activearts - being creative with life

Spring Equinox Fire Gatherings
Saturday 26th March 2011
6pm - 11pm
Spinney Hollow, Fair Oak

A woodland fire gathering, celebrating the beginning of spring, with friends and family, new and old.
The Spring Equinox is a time of balance, when the Sun gains in strength, day and night become equal length and nature begins to awaken and come alive. Its a time to reach out, begin new ventures and make plans for the year ahead. To acknowledge this we will be making pray flags to fly in the wind and carry your prayers and wishes, and invite you to share your music, make new friends, dance, meditate or run wild like a mad march hare.
Earth Hour is a global event to raise environmental and energy awareness, so at 8.30 PM on Saturday 26 March 2011, electric lights will switch off around the globe. We would like to represent this event at Spinney Hollow as it has no electric so all our light will come from the fire or candles and maybe your wishes could be towards any small differences you can make for the Earth.
Naturally there will be some drumming and dancing around the fire, however we like to keep the evening open for all to share in music, songs, poems, stories, food and friendship. We always bring few drums and invite you to bring along your own instruments.
There will be a tasty vegetable stew and bread on offer alongside cake and teas. Please feel free to bring any other refreshments and alcoholic beverages that you may fancy, bearing in mind that this is a family event.
This event is held outside around a large hot fire. Remember this time of year is still quite chilly in the evening so wrap up warm and wear suitable foot wear for the woods. Hand made benches and seats with sheepskins and cushions are provided, however you may wish to bring something more comfortable to sit on.
Spinney Hollow is a beautiful 5 1/2 acre low impact and environmentally sustainable woodland project in a 90 acre copse on the edge of the Winchester District. Its aim is to create a woodland space for people to learn, create and play. It is home to a range of Native species of trees, undergrowth, wild flowers and many varieties of birds and other woodland animals.
Facilitates include a fire pit, outdoor sheltered woodland kitchen with BBQ, sink, dining table and food storage, acoustic stage with solar powered lights and a compost loo with a rustic wash room.
Space & access is very limited at this event, booking is essential, so please let us know asap if you wish to come.
As access and parking is limited we are looking for offers of lift shares (also better for the environment), when you book please let us know if you are able to offer a lift, would like a lift, where you are coming from and how much space you have in your vehicle, we may be able to pair some of you up for the evening.
All welcome, family friendly event.
Cost: Adults - £15 / U16 - £5 (includes all activities, meal, cake and tea)



 

Smiling at me, flounderer

Well I floundered about looking for the right pad to start writing. And of course the right pen.
As I was wondering aimlessly around my small space as if in a world sized void, I started thinking about what I was planning to write and felt my entire body cringe. I felt disgust. I decided I couldn't write after all this evening.
That's OK. Better to forgive myself than to get so disgusted I want to harm myself.
And that's growth in itself. There is no right or wrong way. There is just how it is and this is how it is.
What I can allow is the rage inside me. The little girl is roaring and I can hold her.
It's good to allow all of this ...........

I will watch The Killing instead and be at peace with how things are this evening

Bliss
XX

Simplicity and nonattachment

Thought for the Day, 11 March 2011

Vishvapani



The Dalai Lama likes to say that he is really just a simple Buddhist monk; but he also delivers teachings from a high throne and protocol dictates that you call him "Your Holiness". He campaigns for an autonomous Tibet with freedom of speech and religion, yet until he announced he was giving up his political role this week, he has been the Tibetan leader because he was identified as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama.



The current Dalai Lama is a remarkable individual, as many people, including many non-Buddhists, recognise but his position is complex and contradictory. He's a religious reformer who's also called on to embody tradition, and an enthusiast for science who's fighting to preserve an ancient culture. As he has spent his life negotiating between old ways of doing things and the demands of the modern world, such contradictions are inevitable.



Some of them stem from the mix of religion and politics inherent in the role of Dalai Lama itself. Old Tibet was certainly not Shangri-la, and past Dalai Lamas led armies and ran prisons while presiding over a feudal economy. In exile our Dalai Lama has been spared such embarrassments, but his country is occupied by the world's largest nation and his immediate followers are refugees. He, too, has been deeply immersed in politics and confronted the stark realities of power.



The Dalai Lama's success in keeping the Tibetan cause on the world agenda virtually singlehandedly testifies to the creativity he has brought to his situation. He has looked afresh at the Buddhist tradition to discover its contemporary relevance and re-examined Tibetan traditions in this light. The Buddha himself owned virtually nothing, stressed renunciation, and saw the potential of power to corrupt those who held it.



Paradoxically, as a leader in exile the Dalai Lama's greatest asset has not been his political status but the alternative kind of power that stems from the admiration of those who meet him. It's an inner power, or spiritual authority, which is measured not by what you accumulate but by what you are – and what you are willing to let go.



Eventually the Dalai Lama's reforms were bound to touch his own position, leading him to dissolve his role despite the devotion of the Tibetans. Like a simple Buddhist monk, but in an intensely political context, the Dalai Lama is demonstrating the very values of simplicity and nonattachment that have already inspired so many people around the world. He is also allowing his followers to find a new way of governing themselves for the 21st century.





copyright 2011 BBC

God loves me

Thought for the Day, 16 March 2011

The Rev. Dr Giles Fraser



The Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen has been much in the news of late. His drugs and partying. Being sacked from his TV show. His failed marriages. It's a sad catalogue of self-destruction which some have attributed to mental breakdown or even bipolar disorder.



So why are we all so interested? And before you say it: yes, millions of us are. Since the beginning of this month Sheen has clocked up nearly three million twitter followers, getting him into the Guinness book of World Records for being the fastest person to reach a million followers. This week twitter celebrates its fifth birthday. In that time, over one billion tweets have been sent.



A couple of months ago the celebrated author AS Byatt gave a remarkable interview to the Guardian about her views on new social media - the significance of which she believes has something to do with the decline of religious belief. "Religion has gone away," she said, "and all we are left with is ourselves."



Her thought is that religious belief provided human beings with a picture of their place in the world. And that now that this picture has faded from view, it's become increasingly hard for us to say who we really are. This is where social media comes in. For instead of the religious picture, we now use other people as a mirror through which to establish our own identity. "I'm sure it's a religious matter," she said. "You only exist if you tell people you are there."



Perhaps it's this philosophy that's so tragically exemplified by Charlie Sheen: you only exist if you are being noticed. And the more you are being noticed, the more you exist.



The task of discovering who we really are is one of the great spiritual practices of Lent. And at its heart is self-denial - which involves stripping away our superficial props and burrowing down to the deeper sources of what makes us who we are.



Perhaps it's a task that we have to perform on our own without the reflected opinions of friends or foes. Antonia Byatt describes self-discovery as reading Shakespeare with a torch under the bedcovers. Jesus finds his solitude in the wilderness of the desert. And what we're often left with in these moments of being creatively alone is a sense that we are fundamentally reliant upon forces that are outside our control and beyond our emotional jurisdiction. AS Byatt quotes Wallace Stephens: "From this the poem springs. That we live in a place that is not our own and, much more, not ourselves."



For me this deeper reality is understood as God. And to put it in the unashamed language of the Christian tradition: I exist because God loves me. For people undergoing periods of emotional crisis, this can sometimes be the only thought that holds them together. When all is stripped away, a reliance on God alone is the terrifying wisdom of the desert and the spiritual purpose of Lent. "And hard it is, in spite of blazoned days."

Uttermost secrets of time and place

It seems such a trudge at this time. One step at a time and even that feels weighty, draining, like wading through thick,thick sludge. The mud reluctant to allow me to lift my foot, and being able to see that I place it yet more of the same. I can hear the sucking sound of the mire as I attempt to lug my foot free.

The emotions are immense. Some of the time I encounter overwhelming feelings and at the same time I can continue with my day to day living. And then there are occasions when the emotions are that intense that daily functioning seems impossible. I am literally taking one task at a time just to get up. First there is the waking up, then raising my body to sitting, standing and taking steps to the bathroom. Every move is with a desire to run in the opposite direction. I bathe, I dress and get into the car and can not allow myself to think too much about it. I just have to get to work.
I am trying to hang on until my week off.

What you may be wondering is driving this?

So much!

I want to write tonight in my journal just one thing that I know from my childhood. I am doing this as a start to healing the deep wounds and the rage that is within me. I felt the rage once again after meeting my dad for lunch in January when he said that he remembered punching me on the nose. When I got in the car I screamed with rage. That rage used to turn into self harm in various ways - cutting, sexualising, using substances. I could not make my dad understand my hurt and the longing to be loved for simply being me.  could not match up to what he wanted me to be and furthermore there was history between us anyway.
And you know what? I realise that the manner in which I wanted JH to hurt to know that I loved him so much and wanted him to be able to love me, it was similar with my dad. At times I was vitriolic. Vicious with my sharp words. My anger at times was appropriate, after all I was being lied to. But I wanted JH to know how much I was hurting by trying to hurt him. And all that was happening is that he was being pushed further and further away. With my dad, all I kept doing was acting out in ways that he despised, similarly alienating myself from him.
I would very much like to heal the raging little girl within me. I also see how with JH and other how yet again I wanted someone who was grown up and stable. And then he wasn't like others before him, including my dad. All they can do is be a part of more hurting. Not their fault, but I enable it.
I hasten to add that this is just this part of the relationship. I am very aware that there were so many great things about the relationship with JH and it was these that I loved and enabled me to fall in love with him. The trick is to build upon the great things and work on the things that are destructive. Well he was not able to work on his things with me. And that's that.
What I am left with is the repeat lesson that I do not need to find someone to look after me. Because when that's a part of the relationship they let me down of course. Anyone always would. It's as if I don't have to deal with the outstanding issues with my dad if someone else can look after me. I said to JH that he wasn't able to hold me. What I need is someone who would wish to be a support and be strong enough to acknowledge my feelings. Like my friends do now. They do not try to fix me and I do not expect them to. I want to be heard though and acknowledged. I am the one who needs to hold my feelings.
Hence I would like to be able to release the rage in me - the rage caused by someone violating me and then being trapped in a lifetime of being violated. People even violate without realising that's what they are doing!!
Oh the power of the unconscious choices. Pah!
I was saying just recently how conscious awareness is what I strive for and is a human gift. And how many people actually seem better off in their lack of awareness simply because it is easier somehow not dealing with things. Yet I have never seen satisfaction in those people. Awareness with acceptance is a way forward.

So I am making steps to reveal the deepest darkest secrets. Bring them to my own awareness. Acknowledge without needing anyone else to agree or own them.
Tonight I will write one secret down to the best of my ability. Even as I think about it I can feel the repulsion in my body. I need to remind myself I am here now, I am safe, I am my own adult. No one can take of me - that is shown and proven time and again, in fact when given that responsibility people just abuse it. Some men consciously and others not aware at all. I need to take care of me. I do not want to tolerate anymore.
I can write this down and take care of me. I can acknowledge the roar of rage inside me as I recall the occasion. I can forgive the behaviours that are evoked within the rage. I can forgive me.
I can forgive the perpetrator. I want to be free.
I felt a slight slip then, blaming me for still being stuck with this. Getting angry with myself for not having let go blah blah blah.
Gosh that judgemental me. I can hear the judgement of others, even putting a voice to JH or JB or SH or CY or etc etc etc, still having this stuff to sort out and not being chilled etc. And actually they have masses of stuff not dealt with themselves. Not wanting to look at, maybe not needing to look at it. It doesn't really matter.
I am enough! And those people that accept me as me are the people who love me. I need only to focus on having their support.

So one thing - one bullet point and expand upon it as much as I can.
This stuff is not even for this Blog. Maybe one day but not now. It's a big big leap of faith I am taking.

So - I am grateful for -
AB and GB being so thoughtful and kind this evening.
VT making herself so available with covering work.
ET for telling me about ways to reclaim pay for days off
Being humble enough to ask for help and suggestions
A friend trusting me with her emotions
Lighter mornings
Lighter evenings
Radio 4
BBC iPlayer
Kindness
Plans to visit London on Monday
Open University
Laughter
People's creativity
Humour
Awareness
Acceptance
Change
Experiences


Bliss
X