Walking along

'Even sen

The end of the world may be the beginning of a new one

 So it's not as close to a death, a betrayal yes but not grieving this time as I quit drinking and smoking things one last time. Again...

What a nightmare  a period of such self recrimination, self examination, shame.

How? When I wrote in July how disappointed I was with myself, how much better I though  felt this year would have gone without such things going on. 

It's a massive let down, a fall backwards into death, my own and I can only hold my head in shame and denial would be too good for me, I can just feel the utter ridiculousness of saying any of this at all.

Addict! Guilty! Liar! Cheat, scum, I've changed. No hair, no beard, no hippy clothes, a haircut and a shave and new things to wear, a new image, new backpack, thanks to those who still give a shit about me, I've been here before but this time it was worse, maybe more acute than others. 

This felt like hell and I'm not joking.  Hold on this won't be pleasant. Skewed perspective, yes we've been there before. Feelings of a grandeur I dont deserve. Wanting to take on the system, the world. Show them, shake them awake and into knowledge of things I feel they need to learn, openness and honesty without thought for others or the total lack of empathy, yes empathy, when as a healer practitioner I ought to know better.

So back again, wishing the world would end only to discover it has already, no more openness, no more travelling when that's what I've been doing, looking for a semi permanent home, moving between friends places, never feeling like I could stay, wishes bot being horses and self image ruined and burnt to the ground again.

This time its hygiene, mine, self care, habits picked up on the streets, in squats, when it comes to sharing, in hippy life when it comes to caring about others, mask wearing,  not doing that for a month in the summer or at all abroad.  So I died again.

It could have been real but I hope I know it was just another me, from the past dying.

Songs and tv shows from my youth and childhood coming back, mental imagery I haven't seen, streets I knew vaguely coming to me, memories i haven't touched of places i barely knew but can visualise, trips and journeys i hadn't thought about, people who picked us up as hitchhiker's coming to me now, adventures as I called them.

A different idea from now on, save, earn it all, if it ever becomes possible again, clean!

Dont swear, be calm, dont have too many thoughts, out of the head, into the heart!

So, I died again, went backwards and was shown so many ways not to be. Cant be.

Do it again,  be there for others, better habits, wash in the shower that's available, from caravan, to bedroom, to caravan, to porta cabin, to porta cabin, to caravan.

Back to another place I've been before,  have a role, work hard, stay clean, do it.

Choosing to save, from now on, hostels.

Wild canal occasionally, get used to the cold, have a body acclimatised to the uk winter for once, no escaping to the warmer places in Europe, didnt last winter either.

Two years in spring since i was in spain last and desperate to see if a friend is alright there, save up, back pack, hostel, travel light with a day pack, santa fe, hot springs,  whose there, maybe pay to see the alcazaba this time and actually get to see it this time!

Be a person not a homeless bum hitchhiker  See others not notice them looking away...

The last few years are leading me on to the best of the rest of my life

So, long story short, or short story long, how do i carry on?  Where to begin?  Leaving full time employment.  Going on 'holiday' for a week to ten days in Spain, in 2017 i did all this, left my life here in the UK and ended up on a seven month adventure, four months living in a community that we built and is continually reinventing itself on a Hippy Nudist Beach called Caleta Playa, just outside the village of Maro, Near the town of Nerja, an hour or two east of Malaga, so quite accesible if you wish to see for yourself.

We 'recycled' food from the supermarkets who brought it out every evening with the rubbish, and left it on top for us to go through, share between us all and then bring back to the beach to be used immediately the day after, cooked communally using utensils also recycled from the huge amounts of rubbish the tourists and residents throw away, because they have finished their holiday, or are just after a new something or other.

Consumerists leave a lot behind when they move on, or desire a change, so much unused, unwanted stuff, just left lying around, going to go into landfill or be burnt, brand new looking footwear, lots of clothes, much of which is female, so I got used to wearing trousers with the button on the other side, or tops that were a little small, or sharing with the person I was travelling with as we made our way north eventually.

Leaving that area was easy but staying was hard work, the heat of the south of Spain, the crazy lifestyle being hounded by the Guardia Civil Police, for reasons their own, they want to confiscate drugs to seel or smoke, they want to pressurise those they see as overstaying their welcome, afraid we might try to live there permanently, the tourist dollar / pound is all important and dirty smelly hippies stink up the place.

Leaving we moved on every day from empty buildings left like that after the recession of 2008, farmhouses and all sorts of places that were previously someones home, business, a nightclub that we explored with the sorts of things left behind that suggested a long history of recent drug use, all sorts of scary vibes in some places but generally a country estate for the taking and making use of temporarily.

Overnight stays in incredibly beautiful natural places, then on to Barcelona, the destination of those who get trapped there, by thieves who love to take passports for the criminal gangs to sell on, reuse, whatever.  If you don't have family or friends or your own money you can't get new documents and you will end up living there for years, becoming naturalised if you're not careful or wish to, a prisoner.

We were lucky, we lived on the streets and were accepted by others who did so and not by their own choice, begging by looking thoroughly miserable is the option of choice for most, we chose fishing for donations, a stick, a string, a cup, put shiny coins inside, fish it out onto the pavement, see who gets the joke, smile a lot, because you're happy, and spend it on chocolate, coffee for our stove, whatever.

On to Belgium where my travelling companion and i went our separate ways, i felt the pressure to protect and see this very special person safely to their home, Belgium would have to do, I then headed to France, without a passport, it's not easy to do, persuaded the nice guy of the bus company to let me on the bus, he didn't want to, they get heavily fined for carrying someone without documents, the driver was fine.

So the French driver got me to calais, from there I walked to the ferry terminal and just the photocopy of my stolen passport and a smile I talked my way past the ferry saleswoman who told me to expect a grilling from the french and british transport police / customs / border guards.  No such luck ;) actually the french guy just said go for it and waved me through, letting the British deal with this errant person.

The British just checked my details, I had a police report, made back in august before my passport expired and they gave me a piece of paper to show the british border force on the british mainland and i did so, being allowed to walk straight into Dover town and right up to and into a coffee shop / hostel, i had missed my original ferry but the timing was perfect, slip into bed, good nights sleep, early rising.

Walked to folkestone and hitched back to the area i grew up in, as i recall, anyway, travels and adventures over for this year?  Nope, straight after christmas, go to visit Holland, and the person I had travelled with.  Stayed for New Years Eve, the fireworks are nineteen seventees dangerous out there, kids losing hands, no health and safety, everything is down to the individual over on the continent so it's better.

Better because in Spain, in the Gaudi Garden, in the north of the city, you can clamber up onto a viewing mound, and stand there, no barrier, woman in high heels wants the perfect selfie, i am aghast and have to practise my balance but accept too that in europe you can do what you like without government nannying you all the time, they respect the rights of the individual to be an idiot or a genious and life their lives.

So early the following year 2018, and i'm remembering all this as i write it in some ways, so little time to process as they say today, or actually have flashbacks in a good way, and collate all this stuff in my mind and memory and heart, but basically once I had outstayed my welcome in a good way i believe, I was off, train booked back to amsterdam, expecting to go to france and ferry or fly home to the UK or whatever.

Nope, woke up and realised, decided, intended, what the flip?  Why shouldn't I just go in the opposite direction and walk back to Spain?  Do everything I've just learnt from the friend from Holland in reverse, walk and hitch down instead of up?  So I did, not fancying the british winter, inbetween all this I had beeen lent a camper van, a half converted long wheel base LDV Convoy 15 seater Mini bus for my home.

When I had returned the first time, after the seven month adventure, it turned out my parents liked it that way, me not being there I mean, and I liked it too, so I had asked for someone to lend me their car or van, as many winter abroad and summer festival season, i was lent the van and it became my second new home, i consider the beach to have been my first new home, the only place i'd lived apart from my folks'.

So now I'm hitching and walking and bussing it through coutries, from Holland I walked from Amsterdam, got to Utrecht, lovely guy in the Shopping Centre bought me a meal while i charged my phone, lovely guy had dropped me at the shopping centre, lovely woman who is a singer in a band picks me up from the Thumb sign, literally a hitch hiking spot in Utrecht and takes me all the way to a castle near belgium.

So here I am, walking around the caves, wine cellar, party location, in a castle with a beautiful woman, who sings in a band, meet the band, who are there to entertain the staff of the hotel chain the castle is a part of, for their staff party, free glass of wine, free cups of coffee from the professional coffee machine, leaving while they play their gig, don't want to cramp their style, or be a hanger on i walk into belgium.

Liege and Belgium, a port on the river, giant concrete construction, giant boats, they really use their waterways in europe, finding a doorway, unused at least for now, I camp overnight, squatting various locations is a talent, I have learnt so much from my adventures last year, i put it all to good use, it's a balancing act between out right breaking and entering which would be wrong and staying where you can.

So, I find places all over, in cities is the hardest as there are so many people living on the streets, and I don't have time to make friends like we did in Barcelona, oh the time the pastries came in a dustbin bag from one of the cake shops and we could eat our fill of chocolate filled croisants and other things.  But anyway, I make my way south, France is too big and samey for my liking so I bus from city to city.

Immigrants in Marseille a street from the Tourist hubub, they're going through a giant pile of clothes or waiting in a line for something outside an office, just a little way from me entering a well known fast food restaurant, picking up a receipt off the floor so I can get the code for the toilet and relieve myself and have a little wash while I'm at it, my hair is growing and so is my beard, on the advice of my dutch friend.

I love it, feeling the elements touching my skin, blowing what hair will grow on my head ;) and basically looking like i've been doing this for years, tanned, oh my the cities, toulouse, no the second largest after paris, Lyon, the third largest after paris, Marseille, i may have that transposed, the other way around. But my oh my, it's miserable to be seeing so many people enjoying themselves when you're on your own.

I get donations from time to time from family and friends so I can afford a meal, i have a stove, so I can make porridge, buy oats and dried fruits and nuts or similar so i have emergency food, i can eat like a king sometimes, two portions of paella in Nerja from an Irishman, because another homeless person didn't want it, I am not homeless, I'm a traveller in worlds you could never imagine but could visit.

If you tried, if you lived as I have lived, you could stand, never having felt so manly in your life, naked to the waist, looking up at the sun, seeing it as an emerald ball, hanging there on the densely packed tourist beach of Barcelona, with the love of your life, as the waves slowly rock you back and forth teaching you something about being with a woman, as you realise you are seeing with the eyes of your heart the truth.

Sunrise over the sea, naked, having whispered softly into my loves ear, wake up, you need to see this, as we enjoy the view of a lifetime, from the ledge of a cave, at the nudist end of a tourist beach, in a nature reserve, on the south east coast of Spain, close to where we've just harvested Amethyst from a vein in the rocks, having climbed down to a completely private beach, fishing for shell fish, living the life of riley.

I digress, so back to the travelling in this world, not the next or the one we can experience when we get our feet bare to the earth and sea, when we get ourselves bare to the sun, when we bathe in salt water, and relive our truest connection, when we eat wild and foraged, and free, where we love so easily, where we go from day to day, living wild and becoming the truest espression of a wild animals with a human heart.

I got to Spain, after a trip to Valencia, saving a German guy from loneliness and giving him an Iphone 4 so he can email friends and family and get his life back on track, he likes beer too much and finds it far too easy to just ask for what he needs, either directly or using a sign, like a ticket for the latest Christopher Nolan Epic, but again I digress, we helped each other, he knew where the library was, for free charging.

I got myself a replacment souvenir from a shop, and one for her too, put them somewhere safe and went on until I got to Spain, met up with friends and new people too, back into the swing on the hippy nudist beach again, but it's never the same the second time, never go back to an old job, rarely if ever anyway.  However it was a nice time in some ways, my drum was gone, i had stashed it and it's gone forever.

My shamanic drum was birthed by a man who lived near hereford, when i first saw it, i fell in love, i borrowed it for a drum circle for the full moon, said I'll have that, and immediately went back the following week with my 80 quid for the drum and carrying bag, i took it to Spain after learning how to bring through shamanic drumming journeys, by doing it, and left it there as I had so much to carry.

I had to say goodbye, maybe someone has it, and it wasn't burnt with all the rest of the rubbish, i apologised to someone who deserved it, i fell asleep when i shouldn't, i met my german friends, who look after me so well, and we travelled far and wide, back to the amethsyt mountain and beach, to a gold mine that appeared in sergio corleone movies, to a volcano caldera where you can gather garnet in Almeria.

So the adventure keeps on moving and we go back north to Germany where I learn that, (oh I've forgotten Luxembourg, maybe more about later or before, a prequal post perhaps?) Germany and Germans are lush!

Kind, generous, beautiful people, barefoot in their village, my friend shares his home and garden house with me and i determine to build my own home and garden, and share these things with others from now.

I had a vision some years ago of the house that I would build, I haven't yet, but I'm so much closer, and land is starting to become available, near water, a spring is a must, a water source that can be drunk, rainwater collection for watering, gardens, medicinal, food, wild food foraging, temperate, i need wild garlic in the spring ;) all sorts of plans, no dreams are afoot watson!  No games!!!  Just living free...

So I go from there to Holland and become my friends birthday surprise, she's delighted and so is her boyrfriend and i stay long enough to be happy for them but need my space and to leave on a good note, I travel back to the UK and make my way back to where I was brought up, grew up, in the cotswolds again and heal and get ready for the next adventure, in fact it's a short stop over before I go to the NORTH!

The North of england, is new to me, I've been to Scotland once to visit an Aunt near Aberdeen but apart from that, business trips to Lincoln, Oldham, I don't really know much about the north but now i do, Love, they still call you love, they love a brew, get the kettle on, love chips peas and gravy, so did i, i even fancied it before I knew what was happening and the chippy in the village was my favourite place to go.

So as a country boy who had never done farm work, I learnt to drive a tractor, stack bales on a trailer myself up to seven or eight high and get them into the yard and barn without losing a single one!  No more exclamation marks for a while, like swearing, i prefer to use them rarely or they lose their effect, strength.  So the north?  Great dentist, great friends, hard times in some ways but I learn about growing.

Organic Veg Gardens need to be hand dug, again and again, if you can't get it planted up immediately so we did, the little brother I made that year, which is only 2019 but feels more like a century ago, we dug and we dug and we weeded, out dock, out thistle, out buttercup, dig, weed, dig, plant finally, no fault of ours or anyones, but to turn this horse yard farm and hay growing machine into a healing retreat?

Not easy, by any stretch of the imagination, i wanted to build a little eco hut immediately on the old railway line, but instead, common sense and the local planners, given the closeness of Manchester prevailed and the manager, womanage actually, of the project was fields ahead and knew it all, in a good way, however suddenly I was expected to keep certain hours and do certain things on top of what i was.

I had fitted in here, was doing the washing up, the washing of the elderly uncle, cooking, making porridge in the mornings, lunch at hungry time, dinner at even hungrier time, walking the dog, house work, a little, appreciating my mum so much i called her i think, even though i dislike using the phone, always have, just to thank her for all the years she's cooked and cleaned and kept me in washed clothes and food and love.

So to be doing all that, and maintenance of the farm house garden, strimming and mowing, and farm work as and when it was required from the farm manager, and then to be asked to keep a timed work day, start at a specific time and do a certain number of hours aswell, well i wasn't prepared for this having finally gotten rid of an alarm clock a few years ago, and left permanent employment forever behind me.

I worked to rule for a little while, I was pissed of to say the least, I did not like it at all and I had to suck it up and get on with it, the farm owner is a friend, I had made a commitment to be there for the spring and summer and so I was going to have to like it and lump it until I could leave in september ish, so I did, we didn't manage to grow Micro Herbs for restaurants to make money to plough back into the project.

There is so much to learn, in a brand new polytunnel, which i also thought a horrible addition, finding birds, butterflies seen as a nuisance and a dragonfly stuck in there, I just hates the idea that nature was being trapped and made into bonsai herbs to sell in perfect little trays to posh knobs for a high price to sit down to a ponsey dinner in a overpriced restaurant so that we could make money off them to go eco...

Just didn't sit right with me but I loved the place, the people, the weed for weed scheme too much, a theme i have to say, over the years of travel marijuana has followed me around, on the beach it was why i needed to leave and why i'm so happy to say that when asked if i wanted to get out of there, I jumped at the chance, before I could get scared about travelling  with an almost complete stranger I said YES!

On the farm there was a lot of ragwort and I could remove that to be paid in a bit of weed in return, this meant i could micro dose and have a good relationship with the medicine, a little smoke here and there, however the person providing it liked to make spliffs with about a gram or two in them and i would find myself so stoned after a toke or two, unable to resist the temptation that i could not speak or think.

I'll get on to how that has manifested in more recent times in a little while, but the quality and quantity of this medicinal plant and how it is used today, leaves a lot to be desired, we could be eating it, as a herb, as medicine, as a dietary suplement and benefitting but we choose to burn it, destroy the medicinal aspects to get a short term high, leasing to personal effects i am only too well versed in, to follow.

So, on and on, carry on, squat life, having no home to go to, meant that after the farm days, heady days of summer, memories that will live with me forever, I moved on, I can't go back to my folks, i have a caravan there but still, summers only, it's a metal box, not wind proof or rain proof exactly, not warm or heated, holes everywhere, a cold metal box in winter so i can't go there so I stayed in the squat scene.

Manchesta!!!  Manchester is a lovely town, but also a hectic modern not paradise, full of homeless, i went to a shelter for them setup by the squat scene and immediately i needed to leave as I didn't feel safe, but with my friend the little brother I mentioned, I could live well, free electric, least said soonest mended, free water, free house, in fact we were squatting a pub called The Robin Hood at one point, freed up.

Stolen from the rich who wanted to turn it into apartments for the rich and gentrify the area, it was taken, and turned into a home, temporarily as commercial properties often are only squatted for a month, while court proceedings take place and then baliffs can come along and take it back for the owner, we don't damage the buildings, we don't break in, we don't damaged the property of the owner, in fact we live in it.

Art is made on the walls, they're going to be torn down or repainted anyway, listen to me justifying all this, but hey, it was a learning experience, one of many in the last few years, necessary, so that I can live anywhere, fit in anywhere, be comfortable in towns and cities when theyre the last places on earth I wanna live, but need to visit occasionally, the less often the better from my perspective going forward.

We lived in a few places, I would go off and come back, in the end one place was squatted long enough and I was around long enough to be considered for becoming a resident, in fact I was sitting around in 'my room' a little bigger than a cell upstairs, waiting for the verdict at the house meeting on whether I could stay, consider myself a tenant, wrong word, a member of the collective would be a better phraseology.

Anyway I was sitting there, waiting for them to discuss it between them, whether I could stay on a longer term basis, when there was a shout, Jon, where are you, what are you doing?  House meeting time!  So I went downstairs, only to be told not to be such a twat, of course I was already living there and part of the household, no decision to be made, come join the house meeting, and discuss things for the future.

We would hold partied in the buildings and raise money for things like making tshirts, to make more money, i made chocolate, which has become a thing I do, check out the post before this, and the video that shows you how to do it, lately I use licorice root in the melted coconut oil to sweeten it, then turn off the heat, add cocoa, or cacao powder if i can afford it, wait for it to set, no added sugar!  What a result!!!

So we lived together, went out together, lived our own lives, went off for hours, days, work, weeks, whatever we could come and go, I learned a lot and decided it was not for me, as I love to travel and learn new things and see new people and places, constantly moving but having a base is my new normal and I hope for that to be the case for the rest of my life, however for now I'm still looking for a base.

We're up to the end of 2019 ish and Manchester behind me, holding a banner at the front of a march through town for XR, only having joined in because I was there, backpack in tow, meeting a friend i had first met on a beach in south east Spain, who was in the XR Samba band, dying outside Primark and Barclays and generally loving the Pink Boat and talks and meditation afterwards and here we are.

Fall 2019 I went to visit a friend in Poland, who had returned there after the Brexit vote, first trip to Poland, he'd been gone nearly or just over three years so it was a very welcome visit and reunion, a lovely place, beautifully friendly people, loved the mushroom soup in a purpose baked bread loaf and the mushrooms in the mountains, psychedelic and toxic amanita muscaria, more about that in another post?

Germany after Poland, hitching my way to see my german friends and medicinal guided journey there which I would have to speak to you about in person as it's very personal and indepth and wonderful and scary and needs to be heard about and known about and something you could only see for yourself but the little village life there is still amazing, recycling from the supermarket, they leave stuff lying around.

From there to Holland again, AGAIN, I know ;) but I needed to see my friend again and stay with another aquaintance who is now a friend also, and that's where I'm off next, but Holland was just a short stop before back to germany for a flight home from Berlin Airport and a little homeless life there, barefoot so the armed transit police left me to my own devices and finding war memorabilia in the woods and pigs.

Wild pigs are everywhere in europe, the germans have fenced off gardens to prevent them from entering and tearing up the place, i've been woken by piglets after my food with my friend, in the mountains above barcelona, seen them ahead of me onthe trail when i revisited that exact camp and area on my own, and then awoke for a piss, only to hear a troop of wild pigs approacing out of the pitch dark and lit a fire.

Wild dolphins, well, dolphins lets say, I saw them and needed to mention what a trip that was, surreal experience to be on the water, naked, with a naked german woman, on a paddle board, facing my fear bravely of being on the open ocean, padding out kneeling up, until we saw them jumping out to sea after the fish that the fishermen were also after, what a rush that was, by the third sighting i was a little bored.

Spring 2020 you know the rest, I was locked down, up, in the north west corner of Wales, near Bangor in  a Pirate Ship themed retreat centre in an old Chapel, in the foothills of Snowdonia National Park, 9 miles as the crow flies from yr wyddfa, Mount Snowdon, and in sight of the sunset over the ocean this time, doing healing work for the people i was staying with, eating amazing food, and living free here again.

I paid what I could towards my keep, but only took a couple of bike rides out, down to the sea, all the way free wheeling, and then arduous walking and pushing and riding back up to the foothills, to a little village, learning a little of the language, making daily meditation videos using the fast internet, learning more about living in community, learning about why certain people annoy you and healing from that.

Learning enough about someone in a situation where you can't leave so you get on after all, why they deal with certain things certain ways, is it you, is it them, are you a release or is it the situation causing the stress or discomfort, eating well, a few walks, to Cae Mabon a place so beautiful with little houses built in different styles using different alternative building materials from hempcrete to straw bale, roundhouse.

Learning more about wild food, but not much, just gathering nettles to make soup, making cakes a lot more succesfully than ever before because I actually used recipes from a vegan cookbook, using an apple as egg replacement, fruit juice instead of milk, all sorts of shenanigans and mysteries, climbed two mountains, and summited Yr Wyddfa in 60-70 miles per hour winds then straight back down again phew!

That takes us to nearly today, after all that, i gave notice that i was guided to leave in two weeks but didn't know why yet, suddenly get an invite from two different people to a rainbow gathering, had a really good feeling about both of them so I now knew almost immediately why and where i was headed so i went home to pack, then walked from home in gloucestershire to nearly Wells, got a bus the rest of the way.

Arriving in Wells, I walked up the high street and suddenly had the surreal experience of standing outside the pub from Hot Fuzz, and looking right up the street to where the Vicar came out swearing all guns blazing, nice town, went from there, after being offered Homeless Outreach support from a very nice man while picknicking in the curch yard to the bus station after getting the essentials, going to Glastonbury.

I climbed the tor, hurt my knee coming down, then got a call from a friend, would i like to stay in his caravan?  Sure I would, finding it eventually, sore and tired, I rested there for a week or so, eating the food lovingly prepared locally to support those living in a small community of caravans close to Saint Bridgets Mound, on Bridies Yard, did two ecstatic dances, leading to a lift to the rainbow gathering!

Glastonbury, before I get to the gathering, was heart opening, the first experience I can remember of feeling energy in my chest, what they call the heart space, not my physical heart, but the whole of my chest, opening in such a way, using a heart opening medicine, self touch, meditaton, stretching and loving myself, resting, healing and at the heart chakra of the world itself, Glastonbury in somerset no less!

So from there and lots of lovely encounters, I got to the rainbow gathering on dartmoor in devon.  What can i say?  A game of two halves.  I got there full of enthusiam, started to offer healing, a workshop i came up with at the time, massage not so much, but offering a healing touch, in the way i was taught, and energy attunement, but all this ground to a halt because i smoked far too strong weed far too much.

My downfall over and over, going into myself, greedy, for the next smoke, the next toke, the next pass of a joint, the next cigarette, the next, the next, the next, bad thoughts, bad visions, bad sleep, no dreams, selfish actions, words and deeds, in fact the lowest ebb i can remember for years, not since the farm had i felt myself being lost and this addict returning and worse than that i failed to setup a healing space for all.

I had met some incredible healers, to give myself some due, the general acceptance of weed, i wont call it medicine as it's not treated as such here, it's an addiction, it's a coping strategy, it's a crutch, there's no drink allowed and thank goodness, the concious gatherings I have chosen to attend in recent years, choosing them over other music festivals and parties as i called them, they use this ethos too, no drink.

No drink, no drugs, just hugs is the bhuddafield way, the concious camp way, I had learned how easy it is to be yourself when everyone else is too, following this ethos makes it easy for you to be you, without crutched, or excuses, you turn up as your best self and can see where you need to heal and be open about it, talk about it, do the inner work, be the best you that you can be, so easily and feel so loved too.

So I have no-one to blame but myself for falling back, i had thought it would be really strict about such things, but nope, it's down to personal responsibility and i so wish it was different, i would have loved it so much more, would have not been rushing around so much, hurt myself a lot less, on the rocks and bracken, as i chose to go barefoot the whole month, i couldhave achieved so much more for others.

That said, i made friends I hope to be in the lives of and them in mine for the rest of my life, to create a wonderful healing retreat, my home, a community, with the ethos, No drink, No other drugs, just hugs and learn from these mistakes, and earn the right to call myself a respected elder, to show the way forward, to provide a safe space for those in recovery, to create something worthy of the title conscious creation.

I'll leave it there for now as I don't wish to talk about the gathering or the people or what I plan to do next.

I'm off to make chocolate using some moulds i found in the first charity shop i walked into yesterday.

Send some of it off to friends on the continent, hoping the postal charges are less in europe.

Live my life free of addictions, food is the last one, tobacco gone, drink gone.

Medicines, well they can be consumed in lots of different ways.

As for today, well, I'm six days clean of everything.

My dreams are coming back again.

My guidance clear

and true.

I

love

you always.

See you always.

Making chocolate in a minute

permaculture farming cultivating love

when we pray for each other, when we say to each other, i love you my friend, and send the love we have for them, it connects us up, between countries and continents we have so many lands, not divided but one mass of earth and water, and we ought to realise and see with our real eyes the truth... one two is the order of the day three four is the normal thing we saw before we localised ourselves into a village because that was a lovely way to live, to give. To settle in one place for any time makes no sense, but to have roots in one area is everything to us, literally the feeling is to have a home within one seasons distance from everywhere we know and go further afield for adventures whenever we like too, to explore and to fulfill our need to know, to find out where we came from before and where we will go soon, step out of the unnecessary gloom we seek for ourselves today, step back and forward, sideways back and forth all day to enter into the realms of the unknown still sewn into the fabric of the realest world we can know, the earth the mother river that flows through it and our love of life becomes our truth. Four, directions, elements, three is magic number, two you and me, one, all, one, is all there is, one thing that we are a part of, one part of a thing that we are. Called only love...

thrown together

at the last minute isn't a stressful situation, have a go and see how well you do, knowing that whatever you achieve will be an accurate measure of you, your performance, isn't important, it's that you try at all.  SO prepare less, and see how you feel about things more often, basics are key here, nutrition, meditation, exercise, grounding, literal grounding bare feet, medicines, i mean sacred plants and fungi, literal sacred medicines, not recreations, not entertainments, taking your life in your hands and saying, asking what am i here for?  Then going out and finding what that is, through the sacred use of things, techniques, advised preparations, working with teachers, to learn and heal, creating your own traditions and working towards a future today, that you can be happy with, right now too, be happy, find a way to smile through whatever is going on, smile because it could be worse, or smile because you refuse to let what is occurring to get you down, smile because you know you will always do your best, and improve by being honest with yourself and others, imperative integrity and authenticity so that you know truth because you know you know nothing, you are humble enough to allow others to share what they know and yet know that they may have something new to tell you, something to share, accept that you might need to keep silent long enough, even if you think you know what they will say, or think you are right.

Silent enough to let them prove to you whether you need to change your perspective, or if you are seeing the world in the correct light, and yourself too, and them, keep letting go the need to hold on too tight, to anything or anyone, don't try too hard, but do attempt things, do try new things, face fears, go for it, you can do it, face the darkness within, love it all, send love to every part of you, send it everywhere, bubble around you, bubble of the world, a part of you and you a part of it too.

Feel into the day, be honest, but patient, be adventurous but careful of others feelings, accept when you are in the wrong and apologise and mean it, choose to say what seems hard to say, it needs to be heard.

Clear the air, face situations head on, go through the pain of hurting someone and being hurt yourself to become stronger for it, get your heart broken fully, into a million pieces and more, shattered, burnt, dead, alive, the fire put out before it reignites, and see it as a flickering flame instead not some passionate bushfire, out of control, take things easier, feed your own flame gently, ticking over, don't burn all the wood at once, save some for later, take it slowly enough to get to know your situation.

The person you need to know better is you, let others open up at their own pace, don't force the issue.

Accept that doing too much for them won't help them, but do whatever you can at the same time.

In service is what i promised, watching a documentary earlier i realised how far i have come, how much i have learned, how far i still have to go, how easy it is when you listen, Listen, LISTEN!

Listen to the world, the spirits of the trees and fields, to your heart itself, to others, to them, listen.

Share what you know, say what you feel, not think!  Love all as if they were your own family.

Get taken advantage of occasionally, it feels better than the other way around, it gives them a chance to do the right thing, eventually it will hurt that they didn't, it will hurt them even if you don't think it does.  It will teach them a lesson that you are willing to have them learn at your expense for once.

Even if they hurt you again and again, be willing to love them, be strong and say what they need to hear, say it again, be strong enough to stand in your power silently and listen until they open up.

A balance between tough love and openness, discipline and affection, willingness to learn and teach.

Clean your teeth, with bicarbonate of soda and everything else with either natural soap or vinegar.

Bathe in the freshest water you can find, don't drink tap water if you have a spring nearby.

Always eat things that make you feel good now and afterwards too, don't eat sugar.

Don't eat anything that comes in a box or packaging, in other words products.

Produce your own food, grow it, find it in hedgerows and forests.

Don't buy anything unless you really really have to.

Notice the change in you when you do.

See the world as it was meant to be.

Feel the energy, the healing come in.

Experience the headache of sugar intake.

Let your body shiver from salt and too much.

Too many calories, your liver struggling, kidneys.

The shaking within as the blood sugar level is altered.

Your body trying to work out how much energy it can take.

Rather than how much energy you can give instead with is infinite.

So don't get me wrong, i feel as though we can choose to eat less more often.

Do more with less, less money means more creative solutions to travel and everything.

More freedom to live, to feel, to see and sense in every sense of the word as we grow internally.

The world itself opens up to us when we open up to it, when we choose to experience it truly.

I know I've been there and face the unworthiness you can feel when you become happy.

The feeling of being scared to face challenges alone instead of with a good friend.

The felt need to spend time with someone special giving you courage to do it.

Getting on with what's in front of you and letting go the need to control.

Outcomes, expectations falling by the wayside, to be free again.

Watching the worlds go by as fast as the blink of an eye and not caring as we find ourselves inside love.

Loving the world is not easy when you start to see how few do, how many don't care or don't know.

Don't see, don't hear us when we try to say what needs to be said, heard, smelt, tasted, felt at all.

Give or Take

Does what you eat feed your body or take something away from your later life, make your current one worse?  Junk food, tastes great right now, in the moment, of eating, consuming sugary snacks, knowing that tomorrow, today I will feel disgusting, shit through the eye of a needle, feel sick to my stomach, all takes away the pleasure in the moment, at that time of consumption, intolerance within my body to that which does not nourish it.  Wild food, wild living, not stuck inside a building, square, walled, prison.  That is not really living, we weren't meant to house our feet in shoes, insulated from the world by rubber soled footwear, or artificial fibres for our clothes, all these things take from our experience.

So am I creating a better world inside and outside me by not standing in my power, empowering myself to be an island of creation, a space inside and outside me for change, positive creativity, energy to transform my own life, my health, good decisions, bad ones made when induced to do so by drink or drugs, a good feeling at the time, knowing i will feel hungover in the morning or with a thick head from smoking something, that i know is for recreation, entertainment now, wasting time that could be better spent, creating a better environment around me for myself and others is the goal of this life, planet.

So, what to do, start each day with a desire, not to take but to give, not to take life from myself but to thrive and feel good, in the moment and later, knowing the changes i make benefit me, and those around me too, the world itself also, so i choose to only put into my body that which i create, or harvest from nature, or grow, or buy from a supplier who also loves this world, creates a place for us to earn a better tomorrow by honouring our own bodies today, not putting off until tomorrow what i can do better today, to bring with it a life full of energy, transformation, elation, affection for myself.

Giving pleasure to another rather than looking to get something, sex for instance, are you getting a short lived pleasure by masturbating or having sex with another, taking your pleasure from them, using their body to make you cum or pleasuring them, enjoying the moment you are in, taking a day to touch every part of their body, celebrating that they are alive, not looking for anything to come to you, then the next day kissing every inch of their skin, the next just honouring who they are by listening, by taking them into you, by becoming better yourself by giving the other person whatever they need, not desiring anything for yourself, unconditionally living by unconditionally loving, nature, your own body, leaving desire behind to see what flows from within, from outside in, by giving away all your wants, all your short term goals, to cum, which leads to the desire for another, an angry faced expression of lust, rather than a beatific featured face, body, soul, spirit, life, love, giving not taking, sharing not looking for anything but to give, but to live free of the felt need to get something, not wanting, needing only the feeling that comes from giving with no thought for yourself, what you will receive, what you can get.

 If I let the choices of others sway me from what I know to be right and true I am failing them in the worst way, I need to be a shining beacon, a strong and determined example of a different way of being, carry that feeling of determination into everything I do, writing like this has been a long time coming, not angry, not anger inside, disappointment, shame, that I can make the same mistakes again and again.

SO I chose not to have sex, not to give love.  To anyone I did not love, not to take anything at a cost to tomorrow, but to give, give love, give wild free food, give information freely, share what i know and have, choosing not to keep on doing what I was doing, not to cave into temptation, however good the intention of someone else, to give me what they think i need, but merely want right now, to go back or keep on allowing myself to be lead in the wrong direction, away from the affection i feel for the better me, a better them that I can see on the horizon, we will all fail to save this world and each other from each other and the world we have created, by letting others lead us, from those around us to the governments who fail to do anything other than what they think is right for them and their families and us, and for the world itself, to carry on as we have grown accustomed to behaving which is killing all life on this world for the sake of living out of harmony with nature, shitting out what we eat, consume, feeling sickened by our thoughts and actions, letting our bodies become sick, our minds, our hearts, when there really is no need, just a want, or shame, or what we did, or what we had done to us, keeping us heading in the wrong direction, making those bad choices, and for those to create a habit, inside us and around us in the world, when will we see this, become conscious enough to change it all?

When we choose as individuals to put a stake in the ground, draw a line in the sand, become sane in a world driven by crazy behaviour, such that you can only see how dark the horizon and the land itself and the life we were living before when we honour ourself, those around us, the life, the planet truly.

And I for one, don't feel good, from eating what i was eating before, or smoking what i was smoking before, or the relationships I had to people, food, every aspect of my life, was not a good feeling, leading to a better one, not a good experience leading to a better one, i get a taste of a better life now.

In the experiences I'm being lead to, by seeing the difference I can make for me, in my life, in the lives of others, by their example, by my own experiences leading me to conclusions about the ways I could be, the ways I am being, the feeling is better when I don't waste a day doing nothing, or nothing good comes from the food I eat, except the flavour of defeat, that tastes so good at the time, but i know will leave a bitter after taste in the next day or days afterwards, knowing it leads to disease, unease, illness.

We've been sold so many lies, the wisdom is out there, more importantly it's inside us, right now, the power to change is too, just listen harder, with more intent, intention is key, do you intend to watch the planet die, yourself, from ill health, from disease, dosing yourself with chemical cocktails in food or living better and better, healthier days, thoughts, coming from a choice not to feel unworthy of love, loving your own body, your own skin, getting in touch with every inch of it lovingly when you bathe or trying to hastily wash off and rush every action, wash off the sins and shame and fear of failure, every thing that we let hold us back from becoming who we were meant to be in this world, for others, for ourselves, for the transformation of a lifetime to occur overnight, we need to begin today, now.

Agent Walker of the F.B.O. (Full Body Orgasms)

Follow these instructions at your own pace, play and experiment with what feels good and it will work like a charm. The great thing is that once it's worked for you once, it'll work whenever you want it to.

Do whatever feels right don't worry about following to the letter, it's your Full Body Orgasm...

Lay down where you can read on and feel most comfortable and relax, breath slow and deep with your hands down by your sides. Just be and let yourself sink into that feeling...

Watch your stomach rise as you breath in through your nose drawing it down deep and take the energy and power of your own sexual desire inside like starting a fire in the great outdoors and watching it catch.

Breath out through your mouth and allow your breathing to become slower and longer, feel all the stress of your day exhailed and your loving energy build.

Take the very tips of your fingers and run them slowly teasingly up and down your sides as far up as you can reach and as far down too.

Tickling and lightly grazing your skin, as softly as you can so that it raises goosebumps.

Slowly as you can manage allow your fingers to explore closer and closer to all the areas that you would normally concentrate on only let them cover every inch of skin everywhere else first.

Tease yourself into nearly touching there but don't just yet, oh no you want to enjoy this part.

Let that fire inside build and fill you up, feel how strongly you desire to be touched and where.

Make small circles, and let those fingers find their own rythym, move over your thighs and calves, tickle your stomach in softest slow circles, feeling the heat that is rising and spreading .

Feel the skin of your neck and softly lightly stroke around and around and down as you get closer to your chest. Let the fire inside spread up and down your body, from your core to your extremeties.

Try using one hand on your stomach and the other on your neck and work towards each other.

Discover every inch of your legs and feel how good it is to edge closer and closer to your inner thighs and sex.

Still never touching where you really want, just teasingly exploring what feels good and let the pressure you apply grow to those areas already explored but ever so softly everywhere else.

Move closer and closer to your breasts and sex feeling your whole body engulfed by the fire within, breath it in and out allowing yourself time to feel how good it is just to be in that moment and feel those feelings.

Keep on breathing slow and deep, let it build and build until you can barely take it any more.

And when you can't... finally you can start to softly stroke and explore closer and closer.

Tease & tempt yourself, feeling that fire within ready to explode whenever you desire.

Touch yourself wherever it feels good and exert more pressure.

Never stop playing with that awesome energy and fire.

Feel it engulf your body entirely.

You're Almost There...
I'll leave the rest
up to you 
<3

More to Spain than the Plain

More to Spain than the Plain

I went to Spain for a holiday for a week to ten days and arrived back in the U.K. more than six months later.  It surprises me but in that time I feel like I learnt more than in the previous six years and it was the longest I’ve ever been away from home beating hands down the six weeks I was away to walk and celebrate completing the Camino de Santiago in 2009.  I’ve bored everyone I’ve met since then  with those adventures, now I get to start over with new stories.  The first night arriving in Nerja from Malaga Airport, I walked straight from this tourist town to a little village called Maro that has two beaches closeby, an easily accessible one with everything you might expect at the height of summer like a small bar and sun loungers but this was the middle of winter, coming into the spring months of March and April, the other beach is Caleta Playa and officially a nudist beach, is wild and untamed, no facilities at all and sits at the bottom of some irregularly spaced concrete steps after you’ve already walked down a fairly rustic path for about ten to fifteen minutes from the centre of the village.

I had planned to stay with a friend who was living at and looking after the Yoga / Reiki / Massage centre at the top of the hill but by the time I arrived he had already had to suffer the combined attentions of the fleas of the 20 plus cats, two dogs and two Black pot bellied pigs and the thought of staying in the house was too much for me, so I took directions from him and made my way down to the beach.  I got it wrong, as usual and ended up in a farmers field while someone was cleaning their teeth and getting ready to turn in for the night.  Retracing my steps I finally made it down the concrete ones and onto the sand of Caleta well after 10pm because I was later getting to see my friend than I had planned, later catching buses and later doing everything because it was all new to me and I get lost easily everywhere, even at home, so it was pitch black and with a warning having been given that I might not know who or what to expect and as I had no choice it was easy to just walk over to the fire that was lit at the far end of the beach, to get over the fears and doubts and just go.

I was thinking to myself as I approached, who would be sat around such a fire at this hour and what might they think that I’m just walking up to them in the dark a complete stranger.  I immediately got on with and made friends with the four or five young people from different countries that were sitting there, some singing, playing music on guitar, or smoking and enjoying the night, we chatted and i stayed up until the next morning speaking to one of them, an incredibly enthusiastic entrepreneurial spirit called Franz from Germany with so many creative ideas, I learnt an awful lot just in the next few days about what you can make with spring water, and raw ingredients from the super markets, such as oat milk from oats.

So I resolved to stay here on the beach and the first week consisted of regular two hour plus excursions to the tourist town of Nerja with my friend from the Yoga Centre Sean, to walk from greengrocers to biological (ecological / organic) shop via the front doors of a couple of his ‘grandmas’ houses where homegrown veg and fruit was for sale, they even had scales and would weigh everything right then and there for you, I ate only raw fruits and vegetables and felt amazing although very full sometimes and we would occasionally take a trip to a raw vegan picnic called a potluck, where everyone would bring a dish or desert, in my case a badly cut fresh Mango and the food was so healthy, rich, tasty and interesting and most of all beautiful, I have images on Google that have received thousands of views, there was one particularly generous host who shared some homemade ice cream made from a special fruit from one tree in her garden and I swear it tasted like butterscotch Angel Delight, it was unreal how this fruit tasted, she even showed me around her plot and I was treated as if I had known them all for years.  After that what money I had went on rebounding from such a good feeling to being a tourist for a week or two, taking myself into town to the first bakery and trying out all the cakes they sold, into the bars in the village and ordering a cana (small draft beer) and tapas (as meaty or fishy) as I could get hold of in order to satiate my bodies need for what it was used to and a cafe for Churros and Chocolate.  Churros are a donut mixture, squeezed through a machine until they come out shaped like something from a play doh mould, cooked and then sugared usually then served with melted, VERY HOT!  Chocolate to dip them in, so you have been warned, whilst there I saw two people I recognised from the U.K. walk by what a surprise!

Three weeks or so have passed and I don’t want to but I’m addicted to paying for things and without any more money I figure it’s time to go home.  A group hug on the beach with my two close friends, a German couple I really hope to see again one day soon, filled me with such a feeling of energy I could literally feel it flowing between us and made it harder than even a normal goodbye, something I have always disliked.  But I have to go and return to England to earn some money so that I can go  back out to Spain to provide Spiritual Energy Healing to a friend of the friend whose idea it was for me to go out there in the first place, and I resolve to be back in a few days.

It ends up being three weeks later that I arrive back in Malaga Airport and I get chatting to two British Pensioners, I want to make them feel better because he looks knackered pushing the luggage trolley and fed up and they make you walk so far from the terminal to the first chance to leave it and as we were delayed I know there won’t be a bus and I’m likely to have to stay up all night until morning or find somewhere on the street to sleep, as luck would have it, they are headed to the town of Nerja for their holiday, the j is silent but I dare not tell them that and they don’t have any Spanish language practise so I get the cab sorted and they’re kind enough to let me come along with them all the way to where my heart needs to be and the rest of me with it.  We get dropped off at their apartment way out of town because I insisted on making sure they were inside before I walked back into town, through Nerja from one side to the other and on to Maro, with my Backpack and a lot more stuff with me this time as I walk past the Roman Viaduct all lit up at night with a bluey purple glow for the tourists, it’s still a novelty at this point and eventually I get back to my home on the beach, figuring I’ll stay up to see who is still here and who is staying where so I can make camp.

You see everyone who lives on or near the beach does so for free, wild camping in the tall grass, like bamboo, also called cana, or just sleeping on the sand itself.  Caleta Playa has depending on the day or night you find yourself there on and the time of year a large number of travellers from all over the world, a community of folk coming and going, residents and semi residents, high tides that were exceptional and reached the base of the cliffs above you and virtually washes away the sand and anyone there that night with it if they’re not careful, exposing the rocks, it’s a truth I never knew about the coast and just how fluid it is, how much a beach can change, how grateful I would become to the noise that kept me awake at first that I came to get used to and even miss, having grown up in a very quiet place indeed.

On my first night there a magical event occurred that I only witnessed a couple of times, a bioluminescent algae in the shallows that spark into life with light when you wade or move your hands from side to side through the moist sand and visible as a shimmering silver light on the leading edge of the breaking waves violently cause them to glow, whilst out on a paddleboard I saw wild Dolphins jumping for the first time, I really cannot describe the feeling of seeing these things with your own eyes.  So some people are coming and going, some stay for a few days, weeks, months, some have been there for years and some only for as long as it takes for them to see a naked human being and turn right around and walk all the way back up again.  You see we lived for free there and apart from gifts or loans from friends and family or donations for my healing work online I didn’t have to spend money either on food or lodgings or clothes, just luxuries like chocolate and things I thought others on the beach might like to share because everything else was being thrown away by the tourists in the town, and if they don’t want it anymore or care to take it home with them, whatever it is, from good food to the items they have replaced with new ones it’s discarded.  Recycling from the supermarkets also means that there is a glut of anything you could wish for in terms of staple food stuff and as the days turned to weeks and months, someone was always arriving with something to share as our community developed and grew into an impromptu rainbow gathering.  I took it upon myself to welcome new people, introduce myself, show them the communal kitchen (all recycled pots and food) explain that if they would like a hot drink in the morning, a meal at lunchtime or to come and sit around a fire in the evening and share a meal cooked together they could and life settled into this routine as I was also doing some gardening work and trying to fit in my healing work for my now friend Peter although he was receiving help from a healer in the North of Spain.  The work I do takes the form of Spiritual Healing that replaced my own intuitional massage that I learnt by doing self healing, by learning where and how to massage myself to resolve health issues, and by practising on friends and anyone who would like to receive a massage at festivals and trance parties.

Using your intuition and instincts is a far cry from book learning or prescribed techniques and it involves a subconscious unconditionally loving connection between two people where I know where and how to touch, because they are communicating this on a level we share.  As a spiritual Healer it involves no need for physical manipulation or pressure, merely the laying on / or off depending on the person of my hands on their shoulders at first to make the connection between us, and then to the area I have discerned during my body scan of them.  All this was new to me although I had felt energy in my hands in meditation and had played with energy as a child, something I remembered later in life especially during the training for healing that I undertook for a year including six months of weekly volunteering at a church to provide anyone with healing sessions with amazing results, I allow healing energy to flow through me into the person and they use it to heal themselves.  I learnt all this from a great friend and mentor who runs The Circle of Light Church in Uckington near Cheltenham.

My whole life has been transformed thanks to him and others especially those I have been privileged to provide with healing and a natural talent has been turned into a truly blessed gift.

If you wish to know more feel free to get in touch with me on Facebook or email me.  So Spain and healing and raw food and life as a community leader and a million and one other things I would never have dreamed of or imagined or feel like talking about here, and soon the tourist season began in earnest.

Walks to the mountains eating mostly only wild herbs on a vision quest only to have fevered dreams and a cold night because it’s chilly up there and the heat of Spain finally came on strong, making it hard to think and only easy to sweat and sit and bathe in the ocean.  I had met many inspirational people, one such individual was a young woman from Estonia called Aggie, who I had seen doing a Sun salutation and yoga practise first thing in the morning completely naked, not a surprise on a nudist beach of course but still impressive for her to stand in her power and it made me realise that I ought to face my fear of being naked and it lead me to ask her how she also swam far out to sea too.  “Ask the Ocean to take your fear” she said.  Which sounded easy so I did.  Over the days and weeks I swam further and forgot to worry about what was beneath me until I could swim out to a buoy a long way out at another beach, and whilst my brain might have had thoughts I found disquieting, I still did it anyway.

At first being barefoot, walking on the beach but especially on the rocks has you feeling like a baby learning to walk for the first time, and rougher surfaces like the road or pavement is incredibly painful when you step on small stones and your foot isn’t used to it, but over time the skin hardens and your feet start to learn where they need to go, you look ahead not down.  As I was to realise, we are born this way and naked skin and bare feet are our natural state, without shoes and socks we connect, lose fungal infections naturally too, become grounded literally earthing ourselves to our mother below us and connecting to our father sky above us as we stop wearing hats and artificial fibres in contact with our skin, we feel more, experience more, deepen our rootedness, our feeling of wholeness, lose stress, heal, and eventually there is no going back.

In the end I could float up a mountain by looking as far ahead as I could see, my focus on that point took away my need to be in my body and my body just wished to take me there, I also found that my knees and thighs and hips relaxed to the point of being able to place myself in the lotus position for the first time, this happened spontaneously on the beach.

No going back, not to so called ‘normal society’ or normal living, not to a job with regular hours, or a week and a weekend, five days fixed, two days off, a routine, that’s normal, that’s boring and repetitive, we settled down in one place as humans and settled into routines and since then our brains have shrunk, we are nomadic at heart, we love new things, new places, new experiences, that is who human beings really are, intrepid explorers and a lifestyle based on four walls that need to be paid for, or bills of almost any kind once you are free, why would you ever cage yourself again?  I accept that some people provide the world with things that require them to stay in one place, doctors, many of us work in the area we live in, but so many fewer than in the past, the idea of a community is long gone in most cities, where very few people know each other, a real community where we work together, share our lives, those days are coming back though in places like caleta playa for a while.

I also understand that some people find nudity shocking but their attitude is outdated, and most things of the archaic are on the rise, tattoos, freedom of expression, we are wild in nature and nature would wish us to be wild and free to express ourselves and nudity is a part of that, if nudity makes you feel uncomfortable it says more about you than the person who has no clothes on, your fears are driving your reaction, or you have preconceived ideas as to what nudity, nudists, hippies, free spirits, natural humans, those without fears or who choose to face and embrace them only to conquer them are like.  I have had to work through and past many of those same internal dialogues and ideas, fears and a good deal of religious dogma that says how we ought to live.  Morals and right and wrong are important and taking into account how others feel, to respect them whatever they choose to believe or do, is to give that same permission to all, live and let live, set everyone free from prescribed ways of being.  Manners are a standard I attribute to good behaviour and the ability to get on with other people requires humility and to become humble but also self confident is important.  To be and have a balanced outlook on others and the world, to walk through life the middle way between riches and asceticism, to be and feel comfortable in your own skin and to know yourself is key.

We live as children in the west, we are comfortable, lazy, cowards compared to those tribal cultures of the past and present who have brought us here after a million years of humanity.  They didn’t wreck the environment, create plastic and oil from the slowly accumulated bones and bodies of our ancestors lying on the ocean floor and beneath the bedrock of the planet or use technology and prejudice to subjugate the poor and titillate themselves at least not to the extent that we have done in the tail end of the last century and the beginning of this one.

Look in the mirror and ask yourself how much blame you can personally take for the state the world is in today?  Keep looking in that mirror and try to say I love you how does it feel?

So it’s hot and I’ve found myself slipping into old habits, drinking a little alcohol, smoking cigarettes, amongst other things that are readily available here in the wilds of Spain, I had quit everything for two years previously to my travels and it reset me in many pure ways.

Tired also by now of the pressure being put on friends who chose to leave because the police would rather the beach was clear of us, I was personally manhandled by one officer of the Guardia Civil who has no respect for individual humanity preferring the tourist euro influx.

Leave or stay, someone suggested a trip back to the Amethyst Mountains of the south coast.  I’ve been there and seen it for myself, so I ask to come along.  The rest of the story takes in a walk, hitch, bus when the heat becomes too much, squatting in deserted buildings and living off the land adventure that included a myriad of characters, locations right out of film sets and dreams, romance, action, and the best months, weeks and days of my life.

If you want to live in fear of what might happen or fill your head and heart with stories that tell one side of this planet, focussing on the worst of humanity then continue to watch the news, continue to allow everything to be someone else's problem to solve, continue to allow technology to shorten your attention span to the length of the proverbial goldfish or accept that most creatures feel and think more than we perceive or allow ourselves to recognise that they do, please by all means just watch as the natural world continues to be pillaged to within an inch of destruction, until the environment is no longer capable of supporting anything other than a very healthy population of cockroaches, or becomes one giant desert as the south of Spain is forecast to become within the next 50 years or decide instead to travel alone or with a trusted friend, meet and become another homeless person, learn what life is really all about, experience moments of sheer bliss, heal yourself and others, through true and lasting connections, be at peace with yourself and the world around you and finally accept your place as a loved soul in a much greater universe than you ever imagined.

The journey from here to wherever it is you end up whilst fraught with perceived dangers and real ones will leave you gasping for breath at the incredible beauty of nature both human and all the other forms that life takes in this amazing paradise in the making that we find ourselves in.  Life is a gift best opened with gratitude and cherished thankfully and to those who feel incapable of it I say, I was one of you and to all those who helped me to realise who I could truly be, I say bless you, and thankyou, and I love you.