What do roots do? They provide an anchor, they provide nutrients, they search in the darkness. Roots are our anchors; They are the solid base that all other growth can spring from. They provide stability in the wind, they hold on to when we are being tugged this way and that, being pulled at. Roots provide structure, vital before any meaning-full growth or expansion can occur. Roots give us nutrients; Roots provide from deep down in the darkness within the food that is necessary for our growth. Pulling up from the darkness the points that we need to learn and grow from in this moment or the next. This creation allows all upward growth to go on, and also the extension of the roots itself. Roots strive and search; Pushing on, downward, deeper, wider. Searching in the black of darkness. Searching within. Searching on. Roots are blind, existing and continuing only on faith that there will be something out there. In this mess of rock there will be water, in this mess of dust there will be nourishment. Roots are a metaphor: Bounding for the very best you can do. The very best you can be. That is your perfection, the very best you can be. That is all perfection, just the best you can be. That is all you can ever hope to do. All you can hope to be. Your best. And to keep doing your best work. My life has entered a dark place. I have been thundered back into the soil, to yearn and sift through humus and leaf matter and detritus of yesteryears living. Looking blindly, searching for the way forward, the way out. Death plunges me into the world of roots; cold, clammy, damp, dark, black. Re-member your anchors. The density of this dark landscape I strive within is its strength. As a root I cannot hope to gain anything from a void. My dark subterranean world is densely populated and through that I gain strength and support and stability. I have been here before. I have come back stronger, and I will emerge again into the sunlight stronger. My past is littered with deep-root strivings. Speckled with dark moments. And these strivings in the darkness allow for stronger stems, fuller fruits and more vibrant flowers to sprout from my life. I am more bounty-full for the darkness of my journey. Those journeys though must be taken bravely and boldly and in my very best manner. No other way to do it. The Other Way is No Other Way. To limp, to refuse, to hang my head, to fear. Fear is indecision, fear is stasis, fear is paralysis. All those things are death. Death of progress, or direction, or yearning, of learning, of growing. Death of becoming and death of being my best self. It is at times when the world is at its worst that I must be my best. When the world turns me, spinning, and drops me into darkness it is time to step up. And step out. To hold my head high. To demand my best. To announce that I am not ashamed. Not ashamed in this darkness to keep on, to laugh, to cry, to sing, to accept, to release, to joyously leap on along the road. To strive as my dark roots need to be pushed. And to find new ways and means and a better self for me. I am all I have. And this is me. Deep down in the dark. Pushing up new bright shoots and grabbing at the world with both hands. Thank you ACM Starring out the windows, Alton Towers Resort, April 2008.
We were sent off to Alton Towers - by Limo! - by The Willow Foundation, who provide days out for families with terminal illness and survivors and recovering from terminal illness. A most fantastic time and many happy memories of the weekend!
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I have been absent for a while. No apologies for that. Only that dull aching feeling of 'Should'. THAT sensation of 'I should be blogging...', 'I should be doing this...', 'I should be feeling this, or that, or the other...', 'This is distraction, I should get on with the important stuff...' Locked up in my mind for a while with the monster of Should rattling the bars and roaring at me. BETTER yet than Should, I turn to the monster and face him level-eyed, staring him down and spit out my truth, 'Maybe you're right. I Could. Why am I not doing it then.' A crucial part of mental training is the language that I frame it in. Care-fully considering how to phrase a question or suggestion or idea or logic. Should is a debilitating word, it is the monster that shakes the cages, it rattles the bars and roars at me when I want to sleep, and howls when I am busy running to keep up with all those important little things that need to happen. As I run the Should nudges and shoves at me, do this, what about that, over there, and don't forget to do the laundry. STARING down the Should Monster and rewiring him with a Could liberates my time, my life, my words, my actions and my decisions. I could be blogging, why don't I. I could get up earlier and do this work, what reason do I stay in bed for? I could continue to not eat sugar and feel better in my body, what is my pay out in consuming? THE Could can be turned back around to a question. The Should is only highlighting with bright burning spotlights the problem. This is the issue, here, look at this, ha ha, I found one, Should be doing this. This one, right here, forget that stuff, look what I found. I don't like the Should Monster. He does not serve me and I do not want him in my life. WHAT you focus on grows. And when I take heed of the Should Monster's words and listen and throw my attention on his problems what do I receive? I receive more. More problems, more spotlights, more Should. The first one never served me, so why keep accepting these suggestions from this monster? MEANWHILE, all the time I have been stumbling through dark chasms of grief, past and present with occasional snapshots of the dark moments of the future. Should shoving me and telling me that this is not what is important right now. Forget that, do this. My mind un-prepared and un-willing to engage. Just needing to do stupid things to re-fill with empty crisp goodness. Shinning and scuffing my way up climbing routes, winding a canoe across a lake or down a river. Cycling the long way home and hitting long sections off road with no lights and starring at the fractions of full moon splintering through the trees and digging out my phone to navigate the river side path by the flash light on the top! Stupid, pointless, late-night distractions. YET all so valuable in my steady re-covering of this death, and those deaths of old that I paint over with my grief to allow in and forget all at once. To let me sit down here again, as 7am approaches and the lights plays over the curtains casting yellow and blue strips across the room. AND here I am. Again. Re-starting. Ok. Let's go play. Thank you for your patience. ACM The Rainbow Curtains in the Living Room.
Sometimes crazy ideas work really well! Death is a fear-full thing to encounter. The death of a loved one is by far the hardest thing to come across. Your own death is a different matter, something of a journey, a transition, a change. The death of a beloved family member though. That too is a journey, a transition, a change. When the possibility arises, in short time or in long, or in an instant, it is a process of change that the body and mind undergo. 'I am safe, it is only change.' Confronting mortality is something that happens then thousand times a day for us. We see animals around us dying. We see mass slaughter in TV shows. We watch armies being laid to waste in movies and more still coming running over the hill top. We see disease and famine and pestilence swiping across continents on the Nine O'Clock News. All we are doing is watching death. Seeing people fall and animals collapse. It is sad to see, saddening to observe. Alas, all you are is an observer. A voyeur, cooly seeing events unfold. So, yes, death is constantly confronting us. And our own mortality always there in the sidelines. Yet it is only observations, grief does not come into the process. It is losing those close to us that plunges us deeply into death. Deeply into a world of change. Change is that which we fear. That which terrifies and freezes us. How will life look without him? What will Christmas be like without her? Who will I turn to when I need to know about...? They always call at just the right moment and know just what to say. What will your life look like without that wisdom, without that knowledge, without that rock to hold onto? Does it make any difference to how you interact and experience your world today, now, this moment? Does it affect what you do and how you do it? Is that really true? Change is just a transition. Death is just a shift in the ways that we address and view the world. How we choose to affect ourselves by events is that same for the calamitous, the joyous, the huge and the miniscule events of our life. I am a mixed up melting pot of my experiences and my choices. When change affects me and shifts occur my melting pot may swirl and stir and get wound up or agitated or boil a little. However, I am still a blend of all those things that I was and I always will be, purely and simply me. No matter what changes afflict me. Thank you, ACM Learn to use change, choice and decision to positively adjust your reality, CLICK HERE to check out my e-Courses, email-based courses on altering mindsets and breaking out of negative, destructive patterns. Positive Passionate Power-full Performance. The Beach and The Lighthouse
Spurn Head, East Yorkshire. The boys need to run (elder) and sleep (younger). It is damp. It is September. You are hungry. What do you do? Go blackberrying! Autumn abundance in Winnersh, Berkshire. Pictures by Vicki Clubley-Moore and Andy Clubley-Moore. www.vickiclubleymoore.weebly.com One damp September morning, 7 people from far and wide met in London to play, explore and laugh. This is the story of what happened next... Zachary exploring the durability of gravity on the train. Photography variously by Andy Clubley-Moore and Vicki Clubley-Moore: www.vickiclubleymoore.weebly.com for more beauty-full photos by Vicki. Thank you Have a fantastic day. ACM SUGAR-FREE for a whole month. I (mostly) did it. I had a few slips, a few trips, a few stumbles. The aim was never perfection. The aim was to be focused on being as-sugar-free-as-possible-within-reason. SO when the ice cream came out at the end of meals, I politely declined. When the cakes and biscuits and chocolates went around at work, I politely declined. When my eye spotted cakes in cafes and said, 'err, Hello?' I politely declined. What have I learned in the end half of the project? More particularly, what have I learned after the project? A bit of background, I have a yeast-based infestation. It is an overgrowth and overabundance of a systemic (all the way through the body) fungal problem commonly known as Candida. Popular occurrences of this is thrush in women. The problem is particularly marked in my left foot, especially around the big toe, frequently looking scabby and splitting into nasty sore cuts - great for a climber, cuts on my major tool of ascension, ideal! BEING yeast-based this systemic problem loves sugar. Modern bread is made with sugar in so the yeast can grow faster and the bread will rise quickly, the Chorley Wood Technique. Rather than letting the bread rise slowly in its own sweet time and making (I might suggest) better bread. However, the bonus is that we do have lots of bread in the supermarkets to choose from and not a country buried under bakeries trying to be idealistic and slowly rise their loaves. That is another whole different argument. However, the point was that sugar feeds yeast overgrowths. Cut back, or out, sugar and you will cut back or kill off the yeast. Easy, right. THE best minds on dealing with this on removing systemic candida put a finer point on their sword. They recommend removal of all white flour - pasta, bread, cake, the list goes on! - all fruit; bread - as it contains sugars, flour, yeast… - And a whole raft, nay flotilla, of other fine foods. So, I have a bit of a trip to go on, a finely focused diet to indulge in. How long for? Three months! Seriously, three months of care-full focus on diet. ALONG with the collapse of toe health, I have discovered something interesting. My personal brand of candida manifests in scalp problems, lots of dead and itchy skin. How did I discover this? By having my cake - and eating it too! I would like to observe here that I am a master creator of a fantastic sponge cake. It really is good, let me know if you want to recipe. However, being white flour and (this time) icing sugar, it was not ideal for the process. It was the end of summer staff BBQ and also conveniently the first of September. So I blew the budget on sugar and ate, well, nothing more than I might in my End of July / Pre-sugar-free / normal meal times. THE result, two days of sneaking in a bit of sugar and my scalp has flared right back up again. Itching like crazy. So, at the end of August, and the beginning of September I have come to the Return of my Hero's Journey. That Return involves a need for introspection and examination. So, where do we go from here? WHEN I get into the ideal diet, this is going to take 3 months, I feel that - actually, really, truly - being sugar-free is not actually that much of a challenge, it is not really that difficult. I am politely declining lots of foods that I know are not really serving me very well. They are foods that I consume, and they blast through my body and ruin its equilibrium. Is that a sacrifice? No. Not at all. Roll of October! Thank you ACM Positive Passionate Power-full People If you are, or know anyone else, who is brilliantly positive and passionate I run a Facebook group for sharing your positive experiences with the world. The group is about posting things that you do well - letting others share in your success - and giving thanks for anything your are grateful for. Facebook friend me or my wife - Vicki Clubley-Moore and message us to join. There is lots of happy news out there when you go and make it! Make your life positive! Make your life passionate! Make your life extraordinary! (A fine starting point for systemic candida removal is Philip Day, nutritionist and inspirational speaker.) Have a lovely day. A Place to Pause
Grey-Shouldered Kite, Wal Wal, Victoria State, Australia. I was there with Vicki, doing some farming, enjoying stripping their kitchen floor out, fun times. They were also in a fourteen year drought when we arrived. When we left it had broken. There was a lot of rain. Hence the non-Australian beauty-full blue sky! We brought a lot of rain to Australia. As I write this it is to the first rain of September after the fantastically sunshiny summer of 2013 - best since 1974, or as I prefer to put it The Summer of Your Childhood That You Remember, that's what this summer has been. My t-shirt tan lines prove it! No we step towards autumn and the slowing down of the year. Welcome to September. I love September. Rain is permitted, reasonable, expected. Great news. |
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AuthorAndy Clubley-Moore: joyful outdoor sports activist, writer, father, husband. Lover of life, activity, success and barefoot living. |