The Birthday of Heart of Balance-Wesak-Moon in Scorpio-Praise to the Hawk-Headed Mystical Lord!

The Mahayoga Godform of Ra Hoor Khuit by the artist Kat Lunoe.

The Mind...The Mind

Round and Round in it's deep green slime goes the mind...the mind

The Heart of Balance

Walpurgis Nacht

From 'Black Pearl' Ed James Eshelman

INFINITE POSSIBILITIES by Soror Meral Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The universe is made up of infinite possibilities. Each star or khabs chooses for itself certain events and thoughts, and makes up for itself a character or mode of behavior.The process of choice forms a layer of several astral or fine bodies. Finally, the whole complex is formed into a physical body which carries all that has been experienced in recent events of this life and in the past. The events of this life may be fairly easy to access when one probes as to the roots of certain behaviors; but far more difficult is the memory ofpast lives, and the karma that was generated there. No two stars could ever be the same. There are many marks on the final physical body to show how this might be. For instance, fingerprints are never the same; their variety is endless. Few folks realize how different every star is from every other star. Herein lies a great mischief. It may be that a certain earth character has built up what he or she thinks is a very fine code of behavior. This code is made up of what the earth person can see in the experiences of the present life, but fails to see or realize what karma there may be in the ideas that motivate him or her. Of course, the thinking process manufactures certain ideas; but nothing ever manifests unless the power of emotional push brings these ideas into actuality as something worked out on the physical plane. Hence, the code which this person may think is very fme (and which has built his or her character), the person seeks to impose upon others. To the mind of our person, the code of action and behavior has worked fme for him or her, and now must be used to guide the whole earth through compliance with it - because it is so wonderful, and could hardly be improved upon! This is called projection. We have labored long and hard to bring this fact of existence to your minds. One sees other persons through a fog of one's own ideas and behaviors. In the worst type of scenario, the experiences of the one person are imposed upon another, and sometimes on a multitude of folks. Just look at the events in the world around you. Projections are being imposed all the time upon nations, upon church groups, upon individuals - upon any sort of gathering. The one who has the most strength of character (and perhaps charisma) can sway a whole roomful of folks. Sadly, a great many persons are not aware of their own secret inner strengths, and are far from being aware of the particular characteristics of their own star. These folks are slaves to the will of a stronger personality. They are not yet free in the Thelemic sense. They hope to benefit from what is being told to them, and do not yet know that the will of one person sways them to do this or that, or to think this or that. This becomes even more powerful as a form of evil if the person who sways the multitude has built a prison of thought and behavior. In fact, this can be seen all over the world. The prisons are not just in other nations; if you look carefully, you will see they are in our own nation. They are not just in groups of other persons, they are in ourselves!

A lady of Mitylene?

1. 0 crystal Heart! I the Serpent clasp Thee, I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, 0 God my beloved. 2.Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, 0 Lord my God!

Forthcoming title from Alan Moore

The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore Share Alan Moore’s grimoire due in 2009 (or with the anticipated delays, 2010). Only 2 or 3 years to go… “Splendid news for boys and girls, and guaranteed salvation for humanity! Messrs. Steve and Alan Moore, current proprietors of the celebrated Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels (sorcery by appointment since circa 150 AD) are presently engaged in producing a clear and practical grimoire of the occult sciences that offers endless necromantic fun for all the family. Exquisitely illuminated by a host of adepts including Kevin O’Neill, Melinda Gebbie, John Coulthart, Jos? Villarrubia and other stellar talents (to be named shortly), this marvelous and unprecedented tome promises to provide all that the reader could conceivably need in order to commence a fulfilling new career as a diabolist.” via Top Shelf Productions

TOOLS FOR WORLD DOMINATION No 4-THE MINDMAP!

The Mindmap proliferates on the web. This is because it works. See a very good Chuck Frey posting here: http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/mmsb/wp-content/mmhp/Mind_Mapping_and_Human_Potential.pdf

The bully boy culture in the Catholic Church-A superb article by a retired priest-Eric Hodgens which I reproduce in full.

From The Age (Melbourne), Wednesday 5 January 2011: 13. Church needs to answer critics, instead it silences them The Catholic hierarchy has lost its way but refuses to discuss it. ERIC HODGENS CATHOLIC Church authorities recently censored an article posted on the popular website CathNews.com. The article, “Reflections on an Ordination Golden Anniversary”, was a reminis cence by a priest after 50 years of ministry. By midday, the link no longer worked. Inquiries revealed that a church “higher up” had prevailed on the CathNews editor to pull the link. As the censorship became public, it became the story. However, the main issue is not the censorship, but rather the view that the pulled article was arguing: that the church’s lead ership has lost its way but is not willing to discuss or even consider that there may be a point. This is precisely the mentality that got them caught in the headlights with the paedophilia crisis. They ignored, even demonised, the victims in order to protect the institution which, in this case, was indefensible. They seem to have an unhealthy institutional firewall against any criticism at all. When will they learn? Meanwhile, loyal Catholics have charged the bishops with compliantly following regressive Vatican policy which they believe is harming the church. It would be disloyal not to criticise. The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) came to a climax in 1965 with its decree on “The Church in the Modern World”. This recognised the new soci ety that had emerged after World War II. It recognised that the modern secular state is not only here to stay but a very favourable environment for proclaiming the Gospel and, indeed, more in tune with the freedom of the Gospel than a state in which Catholic religion is established. Bishops tend to revert to established religion style when questioned or criticised. Hence the censorship attempt. German sociologist Max Weber taught us a century ago that bureaucracies tend to turn habits into values. Is that what has happened with priestly celibacy, women’s ordination and denying Holy Communion to remarried divorcees? These now burning issues were not issues in the old world. And what about homosexual love, IVF and contraception? Does forbidding them enhance the values taught by Jesus or simply stick to old rules out of habit? A vast number of loyal Catholics say it is time for review. “A vast crowd of priests and laity are alarmed at the bully culture of Rome.” A vast crowd of priests and laity who passionately love the Church are alarmed at the fundamentalism pervading the mentality of the Roman bur eaucracy and many bishops. They are alarmed at the bully culture of Rome — which surfaces in turn in the management style of so many bishops — and at the favoured status given to authoritarian move ments including Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ (now discredited and under reconstruction) and the Heralds of the Gospel. And they are alarmed at having a new and unsatisfact ory translation of the liturgy about to be foisted on them due to power politics at the top. This last confrontation may well backfire. Many priests are simply not going to introduce the new translation. They say that if the Anglican newcomers and the Latin Mass groups can keep their liturgy and language, so can they. Getting people to change their minds is always hard. Jesus had difficulty getting his message accepted. Maybe it is time for today’s church leaders to listen to the voices and reconsider. They might just be converted. Maybe there is no need to kill the story. The censored article can be found at tinyurl.com/2fu2n7c Eric Hodgens was ordained a Catholic priest in 1960 and retired in 2007.

Survivors Network of those abused by Priests-SNAP

This network(SNAP)has recently come to my attention via some comments on a previous blog posting and may be a support source for anyone abused at the hands of Catholic priests.

Downhill bike race in Chile is insanity at its finest!

heartofbalance@gmail.com has shared an article with you.


http://www.gadling.com/2011/03/03/downhill-bike-race-in-chile-is-insanity-at-its-finest/?ncid=&a_dgi=aolshare_email
____________________

FOCUS & GROW! Spring newsletter

This is the spring newsletter from Delcia McNeil, a wise and rather wonderful healer, psychotherapist and visionary artist. I strongly recommend her workshops both in London and the beautiful Lake District.

HARRIER SQUADRONS BID A FOND FAREWELL TO THE DEFENCE SECRETARY

THE DECISION TO SCRAP OUR HARRIER JUMP JET SQUADRONS RECENTLY ELICITED A CLEAR RESPONSE FROM IT'S PILOTS. LOOK CLOSELY...TALLY HO!

THE ART OF BALANCE

One thing’s for sure: Finding balance in a wildly tilting world ain’t easy.

Shall Magick be our discipline of awareness? Or the mysteries of the quantum? Or the still points of meditation? Or the physical sculpting of Tai Chi? The beauty of poetry and art? The joy of singletrack? Cooking food for our loved ones with micro-attention? Breathing into the mountain before us? Working with our minds honed to razor sharpness and our hearts wide open? Working with Joy? Like basking sharks taking in the plankton of life in all it’s myriad, mad, beautiful, wild variety. Shall we swim through the world open to it all? Grounded, loving, true to our being, joyful or sad as we feel.

Let this be our first goal/paradigm/aspiration: The Art of Balance should be the business of an enlightened mind.
Grounding: Knowing who you are is a vital component to Balance.
What are your true motivations, fears and impulses? What is the nature of your shadow? Oooo…er, yes the inner daemon that lurks behind the veil. Your very own personal Choronzon.

How can we become the grizzly bear balancing on a pole while juggling fireballs and holding one hairy leg gracefully aloft while unpacking the mysteries of the universe with our razor mind and open heart or spinning a jokey myth before a group of awestruck kids? A reality surgeon. A cosmic jestor.

 THIS AIN’T NO MARKET AND IT’S CERTAINLY NOT FREE!

The masqueraded world wants you to be many things and what masquerades as the world wants you to aspire to be the kind of person that it wishes to sell stuff to. Most of the people who are running the world want to sell you stuff. It might be physical stuff like cars, washing machines, houses, cosmetic products, stylish clothes, particular types of music, handbags, a whole variety of fancy electronic toys to make your life more er…organised or whatever.
Then there’s a whole crew who want to sell you a load more stuff but this time it isn’t physical, this time it’s ideas. Ideas about what constitutes meaning in the good and successful life. And yes, you guessed it, most of the ideas depend on you buying the physical stuff from the first crew, who are often the very same people.
These ideas are often about the creation of dissatisfaction with the state of things as they are in your life right now. They are relentless about how ugly you are without that skin cream, about how short/uncool/dumb/repulsive/unplugged-in/and just plain awful you are, as you are right now. But there’s a solution, and all it takes is just a little money and you can be up there with the beautiful people, with the cool people, with the people that everybody wants to hang out with, just so that some magic and stardust might rub off on you (you won't be such a sad sack any more!) and get this-YOU CAN BE ONE OF THE MAGIC PEOPLE! All you have to do is give them some money (as indiscriminately as possible please) and you will be re-made, but this time in the likeness of a GOD, herculean and masterfully confident, but in a sort of not getting excited about stuff way, in your bulging minotaur designer drawers or a whore-queen sex-bomb temptress despising the attentions of nests of kid models with the faces of descant sopranoes and the geiger designed musculature of the alien!  Out from their glossy pages they stare at you with their beautiful dead fish eyes like sirens waiting to fuck over your very own personal odysseus.

It is almost unbelievable that anyone takes this bullshit at face value, but it infests the deepest channels of the subconscious with it’s insidious messages because it is everywhere and always. Nowhere is free from it. There is no space of privileged silence. Because far from being a king or queen, the consumer is a slave, and the foundation of modern capitalism rests on promoting dissatisfaction with the self in order to sell you stuff that you will only buy if you think it carries that certain cachet that will set you apart from all the other slaves.
And so the illusion is maintained, and standing outside this paradigm takes the most enormous courage and self-trust. To see the emperor’s clothes for what they are requires x-ray vision. To believe entirely in the impoverishments of low grade current market capitalism is to wear blinkers that exclude the true and the beautiful. It’s not the visionaries who reject the blandishments of fear-based capitalism that are weird. It’s the society that founds itself on these incredibly stupid illusions, most primarily that stuff creates meaning!
The great advantage of these free marketeers (and maybe we need to read some of their stuff over the next few weeks?) is that as with much of the world’s intellectual bullshit, there’s an element of significant truth in it all. I don’t think any intelligent person is going to reject the modern world out of hand. Beware those who propose a return to the cave!
Public health especially fresh water and free medical care at the point of need are, for those countries who have them, one of the defining points of civilisation. I also like video games and access to lots of different foods, a huge range of literature and movies, the internet and computers generally. I like campervans and electronic music and barbecues and beer and amazon and all-day opening and mountain bikes. I love it all!
But I also love the hill and the heath, the wind over the empty moor, the mountainside camped on alone at night, the summoning by the rockpool. The silence, the stillness, the intensity. The otherness.  That alone-space where you can hear the whispers of the otherworld, beyond the veil-call it what you will.
Therefore we must seek ontological banditry of the robin hood style to refashion meaning for the brothers and sisters. Remake the paradigm in the image of a child. Sculpt out a new capitalism that works for the world and does not require slaves. We have the means, we carry it in our wallets, we spend it every day. It is a very silly and easily obtainable (with a little effort) source of energy. We must direct it with our minds and hearts and for Pan’s sake-we have to wake up!

One thing’s for sure: Finding Balance in a wildly tilting world ain’t easy. But…bring it on!

More on Kenneth Grant- Beyond our Ken: a review of ‘Against the Light: A Nightside Narrative’

Beyond our Ken: a review of ‘Against the Light: A Nightside Narrative’ An, as usual brilliant essay by Alan Moore on the late very lamented Kenneth Grant. "That he was as mad as tits on a pyranha?" Also here's a link to Phil Hine's great obituary http://enfolding.org/kenneth-grant-1924-2011/

The Independent: Kenneth Grant: Writer and occultist who championed Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare

Kenneth Grant: Writer and occultist who championed Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare
Friday, 4 March 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/kenneth-grant-writer-and-occultist-who-championed-aleister-crowley-and-austin-osman-spare-2231570.html
When Aleister Crowley died in 1947 Kenneth Grant became heir apparent of the esoteric magical order Ordo Templis Orientis (OTO). Alongside his artist wife Steffi, Grant was one of few to attend Crowley's funeral service, becoming the last living link with the Beast, whose work he championed, nurtured and refined for over six decades. From his New Isis Lodge, established in London in 1955, through to his final organisational vehicle, the Typhonian Order, Grant's occult credentials are without parallel.

Quotes of the day

Electronic musician, shamanic explorer, and information theorist Konrad Becker wrote in his essay New World Music, “new media and post-industrial data transfer are the means of subversive neurostimulation in the techno-shamanism of the global village underground,”


"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to it's advantage."  Freidrich Nietzche

IS THE BBC THE PROPAGANDA ARM OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT?...AND WHITEBOARDS AS ESSENTIAL WORLD-DOMINATION TOOLS.

The march against the cuts has garnered the usual press coverage.  250 thousand people converge on the capital for a day of peaceful and fun protest and the papers and most disturbingly the BBC focus on the antics of a tiny minority.  One supposes, in an attempt to discredit active involvement with politics and to support control by the usual elite.  But that's not journalism is it?  That's propaganda and it's not what I pay my license fee for.

To flexibly change direction is essential in these troubled times, or does it indicate the grasshopper mind?  Whatever!

As an avid student of life in all it's guises but most importantly a collector of tools for changing the World, I bring you-WHITEBOARDS.

Yes folks these tabula rasa's are a great capturing tool as well as offering a canvas to mindmap your plans for world domination or to schedule your book groups reading programme.
Put them everywhere including your kids bedrooms to get them into the habit of honouring ideas and creativity.
Spend a bit more on the magnetic boards and you can use them to capture paper like a pin board but you need to be careful they don't turn into junk-boards.  A person's whiteboard is like their library, it gives you an insight into the content of their minds.  So don't let yours look like a dustbin.  Here's a typical one of mine from work.

If you have notable whiteboard pics then please send them in.  Seriously, these are the kind of tools to change the world and manifest your will in the world.

Have a great Sunday!  Success to your work.

SHEEN WARS-Charlie's descent continues unabated. This is very funny.

COMING SOON: 10 ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR WORLD DOMINATION! The great books giveaway | Books | The Guardian

New series of 10 Essential Tools for world domination coming soon:

1)  HUMANSCALE LIBERTY CHAIR
2)  MAGNETIC WHITEBOARD

The great books giveaway | Books | The Guardian

There's some great book recommendations here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/04/best-world-books-night-presents

Top 10 Best Electronic Albums of 2010

http://www.melophobe.com/articles/top-10-best-electronic-albums-of-2010/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20melophobe%20%28melophobe%29

Could be controversial!

Most popular post on my blog? I could hardly believe it!

Now I really understand the kind of community that read this blog.  The most popular post is about...A CHAIR!  Mind you it's a very nice, intelligent sort of chair, but it's still A CHAIR!  Oh wreaths of laurel for heroes...why will you never adorn my puckered brow?  My readers are chair lovers.  They spend hours lusting over office catalogues.  They're not so much armchair readers as desk chair experts.  I imagine they have pictures of office furniture on their walls, they have lots of scandinavian pine round the house, possibly a small fjord in the garden designed on apple laptops to resemble a mini-mountainous norwegian backdrop.  They shop by dutch road bicycle and yes...oh my God...in the front wicker basket...Yes!  It's one of those cavernous blue Ikea bags.  Save us O Pan!
Ok you've asked for it...you want it...so here goes...Feast your greedy eyes oh my children!

Seriously though, a good chair is an essential world domination tool.  If you want to do more than drool you can buy one of these little suckers here; be warned, they're not cheap!  http://www.officechairsuk.com/create-your-own-humanscale-liberty-chair.html

Fwd: Sleeping It Off in Rapid City by August Kleinzahler – review | Books | The Guardian

Sleeping It Off in Rapid City by August Kleinzahler – review Guardian Books

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/19/sleeping-it-off-august-kleinzahler-review

Beautiful design can help make great poetry | Books | guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/oct/21/poetry-cover-august-kleinzahler

More on August Kleinzahler's 'Sleeping it off...about the beautifully subtle cover photo.  This is the cover on my edition so why would anyone make it er...red?

Some superb reviews from Silver Star-Journal of the Horus-Maat Lodge (I've got an old poem in here too!)

WHY MEDIATION IS SO COOL!

I think I have applied mediation type skills over the past twenty five years of my career both as a social worker and for the past fifteen years as a manager and leader.  I seem to have found myself in the capacity of an emergency roadside rescue service attending to failing services or organisations much as a mechanic might attend to a broken down car.

This has required a lot of negotiation and conflict resolution often when the conflict has been directed at me personally as the change agent and the originator of the distressing new systems.

At this point I guess I could proceed to a directorship of a large corporate social care organisation in the public sector and look to retire with a nice fat salary but truthfully I can think of nothing worse than ending my working days among the grey suits in endless meetings and performance reviews and other current managerial guff.

Enter mediation.  I was researching the activity as a result of developing a publicly funded mediation service for Guernsey.  My light bulb moment quickly came when I realised two significant facts.  Firstly Mediation as an activity is very much at a growth point and the growth potential is significant and may well remain so for the next decade at least.

Secondly the activity is an interesting brew of several different and attractive ingredients.  It makes a positive contribution to well-being and is therefore ethically valuable-this is important and the first question I ask about an activity in my prior commitment reflection-Is it worth doing?

It is boundaried.  There are parameters.  There are end points.  There are measurable outcomes with actual effects.  There is a skill base against which one can measure one’s development.  It is about engagement with rather than power over.  It has room for passion and artistry.  It has space for excellence.  It seeds into other fascinating areas like conflict resolution and labour conciliation.  This is all very appealing and most of all it means that as a leader I can actually go and do some real work rather than spending my time interfering with my staff.

That last comment was in jest really.  I do believe that effective balanced leadership is crucial but it needs to be like the butterfly’s wing in the air rather than the all too common thump of the jackboot.

Mediation offers me an area of practice that will complement the other areas of my work life very well and I believe it to be one of the most fruitful skill sets to manage the emotional traumas of family break-up to emerge in recent times.

IDEAS FROM GEORGE MONBIOT'S BLOG ON RESISTANCE TO THE COALITION

So here goes. We need to redress the balance between cuts and tax rises (currently 3:1)(3), as fairly as possible. That means starting with the UK’s most regressive form of taxation: national insurance. This levy is so unfair that it’s hard to understand why it hasn’t received more attention. On earnings of up to £844 a week, you currently pay 11% national insurance. On earnings beyond that point, you pay 1%(4). We should raise the national insurance rate for higher earnings from 1% to 15%(5). This would help to address a wider injustice: the poorest 10% of UK households pay proportionately more tax (direct and indirect) than the richest 10%(6).

We must close the tax gap. Tax avoidance and evasion are the preserve of the very rich: only millionaires and corporations can afford the specialist advice required to disguise their earnings. The tax gap amounts to between £40bn and £120bn a year(7,8). Not all this money can be reclaimed. We need a national target to claw back £25bn a year. Staffing levels at HM Revenue and Customs should be raised accordingly.

Of the various means of reclaiming money from the banks, a financial transactions tax (the Robin Hood tax) is the fairest and most sustainable. It’s easy to collect, hard to avoid and highly progressive, as it falls largely upon the richest people in the country(9). A tax of 0.005% on financial transactions could raise a net £13bn a year; a tax of 0.01%, £25bn(10).

The government should adopt the plan proposed by the Green Fiscal Commission: by 2020 levies on damage to the environment should amount to 20% of the total tax-take(11), with a commensurate reduction in the income tax and national insurance paid by people with low earnings. The tax exemption for private schools must end. This costs us £100m a year – to grant unfair advantages to the children of the rich(12).

Greg Philo of Glasgow University has proposed an interesting means of mobilising the money the very rich have stashed away: transferring the entire national debt to them. He’s shown that this could be done through a one-off tax averaging 20% on total assets worth more than £1m(13). It would be graduated, so that the richest people are charged at a higher rate than mere seven-figure millionaires. It wouldn’t have to be paid immediately: the asset-holders could choose to pay only the interest on the debt until they died, whereupon the capital would go to the state. This ensures, as the government has promised, that “the broadest shoulders should carry the greatest burden.”(14)

The government should set a target of 0.5% per year for reducing the Gini coefficient – the measure of income inequality – in the United Kingdom(15). To this end it should raise the minimum wage by inflation plus 5% each year until it reaches the level identified by the Living Wage campaign(16). We also need an official High Pay Commission, whose purpose is to identify, as a multiple of the living wage, the maximum remuneration anyone in the UK should receive(17).

The following new military hardware programmes should be scrapped: the Trident weapons system; aircraft carriers; Eurofighter jets. The Barrow shipyard, where new nuclear submarines were to be built, should be redeployed to produce offshore renewables: wind, wave and tide turbines(18). The money saved should be spent on a new public housing programme.

To fill looming gaps in provision and reduce unemployment, the government should raise the public workforce by the following levels: 10,000 more social workers; 10,000 more planners; 50,000 more hospital cleaners; 100,000 more educational staff; 350,000 extra care workers for the elderly(19). As Unison points out, 92% of the cost of employing a public service worker is recouped by the state, because it raises tax revenues while reducing benefit payments(20).

These measures will help to address the immediate problems of the deficit, the debt, unemployment, inequality and a threatened double-dip recession. But we also need to move to a system which doesn’t depend on endless economic growth to sustain high employment and a decent standard of living. We need a Steady State Commission, to develop a government programme for turning a growth-based, boom and bust economy into a stable system, without damaging the prospects of the poor(21).

Quickies on a Sunday!

Audio book 'Silence' by Shusaku Endo-  Available on Audible.  Like Brian Moore's 'Black robe' and due (according to The Guardian's Sue Arnold) to be made into a film starring the great Daniel Day-Lewis.  A sort of hideous torture leading to spiritual conversion theme!

'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' by Muriel Barbery Trans Alison Anderson Narr by the utterly brilliant Barbara Rosenblatt and Cassandra Morris on Audible.

'Perpetual Euphoria'  by Pascal Bruckner-might be worth a look.

'Alternative and Activist New Media' by Leah A Liedrouw

'Overconnected'  William H Davidow

'I shall not hate:  A Gaza Doctor's journey'  Izzeldin Abuelaish

'Solar' by Ian McEwan-Comedy from the melancholic genius-we really should check that out.

'The Ask' Sam Lypsyte  "One of the funniest and most straight-out brilliant novels of the last few years." (Nicola Barr)  Such reviewers comments always come with a warning but it does get my attention.

Who ever knew that Tim Leary wrote a novel and that it has this title?

Gareth Knight artwork from his Journal-'Quadrigal'-I like it!

A beautiful pen holder for a Moleskine notebook-The Quiver.  One of those little things that makes you think erm...that could improve my life.

Check some of this out and get back to me if they're good!
Have a great Sunday and spare a thought for the freedom fighters in the Middle East!

Success to your work!

THEMES OF A LOST LIGHTBRINGER

THEMES OF A LOST LIGHTBRINGER

First, there is the forgetting.

This allows the unfolding, the fracturing

to begin.

This forgetting that you love,

forgetting of the joy and bliss,

forgetting of life’s very precious pulse.

What is this forgetting that is everywhere?

That covers the buildings

and the waters

to the farthest stretch?

Has the Snow Queen returned

to curse us with Heart’s ice?

Then there is betrayal.

That moment of impeccable choice.

Go this way or go that way.

Follow the green man

or the beckoning finger.

Tunnel or rockface.

Path or stream.

That faint sound of voices 

murmuring on the wind

or the clamour of the marketplace.

Choices in the vital moment,

choices that return with vengeance

 of wounds and loss

on the morrow’s breaking.

Spawns deceit it does,

births a hideous monster

suckling on your soul’s dugs.

Drawing you into circles.

Making you into other shapes too.

Unknown.

Un-remembered.

Un-expected.

And then...

Discovery!

Cup breaks,

breathless in foundation

you are plucked/cursed/hidebound.

In a fucking instant

you become newly defined.

A new gestalt

out of which you totter

gracelessly.

Lurching out of Plato’s piss-washed cave

blinking like a reptile on a stage

re-membering

that something a shadow makes.

You have only one cloak to wear today,

let it be a cloak of ashes

to hide your naked despair.

Hide such nakedness from the villagers.

Begone then!

Return when you are healed.

We good folk cannot stand your endless tears.

You follow the soiled track

to re-membrance

Yes!

Re-member.  Re-gain.  Re-turn.

But too late, poor lost child.

All is lost,

it is too late.

All the other fools have left

and there is none so piteous as 

the single fool,

a brightless and despairing fool.

There is little so affronting to our eyes.

We do not like this cracked mirror.

We hate it!

Acceptance spins your cloak of 

ashes into wool.

It shall protect you from the cold wind.

Gather it about you and set your face 

to the West.

Be your destiny and

accept it all into your heart.

What was hollow is now solid.

What was empty is now full,

of pain but also of purpose.

Acceptance is the gift

you give yourself in life,

the rope on which you climb

sweet dreamer.

Accept it all into your heart.

Let go into it!

Let go!

Just let go!

And so...spinning in that web

that holds us all.

A sudden realised thought

sparks out of the void.

Forgive!

Forgive everything!

Find forgiveness and dive into it.

It is understanding.

It is wisdom.

It is the hero’s way.

The transmutations of alchemy are it.

The soul’s truth is it.

It is the only path

out of this dark wood Lightbringer!

So let your light shine

and yield to this well-wyrded fortune.

Follow the strings of runes

To her fabulous eyes

That ever changing glyph,

hazel and blue of

hazel and blue.

Fall upon your sword each day.

Be carried home at evensong

upon your shield.

Children’s tears shall wet your wounds

and even the harsh Gods

will wonder at such pain.

The blood itself will cry out of these caves.

Even the good folk will wonder:

Some will say, forget.

Some will say, re-member.

Lost Lightbringer, they will say,

re-member!

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CAMERON CLEGG AND OSBORNE: THREE NAUGHTY LITTLE MONKEYS

The impact of the comprehensive spending review and the proposed cuts in state spending of, in some cases 8% reductions year on year for five years will lead in some cases, to a 40% reduction in state provision.  It is an unheard of amount and the effects cannot be easily determined.  We have heard that ‘we are in this together’ and that the cuts will not be borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable in society.  But while the banksters gather to grab a share in an estimated 7 billion bonus pot over the next few weeks it has certainly come to my personal attention that in fact the cuts will directly affect the most vulnerable groups in society as well as the slightly unsavoury new term to describe ‘the squeezed middle’ now being touted by Ed Miliband in an attempt to create clear blue water between a seemingly directionless opposition and a coalition hell-bent on the dismantling of vast elements of a welfare state built up over the last fifty years.  There is a good reason why the cuts will be targeted (I use the word advisedly) on the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and the ‘squeezed middle.’

The major reason is an astonishing ‘hands-off’ mentality from the government in relation to where the cuts will fall.  But while the government may present this as giving freedom to local authorities to reduce where they determine, it is obvious that panicked and poorly lead local authorities will target the areas of least resistance and these are generally populated by those most dispossessed, most powerless, voiceless and least able to resist.  The real strategy is an abdication of responsibility that will allow the coalition to avoid the difficult decisions and, more crucially the responsibilities of identifying which groups lose and which maintain their funding.  There will be no winners-apart that is, from the usual suspects.

The looked after children population falls into this category.  With 60.000 children and young people in care set to rise to 120,000 by the end of 2012 there will be a proposed doubling of the population of children coming in to the care system.

The domino effect will be set in train by the cumulative effects of withdrawal and reduction of benefits on the poorest families who have to date managed to keep their families together by the skin of their teeth.  The difference this time is that this vulnerable group will be joined by members of Miliband’s ‘squeezed middle’ who can usually struggle along through boom and bust.  With an average national salary of just £26,000 per annum these families will be taking the hit on the 5% VAT increase as well as their better off neighbours facing an imminent reduction in child benefits and tax credits which will mean the loss of hundreds, in some cases thousands of pounds a year in income.  Add the hikes in transport and utilities costs and you have a perfect storm for the middle classes who earn around £37,000 per annum.  Certainly never seen as a penurious income but soon to be far from comfortable

But what is astonishing about this round of cuts to me is the almost complete absence of what we might call a culture of resistance.  The passivity with which the comprehensive spending review was received by the nation was remarkable.  I think this is compounded by the predominant emotion in a recession which is fear but the flipside of that particular coin is anger and I sense a deep fury among the people at the injustice of this elite-manufactured recession.  I would not be surprised to see a series of serious riots in the cities over the summer of 2011.  I also see a political system which is rooted in ideas of society relevant to the 1950’s and completely unfit for purpose to deal with the three major challenges of the next twenty years and beyond.  Namely climate change, the loss of biodiversity and increasing global instability.

Leadership in the UK is supplied by a cadre of elite educated sociopaths with a pathological sense of their own entitlement and crucially no understanding of normal economic life.  Cameron, Osborne and Clegg visited Oldham in the recent by-election like Victorian gentleman anthropologists observing a tribe of African bushmen.  They are so divorced from the reality of most people’s lives that they are unable to see the implications of their policies on actual lives.  To them it is all theory.

This has to change.  We need a new political party which is truly of ‘all the talents’.  We need the leadership of the most brilliant people in their respective fields so we can have the best healthcare, the best welfare, the most effective military capability, the most effective  strategies for industry and commerce, the very best and relevant educational system for all our children and it needs to be based on what works, not informed by some outmoded political cod-philosophy derived from the turn of the last century.  We need an end to the ludicrous and simplistic binary polarities of Labour and Conservative.  We need an integral politics and a new political party to take us forward.

I don’t see anything like this evolving presently but you know sometimes it takes a disaster to birth a new beginning.  Sometimes all you can do is take a deep breath, do your bit, and cross your fingers.

The Passion Soundtrack by Peter Gabriel. Beautiful...