Hallelujah!

I have been quite circumspect about my mortality of late and consequently have been focussed more on my hopes and dreams.
I had become slack over the summer months in my daily walking and had almost ceased something I had come to love and enjoy. After Marcelina arrived back from the Philippines a couple of weeks ago I resumed this and am so happy to be "back" in the routine.

I am such a lover of nature and the changing seasons. Perhaps my need to resume this walking came from a perception I had within my body and I chose to listen, perhaps it came from an external source, but whatever the reason, I am so grateful for the chance that I CAN walk. I am grateful for the legs and feet, the mobility, the sounds of birds as they rise to greet the day, the sunrises I see in the heavens above as I briskly walk. I love just being present to everything around me, especially my thoughts at this hour of power for me each morning.

I rarely look at others as I walk and I rarely engage with anyone, though the odd "good morning" will be uttered, I just want to drink in the air, the sounds, the smells and the feeling. I love the growing chill in the air as we enter my absolute favourite time of the year. The Autumn colours and the more temperate weather beckons me from without my homes walls.

I have walked everyday for the last two weeks for around an hour each morning and feel some immediate benefits healthwise, but I have noted a great clarity of thought as a direct consequence.

I have had the presentiments of feeling that whisper harmonic universal truths that the things we often seek lie already within us, this amongst the times I have to think and expand my level of understanding as I walk, has given me much comfort, hope and small amounts of confusion as well.

A friend told me of someone he knows who left the things he loves and appreciates in order to find a better, easier life amidst the relative ease of high paying employment only to find the bottom fell out of the well, the promised glory of opportunity seemed to ebb at the same time he sought the big money the position seductively offered and he now finds himself in a situation only marginally better than what he left. The grass certainly was not greener on that side.

Experience and wisdom notwithstanding the person has chosen to go back to where he was, a little poorer in some ways and a little less for the several months of time lost with those he cares about. When learning of this experience it has caused me to wonder about the nature of life as I understand it.

For a large number of people in the west we seem to be on a particular course for an increase in what we should have or what we should own. I think we end up being so busy, for the sake of being busy and sometimes lose the meaning of why we are so busy, as though the lines of what we started to do have become blurred or lost along the way. This Easter has given me the chance to really relax and really think about what I want out of the transaction I refer to as life. I feel confident to share that my occasional course corrections and subsequent levels of being busy are on track for what I have always wanted.

My goals of reaching a level of financial autonomy that would allow me to travel and document the world I live in and record the peoples and places that inspire or interest me is a high priority. I would love to achieve that without worrying about the day to day bills, working to make ends meet etc, and am striving each day to get there. For me it is not always the destination I seek, because I AM enjoying the journey with gusto!

I certainly would however like a nicer house that is more conducive to a courtyard and studio, and a newer LCD or plasma etc etc, but really I am finding those attachments including nicer trinkets, nicer vehicles and TVs as distractions. I think people generally here are thinking that the person who dies with the most toys wins. I believe that to be a complete and wasteful delusion.

For me it is not about any of that, it is purely about touching the lives of others about you, and making an impact for good on the world. I am honoured that my photographic abilities open me up to people their lives and experiences and even to learning from them as well as about them. For when that process is occurring it is when I truly understand myself. I have wondered though that like a director who cannot direct, or a dancer who loses the ability to dance, am I only as good as my camera?

A book I once read about climbing everest, it indicated that very few of the people who ascend everest actually make it to the summit. But it was the will to overcome the odds and try that the true strength of accomplishment lies. The indomitable spirit that lies within mankind to reach beyond what is here and what is now to become more than the sum of your parts. A recent everest summit trekker said that he stood on that small precipice for only 45mins and has affected his whole life to and beyond that point.

Why? I believe because he saw it and conquered, he had conquered external things in his life he could now accomplish anything within. A wise cleric of former days made this observation, that the greatest battles we will ever fight will be within the walls of our own souls. This referring to the overcoming of one's self - self mastery in other words. The ability to overcome ones weaknesses, find strength and meaning in where we are right now and in what we do that matters to those around us, or to ourselves. Or the mastery that comes when we learn to not trade things of a higher worth in our lives for trinkets like houses, cars or possessions generally. I wonder, and perhaps in vain, what the world would be like if we all could be the best at what we were good at, if we could harness and utilise everybody for a common purpose and truly support others without the fear that they could be better than us or that we would be lesser if we built others up.

I have climbed some personal everest's that have helped to redifine my thoughts and feelings and have brought me to where I stand now. Free of blame and innuendo, free of looking to others to solve my needs or concerns, though I strive to be open to inspiration and opportunity where ever it may present itself and feel that because I am dependant on others, and with a knowledge that we really are all connected, despite the growing tide of misinformation that would have us feel otherwise, I am free. Free to be me.

Hallelujah!

i heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you
well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah

hallelujah...

well your faith was strong but you needed proof
you saw her bathing on the roof
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to her kitchen chair
she broke your throne and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

hallelujah...

baby i've been here before
i've seen this room and i've walked this floor
i used to live alone before i knew you
i've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

hallelujah...

well there was a time when you let me know
what's really going on below
but now you never show that to me do you
but remember when i moved in you
and the holy dove was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallelujah

well, maybe there's a god above
but all i've ever learned from love
was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
it's not a cry that you hear at night
it's not somebody who's seen the light
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

hallelujah...