Ok so everyone is constantly cultivating energetic structures through their thoughts and actions, and this is like the vessel that carries us through the world. The Boat. Why is this important? Because the nature of the structure you maintain through your day to day life, is the baseline of the things that ‘happen’ to you. Depending on what the thoughts, actions, habits, perspectives, interpretations are, we can build stable, unstable, fast, slow, big, small, regular, irregular structures. the direction we take day to day defines how this masterpiece or life’s work will look, feel and move. (Maybe this also points to cultivating structures over lifetimes — i.e. some people are born with more established structure and then continue or fine tune it through a series or karmic experiences. The patterns and forms and even objects, people, experiences that come into view in our lives are part of this structure, reflect to us facets of this internal structure, so that we ca begin to grasp and mould it into the vehicle appropriate to our direction and purpose in life, or appropriate to our essential nature.) Why is this important? Part of developing and refining this structure is in making choices in our lives. Another part is awareness — recognising elements and details in ourselves and in the world around us. When choices are in alignment with who we are and the things we need to develop in our lifetime, they fit together like a puzzle and form a cohesive set of mechanisms, or toolkit, that can manage life in a smooth and cohesive way (eventually). When our choices are all over the place, so will be the car we’re trying to ride on: wheels all different sizes, no floor, one seat, but it’s not the driver’s seat, doors that all open in different directions, etc. How can we learn to look at life in a way that allows us to see these structures at play, rather than just getting sucked into the immediate drama, or the surface level of meaning? This is the question that governs all spiritual teaching.

Why do only few people really realise spiritual progress, when others only see some results, and most people either give up early on, or don't engage at all? It seems clear that it's the people who really find peace, balance, power, forward movement, are the people who make a system their own, and live it. Who absorb and adjust the techniques not as something they 'do', but as the flow and structure of life. Maybe this is what it takes to truly integrate change. Otherwise we're still harbouring underdeveloped parts of ourselves --- areas that are uncomfortable or painful to touch. Life mechanisms are about leverage, and if we're not using them for our direction and purpose, they're likely pushing against the progress we're making in the other parts of our lives. So what should one do? Obviously it makes sense to start with established tools, but we get trapped if we take them for granted and expect them to do the work for us. A hammer isn't going to build a house on its own, and it might be used to destroy the materials we've carefully gathered. The existing tools are there to give us leverage to mould the areas of our lives --- especially the difficult ones --- into world-changing mechanisms. Into vehicles that carry us into the future, rather than obstacles that keep us in the past.

Images are consciousness mechanisms that we used to navigate and manage the state of both our consciousness and our lives. We're so used to the word image, that we've come to take it as nothing special. Images are representations of things, so what? But in every image is implied a whole system of representation. A system that manages the connection/s between meaning and the material that houses it. Back when I was in New Zealand I borrowed the Dao De Jing from the library. And one part that I've mulled over repeatedly since then was the concept that there's no division between the sacred and the mundane. At the time I was searching for more sacredness in my life, and while the promise of divinity in everything was something I wanted to adopt as a principle, I was too absorbed in my struggles and fixations to experience it. But the point I want to get across is that the images (/tools) CURRENTLY operating in our respective life spaces, situations, narratives, hold all the potency and potential we're seeking from the future or from outside sources. It's precisely those functions with all their power that hold the structure of our lives in place. In practice and in life it's so easy to fall back into the rut of our old habits (mechanisms) often as soon as we feel like we've taken a step forward. How can we practice observing the progress, and new situations and experiences, without immediately trapping them in old images? One thought to play with is that images and meanings don't need to be hard and fast. Whether it's looking at a traffic jam or a chair or listening to jazz or a politician's speech, we can observe the meanings and structures at play without necessarily trying to contain them. This paradoxically give us access to more of the tools ad functions operating in our life system. Because what we're really trying to engage with is the sacred that we house in images and devices, not the props themselves.

Spaces fascinate me. A huge foundational element of my Life Craft is developing spaces or atmospheres --- to create experiences for people. This has led me to view a lot of things as spaces --- the body, music, feelings, interests, relationships --- that are created in the resonance or interaction between your field and another. Viewing things like an energetic venn diagram wherein spaces and experiences are created in this interference between self and world, has really unlocked a sense of creativity in my perspective on life. Because it means that the spaces I experience in/as my life are not neutral or random, but co-created by and within my field. I.e. everything is immediately imbued with a sense of meaning. Challenges and strife then also hold useful and crucial life meaning. Not only any meaning but life meaning specific to me. The world then takes on a role as an energetic mechanism that works on us --- cultivating qualities in us that we need in order to fulfill our goals and purposes in life. Or even ascend to higher levels of life and consciousness. One thing that can connect us with the deeper resonances of the pools of our life is simply stillness. Wu wei, or non action, meditation, pausing, as opposed to reacting, interrogating, fight or flight. Stay tuned for some simple internal exercising for cultivating awareness, energy, and internal mechanisms!!!!

I started knitting properly maybe a month or so ago. My mum taught me how to knit when I was a small child but my skills only ever were in starting and not finishing scarves. A few weeks ago I really wanted to use up the scrap wool from a blanket my mum knitted me so I found a pattern and started knitting. I've been finding the difficulty of a new skill sooooooo fun! It's hard! I've been really craving good challenges lately and knitting has really provided me with that. I also can't believe that there was a bunch of sheep and then they had their hair cut and then the wool was processed and then turned into a blanket and the leftovers are now a jumper ! That's crazy!