with evidence of who it is and what life is about. We justify our emotional storms through what we see, blaming our experience on others as ‘reality’ happens to us – a random chance in a random Universe.

Yet, as with all of nature, there is another way. We can begin to cross the void and understand that in fact, we happen to reality and our experiences can be chosen. We can begin to understand our emotions and make peace with the seemingly endless torrent of painful images, reactions and dramas that beset our lives.

It is entirely possible to rise up and stand tall, deeply rooted in life, accepting all that has gone before whilst riding the winds and seas of time, surfing upon waves of magnificence, welcoming change and challenge and ultimately, feeling connected, joyful and worthy.

Before we can see the possibility of this, we have to deal with where we are and that is where the rift lies. We are often trapped by our minds illusions. We can experience painful emotion, whether from something we observe, someone we encounter, a song on the radio that brings back a memory, or the empty mist of our current existence slowly pulling us down. Most of the time we do one of two things - we blame our outer circumstances, at whatever point in time they occurred thus continuing the pattern or we blame ourselves and try and ‘fix’, ‘heal’, or ‘detox’ the discord within us, searching for that elusive panacea.

Yet in each moment of our lives, whether elevated or depressed, there is a gift. There is an opportunity to move forward, to grow, to shift and become more illumined than we were before. If our experience is a reflection of our consciousness, then each painful moment is giving us an opportunity to embrace lost parts of ourselves. Instead of battling with the outer circumstance, and opening the rift wider, we have a chance to cross it instead.

The answer is not where you think it lies. We do not need to ‘heal’ ourselves. We are already whole. We do not need to blame others because our experience is a part of our own perceptions. Those ‘others’ are in fact helping us to see what bits of us we need to embrace.

The practice is far simpler than we could imagine and is available to everyone all the time. It takes time to perfect because we will keep coming back to ourselves. We will keep surfing waves of experience. We will keep falling off. Just like the ocean, the waves never stop. We can learn to ride them and have fun while we do it. We can feel exhilarated.

Here are some ideas for crossing the void… Begin to notice. Develop your attention and notice when your mind is running away. Begin to notice when you are stuck in an emotional bubble. See if you can stop before you react. Take a breath. Don’t act. Take your attention into your whole body. Take your attention into every cell. Listen to your feet. Listen to your fingers. Watch yourself. Feel the feelings you’re feeling without thinking you have to do anything with them. Try not to fire them out of you into someone else. Try not to 'fix' them or analyse them. Try not to justify them. Just let them flow through you. Listen and breathe. Slow down - this next step can be hard - embrace yourself. Whether in your mind or physically. Embrace that feeling - however tough it is. Thank it for being part of you and your experience. Feel where the feeling is in your body. See if it moves but don’t allow your mind to wander back into familiar territory. Just breathe and relax and be. See what happens. Just see. Just be.

Over the last few months I have experienced a whole lot of rifts. No doubt I will experience a whole lot more. My journey has taken me through countless hours of meditation, yoga and healing and yet I still find myself amid clouds of crazy emotions because we always sit on the peak of duality. I still seek answers that ultimately lie within me.

This series of writings was born of a project that my friend Simon started. He was walking a walk, taking people’s prayers and wishes with him. I looked to him for an answer I had yet to find within myself. I experienced a major rift with the project when I couldn’t find what I was looking for. A few weeks afterwards, I was due to attend an ayahuasca ceremony for the same reasons. I pulled out after an intuition that I was searching for answers outside of myself, praying for something or someone to come and fix me and my life.

Only in the last week, as I walked through the gateway of my own birthday did I realise that all I had to do was breath in and embrace myself. All I had to do was listen to myself without judgement or blame. A lifetime of study, exploring countless facets of consciousness and the pathway was simply there in front of me.

I am learning to listen to my heart. It is the voice that speaks the grandest truth in each of our lives. When we can tune into our own internal voice and listen to the murmurings of our own wisdom, then we begin to make peace with where we are and move toward our dreams.

It has been almost four weeks since Simon completed his pilgrimage across northern Spain. It has been longer since I experienced the rift which disconnected me from the project, yet the project was a resounding success. Simon has plans to go bigger and bolder, walking further, longer and involving more people and more prayers. It is inspirational to watch such grand plans manifest.

 

The answers will come and well-being will flow when we become open and receptive.

Let go of your mind. Let go of 'doing'. Expand the field of your attention. Listen to your body and all your senses.

Just listen. Just breathe. Just be.

And then...

Just see.

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'The Forty Pilgrims Project' series is a blog inspired by a journey. Simon Welsh, poet, writer and new paradigm adventurer was walking the Camino de Santiago - a simple mission to put one foot in front of the other. Carving out a journey over 1000km of trails, roads and pathways, he headed for Santiago, and further yet to Finisterre, the ‘End of the World’. He carried with him 40 prayers, one for each day, one for each pilgrim that was energetically walking with him. He was supported by 12 guides, energetically supporting him from afar. 

This is my journal of his 'Forty Pilgrims Project' - an observation from the outside, as one of his guides and friends. An exploration of my own journey by his side, as we connect in the quantum field.

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!

The Forty Pilgrims Project - The Rift: Part 1

Day 13 to 25

We exist in a seemingly infinite Universe. We live in a constant evolving now that continually creates the very next moment. Each moment is unwritten and reveals untold potential. Anything can happen, nothing is written in stone and surprises and adventure abound. We are at a juncture in time and space where we are beginning to piece together the puzzle of consciousness, quantum physics and material reality.

Daring adventurers are cutting through the mainstream flow of thought to the very edge of human understanding. Scientists, meditators, creators, musicians, inventors, yogis, writers and explorers… people from all walks of life are beginning to wake up to their true nature. People around the world are pushing the boundaries of human understanding further and further. We are walking into the dream. We are beginning to realise that reality is an extension of our thoughts, that we are all connected, that consciousness is not limited to humans alone. We are beginning to see that we are magical beings, extensions of an unlimited universal field of energy that abounds in love, experience and expansion.

Quantum physicists are concluding that matter is mostly space and that reality exists where we focus. There is a leap to be made from observing the behaviour of atoms in a laboratory and observing the grand tapestry of life dancing in front of our eyes. If we can reduce the infinite potential of a wave of possibility down to a seemingly solid particle once we observe it, how then can we make the connection between the thoughts we think and the life we are currently experiencing?

The thoughts we think, the state of our mind and the thrum of our emotional levels are the tools we have in the grand experiment of life. Our thoughts and beliefs create our perceptions and our emotions are a bodily response to all that we think. We feel those emotions in our gut, our heart and all over our bodies. They are indicators of where we are right now. Think different thoughts, get different emotional responses. It goes deeper...

What if our body does not stop at our skin? What if we have an electro-magnetic field that extends outwards into ‘reality’ that interacts with everything we see? What if each living organism has a field and we are all living within the fields of each other, extending from the Sun to the Earth to the Moon and back again. What if everything we see is responding to us based on the thoughts and focus we choose? Just like the scientists in the lab observing electrons, when we are not focused on something, it is not there - existing as all possibilities. When we are focused on it, whether in reality, briefly, or in our imagination, up it pops! A song heard for the first time suddenly plays all day. A person in a crowd keeps popping up all over town. A friend we were just thinking of rings out of the blue.

Let us dive even deeper still. Thoughts create perceptions and vibrations to which all of reality is responding to. Matter is becoming stuff because of how and where we focus. This is complex and wonderful. Reality is literally forming around our beliefs and thoughts and our emotions are letting us know how we feel about these things. They are letting us know if we are in tune with our heart and soul. They are our inner guru - our personal guide to ourselves. We are all beautiful and amazing wonders of the Universe and when we think anything less of ourselves it hurts. Our emotions can tell us when the thoughts we have about ourselves are not true to our hearts knowledge.

As we grow up we gather a whole bunch of thoughts and ideas, beliefs and patterns. We know that some of these ideas and thoughts are great and make us happy. We follow our hearts and discover our passions. We fall in love, play and learn to focus on what makes us sing. We eat the food we like and avoid the food that tastes yucky.

The flip-side is that we also gather thoughts and ideas that do not serve us. Often we gather illusions of thought when we are young. These illusions hurt. They don’t feel good. We have emotional responses to the illusions. Remember, our emotions are trying to heal us and show us the way back to our heart so when we feel ugly or unworthy or useless, our emotions are trying to tell us to move away from these thoughts. They are asking us to listen to ourselves, to allow the flow of the emotion to move through our body and then move on to a better thought pattern.

We get stuck in these patterns but because life moves on. We push them down, glide over them, ignore them and keep a stiff upper lip. We live with a lump in our throat as we swallow our emotions. The patterns of thought that do not serve us get stuck in our bodies. Thoughts have weight. They are electrical impulses and we are electro-magnetic, organic beings made of atoms of Earth that came from stars! These stuck thoughts and related emotions wear us down and get stuck in our sub-conscious, forgotten by our forward focused mind. They get stuck in our muscles and organs and we become slow and stiff from the weight of unprocessed junk. We age and become cranky, thinking we are less than we are as some people excel to greatness, floating on the jasmine of life’s summer breeze.

We try new things or dream of other worlds of experience but can be held back by the limiting beliefs hidden within us. We tell ourselves we are not good enough, that we are unlucky, that life is disappointing or that we are blocked and guess what – life exists where you focus. The underlying belief manifests instead of the forward focused eagerness of our waking mind. When this happens enough, we become dejected, depressed, and tired of life. We think we are helpless. It seems ridiculous to hear that our thoughts create things. Life seems random and unfair. Don’t worry, things can change. Life is awesome and predisposed to wholeness. It is working to heal you even as we speak. There is a way forward and a way to let go of the thoughts that no longer serve you. There is a way to recognise the old patterns and move into a new paradigm of excitement, creativity and joy.

Over the last two weeks I have been stuck in patterns that have been desperate to be healed; patterns that have been underlying most of my thoughts and actions for most of my life. Patterns that are only now being revealed through the Forty Pilgrims Project, in which 53 people have begun to focus on new beginnings, new ideas, new wholeness and new experiences. Imagine all of that power of focus!

We are free to change how we think and where we focus. We can leave the jungles of our mind if we so choose and graze in the pastures of our dreams

Join me in ‘The Rift: Part 2’ as I explore limiting beliefs and how we can make the journey back to our hearts.

Love, love, love...


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'The Forty Pilgrims Project' series is a blog inspired by a journey. Simon Welsh, poet, writer and new paradigm adventurer is walking the Camino de Santiago - a simple mission to put one foot in front of the other. Carving out a journey over 1000km of trails, roads and pathways, he is heading for Santiago, and further yet to Finisterre, the ‘End of the World’. He carries with him 40 prayers, one for each day, one for each pilgrim that is energetically walking with him. He is supported by 12 guides, energetically supporting him from afar. 

This is my journal of his 'Forty Pilgrims Project' - an observation from the outside, as one of his guides and friends. An exploration of my own journey by his side, as we connect in the quantum field.

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!

The Forty Pilgrims Project - Baby Steps

Day 9, 10, 11 and 12

Progress along life’s path is never measured in even beats. Everything has its own rhythm, whether it is the beating of our own hearts, the gentle thrum and crash of waves, or the seasons of our lives. Sometimes we move in voluminous billows of action, like gathering clouds preparing for a hurricane and sometimes we can seem stuck in the mud, barely moving at all. Yet there is rhythm in everything, however fast or slow it may seem. There is a beautiful Japanese word for this natural rhythm present in everything – hyoshi – the sound of a child clapping.

When we can become one with the rhythm of what presents itself to us, then we begin achieving yoga or union within ourselves. Yoga is a state of consciousness we all possess that longs to be revealed. It is a state of oneness with everything around us. It sounds mystical and has many other definitions and interpretations but it is something we have all experienced. Oneness with the moment can be felt in the shower when there is just you and the cascading water. It can be felt when you are having a joyous day of adventure, where everything works, everything fits into place and you seem to be ‘on fire’! Yoga is the state of creativity when you are dancing, writing, drawing or singing and reality seems to disappear, leaving you in a state of flow. Your senses are heightened and your consciousness streams like the wind through the trees. Yoga is the potential within you longing to meet you in the present. Yoga is an inner peace that arises within you when you are fully immersed – running, stretching, breathing, praying, cooking, eating, loving…

Simon is practicing some beautiful walking yoga. He is connected to his pilgrims and guides, supported from near and far. The last time I wrote, I left him at Liendo after eight days of rambling. He had notched up 222km by then. What a lovely number! Four days have passed. Four slow days for me. Four walking pace days for him I am sure! As to his whereabouts at the moment, I am not entirely sure. He is a few days behind on his album updates on Facebook from whence I glean my knowledge. Most likely he has probably walked another 100km or so, through hill and dale, beach, wood and mountain.

The last four days have been slow for me – I have not walked so far. I have been listening to the hyoshi of my moments and have been seeking that state of yoga within. I know that sounds a little poncy but it has a very practical significance.

I cannot go any further without revealing a little of my intentions when I joined ‘The Forty Pilgrims Project’. As I have previously mentioned, this is a co-creative adventure connecting 53 people with a series of powerful quantum experiments. We are collectively healing, transmuting and manifesting a whole bunch of dreams, intentions, ideas and plans as Simon leads the way on his camino, physically taking steps, reading personal prayers he wrote, and connecting to the guides.

I spoke to him before he left. We discussed what I could offer him and the group as a guide. We discussed reiki, certain shamanic attunements, the violet flame and ideas such as focus and strength. He requested that I reveal an intention I would like to manifest over the next year. My intention is to rediscover my motivation to create more works of art – in writing, music and song. I have been struggling for years with confidence and various patterns that have prevented me from experiencing my full potential in this area of my life. Many other areas of my life are really quite fantastic and I would count myself as incredibly blessed to have created and manifested a wonderful experience for myself.

The thing is, Simon said it something like this, ‘You seem to have found your way into heaven but left a little bit of your soul outside the door’. He had hit the nail on the head. My deepest wish is to always be singing, writing and creating. It matters more than anything to me except I had forgotten. The gradual build-up of blocks and patterns I had in my head that stopped me being the artist I dreamed of became so big I had become numb to the beauty, genius and potential of myself. Take note, we all have these qualities. It can just take some work to realise it.

The night after I last wrote in this blog, I went up to the retreat to say goodbye to the last group. Somehow someone found out I was a singer and after a good hour of wrangling, I was eventually inspired to sing them some songs. We had a ball. There was so much joy that night. Everyone was singing along, I bowed to the hyoshi - the rhythm of that moment and found myself in yoga. Time and space faded away and there was just the connection to the guitar, my voice and the beautiful people around me. I basked in a feeling of joy for the next two days, remembering just what it feels like to be immersed in the thing you love the most.

Since then, the last four days have been a series of baby steps. That is all we can do in the moment as we are moving toward our dreams. A little practice here. An inspiring magazine clipping of a band stuck on the wall there. A little day-dreaming about songs exploding out of my head. A little focusing on my current blessings. A little poem. A bit more feeling good. Each action drawing in new ideas and energy.

Do what you can in the moment it presents itself. However small the action may seem – do it. Find your dream. Focus on it. Feel good about it. Whatever your intention is, however big or small – move toward it in any way you can each day. Don’t fight the hyoshi of the moment. Go with the flow. Glow with your flow. Go slow if it’s slow and show up if you can.

Remember, it is just one foot in front of the other. The only thing you need to focus on is the next logical step. Baby steps count. Trust them.

Love, love, love…

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'The Forty Pilgrims Project' series is a blog inspired by a journey. Simon Welsh, poet, writer and new paradigm adventurer is walking the Camino de Santiago - a simple mission to put one foot in front of the other. Carving out a journey over 1000km of trails, roads and pathways, he is heading for Santiago, and further yet to Finisterre, the ‘End of the World’. He carries with him 40 prayers, one for each day, one for each pilgrim that is energetically walking with him. He is supported by 12 guides, energetically supporting him from afar. 

This is my journal of his 'Forty Pilgrims Project' - an observation from the outside, as one of his guides and friends. An exploration of my own journey by his side, as we connect in the quantum field.

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!