to walk on fire

to share ourselves and our ideas; to be more powerful, together; to express purely and accept whatever comes with grace

[towalkonfire-blog]

Summer goals II

‘And when I am dying I’ll wish for one thing, that I lived the life that made my heart sing’

I’ve been back from my main adventures for 6 months now, I’ve done a quick loop around Europe and done a meditation retreat. But what have I done in these last 6 months but from that? I made an album I guess, learned how to photoshop. I guess thats pretty cool but I’ve spent at least 2 good months bumming around learning how to cook aha.

It’s time for a re-fresh. Here’s a list of the things I’m going to do this summer (woohoo!) 1. Make Videos: I think the time has finally come. One original song of mine a week. Recorded in any means nessessary. Just get it online.

2. Do promotion: Emailing radio stations, sending people my CD, google adwords freaking anything that makes life easier. Promo is literally a force multiplier. I’ve done most of the work already. 3. Health + Fitness: Craft a fiiiine bod. Build muscle in the arms. Learn about it as ya don’t know shit right now Mr Ben. Use weights daily with proper exercises. Go on long runs while listening to audiobooks so you forget time. Explore the world around you. Feel how amazing it is to run really fast on morning runs. Keep eating healthy. Lots of veg. Drinking lots of water in mornings. Take mornings easy while sticking to the morning routine

4. Play real gigs (at least two before Sept): Apply to play gigs in homes (Sofar sounds) and really make a big deal out of it. Craft a superset of 30 minutes that shows of the best of you.

5. Listen and be there for people: Learn instead of telling blazing stories or wowing people off the edge of their seat be really present for people. Learn everything about them. What they care about what makes them tick. Accept and dive into their reality. Remember what happened with Lucy. You simply pointed her focus in a new place. Also, with teaching: No more telling or directing. Embrace pointing> Leading them to lead themselves there.

6. Get Organised: (aha I’m using this too!) Buy a huge-ass board and make it a timeline. Write all the goals along it. Even make a little car with me in it. Make the end where I want to be (200 true fans) and the beggining where I am. Place loads of little goals all along the way. Make them really easy. Use visualisation in mornings. 

1. State life purpose (release the creativity and confidence in others) 

2. Visualise 3-6 months down the line when all those goals are met, really clearly, how I feel etc. Really enjoy and get off on this feeling. Where you are what you’re doing. The ideal situation.

3. Visualise next week/when next goal is completed.

4. Visualise today and how it’ll go

7. Do new things and things just for fun. This is something really new and opposite to how I normally think. I feel like it’s important to have at least a chunk a week where it’s completely unplanned and creative. Like draw something. Make something geometric. Do an experiment. Make something. Play with the ducks. Write a letter to someone. Write a song for someone. sit in the treehouse. Sit in the greenhouse and draw a plant. Go to the Brewery. Jump in the river in the morning. Go eat a fucking pastry that’s delicious. Grow some mushrooms. Tell a girl she’s beautiful with such confidence and sincerity that it makes her month. Start a conversation with an old person. Start a conversation with someone you normally wouldn’t. Learn to get out of bed.

8. Wake up and go to sleep at the same time everyday. 

If there was one mission that would make all the difference to my life this would be it. Nothing would make more difference. To wake up in the morning> Drink water while looking at my big-ass huge summer list timeline. Doing the dream morning routine. Then making a nightly routine and sticking to it. Oh my god. There would be no greater act of self-love.

[towalkonfire-blog]

Summer Goals

I just came back after three months of hardcore adventures in South East Asia. I rode a motorbike 3500 km through Vietnam and Laos. It took me 6 weeks to finish it all. I was on the bike 4-8 hours a day which gave me a lot of time to reflect and to think about things. My journey was far from relaxing. It wasn't always fun. It was more scary than anything else. Being alone on a motorbike in countries like Laos and Vietnam made me realise two big things. 1. Trust your journey. Sometimes life puts you in strange situations which just feels wrong. How could this benefit me? During the trip I realised that once you are in the middle of something, you will be blind. It's only after the event/situation that you will be able to see, that everything worked out perfectly fine. There was no need to worry or to doubt. You could've avoided so much suffering by just trusting.

2. Put yourself first There is a huge backpacker culture that has evolved to the extreme. That is party and drinking. I didn't come to South East Asia to get smashed every other night and have sex with people I just met. I wanted profound conversations on a beach. I wanted Yoga, meditation, healthy food and exercise. Still, I succumbed to the drinking. Not cuz I wanted to, but because everyone else did. And I was alone, I'm not strong enough to be alone in the backpacker scene. So when those people playing drinking games on a dirty table, chainsmoking ciggarettes, when they smile at you and ask you to join them, it's hard to say no. And if you descide to join, you kinda have to drink. A lot. This is a weird point I know but this brought me down to the bottom. But after countless pathetic drunken breakdowns I finally realised that I have to put myself first and the "awkward boring guy who doesn't want to get drunk playing cardgames". Coming back after this trip has made very motivated and inspired to create and to learn. I've made a list of goals/challenges that I want to accomplish this summer, but also keep working at forever. 1. Vegetable Garden This year I will make an even bigger garden than last year. The goal is then to have one full meal with only vegetables ive grown in my garden. 2. Start learning French again. Everytime I go traveling and I hear different languages I think, " man i'd love to be able to speak that" I've studied french before so it shouldn't be that hard to get started. I wont take classes, I'll just do it myself. 3. Music This is a big one. It contains four smaller goals. 1. Improve blues improvisation on guitar 2. Write and record my own music. Minimum of two songs 3. Write, record and gig with my band. 4. Perform in front of my whole family. My dad turns 50 years old in three months. We will have a big party at my uncles farm. I will be responsible for the entertainment so I will first make a music quiz where I will sing and play guitar. When thats done I will be the background music. I will randomly improvise to blues tracks for an hour while people are mingling.

4. Get healthy. My body is craving some exercise and I'm more motivated than ever. I love my body and I feel like I owe it a lot after all the poison I've been feeding it for the past year. I will therefore go jogging in the beaufiful Swedish nature followed up by lifting weights. I want to get strong and for my body to function in the best way possible.

5. Study astrology in depth Astrology has become one of my top interests in just a matter of 5 months or so. I think it's truly fascinating and mysterious. I feel like I've discovered alot about both myself and others. In the future I want to be a professional astrologer giving readings online as a side job.

6. Get organised This is very important if I want to succeed. I will buy a big board where I will write all these goals and other challenges to constantly remind of what I want to do and why, just because I know that after a couple of weeks I will start to loose interest and motivation and writing things down helps to remind me.  

[towalkonfire-blog]

The Battle that not need be fought

Today, I met up with her. I felt so alive. I was truly vunerable in front of someone who’s opinion of me has ruled my life for the past year. In other words: I surrendered. I surrendered to feel everything. To feel pain, to feel lost, to feel inadiquate. 

It was uncomfortable yes, but it’s where reality, where things are reborn. It’s courage: Feeling the fear/uncomfort and doing it anyway.

Our culture always seems to think that overcoming fear is a difficult thing, a battle to be fought and waged. Lots of effort and all of that. But it’s more like a whale.

Yes a whale. We’ve all felt fear. gotten up and cosy with that thing to see what it is and when you really investigate it’s like a whale that swims through you. Like a spirit whale or something that makes you feel things. 

This is the fear that stops you saying I love you. That stops you living a life that you dream of. From exploring to your hearts content, to you sharing your creations with the world. That stops us from living a humble life full of love and connection. That fear.

When you really feel it it’s just a whale going through you.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So here we have it: The answer I have come to after a year of searching: To overcome your fear:

 Write it down. 

Promise yourself to take the next step when the time will come. Knowing that you’re going to die one day. Knowing that life is to be lived. Get ready to embrace everything anew.

 Overcome it by doing this:

Show up on the edge of your fear, walk up to the gate, the boarder whatever is stopping you as close as you can get AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN GET. The book publisher, the music recording company, the love of your life, the crowd of people.

Then

Walk through the gates. 

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ― Joseph Campbell

I feel it’s as simple as that. To put this into action:

Fear: I am scared of putting my music online

Action: I will Record me playing my music + put it online by tomorrow Feburary 1st 2016 by 4pm.

Fuck I’m scared already and feel very alive AHHHH

[towalkonfire-blog]

Why I quit Lucid Dreaming

Dreams are mysterious. I’m not sure what dreams really are. Is it all in my mind? What does dreams mean? How should I view them?  This post will be about one very disturbing lucid dream I had. It was so disturbing that I chose to never ever practice lucid dreaming ever again. It made me question everything about myself. I felt like a stranger to myself. A psycopath. I had been practicing a alot. I was pretty much obsessed with it. I was constantly doing reality checks. Reading my dream journal etc. I got pretty good at it. I got to a point where I would have 1-3 lucid dreams a week. Rest of the dreams were super vivid and super fun to experience. This intense period went on for about two months, until I had this dream. I was with my family in my house. They were very caring and loving of me. My dad was proud of me for getting good grades at school. I was happy and loving back. I was in a good mood in the dream. Somewhere around here, I got lucid. I knew I was dreaming. I went through my “routines”. Rubbed my hands, spun around in circles, said out loud; im dreaming!  I got control of my dream. I could se clearly. I was aware. I was there. So what do I descide to do with my dream? Fly? Explore amazing things?  Nope,,, I pick up a knife and starts stabbing my dad. I cut him to pieces. I remember the look on his face. He was scared and confused. His look just screamed out: Why my son?? I love you.. I then turn to my mom. Still perfectly aware of what I was doing. I enjoyed it. My mom was scared at first but then accepted her faith and just looked at me. I slit her throat. I then turned to my sister. She is 15 years old. I raped her before killing her too... Then I woke up. I start shaking. I start crying. I’m terrified. What the fuck just happened?? Why did I do that? Who am I? It was as if I was lucid as another person. I wasn’t myself. Well I was me. I knew I was in my bed. But my purest consciousness was of somebody else. Of Mr massmurderer. A psycopath. I’ve started to think maybe it was a “fake lucid dream”? Like I wasn’t actually lucid. It was just a horrible nightmare? Because, what signifies us being lucid in a dream? If we, in a dream, KNOW that we are dreaming, does it mean that we actually are? What if I in my dream tell myself: “This is a dream. I’m in bed right now, sleeping. I live at this adress. Yesterday I had this for lunch etc etc.” Does that mean I’m actually aware? Maybe its just a normal dream, but with my mind acting as if I’m lucid.  This is my best theory. What else?  It’s very difficult to talk about this. I just cant find any good explanation to what happened? Of course, I love my family. I would never ever in my life do something so so horrible to them.   - Gemini

[towalkonfire-blog]

A real test

Leonardo.

I’ll tell you what fire family. I am fucking terrified. 

I know there are 1000′s of different things that make life iconic. That make life successful but something is about to happen that really really means so much to me.

Two years ago I met a girl. I met her just before I flew to Austraila. We talked for the whole year pretty much everyday. On whatsapp or whatever. All the way through 7 months of being in Austrailia and I then spent 5 months in France. Along the way I developed feelings for this girl. Somewhere along the way something went amiss. We didn’t understand where each other was coming from. We weren’t in a place where we could be open, and honest. Like we do here.  There was one night where this fustrated me so much that I stupidly got angry with her. It drove our connection up onto rocks and we were stranded.

She was sad. She went so quiet. Our connection was drying up. I felt like I knew where this was going. It was going into an area of pain and rejection as I saw it so I called it off. I ended it. I said we should see other people.

I still fucking adored her. (An example of not being aligned in thoughts and actions :(  )

I went to go visit her after this and she had another guy over. It killed me, it ruined me. I felt so fucking sad that I’d just sit on the toilet for no reason, just to give myself something to do. It was like my brain didn’t work. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t get up. I just spent my days lost in sub-hibernation. Rejecting the world and everything it can give. Lost in the parasite that I’d created in my mind.

I got an offer to go and do the cricket world cup and make shit loads of money and travel. So I did. I left the country again (after being back for just 2 months) and travelled NZ, Austrailia, Thailand, Cambodia. Did the meditation retreat. But she was always there you know. In my mind. She was there when the girls asked why I didn’t give them all my love. It wasn’t finished.  So after a new year of travelling and living my dream. I’m more well-set than ever. Stronger than ever. More understanding than ever. I feel like it’s taught me how to SEE from others perspectives very very well. So now we come to what scares me so much.  After this new year away. I am seeing her tomorrow.  I know I have so much pain connected with her. So much real emotional pain. I was meant to see her today but she had an unexpected funeral. I was feeling fine about her then but I discovered that by best friend Tom is taking her to Poland and it just brought up so much emotional pain. So there’s this concept I’m trying to outline in my mind. It’s like: ‘How do I act my best when there’s deep emotional pain?’ I understand why she did what she did. I understand why I felt so much pain. Isolating those two entities it can be seen as perfectly logical. She could have felt completely rejected. Tossed aside. While I always adored her.  I played so many games (well, we both did) that it ruined it.  I want to be my best self tomorrow. I want to be the person who see’s it 100% from her perspective. The one who has no-ego. Who is comfortable and resolved form his pain he’s experienced in the past.  I want to be vunerable and un-invested. To be honest I don’t know where my feelings are at the moment because I don’t know who she is anymore so I can’t invest anything in her.  I feel we’ve got to be open, honest, understanding, ego-less and both our best selves to help us heal this psycological pain from the past. I feel I’m scared because I don’t want to get emotional. I don’t want to let loose the ‘wild dog’ of my emotions. I want to be my new self, My understanding self. The one who can watch the wild dog with love. Care for it, sit down with it and hug hug it until it melts out of love and understanding.  It’s strange love. I know that I let myself fall before for her. and it’s like you get ropes connecting directly from their heart and they affect you as if it’s like they’re part of you. Tomorrow shall be interesting. I’ll let you know how it goes. I made a thread for this discussion on the forum here: 

http://walkingonfire.freeforums.net/thread/2/best-feeling-emotional-pain-real

[towalkonfire-blog]

Becoming The Temple Dog King

Leonardo: Here’s a story that I wrote in the last few days of my meditation. It’s about doing the opposite of what your mind automatically tells you and what can happen when you do:

I’m here at the meditation centre in Thailand, I’ve been wearing white and not speaking and meditating all day for a month now. Now here, for some strange reason, theres dogs EVERYWHERE. It’s like, the monks think they run the place but they really don’t. Cars trying to get in or out of the temple road have to stop, almost every time for some dog just comfy as fuck, konked out on the roadway. When the cars beep for a while they finally get up like ’Okay fine whatever I’ll go sleep some other place you busybody’

Every morning I go at 8am to see my teacher (He’s a wise as fug monk that sits in a cool chair and gives me wisdom) and before I go in there are these big log benches in the sun and I sit there, every day waiting to go in and there is ALWAYS, without doubt. Always this purple dog there. Yes, seriously it’s a purple dog. This dog is like no-other dog here or anywhere I’ve seen. I asked the english speaking nun why this dog was purple and she said he’s got a skin disease. And yup. It’s pretty minging. He’s got strange lumps all over his neck and most of his hair has fallen out except a streak along his back. He’s got one leg that doesn’t work that well so he kind of hops with one back leg and walks with the front two in this funny pogo motion. He ALWAYS looks sad and walks really slow all the time looking sad and no other dogs go near him. No humans go near him either god no. 

So everyday I look at this dog in my wait and think ‘Yeah but seriously I understand that he’s got a skin disease but why is he purple though.’–The dogs here seem pretty anti-social towards humans, every morning they bark like fuck while we’re trying to meditate and then they have dog fights and eat each other all the time too. But then something different happened tonight. I come out of the meditation hall, get the shiny elevator down and I’m all in ‘oooh look at this beautiful world’ mode. And there, outside, still looking sad as fuck is this ugly as fuck purple dog,  I look at this dog like: Urgh, weird. and then I think: ‘Well today is my do the opposite of whatever my mind says day so I’m going to stroke this dog. My mind said yes, but ma 2nd mind was like ‘WOH HOH HOH MR LOOK AT THAT DISEAAAASE MAN, what if it’s contagious?! You’re going to be so ugly in two weeks none of the girls are going to like you.’ So I stroked the dog and just gave him some love, slowly, with time, like I’m giving a girl a massage and it’s all about them.(This is new, normally I’m happily selfish) gizza blowjob bitchThe purple dog stands in-between my legs. It’s night time and a car comes and my mind says ‘OOH QUICK BEN SOMEONE BAD IS HERE’ But I don’t change what I’m doing, I sit down with the dog. Suddenly two dogs come over all curious and start smelling me like ‘hey this guys alright is he? We can trust this one? They’re being all doggy CAN we trust this one Let’s give him a sniff So now I’ve got three dogs smelling me and I’m feeling pretty loved, they’re great lil things, I was a bit over-aware before of what they might to do me. Ahh.But yeh so I now I have dogs smelling and loving me, the lady gets out of the car and they go APE, like no-one could have seen this coming (dogs appear from nowhere, sleeping dogs that seemed so invisible before are ready and activated) and they ALL bark at her, this poor thai lady in her car is just getting emotionally raped by 20+ dogs and the temple (just going to bed all peaceful) must be feeling the tension so this poor lady must have been so embarrassed. I think for a second, hmm, these dogs have love for me, they will listen to me. So I think right I’ll say something to the dogs, but then I realise I don’t speak dog, or thai, never mind dog thai. So I walk away, cast to fate what will happen to happen and walk away as the lady getting out of her car is swarmed by barking dogs as if she’s some sort of devil dog-bully.

I walk down the roadway alongside the great hall and theres the next gang of dogs, prime gangsters of this dog-eat-dog world, the great hall side door dogs don’t give a fuck, they’ll bark at you if you’re Gandi. I’m pretty tense, it’s me and the gangster dogs now. Suddenly Mr Purple Dog comes RUNNING (Yes somehow his forth and un-working leg is vibrant now) and he’s excited to see me like leaping about like I’ve never seen him move before, this is a new dog. So I give him a stoke for a min, an easy friendly like ‘Awh come-on lad, your a good dog, you should always be this happy’ kinda stroke. When I feel it’s time I walk down the way towards the gangster dogs and along comes Mr Purple striding alongside. This piques the interest of all the other dogs and these hardened I’ll-eat-your-face-with-ma-razor-teeth dogs are soft, poodley sponge-baskets of love. I am swarmed they smell me, and say ello (this is like 14 dogs or so) and it’s like a scene at a club when everyones had lots of MDMA or something, everyone wanted to be connected to me, be all warm and smushy. It’s quite over-whelming becoming the dog-king. I’d not trained for this, I just wanted to learn to concentrate. But here I am, raising plants from seeds on my window-sill, feeding catfish bread buns and now the dog king. It’s like I’m Saint Francis of Assisi or Doctor Dolittle or something. It’s so over-whelming having no room to walk and being smelled by 20 or so dogs so I decide to move on and walk in-stride with these 20 dogs or so now. I come across some toddler dogs, oh man, I’m not sleeping tonight am I. They’re just a bit bigger than the puppies by my little kuti (little minimalistic meditation shed that I sleep in) and they smell my hands and just LIGHT UP with energy, they know I’ve been accepted. It’s like I have a dog-approval aura. The mother dog is a bit more anti-social (well what-ya-gunna-do when you’re having the life juice sucked out of you everyday {literally} )But the most lovely thing, it’s right in this middle of this swarm of ever flowing love, is purple dog. He’s IN THERE, dogs of every colour and size saying hello, it’s like he’s the host of the party. Like ‘look who I brought to love us’ and he’s got all the friends in the world. 

This makes me happy, very very happy.This is funny because we all are that purple dog sometimes, we’ve all been there. I’ve been that dog, I never used to have friends and then I found the weirdos, the rejects and made friends with them and it’s like as soon as you give those people confidence and love, they come into blossom and it’s like everyone else see’s it too and they’re amazed.———

So now it’s the next night. I’ve had my longest meditation stretch ever so far. Two hours. For the last half an hour the dogs were barking like crazy, it’s like the dog empire was in revolution. Hardly a place to peacefully concentrate. I was getting horrible images in my head like booting them in the face. So much frustration. I come out and they’re all in alert mode but my mind is in a different place to them. It’s calm and collected. It’s like I can read the dogs body language very well, I recognise body language I’ve seen in people. The tenseness. They’re all in their gangs Barking and barking, so loudly I was flinching and could feel it through all of my body. There are two gangs stood just barking at each other in an alley next to the great hall OUH OUH OUH. Just as if they were rival gangs in new york or something taunting each other. It’s Ear-Piercing. So I go and stand in front of one group. It’s scary as fuck because they’re dogs in an angry state but I do it anyway. They don’t stop so I go in front of the dog thats in front of all the others and just lower myself to his level and look at him right in the eyes. (oooooh intense) and he still doesn’t stop so I just gently clap. Like really softly for some reason, like a toddler would clap and he just stops, just like that. I go around the dogs and keep this toddler clapping and they all just stop. Sometimes they’d come up to be OU OU OU and I’d walk straight towards them unafraid. I’m not sure why I did this, something to do with sharks and bulls, and they run away scampering. It’s strange because they’re the same dogs from last night.I go on and find the purple dog. Oh here we go. Great thing is he’s playing with the toddler puppy family from the night before. The momma dog is highly social with me now probably as she can smell her pups on my trousers still. So I’ve got this group of six dogs or so. Including Mr magic purple dog. It seems all the dogs needed was that little bit of attention to cool them down. I’ve got a nice team here with me now. The toddler dogs, the mumma and purple dog all playing with each other, rest of the dogs are silent and sleeping. All is good.

There’s a dog barking somewhere far away, I’m going to kill that cunt.—-

[towalkonfire-blog]

The Mental Disease

So I’ve been thinking alot about this mental disease that I feel like EVERYONE has. Including me. It is well known and there are lots of songs and books about it. Its called the “All I want is what I cant have disease” or “ grass is greener on the other side”. Essentially, its the struggle to be happy. Everyone wants to be happy. To be satisfied with life. People are constantly seeking this “thing” that will fill every gap in themselves and make them feel whole. Some believe that its money, or the perfect partner, or the perfect career etc. People are desperate, and most of us get depressed when we’ve been seeking for so long but cant find it. Some of us turn to drugs and other short lasting pleasures.  Now, most people are constantly living in past and future. They dream about the future all the time. And thats great! There is nothing wrong about dreaming away and creating your future in your mind. However, when they return to “reality”, most people find themselves being unhappy and dissapointed with their life situation. Again, they start dreaming. Perhaps this time going into the past, trying to relive all their prescious memories they have. Thing is, when those memories was in the now, they were probably unhappy with their lives back then too. The thing with memories I’ve found, is that the older a memory gets, the more beautiful it becomes. You start to forget all the bad things that was going on at that time. You’ve focused on it so many times that you are actually “reshaping” the memory. For example, you have a beautiful memory about a holiday in spain three years ago. You and your friends were chilling on a beach enjoying a beatiful sunset. The warmth, the light clothes, the pretty girls and so on. Just an amazing memory! Now when this memory took place in the now three years ago, you were probably annoyed with lots of things!  Mosquitoes, getting sand everywhere, feet hurt after a day of walking, money was running out, annoying loud people everywhere. Maybe this wasn’t the best example hehe. My point is, I feel like we tend to forget all the bad things about what was going on. We totally strip them off, leaving us with this perfect memory making us believe that at that time, we were totally happy. And if I could only go back to that place in time my life would be complete. A single man may miss the time when he was in a relationship. He isn’t happy with being single. He constantly thinks about the beautful times he had with this woman. He thinks if he could just go back to being in a relationship he will be happy. He has completely forgot about the cons about being in a relationship and havent spent a single thought on the things he is grateful for being single. He finds another woman and one after one, “negative” aspects about being in a relationship starts popping up everywhere. They are very familiar to him but he have completely forgotten about them. He finds himself still being unhappy and the cycle continues. THIS, I’ve been thinking a whole lot about my friends! I’ve read lots of books and articles and they all have one common core in their teachings summed up in two words... “Look within”. My ego hates this. Fucking riddle I thought. Just say the ultimate truth already fucking hippy turds. I got very frustrated because it felt like I was reading the same thing over and over. The best book by far though must be, “ The Power Of Now - Eckhart Tolle”. This has been my bible for a while now. I really recommend it though something tells me you’ve already read it. But still with this book, I feel like he is talking in riddles sometimes. Maybe its a language barrier or something. But I’ve tried to simplify things for myself. I think the most important part of becoming “happier” is to put much more focus on what you already have and what/who you already are. To be grateful. It’s super duper powerful. Sometimes I catch myself being identified with the disease ive been talking about. Im like, awh everything sucks, if only I could do this I would be sooo happy. I catch myself with these type of thoughts and starts to think about everything I’ve already achieved and I instantly feel so much better. “BE GRATEFUL”.... (which leads me to the next thing which this whole post was going to be about at first before my mind took a different route) Until now I think I got this whole being grateful thing wrong. I confused it with being satisfied. See, I’ve spent alot of time trying to tame my “disireful” spirit into being satisfied with everything I already have. I thought this would be the key, to not desire ANYTHING and only focus on what I already do have. Because wanting = not being happy with what you have,,, I thought. Now that I’ve understood that there is a HUGE difference. I feel like we are supposed to WANT to acheive things. To set huge goals and dream about them alot. BUT, never to forget about being grateful of everything we already do have. This my friends, I believe is the recipe for success and happiness. If the man had only felt grateful for everything he had being single he would be much happier, single or not. Perhaps this is an obvious thing for you, but for me this is huge. Im now taking action in my life and I’ve stopped trying to tame my impulses at everything I want to do. I quit my job four days ago and im now planning a trip to south east asia.  Take care - Gemini

[towalkonfire-blog]

A Painful Lesson

So a couple of days ago I had one of the most emotionally painful nights I’ve ever experienced. I got dumped by my girlfriend about two months ago now. And to be honest, I’ve felt pretty good about it. From day one I had this sense of excitment of whats to come. I new a couldn’t change her mind. I new it was over for good. There was no point in being sad. Its a new beginning I thought. I immediately accepted it. Made peace with it. It hasnt been a struggle at all. That doesn’t mean our relationship was bad or that it was a definite good thing she broke up with me. We had a great time and she taught me alot and I taught her alot too.  I spent new years eve with some friends and some of their friends who I’ve never met. It was a nice party. After most people had left and the party was over, a guy called Behzaad shows me his new vaporizer. It was super small and made out of wood and a battery. It was pretty cool. He offered me to have a go with it. I got a good happy high. It was all good until the day after. When I wake up the next day I feel this negative emotion, and as if the emotion is IN MOTION. I feel as if something is being brought up. I feel anxious. I feel tense. Sick. Without me wanting it, images and memories of my ex starts passing by infront of my eyes. I see us, I see all the happy, loving and intimate moments. I miss her more and more. I catch myself with common post-breakup thoughts like; Wasn’t I good enough? What went wrong? Can I get her back? etc etc. For a while I was just drowning in these thoughts. I identfied with them. I felt horrible. Like really, I wouldn’t mind dying. In the midst of my suffering a start writing to my ex in tears. I asked her why she never started text conversations with me. Why she never asked me if I wanted to hang out. Then I started asking her questions about her experience of the whole breakup. Did she ever miss me? Did she think about me at all? I was pathetic. I think I wanted to have some kind of comfort from her. I wanted her to say that she also felt horrible. That she missed me alot and that we should meet. However, I was hit by the largest brick wall in the world. She said: “To be honest Gemini. Im completely over us. I actually haven’t even felt the need to write to you. I rarely think about you at all” ICE COLD! My emotions just went crazy. By thoughts went crazy. Ahh those feelings of rejection, of not feeling loved and apprecieted anymore. I came to a point where I had suffered enough, just in one night. I started meditating. I observed the thoughts that I first identified with. I recognised them and I knew that they weren’t true. It’s never been easier for me to identify my ego. I was like: HAHA HEY YOU LITTLE EGO PRICK!! I SEE YOU! I KNOW YOU ARE THERE. Once I got rid of my thoughts and cleared my mind. I slowly started to focus all my attention on the horrible horrible feeling I felt inside. The feeling of heartbreak. Eventually, my whole being was focused on this feeling. I was observing it. The pain. I embraced it. IS THIS ALL YOU GOT MR HEARTBREAK?? Waves of intense pain rushed through me. Resistance of what is. Soon, the waves calmed down and eventually became still. My consciousness was shining with its brightest light at this dark horrible emotion. This energy block. Suddenly I feel a sensation of relief. It feels as if the negative emotion is transmuting itself into a positive one. In waves/pulses I feel the pain go away and instead, waves of positive emotions are surfacing. Super slowly I am transmuting negative energy into positive energy, entirely by concentrating.  Unfortunately my fueltank of focus runs out after a while and im back. Feeling much much better though. I’m amazed and proud of what I actually did. Instead of ignoring my negative emotions I sent love and presence to it. I accepted it as it was and it almost ceased to exist. I will focus on it during my meditation the coming week to see if I can get rid of it for good. - Gemini

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The fire inside

This fire that inspires us. This fire that creates beauty, intensity, connection, music, art, LIFE. That gives us hope. That gives us love. This fire you sense in great people you adore and people you want to be like, but don't know how to ever become this way. This fire. This fire burns in everyone of us.

Let me say that again. It burns in EVERYONE.

It took a long time for me to realise that, to understand that. To FEEL that. For years I was caught in patterns I did not fit in but adapted. I did things I did not want to do. I was someone I did not want to be. And didn't even realise it. I thought it was my fault and hated myself for it. Sometimes I got so angry and hateful that I had to hurt myself because I couldn't cope anymore. I simply did not know why I didn't just give up. I couldn't see a point in living.

But everything changed. Now I am on my way to overcome my fears, to fully love myself, to being this wonderful person I am, this spiralling beaming light. This creature of light everyone of us is.

Let me tell you.

It all starts in New Zealand. I was travelling down there and spent Christmas in Taupo on Reid's Farm, a free camp site that just seems to attract people who want to connect and love and share. This is were I first got in touch with spiritual folks, hippies, true love and connection. Because of the people I met there I went to the most wonderful, inspirational, beautiful music festival I could possibly imagine: The Luminate Festival.

At the end of January last year we all met on the festival grounds on the South Island in Golden Bay. On top of a hill, in midst of a beautiful forest. For eight days I felt like I was in a different world. A world where everything was based on love. On sharing, giving, acceptance.

Of course, I spent the nights dancing.

The days I spent talking to the most amazing people. People who fascinated me. People I wanted to be like and people I didn't want to be like. But this didn't matter. I loved all of them. And I also spent the days taking part in workshops of all kinds.

One of them was an 8 hour thing where a man called Jamie Janover talked about the “Unified Field Theory” (seriously, amazing shit) of Nassim Haramein and his Resonance Project. It just blew my mind. I learned about how everything is connected, about fractals, about energy, about spiritualism and science being unified, about meditation and physics. This workshop was like a spark, kindling a chain of new ideas and ways of looking at things, of deeper understanding and, of course, of awakening.

The next day I took part in a workshop called “dancing freedom”. It took place in one of the big workshop tents, a man and a woman told us about what was gonna happen and then just put on music. We all started lying on the floor, listening. And slowly, whenever we felt ready, we started to move to the music. At first, we connected to the earth, so we basically just crawled on the floor. It just felt weird. But I stayed, because I just knew I should. After a while the weird feeling disappeared, as everyone looked around and saw that all of us were dancing. So it was okay. We began to move more freely.

Then we danced like water. I felt my body and my mind smoothing, slowing down. Arriving.

When we came to air, I felt as light as I never had before. I did not think. I was present in this particular moment.

And when we started to dance like fire an energy of unstoppable, limitless power came rushing through my body. Every cell was beaming, shivering, dancing. Alive. Love filled my heart. I could sense everyone around me with my eyes closed and felt a connection grow between all of us. I opened my eyes and danced with the others, we looked each other in the eyes and I knew everyone else could feel it, too.

So I closed my eyes again and just surrendered to the moment. I just let go.

And a sensation of pure ecstasy filled my whole being.

And I danced my fucking ass off.

I had no doubts, no fears or blocks in this moment. I did not worry about anything. I just felt the fire burning, felt my limitless energy pounding and spiralling. I simply was.

And this is where I cannot continue because I have no other words for it. This is not something I could describe to you. This state of full awareness and ecstasy. This state of pure love.

When the music finally stopped it was like waking up from a feverish dream. I had to blink and look around to realise where I was. I felt like my body was steaming.

Then we all hugged each other and left.

I went outside the tent and had no idea where to go. So I just wandered around, not capable of talking or thinking, thoughts just raced through my brain, I couldn't follow any of them.

I had no idea what had just happened. I felt happy as fuck.

As I told you already, it took a while for me to realise. To understand. That on this festival I had felt the fire. That I had felt what limitless energy lies sleeping inside me. That it is on me to peel off all those layers of fear and doubt and pain that keep blocking me, to unleash THE FIRE. THE LIGHT. THE LOVE. Whatever you want to call it.

I realised a few months later, when I met the beautiful inspiring Leonardo in Australia and saw someone in him I wanted to be and now know I am.

But I didn't fully and truly understand until now. A year later.

And I cannot tell you how fucking excited I am. About all the wonders of this world. About myself. About the path I am taking and of everything that is, was and is going to be.

Accepting pain, the feeling of being hurt or lost, fears and states of doubts as a part of myself and taking it by the hand to walk beside me, I will go ahead, through all the ups and downs that are going to come and thereby unleash my beautiful self and love and accept my fearful self and maybe even let it go someday.

And I won't become. I will be. I am.

So, just go out there and do whatever the fuck it is you love and do it with passion and heart. Let’s be those wonderful creatures we all are and let’s be together, because “there is so much more wind when we sail together”.

I love you all so much.

- Matoaka

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The Poem

I always hated poetry. ‘Teachers can shove their word-masturbation up their arse’ was the thought I ran with.  The teachers would assign them anyway. Big serious assignments. BLURGHH

This is one I actually handed in once:  ‘Choo choo choo the train enters the station

Oh good the train has arrived

Choo choo choo’ Yeah, I basically lived in detention. But then I sorted out my wild mentially-defficient-wild-pig of a mind and one night while turbo-procrastinating I had a thought stuck in my head that I couldn’t put into words. You know that feeling? Where you’ve got the thought in there, it’s super sexy and delicious, you can feel the excitement rise JUST like you KNOW it’s coming but there are no words there? So I wrote a poem for like 4 hours one night because that’s what happens when you try to get me to revise. Since then I’ve learned it by heart and keep it close to me in times I need it.  It describes my first dipping in Walking On Fire and I invite you to fall into this. ‘There’s a feeling found, walking through an unexplored place.

Wishing life gave you reason, wishing life gave you grace.

That small warm feeling you wanted all along,

Is your own piece of beauty, your own swan song. Imagine a wood you have never been, you’re running and sprinting and see a pool with glinting gleam! 

You run and jump no thoughts thought through and fall into free-fall with never-ending new. And just as the pools cold-hard ceiling you are to break and shatter it’s surface where you are to wake...

... the pool never shocks It’s warmth surrounds you. You’ve found yourself now, and yourself you can re-new. Around near your heart you can feel all it’s ringing. You lie back and listen: It is your soul that is singing’

-Leonardo X

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How alive can we feel?: The ecstatic notion of Pure Awareness

I heard whispers from mysterious old lady buskers and words from boring clerics about higher love, about feeling the very presence of God in everyday life. If you’d have told me back then that we can go to a place and experience ripples of ecstasy flowing through us in any moment. I’d never have known that place was a place so readily found. (And I’ve have thought you a massive dickhead)

After the success that came from reading the title of a book ( Feel the fear and do it anyway) and just applying it’s CORE PRINCIPLE in everyday life worked so well for fun life transformation and overcoming fears I seem to have gotten in a bit of a habit of just scanning books for these principles, finding them and just applying them in everyday life. 

I see books as sparks from someones mind, fascinating sparks streaming out into the platform of our minds, supernova sparking from the sparks already in our mind. It’s as if you write a NEW book together, creating something completely new and unseen. 

It’s a sunny day in Byron Bay and I’m living in a house full of Hippies (With Azza) (-He’s the wiseman prophet Gemini and Soph) Someones reading Confessions of a Sociopath (shit but interesting book) so while everyones having their third bong of the day of whatever I have a super-scan through. WOH BOOM- TARGET ACQUIRED *Mission control we have a principle located Sir!* 

‘Send to mainframe for processing’

‘Right away Sir’ So Boom boom boom. This lady did attention experiments where she’d play with what she was focussing on in this current moment. On only one page in the book I came across this gold: She described, in only one line an experience of being aware of every single thing going on in that moment, lost in a state of complete ecstasy. Boom that shit was mine and I RAN with it. I couldn’t find anything online (then) but real experience is worth more than gold than any digabit of crap. It works. It completely works. I’d cycle around Byron just focussing on the moment, feeling what I felt. The seat beneath me, the smooth motion of my legs winding around the pedals, the sun on my face, the wind in my arms. Just the SMOOTHness of the titling. The trees move above me. Life becomes a movie where you’re the main actor. It’s like you’re removed from it in a sense. There’s just what you’re aware of and the warmth inside and that’s it. Pure Ecstasy. So I wanted to see how far this could go. I spent some time floating in the tea tree creek that goes out to the sea on the naked beach. It’d been a hot day so the lake was warm, like swimming in a healing, light, honeyed elixir.  But life is life so the sun set, the sky was inching towards darkness more and more and the wind had picked up. Ahh fuck. That freezing oh-fuck-me-now after shower feeling of freezing your life out. AND YOU KNOW THAT FEELING, WE BUILD IT UP AND WE REJECT IT FOR ALL ITS WORTH AHH I FUCKING HATE IT. But no. This is a new chapter of life now. Every moment we choose who we are. Time to release the beast that is Pure Awareness. This is where things get really weird. Stepping out of the warm bath creek into what felt like an arctic blizzard storm became an experience beyond words.  I decided to feel, I felt each sensation, the heavy wind blew right through me and sand blasted my previous thought-world away. I felt and felt. Each sting was not a sting but almost an indescribable nethier-good-nor-bad ZING of light or a space to a new place, the woosh of a swan taking off with great wings, it was the cold of an adventurer who’d just reached the summit of mount everest. There was no cold, simply sensation and empowered enlightenment. A planted my arms to the side, embracing all that came. I closed my eyes and let the world have it’s way. I could have died and nothing would have changed. Not a worry would touch my mind.  I sincerely felt the presence of God in that moment. Words get in the way of describing moments like this I’m pointing in a direction that I know can bring great fulfillment. Maybe it was the euphoria that came from having my fears flamingly re-written as an exhilarating rush but this is available to everyone. This is available to you. Pure Awareness: Placing your focus on all things around you and embracing everything that comes superfast. Enjoy! Experiment! and Let me know how it goes! XXX -Leonardo

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Feel The Fear and...

Standing in Waterstones in London (The fifth one of the day) in the middle of my busk-the-London-Underground season I had two years back I was standing in awe at the self-help and spirituality, glaring as if I was the most greedy of man sluts at an Ibizan nightclub. I was in my element in there I loved it. Fresh busking money in hand I wanted to install these wisdoms and knowledges into my mind as fast and economically as possible. 

It was in this groovy mind state my eyes came upon a book called: ‘Feel the Fear and do it anyway’ 

Feel the fear and do it anyway?

Feel the fear and do it anyway

*echoes away*

I read a little chunk of it and it was about a woman doing workshops or someshit and my mind was always thinking: GET TO THE POINT WOMAN AHHH’ I already had the 40 Laws of Power, The Alchemist and Johnathan Livingston Seagull in hand (SEXY BOOKS) so I thought fukkit. I had always been scared of girls. Seriously. All the way through school those humans with different bits terrified me. They can crush you yo, see through your soul. I was always terrified to talk to them. I even had a girlfriend for 5 months who I talked to four times in our entire relationship.  *bows* thank you very much It came to Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, my terrified of girls mindset locked in nice and tight as if it was real and I headed into the centre of the stones where 20,000 wild hippies danced, hula’d and drummed the night away.

This is where I came across a girl with huge night sky eyes. She was wearing knights armour and was next to (as I later learned) Arthur Pendragon (Of the knights table) she looked at me with wide eyes. (To be honest I was so confused and overpowered with curiosity at the same time) I talked to her and she was experimenting with life, talking to the knights and just randomly was borrowing the armour of someone there. But then it happened. BOOOM I was attracted to her. THE TERRORS. THE SCREAMS IN MY MIND! Brain: ‘HEY REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU GOT MEGA CONFUSED WHAT TO SAY? MAYBE THATS WHY SHE MOVED HER FACE AWAY WHEN YOU WENT TO KISS HER OH YEAH AND THATS WHY THE NEXT ONE DID IT TOO. YOU’RE A FAILU- Oh shush you brain.  Moments came and went- We’re in the middle of the stones awash in noise and light and dancing hippies, we’re following each others hands. I’m terrified, my insides are screaming. I’m in fear, fear is wrapping itself around me in every fiber of my being. When the book title comes to mind: Feel the fear and do it anyway. Boom. Why be afraid. I go and kiss her right there and then. The perfect moment. We’re in love for the night and write letters then on and have a beautiful romance lasting a long time. We talked and could talk easily. 

It just worked.

It seems these skyscrapers of fear and just holograms afterall. * * *

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My top 2 Dreams!

1. Being a deer. Yes, this is the best of the best dream ive ever had. The story is to long but basically I was walking in this forest, I found a pool of water in the ground. I closed my eyes and drank it. When I opened my eyes (still in the dream) I see the reflection of myself in the water (exactly like that scene from the lionking) and I was a freaking deer. I felt like a deer! I could feel my four legs. I could feel my nose was longer. Walking was the funniest thing, I watched my legs just walk in perfect sync with eachother. I ate some grass and i chewed it FREAKING SIDEWAYS. Like not up and down like a human would do. I grinded it between my jaws, sideways. Like an actual deer would do.  After I woke up I was totally confused. Was this all in my head? Like was it my mind just imagining what it would be like if I was a deer? Or was this what it genuenly feels like to be a deer? Was my consciousness being one with ”god”, “source”, “the unmanifested”?? What the actual fuck was this thing I just experienced? What are dreams? 2. Seeing in 360. This was also a lucid dream. In the midst of my obsession with it. I was wondering how aware I could actually be in a dream. Like, what if..I..would meditate? Can you meditate in a dream? So at this point I was pretty good at controlling my dreams. I manifested my usual temple in the middle of a group of tropical islands. I always start my dream by imagining this. Once I found my balance, not becoming too excited and not becoming too unconscious. I sat down. I started meditate. I was close to lose my consciousness and dooze off into a regular dream but I got snapped out of it, and I opened my dream eyes and for a very brief moment I saw in 360. This is very difficult to explain especially when english is not my first language. But in reality as we know it, our eyes are able to pick of information within an angle of 180 degrees. Straight left and straight right. We dont have any attention here though. Everything there is blurry right? Now in this dream I had a huge wide field of view, and I could see every detail of it with 100% focus. I had focus on what was in front of me and of what was behind me at the same time. Its difficult to imagine, but Ive always wondered how animals view the world. Like a horse or a cameleon. They must be close to 360. May not have 100% focus everywhere though. - Gemini

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Loneliness, confusion and boredom.

Hello beautifully, mysterious unknown people! This will be my first post that I share with you. I dont know any of you except for Ben. Ben and I met eachother at a bar in Hobart, Tasmania. We had a 6 hour long sparkling-never boring-fucking amazing conversation about life, lucid dreaming, psycology and much more. Never ever had I met a person so enthusiastic about life before and most of all, I had never met anyone so interested in me and my ideas, my experiences, my perspectives etc. There had never been ANYONE. No friends or family who I could share these things with, without being judged and labelled as a weirdo. Now, when I was a little boy, say between ages 0-11. I was a fucking Jedi without even knowing it! You see, I’ve got these crystal clear memories when I just felt so so alive. I can remember being aware of my breath and always feeling wind in my face and hair. Really feeling my body when I moved. Really really tasting the food. I was just hyper aware. No thoughts were blocking my consciousness. No internal talking, no mental noice. I was still, ALL THE TIME. I wasn’t interested in past or future. I was only interested in the now. I was permenantly in a state of no mind. Then somehow I lost all of this. I got into another school. Kids hit puberty, I didn’t. Until very late. School started to ramp up the pressure along with mum and dad. I had to get good grades otherwise I would end up homeless at the street with no “worth” I started to think i was ugly, that I didnt fit in, wasnt enough. Ahh you recognise all this. The usual story of a depressed teenager.  But basically this is where I got unconscious. I developed a monster of an ego and went on with life carrying false believes along with lots of other bullshit. I’m still carrying alot of this even today. But I have come to learn that it’s a huge difference between UNDERSTANDING and REALISING. However, after a couple of years of deeply unconscious life, I got my first accidental Lucid dream. This lucid dream was the Big Bang leading to everything that is to come. The dream itself was pretty funny. I was at the top of a building looking down. I got conscious, imagined this huge sharp knife at the ground houndreds of meters below me, and I thought, if this is a dream, I cant die if I jump on it. So I jumped and I got into a skydiving position. I landed with my belly on the knife and it was as if i was rubber. I got myself on the knife like a condom on a penis. Then I bounced back to the roof. After this, I wanted to know more about what just happened! I told my friends, they thought I was weird and had never experienced it themselves. I started reading about it. I wanted to do it again. I came across meditation. Got interested. Learned about crystals, healing, spirituality in general. But I got absolutely obsessed with Lucid Dreaming. Looking back I think it was because it was like the ultimate drug. I could escape everything going on, both inside and outside of me, into this whole other realm where I was the creator. Sadly I lost almost all interest after a very disturbing dream which I wont share with you today. But it was actually so disturbing that when I woke up I was scared of myself. Got badcase anxiety and regular feelings of panic for a while. Today, I’m desperatly trying to reach that state of me when I was a kid. That state of total awareness and presence. I know it! I’ve felt it! I know it exists but I never realised how prescious it was until now. I dont really know HOW I would reach it again though. I know im able to, I know i will. I dont believe I would have to completely dedicate my life to meditation like a monk. I never did when I was young. I didnt know anything about the world or who I was. I just was. Being. I’m also spending alot of time alone. I dont have a lot of friends anymore. The friends I do have, have become very unconscious and negative. I can feel myself soaking up there negative views and thoughts like a spounge. Luckily im conscious enough to recognise those thoughts quickly and drop them. Im still thankfulI for having those friends though. I pratice self awarness by being around them. They are training me to increase my consciousness and help me on my journey back to the 6 year old Jedi me. However, I do want more positive friends in my life. Friends who make me grow. Friends who love. Friends who are postivie about life. Actually, (warning for extreme cheesyness) people like BEN! I need conscious people! But, now the duality of my star sign kicks in. Maybe, what I need is to feel lonely. Because, if I can find total peace in being alone. That would give me such a great advantage in life. I would never depend on anyone because I know I’ve always got myself. The first side of the coin resonates more with me though. I want to travel again. I want to meet consious people. I want to love.  I will Travel. I will Love.

Sorry for wrong grammer and spelling. I dont write or speak in english very often. /Gemini

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Meet the Dragon

Delighted to be a part of this journey with you all. Hello to the mysterious Sophie Philo your name alone brings a smile to my face. I am delighted we are entering this new era of Walking on Fire. For my own part I have had a baptism of fire recently. I have had a very rich dream which has taught me more than ever the value of walking on fire, the original spur behind this good company. More than ever I see the value of walking on fire and its sincerely profound value for what we are all trying to accomplish with our lives.

    My dream begins in silence. I am a frozen Frodo Baggins. Outside of a cave there is a sleeping Gandalf. On the cliff above the cave stands a dragon of stone. This aspect of my life has been frozen has been in stasis has been on and off of action hence I am frozen. Mythologically speaking we have the hero Frodo the part of me that is frozen in the prologue of the dream. Then there is Gandalf here to play the role of the Wise Old Man. He is the Merlin to my Arthur, the Yoda to my Luke, the Dumbledore to my Harry. His role is to guide me to teach me and initiate me into the magical mysteries of the world. And finally we have the dragon. He is the symbol of the greatest enemy, of the deadliest foe, the nastiest evil. He is Darth Vader, he is Voldemort, he is Sauron. He is the unspeakably powerful and dangerous evil. And he is as much a part of me as Frodo or Gandalf. The Cave is the unconscious. In mythology we often find the dragon in the cave guarding the treasure. This is the core of the Self. This treasure is what all of fire walkers are seeking. It’s our true self. It is the power to craft our own destiny. It is to become who we are.

    The dragon has been the source of my revelation for I have seen him now. To have a greatest foe. To have this greatest evil in oneself. I asked myself when interpreting this dream: where is this dragon in my life? It is all well and good to find such things in mythology, Hollywood and fairytales but psychologically speaking where is my dragon? What is the evil in my life which keeps me from my treasure?

    And here we have him. When I go to dance classes I am haunted by fear all day. I find my mind presenting me with exceptions and outs for not going. It searches for a way to avoid this battle. Dancing is a most vulnerable experience for me and going is a storm every time. Reason being I am a man of mind I am comfortable in words and books and philosophical debates. But I know its good for me. In the scales of balance and harmony my body is far out of touch. It is the part of my development I have never properly tended to. In tending to this neglected element of myself I have to face exposing myself to God forbid making a fool of myself. And so there is reason here for a dragon. This balancing work, which is a cause for celebration in the harmony of the being, is made extremely difficult by the dragon. When people go on diets what makes them break? The demons in a moment of weakness. The dragon is pride. The dragon is greed. The dragon is fear. It is a fear of change of vulnerability of all the things which allow us to create the life we want to live. Perhaps he is the embodiment of the 7 deadly sins. The dragon is security. I am safe in my intellect. Scrooge is safe in his money. We are looking for shelter from the storm of life. But happiness and security don’t get along all that well. Neither do life and security what with Hamlet’s slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and his question is the challenge of the dragon: whether it is better to suffer these storms of life in the mind to avoid these acts of walking on fire and put up our best defense against Outrageous Fortune or whether we ought to “take up arms against the Sea of Troubles and by opposing them end them”. This is what it is to fight the dragon. This is what it is to walk on fire.

The dragon is also power. It is this mythologically mighty force which has the power to lay waste to thousands of men. And so what power has a wee mortal is facing such a beast? The dragon is the thing that holds us in a rut that keeps us down. The dragon is a mundane element of everyday life. We all know it. We have all wrestled with the dragon. Every man and woman has had a dream broken on the scales of the dragon. I have had more than my fair few. I have attacked with great motivation and found myself backslide from doubts and weariness. These losses can destroy us as we see them adding up (well I couldn’t succeed that time so how’s it going to help this time)

    The thing about such failures is I have seen them each as an individual. Each failure was a demon. I never saw a dragon. I had no picture of the battle I have been fighting. There is a power in knowing your enemy. And this has been my revelation about walking on fire. We have all felt its importance in our lives that in walking on fire we have experienced the greatest moments of our lives. It has brought a meaning and thrill and empowerment into our lives. We have sensed the importance. In the language of symbols in the language of fairytales, dreams and myths we have been fighting the dragon.

    All my failures and all my successes. Every little act of walking on fire and every backslide has been part of a greater battle. It is the battle of our lives. It is the hero’s greatest challenge. What does it mean to slay the dragon? It is to gain the power over one’s life. There is something that all self-help is trying to achieve, that all motivational speakers try to awaken it is the strength to defeat the dragon. But Joseph Campbell talks about this beautiful caveat at the end of this myth. When the hero has slain the dragon he must drink its blood. The dragon is a part of us psychologically you cannot just cut the part of your psyche out and be done with it. In drinking the dragon’s blood we integrate the dragon (St George tames the dragon which is psychologically the same but less visceral in capturing the essence of what we are talking about here). The power of the dragon is the treasure of the soul. It is the fire the passion the drive. With no dragon we have are the greatest power in our own psyche or rather we have discovered the greatest power in our psyche. In our dreams we will find the corresponding opposite of the dragon in appearance: the king, the benevolent ruler of his kingdom. The absolute ruler but now instead of greedily guarding treasure we have it shared amongst the kingdom. The king rules benevolently and the people love him and they all live happily ever after.

In short what I am trying to get at is that anybody who dares to walk on fire is a hero. The act of fighting the dragon or sauron or voldemort is something we are dedicated to doing in deciding to walk on fire. I love (as I know you also do Leonardo) a powerful metaphor, an empowering story which moves us to action. The story of the dragon is such a story. In fact it is THE story, common across cultures for thousands of years millions of people who have felt the power of this creature.  When I feel the nerves which tell me that an act of walking on fire is demanded of me I know that I am being offered the chance of taking the sword from the stone, I know that I am fighting the battle of my life and of all life, I know that my act of walking on fire is the act of fighting the dragon. And if I fail well I’ll be back again. Every assault damages the dragon and builds my strength. Every failure is one step closer to slaying that dragon and claiming my treasure.

-Phoenix

[towalkonfire-blog]

Where I’m at

Here’s my plan for the next four months after returning from travelling:

Dec: Help Family life (Spend some time with my Mum) + Busk some money (I have 15 pounds atm after spending everything woohoo)

In Meditation I really felt my Mum’s pain at everything she’s gone through in life so I’m going to help clean the house and make food and things.

Jan: Record my music (Super focus on becoming a very good producer)

Just like what I’ve done with psychology, if you become a fantastic psychotherapist you never need one, so I’m focussing on become a really good record producer now.

Feb: New Projects (Advanced learning techniques, Recording Audiobooks, New music experiments, Videos endless videos aha)

Breakthroughs I’ve had put into action. The things I’m passionate about furthered.

March: Run events in London

I’m going to run three nights a week:

Yoga flow (A night where a safe space is created with an intention to let what is within out, Meditation then Yoga then improvised dance with contact yoga, gaze holding. A colourful night to be reborn.

Improvised Comedy

Music: Why look for a gig when you can create one? Create a ticketed night with the best musicians I know.

All this while mediating daily (It’s like you get 30 hours a day instead of 24!) I’ve never felt so productive in my life since.

One thing I’m going to work on is my terrible sleeping pattern, I’m going to be aiming to sleep at 10pm and wake at 6am. Do help me.

Love you all X

Leonardo

[towalkonfire-blog]

Adventures In Vunerability

I think if there’s once concept that has changed my life more than anything else it is overcoming fears and chasing my deepest desires, what has excited me from deep within.

You know that inner fire you get when you meet someone, hear an idea, even see a pattern or hear a song and it just makes you FEEL deep down?! That’s what I’ve chased. I’ve heard some say it’s the universe telling you that thing is very very important to you. I like that.

I see it as free falling now. You’re in a bar and see a pretty girl that you’d like to talk to. The moment when you get fired from your job. You get kicked out of your house. You’re in a new place for the first place: and you HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO.

BOOM, this is the moment. This fucking moment is everything. The moment when we have no idea what to do. The moment we are in the whirlwind of our own emotions and mindspin. WHAT WE DO IN THESE MOMENTS IS WHAT MAKES US WHO WE ARE.

This is my favourite thing in the world. Successful people (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins, Mark Manson, and SPESH Bene Brown) have picked this trait and chased it. I think it’s the one thing that makes the difference between REACTING to the things in the world and ACTING in a way that the world reacts to you.

I will be putting up texts on this. We will keep sharing our experiments on this and encouraging each other to do weekly challenges.

Leonardo X