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Nearly done packing for my trip to Lanzarote for a bit of chill time and diving. I thought about doing some hiking as well, but I don’t feel like lumbering around hiking gear and diving gear for such a short break.  So diving it is!

I’m looking forward to escaping this god awful UK weather! It’s freaking July and we are still in jackets, jumpers, and long trousers!!

Anyway, the break will do me some good after an 8 week long contract.

Mthrfckrs better realize, now is the time to self-actualize. – Saul Williams, American Poet

Every now and then, I find myself slipping back into the abyss, that place where other people insist on defining me, telling me who I am and who I SHOULD be, according to the standards they mete. And then my old friends, doubt and confusion, take the opportunity to get back inside my head and start causing all sorts of craziness like two drunks at a wedding party. And then as usual, I reach a point where I say, enough is enough, get the fuck out!

I’m at that point today! Enough is enough, I say!

As Maslow said, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This is the need we may call self-actualization…it refers to man’s desire for fulfillment, namely the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming…”

peace, clay

This is just to cool:

[youtube]OWJb2UKf9zI[/youtube]

Flybe are consistent at one thing…being late.  This airline has a serious problem. I have been flying to and from Edinburgh for the past 6 weeks.  All 12 flights have been late.  And I’m not talking a 10 or 20 minutes.  They have been up to 3 hours late, like this morning!  I’m suppose to be in the air right now on my way up to Edinburgh, but when I checked in at 5.30am this morning, the lady told me my flight would not be leaving until 10.10 instead of 7.15.  It appears to be a moral thing as 1st officers, pilots and flight attendants keep phoning in sick. And for whatever reason, flybe doesn’t seem to have anyone on immediate standby to take the place of their stricken comrade.  So us weary passengers have to wait.  Most of us on the 7.15 flight are business folk which means our work day is kind of cocked up.

But such is such.  I’ll wait it out in the executive lounge and get high off of coffee and orange juice and Scottish fruit cakes.

Here are a few photos of me performing some poetry at the peace festival you can click on the photos to enlarge them:

The lady with the best pair of legs you can imagine, Just a Girl in short shorts, has tagged me with the pieces of eight meme. It’s been a while since I’ve done a meme, so I thought I’d give this one a go.
Rules: Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people; then visits those people’s sites and comments, letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.

1. If I thought that I were making
Answer to one that might return to view
The world, this flame should evermore cease shaking.

But since from this abyss, if I hear true,
None ever came alive, I have no fear
Of infamy, but give thee answer due.

Dante’s Inferno (Canto XXVII, lines 61 – 66)
2. My archetypal behavior is that of the jester and the magician. On the one hand, I am an advocate of enjoying the process of life. Life is just too damn short to do otherwise. Jesters are famous for inviting everyone out to play and showing them how they can turn their work, interactions with others, and the most mundane tasks imaginable into fun. On the downside we jesters are prone to laziness and dissipation. The magician in me has it’s fair share of the stage constantly in search of the metaphysical answers to the Universe. While we have the power to transform peoples’ lives and make visions reality, we can, if not kept in check, use this influence over people in a manipulative way.

3. I sometimes miss being a combat infantryman. My days as an infantry platoon leader where pure and elemental. Living constantly with life and death decisions has a way of making you appreciate the finer points of living…of being alive. General Lee once remarked that it was good that war is so terrible, least we should grow fond of it. Where once I was wild and tame-less, I am now sedated and long to be roaming the wilds.

4. My preferred way to live is to never stop exploring. William Blake wrote that in the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors. It is these doors that I seek to find. I believe that knowledge is a worthy enough goal to pursue for its own sake. I believe that peace is found through letting go, leaving the mind free to wander and to wonder and to accept life as a gift.
Peace to me does not mean tranquility. It means freedom, a freedom to live in accord with one’s own understanding. To be set free from those who would attempt to control my mind with rules and regulations that are designed to keep me in slavery, to make me conform, to destroy my soul and become one of the walking dead. I refuse to accept this. My fate is my own

5. I am basically a happy-go-lucky kind of guy who according to my wife is insane. I prefer to think I am one of the mad ones Jack Kerouac wrote about: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes awww!”

6. I was born in Newark, New Jersey back in 1968. We lived there for most of my early childhood. My dad was a Navy man so we didn’t stay there long. From birth to about age sixteen, we lived in various cities and towns throughout New Jersey. We lived in Newark, Irvington, Plainfield, and Eatontown. My mom and pop split when I was sixteen. Mom loaded us up in the Lincoln and we moved to Augusta, Georgia. I hated Augusta. I split as soon as could.

7. Books. I have always loved books from a very early age I fell in love with books. I love to read them. I love to look at them. I love to hold them in my hands. I love to be surrounded by them. As a kid, the library was my sanctuary. During summer holidays, I would walk the 8 miles to the library on Post and spend the whole day there wandering amongst the stacks. The subject matter was not important. I could be found anywhere in the stacks, from botany to physics, to poetry and history. I spend a lot of time in bookstores now. I can spend hours in these mega-bookshops drinking coffee and wandering the stacks and inevitably spending a small fortune. Books are like stray pets to me. I see one and I want to take it home with me.

8. I love the open road. I don’t even have to have a particular destination in my mind. Just the simple fact of being on the road going somewhere is enough for me. One of my favourite travel passions is to wander around big city streets like a ghost or a man with no name. It’s funny because one of my fears about dying is that I will die in obscurity. And yet, when I wander city streets it the very fact that I am anonymous that makes the streets exciting. I could happily give up all my possessions and walk the earth like Kane.

I am now required to tag 8 pirates: Christine’s Notes, Beaman’s World, Exskindiver, Secrete Agent Artist, CathyK, Anndi’s Luggage, Lady Banana, Serenity Unearthed.

Action is character wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Syd Field expanded the idea to “what a person does is what he is, not what he says.”  Now that was written in the context of creating characters for screenplays, but as I digested the statement, I thought how would that apply to me as a character.  What do I actually do from day to day, moment to moment? And how does what I do, define who I am.  How much stuff do I say, but not do?  And how much of what I say is a reflection of things I’ve already done, or put another way, how much time do I spend talking about what Bruce Springteen called the glory days?

I don’t have answers yet because the questions stopped me dead in my tracks.  I glimpsed a reflection of the answers and froze.  Could I really answer the questions objectively?  We have a perception of ourselves that is different from how other people perceive us which is different still from reality, whatever that is.

If someone were to write a biography of me, I wonder what they would write…

I overheard a conversation yesterday.  A lady, must have been in her mid thirties, was filling out an application for a service.  The agent asked her marital status.

“I’m single,” says the lady.

“Ok no problem,” replies the agent.

The agent, about to proceed to the next question, is interrupted by the lady.

“Well (slow pause) I’m divorced like everybody else,” she says.

—

Ok, aside from the state of affairs of marriage, I’m left wondering, why on an application does the category divorced appear anyway.  Surely if you’re divorced it means you’re single.  So why the two boxes?

My life is one big airport at the moment flying to and from Scotland. And when you have a 2 and half hour delay to your flight, you get plenty of time to think. I’ve been mulling over some words I stumbled across in the Joseph Campbell companion guide where he’s writing about old age and following your bliss. And the quote on old age that caught my eye was this: you know you’re getting old “when you’ve gotten to the top of the ladder and find it’s up against the wrong wall.”

And the thought of descending the whole ladder to climb another one is dreadful. As JC pointed out, that’s where many people find themselves today. His advice is to forget the ladder and just wander, bump around.

Which of course reminds me of something Tolkien wrote: “Not all those who wander are lost.”

And now I am thinking, do I want to climb another ladder? The truth is I’ve never climbed to the top of any ladder. Like Frank Sinatra, I’ve been:

a puppet

a pauper

a pirate

a poet

a pawn and a king

I’ve also been a dishwasher (funniest job I ever had), a cadet, a cement mixer, a counselor, a fitness instructor, a soldier, a financial consultant, a manufacturing engineer, a technology trainer, a training manager, a coach, and a training consultant.

And non of these have I climbed to the top. I simply did them until they no longer interested me and then I moved on. But now as I approach 39, I’m wondering should I be settled? Should I be at the top of some ladder with the implication that at the top of the ladder I’d have lots of money and could retire and not have to work again?

Somehow, the prospect of retiring, the idea of retiring makes me shudder. The thought of retiring fills my head up with images of being put on a shelf, ‘retired’ to make way for a newer faster model.

No, I like the idea that it is better to burn out than to fade away.

I spent the weekend in Snowdonia leading another group through the Ascent program.

—

Mountain Spirit

I move in the presence
Of Mount Snowdon Feeling
The weight of its ancient pull

A challenge, a summons, filters
Through the mountain breeze
The gate of your destiny is open

I hear the mountain spirit say
But will I walk through it?
Is what echoes in my mind

By the lake shore, I stand
To ponder the significance
Of these subtle words

The answers I think I know
Lie hidden in these ancient rocks
It is the questions that defy formulation

The Path, my path, familiar
Yet strange, my spirit knows
The Way in a way my mind does not

The Path, I’m told, leads
Everywhere and nowhere
The view from the top the same

The lesson is in the journey
Only more questions
Await at the top

To step on the Path
Or not to step
Is the question that drives me
– c.lowe

I’ve been in Posnan, Poland this past week. I had every intention to continue to post while I was there, but as Murphy’s Law would have it, the place where I stayed had very spotty internet connection and I didn’t have the time to go look for a internet cafe.

Officially, I was in Posnan as a workshop leader for Negotiation Days IV. I worked the conference last year and enjoyed myself so much that I jumped at the chance to come back and be apart of the team. I ran three workshops, one on building effective teams, one on coaching, and one on Alpha Leadership.

Unofficially, I spent time exploring the culture. I am amazed that people are people no matter where you go. I think we like to believe we are different, but we’re not. I know that’s not a revolutionary thought and others would dispute my
claim, but as I sat in the New Market watching people go by on their way to work or school, or shopping, familiar scenes bombarded my senses. I could have been on any street corner, in Europe, or America or another place tied into the global village. What I saw: C&A, Lee Wranglers, Henri LLyod, Nescafe, Nike, Reebok, Puma, Spiderman 3, Orange, Imax, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, 3 lads with school bags and Ipods in their ear, ladies pushing prams, a girl with white trainers and pink laces wearing faded jeans, a 10 meter poster plastered on the side of a building with a stylish woman and stylish man in black looking down on the passerbys as if to say wouldn’t you like to be as cool me…

So at the macro level the view looks the same, but of course when I looked at the micro level interacting act with people on an individual level, I found mostly wonderful friendly people very strong in tradition, but equally eager to learn new things.

I performed a couple of poems last night at Word open mic poetry night at Bambu in Leicester. I did “and the dead poets go” and also a new one which I don’t have a title for yet. If you can think of a suitable title for it, let me know:

Those who would be your master
Pick upon the bones of your disaster
While you lie awake and worry
They plot and scheme and scurry

About looking for next weeks news
They amuse themselves with statistics
The police are checking the ballistics
Of a thousand bullets gone astray
And you pray between shots of whiskey and blues

Tomorrow will be a better day
At least that’s what the weathermen say
Meanwhile you wiggle in wretched sheets
Struggling to make ends meet
You hope there is a better way

To live a life of sound and fury
Let the jury judge your works of passion
While you keep up with the latest fashion
The time you thought you had tomorrow
Disappears beneath tears and sorrow

As you dance to a beat not your own
You hear the rhythm of your heart…beat moan.

– c.lowe

—

There were a lot of fab poets on last night. Sean, Oliver, and myself were there representing Leamington Spa’s open mic poetry club, Pure and Good and Right. I believe we gave a good showing. The headline poet was a cool cat named Mike from Random Ramblings Poetry duo. I left the evening feeling over the moon inspired…inspired to write more poetry.

I feel like a caged animal today, and people are poking sticks through the bars. I am expending a ton of mental energy to maintain my focus and my cool. I simultaneously want to explode and implode! As Snap once sang:

It’s like a day
when nothing seems to go your way
but you stick it out anyway
’cause you’re a champ

Well that’s my rant!

Cruising through the weekend, I came upon this quote by Salman Rushdie:

“A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”

The quote resonates with me because I think poetry some times has the reputation of being flowery and love struck or inaccessibly obtuse.

For me, a poet is an artist, and as an artist has a responsibility to do what artists have always done which is to respond to, reflect upon, and hopefully, influence the world.

I was out wandering the hills this weekend in Mid-Wales on Cader Idris. Legend has it that the mountain is haunted and anyone who spends the night on the top of Cader Idris will wake up either a madman or a poet. Personally I didn’t think there was a difference between the two.

Cader Idris is a beautiful area if you ever get a chance to go there. Here are some photos: Cader Idris

Also if you want to read the poem I wrote about the mountain you can check out on our Walking Wordsmiths’ blog.

I made the switch from pc to mac and after 3 days of happy computing, I don’t think I’ll ever be looking back. I thought my learning curve would be a lot higher, but so far, I have found navigating the system to be very intuitive. The reason I made the switch is I wanted to upgrade my laptop, but was not interested in messing around windows vista. Plus secretly I’ve been fantasing about the mac for a few weeks now. So I saw the opportunity and I took it.

My only glitch so far is that I haven’t found a way to get my 500 some odd contacts from my pocketpc into mac contact book or how to synch my calendar with my pocketpc.

Assume that ther is a broader picture than your own point of view. What would happen if you lost your point of view? Who would you be?

Try this:

If you are bleeding heart liberal, immerse yourself in a conservative’s point of view – think how they think, read what they read, eat what they eat for a month.

If you are a die hard conservative, immerse yourself in a liberal’s point of view – think how they think, read what they read, eat what they eat for a month.

And if you are of some other persuasion, then try out either of the above.

After a month, re-adopt your original point of view. Do you still think or feel the same way you did before the experiement?

I had a lie in this morning to think and reflect about my life as it was, as it is, and as I want it to be.  You know often I get moving into a space where I am so focused on obtaining something that I forget the simple rules of life.  What do I mean by that?  I mean I try to force things to happen.  I try to force the universe to move right now.  I forget how the law of cause and effect works and I forget how the law of attraction works and I also forget how to listen.  I stray from the path, my path.  And when I do that, then my life seems hard, or it seems like it’s going to collapse on itself, and I can’t see the forest for the trees.

But when I let go and relax into the path, then things start to happen seemingly with ease.

There are forces now that are moving and stirring in the undercurrent of my life’s path. These past couple of weeks have been riddled with signs and omens which up until Monday, I’ve chosen to ignore or pretend I didn’t see.  It is time for me to stop, listen, and learn.

Check out my new ascent video.  And if you’re feeling kind, please comment and rate it on youtube. Oh yeah, and share it with friends.

[youtube]NlRH529fh5o[/youtube]