Visiting Mike in Jail...

Visiting Mike in jail last weekend was... great.  It was so good to see him.  He was pale and he's lost weight but he's okay.  There's a light in his eyes, like he's seeing much more than I can.  In some ways, it was like he was at peace.  The worst is over.  The court martial.  The threats in the street.  The pressure of never knowing what was going to happen next.

It made me want to explore the whole issue of following your instinct.  I don't mean the kind of instinct that drove Machiavelli.  Not the urge to power, the urge to dominate, to hurt, to take by force, to control others... No.  I mean the other instinct - the compassion principle - the one Freud left out when he looked into the human psyche and saw nothing but sex and death.  He forgot about love.

Oh, and with that I'd put compassion for the self in there too.  But not self-aggrandisment.  You know the sort of thing.  It sounds vague and woowoo but it's the root of all good.  Self-nurturing - leading to the capacity to nurture others.  Self-worth - leading to recognising the worth of others - no matter how remote they are.  The thing is - Mike really cares about the child in his mother's arms injured in a rocket attack.  He's not bothered about the politics, not in a radical, crazy way.  He's in touch with something more balanced than that.  The instinct of altruism - we're all born with it - most of us anyway.  How do we lose it?  Carelessness?

The most important question is this: How do we find it?  Awareness.  I know that sounds vague too, but it's true.  Being aware that suffering is a shared experience.  Not a remote viewing situation.   

So, when I talked to Mike - it didn't really matter what we talked about.  I told him about my wild dancing the night before.  He talked about his shoe-cleaning duties.  Ben Griffin was there - a man with a big story in his eyes.  And two others, good men, great men, men who feel things, true things and have done something about it.  Outside, other like them.  A poet.  A guy with dreads and the biggest heart. An older man who cared enough to rage against rape as a weapon of war. 

Compassion junkies.  Peace heroes.  Give them a medal and parade them through the streets.  It won't happen but in a parallel universe...

Instinct - the compassion instinct - you don't have to be perfect to be in touch with it.  You don't have to live a certain life or crawl on your knees to a sacred mountain.  You just have to listen.  I think it sounds like the tide turning on a calm, sunny day.

I'll try and link a short video of the vigil outside Colchester prison that day. And thank you to all those who were there.  And to everyone who has written to Mike and supported him on facebook.  The tide turns like a whisper.  But it makes sand out of mountains.  We think we'll always have war, domestic violence, cruelty and torture.  Maybe that's just another mountain sinking into the sea.  Who knows?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxazNPBw8oo

Refusing to Kill is Not a Crime.

They say it isn't a prision.  On the website for Colchester detention centre they write "... this is not a prison, it's a military correction unit...".  As if that sounds better.  To me it doesn't.  Military correction sounds harsh and unyielding.  It sounds like a place where the individual doesn't count for much.  It sounds like a place of stern, authoritarian punishment - a place where the concept of 'correcting human behaviour' is  cold, technical and thorough. 
Yesterday afternoon I spoke to Mike for the first time since he's been inside.  He sounded okay.  His courage covering up the fact that he wasn't okay.  He's not free.  That's not okay - especially when you consider what he's done - or refused to do.
There's a t-shirt in support of him somewhere on the net - I must get hold of it.  It says "Free Michael Lyons - Refusing to Kill is Not a Crime".  Brilliant.  Surely Mike can't be one of the few human beings on planet earth capable of this insight?  I mean, he's bright, there's no doubting that.  But refusing to take up a rifle (an SA80 assault rifle, capable of killing a man/woman/child at 300 metres) and use it in anger - doesn't take a lot of brains surely...
It takes heart.  A lot of it.  Some people say he should never have gone into the navy if he felt that way.  Well, he went in as a medic at the age of nineteen.  He studied trauma medicine and battlefield triage.  His baseline was that he was there to heal not to kill.  Perhaps it sounds naive.  And maybe it is.  Or maybe it's such a simple, obvious truth that those of us who think we are mature have missed the point.  Truth is simple as well as beautiful.
I didn't realise how much I've been holding back a ton of feelings about what he's going through.  I've buried myself in work.  The shock of his court martial and the following weeks of intense busyness provided a soft blanket around the reality of his situation.
But every day I think of him.  They provide education in there and I know he's studying.  But there's hard labour too.  And of course, a military regime designed to 'correct' him.  I wonder if he's being bullied because of his stand against war.  I'm anxious about the physical training - he's in the navy - he's not fit like the army grunts who run the place. 
So, all the fear, sadness and worry came out in a flood.  I didn't want to cry on the phone.  We only had ten minutes.  I asked all the mum questions: What's the food like?  Have you made any friends?  Are you okay?  And every question pulled me into the fact of what was happening.  Because I've asked him the same things at every stage of his life.  After school.  In basic training.  When he was stationed on a remote Pacific Island. But it felt so different to ask them because he's locked up.  It felt painful and frightening and unjust.  After all, people have threatened to attack him on the street because of what he's doing.  Some people have even said he should be shot for his beliefs.  There are a load of people who want to harm him for refusing to kill. 
After the phone call, I got a call from the Padre (the vicar of the prison).  He was kind enough.  And he cheered me up in his own, rather jolly, military way. 
But the fact remains.  Mike's in prison for refusing to kill.  What does that say about all of us in this country?  What does it say about the human race?  What does it say about the future?

This is one of the greatest anti-war films ever made. 

Thoughts on Festivals...

Having just got back from Camp Bestival, I'm in the post-festie chillout state of mind.

And one of the things I thought about while I was there was this:  Human beings have been gathering for feasting, music, entertainment and revelation for thousands of years.  In fact, it may well be one of the things that glues our social behaviour together and so it is actually - an essential activity!!!

Camp Bestival is a family festie with plenty of kids' stuff including craft tents, baby chillout, woodland playpark and soft play.  The adults get to see great bands, listen to performance poets and eat wonderful food.  The children get to ride on the carousel.  There's even a skate park rigged up for older children, complete with amazing BMX and skateboarders putting on a show a couple of times a day.

All good.  Certainly better than Glastonbury which has become too money-grabbing, too hard-edged and too uncomfortable for all but the most dedicated binge drinker.

And however much I enjoy Camp Bestival, despite the hills (pushing a pushchair up and down them is mind-numbingly hard work), desptite the pricey, overblown, in-your-face commercialsim - I might never go again.

 Why?  Because, like Glastonbury and I suspect most other music, arts and entertainment festivals there's a vacant hole in the middle of it.  I couldn't put my finger on what it was to begin with.  And then it came to me.

The soul is missing.

For example; at Bestival, the healing field was right next to the loudspeakers blasting out hardcore skater music.  Brilliant for the skate park.  Rubbish when you're having a chilled out massage.  And there was no - field of reflection.  No quiet place.  No wishing tree.  Don't get me wrong - there was plenty of wonderful, amazing stuff.  Dingly Dell was the closest you got to peace but.... it was about having more fun.  A good thing.  But soulful things can be fun too.

Thoughts like that made me realise that Glasto went downhill the year the Krishna's left.  In the old days they'd set up a huge marquee giving out free food (dahl and chapatis - delicious) and chanting their wonderful harmonies.  It was a great place to relax, eat and be still. Meditate. Reflect.

Now, I'm not a Hindu.  But it doesn't matter.  Because what the Krishna's gave us was the most important element of a human festival gathering.

Soulfulness.

Our ancestors knew this.  Stonehenge heralded the rising of the sun on midsummer morning.  Almost certainly the centre of some kind of sun worshipping pagan cult -  the gatherings would be about music, dancing, poetry (I expect), storytelling, meeting, flirting and all the other things we get today.  But it included a place for the soul to be nurtured too. 

Without that, the whole atmosphere seems - unfinished.  Okay, I can see that the people selling food on the site didn't want anyone giving out free food.  But why not?  People still bought food from the stalls.  And free music?  Sacred music is different.  It's great to see Primal Scream or anyone else whose music you love - but spritual chants, songs, mantras and hymns tap into something else.

Something that needs filling.

Because nothing else fills up that particular human space in the heart. 

Do you neglect or nurture your soul?  I'm not talking about religion here.  Just the human capacity for transcendence.  Compassion.  Acceptance.  Courage.  Clarity.

Doesn't matter if it's nuns signing Gregorian chants, Hare Krishnas, Buddhist mantras, Christian singing or any other form of spiritual expression... it just should be there for the whole thing to have meaning beyond consuming products and whirling children about.

It can be a part of entertainment.  It can be a part of music and festivals and revelry.  It can sing and dance and give you a plate of dahl and bread just because it wants to.  Without soulful living, as our ancestors were well aware, we're nothing but a bunch of howling monkeys.  Which is fine.  But it won't fix the world.





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Writing an eBook for Spiritual Healing...

Everything in life is always a work-in-progress.  Nothing is ever finished.  In his book, Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore (psychotherapist, ex-catholic monk), describes this work - talks about how we ignore important signs.  Signs telling us that the only work that matters always comes from the inside out...

For example:

You have a glorious wedding day -  and then there's the ongoing work of a marriage. Do you negotiate problems well -  together?  How can you overcome snoring, moods, dirty laundry etc. without going mad?  Is it abusive or nuturing?  In the end, however much you belive in marriage - a loving partnership cannot always survive the storms of life.

The miracle of birth?  A baby is an adult for most of his life - so there's the ongoing work of a familial relationship. The subtle dynamics of family life shift and change - a kaleidoscope of colours.

A career?  You qualify, you get the dream job and then... there's the ongoing work of the reality of your choice.  Does is enhance your life?  Does it damage it?  Is the dream more of a nightmare? Are you nurtured or trapped?  Appreciated or used?

You find a lost child, a grown woman and yet still a precious child.  Where's the road map for that journey? Work-in-progress.

Your son goes to prison because of his conscientious objection to the war in Afghan.  You rage against a world that is still stupid enough collectively to believe that blood means peace.  You miss him every day.  You worry for his health.  You fear for the future of the human race.  Overcoming anger and fear - work-in-progress...

Someone once said (I forget who) "...the first step to wisdom is to call things by their proper name...".  Where do you start with that?  When a builder builds a house she names the materials.  Timber frame.  Concrete foundation.  Door.  Window.

When I approach my life it's from the inside out - there's no other way - we all do it whether we're aware of it or not.  I have to name my emotions.  Fear, squeamishness, irritation, joy, love, confusion and so on.  Then I have to name the places where they come from.  Then I have to name their destination.  And the destination is always the same.  Gone, gone, gone.  Everything passes.  Everything changes.  Everything becomes something else. A dark  mood, a war, a beloved grandmother.  Anxiety becomes serenity.  War becomes peace.  Grief becomes a knowing acceptance.

So, this brings me to the ebook I'm writing about spiritual healing.  Because let's face it, as a wise recovering junkie once told me - "...get the spiritual part right first.  Because if the spiritual stuff (deep stuff - I'm not talking about religion here - just a soulful approach to life) is right, everything else follows..."


Creative writing prompts are jumping off points.  I'm working on a book that is full of these jumping off points.  Combined with the art of meditative freewriting - a playful, exploration of your deepest world is the only work you really need to do.  The rest will follow.


Anyway, if anyone out there has an idea for a good creative writing prompt - a word or phrase which can act as a door or a window into the real world - the world of the human soul - please let me know!!!

Peace, writing and love, Jill