On a Roll

On a Roll

Living TimefullyOn 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).

The Keys to OverstandingSo on Insight Timer, you will find three new courses :

Living Timefully

Purposeful Living

Keys to Overstanding

– 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.

Take a Leap

Siri’s version : Gjørrå et sprang

Soulwaves : A Future History : Insight Timer PlaylistI 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 …

… it is now also available on Insight Timer

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.

What next I ask myself?

Let’s hope the ball keeps rolling along eh?

Taking Stock

Taking Stock

Insight Timer PortfolioFor 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 first one is entitled “What’s On Your Mind?” and can be listened to for free on Insight Timer

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 !

Taking Stock

It Takes 9 Months

It Takes 9 Months

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.

Seeing Clearly Now

Seeing Clearly Now

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.

The Point of No Return

The Point of No Return

We are well into the house refurbishment now. Walls are demolished, floor ripped up, 200 tonnes of soil removed for new parking area and piles driven 6 metres into the ground to support the new 1st floor extension where it meets the garden.

So, we cannot go back. We are temporarily in rented accommodation until the end of Spring and will then spend Summer in our motorhome. We are well passed the point of no return and have no option but complete the build.

For some this would be a scary place to be. Apart from anything, there’s a considerable amount of investment required and the classic wanting to be back in before the winter sets in.

Lady Luck however seems to be on our side. The short term rental property was an amazing stroke of luck. There are not many places available that are happy to have two dogs and where you can park a motorhome and two cars.

Our builders seem to know what they are doing and are hitting all the deadlines. Problems like getting steels past high voltage overhead electricity lines are being dealt with.

Going passed the point of no return needs more than having deep enough pockets and a large amount of patience. It requires that we trust. This is not trust in a our main contractor or the plumber. It is about trusting the Universe that all of this is part of a bigger plan. This is the karmic plan we signed up for before incarnating. Demolishing and rebuilding a house that is more energy efficient is only of any worth if living in such a place means even more of the karmic plan can be fulfilled.

Part of this is the wisdom and higher perspective that is gained by upsetting the apple cart, living in a new place and meeting new people. Having temporarily decimated a home, it means our place of bliss has been removed. When we eventually get back in, we will appreciate it even more.

In the meantime, in the limbo place from which we cannot go backwards, much adventure can be had. We have a moho and plan to use it. For example, we are a stone’s throw from Stonehenge and have discovered we can park there for free overnight and see the sun rise over the stones.

So what is the real point of ‘the point of no return’?

It is when the realisation dawns that going back and regressing to old ways and patterns serves no purpose. The learnings are not forgotten but embraced, appreciated and integrated. This opens the door to new potentialities and possibilities.

When a new sun comes up, a new day begins, the past becomes a thing of the past and we rise to a bright new future … to help with the ‘returning’ process, treat yourself to an hour of reflection listening to my longest guided meditation, The Paths of Return.

And you can find the script of this guidance in this blog …

 

The Keys to Wisdom

The Keys to Wisdom

Key to the Wisdom of AgesSo I am just embarking on moonth 4 of what I knew would be a 24 moonth project. Today sees the publication of more materials for those walking the Path To Overstanding with me.

The whole project is mind mapped out so I can ‘see’ all the elements of the Path. It does indeed integrate many areas of my knowledge and wisdom. It is however much bigger than that as many of the individual components only get revealed to me on a ‘moonth by moonth’ basis.

To reiterate, and as shown in the diagram above, on each New Moon, I publish a thought piece about the Path along with some Overtasking. Each 1st quarter sees the release of one of 23 meditations on the keys of the Major Arcana, inspired by the augmented keys from the Tarot of Overstanding. On each Full Moon, I release an ambient track similarly inspired from my third album, Arcanum. Then, on the 3rd quarter, I share a conversation with a Like Mind to give us a different perspective and to widen our understanding of the cosmos. These I call Uberstanding.

A daunting project you might think. Well firstly, with the Moon, as my time piece, I have not missed a publication date yet. I also kept this up during 2021 with a similarly structured 13 moonth project, namely Soulwaves : Insertions. Secondly, I have a guide to help me show the way in the Earth Plane and who knows what guidance from the Council of the Light in The Void.

The Key to the Wisdom of Ages, by Paul Foster Case, provides the seed for the materials, meditations and music. I must have read it over 50 times but I am now back to it with fresh eyes. I am careful not just to paraphrase its content but to use it as seeds from which I extrapolate. That is the whole point of overstanding anything after all.

The book is also magical and I am sure new things appear that I have not seen before on each reading. For example, Foster Case mentions the musical key for each of the Arcana. This is information I previously have skimmed but not am now utilising for the creation of the ambient album. Each track starts in the relevant key and ends in the key of the next Arcana. I will only know if this works at the end but it sounds like a reasonable premise.

 

From tiny points of guidance, a whole meta-structure appears.

As the Tarot evolves, we evolve.

As Above, so Below.

 

Take the First Step, Flavours of Thought, for free today … 

The Overstanding Soundcasts

Would you like to ‘Try Before You Subscribe’?

I understand that it can be tricky to get your head around what is esoteric – it is unknowable after all.

So, if you’d like to have a sneak peek at the wonders on offer along The Path To Overstanding, you can listen to the first Soundcast, Flavours of Thought, completely for free.

It contains 33 short tracks which will change the way you think about your thoughts, forever!

[activecampaign form=15 css=1]