Kiwi On The Loose

Yes it is one of those days when for one reason or another you are thoroughly tired of yourself.
One of those days when you have lost sight of your beauty and you just want to go away somewhere and be like a rock, still and deep and nothing to feel, just be like a rock.
It’s a day when I know that I need to write something that will capture the chaos in my mind, the agony of being me, the me-ish things that seem to haunt my existence from days I can’t remember, long time gone and give me grief now.
A day when I need to write and be released from myself in my writing.

Its not all bad, don’t we all have days like this that have built up over our whole lives, or weeks or the last few days and you get to this point, or emotional state.

This day is the point.
My point.
Every day after this can be different because of what I feel, learn and let myself experience from this day.
I have a choice with what I do about it.
I write to process, and record it somehow.

Sometimes like today, I am willing to feel this kind of stuff, the stuff of being a human being, and know that it passes, that it isn’t the sum total of my whole existence or the whole truth of it.
Other days I don’t let myself feel it, or acknowledge I feel it. I push it somewhere else, I block it very effectively, or put on some disguise or cover up. But more often than not because of my personality I can’t hide the bad days very well.

Some people are very good at it……….they learn it from childhood, when their feelings are denied or when they are hurt in some way physically or emotionally, or when they are invalidated by significant people in their lives. They get the message they don’t matter, so they make themselves invisible. They spend their whole lives doing the invisible thing to avoid the pain. They don’t think they matter. Feeling ultimately causes pain because their feelings and emotions were so hurt or ignored, so they try not feel anything. They do not need anything, they become very self sufficient. They don’t handle people who do need anything from them very well.
People with this kind of background develop ways of being human and having some kind of feeling in addictions or relationships based on physical sensations that briefly create emotional intensity. At least they feel human somehow, even if brief.

We do things for comfort.

I can be like that a bit, but somehow I have come to know what I do, what I need today. And risk sharing that.

We all have pasts, with wounds that haunt us, and the future is about healing those things that surface.
They often surface in our relationships with those closest to us. I have recently discovered this website. I think its awesome.
www.howwelove.com

The fact that I need a hug, or to be held tells me that my soul was scraped raw somewhere in my past, that I am wonderfully human.
My poets heart is sensitive to my inner working and writing is good for me.

See I feel better.

P.S I actually needed the hug several days ago and started to write then. Writing is a way of hugging myself. After all, some of my needs I can meet myself………….and a lot of good honest writing has come out of that act.

I cannot deny that the summer is slowly fading and the season is changing. I feel it in the air in the evening, and in the mornings……that nostalgic air with a nip sensation on your skin. The evenings are getting darker sooner, and the leaves are starting to think about leaving the tree.
BUT summer is still hanging on and I cannot deny that I am seriously happy!
There can be a lot of guilt attached to happiness sometimes. What right have I got to be seriously happy when others are suffering on a personal level, a national level like Haiti and Chile and the gazillions of other tragedies that never make the headlines, and on a global level the world is descending further into need and liberal insanity. Happy? Why?
I have friends who have no reason to smile because of circumstances in their lives.
How can I be happy when they are in pain?
Where’s the justice and fairness in thinking God has anything to do with my happiness or that He is even interested, when he has all this pain and suffering to work on, grieve and care about?

I was driving somewhere last week and I realised something that was going to be important to me. I was talking to God about something that was important to me as I was driving and in a split second thought thru all the above questions and it came to me  that I had fallen into a trap. I decided to not fall into the lies of that trap anymore, and that because I had fallen into that trap I had limited so many things about my Heavenly Father or Papa as I like to call Him after reading ‘The Shack’.

I saw in a split second as I was apologising to God for asking something so trite and selfish in comparison to what he must have on His mind that I had let the voices of doubt, fear, rationality, the media, unanswered questions, the problem of pain, humanism and unbelief shape and define who God really was. I had let my thinking shape and define God, not Him define who He really was. And in that moment I felt such a loss, and such a fool for trying to be so wise. I do so try to be the good kind of wise and in moments like this you just get sick of yourself…trying.

In reducing my expectation to having a God who would not be interested in my pithy and pathetic needs, I had reduced Him to a level of being human in character and capacity rather than God. In thinking that He must find it difficult dealing with the Haiti situation one second, and my assault on the doors of heaven with my pin head needs and desires, I had reduced Him to being human like me.

The mystery about God is that yes he can identify with human needs, life, frustrations, anger, pains and all the good bits as well as be not limited by that human condition. He became a human in Christ to communicate and identify with us.

But the picture of Him is much wider. Massively different. Can I create stars, cell, atoms………..errrrr no!

So why do I reduce Him to not being able to cope or be interested with my wee needs and be all apologetic for asking, believing He has bigger fish to fry.
Part of the answer is that I have let guilt and the problem of pain wear me down and shape my concept of God and the importance of my needs to Him. You do not have because you do not ask and you ask for your own desires………………hmmmmmmmm.

I have bought into the thinking that God is interested in my character development and not happiness. Character and happiness go hand in hand……….character development does not always have to mean trials, tho that is the path of it at times.

Joy is a deep thing that you can have in the midst of any circumstances.
I am going to believe God is interested and cares about my circumstances, and that he enjoys me chatting to Him about them and asking things of Him, like any child would their father.
He’s much bigger than me…………..

If you are visiting my blog for the first time you may notice that there are some anomalies. Like why so much about America and then nada. I spent May 2008 - Jan 14th 2009 in America in Denver Colorado. I went there for love and that love continues to this day to be a very powerful and beautiful thing in my life. In fact it is a life defining relationship, and wonderful journey in my life. For me my personal history could be rewritten as BS and AS. Before Susan and After Susan. That does not devalue BS people and experiences in the least as I believe all experiences are preparing us for something, they are growing us, and can be woven into good in our lives. For me that good can in the now, as well as out there ahead, unknown perhaps or that in your heart you see shadows or glimpses of. Getting to see that may be a long way down the road……..and not all pain can resolve into good. Somethings are too painful or sad to ever be seen as good.
Back to the anomaly………
This blog is a hodge podge of thoughts and reflectionz from my time in America and its aftermath back home in New Zealand. I am a mn on a journey, learning and growing lots. I have so many people to thank for that, at times that journey is not all smooth sailing.
YES I am possibly more open than most about whats happening in the murky waters of my life……….and the waters run deep for sure. I am not a masked man, or wanting others to wear masks around me, I love the warmth and humanity of warm, open, trusting relationships, and that kind of intimacy.
And besides,  I believe I have a heavenly father who weaves all these twists and turns into something beautiful……… who uses all these things in my life. I believe I have a Saviour in Jesus The Christ. I love life, being alive and sharing my life with others, walking the road with them……..friends on the road are very very special.I value those friends.Yes she is one of them.

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The year has started, and I am back at school teaching music. I love holidays and this one to be sure seemed to go one and on forever, it was a summer like the ones you had when you were a kid. I did a lot of thinking, (can’t seem to stop that) a lot of soul searching (can’t seem to stop that) and a lot of dreaming, (can’t seem to stop that one either).
Some dreams have to die, for new ones to be born. I carry too many dreams and really sometimes I am so blind to whats happening in the dream, I miss the real picture.
2010 for me is going to be a year of reality. I sense the strong call of the wild in my life, but there is also a yearning for the familiar and the peaceful. That may just be lying in the sun at the beach or chilling on a couch in my home, or the wonderfulness of having a job, being able to pay bills and touch peoples lives, laugh, take a photo, think or dance.
The call of the wild is best experienced before or after the peace of being home, and in a place that is shaped by you and expresses you. I like home, I like the land I walk on, I like who I can become and appreciate where I have been, I like the oceans that surround me.

This year I do want to write more, and write more from a space that is inhabited by the reality of Jesus in my life, not a pathetic churchy puppet like Christ, but the man Christ. I want to live and write how that relationship impacts my dreams, how I live, what I say and think, yes who I am. I want to rediscover Him myself and not live on past experiences of Him , or others experiences. To be wild it will be my journey with Him, and to be sure that is personal but will also echo and be consistent with the journeys and experiences of many.

There’s a lot of lip service out there to God and Jesus, but not a lot of dust on the feet from walking the hard road.
I want to have dusty feet, and a very open heart, with a face turned to the sky often and especially at sunset and sunrise.
I want to walk in the garden while he talks to me, and sit quietly with His words and bathe my soul in that kind of love.
Yes that kind of love.

Here’s a link to my 1st poem for 2010. On The Third Day

In New Zealand today the sun is as hot as ever, it’s Friday and there’s nothing like a Friday after a weeks work. Where ever you are in the world.

If anyone reads this I wish you a really awesome year. I really do.

On the third day he rose
uncertain and unsure about crucifixion
did it always come with love
was blood the colour of a lovers rose
were rifts in heaven always accompanied by pain

on the third day he rose
carried a dull ache all day
that night still hollow
wrapped his arms around a wine red pillow
and slept
unable to dream of her
walking in the garden alone

Yes the silly season has arrived and I ain’t got no money, and you know what, I am hilariously happy.  When I see everyone out and about flooding The Warehouse getting prezzies, there is a certain amount of gladness that not being flush don’t mean you cant give.
AND in all this I so damm well know that compared to most of the world I am fabulously wealthy. I am so blessed.
So for Christmas all my loved ones will be getting home made mint sauce from my garden and other creative stuff from my own hand.
Far more satisfying in fact, I feel like a revolutionary conspirator knowing I am not on the consumer band wagon, sucked in by advertising and the desire to make money.
So folks that’s my space at the moment.
I have recently updated theBlindPoet.com .
Also I have redesigned QGDesignz.com
I would love you to take a look and let me know what you think, and while you are at it check out my book. Blind Man’s Bluff Vol 1

I hope to write more soon, if I don’t catch you IO hope you all have an awesome Christmas, with real mint sauce!

I find myself hungry for beauty. Not the kind you might think. Beauty comes in many shapes and forms. As I get older I seem to be more pre-occupied with beauty of heart, soul, mind, vision and more internal kinds of stuff. Outer beauty is driven by wanting to be healthy, and to love/respect myself. Nothing to do with clinging to what was or fear of losing who I am. As I get older and more wrinkled I am finding who I am.
Here is a photo blog belonging to a friend of mine. I love his photos and his thinking. Very inspirational.
Beautiful in fact.
http://montestevens.wordpress.com
Check it out now, funk soul brotha.

Hey it’s me!
Don’t you just love spring? For me however, though I know so well that the seasons effect me, it’s not just spring that has got me buzzing today.
It’s not politics, nor a monetary windfall, not the size of my bank account or anything else :-), it’s just simply this. I am glad to be alive and maybe, just maybe I feel so good because I am managing to have some kind of control over my life. TRUST me I am no control freak or policeman when it comes to life, BUT what I am is tired of feeling like I am not doing what I need to be doing.

AND at this moment in time I am making headway in just a few areas.
In this world we live in we can and do feel so powerless. We are bombarded with media messages about what we need and who we could be. THAT’S on top on the messages we bombard and condemn, define or judge ourselves with.

My biggie lately has been my health.
I was heavier than I ever was a few months ago, after 2 years of sitting mainly at a computer being creative and trying to build some kind of income.
NOW I find myself sitting on my couch at night feeling pretty healthy and on a journey towards wellness.
When will I ever learn, when will I ever forgive myself for being so slow to just do something about what I feel bad about.
I joined the gym, I have a weekly appointment with a nutritionist, I ride my bike and am becoming food wise.
I don’t feel powerless against my biggest enemy (xcuse the pun), who is the enemy? Its me!

I am not particularly flush with cash at the moment and maybe never will be, BUT I can live on a shoestring if needs be and I can live better than most of the world. I feel glad and grateful that I can survive and be content going without stuff. We have so much really.

SO YES I am buzzing. I am blessed, I am springy, because just like the seasons change and have a purpose, so am I changing and so do I have purpose.
That is a wonderful thing.
And I have a 1kg bag of coffee beans that smell divine in my pantry.
Even though I can really only do one cup of coffee a day…………..

Such small pleasures.

I love my Saturday mornings @ home. To wake and while I love my job (as a job) I love being home more and connecting with myspace.com, not myworkspace.com. Work is a wonderful part of life, I am thankful that I can work and that my job is involved with peoples lives etc, BUT there is no escaping, its fun and wonderful doing your own work @ home. Trust me, I don’t have protestant work ethicitis where unless I am working I am not happy or have no meaning. I can sit still and listen to the noises in my mind, I make myself stop and think and just be, watch the cars go by my house or look at the clouds, or a moonlight night. I have seen too many people who can’t, and who are actually afraid to do so. Isn’t it great that right now I have the fridge ready to pull out and clean behind, the vacumn cleaner ready to go make love to the floors and I want to sit down and write. This however is just the raving, what I really wanted to write was about the beauty and pleasure in simple things. Twas a feeling I had hanging up the washing, a delicious feeling.
Here’s my list of simple things today that have touched me today with their simple, uncomplicated beauty…….

• Waking to a letter from Susan who is 7000 miles away and 4 hours ahead in time yesterday
• Hanging washing on the line, and while pegging it up seeing the blue sky and feeling the sun dance on my hands
• The feeling of grass under my bare feet
• A coffee in the sun watching the cars go by
• The sound of the dishwasher and washing machine beginning their cycle
• Watering my plants, a Saturday morning ritual
• The sunlight on the wall as I wake, slats of light coming thru the blinds
• The daisies in the lawn sunbathing, being tickled by the wind
• A quick read of the local rag
• The yellow edges of the green agave leaves transparent in the eastern sun

Yes its these simple things that make me realise how rich I am. That I am free in a good land. That being down under does not mean down and out, that great joy can be found in the strangest and the simplest of places. Like the back lawn.

I know I have seen movies over the years of people who have simple lives and one might say a simple mind.
There is wisdom in this kind of simplicity, and great beauty to me.
I want to be like that.