Monday, August 29, 2011

Cha. 4 Morning rituals

We all, after getting up in the morning, do some things that should or do bring us to a state of being awake (or whatever passes for that). 


For me, this morning routine, waking up, breakfast and so on, is part of the makeup of each special day. 
If you think about it, you probably do this in a particular order to bring about the sense of well being and normality. 


Read the news or watch the reports on a favorite T.V. channel. This being part of a routine and even ritual in a way. 
If incorporating outside factors into the routine, those other sources have to have been instilled as a sort of trusted part of the mornings procedures, leading to the point you can walk out of the door with an air of a person who has not just fallen out of the dark side of hell, but with a beautiful feeling and a wonderful smile.


Well, start the day. What do you use to spark of a wonderful beginning to each tropical breakfast, before setting out for the days adventure?


For me, it begins with just getting up. The moment I realize that the night is gone, it's time to do something other than squeeze out the last bit of shut-eye, in the remaining few minutes of interrupted slumber.

It's morning; I tip-toe out of bed so as not to wake my wife and baby nestled in her arms. Last nights party of milk bottles and nappy changes still fresh in mind. Stepping carefully out of door to the kitchen, following Puki (our pet doggy) who often charges out with me to complete his own morning ablutions.


I put the kettle on, start some bread in the toaster and retire to the bathroom for my own ten minute morning bodily needs. After washing my hands and heading back to the kitchen, I make a pot of tea to go with my plain white toast. 


It's 6:00 AM, I have my chill-out music playing on a portable touch pad, which altogether with my breakfast are placed onto a table set next to a retro 60's garden lounge chair and then make ready my pipe for the next hours dawn scenery gazing delight.


Traditionally, I am a cigar or cigarette smoker. A pipe I had believed to be for absolute retirement, accompanied by slippers and an old Labrador. 
I have an old second hand Alco pipe, I bought this in a Welsh charity shop for 50 pence during the time we were there during of the birth of my son. 
It's one of the most delightful smokes I have ever experienced. The taste, the coolness of the smoke flavored with the cherry wood pipe bowl, is all it takes for me, in the first 15 minutes of the morning to reach euphoria.

I light up my pipe with a brass Zippo my wife got me as a 40th birthday present. 


It's simply wonderful. 


After I begin to smoke, my meditation state begins. The still tropical early morning noises filter into my hearing, birds, frogs, crickets, joyously cheering in the dawn.


Before I know it, after sipping the smoke, the pipe has gone cold. I've forgotten all about it and I began to chew my toast and drink my tea, my mind free and wondering. 


In my meditation, thoughts, reflections, memories, friends faces, conversations, all mingle into a filmography of recollection and entanglement. 
Where each thought relates and inspires new thoughts, which in turn pull up memories which conjur up sounds, smells, laughs and even smiles. 
I reflect on  the love, the perfect morning and how beautifully the day is shaping up already. 


At 6:45AM it's still quiet, no cars zooming by, no sirens, no nothing except natures song, bidding each to get up and enjoy the sunrise.


The sun rises, it starts so slowly, then launches into the sky amid a blaze of cool to hot glory. The brightness seems immediate. Always wear sunglasses from the first glints of solar rays.


My routine, my ritual if you like, starts just like that every morning. 
The morning view I described in the opening page, is  varied only by the weather passing through
Bright sunny clear blue mornings, to almost English winter grey cloudy monsoon like down pours. Each day is uniquely special mingling alongside my deep meditation, thanking Jah for being so fortunate.


My ritual, I would imagine, is not unique. Man has probably been doing something like this for eons, long before a president Nixon and his unhappy killjoy Nixon-ites came along and tried to murder Mary Jane.


Mary Jane lives, she is truly wonderful and full of character. 


To experience the deepest, purest sweetest meditation, the environment and ritual should be each day perfected and made even more sumptuous (if [at all] possible). My morning ritual is part natural, but all inspired.


Good morning sun and son.



Friday, August 26, 2011

Cha 3. Friday, TGIF...

...A beautiful week, my baby learning to swim and my wife has time off work. It feels blessed. So much going on, but the main thrust of my writing, not to make an ongoing diary, but maybe give context to each days input to this work in progress. 
Whilst listening to some old acid house music on a playlist of music videos, it occurs to me that a lot is going on this year. But this year has passed so fast, sunrise to sunset in each 12 hours of day light here. The Caribbean has very roughly, the exact amount of daylight hours to nocturnal hours. The sun rises and sets very constantly, no 'day-light-savings' any where in the Caribbean. We are effectively at peace. 
The constant circadian rhythm gives rest and true peace. It can take some getting used to, if your from the northern hemisphere. There is not much variation from winter to summer. Even the weather is not noticeably different from each day to the next except for the tropical rains and breezes that follow each season, of course the winter months are colder, it does reach down to the 70's in Fahrenheit at night, but the higher end of that scale of course. 
At peace with the atmosphere, it's sunny nearly everyday here. That alone, that simple fact is a reason for joy. Deeply at one with the light of the sun and enjoying it's rays of bright warm love every 24hours is a blessing in itself.
If you have ever lived in a cold place, where snow, ice, rain freeze, appreciation of the warm all year round is something you can never fully comment on or explain to it's depth, it's natural, we humans love to feel that comfort.
My son is growing up in all of this, his daily challenge is to just grow, speak and walk. Since he added the starts of swimming to his list of ever growing skills, I am feeling blessed. 
He will hopefully never know the cold or reaches of chilliness till he wants to go and experience it. There is so much that he can instantly just enjoy here and I hope come to deeply value, that I feel there is much treasure in his education of environment. 
An island of loving, peaceful people is no everyday thing to be found. It having found us, is finding a very appreciative family.


It's Friday, I realise that maybe this book can never completed in it's entirety, there is just soo much information that can be placed into a book, to keep it's content interesting and context current, my past life has so many details that maybe, just maybe, I'll still be writing this in 10 years from now. 
I'll see of course. I must add my growing up has been deeply embedded in religious values. I am now an ex-Jehovah's Witness. I left the religion in early 2005. It took ages to adjust to life without religion. 
That education from my early years growing up in that religion are something that can be taught without all the indoctrination and secularization.
Whilst privately I believe my former religion to be a cult, I got through all of that to be here today. Here, that majic word again, here in paradise.
Getting through being involved deeply in a hugely mind bending theological organisation is no easy feat either, one that I have taken to document in the other 32 blogs I have written previously, which most likely will be included as links in this volume.
Teaching my son to be without religion yet have a deep appreciation of YHWH, who he is and his love for us, will be itself a deep road to travel, a beautiful one no doubt. 
I have arrived at this point to place words into order to capture all that I can and place it in a way that pleases, captures and inspires it's readers also.
I love humour, I love good good funny jokes. I love slapstick humour, I love to be around funny people. Heck, I could probably shoot the breeze with Bill Maher all day. couldn't we all?
We are products of a world driven today by financial goals. Why?
My son is growing up in a culture that will give him deep insight into life lived next to nature. The abundant amount of fruits that grow year round on the local trees. The beach, the sea, diving, sailing. Each of these elements has a deeply spiritual reward. They are based around the elements of free energy, the sun. Of course the large glowing object in the sky gives plants their needed chlorophyll, the sea it's ultra violet, cleaning the visual depth of the water and the atmosphere to generate wind from warm convection's. 

Free energy, will my son grow up into a future of altruistic loving community? I very much hope so. 
Free energy is humans answer. It is no secret that I enjoy the power of natures finest herb, my healing of spirit from post traumatic Watchtower religion 'cultification'(my word, you probably get the meaning). 
The 'Herb', that alone is something I hope is very much decriminalized before my son reaches 19 years of age. 
So much love and inspiration from natural sources that free energy, the words are potent in the extreme. Energy from the sun, to the aetheric static energy in the atmosphere around us, as found by Tesla himself.
We are free, how to be free'er is the quest. I feel very free, at one with 'tings'. One day, I want my son to reflect and truly feel the same.



Thursday, August 25, 2011

Cha 2. Thoughts now rolling...

Why write a book at all? What purpose does a book and writing it hold? Maybe I should simply pen the words; 'For my son'. How does a father capture a life times experience of learning, hard knocks and experience distilled into wisdom? 


My son of course may never read my book. However that will not deter me from writing it.


Today's fan purchasing and installation was called off due to a broken network device at my wife's work. There in lays another massive tale, how did Candi and me get together, who is she, if you don't know her already?
Candi my beautiful wife, is from Las Vegas (USA) and a casino expert. She has the work here in St Lucia, whilst I look after Josiah.


That leaves me with a lot of time to ponder the thoughts collecting here. He is soo very full of character already at just one years old. Just yesterday, at the local swimming pool, after months of going, he started swimming. Just like that!
He started swimming. Admittedly it was no Olympic front crawl, mostly because the enormous water wings were constricting his arm movements as was probably the long noodle float, tied around his chest to keep him above water. But he did it, just started swimming yesterday. As a father now, it is amazing to see him develop. Swimming is something I enjoyed my dad teaching me. Being a professional SCUBA instructor has taught me a lot more patience and probably caution than most would get the opportunity to demonstrate. 
I genuinely loved and enjoyed the moment so deeply that I guess the words 'For my son'  take on a clearer meaning. Hence this book and it's beginnings here.
Taking all my life time of learning and experience and putting it somewhere for reflection when he is also a father when he reaches that age. 

Mostly a book captures a persons 'style'. For this book to be readable, I have to pull some very good grammar together. So please feel free to comment and add your observations.
This afternoon is now filled with even more joy as my wife got off work early due to fixing the major fault and resting and reading to Josiah, leaving me free to enjoy some mental outpouring here, even have a smoke and a beer.
Being a house husband is another reason to begin here writing and putting this book together. I've never been a house husband/father before, I of course did not put it down as an ideal career choice in my childhood. Who could have known how amazing it is, but that is precisely why it has be written down how I came to be fabulously rich with abundant love and sweet fortune? Well, if it can be penned I'll ink or leave some text to tell the journey and many of it's unplanned yet stunning outcomes.
Why St Lucia for instance? My life's Caribbean adventure started in St Kitt's one Christmas and new years in 1998/9. At the time I had landed a posh (in Information Technology terms) job with Cisco Systems as a Customer Support Engineer. I was payed well and put my money to exploring something that had called to me as a child. In 1998 my ex-wife and my then in-laws, where going to St Kitt's as this was a once every five year hommage to their home island, from whence they were born. 
In the excitement and preparation for that trip could not match my bewilderment and then amazement at my findings there.
The very first night in St Christopher (St Kitt's), I was to accompany my then cousin in law, Terry, to the nights entertainment. My in-laws thought this would be a hoot for all. It really was. Terry himself is an awe inspiring character. From the first night we got on and bonded. We subsequently had many wild adventures on the party nights out at the local entertainment, to say I learned first hand the love of the Caribbean would not convey anything of the depth of that feeling. 
One-love, Bob Marley sang that. It exists and is real. A community of one. Oh of course the usual surface urban drama exists, but beneath all of that, deep below, there exist bonds that become stronger than any anthropomorphism I can here muster. 
Since living in St Kitt's from 2003 to 2007. I had learned a Caribbean community of love. A bond that exists between all real Caribbean dwellers. I had visited St Lucia in 2003 for a months vacation away from Cisco Systems, after being divorced in 2002. I stayed in St Lucia for a month and instantly fell in love with the natural, easy going, loving atmosphere.
Here now in 2011 and reflecting on that, I am of course more the awed to be living here.
A wonderment though of things occurred prior to boarding the plane at Gatwick airport one cold November morning in 2010 and arriving in this St Lucian 'paradise' island.









Cha. 1.1 Inspiration...

(some of my grammar corrected)
Whilst sitting in a retro 60's Caribbean garden lounge chair, gazing over the blue of the ocean and above, the light puffy white clouds, an idea came to me, I should write a book. 


Why now on this August 25th 2011 on another gorgeous tropical morning? Here in our apartment, a three bedroom bungalow (come castle) nestled on the foothills of the St Lucian mountains (or very, very large hills), overlooking Gros-islet with the warm morning mixed in the cool humidity of last nights grassy mist.


I have pondered on something to do, other than delight in the sumptuous view across a deep green lush semi jungle urban country, across the marina, over the tall masts of the local yachts that have mustered in Rodney Bay for the local clubs, parties and bars that line this fun-loving partying Caribbean island of St Lucia. 


My other task today, assigned by my gorgeous wife (Candi), is to buy a large fan for the living room, which has to be said, does get *bloody* hot, there is no other description, it get's frickin warm in the afternoon, on our roughly south-facing veranda, this new fan will save us loads of energy spending that normally could go on aircon to this simple device. So a large fan is the solution when sipping some cold ones. Apparently the fan I'm supposed to pick up today (and) according to one of wife's friends, never get's turned up to number three. Apparently it's a very powerful big fan and, because I suspect, it would just blow the back ass off the building and take you and the wall it's mounted on, to somewhere else.


 So write a book, every beginning, I thought to myself, just starts with a few simple motions, the walking of a gazillion miles for instance, takes at least one rambling step in the general direction of the intended destination...


...when I have lived these many years here. I guess a book can be all in the title. I'll post a picture of the creation for the book title moment soon, 'bluegold', the explanation of the how the paragraph above came to be, and where I am still coming to terms with living in this surrounding island beauty, the miracle of being a father of my first son, a wonderful big baby named Josiah. 


The story will follow in bluegold. The feeling of immense gratitude in travelling a lifetime to reach a paradise of spirit, heart and mind. Through a 40 year journey, born in a small overspill town, Hemel Hempstead, just north of London (United Kingdom), to this living moment in the warm tropical August of Bonneterre, St Lucia; 


  Imagine please, a 24 million carat gold bar, in the deepest luxuriant velvety blue you could dream up, that's bluegold. To me that simple visual image is Caribbean living, you of course need more details, so more to follow.

Cha. 1 Inspiration...

Whilst sitting in a retro 60's Caribbean garden lounge chair, gazing over the blue of the ocean and above, the light puffy white clouds, an idea came to me, I should write a book. 


Why now on this August 25th 2011 on another gorgeous tropical morning? Here in our apartment, a three bedroom bungalow (come castle) nestled on the foothills of the St Lucian mountains (or very, very large hills), overlooking Gros-islet with the warm morning mixed alongside the cool humidity of last nights grassy mist.

I have pondered on something to do, other than delight in the sumptous view across a deep green lush semi jungle urban country, across the marina, over the tall masts of the local yachts that have mustered in Rodney Bay for the local clubs, parties and bars that line this fun loving partying Caribbean island of St Lucia. 


My other task today, asigned by my gorgeous wifey (Candi), is to buy a large fan for the living room, which has to be said, does get *bloody* hot, there is no other description, it get's frickin warm in the afternoon, on our roughly south facing varanda, this new fan will save us loads of energy spending that normally could go on aircon to this simple device. So a large fan is the solution when sipping some cold ones. Apparently the fan I'm supposed to pick up today (and) according to one of wifeys friends, never get's turned up to number three. Apparently it's a very powerful big fan and also, because I suspect, it would just blow the back ass off the building and take you and the wall it's mounted on, to somewhere else.


 So write a book, every beginning, I thought to myself, just starts with a few simple motions, the walking of a gazillion miles for instance, takes at least one rambling step in the general direction of the intended destination...


...when I have been living these many years here, inspirationally too. I guess a book can be all in the title. I'll post a picture of the creational image for the book title moment soon, 'bluegold', the explanation of the how the paragraph above came to be, and where I am still coming to terms with living in this surounding island beauty, the miraculousness of being a father of my first son, a wonderful big baby named Josiah. 


The story will follow in bluegold. The feeling of immense gratitude in travelling a lifetime to reach a paradise of spirit, heart and mind. Through a 40 year journey, born in a small overspill town, Hemel Hempstead, just north of London (United Kingdom), to this living moment in the warm tropical August of Bonneterre, St Lucia; 


  Imagine please, a 24 million carrot gold bar, in the deepest luxuriant velvety blue you could possibly dream up, that's bluegold. To me that simple visual image is Caribbean living, you of course need more details, so more to follow.