Jim

I often think what would happen if Jesus walked into our church on a Sunday evening and sat at the back. This time round he’s a homeless addict and drinker called ‘Jim’ (Jesus in me). He has mild hyperthermia, he’s strung out, and hungry, with no family to speak of, and he doesn’t really know anyone in these parts… and what’s more, he smells horrible!

What would I say to Jim if he came and sat next to me? How do I imagine he would react when he begins to get his bearings and realise that all the pomp and drama, and all the choruses and hymns we were singing, were actually all about him? Would he become even more paranoid, or just bemused by the way he has become such a legend in his own lunchtime, such a huge legend in fact, that the lady at the front, in the robes and dog collar, is shouting out that he is the ‘King of the Universe’ and the ‘Son of God’ and all that malarkey.

Jim remembers that long ago in a previous life he used to yell in the street, ‘I and the Father are one’ and other crazy junk like that. He used to reckon he was made of the same stuff as God, but no-one understood that he was trying to be inclusive when he was ranting about things like that, and deep down he just wanted folk to feel what he was feeling, overflowing with love. That’s the way he had always felt deep in his heart and all he wanted was for everyone around him to be just like one big happy family.

Jim knew what it was like when people heard him chanting his God talk in town, ‘I am the Son of God’, or ‘before the world was created ‘I AM!’ In fact he once jumped off a multi-story car park and broke both his legs because he thought he was divine and could fly… (Something about the angels saving him if he tripped and fell over, or ran in front of a line of fast moving traffic) - So he thought he’d put that theory to the test. Huge mistake! They ‘sectioned’ him after that episode, and injected him with Largactil, a nasty drug that twisted up his body and turned his face into a mask. He thought he’d learned that lesson a couple of light years ago when they whipped him in the street and nailed him to a cross. They said he had learning difficulties – ‘there’s nothing as sure as that’ he would say to himself.

So here he was, in this creepy old church full of dead men’s bones. He remembers meeting an old geezer sitting on a bench outside who told him that there were the remains of 5 000 corpses, buried over 900 years, in the graveyard. Not to mention others concealed beneath the floor and in the crypt of the church. Jim decided it was best not to start thinking about all that medieval spooky ‘woo woo’ stuff and focus instead on what’s going on at the front. But now the woman in the robes was holding up some bread and saying ‘this is my body eat it’ and then she held up a glass of wine and said ‘this is my blood, drink it’. ‘Oh my Gosh,’ he thought, ‘is this some kind of secret man-eating death cult?’ ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here!’-

But he reckoned it might be worth sticking around for the sandwiches, coffee and cakes. The old bloke had told him there would be free nosh on offer after the show finished: “It might be a good idea to put some grub in me before I get my Methadone from the night chemist and settle down in the subway for the night. You know it’s getting more and more difficult to find places to crash nowadays. They’re laying spikes and metal studs and all sorts of crap in all the best sleeping spots, and they’re even making the bus shelter benches slope downwards so you can’t lay on them. What’s that all about, and who are ‘they’ anyway? I’ve always wondered about that – Some people reckon there are Shape-shifting reptilian aliens controlling the world! “Here I go again with all that ‘spooky woo woo’ stuff - shut your face Jim,” he said to himself..

“And now there’s a band warming up on stage, and the dude at the front is shouting, ‘we don’t do boring in this house’ and they crank up a song and everyone’s singing and dancing and holding up their hands in the air for some strange reason, ‘I’m down here mate’ was what Jim was thinking, but anyway. “I didn’t know any of the songs, so I just stood there and took in the vibe. I felt a nice tingle down the back of my neck that turned into something like a waterfall flowing over me. What did they put in that wine?’ Whatever they’d spiked it with it was pretty powerful stuff. Suddenly I saw my life flash before me, all those hard knocks I’d been given as well as all the good times. All of it seemed to be working together to bring me to this point. It felt like I was on a mountain top, in a totally clear space and I was free again. No more fear, no more guilt, no more tense feeling in my shoulders and back, just the impression I was floating two foot off the ground with the sensation of pure love pulsing through my veins. In my mind’s eye I saw all my old mates and ex’s who seemed to be lost in a fog, just like I had been not a second before. They all looked so sad and it seemed as if they were looking around for something magical to happen, for some kind of miracle, something to take away all the fear and pain. And then I realised for the first time in an aeon that I was completely ‘myself’- my eternal self, my genuine soul. I no longer wanted to follow in the footsteps of my hero and trickster friends, imitating what they were doing just to fit in and be liked. Now I was just being me, just Jim. Now I know exactly what I’ve got to do for the rest of my life. I’m going to go out there and try and make the world a better place, it’s that simple. I don’t know all the details yet but I get the feeling that I’ll be able to download all that stuff as and when I need it. But I know this one thing, that whatever happens from now on, through the good times and the bad, with all the love I feel inside me, right here, right now, it’s all going to work out fine, I just know it”.

“Sh*t! Jim said to himself, does this mean that I’m a Christian now? Oh man, how the hell did that happen? Well I guess at the end of the day that’s for the experts to discuss and decide. The only thing my science teacher used to say that made any sense to me is. ‘X is an unknown quantity and spurt is a volume of liquid forced through a small aperture’. It’s not my problem Bud, so I’m not going to worry”.

“Me? - I’m Just Jim mate, fancy a cuppa?”

Ruff intro to my book that is coming along nicely thanks

This collection of blogs and essays includes material that began life back in 2004 as a book called ‘the Aqua Course’ a parody of the Evangelical ‘Alpha Course’ doing the rounds in many churches at the time and that is still very popular as a way of promulgating a literal reading of the Holy Scriptures to people who are interested in becoming a certain type of Christian. I began working on this book around 2 years after I graduated from Derby University with a 2.1 in Religion Culture and Belief and Healing Arts, a combined study program. Although I enjoyed the 3 years I spent at Derby, one of the best times of my life, I no longer could financially afford to stay in academia and I continued to teach in schools and community settings and perform as a kit drummer and vocalist both in the UK and on the continent, something I had been doing fairly successfully previous to my studies.

The Aqua Course quickly became a vehicle to continue my studies in spirituality and healing arts without having to conform to the constraints necessary to achieve an M.A. or Doctorate, and while my abilities as a student would never be honed sufficiently to break new ground in either religious studies or complementary medicine, it felt natural to continue the learning process with the tools I had acquired in academia but with the freedom to roam wherever I wished.

Although I abandoned the Aqua Course title fairly soon, due to its provocative title, and not really wishing to enter into a skirmish with my Evangelical brethren. I tried many other ways to organise the topics I wanted to explore but without much success. I was still writing and researching a great deal however, and as the internet, the virtual ‘Web of Wyrd’, became greater and more accessible I soon started to gobble up all the weird and wonderful material I found there, collecting data and trying to make sense of all the crazy conspiracy theories and speculations and such. After the initial intoxication I felt after drinking in the outpourings of kindred souls like David Icke, Graham Hancock, Tom Campbell, and Michael Tsarion et al, I felt that I needed to focus on one or two areas that I knew something about rather than try to make sense of the whole crazy bag ‘o mashins.. To make it more digestible, I began to explore the relationship between Christianity and the indigenous Shamanism of the British and Irish Isles, with a view to enriching my own faith as a Christo-Pagan Anglican and meanwhile finding out what my place might be in the general scheme of things, especially as it is emerging post 2012, which seems to have indeed been a significant milestone in the raising of ‘low entropy consciousness’, as the great Tom Campbell calls it.

2012 was definitely a significant milestone in my own life’s journey. As it happened I suffered a near terminal heart attack and stroke in May of that year, and after spending 3 weeks in a coma and many more weeks in intensive care travelling in and out of states of lucid dreaming, I emerged with a new status, that I couldn’t name at first, but that I ended up recognising as that of a ‘full-time Anarcho-Anglican Shaman’!

Physically I was left with the after effects of a stroke and a strange condition known as Fibromyalgia, caused by the trauma, as well as severe breathlessness brought on by a lung condition called Empyema. And to top it all my severally depleted heart muscle was eventually kept going by a computerised pacemaker that has now turned me into a trans-human digital cyborg.

Spiritually however, I seemed to grow in leaps and bounds, having the time now to devote to meditating, creating, writing, and studying in a way that I was never able to do in my previous life as a jobbing musician and teacher. Tragically much of my ability as a musician has left me and I can no longer cope with the rigours of classroom or peripatetic teaching but at least my consciousness keeps kicking in and I continue to be able to express myself moderately well. I have not been given a clear prognosis and I have no idea how long I will continue in this life with my condition, but my brush with death and my current physical limitations seems to have sharpened my spiritual eye and I am able to focus with a penetrating intensity on the things that really matter to me both spiritually and in my day to day relationships with friends and relations and my various acquaintances.

The question now was what to do with the book? What I had written before my heart breakdown seemed to me to be too didactic and focused on dogma rather than on praxis and the development of low entropy loving action. Also I wanted to have fun with what I write, and allow my creative juices to flow more sweetly. What little music I now make is taking on a similar quality and both disciplines are now merging with my personal shamanesque praxis that is in turn enriching my ‘ordinary’ life as a progressive Anglican Christian participating in the life of my local parish church, attending the communion service, playing Bass guitar in the worship band, and coaching a small weekly meditation group among other things.

What is now emerging is what I hope is a fresh and weightless way of writing, at least to my mind, partly helped along by the discovery of the ‘Blog’, (or web log as it is officially called for the non-web literate). Although it is often narcissistic in nature, the blog and the tweet have become powerful ways to share our thoughts and feelings and to get ‘it’ all out there. The fact that everyone is blogging and not so many are reading or listening is beside the point…a powerful communication is potentially taking place that can be used for either good or ill and there is a freedom about it that borders on the anarchic. My fear however is that the Archons, the controllers of the Military/Industrial banking Empires that try to keep us all enslaved to their debt based economy (or conversely the terror based organisation seemingly opposed to the Empire), will soon censure, infect with viruses, or even pull the plug on the free sharing of data, so that we will be left with an even more profound spiritual wasteland than that which existed before the arrival of the digital age. All the more reason, I say, to write it all out on parchment, paper, wood and stone, and through works of art and architecture, in order to leave a legacy for future generations to discover. The digital data we produce is still too vulnerable, in my opinion, to withstand the solar storms, comets, ice ages, and human interference for it to be a lasting record of the spiritual consciousness and cultural developments that have been produced by un-common people in the 21st century. So let us make hay while the sun still shines and meanwhile leave a codex or two in a jar in some cave for a future generation to discover before the robots turn us into Duracell energy sources.

What remains here is a collection of randomly connected blogs and short essays born out of my own experience and research, focusing on ideas and praxis that have made sense to me over the past 50 years or so. If they make any sense to you, then that’s great, if not leave it be and move on…maybe it will make some sense further on down the line, maybe not.

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.

On suffering a 'Stoke'

“The best layed plans o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft a-gley”- (Rabbie Burns).

Looking back over previous posts in this blog I am becoming aware more than ever of the folly of airing any future plans and dreams and I’m becoming increasingly wary, almost superstitious, of discussing such things,(especially now in the light of recent events), as more often than not my current intentions are transformed into their opposite, apparent progress turns retrograde, reformations stagnate, and planned routes end up taking more short-cuts and detours through the ventricles of my heart and the canyons of my mind. But at the same time if you don’t say it, what’s the point of having a blog in the first place -good question that, what is the point?..I often think why do I keep doing this, is it just attention seeking or is it really about a Theophany, an awareness of God within and among us. Where’s the guidance here John Hick?... ‘well my boy, if it tends to lead fom self-centeredness to other centeredness it’s OK I think’, says the esteemed Professor.

One example of what Rabbie Burns maybe was getting at can be seen in my frequent comments on the progress of my book and it’s proposed accompanying website* – This giant Albatross that has been decomposing round my neck after landing on my shoulder way back in 2003 with a message tied to its leg concerning an account of my own indigenous spirituality told in a somewhat didactic and edifying manner that has now completely festered and is no-longer fit for human consumption in the global cafe culture of music, art, and spirituality that has blossomed in the Cathedral Quarter of the cyberfantatastic Web of Wyrd in recent years. (phew). As an itinerant busker on the streets of this sector I have been trying to develop and hawk reproductions of the sounds and scribbles told to me by this cursed sea bird on a boat where everybody’s talking but nobody’s listening. The enforced retirement I have experienced recently due to ill health and insanity has turned out to be a mixed blessing, a good example of the fallacious meaning of the Chinese character wei chi in action – or in other words the ‘crisis/opportunities’ that life throws up as a challenge now and again that are mixed into the joy and pain of love and fear we each encounter every day. The great thing that becoming ill bestows upon the patient ‘Patient’ is the gift of time and space, and it becomes relatively easy to embark upon imaginary journey’s over land and sea once we accept the inevitable emptiness we feel as we sit in queues and squeeze on through strange inner portals to the airport security zones of our mind where we are eventually able to board, if we’re lucky, the easy jets of transcendence and fly over mountains and seas to exotic new continents filled with Designer Cafes of Consciousness where all is love and life is forever a beach. Anyroad, enough of these mad metaphors and lets get down to some hard/soft science. The new seismic shift that has erupted within me in the aftershock of yet another health crisis – this time a ‘stroke’ that has seriously affected my eyesight and my perception of social situations and physical co-ordination – that has indeed turned out to be a mixed blessing of profound revelations and epiphanies mixed with a local Radio Nottingham soundtrack of 50’s to 90’s music (and a little Jake Bug) that accompanies the night terrors and piss bottle balancing of hospital sleep-overs – ‘the night has a thousand eyes’- ‘I’ve made some soup Jacob’

I have been recently introduced, via the awesomely wonderful Red Ice Creations Radio program on t’internet to the work of Anthony Peake,the Wirral based author of books like ‘The Infinite Mindfield’ and ‘Is there Life After Death’.The reason I say this is his work speaks direcctly to the experiences I have been having with this stroke and also other shamanic vusion quests I've been on recently. Perhaps it was just a mere co-incidence that I passed through his part of the world on a pilgrimage to the ‘Paps of Methonwy’ between Llandudno and Conwy this past summer and found myself gazing out of the window of a National Express onto the parallel Universe of the boon docks and big ships surrounding Birkenhead that I once visited as a bright eyed 3 year old when we went to stay with our Aunty Phylis and Uncle Dave back in 1955. Enough of this rambling round the world of Adrian Henri’s ‘Liverpool Scene’. We need to focus here boy:

Meanwhile‘Bungalow Shaman’ Sammy has been going all quantum -becoming both observer and the observed as the blood supply to my brain has embarked upon new journeys, taking new short cuts and detours through the backroads of my memories ‘that keeps you ever gentle on my mind’. During this recent stroke I experienced profound deja vu’s and interesting Pissarro-esque visual disturbances .The experience has reminded me of drunken bike rides home from late night music bars in Holland (Hello Bierreclamemuseum Breda)..you get good at falling off your bike after a while as new neural pathways are opened up in the nether-lands of your soul. Once I only had numbness down the right side of my body..now it’s there on both sides....Bugga... it makes busking with a guitar so much harder I can tell you. Though for some strange reason I find singing and chanting easier now - mixed blessings..mixed blessings indeed, I might no longer have an excuse not to join the church choir now..

It’s ironic that this should happen at a time in my life where I was just beginning to feel vaguely normal, playing advanced Jazz guitar chords and even getting some stamina again playing drum kit down in my studio. I was even dreaming of running up hills and I was thinking that it would only be a matter of time before ATOS would be sending me back to work again, (not that I would employ me even in the improved state I was before this setback). I’m determined however to keep striving to make music and artwork and write to the best of my ability, or as my Occupational Therapist said yesterday, ‘if you don’t use it you lose it’. I have devised an acronym W.A.R.M. (Writing,Artwork,Research, and Music) to give focus to the structure of my day, a structure that I have to have because often I no longer know what day it is let alone what I should be doing in it!

Anyroad I think that’s enough of a post to be going on with for now, so thanks to all my friends who have sent ‘get wells’ and offered practical help too..it it is all much appreciated.

So I say,‘onward and upward, to Narnia and the North’...bugga me... now which way’s North?

*Excerpts from my abandoned book and website ‘The Parish of Cool’ can hopefully soon be found at ‘my web page’ link on the side of my full profile if you’re interested.

Allah Hu & Soul Banks

...Back again after what has been a truly gorgeous summer. Although it took a long time getting here, the weather this past couple of months has been awesome. It’s a long time since I’ve experienced such enduring warmth and sunshine in the UK and as a result it’s been a very healing time for me both in body and soul.

I think I’ve said it before in blogs past, that the main reason I write here is to keep a kind of public diary of what I’ve been up to personally. I keep a rough notebook full of quotes, lists, scraps of lyrics, ideas and what have you by my side most of the time, but this is more of an ordered account of my adventures (or lack of them) over recent times so I can look back and get a handle on how I’m progressing or deteriorating or whatever. If anyone happens to want to read what I’ve been up to, then that’s a bonus, (unless you’re from big brother that is – though why you’re wasting your time reading an old man’s drivel is anyone’s guess if you are!).

On the health front I continue to make slow and steady progress. I am coming to terms with my long term physical limitations and learning to work with them rather than getting annoyed for not being able to do stuff. I still feel a lot of discomfort, aches and pains, breathlessness, and numbness down my right side since my heart failure and stroke, but I’ve been working quite a bit on my drumming and stringed instruments and slowly recovering many of my old skills which has been heartening. Sadly my singing voice doesn’t look like it’s ever going to get back to what it was. Not that I had much of a singing voice in the first place but I used to enjoy contributing harmonies and singing in general, particularly at parties and sessions after gigs, (though in those days drink was involved! ) But it’s also nice to say that, other than communion wine, I’ve not touched a drop for 17 months now and although I miss the sessions, I don’t particularly miss the alcohol that went with them.

A bit of good news is, my toes have finally dropped off! After my op and a month in a coma last year, I awoke with two frost bitten toes after having a vein in my leg removed to replace a couple in my heart. Somewhere along the line they failed to get any blood to my toes and they became necrotic. Although my foot is still sore, swollen, and I’ll probably always have a limp, it has been much easier walking in general. I have kept both necrotic toes in a little bag if anyone wants a gander, they don’t smell any more honest!

There is further evidence of my recovery in that I’ve joined the local church band as a bass guitarist for my sins. Got my first gig tomorrow with them and I’m really looking forward to it! Although I have my own bass, they have a lovely pink one down at the church, and one of the female members of the band commented that it ‘goes with my eyes’ – ‘wot bleary and bloodshot’ I said!? They have a little amp too which means I don’t have to take any gear at all down there, which is great.

I have been on several adventures to exotic places over the summer. July saw me off to Bognor Regis, via a Steve Riley gig in Oxford thanks to Suzie Wheller and her trusty Beetle. Had a great time down there with her amazing family and friends and enjoyed a local music festival (Rocs) and some lovely time on the beach, and I even met a famous actress! The coastal experience left me wanting more and I managed to get a cheap deal on a 3 night mini break in Llandudno, North Wales a few weeks later. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve been over there to the coast, and though I used to enjoy camping and being in the wild, something I can no longer do, I was happy enough in my little hotel room which was clean and cosy with a nice window seat for reading and contemplation. Each day I got the bus over to the West beach, which was almost empty. The weather was good on both days and it was awesome taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the sea, combined with awesome views of the mountains. I have to report that it did the job and it satisfied my cravings for the briny waves, (I do after all live in the place that is furthest from the coast in the UK and so means more to me than for most I guess).

Apart from these adventures I’ve been starting to re-acquaint myself with the metropolis of Nottingham a little, with a visit to an African Sabar drum workshop and also a brief visit to the Riverside festival on the banks of the Trent. At last I’ve been to a local festival that has programmed a broad multi-cultural range of original bands including Cuban Band ‘Son Yambu’ who were awesome; Irish Trad band ‘Ducie’; and old mates ‘Sarah Savoy & the Francadians’, who sadly I couldn’t get to the next day ‘cos of other commitments.

Spiritually and study wise I’ve been making lots of headway. Been thinking a great deal about the idea of worship and the conundrum of chanting the name of a Lord who is ultimately nameless.. Sufis chant the name ‘Allah Hu’ (God is) which is about as close as you can get to solving this problem, but I know of no Christian equivalent. I don’t think the Vicar would look too kindly though to me hobbling up and down the pews chanting ‘Allah Hu, Allah Hu, Allah Hu’ in communion, though I don’t know really why he might! It is however a practice I could enjoy singing privately either silently or with my old Djembe, so don’t be surprised if you hear Arabic tones coming from ‘chez Withering Heights’ in the near future!

Been thinking quite a bit about the state of the nation recently too, Food Banks, Badger Culls, Bedroom Tax, and a continued policy of making the poor and the working classes even poorer, while the rich get richer, those sorts of thoughts. Our church proudly runs a food bank that is fast becoming a vital resource for many people in the community, but such facilities have many political ramifications attached, not least the fact that we can even consider military intervention in countries far away while our own people are being exploited and are suffering here at home. We must ask ourselves where the tax money our leaders use to fund such ventures actually comes from, (not just income tax but also VAT and other forms of stealth taxes),and why we appear to have so little influence on what it gets spent on. Finally we must not forget the effect our current way of life is having on our mental health and wellbeing. Poverty is not just about not having the latest labour saving device, Plasma TV, or games module. It’s also about not having a place to grow vegetables; commune with nature; create artwork, drama, and music; socialise & party; Find rewarding and altruistic career paths; Fish and hunt for those who do so ecologically and ethically; care for your friends and neighbours; and seek to live an authentic and unique individual way of life. I reiterate an earlier blog when I noted that many recipients of third world aid programs seemed to wear perpetual smiles in the film footage we watch, while we all trudge miserably round Morrison’s like ‘Shopper Zombies’ consuming things we don’t actually need – ‘and Christmas folks is just around the corner.. Joy to the world!’. As well as ‘Food Banks’, perhaps what we also need are ‘Soul Banks’, places where we can re learn true human values and discover our true potential as children of the universe, anyone fancy starting one up?.

I have been developing a practice with the Tarot of choosing a random card from time to time that has proved to be very instructive, both for familiarising myself with the cards and for general spiritual insight. Most Christians tend to look down on working with the Tarot, but historically Christians have often been at the forefront of their use, not so much for divining the future but as a vehicle for understanding the mysteries, a kind of ‘flash card’ that opens up the secrets of the soul. The latest card I drew was ‘The King of Cups’ or ‘Roy de Coupe’, (or as he’s known round here in Woodh’s - ‘Roy the Mug’!) It is a very auspicious card with few negative associations. Christ himself was a king of the cup, or chalice, who asked his followers to remember him often in the drinking of wine, a symbol of his life blood. The character of the King of Cups is gregarious and broad minded and comfortable with every kind of people, valuing whatsoever things are lovely and beautiful. This king is kind, wise, calm, tolerant, a peacemaker, allowing others their freedom, and displaying knowledge that comes from the heart. This card favours those who are natural healers, therapists, charity workers, volunteers, and those who practice the art of unconditional loving kindness. We are encouraged to be imitators of this King and I can’t argue with any of those kind of sentiments.

My old book, almost ten years now in the making, is almost complete, just a bit of hard graft now to finish it off. Got plans for a brand new spanking website, (no not that kind of spanking website!), with lots of extra content as well as the book in pdf format that I am making freely available, for the time being at least. I’m hoping to attract some kind of publishing deal eventually though that is not the main reason for writing it, which has been to explore my own spirituality in some depth at this time in my life. I’ve got loads of new ideas for writing in the pipeline already though, so I want to get it finished now asap.

Finally, on the musical front, although I have been exploring and familiarising myself with my instruments I haven’t been doing much recording. Partly this due to the gorgeous weather we’ve been having that has made me want to be outside as much as possible, but also that my musical partner in crime ‘Doghead Phil’ is off to Australia for the winter working. Meanwhile I’ve got plans to develop my own solo project ‘Segomo’ which is mainly a ‘Shamanic percussion/found sound’ based concept and hopefully some of these grooves will end up on future ‘Mighty Dogheads’ tracks.

Meanwhile, the nights are drawing in and there is suddenly an autumn chill in the air.. These days I’m very susceptible to the cold so I’m taking steps to protect myself with layers of extra clothing so I can still go out and get about a bit, unlike last year where the cold made it difficult to get much further than the garden gate.

‘Allah Hu’ my friends..’ Allah Hu’!