The Forty Pilgrims Project - Stormy Clouds

Day 3 and 4

Today was one of those days we have all had. It starts off great and gets a little more frustrating along the way, maybe it bounces back, maybe it doesn’t. I am currently wondering how Simon’s last few days went, up there in the north. Did he experience some frustration today and how did he handle it? I watched a video of him marching up a rather steep hill having just confronted some deeper aspects of himself. Such is a journey of the heart and soul. We have to keep taking the next step.

Lately I’ve been surfing my frustration with a growing skill that I have been slowly developing over the last twenty years. Before that, I was just another angry teenager with no wish whatsoever to curb my tempestuous temper. Back then I felt justified in my angst and heroic in my anger as I slayed my foes in a righteous quest for freedom, truth and justice. I think we all know the pattern. Life was unfair, people greedy and horrid, and school completely sucked.

Nowadays, I tend to listen to my emotions and try and make decisions based on acknowledging my feelings as guides. I then attempt to focus my thoughts in order to arrive at new actions and greater possibilities. Sometimes I win, sometimes I loose. The last few days have been tricky. It is a work in progress – a grand experiment into conscious creation that has picked up speed over the last few months. Perhaps I have always been at it… perhaps we are all at it, for it is always hard to pinpoint when one begins this quest - if at all we were never at it!

Anyhow, before I completely walk in the wrong direction, let’s get back to the Pilgrims. As I said, my experiences and experiments in conscious living have accelerated since I experienced the completion of an attunement of a new facet of myself. Just a few weeks ago I read a book by my reiki master, detailing the process of awakening the violet flame chakra within our bodies. Through her, I began the attunement to this energy and chakra centre over a year ago. Around about the same time it reached its completion, I began reading about Simon’s project. But more on the Violet Flame in the coming weeks as I don’t feel that now is quite the time to go into it. Suffice to say that I feel that this new energy drew me toward The Forty Pilgrims Project as a resonance of my concentration of focus upon potential, possibility and creative spirit. There are lots of resonant factors between the two. But what has all this got to do with experiencing frustration in our day to day lives?

Part of conscious creation and living is becoming self-referring. It is understanding that the life you experience is a reflection of your own mix of perceptions, ideas and thoughts. More than that, we draw to ourselves a specific mix of co-created events that help us to let go of the old patterns that no longer serve us so that we can move into higher paradigms of expression and creativity. We work in groups of family and friends, helping each other grow and expand. Sometimes we fall back and sometimes we suffer. Sometimes we hold on to the past or fear the future. Yet here we are, experiencing and creating life.

Put more simply, we have desires and dreams and fears and preferences. All of us are different and have a different mix of these things. Even trees and crabs and dogs and worms have preferences. Our fears and blinkered views can hold us back for a time whilst we can also be switched on, open and fruity! We can embrace life and expand, or hold onto limiting beliefs and stunt our growth. Today and yesterday were some of those days when I witnessed, from outside of my usual self, a whole bunch of those factors. I was subject to a very clever play of interwoven moments and consciousness.

I am beginning to get the idea that if you start the day with a more positive feeling then you can roll with that feeling. Waking up on the wrong side of bed, grumpy and rumpled often produces a day of similar qualities. The opposite is also true. A day begun with a positive outlook has more chance of staying on track and revealing rainbow in the sky moments!

Well, I continued with my new daily habit of yoga, meditations and guide prayers specific to the Project. I walked to work, feeling good, but slightly conscious of knowing that I was holding onto a few thoughts based on someone else’s opinion plus some of my own shadowy aspects. We are hosting a new group of people at the retreat I work at and had been informed from various sources what this would be like. The outlook was less than positive.

We can be influenced by other people’s opinions and actions when we let them in – whether the words of our parents, teachers, well-meaning friends or glossy magazines. Over the course of the day, I watched the play of other people’s words upon my mind. I watched how some things slowly got me stressed and how sometimes, instead of brooding and growling in my head, I focused on breathing into my heart. I watched myself growing in frustration and then letting it go as I decided to make my own assessment of the situation. Sometimes I didn’t make it and found myself barking in a corner of my head, cursing the world and all who stand in it! ‘Breathe… come back into me’, said my heart.

Part of conscious living is also taking each moment as brand new. So I watched my mind throw up old reactions to dramas that were thrown as me. I paused to listen rather than reacting. I embraced my crazy mind. Gave it an inner hug. Then I moved on. I stepped out of my frustrations with work, people and life. I focused on the things in front of me. The music that was playing, the vegetables I was chopping. Dramas seem to fade away when we immerse ourselves in the moment and then seem trivial after all.

It seems that dramas create dramas, even before you get to the drama. The opinions of others playing on your mind will tune you into that opinion if you let it, leaving you looking out for the pitfalls and foibles of other people’s woes.

If you take life as fresh, and each moment as individual, then you can shift your relationship with old patterns of thought, allowing space for solutions and insight to enter.

We each have a unique and individual relationship with every facet of life, whether it be a concept, a person, an animal or a thing. When we take on board the ideas and opinions of others as our own, especially before the moment we have experienced that relationship for ourselves, we are not truly living our own life, but the ideas of another. This serves us of course, because our life is our life and our experience is our experience and we bring ourselves to things through our choices and grow as a result of them. Yet it is useful to recognise that embracing the opinions and ideas of another is a choice as well.

We could just as easily let those opinions and ideas go and choose to experience now - fresh. Just for ourselves. As if nobody had ever been there before in that way… which is true.

No one has ever been you in this moment.

Love, love, love xxx

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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 - Camino Caminito!

Day 1 and 2

Wednesday and the start of the Forty Pilgrims project. Somewhere in Northern Spain, my old friend Simon has begun his Camino de Santiago, a simple mission to put one foot in front of the other as he carves out a journey on foot, over 900km 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, as indeed, does his circle of friends, family and unseen imps.

For me, here in Southern Spain, I am marking the beginning of his adventure, and the beginning of a forty day support network by walking my own Camino. It is short. Just 10km. Not much compared to the long walk. But mine holds challenges of its own. I am walking the Caminito Del Rey, a notorious daredevil pathway, just half an hour from my mountain home in Andalucía. The Caminito Del Rey was once known as the most dangerous pathway in the world. It was closed in 2000 due to numerous fatalities on the route. A crumbling pathway, stapled to a sheer cliff, running down a gorge into a glorious valley and back into another sheer gorge posed quite a lot of challenges for me. Fortunately, it has just been refurbished and opened in March this year to the masses. At least I wouldn’t be clinging to the sides for dear life…

My morning meditation was brief as I connected to Simon and his journey. I recited the prayer he had written for the guides for the first time and could feel, with delicate perception, the energy of the 53 people upon this adventure. It is a curious thing intuition. But I have found it possible, when you silence your mind and open your heart, to pick up signals and information from the depths of your being; the bit that is more connected to everything than the gibbering idiot that runs amok in the top paddock!

At this point, I am excited and full of love for the new circle of people I am about to connect with. I am also a little scared of the fact that I am on my way to a grand challenge for myself. It was my intention to reach the highest part of the trail and recite the guide’s prayer, offering my support to Simon and the group.

The day was full of promise, and even though we had a forecast of unseasonal rain, the weather was perfect and our walk through the gorge was full of joy. I felt supported and safe, even though I have previously had a rather large dose of vertigo and fear of large spaces beneath me. This was different. I felt the support and safety of the group and my own guides. True to my plan, at the highest point, a vertiginous bridge that crosses the gorge 100m above the river, I read the prayer. I connected back into the circle and crossed the bridge. I even stopped for a photo midway.

In my interview with Simon, we talked of many things. We are old friends and don’t see each other much. But he is a poet and I am a writer and musician. We have a lot in common. I have been on a grand adventure myself, travelling the world and such, but have always felt fear in the face of certain things relating to me. Most of them are creative fears which result in ingenious procrastinations of the highest degree. That is not to say that I don’t get things done. In many ways, I am living a charmed life. I am playing a grand game of manifesting and experimenting but most of it has related to me giving things to other people and forgetting about myself.

Sometimes, even though we might be surrounded by fantastic things, if we keep missing the mark of where our soul focus is at, where our true north and our hearts desires lie, then it doesn’t matter which paradise we find ourselves in, it won’t be enough.

This notion leads me to this. Our soul loves challenges; it is what gives life its zest. It loves to move through them, and move onto new challenges. Sometimes though, we get stuck on one challenge and we hit up against it so much that we become numb to it and forget it was ever there, naming it just life. Yet life can be so much more. That is just a moment. Our heart will continue to have desires. The potential for them to be met is always present.

For a long time I had a big old fear of heights yet yesterday I conquered it - it did not even seem to be there. It got me thinking, where did that fear live and where did it go? The night I got back, I started a yoga practice again. I figured, if Simon can put one foot in front of the other over 900km and forty days then I can manage 5-10 minutes of yoga every morning and night. I realised that what fears and dreams need is action. Fears need to be hugged. Dreams need to be stepped toward. We have dreams a plenty and we don’t need to work toward them all at once, we don’t need to fight them or forget them or think they are impossible. We do need to do something though. Acknowledge our fears and then step forward into our dreams.

Today has been a rather productive day for me having begun writing this journal series about The Forty Pilgrims Project. I have been faced with the usual challenges of my day to day work life and I keep coming back to my heart. I keep looking at life just a little differently than I did yesterday. I am already more motivated, having stepped into being part of this circle, crossing a wobbly bridge, creating more and marking my day with joys lived rather than frowns endured.

Every now and again, I check into that energetic circle of 53, silently offering up a prayer to Simon, wondering if that was him asking for a bit of support and energy. And yeah, I did manage 5 more minutes of yoga this morning.

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 - Introduction

Yesterday began the start of The Forty Pilgrims Project, a collective creation in the realms of time and space. It involves my old friend Simon Welsh walking the Camino de Santiago for forty days, clocking in over 900km on foot.

I read about his venture some four weeks before and was compelled to take an interest. His idea is to take on board a spiritual journey of sorts. A vision quest and a clearing, a pilgrimage of quantum proportions; not just for himself but for others too. He is wrestling with some demons and dancing with angels. Some I have no time for, some I have met and some I have probably yet to meet. 

As he embarks on this quest, he is taking with him the prayers and intentions of forty pilgrims. He bears their weight, if it can be said as so. To assist him in this odyssey he has called upon twelve guides – we could call them spiritual guides, energetic support, light warriors – yet in reality, they are human beings, offering their strength, love, compassion, energy and most likely, healing, reiki or some such other long-distance magic. In any case, we are all connected amid the quantum field so can easily offer him support, love and daisies.

I am one of his guides. I was compelled to add my focus and strength that I have been gathering over the last few years. This is not to brag that I am magnificent, but to affirm that I am, indeed part of a magnificent continuum of energy of which we are all magnificent within. Once we can focus upon that part of ourselves, we begin to realise this magnificence and can use it for the benefit of others. It is this role then, that I chose to offer Simon, and in joining into the collective, I add my energy to a grand circle of 53 – one courageous walker, poet and visionary, forty pilgrims with dreams and intentions bound up in his pack, and twelve spiritual guides supporting his energy, holding intentions and making conscious changes as the footsteps and days go by.

Simon, as far as I know, interviewed all forty of the pilgrims and wrote a specific poetic portrait for each of them. Within this portrait is held issues, hopes, intentions, and energy needed for transmuting into new paradigms for each of the pilgrims. They are not physically walking with Simon. That is his undertaking, and his journey into his own unknown. He is the physical anchor and catalyst for helping himself, the pilgrims and guides to manifest and make changes within their lives; the eye of the storm so to speak. Each day he will focus on one pilgrim, walking an average of 25km, reading their prayer somewhere along the way. At the end of 40 days, on day 41, he plans to reach Finisterre, ‘The End of The World’, where he shall read his own prayer and burn his clothes, shoes and words in shamanic ceremonial offering. Hopefully he won’t burn all his clothes as I am sure he'll want to come back! 

The twelve spiritual guides are primarily there to assist Simon in gathering his strength, offering support and adding to the circle. Again, as far as I know, we were all interviewed and I identified a key issue within my life that I would like changed and added it into the circle of creation that is carried within Simon’s reality bomb backpack! I am sure each of the other guides has gone through some such process. I told Simon what I would be sharing with him and the circle in terms of support, giving him free access to my channels of reiki, violet flames, munay-ki, white fire, rescue flames, heart and violet flame chakras and diamond seed chakras.

Whilst this all sounds a little woo-woo and out there, there are some fundamental quantum happenings going on here. I believe that we live upon a quantum field of pure love, potential and possibility, and that reality as we know it is co-created out of this field by us, by our imaginations, thoughts, words and actions. It all comes back to thought and being. There are layers and layers of amazing reality interwoven into us. Layers of light, matter, emotion, thought, atoms, molecules, quarks, bosons and auras, chakras, energy, and creative possibility.

As we wake up to ourselves, we begin to see the effect that we have upon our reality; that we are not random fluctuations living in a random universe, but that we are meaningful and purposeful focal points of Universal consciousness, creating pure experience out of pure potential using mechanisms such as thought, perception, genetic memory, imagination, generational patterns and influences such as parents, school, television and newspapers.

We are vast beings of thought, capable of projecting our imaginations from the dawn of time into the vastness of Space and beyond. We are composed of a history of all our lifetimes and all our connections to life. We are beings of Earth and beings of the stars. We are children of nature and of love. We are locked into a duality, the yin yang of existence. The up-down, left-right, black-white, mine-yours, virgin-whore, hero-cad, happy-sad see-saw that we call life on Earth.

We have the choice to live by default, on a seemingly out of control roller coaster, that is terrifying and exciting, with no way of getting off, subject to the chaotic storms of life, subject to horrors, fantasies, hopes, and disasters. We have a choice to feel powerless. We have a choice to feel helpless. Of course, when we are here, we often don’t think this is a choice.

We have the choice to stop and take stock. To start questioning our reality. To start asking questions about why things are the way they are. We have a choice to delve deeper into the reality of nature and the darkness that resides within us and thus 'without' us. We have a choice to try and discover the nature of that darkness, whether to embrace it or fight it. We have a choice to see the darkness outside of ourselves, the darkness that dwells in plain sight, in economic systems, politics, corporations, education and society. We can see the poverty, disease and pollution in our midst and wonder where it comes from. We have a choice to wonder whether there is a link between our own inner darkness and that which we see laid out upon the green grass of the quantum field.

We have a choice to explore, to experiment, to play with our thoughts and emotions. We have a choice to wake up to ourselves… slowly realising that we are not so powerless after all. We have the choice to stand up and claim our creations. We have a choice to search for silver linings and see beauty and majesty within it all. The process begins with self-love, expands into compassion and maybe has no end…

So that is where we are in humanity… in three places. Once upon a time we were only at the first stage. Now people are bridging all three ideas. The darkness, the awakening, and the empowerment. It would be trite of me to try and lump all our experiences into such small boxes because humanity is vast as are our collective experiences. We all count and we all matter. All our dreams expand the Universe as we step into joy. All things benefit from more smiles in the world.

Here we are then, upon the threshold of a dream. A new cycle of experience. A paradigm shift so vast, people are rapidly awakening all over the world, slowing piercing the veils of illusion that have long hung over humanity. We are awakening to our true potential and power and The Forty Pilgrims Project marks one facet of this grand experience. The circle of 53 touches not just the 53 people directly involved, but the people Simon meets along the way. It touches our loved ones, our friends and family. It touches the people we tell and the people that are affected by our own internal changes. It touches all who witness the new smiles we create within us and others. As we transmute our own barriers and realise our own potential, it will inspire yet more to seek their own awakening. A light in a room of darkness is a source of light none the less. Our beautiful planet, society and individual communities all have the potential to change through elevated thinking, compassion, love and dreams made manifest. This is the power of thought, spirit, love and transformation and maybe the point of existence itself. Hmmm… ahhh…

This is a journal of one of the twelve. An account of the journey from outside the focal point. A documentation of the changes, insights and connections made throughout the forty days of Simon’s quest. It may be personal to me, or I may be led outside of my own experience as I meet and converse with other pilgrims and guides, my social network, community and of course, Simon himself. Above all, I hope it to be an honest portrait of self-inquiry and a joyful adventure into the biggest co-creative experience I have ever embarked upon. Happy travels dear friends. Happy, happy travels.

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 Answer is You

Anger, sadness, bitterness, dejection, disappointment... such have been the emotions reflected around social media networks after the news that the Conservative Party won the UK elections this week. A new government for 2015 and people seem thoroughly fed up. As if they have no control over their life, thoughts and decisions...

But that is not true surely? Let us look on the bright side. This gives us a new direction to look in. It gives us new ideas because now we know what we don't like. How about moving away from the idea that what we need is government? The government is not a savior. The government stands as a bastion to a patriarchal system that has long since seen the masses as peasants (stay with me) that need to be controlled (think religion and laws). Evolved it has, more cunning it is, but still, it does not hold the needs and well-being of the planet and all the species upon it as its modus operandi (which really is a no-brainer). Harsh but true perhaps...
 
The thing is, humans do not need governing. Nor do forests, seas, deserts, animals, bees or birds. Get that... nothing in nature needs governing. It governs itself through its own self-balancing system. Our bodies and the extension of them into nature are homeostatic. We are stewards and guests on this planet. Interconnected, united and one. A simple look at life and your existence will prove that. It is the governing, economic system and corrupt power systems that create the divisions that create the bullshit we see... humanity in and of itself is a beautiful thing that can and will self-regulate itself given half the chance. Grand societies need services that are public, not a bullshit patriarchal system that dictates a stream of irrelevant laws that increasingly bow to corporate demands before environmental, natural and human concerns.

The government (and monarchy) have traditionally been fear-mongers rather than truth givers. Besides which, no one votes on the House of Lords, the European Parliament, boards of directors and corporate lobbyists. These are the game changers in politics. I am not saying your vote doesn't count but I am saying change can happen another way.

The tide can turn but it must turn through the idea that each of us, as individuals are self-governing. We are all the best experts at what is best for ourselves. No-one else can tell you that. Imagine a world where we each empowered our self, and began to listen to the kind, loving voice at the heart of ourselves instead of the endless litany of voices that tries to convince us what best to do next.

We live too much in our heads... the voices of others are powerful and the voice of our own fearful mind is often the loudest. I reckon, once we start listening to the deeper truth of our self, a truth we all have inside us... a direction to what we love, what we have a passion for, what excites and inspires us, then the government we need, that is a balanced, non-patriarchal, servant of society and the planet will arise. Perhaps it is already happening. I think it already exists, in our hearts. But the power lies in you... It lies in us, not in government. What world do we want to live in?

Let us not bow to fear, media and propaganda. We have to be strong, focus on the world we want, trust in our hearts and human spirit. We are kind, compassionate, creative, inspirational beings. Yes we are! Individuals change the world. We are the power within our lives. Take heart. Really. Take your power back. I believe in a world of love, unity, peace and opportunity.

I wish you all the best in seeing and discovering your passion and power and heart.

Love, always.

I Dig Your Garden?

Talk is cheap or so the old idiom goes. We are living in a world that is full to the brim with access to information, experiences, methods and improvements yet it is easy to get lost in the maze of chatter and opinion. After all the procrastination there comes a time when a bit of action is called for, even if the action is one of just being.

Life seems to be full and complex recently. Whilst the internet is a wonder, connecting us to untold sources of inspiration, it can also slam us up against trolls, conspiracy, blame, negativity, scorn, derision and misplaced anger. It brings us even more comment and analysis than we have ever had need for. It subjects us (if we choose it) to a torrent of social networking, links, distractions, passive aggression, ideas and yet another way to chop your watermelons (apparently I have been doing it WRONG my whole life!)

There are more ways to discover yourself spiritually, politically, creatively, socially, mentally, emotionally and romantically than there are stars in the sky! At least more than the visible ones you can see from the light polluted vantage point of a suburban terraced house. With so much anger, opinion, truth, religion and conspiracy going on it is hard to know what to believe and what to choose from the infinite styles of cooking, yoga, answers, one-true gods, top-ten lists, and annoyingly long lists of nouns!

In this world of talk and words, there is a danger of getting lost in verbose clouds of nebulous nothingness, forgetting that we need to, at some point, tear ourselves away from the computer screen and get on with a bit of living. French philosopher Voltaire wrapped it up quite neatly in the last line of his 1759 satire Candide:

 “Cela est bien dit mais il faut cultiver notre jardin – That is well said but we need to cultivate our gardens”.

In the usual manner of timeless genius, the sentiment goes a long way and has a multitude of meanings and depth. The book sees the main character Candide taken from an optimistic idyll into the harsh realities of life. Candide is slowly worn down through a series of trials as Voltaire takes a sarcastic stab at myriad aspects of his contemporary European culture. Throughout the story, Candide’s tutor remains eternally optimistic leading Candide to eventually surmise, through all of their adventures and mishaps that even though the world can be a harsh place, each of us still has to get up in the morning and live our lives regardless of empty platitudes and rhetoric.

Candide is subjected to a torrent of horrors, ideas and solutions yet somehow sees through it all to the other side. Perhaps all of this talk and challenge is really an illusion. Perhaps talk is cheap. What counts is that we have to live our daily lives, more so, we each have to tend our own gardens and that takes love, time and commitment. This may not be exactly what Voltaire was getting at but it suits me.

The whole of humanity is rolling around on the floor at the moment. Change is in the air (as it always is) but this is something bigger. Some of us are waking up to our spiritual selves at long last. Some of us are being shown what seems to be an endless series of atrocities coming to light - from manufactured terrorism to fracking, starvation and banker’s bonuses, there always seems to be another thing to get angry at or worried about. Some of us have loud voices. Some of us are just pootling along, happy in our world. Some of us just can’t get going. Some are sad, some depressed, homeless or ill.

Yet in all this we are still united by our daily lives. We all have to live day to day. We are all individuals bound by the unity of existence. Each of us has something to be, do and see. In a world full of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, we can only do the best we can in any given moment and there is no sense in beating ourselves up for doing that, or for doing less. There is even less sense in beating anyone else up, for what do we know about what anyone else is capable of in any given moment?

Grand sweeping solutions and truths about life rarely work. We are too individual and each of us is making it up as we go along. In Development Theory there are two models of change that are often debated. The first, ‘trickle-down’ development relies on big business and big investment to bring social and economic change to a country. Grand plans will create new jobs and everyone will benefit as the money trickles down from the top. We’ve all heard that one before. Multi-national corporations as agents of love, compassion and good conscience…? Perhaps, one day.

The other side of the coin is called grassroots or ‘bottom-up’ development. This is where people let go of the idea of a government or outside force riding along in shining armour and start up their own initiatives instead. Groups of people coming together, not to protest or complain, but to create solutions. Groups of people taking their power back and relying on themselves as the answer. Groups of global meditators and healers, positive media, local businesses that sell ‘out-of-date’ supermarket produce, small charities that provide books or bikes to Africa or other much needed areas of the world, individuals who feed the homeless, volunteers of all shapes and sizes helping those in need… the list is endless.

Great social change doesn’t come in the form of yet another reform. It doesn’t come in a suit, a flashy smile and a snazzy plan. It happens when people get up and tend their gardens. Each of us makes a difference. Each of us matters. YOU are important. If we can get out of the habit of arguing, justifying, moaning and blaming then we might just remember that we need to sort out our own backyards. There may well be some weeds growing there, the plants may need watering, you may need to fix some pig damage. Do what you can. Don’t worry about it. Do your best given the moment you have been given, whatever that is. Your garden may be in your own head, it may be your hopes and dreams, it may be your neighbourhood or society. It may even be your own garden! Just remember, gardens grow best with love and tenderness. Lighten up. Take it easy. Let go of judging yourself or your fruits, they grow in their own time.

What is important is knowing that you have power over yourself. You are the one in control of you. You are the one choosing your thoughts, choosing what you read and what you look at. You are the one choosing what feels right or wrong for you. Your tiny actions make a difference. First to yourself, then to the people you interact with. By taking small actions in the field of your own existence and perception, spiritually, mentally and practically, moment by moment, you can shift how you see life.

Action can be anything. It can be sitting and listening to the sound of your breath. It could be taking a walk in the woods and connecting to the life around you. It could be choosing not to read anymore harrowing news items, it could mean listening to your own body, your hopes, your dreams, it could mean picking up a pen and writing, it could mean going on that holiday you promised yourself five years ago, it could mean volunteering for a local charity once a month, it could mean saying hello to your neighbour, smiling at the checkout guy, letting someone out in the traffic, choosing a thought that feels better than the last one you just had, finding a silver lining in that argument, uncomfortable emotion or situation, stretching your body, taking your spiritual practice into every moment, loving yourself…

Remember this, you are free, deeply free within yourself. You get to choose what is right for you. Your garden is whatever you choose it to be and it will grow best with love and appreciation.

Stop telling yourself it is raining and go get yourself an umbrella… then marvel at the miracle of water from the clouds feeding your garden!

With love,

Matt Rivers

18^th December

5 Minute Poems - The Beloved Meditation Tree

This tiny little poem was written earlier this summer when I was working in Cyprus. There was a little spot overlooking the sea, underneath a tree where we taught yoga and meditation classes. I found a passion for teaching or inspiring awareness rather than aloof and hard to reach spiritual practices. That tree definitely taught me to just be, rather than trying hard to be somewhere else!

The Beloved Meditation Tree

Buddha had his Bodhi,
Osho had a Rolls,
Yogis need a place to sit,
To gaze upon the world.

Matt Rivers
27th June 2014