This last moonth has been one where flexibility has had to be the key. The next few moonths are poised to be similar in flavour.
The reason being is that my main two initiatives for 2024 are in a state of flux, with uncertainty around their aspects and timing.
So I have prerecorded two introductory shows for the new Soulwaves channel on Ethereal TV. Their launch date of June seems to have slipped, which doesn’t surprise me at all as it’s a massive undertaking on their part, not least with herding many cool cats. If I am honest, I prefer doing interviews outside the summer months anyway when I prefer to be outside! So I am not rattling that cage and am happy for it all to run its course.
Slightly more unsettling but also potentially really good news is that Insight Timer are changing the way that they remunerate teachers. As this is my main revenue stream, as I am loyal to them for the opportunity they gave me, I will have to adjust and potentially augment some of my plans.
I was planning to put all of my Magnum Opus on to the app and have already re-published the first part of my trilogy, the book Flavours of Thought, on the app. I was about to upload the companion book in an eight part mini-series, Recipes for Fresh Thinking, and have two recipe-themed courses up already with a third lined up for July.
My intuition is to hold off doing any more. Partly as they are not getting the traction I had hoped for but mainly as my intuition is to re-publish and re-purpose the second part of the trilogy, Planes of Being.
The third and most expansive part of the trilogy is The Path to Overstanding. This was going to be tricky to upload as it has so many materials as attachments and Insight Timer do not allow them to be appended to courses. What they are about to launch though is our ability to sell events and mentoring services through the app.
This means access to The Path to Overstanding could be repurposed as a subscription-based monthly mentoring programme. I already have it hosted on MySoundwise and can augment access with live sessions that themselves will get uploaded, thus augmenting the level of Overstanding.
So for a moonth, I plan to do nothing apart from observe and post my current mix of free meditations and music, the serialisation of the audiobook version of Soulwaves and courses.
By way of fitting example, let me share a guided visualisation with you here, that I just happened to upload last moonth … funny how art emulates life !
And you can see the interview with the CEO of Insight Timer, Christopher Plowman, on the ringing in of these changes here https://youtu.be/t_NgITxD324
As we approach the Summer Solstice, there have been many strings pulled in the Density from the Void. The Council of the Light have been busy.
There’s a new TV channel about to launch with a focus on metaphysics called Ethereal.tv. My great friend, Louisa Tanner Munson, was initially invited to it, along with Carl Munson, her erudite husband and fabulous show host. They both recommended me to the channel’s progenitors, Will Rodriquez and Karen Endsley.
A brief chat was all that was needed for them to want me to launch a show and for me to go for it. The title they suggested was fab, It’s Not Bonkers, but after finding myself procrastinating about it, I realised that it is to be called soulwaves : connecting above to below.
It’s going to be an exploration of all things metaphysical with a whole raft of guests helping me make the esoteric into the exoteric – and launching later this moonth.
It’s quite an undertaking as I will be producing a one hour show every week but it’s such an opportunity to get even more global reach than I am already getting through Insight Timer. I was though feeling a new challenge was needed as I have been far too complacent and comfortable with my creative output.
That said, I am thrilled to have published three new courses on Insight Timer on the Flavours of Thought in the last three moonths alone.
In addition, from June onwards, I am also starting to write, record and publish a series of follow on courses on the Recipes for Fresh Thinking – which are essentially modern day spells. This will lead into another series of courses inspired by the Minor Arcana and based on my book on the subject, Planes of Being.
The ability to cross-fertilise my Ethereal shows with Insight Timer materials is immense as the shows can feature sample meditations and go into more depth as there is no restriction on imagery and of course video content. This means my Magnum Opus can truly be shared with the world now.
You’ll find links to the Flavours of Thought courses below … and I’ll post shows as they go live on Ethereal on my front page.
This first course explores thought forms that emanate from outside of our neurology. These are the stuff of light bulb moments and the source and fuel for our creativity. If you have ever had an idea ‘off the top’ of your head, you will have heard a whisper already.
This second course in the series explores thought forms that percolate up from our lower mind centres. Pay attention to them and you will never put a foot out of kilter. Ignore them and you may end up pushing water uphill.
This third course explores thought forms that are generated in our brain that are seeded from ethereal whisper and unconscious murmurs. You will also get a sample taster of a Recipe for Fresh Thinking.
Seven years ago, in May 2017, I was approached by Siri Opli who asked if I would like my daily Just for Today memes to be illustrated. I had no reason to say no so we embarked on a journey with no plan to reach any destination but just to enjoy the ride.
We flipped the order of creation over the years. Sometimes Siri would send me art and I would write having been inspired by it. Other times, I would write the words and Siri would be inspired to draw or paint accordingly.
Last month, the scheduling software I was using to batch schedule JFTs stopped posting to Facebook Groups, a change at Meta’s end apparently, so this month we are changing the way we are doing them.
We will still record Just for Today themed meditations – here’s one recent one for example. This one incidentally was one that I did following a reading from a medium who suggested I create content for younger people, perhaps with ADHD and autism.
Siri will be now be collating and curating old and new groups of illustrated memes on the Deckible app as card decks – here’s an example
Now there is a modest charge for each deck but Siri would love your support and the big advantage is to get all the associated JFTs in one place – many with the associated meditation. Better still is the ability to be able to journal against each card and even do spreads of cards.
So I throw the gauntlet down to any reader of this blog to stop doing something, out of habit, that no longer serves. This allows something else you did not expect to pop along.
Now this has already happened to me and I hope to be able to announce it after the next orbit of the moon.
I leave you with one of the first ever illustrations that Siri did – it is still our favourite – as well as the meditation it inspired.
This moonth, the plan that emerged at the start of the year – after the much needed stock-taking hiatus – is starting to unfold.
The serialisation of Soulwaves is nearing the half way point and it’s a real pleasure for me to listen to something I wrote nearly five years ago. It’s a double pleasure to merge the audiobook with the albums of ambient music that it inspired. The few that listen to it seem to like it and I have now created a playlist to make all the parts easier to find. All in all, it’s one component of my creation of legacy of content in one place.
While the Soulwaves project is massive in scope – especially if it turns out to be prophetically even part-true, the Big Project though is the creation of my Magnum Opus – listen to the background to it here …
The first part is already available as a course on Insight Timer and I plan to publish a course a month, probably up to the end of 2025.
Our home has really come together – just waiting for the temperature to rise so the rendering can be applied and for our solar installer to add the panels to get our energy usage to net zero. We are close too to having our rainwater harvesting system working which will probably augur months with no rain.
We’ve been busy too in the DIY department and have created a larder which we are quite proud of – in the same style as the walk-in wardrobe I build a couple of months back. The acoustic panels are not only stylish but also wonderfully deaden the room spaces.
All in all, it feels great to be Springing Forwards
On the 27th February, which is a year to the day since we moved out for our house refurb to proceed, my audio studio was back in operation … and I am back on a roll.
What’s more, on the 28th February, the workmen left site and the drilling and banging stopped, the skip has gone and we can now park in our own drive. Thankfully we have very forgiving and generous neighbours!
Before the 27th, I’d already been busy but mainly remastering existing materials. I am aiming to migrate my esoteric archive of materials over to Insight Timer (whilst also paralleling them up on Soundwise for backup reasons).
So on Insight Timer, you will find three new courses :
– and very shortly, I’ll be publishing another course called Becoming a Channel.
I also squeezed in recording a brand new meditation specifically written for the leap year and published on the 29th Feb called Take a Leap (geddit) and you will also find a Norwegian version from the uber-talented Siri Opli.
I am also three parts (of ten) into the serialisation of my novel Soulwaves : A Future History : which you can find under this new playlist
But the biggest momentum, causing the ball to pick up speed, is the creation of a series of new courses based on my two books, Flavours of Thought and Planes of Being.
They came out when audiobooks weren’t much of a thing, Flavours being published in 2009 and Planes in 2012. They are contemporisations of the Major and Minor Arcana.
So this year, I am creating two three part courses, that’s six in total on the Flavours of Thought and the Recipes of Fresh Thinking. Then I will create two courses from Planes of Being.
Listen to this recent IT Live for an overview and more background …
This will make a huge archive of my legacy content to the millions of meditators on Insight Timer.
My hope is that by the end of this year, Insight Timer will allow us to upload other assets, by way of PDF and images, to courses on the app. Then, in 2025, I will be able to follow on by publishing the Tree and Cube of Overstanding materials.
Now all of this activity has caused me to think. When this is all done, my work is really done.
So at the end of February 2023 last year, we moved out of our house ahead of a major renovation. We’ve been back in from just before Xmas but largely ‘camping’ on one floor. By the end of February this year though, virtually all the works will be complete and normality can resume but under new auspices.
This year has already started with everything being taken up a gear or three.
I’ve given my meditations and ambience a push in a new direction with more a series of meditative enquiries and a more compositional and layered approach to music. For examples, listen to …
The serialisation of Soulwaves : A Future History is on track, with two parts already available via IT Premium. By October this year, I aim for all 10 parts (each consisting of 10 chapters) to be live.
There’s also a new course published this month called the Keys to Overstanding – it will be first of many where I share esoteric wisdom from my ‘magnum opus’ The Book of Overstanding.
I’ve also completed the first of a series of interviews with like minded souls with a wonderful conversation with the uber-talented musician, singer, actress and disrupter, Hannah Reimann.
… and it’s only week 1 of February !!
But what off these new auspices?
Well for quite a while now, I have used the Twelve Councillors of the Light as my muse. They ‘helped’ me write Soulwaves and Insertions, as well as the all meditations and music that accompanied them.
Last year, I was ‘introduced’ to a different set of intelligences called The Four … you can listen to a podcast about them below …
Now, I will admit that I don’t know if the Council and The Four are real or imaginary. What I can report is that, if I imagine that they are real, all sorts of wondrous magic pops along at the most perfect times.
… and here’s an image of The Four channelled by Sïrï Oplï
For the first time in well over a decade, I have started this year without much of a plan. I sense a New Dawn is coming, along with yet another death-less reincarnation.
Over the holidays, I mind-mapped the content I’d created since I morphed into being a storyteller, meditation guide and ambient composer. You will find a version of the map below. Note that there is another level of detail again to be seen, click here if you’d like to see it as it lists all my Insight Timer tracks.
Incidentally, I was a little surprised to find I had uploaded 300 tracks to Insight Timer in just over 6 years, that’s around 1 a week – and doesn’t include the courses !!
Having completed this task, it feels both cathartic and necessary in order to avoid running full tilt into 2024. This stock-taking has been brought about in no small part because we have been out of our home for nine months, while our home has been transformed into something more expansive, functional and eco. The refurbishment process will still take another month or so to complete but it’s getting there and we are now making our home into a home.
As a result, during this time, I am not doing too much apart from testing the water with a couple of ideas but largely just allowing the Universe to give me a sign or three … kind of having a sabbatical for an unspecified amount of weeks and months.
The first of these tests is the generation of a short meditation, with minimal guidance, but which invites the listener to embark upon their own journey of enquiry. If it goes down well, I have ideas for a whole series of them and their introduction will see the phasing out of the Just for Today style meditations (there are more than enough of those already).
The second is available exclusively for Insight Premium subscribers. I am merging and morphing the audiobook version of Soulwaves : A Future History and the ambient album of the same name into a multimedia version. The 100 chapters will be split into 10 parts of 10 chapters each. I plan to create one part a month but may publish them more quickly if the demand is there. The first ten chapters are available from today.
p.s. If you have any ideas or requirements for materials that will inspire, edutain and help you, let me know by way of comments below …
p.p.s. I plan to move all my legacy courses, as well as the Path to Overstanding materials, to a new platform (for me) called Systeme.io. Note though, if Insight Timer reinstate PDF and video uploads, I would rather consolidate them there … just putting that out there !
The refurbishment and extension of our home has taken nine months – this seems appropriate for a rebirth I suppose.
In this time, we have relocated over 35 times, squeezed in a couple of mini-holidays, met and caught up with old friends and spent a humungous amount on the refurb. You can’t take it with you, they say.
Has it been worth it?
Well the old house was exactly that : old and tired, damp, draughty and mouldy. The new house is fully insulated, fully electric with temperature and humidity controlled by our new MVHR. With the solar panels going back on in the New Year, as sun behind the hill at the mo, we are aiming to be close to net zero. So yes, definitely it will be worth it.
In addition, we have 50% more space. We didn’t need the space per se but all the old rooms were a less than ideal shape. Now the house and garden are married together with a living room/diner in the new upstairs extension, opening up into the gardens. The bedrooms and wet rooms are now mostly downstairs in the ‘European-style’ we understand. All rooms have had new floors, walls and ceilings and triple glazing fitted.
The journey had ups and downs of course. We had a really fast demolition and rapid construction of the new extension, with piles driven six metres into the ground and three one ton steels man-handled in : due to cranes not being able to operate with overhead electricity cables.
Discovery of asbestos set us back a month and the best part of £20k. We probably lost another month as our main contractor had taken on too many projects and there’s at least another month of exterior insulation, rendering and cladding works to be completed early in 2024.
Now though, the scaffolding is down and the skip has left the property. We have now moved back in before Christmas.
If you have been following my blog, you will have noted that, in parallel, the materials for the Path to Overstanding have been flowing out regularly and I only have a moonth’s worth of content to create in the New Year. There’s been much new freemium and premium content added to Insight Timer and some ‘waves have rippled around the planet as a result.
I need a break, as perhaps do those walking the path with me.
So 2024 will augur in a new way of being from a personal level. As my creative output is personal in its very nature, it too will inevitably change. For the first time in over 20 years though, I have no plans for any project. I have some ideas milling around but next year, I will go with the flow and really allow my soul to guide me.
p.s. All suggestions and nudges for what you’d like to see more, or less, of much appreciated.
This moonth two large projects are approaching completion – namely our house refurbishment and my ‘paving’ of the Path to Overstanding.
When you come to the end, or near the end, of a project a certain melancholy can tend to set it.
Firstly, you might wonder what’s next and even if it’s your last project?
Secondly, you might feel it was a waste of time or it didn’t quite meet your objectives.
Thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, you realise that the ‘real work’ could just be about to begin.
With the house refurb, we are weathertight, glass is in, 1st fix done and awaiting plastering to dry out so decorating can begin. Then it’s 2nd fix and a phased move back in. In 2024, we’ll tackle making the outside as good as the inside and bringing the home and garden to each other.
At the same time, my explorations of the Path to Overstanding are virtually done and dusted. The main body of work comprises of 100 or so audio modules which are a mix of explanations, explorations and overtasks. This ‘magnum opus’ is augmented by 22 meditations on the keys of the Major Arcana and 22 ambient tracks which are similarly inspired.
There’s a bit of content yet to be generated which I plan to do early in 2024.
I am faced with a quandary though about what to do next. It could just be converted into a book and sent out into the world, at relatively low cost, in order to reach a wider audience. This involves a considerable amount of marketing effort and none of my previous 18 books has ever gained wide reach or commercial success.
The other option I am mulling over is to train up Tour Guides to take others around the path. This again will take a considerable amount of effort. I did try doing this over a decade ago to no avail. I hadn’t of course developed the materials for the path then.
Such negative thinking can hold any artist back from really enjoying and celebrating their achievements. So I am going to pat myself on my back for completing what essentially the third in a trilogy of metaphysical tomes and my magnum opus.
Then the next thing I am going to do is nothing. The next move is to simply move back into the house, spend some time making it liveable and enjoying a new room with a spectacular view.
p.s. The ‘lungs’ of the house are being installed today – our MVHR system will help the house dry out by reducing humidity and introducing some distributed heat
p.p.s. The ladder to the new extension has been removed and we now have a staircase
You may have picked up a theme in this moonthly blog where life and art emulate each other.
So, after looking at plans for 12 months and a set of wide gaping holes in our new extension for five months, the windows have been fitted. We are now watertight and can really appreciate the views we have to enjoy once the refurbishment is finished.
We’re also out of our moho now into rented again. The moho is going up for sale and our roving adventure is coming to a close.
So these are the two main things happening in my life right … first world issues I know but what’s happening in my art is of more cosmic significance, I hope and feel
In art, a new clarity is emerging, as I come to the end of the creation of the Path to Overstanding materials. Someone asked me where the Path fitted in with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It made me realise that the Path starts where his triangle of needs finishes.
So it takes a person who is self-actualised to an entirely new level again. In the last section of the Path – around the Cube of Overstanding – ‘travellers’ will undergo 10 levels of initiation above the self-actualised state. Of course, this is not the limit but it’s pretty transformative nonetheless.
I’ve just got three more moonth’s worth of materials to generate and have now got a new clarity of where to take it from next year – both with mentoring individuals and trainers.
The video below tells the story of how I came to this place and where it leads from now. If you are ready to step up, get in touch. I would be honoured to guide you along this path.
Seven years ago, in May 2017, I was approached by Siri Opli who asked if I would like my daily Just for Today memes to be illustrated. I had no reason to say no so we embarked on a journey with no plan to reach any destination but just to enjoy the ride.
So at the end of February 2023 last year, we moved out of our house ahead of a major renovation. We’ve been back in from just before Xmas but largely ‘camping’ on one floor. By the end of February this year though, virtually all the works will be complete and normality can resume but under new auspices.
For the first time in well over a decade, I have started this year without much of a plan. I sense a New Dawn is coming, along with yet another death-less reincarnation.
The refurbishment and extension of our home has taken nine months – this seems appropriate for a rebirth I suppose.
So it takes a person who is self-actualised to an entirely new level again. In the last section of the Path – around the Cube of Overstanding – ‘travellers’ will undergo 10 levels of initiation above the self-actualised state. Of course, this is not the limit but it’s pretty transformative nonetheless.