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!

What the Blog?

Why this blog? Why that blog? Why blog at all? Why are they doing it? Why am I doing it? What are we achieving? Why are we not doing something useful like saving the world? Why are we not... arrrrrrgh!

All these questions began crashing through my head last night after reading a Facebook status from a friend who was elegantly eulogising about the questionable purpose of blogs. His ruminations thrust me into a circle of doubt and indignation. What he was saying did not come across as positive. I wanted to shout and scream and justify myself and my blog. I didn't however. Even though the ideas posed by him were not directed towards me, they did strike a chord, if a somewhat dissonant one. So I slept on it hoping an answer would come.

The morning really does bring a new light to situations. I believe we are all magnificent and creative souls that have no need to prove or justify our creative and artistic actions. To do so makes less of us as humans and feels bad - it happens a lot. It did get me thinking though.

I am not in the least bit ashamed to admit that I am a recovering artist. Once in the not too distant past, I was rigidly blocked by my own fears and insecurities, plagued by the voices of my childhood. They told me things like 'you are not worthy', 'there is no career in the arts', and 'could do better'. My creative expression came out in fits and bursts. One song a year perhaps. One line of verse. Unfinished poems littering my notebooks. Standing, frozen in front of a crowd, playing music but not feeling it or even hearing it for fear of getting it wrong... 'could do better...' The disembodied voice echoed in my brain.

I realise now and thank my friend that his comments about blogs have actually formed a further stage of my artistic recovery. Those doubts and fears reared up again and I was able to move through them into a place of understanding rather than be caught like a rabbit in the headlights of my own, self-limiting vehicle.

You see, creating stuff - art, stories, blogs, dances, music - is such a delicious human activity. Writing, in particular, is something no other animal on the planet does. We are unique in that medium. We are driven to expression and I believe it is our nature. We live and breath as all life does but we also have an innate need to express ourselves and share it. Being human is not a singular pursuit. It is a community thing and in order to function we have to share food, water, air, space, ideas, experiences and art. We are having a relationship with life itself and everything we see is life. It is our right and heritage, as individuals, to step into our creative selves and exercise the freedom to express our perceptions and experiences, free of the demons of ego, limitation, well-meaning opinion, sensibility and moral ethics.

Our ego is so bent on analysing and justifying ourselves and others actions and motivations, we often miss the simple pleasure of enjoying stuff. As I have opened up as an artist, I have found myself wrestling with my ego all the time. I come up with a million excuses and distractions to actually sitting down and creating something. 'See...', it says, 'here is proof that if you create you shall be humiliated', as I read yet another damning review on an artwork. There is a culture of ridicule, criticism and questioning concerning all acts of creativity that gets in the way of simple expression. We are afraid that our meagre offerings will not be high art; that we lack a certain something; that the dreaded 'x-factor' is not present.

I have learned to draw back and let go of that voice but others may not be in such a position yet. To react is to feed the fires of apathy and procrastination. I change my focus, stop listening to the naysayers in my head and in the outer world. In truth, the voices in the outer world are really just echoing the ones in our heads. The ego is desperate to find reasons for things. It is that logical left-brained pursuit of validation and putting things in boxes. If it doesn't fit, then it must be wrong! How many negative patterns have we created in our minds that hinder us from creating real and honest art at any level? Time to let go.

All humans are creative, artistic beings capable of expression on any level, whether it is a masterpiece, a best selling album, a graffiti tag or a twitter tweet. I know because I have been there when a person, adamant they are not creative has tapped into an area of themselves they were not aware of. It is amazing to watch... and it is all valid. We all have the right to be free in our ability to express. We all have the right to create, free from ridicule and ego-based rationale. What does it matter if we do not like something? In a buffet of delicious food, if you don't like olives, you don't carry on eating them. You find a food that you do like. It is the same with the rest of life.

There are myriad reasons for posting blogs, writing songs, dancing down the street, composing poems, lyrics and books. Every fellow human lives in a different world of perceptions, hopes, fears and beliefs. We cannot be sure of everyone's motivations or reasons for creating. Perhaps it is irrelevant. So, let us celebrate and encourage the one common reason for creation that we can be sure of... the need to express our own unique viewpoint. It may not save the world, but maybe freedom of expression is just what the world and humanity needs at the moment.

Our hearts and souls have no need for explanations. They just are. We can drop into our hearts and simply be and enjoy what we see. If we do not like it, we can look for something else we do like. We have that choice. It is that simple. I fulfill my soul yearnings by writing and singing and it makes me happy. When I have not followed my creative urge, I got sad. For me it is that simple. We do what we do because it makes us happy, and in following our bliss, we are able to inspire others to happiness too. So here is to creation. Here is to our creation and our expression of our own unique worlds. I look forward to seeing yours.

Matthew  xxx

Creative Flow

We wait for inspiration yet inspiration also means to breath in. Breathing is a present moment action so nothing will come if we wait. Waiting says that right now, in the present, there is nothing. The energy of 'waiting' is that something is not here yet! But just like breathing, we must be present with our own creativity. Let go of thinking for that is the block. Thinking and waiting block us. We 'think' creativity is something else - some grand gesture, some intense flash of genius that instantly produces great art but actually it is a series of small steps, just like a jigsaw. We do not compete a thousand piece picture in one placement of a tile. We slowly uncover it by being present and trusting our heart and the flow. Creativity is trusting that flow, being impulsive in the moment and making one small step. A line on a page, a word, a gesture, one note. Bit by bit, we flow toward the next step, trusting our heart. We breath in the moment. We flow with our hands, our bodies, our feet. Genius lies in the power of focus and we all have the ability to focus. So, what do we focus upon... the idea that is not there? Or the present moment and what is flowing out of us? We let go of mind. We let go of thought. We embrace creativity in the moment. Flowing like a river. Freeing our minds. We let go and drop into our ever-present hearts. Love.

The First Brave Journey

A beginning, yet not the start. This is a step, yet not the first. An adventure into the unknown. A passage forward from which heralds the dawn of a new chapter.

Today marks the advent of numerous pathways and decisions spiralling forth from my ever-present now. Here, today, I have decided to share my meanderings and fortunes. Such decisions I have wrought over the last year and now, on the birth of the first full week in September, as the vibrant light of summer wanes to a gentler, more golden-amber hue, I have taken my first step.

So, who am I? What is it that presses me to write? What decisions have been wrought? Why I am musing in such flowery language?

I am, in this present moment, in this guise, a man of many roles... as are we all (of many roles that is). A brother, a son, a lover, a musician, a soon-to-be-Reiki master, a writer, a singer, a guitarist, a fool. I have been up and down. Sky high and rock bottom. I have travelled the Seven Seas... (well, more like three of them but who's counting), and lead a merry dance through the corridors of beingness.

In the last week, a culmination of endings led to these new adventures I embark upon and with it a need to document, share and inspire. Endings of intangible proportions. Endings that only make sense in the mind for nothing truly has ended in a solid sense. Endings of old habits. Endings of old endings. Endings that mark the phoenix of my passion, creativity and light bursting forth from the embers of my smouldering soul. A soul that has wished for me to wake. A soul that has dreamt and prodded me. Carried me, held me and softened my pillow.

This month marks new energy for a new season. My beginnings are numerous. There is a debut album to be arranged and recorded. A blog to continue and adventure in. New websites to construct. A course in discovering inner-creativity to begin and complete. Songs to write and sing. Writings and inspirations to allow forth. Numerous adventures in time and space to ride upon. A Reiki mastership to complete.

I wonder how many people at this time feel have felt the excitement of newness in the air? There is a gathering of energy here. A feeling so subtle it begs to be noticed yet drifts so silently on the breeze. But hear it we can and hear it we do. It is this natural mystic that I want to capture. I want to write it, sing it, photograph it. I want to share it, talk about it and hear it from others. I want to listen to it and feel it in my bones. Feel it in my heart and soul.

Like so many of us, I am striving to make my life joyous and full of fun, laughter, success, friendship, love and adventure. Here then, I offer a journey. From a point of change in my own life. Part history, part documentary, part philosophy, part poetry, part diary, part spirit. A journey together. A journey shared. A journey offered with as much love as I can fit into it.

Love, love,

Matt xxx