LINK TO ART PORTFOLIO

Recently added some images of some my portfolio to my facebook page at this link:

http://goo.gl/q65ZjG

GREY the novel, update…murder and sexual philandering

I'd just like to extend gratitude to all of you who've bought GREY the novel in ebook format through Kobo.
http://goo.gl/EbMTAc

Thank you very much indeed.
I've now got to the point where sales have produced my first royalty payment, which, although modest, is a real milestone for me in my literary career.
If anyone would like to offer feedback about the book that would also be most welcome. Either here or on my author website 
http://goo.gl/fjci2P

And if you'd like to network the novel to your friends that would also be greatly appreciated.

As far as the completion of (The First Book Of) PRANA goes (2 volumes), I am still busy with a small rewrite of certain sections to excise the (privately owned) song lyrics from the work as the permissions and flak I picked up from the owners was just silly.
I think they had some skewed idea that this was a book glorifying satanism or something and I was using songs like Murder By Numbers (The Police) to create incitement for dark deeds, which is ludicrous. I'm not sure what they thought exactly but the songs were used to form context only not to suggest that they promoted violence and murder…as was suggested by Jimmy Swaggart in 1983 when that specific song was released.

Aside: A poetically sweet paradox about that proclamation by Swaggart, was that a few years later in 1988 he was involved in a sex scandal with a prostitute and then again in 1991.
He had accused Sting and The Police of being "the sons of satan…"
Amusingly, at a Frank Zappa concert (1988), Sting guested to provide vocals for the song which Zappa covered and which later featured on his Broadway The Hard Way album. In the introduction to the song, "Mr" Sting (as Zappa dubbed him) raised the Swaggart issue, saying: "Four years ago, Jimmy Swaggart said this about me: this here song by the Police, Murder By Numbers was written by Satan, performed by the sons of Satan! Beelezebub! Lucifer! The horned one! 
"I wrote the fucking song, alright…"
Which engendered much enthusiastic applauding.
http://goo.gl/0aY9KE


The PRANA works (essentially complete), the second and third volumes in the series, The Lucifer Chronicles shall be available shortly…watch this space… http://goo.gl/pmLNIE


In the words of a famous comic book icon: Excelsior!

ON FREUD, REICH AND JUNG...

Why were all these "fathers" of psychoanalysis either Austrian or Swiss; Germanic if you will?

Is it that boring in the region that you have to obsess over your mom and sex (not necessarily in that order) and then bring in all those role-playing archetypes just to spice it up a bit? 

Surprised these dudes didn't consult from S&M dungeons in their homes......or maybe they did. 

PS - I would never take life advice from a guy with a hairdo like Wilhelm Reich's, especially not romantic advice. 

;) 

WHERE HAVE MEN GONE SO TERRIBLY WRONG?

This situation is truly out of hand!


As men instinctively feel the empowerment of women, and those men who aren't emotionally mature, process this as mirroring their consequential disempowerment, they come up with more and more pathetic excuses for their inability to assume responsibility for themselves.


Easier to blame the woman and that's exactly what weak men do.


Real men are invigorated by an empowered woman and in a working relationship, this paradigm creates amazing synergy.


I despair of what's taken place culturally and within mainstream religions where man's misogynistic interpretation of the scriptures and the cultural traditions have been perverted to disenfranchise women to the point that they're seen as subhuman and are treated as property.


Paradoxically this merely exemplifies the subhumanity that males actually embrace.
In South Africa - 181 (reported) rapes occur on a daily basis* and they say the percentage going unreported is astronomical… there is a profound sickness within the male psyche that needs to be addressed urgently.


*(SAPS published crime stats 2012/2013)


Someone said on facebook earlier today that a woman asks to be raped as much as an animal asks to be abused.
Truly sad…


We need to educate and empower men in spiritual and emotional ways rather than simply perpetuate this illusory base of power of the physical/material and intellectual.


In that way we'll bring balance back to the imagined dichotomy.

http://rt.com/news/saudi-women-molestation-poll-268/

Something worthwhile on my keyboard...

Someone who has just recently left Facebook for personal reasons said this to me:

"We are all giving away way too much great stuff to Zuckerberg."

I agree with her and will, this year, be doing a lot more creative writing via my blog which does automatically post to my Facebook wall. 

I've noticed, however, that fb friends are much less inclined to take the additional step of clicking the link and waiting for the blog post to open. 

Not that it's hard but we seem to have become so programmed to instantaneous abbreviation that any extra "effort" isn't considered. 

Oh well, your loss. 

I'll be expanding that exposure too. 

By the way: thanks to you all who've bought my eBook, GREY.

Not setting the world ablaze but sales are steadily chugging along. 

There will be much more effort to engage with other creative writing sites and journalists (such as this lady is) as there is much to say and I have a will and, I'm told, a voice with which to say it. 

If you're interested in journalism of an altogether more substantive quality, check out Truth Barrier at www.truthbarrier.com

Happy trails, people.

http://truthbarrier.com

FIDELITY...

Let's be honest - the concept of being "faithful" within a relationship is usually a spillover from the religious tenets of maintaining physical fidelity which in and of itself is surely fundamentally flawed…

If one is lucky enough to partner with another human during our fleeting time on this planet in this material plane of existence and you find yourselves enjoying compatibility across all aspects of your relationship: the physical, the intellectual, the emotional and the spiritual, then fidelity must encompass all those facets….no?

For me, I came to one of those epiphanic moments through (yes, that's right) reading and the simple yet amazingly profound traditions of the Native American cultures through Medicine Wheel teaching (culminated in Kenneth Meadows' book, The Medicine Way ISBN-10: 1862040222 / ISBN-13: 978-1862040229)

It revealed to me how and why the Westernised approach to life had gone so horribly awry and, in a microcosmic sense, why I too was living a life devoid of fulfillment.

In a nutshell the traditional way of perceiving this shared reality in the Medicine Wheel teachings was through the elements, in turn defined by the cardinal directions in the wheel, each one representative of each facet of our existence.

North represented Air / Intellect and where we "receive" information from the universe

South represented Water / Emotions and where we "give" of ourselves

East represented Fire / Spirit (where the sun rises) and where we "determine" / make decisions that shape our pathway in life

West represented Earth / Body (where the sun falls into the Earth) - material physicality and where we "hold" our strength.

When one approaches life in this way, a balance is created in each facet of our lives and fulfillment is attained as the link between the four cardinal directions is through the centre of the wheel which essentially feeds our soul or pathway to God - call it what you will.

In simplistic terms, the Western way of life effectively ratchets the way we interact with life by one notch out of harmony and thus is created a whole different set of defining guidelines:

East becomes North where we no longer "receive" information from the universe but actually make decisions in our lives without that inner integrity - now based solely on intellect and logic devoid of that innate guiding instinct.

West is now South where we "give" of ourselves - no longer from that base of emotional integrity but purely in the physical sense where what would have been emotional love now becomes physical lustful interaction and loses its deeper meaning. And the physical/material aspects of existence become our defining value system thereby diminishing intrinsic human values.

North is now East where we are receiving input from the universe but don't have the capacity to recognise this any longer

South becomes West where we now "hold" our strengths - not physically but emotionally. We hold onto emotional baggage and drama which is debilitating in every sense and manifests in all sort of physical ailments as we cannot get to the root of our issues and process them. The Western answer to this is therapy which once again intellectualises issues which require to be dealt with in an emotional arena, a concept which is almost impossible to do within the value structures to which we've become confined.

When we realise the simplicity of how we can actually exist and we look for those aspects in a partner (and are lucky enough to find them), fidelity isn't really an issue any longer as our means of defining purpose in our lives takes on a different perspective and fulfillment is more readily attained.

And once a person is fulfilled emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually, there is little enticement to seek those aspects outside of that relationship - it simply serves no purpose.

And our relationship with others also attains a more meaningful dynamic.

Well, it certainly works for me.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS...

If all humans responded to "nutrition" in exactly the same way, there would be a universal diet that worked for everyone. They don't and there isn't. Hence the plethora of "scientific" opinions when it comes to nutrition and what is deemed "essential".

And the opinions vary radically from "you must eat meat as a vegetarian diet doesn't do it for you" to "meat isn't necessary at all" to all incremental arguments in between.

And they are all supported by "facts" and "nutritional science" right?

So it is claimed. 

And then start on the detail: eat carbs and protein separately… no, eat them together…..if you avoid foods with fat, you will not put on weight (fat)…..if you avoid sugars ditto….if you have a certain blood type you should only eat certain foodstuffs….and then there is the raw food - processed foods debate not to mention the exponential upsurge of allergy-related ailments that now beset the Western population of the planet…what was a godsend in human development - agriculture and the cultivation of wheat and other grains has now become a curse in the form of gluten and other natural foods which are now euphemistically referenced as "allergens" making what once sustained us, the enemy within.

What has changed since then? Uh - probably everything, not least of which our own evolution and change in perception not to mention the increase in synthesised products being passed off as food when in truth they are merely food-like products.

Meat eaters love to show how unhealthy a pure vegan diet can be and for some maybe that's true - for others it certainly isn't.

And I do not for one moment believe that we need meat products in any manner or form to maintain balanced health and wellbeing but this argument appeases the carnivores in their meat choices - it is essential, I am told. No, it isn't. But if you want to eat meat because you like it then admit that that's the case instead of using the old "it's essential" chestnut to validate the support of a horrifically cruel industry. We all make choices about what we eat and all that I advocate is that that choice is well informed. In many, many cases it isn't and even sadder - many more don't give a shit either way.

For me, diet, nutritional intake is as much about belief as it is about choice and what you believe (nocebo / placebo) has a very significant effect on your wellbeing - period.

Food choices are the same for me as tobacco usage: if tobacco unequivocally caused cancer through its use then why didn't millions of Native Americans succumb to this dread disease as tobacco has been a sacred part of that culture for millennia? And why doesn't everyone who smokes develop cancer? Genetic proclivity, I hear one say and yet, it's almost universally agreed that lifestyle and anthropogenic influence is more likely to cause cancer than most heredity. 

Nature? Nurture? Permutations of both? The latter, I think coupled with personal choices and personal beliefs.

Perception is everything and our relationship with what we eat perhaps even more significant. But who takes time out nowadays to make a proper and thankful ritual of a meal when we are such busy, important creatures that would rather chomp super-sized shit on the run and suck our coffee through a plastic nozzle instead of touching the liquid with our lips directly from an organic ceramic vessel?

I'll just keep on with my horrible vegetarian diet, thanks very much and be very happy about it - oh and try really hard not to ram it down anyone else's throat. I was a carnivore once and I do believe that (in my case) I evolved but to each his own.

You are what you eat? You betcha - and even more apposite - you are what you believe...