Every journey begins with a single step

Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, Australia (Photo By David)

Well as you probably realise this is the first post, but as Laozi said “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. So firstly, why have I created this site? Well I have thought about doing this for a long time, but always made excuses and put it off.  So like many things in my life at the moment I decided to bite the bullet and just get on with it. The intention is for the site to be a collection of my personal experiences on my journey of self improvement and self discovery, as well as a place to share my ideas and knowledge on a broad range of subjects.

For me the journey is some what of a road back to regain what I have lost. The last few years have been pretty hard on me; First I broke up with my partner (they dumped me after cheating on me repeatedly, and worse), then my mother died, then my father and finally my grandfather. I decided to deal with it all by burying myself in work and also comfort food. I had been a pescatarian (a vegetarian who eats seafood) for the last 12 years, but I found myself eating mostly seafood. To make things worse, the food I was eating was “quick, cheap and easy”, namely oven food. Quick, sure. Cheap, sure. But easy, not in the slightest. This kind of food took it’s toll and I gained weight rapidly over the last 3 years, to make things worse I was working from home and sitting at a desk all day.

It is a journey back because when I first started being vegetarian I weighed 130kg (nearly 300 pounds). To explain that weight, well, I was a typical outcast at school who ate their emotions. And when I left school, the feelings of inferiority stayed with me. I developed bad habits like eating a plate of fried chicken drum sticks at 3am. Living across the road from KFC at one point in my life didn’t help either! And as you guessed, getting virtually no exercise. None the less, only 6 months after I started on my vegetarian diet I lost 44kg! But that is only part of the picture.

The bigger picture is this, the whole process was a cascade effect. My life changed totally and in such a way that I can never go back to who I was then. Even though I have since gained weight, the part of “who” I am has changed and that is permanent. It all began when I met a man, who I will call Yob (my close friends will know who I mean). Yob was a vegetarian and explained to me how humans aren’t meant to eat meat, giving me comparisons of our anatomy with carnivores (I will likely post about this in detail at some point). The discussion went on for hours, but to be honest, it didn’t take that long to convince me. I should also point out that around this time I started recreational use of a certain herb, which was also beginning to open and expand my mind. The combination of these events was enough for me to go vegetarian the very next day.

But as I said, what happened was a cascade effect. I had no idea of how amazing and different the journey I was about to embark on was. I wasn’t spiritual at all and I truly believed that when we died we would just rot in the ground and that would be that. My friend Yob and I had many other discussions too and the focus soon shifted to what is really going on in the world. You might call this “conspiracy theory”, but as I have come to believe there is no “theory” about it. Knowing this kind of information either does one of three things; 1. You disregard it and ignore it. 2. You believe it, but feel helpless that you can make any difference at all. Or 3. You believe it and it inspires you to change how things are. I fell into the latter category, it suddenly all made sense to me and I very much wanted to do something about it. I will explain in more detail in other posts exactly what I believe and exactly what I intend to do, but I am mentioning it here because it is connected to the overall picture I am trying to draw.

The next thing that happened was I started walking, almost daily. And we aren’t talking about small walks either – I would have walked between 10 and 30 km each time. And because where I lived at the time was close to the beach, that is where I headed. I started noticing how I felt more and more connected with nature and I was really enjoying the experience. I even found myself doing things that might seem strange to some people, like apologising to a duck. See when I was younger, I caught a duckling and tried to keep it as a pet. It ended up dying, and I felt really bad about it. But I guess I never dealt with it and perhaps the emotional problem was stored as fat as I ate it. Perhaps not, but the truth is I was loosing weight and those fat cells were filled during emotional times of my life. Anyway, this experience of apologising to the duck was very emotional – I was full of tears. And you know what? I felt really amazing afterwards. Such a simple experience, but so dramatic.

The next part in the cascade of events happened at my dads house where I often stayed during my Christmas vacation from work. At the time I had become involved with someone online, but hadn’t met them yet. They were back in the state where I lived and my family lived 2000km away (800 miles). One night when we were talking he brought up the topic of astral projection and we both thought it would be a cool way to meet each other. In retrospect I am not sure if that would have ever worked out, certainly not for a beginner. Anyway I read up on how to do it and decided to try it one night before going to sleep. As I tried to climb an imaginary rope, pulling myself out of my body – I noticed that my body began to vibrate intensely. Spinning swirling vortexes of energy! I immediately stopped the attempt of astral projection and was completely freaked out!

As you can imagine, when something like that happens it is a life changing experience. Previously as I said I wasn’t spiritual, although I was doing spiritual “things”. So this was confusing, scary and exciting all at once. I looked into it and I soon discovered that this was my chakra system opening up. And since that day I have had many profound experiences that I never thought possible. I caution you though, don’t do something like this on a whim – there can be severe consequences. For example, I can now feel spiritual entities and am also empathic. Feeling spiritual entities is kind of unsettling to say the least, particularly if they are trying to feed on you (negative energy parasites). And empathy can be a handful too, for example going to crowded public places (empathy, in terms of spiritual empathy means I can feel the emotions of others as if they were my own). Now not all of this happened immediately, like a flower it gradually opened up.

The best part about all of this is the feeling of energy coursing through your hands and feet, particularly when you enter certain places. I have even found that at the entrance to a shopping centre there has been a major energy vortex. It is quite exhilarating to say the least. But with most things done improperly, peril soon follows. I was loosing weight too fast, not eating enough, not drinking enough, not sleeping enough and also had no idea how to properly guard myself spiritually (my chakra’s were open 24/7).

Vision Quest, Copyright belongs to the respective owners

Due to all of this, and also because of significant emotional turmoil I was going through at the same time. I eventually came unstuck. My thoughts became increasingly scattered and I eventually had the thought to “switch reality and fantasy” (as I was discovering quite a lot of truth/messages in fantasy at the time). For some reason, this became literal and I entered what I refer to as a “Vision Quest” and what doctors would refer to as a psychosis. It is essentially like dreaming when you are awake, and much like a dream you forget about your real reality and focus on the dream thoughts.

Now for me to go into all of the details of what happened would take a long time to explain. I may blog about it in the future, but to be honest quite a lot of what happened was very personal. Suffice to say it was a very dramatic learning experience and I was shown EXACTLY how connected all things are and exactly how important I am, and likewise how insignificant I am. I learnt that I am no different from you and you are no different than me, we are the same being and the same spirit. We are simply the same entity (you may call god) fractured into a multitude of experience. Having an experience like that and FEELING what it means is quite life changing.

Amongst these revelations I also started believing that everything happens for a reason and that things that have happened to me in the past also happened for a reason. Often you can’t see exactly why for a long time, but sooner or later it reveals itself. Connected to this is the phenomenon known as synchronicity. That being, an intricate tapestry of events that overlays your life – seemingly unconnected and random events “synchronise” to create an outcome of some kind. For example, you get a phone call before you leave for work – you end up leaving 10 minutes late. When you get to work you run into an old friend walking past. If you hadn’t got the phone call, you wouldn’t have met your friend.

And so after a while my life settled down a bit and some of the magic went away. I was still at a decent weight, but life got in the way of pursuing much of the “spiritual” side of life. Things continued along until another point in my life where I had another “Vision Quest” which oddly enough I knew would happen. I learnt some more things about myself and the universe and got some perspective of what I should do in life as well. That event, like the other one was caused by similar circumstances (not enough food, water and sleep and a bunch of emotional turmoil). Unlike before, I don’t foresee any future events – though I do know that part of my life’s purpose is to go to Peru and train as a shaman. To some extent I saw these events as “urgent messages” to be delivered, but needed to be forced on me, by circumstance/syncronicity in order to receive them. Being a shaman, the messages will come through more clearly as I will enter states of mind more receptive, more often.

By now, no doubt some of you are thinking I am completely crazy. That’s fine, I happen to think most of society is crazy – so we have something in common there. But these experiences were very real to me and very dear to me, I wouldn’t want to go through them again though (not unprovoked/intentional journeys . But I wouldn’t trade having them for the world. As I said, everything happens for a reason and they have helped to shape me into the person I now am. Also, unlike many people who have spent a lifetime trying – I have experienced nirvana (enlightenment, cosmic/christ consciousness or what ever you want to call it). Several times in fact. This isn’t to be confused with “oneness”, that is easy to achieve. I might blog about that as well some time, but I will say it’s not what people think. It requires a great deal of discipline and it probably isn’t what you think it is. Of course, there are levels above it too – but I don’t see the point in trying to get there (that statement would take a lot to explain).

So as you can see, this is where I came from. The previously abandoned journey. I still feel “oneness”, am empathic still, but I do not feel energy as I once did. I can’t feel it flow through my feet and hands as I once did. I don’t feel as quick minded, as agile, as fast or as strong. I am not as in-tune with the “grid” as I was (for synchronicity to occur in my favour). My will power is good, but not as great as it was. I call this falling from grace, which might be slightly stolen from religion. Oh, I should mention I have a deep and personal relationship with god. But I don’t believe in the bible. So anyway, the journey back to get my grace (be at a higher level of consciousness).

Fruit, glorious fruit!

Enter fruit, the hero of this story.  So for a long time I have been telling people that fruit is our natural diet. That, we can eat meat and animal products in a “survival” context – but we “thrive” on fruit and vegetables (mostly fruit). So shortly after new years day (it wasn’t a new years resolution!) I started watching videos by the banana girl (Freelee), Durianrider (Harley) and RealRawResults (Chris Randall). These guys (and girls) make it seem like it’s really easy, guess what? It is!

I was (or got back to) 116kg when I started on the fruitarian diet (09/01/2014). I had lost a tiny bit before then, as I started walking – but I was too ashamed to weigh myself. As I started using cronometer.com to track my calorie intake (to ensure I ate enough fruit) I needed to weigh myself. Anyway, after only 3 and a bit weeks I have lost 4.6kg. That’s 1.5kg a week! To begin with I just walked 45 minutes every second day, but as I continued on the diet I found I had more and more energy – so I started working out more!

So that’s the backstory to explain where I was and where I want to be. I should point out that I haven’t smoked any herbs in years as it tends to boost my empathy and it’s no longer enjoyable (or useful). To wrap this up – below are the present short-term goals I have (in no particular order):

      • Get down to 72-75kg.
      • Start martial arts (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Ninjuitsu).
      • Populate this site with more information and regular posts.
      • Finish and launch the business I have worked on for the past 3 years.
      • Launch the next business (online store selling natural health products).
      • Go to Peru for 6-12 months to train as a shaman.
      • Buy a 3 acre property in Queensland to live on and start an experimental permaculture and aquaponics setup.

My long-term goals will take a bit longer to explain, but I will list them now to get your imagination working:

      • Buy 3000 acres of land in far north Queensland to establish a self sustained eco-village.
      • Expand both businesses into international markets.
      • Develop and launch social networking site (did I mention I am a computer programmer?).

So as Rex Hunt, mimicking Bugs Bunny would say “yibbida yibbida that’s all folks”. Stay tuned and watch this space.

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