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! - 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 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 Darkness: Side Two

Day 4 and 5

The creative challenge continues. It is less challenging now and is turning into something I am very eager to partake in every day. I originally started this because I used to procrastinate massively. I love creating things but I always found an excuse not to do it. I came up with this project to see what would happen if I was accountable only to myself. Then I decided it might be a grand idea to share it. 

Sharing it is proving rather beneficial because I can see how other people create and that in itself is massively inspiring. For myself, I am uncovering some truths that I hope will in turn inspire other people to begin a creative habit of their own. I believe humans are meant to create and when we do, we tend to feel and act much better.

So here is Day 4 and 5. I have found myself returning to my main weapon of choice... words. The poems seem to be reflecting my burgeoning interest in my creativity. I don't spend overly long on each one. Perhaps 30 minutes. I like these short bursts of creativity. I like being kind to myself rather than critical and judgemental. Art needs love and nurturing, that is for sure.

The Shadow Light

Inside ourselves two halves are true
Living back to back
Without them both creates not you
A faded sense of lack

We push and shove one side right down
Pretend that it's not there
And when our faces start to frown
We say we just don't care

The shadow sits inside of us
Protects us from the rain
But when it starts to moan and fuss
We stamp and curse the pain

We blame the clouds, our mum and dad
We swallow all our fears
We point at all that we think bad
And struggle with our tears

But here's the thing, that dark inside
Is actually our friend
The shadow of our self it rides
A mirror to us sends

It shows us where our thinking stuck
It triggers us to deal
The shit we face is just good luck
Another chance to feel

So if you meet your darker side
Today then dance with glee
Embrace it with your arms spread wide
Just listen, look and see

Allow it to flow freely through
It may be fast or loud
The darkness is just cleaning you
Passing like a cloud

Just sit and be and breath and smile
Don't swallow, swear or fight
The storm will pass in just a while
Like day transforming night.

Matt Rivers
4th February 2016

 The Warrior

From humble tales, a boy once grew,

Small of frame, with eyes pale blue.

His hair like straw, reflecting light,

Gleaming sun in the dead of night.

His heart was full and bright with love

With wings so soft and light as doves.

Great plans he had and dreams of gold,

Adventures planned and journeys bold.

But grow he did as seasons passed.

The light inside, it did not last.

He drew into a place of gloom,

Where monsters roamed and sang of doom.

Here he learned to fight and dance,

To stand his ground and take a chance.

He tried to break the monster’s trap

But the beast was strong and kept him back.

Until one day he met a man

Whose light was fire inside his hands.

His skin so dark and eyes so pale,

Wise words he spun into a tale.

The monster that you fight so hard

Lives within your mind my child.

When you fight you give him power,

Forever over you he’ll tower.

Instead approach him softly slow,

Your heart stretched wide with all you know.

Embrace that many coloured beast,

For all he needs is gentle peace.

He stood and all at once could see

Just how life was meant to be.

He took the monster in his arms

And spoke brave words of love and calm.

Just then the sun through clouds did crack

His light and plans came rushing back.

But now the wild inside him thrived,

An infinite sea of dreams they dived.

Matt Rivers

5^th 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!

Create February Fabulous! - The Bag

Day 2

I have doubts. I have fears. I have little voices telling me I am ridiculous and stupid. I have critics that tell me I am not good enough and plenty of demons on my shoulders telling me that I am not qualified to be an artist, not talented enough, not clever enough and not motivated enough. My darker side is trying to protect me. It is doing this based on information I was told when I was very little. None of it is true but the voices carry on.

I set out to just create something once a day and share it but I have a feeling this blog will begin to become something cathartic as well as showcasing what creative projects I am up to. I hope the whole project may inspire someone to explore their creative side too. We may smash some blocks together along the way. I plan to be as accountable and open as possible.

That said, I spent all day ill in bed with my demons. They poked fun at me whilst I let go of a whole load of baggage and snot from the last few months but in the end, my own challenge got the better of me. I sat and wrote my journal which always helps to clear out the dark thoughts and leave a nice space for a spot of creativity. I think it is like warming-up before exercise. Today I wrote a poem and this blog. Here it is. Happy creating! 

The Bag

I am picking up the pieces of all I used to be,

Looking in the mirror at a man that once was me.

A tattered bag of empty thoughts is slung across his back;

Histories etched in borrowed lines cross his face like cracks.

That man, that shell that I once was, no more inside me lies.

This sack of jokes and broken dreams has nothing more to hide.

The burdens that once crippled me have faded into dust.

I can no more see what it was that turned my bones to rust.

That sack of mine is full of junk that I no longer need

I think I’ll leave it by the way, the earth for which to feed.

Beneath it all new power grows, like nature in the Spring,

Renewed by love and time and hope, when birds return to sing.

So in this mirror I find myself, looking eye to eye,

Seeing who I really am that makes this man inside.

My present self stands tall and strong, monument and proud,

Upon the edge of everything, unfolding in the crowds.

Through every age we’ve fallen down, got up and tried again,

Determined to uncover the trueness of our names.

The time is ripe, the time is now, it has always just been so,

But drop that sack of junk you must to set your life to glow.

Matt Rivers

2^nd 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!

Create February Fabulous! - Ready, Steady, Go!

Day 1

The beginning of February and what better time to begin a new project. The long January is over, Christmas is but a distant memory and New Years resolutions have faded into dust. Time for a bit of excitement and creativity.

Yesterday I was writing my journal on the beach when an idea struck me. I want to spend some time every day this month creating something and I want to share it. Then another idea struck me. I want to share the idea of sharing creativity with everyone and see what happens. I want to see who joins in. I want to explore the notions of creativity and the connections it creates.

Create February Fabulous! is all about making one piece of art a day for the next 29 days starting today. At the very least, I am going to do something creative every day and post it on the internet. I am hoping other people will join me.

The art could take any form. It could be a doodle, a dance, a drawing or a design. It could be a photo, a song, a cake, a lego model, a painting or an origami flower. The point is to get creative every day and share your work. It doesn't matter if it took 2 seconds or 2 hours, all of it matters.

It doesn't matter whether you consider yourself an artist or not - I believe every human being on this planet is creative. Pablo Picasso once said that every child is an artist but the problem is holding onto that as we grow up.

Creativity is what makes humans unique. It is what makes each of our cultures glow with passion, excitement and colour. Our world expands because of our creativity, no matter how big or small. Sometimes the most precious moments can be found in a three line poem or the snap of a camera shutter and sometimes it is the roar of a stadium concert or the binding laughter of a family sing-song. We love to look at pictures and art. We love watching dancers leap and twist their bodies to infectious music. We love the sound of drums calling to the very essence of our souls.

I propose that when we focus and shine a light on our creativity, we begin to find elegant solutions to all kinds of problems. When we recognise that we are bound by much more than separates us, we can draw together as a species instead of drifting slowly apart. We are social creatures and creativity brings us together. Not only that, it is good for your soul. It is like meditation, being one with the moment, dancing in the rain!

So if you are reading this, I hope you are inspired to take part. Please check out the Facebook page Create February Fabulous! and use the hashtag #createfebruary if you are posting anything on social media sites. Don't feel like you have to share your art - there is no pressure here, no competition, just community and sharing. There is no pressure to create every day - art and artists need nurturing so be lovely to yourself as much as you can.

Let us see what happens. Let us see what we can create and let us see if we can make new conenctions, friends and communities.

Love, love, love...

Matt Rivers


"Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow."                                                        — Kurt Vonnegut

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!