I would wish that everyone in the world would wake up and be able to see clearly, objectively how selfishly we live on this fine Earth and how we are sickening it. If Gaia is a single organism then Global Warming is tantamount to her running a fever. It would be an unpleasant thing to wish people because it's not nice being told that you are a virus. (And if your belief in the Gaia Theory is true, you have to admit that it is a valid metaphor for us) However, we are self-aware so we can change into a beneficial virus, but to do that we first have to admit to our faults that they may be cleared out. This doesn't take leaders to organise, priests to validate or any community structure. It only needs you yourself to acknowledge that. Once a critical mass is achieved change will be inevitable.

So, Pilgrim, it is with a contrite voice that I make my wish, but know that it will be best for all in the long run.

May the new year bring you all the abundance and happiness you can handle.

Its what all life boils down to isn't it? Still I find the idea of "believeing" to be confusing. Whether I believe in Him or not, God exists because others believe it. In the same way that it is impossible to say that there is only one God, while we oppress or ostracie those who believe differently.

Here's how it is, Pilgrim. Look at mankind from God's perspective. We've gone and spread out all over the world and evolved cultures that are distinctly different from each other. All of these cultures still show a awareness of the Spirit and for God, as with your children, it doesn't matter what you call Him, or what rituals you use to worship Him as long as you do. You are even welcome to invent a ritual or two of your own as long as it is sincerely done, because the relationship between you and god is as personal as it gets. It doesn't matter which path you have found to God, you will have been guided by the accident of the culture you were raised in, and taught the language and name. You will have been taught the same ethics, though moral values differ (but that's another conversation)

Unfortunately, the relgious structures are as susceptible to greed as the political structures are, and that has resulted in a possessiveness and a territorial claim to God that has nothing to do with his spirit. So I have always seperated the Faith of the acolytes from the religion that guides them, (often to selfishly meet it own ends)

I can go on and on, Pilgrim, but I will leave you mull over what I've said and discover the wholeness of God by yourself (much more gratifying than being told). It is impossible not to believe in God. It would be accurate to say that you have no faith in God, but as you are talking about Him, you have to admit to His existence.

I was bored. I was manager of a liquor store for nine years in a small town and this was my life, 13 hours a day for 6 days a week I entered the domain of bottles. I was in a small town, there were no further prospects. I was getting increasingly depressed. I have always been an extrovert person with a good sense of humour and always found the bright side of any situation I found myself in. So the depression didn’t show, not even to myself. But it was there.

In the middle of strolling around the store and thinking, what else is there to do? I decided something.

I was brought up as a Catholic boy, but rejected it by age fourteen. I am a Sagittarian son of a Sagittarian mother my freedom to make up my own mind on issues without authoritarian guidance was inevitable. I tried a few other established churches but found the same lack of conviction amongst the believers there. They all spoke confidently about Christ but it was plain that it was all learnt parrot-fashion and very few knew a spiritual experience. I even started my own Christian group, Salvage, which lasted about a month before I realised that here too, no one had the right idea. Not being able to find an answer and being distracted by the teen hormones and the emerging hippy culture (about a year or two behind the rest of the world – no instant communications yet) I gave up and considered myself an atheist. In the liquor store, then, at a low point, I decided that if there was something to it, I will look for the answers but they must be real, tangible results. A lot of good intelligent people believed in this, so there must be something to it and I felt by not even considering it I was being unfair.

I started immediately by trying to recall when I felt most moved spiritually. This was whenever I was in nature. I have always been affected by the energies in nature and it was always where I found a peace within myself. I pursued the thought that IF God created the world then nature is the system He put in place and our restructuring of the world was destroying His vision.

I then had the opportunity to do a sweat lodge. I was fascinated by the sophistication of the Native American never explored it fully. It was not the sweat that made the biggest impression on me, but the trance we did as part of the same exercise. It was here that I realised how the communication between the spirit world and myself worked. It was the method by which I would go into that altered state of mind and listen to that still voice that did not come from me. I was experiencing a communication with my intuition.

I had done a bit of trance work during my drama courses I attended as a student and so I was familiar with that mindspace but I had not consciously identified my intuition in that. I then continued, on my own, as you will understand in a moment, to explore this new found sense. Actually not new at all. I have always been aware of my ability to 'know' things and create futures, it was just not done so consciously.

I have always been a nudist, and after sharing my experience with others and leading them to their intuition was always a bit hit and miss until a friend also went naked and it worked wonderfully. I understood something I had to now understand intellectually so that it makes sense to me. I researched and found the following. Indulge me here, this is an important aspect so I'm going to ramble a bit.

The skin is a sense organ. The biggest organ of all on top of it. For the last few centuries (since the start of the Industrial revolution) we have become increasingly prudish about our physical presence. We have become ashamed of our bodies and protected them from the ravenous eyes of the world. The more we placed our faith in machinery for our survival the more our spirituality was sacrificed to accommodate this. We moved away from using our intuition, helped along by the prejudices of the church, which saw all that as witchcraft, and that prejudice is still alive and well in our society today. Still the more conservative we became in regard to our bodies, the more we lost touch with our intuition and hence our spiritual selves. (Which, incidentally, is why I could find nobody in the established religions who really had a spiritual experience.) All this covering up meant that the skin became stifled and unused.

Now, its my theory and it has proven itself as valid to me and the few who have dared share the experience with me.and it goes thus: The skin is the sense organ for the intuition as the eyes are the organ for sight. Intuition is not about learned knowledge it is about knowledge that is felt. When I first met my wife I 'knew' that she would be the one. This was not wishful thinking. I knew it. I also knew that it would not be a good marriage. Both turned out to be correct. Often when your intuition supplies a idea our rational mind turns it down even before it becomes a conscious thought. Much is lost by rational interference. Even now you are thinking that I am a nutcase because you are NEVER going to be caught dancing naked, but stop and think about it, ignore the fearful reaction you may have and much to your dismay you have a deep seated inkling that I may be right and even then your rational mind will dismiss it.

(In order to keep this as brief as possible I will leave it there but I will come back to it later.)

Inspired by this experience I decided to build my own sweatlodge in my yard. I dug it into the ground and about a foot down I hit one huge solid rock. I persevered and with only a pick and a spade broke enough rock to line our large garden and also to line the walls of the sweat lodge. Because of the rock it took months. It is then that I realised the power of intention and how to use it.

Your intent is the most powerful of all your talents or drives. Absolutely anything can be achieved through intent, but it must be done in the right spirit. For instance I discovered that I could do healing, This only worked when my intent was not to boost myself, but was completely altruistic. The same goes for intent in approaching any task, event, whatever. I never ask money to help people or guide and mentor them.

The third and most uncomfortable lesson to learn was the meaning of humility. Remember that only you can give yourself humility and others will give you humiliation. Humility, combined with intent is a powerful tool to make changes in the world around you. Everything was taken from me. I lost my marriage, my business that I was getting off the ground, and left town for the city with only a few clothes and precious things. I literally had nothing left.

Frightening as that might sound it was balanced by the knowledge that every change for the good means a sacrifice of things that are not good. I was able to clear out everything that was holding me back and fill my life with good things.

I am now able to to say that my learning process (after ten years of exploring) has reached a point where I can start giving that to others. Why are we driven to want everyone to know what we do? Firstly it is my knowing that we can create paradise as long as we all (or a critical mass at any rate) strive towards the same thing. And then what is life worth if you can't share freely the good stuff.

It is my intent to set about bringing people to know this. It is necessary for Gaia.

That is my story in its briefest possible form. My next post will describe how I am going to set about realisiing my dream.

What would you do to help Gaia? Many would give their lives just for a country or even a nebulous thing like an ideology? I won't ask that much, but we have to do something to change the current self-gratifying mindset of the world before it wipes us out along with the planet. For every change, when you bring something new into your life there is always a sacrifice of the old. What are you willing to sacrifice to make this world a place we will find all the good things in?

All I ask, for now, is that you dismiss prejudice.

It is my intention to bring people closer to the Earth and all the life on it.Through these rituals They will learn to understand what it means to say, "All things are connected" Its easy to hear something like that and even to agree with it, but it is only when they have experienced it that it will mean anything to them. Then and only then a whole world of living opens up and every day will contain mystery and magic. I will do this through a weekend workshop.

In "My Story" posted earlier, I related how I discovered a whole world that people live right past without being aware of it. I can raise that awareness.

We will take a day in nature isolated and with none of the comforts and things relating to home or office or the workaday life. Nothing from your everyday goes with you. No cellphone, no books, magazines nothing. .

Not even your clothes. For a few hours it will be only you and nature. This is intended as a kind of shock therapy. To remove you from all the material things that hold you back from opening up and receiving nature.

Why naked? I'll tell you and then I'll change the rule to accommodate those whose fear is so great that they really cannot do this.

Firstly your skin is your largest sense organ. It is there to feel. Not touch, touch is an action that you do with your skin. You touch someone. Your skin feels. Just as your eyes see to give you sight, so your skin feels to give you an intuition. (This is one point that as far as I know only I have made. I might be wrong, but my intuition tells me that I am on the money.) Our years of prudery over our bodies have created a strange relationship between the soul and its counterpart in the physical world. Releasing your skin from its customary shroud makes it hyper-aware and it is much easier to completely dismiss your history and all the prejudices to give yourself entirely to the moment as if the dance we will perform is your first experience ever. If you can try standing naked in a secluded spot where no one can spy on you and just close eyes and feel the air move across you skin. You have been gifted with a sensual body for a reason. It is the only way you can experience being alive and being yourself. Children's games involve the full sensual spectrum. Running, jumping and wrestling. Toddlers on the beach are the lucky ones when they can paddle naked in the sea without themselves or anyone else condemning them. I want you to have such an intimate relationship with Gaia.

Secondly, It is about the commitment you make to the experience. YOU have to want it and by overcoming the hurdle of disrobing you make your commitment. If the experience is only half-heartedly attempted then there can only be a half-hearted progress. It is necessary to give (this will recur later, too) to open up to the Spirit. I have found that being naked makes that surrender to life more complete.

Thirdly, being naked is the true expression of self. This is who you are, no deceptions or cover-ups. It is imperative that the exercise is done in good faith with no sordid agenda for self. Being naked expresses that. You can hide behind clothes but you can't hide behind nudity. This is your state of grace.

And lastly, because you will be surprised how a simple action like taking your clothes off obliterates any stress that you might otherwise bring with you and interfere with your perception of your intuition. Stress fear prejudice are all negative emotions and they need to be put aside in order that you hold nothing back in the dance.

So you are terribly self-conscious and cannot under any circumstances be naked and especially not in the company of others. Strangers!. OK cover your body only with a sarong or khikhoi. Air needs to be able to blow over every bit of skin and that at least allows that to a degree. Underwear or swimming costumes, no matter how tiny are not on, we are not trying to look or be sexy, save that for the pool or beach.

After our sojourn in the arms of Gaia we go through a cleansing ritual that involves all four elements - earth water air fire - the last being the sweat lodge. Then I will lead you in a trance dance.

The world of trance has always been right on your doorstep and you indulge in it daily, mainly through dreaming, but also when, as sportsmen say, they are 'in the zone' I find that I go into trance states very easily. I need only read a book to completely lose track of the 'real world' and even forget where I sat myself down so waking comes as a surprise. The word has all sorts of connotations attached to it and many fear the trance as being dangerous. I haven't found that at all. It is in fact a natural thing to do. More natural than some of the stuff we readily accept on TV, like the politician's spin. As long as the trance is done with the right intent it is perfectly safe because you create it. If you are going to try this by yourself be warned that your intent needs to be pure. When I take people on a trance journey we explore the spirit world on our Earthly level, where we have the animal and plant spirits and guides before venturing to the rest. It is best to be guided by someone who does trance work. The spirit world that you visit in your dreams and trance is divided into three aspects, which Shamen have described as a tree. The trunk being the Earth, both the physical and spirit Earth. The branches are the upper world of positive spirits and the roots being the under world where the negative energies are. Negative is just that. It is not evil. That is a part of the judgemental prejudice created by the Christian Church who butchered anyone who thought differently. You cannot eradicate evil, but it needs to be balanced. These days that balance is way out of kilter and it needs to be readjusted. Evil is evil only because the church has taught us that it is and then instilled all sorts of fears in us that we will not question it. But as the wind is beneficial and cools us on a hot summer's day, spreads pollen and seeds that new life may grow so too it is that the wind destroys huge cities as Katrina did to New Orleans. Yet if we fear the evil we also lose the benefits of the wind.

The dance is done blindfold to cut out the primary sense and allow yourself to find within you the world outside. You have to look inward to find that which is not tangible in the world beyond your being.

The reason we are motivated to do whatever we do can all be boiled down one thing. Ultimately, when like a toddler you run out of why questions, you do your job because it is going to lead you to happiness. Its why you had those dreams when you left college. You were going to have the house, car, pool and friends and that was what would make you happy and that was what got you going in the morning.

So now that you have been working for 'x' amount of years are you anywhere near to that ideal yet? Are you happy? Statistically very few of you would have answered "Yes" to that one. I have my own perspective on happiness which I would like to share.

In order to be truly happy certain conditions must be met.

You need peace. When you worry you can't be at peace and as long as that peace is missing from your life, happiness will elude you. Its the stress associated with worrying that is keeping you from happiness.  In order to find peace (a big positive) you have to sacrifice the negatives. Sacrifice is the emphasised word here.

You need freedom. Without freedom you cannot be happy. In order to be completely content within yourself you need the freedom to be yourself. You need to be freed from all constraints, and especially self-restraint.

You need love. That ought to be obvious. What's not obvious is that it is not the love you get that feels so good, its the love you give. And the more you can give the more you will get. Its the same with every emotion. Love Joy Anger the lot. Remember, love is not a finite resource within you, there's ample for everybody.

Here's a nasty one one, you think? You need humility. This is not the state of having nothing, it is the state of wanting nothing for yourself. And its often not so nasty. It is good for the soul to sometimes have nothing. As you come out of that experience you know what is worth keeping.

Lastly, you need time,  which is a double-barreled one. You do need time to give to yourself to be with yourself. To find peace and to be free takes time. And then you sometimes have to discard your perspective of time. The past does not exist. It really doesn't. Its gone, dead. You will not ever see the past again. It is only in your memory that a shade of the past lingers.  There consequently is no future eaither except as a concept that we alone are conscious of. But it does not yet exist and their are how-many-people in the world who each have their unique vision of what the future will hold and it is, as yet, undecided and non-exitant and unpredictably moody. You obviously cannot exist in a world that does not exist, you only exist in the present. Your entire life takes up just this split second and even less. You can use a millionth of a second as an example and it would still be true to say that you exist only in that extremely brief moment. Do not clutter it up with stuff that is dead and gone or worry about consequences. Life is too short. Live every moment like its the only moment.

Thats about it. If other elements strike me as necessary, like, er... intent perhaps, then I shal tag it onto this post.