The Wilder Gifts of the Spirit

The sirens are screaming, and the fires are howling Way down in the valley tonight There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye And a blade shining oh so bright There's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky And a killer's on the bloodshot streets And down in the tunnels where the deadly are rising Oh, I swear I saw a young boy down in the gutter He was starting to foam in the heat Oh, baby you're the only thing in this whole world That's pure and good and right And wherever you are and wherever you go There's always gonna be some light But I gotta get out, I gotta break out now Before the final crack of dawn So we gotta make the most of our one night together When it's over, you know We'll both be so alone Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes When the night is over, like a bat out of hell, I'll be gone, gone, gone Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes But when the day is done And...

If there was a god, god would be change and change would be god. I didn’t get much chance to blog on my short trip to Cumbria. We had a good time, caught up and did ‘Quaker type things’. A lot is changing inside of me, hard to put words to it really. Confrontation is not easy, it takes it out of you. I think I will book a ticket to see my friend in Wales. It will hurt being there post my first love smashing my heart to pieces, but crying is good for you, and confrontation brings growth. I probably don’t have welsh blood, I decided my Cornish forebearers were hippies and liked the name Llewellyn (apparently it can be Cornish to??), and that is ok. It doesn’t need kind of matter you love who and what you love at the end of the day. 

I like how sometimes we re find pieces of ourselves in places. I guess it is like regaining a piece of our innocent love and pure intentions after the world has judged and condemned. 

The above is the view from my bedroom window. I don’t know if you can tell but I am up north in Ulverston, visiting Swarthmoor Hall. I am continuing my Young Adult Leadership Programme at ‘the Quaker Vatican’ (inappropriate joke). Last time I was here I was in a different place mentally, I wasn’t heart broken and I wasn’t grieving. I was here on a pilgrimage but I was running away from something else. Now on my crazy little spiritual Odyssey of one, I don’t know where I am.  The Lake District reminds me of Wales. Another moment to pull at the heart strings. It is painful, but a little pain can’t be helped with life. A mixture of pain and love brings us into the world, and I guess roughly the same takes us out.  I don’t want to be reminded of Wales, I don’t want to be reminded of love, and its destruction through fear, but maybe it is good for me (..maybe I should face it and go back...). There is something I should be remembering... There is this strange momen...

I have been thinking I should update this blog. I have been blog silent for a few weeks. I have been wanting to share, but not feeling as much of a rush to post. Perhaps this is the effect of living in the wilderness between London and the coast. I am now in the middle of writing an article. This involves listening to music, writing blog posts, and having ninety nine different tasks from the administration of living come remind me of their need for completion. This is fine. I might have spent some time trying to clear my mind to focus on one article, but I never work that way in practise if I am trying to be creative. Though I have used the Artist's Way morning pages today, I have basically forgotten about them during the week. I was beginning to feel writing three pages a day to be restrictive to my creativity, rather than encouraging it's flow. Being told to write three pages, by hand, every morning, just feels the opposite of what would make me sit down and be creative,...

So I made it through to the end of the Artist's Way for the first time. It took two months longer than it should have done, and I am not sure I put as much into it as I should have done post-heartbreak. Perhaps I picked the wrong or the right time to start, it is hard to tell. I was more focused on being in love and then being heartbroken than planning great creative enterprise. Maybe now I am in a more neutral place, I can focus a little more on my creative self-development. I need to get back to doing my artist's dates and morning pages, though I never feel like I have enough time, or is it hard to allow my creative inner child to play? Hard to tell. I reflected on my writing from the beginning of the course, and I have achieved some of what I wanted to achieve at that point in time. I wanted to move out of London and improve my living situation, so this is good news. Not sure I have radically transformed artistically, though I did undergo massive upheaval and change i...

The rain is pelting it down outside, and yet the lads are still out playing football. I am inside still trying to defy medical science and not have a virus of some weird description. The rain and wind are fierce, and I would tell the boys to stop their play and go home and stay warm. Here in my little room, I am trying to stay warm and trying to get some writing and reading done. There is so much I want to read, and so much I want to do. There is a really cool looking Celtic fire ritual going on in Brighton, but I am not going to make it, not with weather like this. Seeing that event has made me realise I want to go further with Celtic spirituality. This is alongside wanting to learn about the Orisha's, having been impressed at an African science fiction film screening. It has taken me a long time to admit that I am interested in African spirituality, mainly out of fear of taking from another culture not my own, and causing offence. I have asked permission from people with a l...