What is wholistic personal growth and development? What is love? The answer – it’s love in action.

Since the earliest time I can remember, I have experienced love as well as the apparent  absence of love. Whatever else I have been living, (all the distractions of living, keeping a job together, income, shopping etc) my life’s journey has at root been the gradual and progressive deepening of my experience, perception, understanding and living of love in as many aspects of my life as it occurs to me.

Being given life through a body, living on earth, opens us all to life’s mystery. Living life is to be part of the vast unfathomable mystery of life or God or ‘it’, to whatever degree we know it or not. The vastness of this mystery is way beyond our intellectual comprehension and yet, knowing this, it is still essential we endeavour to open ourselves to this apparently  impossible conundrum. Little by little we can, through experiencing life, come to understand and live more fully the five essential aspects: Love, Truth, Life, Death and God that is the essence of our spiritual dimension brought to life in this body of being. Body-Being-Spirit

Too often we are preoccupied with living which is not the same as life. As Barry Long writes, “Life on earth begins with man and woman. The male/female principle is all there is, and it travels up through all the animal kingdoms to the male and female principles expressed and embodied as man and woman, the two polarities of love. The only way love can ever be found in existence, on the surface of this earth, is through the union of man and woman. And the love that is enduring and revealing of the consciousness of God or life itself is the love by which they bring each other to life.” Barry Long.

It seems to me, as each of us is a part of life, we are all to a greater or lesser extent endeavouring to bring each other to life. To the degree that my self-will is not aligned with life’s will – the bigger mystery – I encounter difficulty, obstruction and struggle. And yet life sends us anyway challenges and difficulties unasked for, and these are for our growth. It is a lifetime to slowly discern between what is my self-will and what is Thy Will. So much of the time I just don’t know… and then suddenly apparently out of nowhere some clarity arrives that is a transformation. Tiny transformation is as significant as what we may judge as big transformation. As Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic  said “ One glimpse is enough.” Here is another poem I love from Rumi. ‘He’ in the following poem refers to Life, God, it, the Mystery, whatever you may call it.

Living in fear and anxiety we have grown up living less than our full potential as human beings. We have learned to survive, and to seek distraction, satisfaction, comfort, wealth, excitement and sex. Sex without love is one thing. When sex occurs within love – when love is the crucible that contains sex – this is something else altogether. I think there is a great need among us to recognise just how rare love is in our lives; that love needs to be given our undivided attention in all aspects of our daily living. To be recognised, nurtured, sustained and looked after. I recommend it as number one priority in all our lives. To guard against allowing familiarity and being casual to creep in to our lives and in all our relationships – all of them!

I know some people may be reacting to what I am writing. I am writing personally about what I have lived and am living, which includes what I also observe in others. If it speaks to you read on. If it doesn’t speak to you read on and read again! It might speak to you after all. You are welcome to discard this too!

Relate to everyone and everything as your love, as your lover. Whether you have a partner or not is irrelevant – everything and everyone! Whoever you meet on the dance floor, the empty space between you and another, and to Nature too. And of course the One within you.  Love is waiting to respond in countless ways. Love comes to you unbidden in all sorts of moments and in ways you are least expecting. When we are busy looking for something we often discard a moment of love appearing as not what we are looking for or needing. It is not it. So we miss what is already here close by and waiting to be received by us. When we glimpse the beauty and wonder in a sunrise or sunset it is perceived and received within us. It’s not really out there although it appears to be! When you perceive the inner beauty in another it is perceived and received within you. Then we start to think about things or get our camera out and the moment is gone.

Become more aware of your senses moment to moment: sound, touch/feel, sight and smell. They are core elements to being in the body. They are not the same as feelings and emotions which, together with our thinking mind interact to all too often take us out of the present, out of our presence and into rehashing old stories. Have you noticed? It is surprising how immediately we are taken out of the present moment and into the past or into the future.

Home is being in the present moment, home is where the heart is, because home is being present in our being, not in our self. It is a moment of deep relaxation. Our self is that personality, that someone we cultivated and described as ‘ourself’ as we grew up – who we started to think we were/are. Then life’s circumstances (usually some sort of hurt and pain) help us to begin to doubt if that is really all we are. To not know anymore, to become more open to the uncomfortableness of not really knowing who we are and what we are doing can be’ just one glimpse’. Then we might begin again opening to letting go and learning to live. What a journey! And if this feels overwhelming and challenging I can say it is a whole lot safer than (desperately) holding on to our fixed positions!

In this moment choose: joy, beauty, wonder, mystery, simplicity, nature, laughing, crying and dancing. These things in life, along with others, are always freely available. No-one can take these away from you. These are part of your birthright, or as I prefer to spell it birthrite.

One of my (many) favourite songs is by Tim Booth, leader of the band James. The song is called Getting away with it (all messed up). I commend this to us all. It helps to not take this all too seriously. In fact life is wild and beautiful, and a crazy, laughing, crying, dancing celebration of life. At the end of the day we are all forgiven.

It’s all available at this year’s camps at Lark Rise Meadow. I won’t be around for ever. I hope to see you there. You are lovely.

With love, Tim