of real men & desirable women...

I’ve spent a lot of time on my own in the last while, not counting the pleasurable company of five dogs that hang about close to me, with that please-take-us-to-the-beach look in their doleful eyes – they are all, each in their own way, very sweet and adorable, and are finally, after some weeks here, learning to listen and obey, and not pester me for constant attention – and I have been working, occasionally, on small jobs like paving the area outside my writer’s shed – it used to be my toolshed, then for a while it was my home, and now it serves as my kitchen, wardrobe, part toolshed and office, and it seems the mice have stopped visiting – maybe I did kill them all, or maybe word has got out that even though there are bits of food to be had, and lots of clothing about that can be chewed up & turned into mouse beds, it all comes at a high price – I did see a very fat and dark species of mouse/rat down near the veg garden today – and they have been there for some time – my dog knows that, he constantly sniffs about there, expert mouse & rat killer that he somehow became...

And in this time alone, and working, it seems that one’s own thoughts can crystallize – not petrify, as the pineal gland apparently does after too many years of fluoridated toothpaste and tap water – please note that our pineal glands are seated somewhere deep in our midbrains, where our most ancestral and reptilian brain circuitry is found, including I would imagine, things like our involuntary instincts – things we have no control over like heartbeat, cerebrospinal fluid pulse rate, etc – so it’s an important area of our brains, not to be tampered with, those deep-seated glands and neural pockets... but in my frontal cortex maybe,  where my Id/ego/super-ego reside - that’s where, I think, these self-actualizing thoughts and shifts have been going on – and as I wrote somewhere above, it seems that time spent alone, and doing manual labour, helps these ideas to crystallize – maybe because the rest of the time, when we are in the company of others, or buzzing about in society doing our business-with-people stuff, we are too mentally busy to allow stuff to precipitate out, and come back to us as well-fermented bits of wisdom & realization

That reminds me, of a night about a year ago, when I met a woman who had been to hell & back too many times over the course of a few years during which she became estranged and I should hope divorced from her brutish-sounding husband – she related to me and another mutual friend, late that night, some startling stuff, how in the thick of her near nervous breakdowns, she had travelled back to her primal source, seen her eternal flame separate out from the primal flame of all Creation, in a vision, and all that while sweeping the floor – she said that she had found, that during the most mundane tasks, like floor-sweeping, the biggest revelations had come to her – something like repetitive and simple acts taking one into a trance state..

Anyway, I haven’t had the pleasure of similar time travel, brought on by pushing heavy wheelbarrows of earth up my driveway, and lifting heavy stone slabs into position to create a very nice mosaic paved area, actually a few areas – my sporadic and mostly short-lived glimpses of the Eternal, have been much more mundane – just in the last few hours, while writing, a sudden realisation that I am enjoying very much the company of men, bent on a group task of problem solving, and conflict resolution – all done with a sense of humour – I am loving the oases, as I stumble over and into them, of cameraderie amongst mature adult men – I don’t belong to any primarily female populated groups, so I can’t compare. Could I smuggle myself in, using a wig and false appendages, maybe into the locker room of a visiting netball team – but then I’d surely be found out and thrown out, and probably not much instructive banter going on there anyway..

So, real men, a beer or two perhaps, certainly some cigarettes, seeing as I’m still addicted, and best of all some eye candy – or even better, someone to love, waiting for me at day’s end, when we can watch a sunset, walk on the beach, have a laugh together, tell our stories, hold hands, be silly, sing along to songs on the radio while driving, light a fire, look at the stars, and the moon [sun-gazing also apparently very beneficial if you can avoid retina burn] – all those sweet things & then some – I suppose I will choose the company of one solitary femme over that of a group of men any day, no matter how smart they are, or how dumb she might be - nice curves and a winning smile can make even the toughest weak... J

the power of hugs :)

Blog 1 July 2014 

Half of this year suddenly expired, just after it started. And I find that some years are more instructive than others – those are the ones where most synchronicity happens, which is supposed to be a period when you are closest to your ‘path’, or to your groove/wholeness/the moment, and also closest to other persons – when you are open, when your heart is open, and your energy good, or at least better than it has been.

It’s mostly/all about ‘energy’ - it has become apparent to me – and many writers have written, some at length, about this – for example, James Redfield, and his book The Celestine Prophecy, where he wrote about energy takers and givers; Carlos Castaneda, with his many books about the Warriors Path, and learning how to conserve one’s energy, and to beware the tyrants and petty tyrants we find all around us.... what motivates a Tyrant, or an energy thief? It must be some kind of emptiness inside themselves, caused by lack of love & nurturing, as a child – or else, that plus a mix of anger – anger at the world because they suffered emotional traumas as children – again, lack of love – and who was responsible for that? Must have been ‘unaware’ parents – parents too busy with trying to survive, or else with trying to fill their own voids, their own emotional holes, because they were still ‘emotional children’ – taking whatever they could from the world, and from others around them – taking drugs, alcohol, pleasures – just trying to fill their own emptinesses – and possibly because they were doing that, to whatever degree, they were unconscious of the needs of their children for love, security, etc – and so the children inherit the sins of the Father, and the Mother

Ok...so what do we do with the adult babies? I’m not sure... all of us have our lessons to learn – life, as I’ve learnt repeatedly, is one long series of lessons – for me, most recently, the lesson of our own mortality, and with that, a new gratitude for simple things, like the warmth of the sun on my skin in the early morning, and a new patience with all things – that there is no Crisis – Nothing is critically important, ito other people’s ultimatums/deadlines etc – let the petty tyrants blow smoke out of their ears, if they want to stand & stamp their feet and demand that the world obeys their dictates – let me just be, as wry and sardonic as I choose to be, for my own sanity & amusement, and let me have my faith that everything will be OK, it will all be as it was intended to be – and I must have faith also that in that final jigsaw puzzle of my world, I don’t find myself in a debtors jail somewhere...

But, I must & will remain industrious – I can’t abide laziness, and I hope I will always remember Castaneda’s other teachings, about Impeccable Intent, etc – and that our constant fine intent in the world is our guiding arrowhead, on our flight into the unknown – so that we can perhaps have this image of ourselves as a projectile, travelling at warp speed through space, enclosed in a soft warm capsule, our capsule/aura of love/kindness/intent [colour it a translucent shade of candy-pink, or orange or yellow or green or blue – the soft pastels, or even a neon or primary colour if you feel braver] - and as we brush past others, in their own capsules, our auras touch & mingle, and dent and bulge, like soap bubbles, and sometimes become locked onto others, of the very significant people in our lives – and hope & pray that you are not bound to another person’s toxic bubble, because your very own bubble can be popped and damaged, and become very misshapen, and turn an ugly & probably dark colour, because of being poisoned by another’s energy – mostly inadvertently – and that’s when nervous breakdowns can & do happen, and depressions, anxieties, and I believe also diseases, like cancers etc

So I don’t know what society and us individuals are supposed to do with the energy thieves, and the Takers – they must just learn their own lessons of maturity, and love, somehow, and not end up in jail or the gutter – maybe it’s just the old Indian philosophy of Karma that holds in the end – that those people [all of us actually] are just at different development stages/levels, in the  process of repaying past karmic debts – and some of us will somehow make up some ground in this current lifetime – Jesus was one of our examples of karmic perfection – and in the end, as the Christian version goes, he ascended to Heaven, his Earthly mission complete – those much further down on the ladder of karma, must perhaps live their life on earth in a hell of anger and maybe even criminality, and abuse of others rights and lives and emotions, and when they die, perhaps return in their next life on Earth, as another lowly being, to learn those lessons that lead to Freedom & Joy, and some kind of maturity – and our job is to be vigilant, in a kind but also self-caring way, that we don’t get mangled or tangled with lesser beings, don’t get caught up in their telescopic rifle cross-hairs, or anywhere in the cross-fires...

Vigilance, try to keep it humble, gracious, humorous, kind, but also firm; clear & impeccable Intent; and good Energy, which should include a good amount of self-love and caring, and an awareness of your own luminous and soft capsule, your energy bubble that surrounds you, and protects you – maybe those are my current lessons that guide me on toward my next encounters, with whomever I am pre-destined to meet & mingle with

Namaste, and don’t forget the power and wonder of hugs J

Blog 7 May 2014-05-07

Up early on this voting day, 4.30am, with winter’s darkness already stealing back the early morning hours – now at 6am, still darkness, but soon the sky will turn blue

One more day off work in this autumn holiday period, with some friends planning their 2015 annual vacation for this season, with its multiple public holidays, very disruptive to a working week – I don’t think the civil servants mind – the way I remember it, the more time off work the better, and it was always the best time to take a vacation, because a few days vacation, sandwiched between many public holidays, always gave the longest continuous leave periods, without eating away too badly at your annual leave days allocation...

It’s been an interesting time for me, the past few weeks, since theft of my cellphone on 16^th April, and then the car accident of 19^th April, which left me without wheels – at the end of this week on 10^th May, it will be a full 3 weeks that I will have been without my sturdy Isuzu bakkie, a car I have come to love – a 1995 doublecab 280LE , which should come out of this smash with a completely renewed front suspension, and should be an even more comfortable ride than before – The R18k that Santam pays oiut to me as ‘Third party’ insurance, should cover the damage, although it looks like it will not be by much – it seems that insurance companies are staffed by people who are very engagingly nice when they sell you insurance, but who appear to be a bit inhuman when it comes to helping the person who is an indirect beneficiary of an insurance policy – I will leave it to the short-term insurance ombudsman/woman to arbitrate..

But finding myself suddenly without wheels, and also without phone, has been an interesting experience – after the initial shock & panic, and with our annual rainfall quota deciding to let loose from the sky in exactly that week [late April 2014] I found myself confined to my plot, and largely to my garden shed, which doubles up as an office, wardrobe & kitchen, not to mention pantry & toolshed and general packing station – and with the rain pouring down just outside the open builder’s ply door [which I tied with stiff wire in a half-closed position, to stop the rain from wetting the things just inside the door, allowing myself & my dog just enough space to pass through] – Plus, I had a week of severe flu – I remember telling somebody I felt like the biblical Job, many calamities one after another – by the 4^th day at home, I was down to foodstuffs that had to be cooked, from my ‘survival cache’ – so I ended up eating no bread for a while, and drinking coffee without milk – it also happened to be premium coffee, freshly roasted beans brought back the week before from Natal, where I had gone to see some old friends out from UK on their annual SA visit – I had also run out of instant coffee, and the beans were all I had – ground up at high speed in my smoothie maker. I also ran out of cigarettes, forcing me to dig out a pipe and some emergency tobacco, very stale, but welcome.

And that week of living like Robinson Crusoe was actually very sweet – bare basics, very little contact with the world, and a break from my usual pattern of ‘being on the go’ – always driving to town, always a list of things to do. A kind of full stop, without loss of limb or internal injury [apart from the bronchial infection]

I think it brought me closer to nature, and was the catalyst that sent me into a new growth phase – one of greater self-reliance, and shifted me somehow into a sudden deeper process of individuation, which I felt as it happened – a kind of watershed of personal development – it came as a sudden feeling, that in my world was only really me, and my dog – for everybody else I am very much just a passing shadow – and I made a decision then, that I should take proper control of my ship – take myself more seriously – allow myself to enjoy what nature has to offer me, and the freedom that I have because I don’t have an 8-5 job, nor do I have dependents – all I must do, is pay my accounts, and supervise my & my dog’s diets & nutrition, and then in a spontaneous day-by-week way, do what I enjoy, which is basically making art, in many forms, and trust that if I stick hard and honestly at it, then there will be sufficient cash reward to pay the bills – what’s more, that livelihood will open onto an increasing panorama of opportunity and beauty & reward – travel, landscapes, nature...

So, according to Maslow [I think it was Abraham] the now-surely-deceased American psychologist, I am well embarked on my curve of individuation, leading to self-actualization – when I was younger, it was always a puzzle to me, whether I would ever ‘self-actualize’ according to Maslow’s famous continuum of development toward self-actualization – starting with security needs, moving on & up to ‘belonging’ in a social group, then to ‘love’ etc – I think I have jumped a few of the steps maybe...

And the lesson in all this, apart from my friend Steve’s suggestion that it was perhaps a ‘zen’ directive from none other than the Universe, to ‘zen out’, stop the cacophony of being so busy, on phone and driving from place to place – an additional lesson to this, and not a new one at all, is that I must accept whatever befalls me, and see where it leads – that is what Deepak Chopra has been saying on facebook, and soon I hope to be back on facebook and the internet, as soon as I can pay my cellphone account, and get reconnected, umbilically, to the satellite stations that orbit our Earth, and keep us all in contact, pushing us all in various waves of shared consciousness, and a sharing of ideas and art, in a massive wave of ongoing creation, toward the sublime & silent peak of individuation – which in the end, is the summation of what we have become, which in turn, is the culmination of every life experience we have had, into that space behind our eyes, which can be called ‘soul’ or ‘intent’ or ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ – that 3^rd eye that sets us apart from the animals, and makes us into the ‘self-reflecting’ humans that we are, or are supposed to be... J

Making friends and meeting new people...

I think I have just stumbled across a new breed of friends, and for me it’s an interesting phenomenon – that any one of us can sign up on any day for a course in something that interests us – an art class, pottery class, baking or cooking class, bowling, ten-pin bowling, dog training, permaculture,  gardening – any one of these hobbies or activities will bring you into a new family of people you might otherwise never meet, and some of them will be quiet, some reserved, some will be thoughtful, most will be kind, and some might even be a bit evil, who knows – but there are brotherhoods and sisterhoods out there for the choosing

Unless of course you find your greatest happiness all alone, maybe sipping something while watching the almost instant and multiple replays of some patriotic television sport, cricket for example

But the discovery for me, so late in life, that there are groups of people out there who seem to be kindred souls, and likeable souls, is a heartening one, and the common thread seems to be an activity, or interest –  groups that come to mind are birders, and fisherpeople – the birders appear to be genteel folk, happy to trudge about with binoculars and books hanging about their moist necks. The fishing folk, like the hunters, can include the hillbilly cousins, where atavism and hate and the killer gene might lurk just under their skins, in their own tangle of DNA and muscle & nerve sinew – but amongst the Philistines there are also the nature lovers, who you might  find have trout fishing rods strapped neatly under their SUV ceiling – and I suspect there is something common to these different groupings.  Perhaps a love of nature, or an ability to see the beauty in a sunset, or to enjoy the silence you find in the bush – maybe they are people who have reached some kind of maturity, no longer slaves to fashion [ok, many of them are following a kind of fashion, like the birders who wear a lot of camo or khaki] – but that’s functional fashion, and hopefully they don’t gaze too long at the mirror as Narcissus did... and if they do, I don’t really care – a little self love is great

And where might I be going with all this? I’m not sure really – I’m just trying to extract an idea , some kind of truth, maybe a practical truth, from a recent experience that gave me much pleasure – I spent a day in the company of relative strangers – we kept our clothes on – actually donned a lot of protective clothing, in order to prise open wooden boxes and steal honey from bees – it’s hot and hard work, hard on the lower back, because it’s a concentrated effort thing – you have to  get in and get the job done, before the bees get too angry, and start stinging, right through the white overalls – the group looked like a bunch of Neil Armstrongs, spacemen and women in their white suits and the big headgear with gauze, and there was much concentration, much pleasant bonding, much pleasure in the gift of honey, some excitement at getting stung and almost getting stung, and like most things requiring some effort, half the pleasure is in the act of finishing up what you are doing – like when you stop hitting your head against the proverbial brick wall...

I liked the group – all of them clear eyed, bright eyed, and with ready smiles & humour – good hearts and good intent – and I think I’m getting close to what I wanted to say – when you get out of that armchair, and follow some kind of interest that brings you into a group of people who have gathered to share their skills and interest, you are likely to be rewarded by a good group experience, and the lingering aftertaste is a pleasant one – something in your heart comes a bit more alive, and the world becomes a nicer place – I could easily have given myself over to a group hug, once the bee-suit sweat had evaporated, and it’s that feeling of cameraderie, of brotherhood, that I’m getting to, I think – perhaps it’ in our genes – a phylogenetic DNA memory – that need to be  part of a group, and not just any group – I don’t get the same feeling when I’m queueing in the bank – maybe if we all spoke to each other in the bank and supermarket queues we might find many kindred spirits hidden beneath all sorts of uniforms and garish outfits  and seemingly unfriendly countenances.

But for me, it’s a joyful  discovery of nice people, and if you join the right group/s, it’s a pleasant thought that you could walk into many various gatherings of people, and have a wonderful time chatting to the different members – probably best to avoid the Neo-Nazi’s and soccer stadium gangs, and the people who carry switchblades and other weaponry, and new & used syringes, or those who out of choice or laziness don’t bath very often – but apparently god smiles equally upon them all, as you too might do on your deathbed, when everything suddenly becomes clear and your veils are lifted – which brings me to another train of thought, best left for another publication...

See you in a queue or a scrum somewhere J

Looking out for Love...

2.5 months have gone by, since my last blog post in late December 2013 – the Big Event has not yet happened, although its prophets say anyday now [mid-March 2014] we will have the ‘global reset’ and a new bank currency – the Lightworkers are reporting recent and increasing inroads into their destruction & banishment from the Earthzone/sphere of the Dark Forces, and even  the name of the new monetary unit/currency has been coined  - excuse the pun [I’ve already forgotten it, but it will be repeated sometime soon, somewhere on facebook or elsewhere]...

The first 2.5 months of 2014 have flown by, a whirlwind of activity, day by day – various micro and some larger deals/transactions for me, that have brought in some money, to pay for the steady outflow of monies – but thusfar, there has been a greater outflow than inflow, until I sit on a blade edge of cash fluidity, with max amounts owing to my bank by me, max interest payments by me for these loaned amounts each month, and then big amounts owed to me by friends who find themselves in even more dire situations than mine – until the whole setup becomes a big joke,  and an act of balancing as elegantly as one can, on a tightrope stretched high across a chasm, creditors on one side and debtors on the other, with a staff of Faith held wistfully in your outstretched hands, as you hold an upright position, a few steps forward, teetering playfully, and then a few steps back...

And in this dance, the best moments are the excitements of camaraderie and creativity, and the adventures born daily, out of the soup of events and energies and projects that constantly arise – which themselves are born out of the wishes of people with money or ideas, dreams, hopes – and there are the artists and craftsmen & women, like the servants of Kings & Queens of old – people who have found favour & trust in the hearts of the Powerful, who continue to be given work projects, and who through their own sweat and honest hard work, and through their artistry, continue to create works of beauty – beauty for the eye, and also functional beauty – creating homes, gardens, furniture , artworks, paintings, photographs, sculptures – things that enrich the lives of others, things that are Treasures, and that fetch a much higher price in the larger cities & commercial centres – it’s all a game of creativity, survival, manners, honour, subterfuge sometimes ... and it seems, for me, that the best moments, are the Eureka ones, of Creativity and a meeting of minds, and of Energies – when hugs are happily given & received, and there is another happy exchange of money – it could be looked at as Blood-money, but when it’s a happy exchange, it’s like a society of agreeable vampires, all bent on slaking their thirsts at the pool of collaboration – a mutually beneficial colony of worker bees or ants...

And apparently, sitting or lounging somewhere behind one-way glass, bulletproof and probably very high – like the high place in the desert where Lucifer stood and offered to Jesus the whole of Mankind, if only Jesus would bow down to him – they stand or sit there, apparently, and watch us all, the labouring artists/worker ants, and they must surely choose from the better known works of art, the best, to lock away in their private eyries, to look at cooly with their reptilian eyes – because they surely don’t have any real feelings, or joy – their blood runs cold – so they have the Power, while we have the Suffering and the real Happinesses and Joys – the essential difference between us Humans and the Non-Beings, the Aliens who rule everything from behind the scenes – I think that was the central tenet that ran through the film City of Angels, by the  German Wim Wenders – about the angel[man] who fell in love with an earthling woman, and knowingly relinquished his eternal life, in order to experience Love, and with it Mortality, after his first taste of Love...

So, I hope, for all you earthlings out there, that you get even the minute-est taste of Love, somewhere in amongst all the activity and creativity, and at times desperation – if you are not getting an occasional dose of life-giving Love, then you must surely, slowly, petrify, or turn bitter, or become cynical, or perhaps depraved, or depressed, or power-hungry and ruthless, heartless – it seems to me that Love is the honey of our bee-like creativity, and the worker bees must have a bit of it if they are to continue their busy working days – and in the abscence of the elixir of Love, then I think they can survive for very long periods on doses of Laughter, and Good Energy, which they find when they keep company with kindred souls...

So keep your chins up, dear ones, balance as prettily as you can on those tightropes, exchange good vibes, and hold out for Love – it must find you sooner or later J

Farewell to 2013...

11.30pm, feeling too well fed, after a lamb stew supper at friends – and too many xmas days of eating more than usual – it’s been a tumultuous time, more of the same – Madiba’s funeral at Qunu, then xmas, then an interview with the apparently top party organiser in the world, here in East London over xmas to visit with his family – and how gracious and eloquent and pleasant he was – he said that he thinks it is his upbringing in an East London family that gave him that special blend of warmth & charm & rapport with fellow beings, and that has brought him to the stage he is on, a friend to Oprah Winfrey and a party organiser & confidante to some world Stars – good old East London, birthplace of some interesting people & artists

East London certainly revving up, or getting revved up, by some outside & inside persons, for a mega music festival event from 29 to 31 December, at the farm OppiePlaas on the Haga Haga road – I have very recently discovered Haga Haga, for me the jewel on this beautiful coastline – something very quaint & old fashioned about Haga Haga – maybe it’s the geography there, that has allowed only a strip of development & houses along its bay – and in centre spot is the hotel, caught in a nice time warp of elegance and unpretentious beach cottage style – a place that has been expanded over the years, and has managed to not become ostentatious, or hard-edged – just simple rustic elegance, in tune with its simple surroundings

Closer to home – I haven’t ventured much into the city, of East London, over the past days – I did find that the scene at Nahoon Beach has changed, Gonubie not so much, but in many ways its festive season, with the seasonal businesses getting their annual cash injections from the big xmas holiday spend of both locals & visitors – and by sometime in January, these businesses will have a fair idea of what kind of year they will have in 2014 – either a year of ease and/or expansion, buoyed up & along by a good xmas innings, or perhaps looking at a long struggle into 2014 if things did not go very well over this season

It’s been a fair enough season for me – working at the Mandela funeral has brought in some much needed income, although I would have worked there for free, just to have been there at that historical moment – it was a gathering of some of the world’s top media people, journalists and news staff, and I was happy & felt lucky to be among them

As 2014 looms, in these last few days of this closing year – for me it has been a year of solidifying, of some friendships, and of myself as a person in the world – a year of much new information, in many areas, but especially those of diet & healthy eating, and the thinking around positive energy, ala Deepak Chopra & Oprah Winfrey et al, and a plunging into the labyrinths of Conspiracy, much of it surrounding Barak Obama & the Pope, the Annunaki and the world bankers, the People who Control Everything – the Dark Forces, under increasing pressure of the Light Forces, who are apparently winning the fight for the future of mankind, and who will possibly very soon in this coming new year, bring about the Big Event, which will usher in the much spoken of Golden Age, when men & women will be freed, unshackled, from their slavery to institutions, from their 8 to 5 life sentences, from their bond repayments and pension & medical aid payments, and all the rest – where men & women & children will again be able to live joyfully and spend time in nature – they might be forced to if all sorts of grid systems like satellite communications & electricity grids and communication systems  etc get disrupted for a while – a return to Eden – except it will not be a bountiful Eden, with fruit trees and fruits for the plucking – it is being painted more like a Mad Max movie, with some bands of people already forming up to become the Prime Marauders, plundering the survival caches of the Survivalists who are stocking up on water, food, medicines and all sorts of things that one will need when you can’t go anywhere to buy anything or to get anything fixed, or get fuel  to put into your car’s fuel tank – at the time of the Big Event, you will hopefully have your own water tanks, and garden of some edibles – sad about the people that find themselves in the winter season when it all happens – because as far as I have been led to believe, the shutters will be coming down, worldwide, and cash will mean nothing for a good while – what will count is food & water & shelter, and guns & ammo, for those who find the need to perhaps protect themselves & their families & possessions, from the mobs & marauders

I’m taking a few precautions, filing my dog’s teeth razor sharp – he enjoys the attention, and I think he finds bone chewing a lot easier – I miss having a gun – I handed mine back to the SAP in about 2004 when there was that big country-wide call to surrender our arms or to buy gun safes and get training at gunstores & certificates that you could use the things properly _ I was living a kind of itinerant life back then, and the easiest thing was to hand back my 9mil – with hindsight, I should have clung onto it as did most of the farmers throughout the country – I think they have some kind of genetic  knowing about these things – survivor genes, encoded into their DNA, from years of frontiermanship, fighting against wild beasts & men, to keep whatever they had got, and what their forefathers had reaped by their labour and with their guns – it reminds me of a friend who lived through the last years of World War 2, as a child in Italy, scavenging the lands for fruit or bulbs or any scraps he could find to take back to his mother, to feed their family – that survival experience was imprinted on his child mind, as must have been the holocaust experience on the minds of the people who survived the Nazi death camps

But with the Big Event, all the baddies will be given a chance to repent, or maybe they will be somehow punished – they are the very people who have caused most of the wars in the past hundreds of years, because those wars did enrich them, the suppliers of armaments & the big construction/rebuilders after the wars, and the Bankers who acted as the middlemen for all of it – all those millions of young & not so young men who died, from bullet wounds, blasts, gasses, radioactive damage – apparently the newest generation weapons are in the sphere of sound waves, or other damaging waves, that can obliterate & destroy anything in their path – and I’m sure that when the big guns start firing, there will be some nuclear bangs making the biggest noises & dust clouds

That brings me to Fukushima, of Japan, which is apparently totally out of control and unfixable, and the Japanese government and the owners/designers of that nuclear facility have finally held up their hands, admitting that they don’t know how to fix the damage, that is causing a massive amount of radioactive leakage into the Pacific Ocean day by day, and hour by hour – with stories of heightened levels of radioactivity across the board – in  Hawaai and along America’s western seaboard, and with large amounts of dead sea animals in the Pacific and in some vast areas, a 98% destruction of seabed & ocean life – all very scary

So it seems to me that we go into 2014, with massive amounts of Hope – and in my little corner, also much hope, and some excitement, about the HagaFest – and we also enter 2014 with the usual smorgasbord of death & destruction around the world, from disease, malnutrition, road accidents, diseases of the rich, like heart/blood pressure – diseases also caused largely by ignorance, about proper diet, but at the same time, diseases cause by widespread greed & overindulgence – the ‘greed’ thing having caused a massive move away from ‘natural foodstuffs, and wholegrains, to societies of people indoctrinated by television and globalist companies bent on packaging foods into boxes and packets, easily available at a network of supermarkets and food supply stores across the globe – where almost everybody has become so used to buying their daily foods and piling them into cupboards & fridges, and then whipping up meals from packets & tins – if one could link up all the very many dots, one could perhaps propose a Grand Conspiracy Theory – that of enslaving the world’s population to brands of food, washing powder, cooldrinks, etc, in a massive and somehow co-ordinated chess game, played by the Boris Pasternaks of Marketing and the Oligopolists – and what for?

Maybe just because of the hunger for Power in a certain few men, the hunger for Wealth, and to have their beach mansions somewhere private, where they can indulge their passions & desires – sounds a bit like a script for a Marilyn Monroe /President Kennedy film

And it seems, in the dying days of 2013, that China is finally raising its fist against America, and threatening sounds are coming from the Chinese, flexing their muscles – some kind of archaic spirit reviving there perhaps, the Spirit of the Samurai, of the yellow people, in their vast numbers – and how they suffered, landlocked and hidden from the world’s view, and from the tv cameras, way back in the early 1900’s, under Mao Tse Tung [was that his name] and the Cultural Revolution – where some kind of anachronistic/primitive spirit took hold, and neighbour turned against neighbour, and millions of people were tortured, or displaced, and spied on for years, and nobody could speak their minds, nobody could say anything that could be deemed traitorous against the Chinese State, or else you were deported  to some very faraway place in China, maybe never to see your family or loved ones again

A similar thing happened in Russia, under Stalin, so many year ago – was that also early 1900’s? The deportations to the Gulag Archipelago

So we humans, worldwide, have come through some terrible times – not to mention the massive tribal invasions that happened in Africa, the spearing & stabbing of men, women & babies, the burning of villages; and then there was the extermination of the native Red Indian peoples in America all those hundreds of years ago, the annihilation of the Incas & the Mayans even further back in history, by the Spaniards, the murdering of the indigenous Khoi & San People in Southern Africa by the early settlers & colonists from the 1600’s onward – the history of humankind, apparently, is one of killing, of slavery, of greed, and here & there a few prophets, wise men, benevolent rulers, and always the masses of people, the workers, who make it all possible by their subservience to their rulers, by their indoctrinations to be obedient to the rule of law in their lands, puppets & cannon fodder, and a small few heretics and lunatics...

With the latest thing, the information age, our world is finally exploding into a shared consciousness, via facebook, twitter etc – maybe it had to reach this point, where the revolutionaries everywhere can now expose the evils of greed wherever they see them – can expose the Catholic Church, for the global monster that it apparently is, protecting some of its priests from charges of pedophilia, and hoarding its secrets and its gold in vaults under the Vatican

And yet every new morning we are woken by birdsong, and flowers blossoming, and nature shooting up and out from the earth its millions of growing things, that are fed by the sun and the moisture in the air – and we have such beautiful places all around us, beautiful coasts, skies, sunrises & sunsets, rivers – mine is perhaps an elitist experience – I do not live in a squatter camp, here in SA, nor further north in Africa, maybe even in a refugee camp there, after most of my family were slashed to bits by the Hutus or the Tutsi’s, and where thin mothers and babies and in the burning sun, in long queues, to get their daily meal, and flies are plentiful – what radical juxtapositions there are, from Hollywood and Manhattan and Paris/London, to the Pacific and other islands, and then to Asia/China/India/everywhere – how much ongoing and simultaneous suffering, alongside opulence and depravity and greed, and then also the white light of enlightened souls, talking of Love & Forgiveness & Joy, and living each moment as if it were your last.

Our own recently buried icon, Madiba, an example to the world, of honour, thoughtfulness, generosity and kindness – maybe that’s all we can do, in our own small spheres of action & influence – be kind, patient, sharing, playful, happy – and maybe those eternal qualities can be my New Year’s resolutions for 2014, to go forward humbly yet playfully, with gratitude for what I have, and for the friends that I have, and my dog, all of whom brighten my days, and make the passing of my days most times happy, and sometimes fretful J

1.20am, time to go to sleep, and almost 2 hours of writing this, my farewell to 2013 J

The passing of Madiba on 5 Dec 2013....

5pm Friday afternoon, 6 December, sitting in my wooden shed, a soft rain coming in showers with a gentle south westerly wind – I am strangely at peace, suspended in a kind of cocoon of silence, and maybe the world too, after last night’s news of Madiba’s death at about 9pm

In East London town today, at Kim’s auction, not much mention of Madiba, although there was a Madiba print sold, a large Black & White, one of a limited print edition of apparently 500, this one sold for R500 – and there was a  relative silence at the auction about Madiba, in counterpoint to all the news stations in SA, radio & TV, broadcasting non-stop news about Madiba

So it seems the world is holding it’s collective breath, and here in East London, a gentle rain is coming by in waves

I was favourably impressed last night at President Zuma’s announcement on TV – he appeared so statesman-like – with his yellowing skin, he looks almost alien, reptilian, but he carries himself with dignity and poise, as the current Father of this nation

Madiba had ceased, for me, to be a focus of attention in SA news in the past weeks & months, after the earlier attention some months ago when he was declared very ill & admitted to a hospital in Johannesburg – and now, this final quiet news, that he has gone

The etv news reader, after Zuma’s announcement, was so irritatingly [white] psychophantic, and soul wrenching, that I changed the TV channel – please no Whiteys, or Blackeys for that matter, wringing their hands & hearts for the nation, trying to express their huge sadness at Madiba’s death – maybe that’s why I liked Zuma’s very matter-of-fact announcement – he didn’t try to gain any kind of mileage out of this event

So this silence, and wetness on the leaves from the rain, as we all wait to see the whole show unfold over the next few weeks – presumably the national road past Qunu is finally fixed, and Madiba will find his final resting place in the family graveyard there at Qunu, where once I filmed him burying another member of the Mandela clan – or maybe he will be laid to rest at Mvezo – I’m sure the powers that be know exactly where it will all happen - I hope to be at the burial, a state funeral according to Zuma – it will be a world media event, and a very historical one

And we now have Madiba up there in the sky, along with the angels, and as he said, he will be with the ANC Party in the hereafter – and we can now beam straight to him our thanks, and our admiration, and each of us now has equal access to him via our thoughts and our hearts, as he must be smiling down on us all J