My Identity status is full of craters

Been spending the gorgeous summer we’ve had, mainly at home coming to terms with my new status as a ‘full-time Shaman’. I’ve been sitting out as much as I can in an old-fashioned Deck Chair reading books on the science of Spirituality from such authors as Tom Campbell and Graham Hancock, listening to great ‘World Music’ compilation CD’s that have arrived through my door with the awesome ‘Songlines’ music magazine, and generally trying to heal myself of my various ailments both mental and physical out in the sun and down among the plants and weeds. As Confucius is said to have once uttered; ‘If anyone could be said to have affected proper order while remaining inactive it was ‘Shun’. What was there for him to do? – He simply made himself respectful and took up his position facing south’.

Went to a talk last night by respected journalist Seumas Milne about the dodgy dealings of the British Establishment during and after the Miner’s strike of 1984/5. I didn’t think for one minute that I would experience such powerful emotions and sense the presence of so many departed old souls crowded round among the rafters of the Old Library in Mansfield, hovering there above the few living heroes of the strike action who staggered up to the rostrum to tell breathless stories from the way back days. That night I dreamt of my old school friend Ian (‘Army’) Armstrong who worked at Bentinck Pit, Back in the 1990’s I met him at a Miner’s Welfare in Sutton when I was playing a gig with my old band ‘Monkey Business’. He told me that he was one of the few strikers to stay out till the end and recounted some of the crazy antics he got up to including throwing chunks of paving slabs onto the coaches carrying Scabs to work from off motorway bridges. You never knew how much ‘Army’ was bullshitting when he told you such tales but he was certainly capable of such diabolical acts. In my dream I was showing him a book of Seumas’s called ‘The Enemy Within’ and explaining how little any of us knew at the time, and indeed how little we realise while anything is currently ‘going off’, just what underhanded skulduggery goes on in the corridors of power. It’s only later, when it’s usually too late, that it all starts to come out in the wash. Sadly ‘Army’ died not long after that after falling down a flight of stairs after having too much to drink, at least that’s what I heard.

When we were at school we were given a career talk by some reps from what was then called the British Coal Board, and we were told that we could be guaranteed a job for 50 years if we chose mining as a career. We were also told by our teacher that we would all be working a three day week and our biggest problem would be how to fill our leisure time, Both predictions were wrong even though there is still plenty of coal to be mined and there is no reason at all why we couldn’t share the work out more evenly between us all if we were all paid a decent wage.

I spent a year or so during my trouble d teenage years working both above and below ground in the Coal industry before I ‘got out’ and travelled these Isles looking for alternative ways of living my life. I spent about 2 years ‘dossing’ ‘on the road’ laying on beaches and tripping at festivals, sleeping under hedgerows, and in derelict houses and crashing on the floors of grubby makeshift communes. In those days in the early 1970’s we still believed in the Hippy ethic of sharing our last crust and because of this I think we fared far better than homeless street people do in this day and age.

At the talk I found myself sitting next to a bloke whose voice and appearance seemed familiar and I realised later that he was one of the main guys who ran the Mushroom Bookshop in Nottingham back in the day. We chatted about the shop and other ‘radical’ bookshops like ‘Compendium’ in Camden, ‘Forum’ in Derby, and ‘Scarthin Books’ in Cromford, all places where I found books that guided me in new directions that changed my life and shaped my thinking in profound ways. Before the internet this was about the only way you could become exposed to the kind of Spiritual teachings I deeply craved without taking yourself off to some ashram in Rishikesh or somewhere. At bookshops like these I found works of wisdom by the likes of Alan Watts, Matthew Fox, Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, Elaine Pagels, and Karen Armstrong -books that helped to deliver me from of the Spiritual abuse I suffered among the Pentecostal Christian Fundamentalists I encountered in my youth. Like a Homeopathic remedy these writings acted sympathetically to empower me with the wisdom to face my fears of Hell Fire and damnation and to discover that deep down among the toxic doctrines lay hidden teachings of great beauty and power that could be extracted and transformed via a magical alchemical process into a genuine Spirituality to live your life by.

Autumn’s now kicking in major big time with old hurricanes passing through.. Time to batten down the hatches and get a pile of books to study over the winter months. Just discovered a new author to me.. ‘Geza Vermes’ who is one of the world’s leading authorities on early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He seems to have a pretty clear perspective on how the mainstream ‘Jesus Movement’ grew over the first 3 centuries and much of what he writes about is confirming what I already suspect went on during Christianity’s development from the teachings of a Charismatic Jewish prophet to becoming the primary ‘death cult’ of the Holy Roman Empire.

Recent article I had in parish magazine feb 2014

Happy to be, ‘C of E’.

When I was a child great importance was given by the institutions I attended regarding what religion I was and the modern census form still has the 'Religious Question' though a growing number of people now choose to answer it 'Jedi Knight'. Most of us at our local Secondary Modern school were considered to be ‘C of E’ (Church of England, Anglican or Episcopalian). Of course there was the occasional ‘strange’ kid who was Catholic or Jewish but most English lads and lasses were C of E, even if they never actually went to church. All this is far removed from the situation we find ourselves in today where many classrooms have more Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim pupils than Christian, (let alone C of E’s). As I get older I have found myself wanting to celebrate once again my own spiritual roots in the Church of England and yet at the same time I can’t help questioning why, when many people no longer see the relevance of going to Church and are letting their allegiances lapse, I find myself moving in the opposite direction.

First a brief mention of my background and story. I am a musician, artist, and music and R.E. teacher who has recently retired through ill health and moved back to the area where I grew up. I was baptised as a child at Skegby St Andrews and attended St Werburghs Church in Derby as a young adult before moving on to explore the more exotic Spiritualities of the East and in particular Buddhist and Hindu forms of meditation and praxis (practical ethics & behaviour). I have a degree in Religion Culture & Belief from the University of Derby (2001) and I have taught for almost 20 years at Belper High School as well as spending a considerable amount of time as a Community Musician, Drummer, and Performing Artist working throughout Europe as well as locally in the East Midlands area. All this changed dramatically in 2010 when my mother, Mrs Betty Wright, passed away. She had been a resident of Woodhouse for many years and I had returned to the area to live and support her in her later years. This change in my personal life was further exacerbated by some serious health issues of my own where I suffered a series of heart attacks and strokes that have resulted in me having to retire from both teaching and performing for a living.

Long before these events though, back the mid 1990’s I went through a personal epiphany when I began to discover that the methods of meditation I had been practicing in a Buddhist and Hindu context could also be found within the Christian tradition, and I began a long pilgrimage back to the Christian Church to embrace once again the ‘Baby’ I had almost thrown out with bathwater. However this 'Prodigal Son' journey also raised certain questions such as, ‘why the Church of England when there are so many other Christian denominations out there I could belong to?’ and ‘What’s so special about the established ‘Establishment’ Church that makes it unique and potentially attractive to those seeking a dynamic Spirituality in the 21st century?’ Along with these questions came the accompanying feeling that it all seemed on a par with which football team I should follow- Derby County, Nottingham Forest, or Mansfield Town, or the Catholics, Baptists, or the ‘Happy Clappy’ lot that worship down at the local Community centre? This conundrum has led me to create a list of reasons why I feel personally drawn to supporting my local ‘C of E’ parish church of St Edmunds, rather than any other. I realise that my own reasons for doing this may be very different from your own, should you be a church attendee, but I hope that this list will at the very least be thought provoking but may also encourage a renewed commitment to faith whether you are a church goer or not.

1) A Broad and Tolerant Church – Far from being a weakness as some would maintain, the fact that the C of E attempts to tolerate and celebrate believers from such diverse backgrounds as the Gay and Lesbian community on the one hand and Charismatic and Literalist Fundamentalist groups on the other is to be thoroughly applauded in my opinion, and the growth of women Priests and women Bishops, has begun to bring a much needed feminine perspective down into our local worship and community life. Also the recent move away from a literalist reading of the scriptures by some scholars like John Hick and Don Cupit is also a factor that appeals to my intellect. and other Christian writers like Matthew Fox, Karen Armstrong, Francis Spufford and Elaine Pagels, though not all Anglicans, have helped me formulate a faith that that is starting to challenge current ways of thinking and is carving a new mark on our post-modern largely atheistic society. Never heard of any of these writers? Go to Google and check 'em out, you might be amazed at what's being debated these days.

2) Local to the Community – In England at least, the Anglican Church is at the Spiritual heart of the local community, and it is the ‘One Stop Shop’ that we go to in times of need, and to remember our fallen and deceased as well as marry, be Christened and do stuff like co-ordinate our local food bank. One thing we are not short of in the UK is a wide variety of Christian denominations – (over 340 according to UK Church Statistics, 2005-2015.) - and it would be nice to think that in a future age we could bring our doctrinal and political differences to the alter and utilise the wonderful but often neglected and under used, Anglican church buildings that exist at the heart of our towns and villages and engage once more in common worship as one church under Christ on these Isles – The Church ‘in’ England, rather than the Church ‘of’ England.

3) Indigenous to the Isles – Although formed as part of the Protestant reaction to the abuses of the Roman Church but also fired by some dubious political motives engendered by the Tudor dynasty in the 16th century, the C of E nevertheless has a strong connection with the ‘Celtic’ Church that originally emerged on these Isles that in turn was closely related to the earliest indigenous Pagan and ‘Druidic’ beliefs and culture.

4) Pagan Elements – Neo-Paganism is one of the fastest growing new religious movements in the Western world, (and by ‘West’ I mean a certain mindset rather than a geographical region – Australia and New Zealand for example are about as ‘Eastern’ as one can get geographically and yet clearly operate from a Western philosophical perspective). Many pre Christian rites and practices were continued by Christian communities on the Isles many of which remain to this day. The visual arts were represented by the use of the Chi Rho; a pictogram of Christ represented as both the gods Apollo and Jupiter; various types of crosses like the equal lengthen solar cross; the Vesica Pisces (fish symbol); and religious icons and statues of the saints were all borrowed from pagan iconography. Churches adopted the design of ancient Heathen temples that were often founded on original Pagan sacred sites. The vestments of priests and monks and hair styles (tonsure) were adapted from pagan fashions of the time. Processions and pilgrimages, wedding customs, baptismal rites, the Chrism, Eucharist, and the veneration of holy wells were adapted from Pagan customs, and magic and healing arts like herbalism, crystal healing, divination, the use of charms, and other forms of naturopathic medicine continued on into the Christian era. The Pagan days of the week, months and seasons, and feasts and holy days, persisted often with the original names and purposes remaining intact - though many were later adapted to conform to later Christian beliefs. Perhaps now is the time to celebrate the obvious fact that British Christianity has Pagan DNA running right through it and we should heartily embrace our Pagan cousins who are currently seeking to re-discover our earliest forms of folk religion on these Isles.

5) Authority and Ancient Heritage – Finally the C of E has ancient Apostolic roots and a system of authority that has helped to guard it against abuse and maverick teachings as well as provide a rich legacy of music, visual art, architecture, worship and praxis that continues to outshine and outlive all attempts by our popular culture - with its simplistic outlook and flash technology - to override it.

This list is by no means exhaustive but provides, in my mind at any rate, a sufficient basis for pledging a personal allegiance to the Anglican Communion, not because I think that ‘my’ church and faith is better than any other - in the same way I might feel about a football team or nation state or culture - but primarily because I feel the C of E simply represents ‘my’ own personal culture and faith. Had I been born for instance in Afghanistan to Muslim parentage I would no doubt feel quite different about these allegiances. By celebrating our own uniqueness and allowing others their own right to do the same we can help to resist the seemingly unstoppable corporate global march towards mass conformity and uniformity of culture. Maybe it’s time now to stop apologising and start celebrating who we are and where we come from and be happy to be - ‘C of E’!

Hope Springs Eternal

So here I am emerging once again from the ‘Crimbo Limbo’ of this time of year, something that always feels like a relief even though it is a really special holiday time for me, when we begin to witness and celebrate once again the return of the Sun/Son to the Earth and the nights get lighter.

This is a time, as always, for reviewing the past year and making plans for the coming year, but as I said in the last blog, discussing my plans seems to put something of a curse on them so I’m having to devise a sneaky way of doing this. So rather than writing about any definite plans and intentions or making any new year’s resolutions I’ve decided to try revealing my hopes, dreams, prayers and wishes rather than discussing any concrete plans as such. To begin with my health continues to be pretty dodgy so I can’t even rely on being well enough to execute any definite plans over the coming year, so my life has to have a ‘one day at a time’ quality about it though it is clear that hope plays a crucial part in keeping me going. My most recent health problem has involved suffering yet another stroke. This has left me with severe aches and pains and considerable dexterity and mobility issues that have set me back quite a bit. On the positive front however the lack of blood to the brain seems to have resulted in me experiencing a spiritual and emotional epiphany that has so far kept me cheerful throughout these physical difficulties and also I am now on a new regime of medication and physiotherapy that promises to help even more with my recovery, and the doctors are now looking into providing me with a pace maker that may help my heart to beat more effectively and reduce the risk of having any further strokes and suchlike. Anyroad enough of me whining and moaning about my health. I want to focus on my hopes for the coming year but first a quick review of 2013 and some of the great things that happened back there.

One awesome thing about last year has been the many coastal experiences I’ve had, visiting such magical places as Bognor Regis, Llandudno, and Porlock Weir in Devon. Back in the day I used to make regular camping trips over to the North Wales Coast but hard work and relentless gigging took up most of my weekends, eventually made it difficult to find the time to get away. One of the things we can truly celebrate on these Isles is the miles and miles of spectacular coastline that we have and though I live about as far as you can get from the sea, (actually Chesterfield, which about 10 miles away from me, is the furthest market town from the sea in the UK so they tell me), it’s still quite easy to get to the coast, especially with my National Express Senior card. The sea air seems to help with the Empyema lung disease I suffer from and walking in the ozone atmosphere really seems to help increase my stamina, even more than the regular local walks I take.

Although it was a long time downloading, when the summer eventually arrived it was well worth the wait and I was able to sit out in the yard in the many sunny days that we had as well as making my trips to the coast a genuinly healing experience. Let’s hope this coming summer will be as good and the mild winter we’ve had so far will continue. I have long thought that the Vitamin D3 from the sun, and the extra fresh air and activity that the warm weather encourages is a key factor in maintaining good health, and this was especially true in 2013 when I seemed to muster enough strength to help me cope with my most recent setbacks this winter. I continue to try to make progress, through regular exercise, a good diet, playing guitar and drums, writing and researching, doing arts and crafts, keeping up with consensus reality listening to BBC Radio Nottingham in the mornings and watching Eastenders at night! Although my heart and circulatory system are well and truly fucked, I’m hoping that a healthy diet and moderate lifestyle, revised medication, exercise regime, and general enthusiasm in living will help to keep me going for a few more years yet, who knows but all I can do is hope anyroad.

My vision for 2014 is actually quite ambitious and exciting, in my mind at least. The mainspring of my life can be best described using the acronym W.A.R.M. – writing, artwork, research, and music - and also this year I am hoping to cease to be a hermit and get myself out in the local community a bit more. I hope to continue to make a contribution to protecting the local environment from housing developments and fracking and such like, and to begin to add something of value to the educational and spiritual life of my area. Being long term sick has got certain advantages, (something I have written of in the past), and while I am still able, I hope to continue to make a significant contribution both as an individual artist, educator, and Shaman healer to my local community.

With regard to writing and research, I am going to try and get some things published this year, be they in the church magazine, local paper etc, as well as continuing with this blog and other online outlets. My albatross of a book has finally been abandoned and I am now planning a more modest work on meditation that I hope to eventually use as a manual for teaching in the future. This is a major undertaking and at present I’m not really strong enough to accomplish it, but if you don’t aim high and all that malarkey..

Although I have been steadily creating various bits of visual art and craft work this year my efforts have become more galvanized after watching an ‘Imagine’ programme on BBC 1 about ‘Outsider’ Artists. I have long been aware of this kind of untaught and untutored art through a magazine called ‘Raw Vision’ and I also came across it during the ‘Healing Arts’ degree course I completed at Derby University in 2001, but somehow because I am now able to devote more time to this work and through struggling with my own disabilities, seeing afresh this kind of ‘Art Brut’ creative work has been very inspiring to me both in the visual art field but also in music, both disciplines that I lack any formal training in. What I hope to be able to do is create imagery with the musical recording projects that I am working/collaborating on, (‘The Mighty Dogheads and Wao projects’), and also develop a little business creating magical and aesthetic products for sale at local markets etc. Some examples of the music we’ve been working on can be found by Googling ‘the Mighty Dogheads’ or ‘the Dogheads Collective’ on the soundcloud website, where these tracks can be downloaded for free, but also souvenir CD’s of these tracks including my bespoke artwork can be ordered for a reasonable price from us by post. Educationally I am looking into the idea of becoming a school Governor as well as continuing to develop my skills as a musical tutor on a small scale and I am currently enjoying performing in Church playing Bass Guitar with the Parish Music Team that involves the need for me to re-learn some of my guitar techniques that I’ve lost, providing an added motivation to improve my physical dexterity. Pressing needs on our local environment has compelled me to lend a hand in campaigning against commercial developments in the area, particularly the building of new homes outside the town boundary while the inner parts of Mansfield are decaying both as places to live and work as well as providing commercial outlets – the so called ‘donut effect’, something that goes against the UN’s ‘Agenda 21’ policy that Mansfield Council have supposedly signed up to , (not that I’m a big fan of the ‘New World Order, collectivist philosophy of the powers that be and all that). Finally I just want to say a big thank you to all my friends old and new and my family who have helped me so much during this past year, you know who you are. Let’s hope that 2014 proves to be a great year for us all and that we all find fulfilment and happiness in our lives. Amen. Revd Magic Sam Murray.