We are exploding into rhythms of colour, we are penetrating the world with action, we are moving with ruthlessness to bring the truest love to light.  We are the next generation of Men.  The age of war makers, oppressors and rapists is now over.  Yes we have been that but those blackest skins have fallen away from us and here we stand in direct sunlight, singing songs of innocence, listening in silence & detachement whilst women run & scream joyfully into the great protective forests of our hearts.  We are men of responsibillity. We are men of freedom. We are men.  Male energy is our birthright, let us not be ashamed of who we are.  For beauty & shame need no longer co-exist.  Our new skin is made from the the dust of angels & our next evolutionary step is flight...

Male energy is our Birthright

No longer will we kill our brothers and blame the others, no longer will we rape our sisters & disrespect our mothers, no longer will we be subservient to the invisible dictates of an inbalanced society that desperately attempts to keep real power repressed & imprisioned. Society & Religion have repressed sexual energy & innocence for an age, for they have understood that the power for people to be truly powerful lies within each of our own individual & collective sexualities, channelled through our hearts!  The truly powerful man automatically means the dawning of the truly powerful woman.

In the face of the truly powerful man no woman can withstand.  If she is willing to face her own fear then she automatically becomes powerful in relation to him, or she can walk & wither away into the dreary shadows of powerlessness and poverty. Thats her own choice & we have no investment either way.

The lustfully powerful men of the old world kept women repressed through fear of being manipulated but the truly powerful man can not be manipulated, we will no longer be manipulated into powerlessness by women who are afraid of our power. A man that wants nothing from a woman can not be manipulated.  We turn inside for reception, our nourishment comes from the centre of our hearts.

New Eden on Earth

Together we can co-exist - Men in Power. Women in Power.  Fear rightfully exposed as an imposter, pretending to be real. Taken to trial by men & women together, sentenced to death. Fear dissappears, no longer exists, not even in the mind.  New areas of the mind are born of love & together we dance into the unknown, together we jump into a new world represented by a new kind of rainbow, of infinate colour...

Anu Azrael

(written whilst listening to Explosions In The Sky)

Trauma: The Vital Ingredient

'Just as fire can not exist without wind. Transformation can not exist without trauma' AA

In this very short essay I will begin to challenge the negative cultural & societal perceptions that seem to exist around the Phenomenon of 'Trauma'. Highlighting the importance of Trauma as a Phenomenon within the process of individuation & also highlighting how the alchemy that occurs within the process of human development could not exist without it.

In Peter Levine's recent book on the subject of releasing trauma he uses the Medusa myth as a deep metaphor in exploring the nature of Trauma & our perceptions around it. I will quote the following paragraphs as I feel they may lead me on in vaguely the right direction

PL "The greek myth of the Medusa captures the very essence of trauma & describes it as a pathway to transformation.In the greek myth those who looked directly into the eyes were promptly turned to stone...frozen in time." Basically Perseus recieves advice from Athena that he should whatever he does 'not look in to the eyes of Medusa or he will be turned to stone'. Perseus ended up using his protective shield to see Medusa's reflection in order to cut off her head. PL "If trauma is to be transformed, we must learn not to confront it directly. If we make the mistake of confronting trauma head on, then medusa will, true to her nature, turn us to stone". Later in the chapter it is written, "In another version of the same myth, Perseus collects a drop of blood from Medusa's wound in two vials. The drop from one vial has the power to kill; the drop in the other vial has the power to raise the dead and restore life. What is revealed here is the dual nature of trauma: first, its destructive ability to rob victims of their capacity to live and enjoy life. The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy & the power to transform & resurrect. Whether trauma will be a cruel & punishing Gorgon or a vehicle for soaring to the heights of transformation & mastery depends on how we approach it."

I feel it is also important to point out here that Perseus is the one that collects the 2 vials & it is Perseus who chooses which one to drink. Which points towards a potent & timeless truth. It is not the trauma that holds the power, it is we. We hold the power to rise up through the trauma that descends upon us, growing through the ensuing chaos. As we also have the freedom to give up that power & to choose to become victims to the trauma. I certainly agree it's a matter of how we approach the trauma as to whether or not we will be able to access our own inner power as the trauma itself has the capacity to take our power away if we approach it too directly. Dealing with trauma is very much like taming a wild animal, it must be done with great care or there is the risk of provoking the beast. The outcome of which could mean serious re-traumatisation.

Trauma & Society

Our western cultures teach us that trauma is something that should not be spoken of. The conditioning around this is of course systemic. We are taught that trauma is dangerous, something to be feared, something to be avoided. It is of course true that trauma is dangerous & of course it is also appropriate to feel fear in relation to trauma. If we were not to acknowledge the danger of trauma and we weren't to fear it then we would immediately be leaving ourselves wide open to being attacked & consumed by the beast. The fear that we feel & the danger that we sense in relation to trauma can truly be our allies. What is not true is that we should unequivocally avoid the feelings and sensations that are directly related to trauma. We have been taught that it would be better if we pretended that trauma didn't exist. This is the lie that keeps us powerless, we have been conditioned to choose the wrong vial! We must become aware of this & support others in becoming aware of this in order that we can as a collective species begin to turn base metal into gold. We urgently need to remove the systemically tinted glass from the church of our own perceptions in relation to 'trauma'. We have to become courageous as a culture if we are to move forward together, the courage of a few will no longer do!

Natures Wisdom

The following story illustrates several points including the notion that the way in which we as human beings approach trauma needs radical revision and it is towards wider nature that we should look for inspiration. The wisdom we need to demonstrate is already inherent in nature & it is our coming more in relationship to nature that will clearly serve us in our own growth as a species.

"Some years ago in China there was some scientific research done by Agronomists on finding the perfect growing conditions for Rice. The scientists set up a large indoor garden laboratory & took advice from the top corporate growers of rice in the country. They created supposedly 'perfect' conditions, exactly the right temperatures, flooded the ground with what they thought the perfect amount of water, the seedlings were exposed to UV light and heat that very closely mimicked that of the suns behaviour during the highest periods of rice growing seasons. The crops failed. The scientists changed water levels & temperatures the following seasons. The crops failed again. The scientists changed again their way of cultivation the following seasons & the crops failed again. For 7 years of failed crops in a row, after consulting countless corporate growers and advisers they were on the verge of giving up. When one day an old peasant farmer came by the laboratory to pick up his daughter who was working as a cleaner at the facility - he by chance overheard one of the scientists talking on the phone about the problems they had been having finding a solution to their issues of failed rice crop experiments, the scientist sounded depressed. The farmer, a humble and helpful man waited patiently for the scientist to get off the phone, when the scientist turned towards the farmer & noticed that the farmer had been listening his conversation he said, 'tell me old farmer what are we doing wrong?! We have created near perfect conditions for the rice to grow and for 7 years we have failed. We don't know what to do' he said with an almost defeated look upon his taught academic features. The farmer simply smiled and with a strange light in his eyes he said, ' I can tell what is missing here', he said whilst looking around at the laboratory like it was a strange alien planet he had just been teleported to. The scientist's face lit up for a moment but then dropped again as he thought, 'what will this old peasant farmer know anyway'..The farmer said, 'What you are missing here is the burning hot sun & those days when the sun is too hot for anything, what you are missing here is the rain and the great storms that bring the crop to the brink of destruction before leaving it to continue on growing, what you are missing here are the great winds that lash the crops from side to side and spread the waters unevenly around the paddy.' "

One of the main Tenets of Peter Levine's work seems to revolve around the study of animals & what they may have to teach us in relation to the way in which we approach trauma. Animals deal with trauma through a kind of 'shaking off' which prevents them from developing symptoms similar to those displayed by humans with PTSD. What I see in the above story albeit at more a 'metaphoric' level is that all the elements of nature, plants & trees included have a great deal to teach us about the way in which we approach trauma. If we could just get off our high horses for longer than 5 minutes & begin to entertain the possibility that all life is equal, that we are not 'superior' to nature & that we are just one small part of a much larger natural system then we might actually learn something!!!

In my view Trauma is like the sand in the oyster shell that helps create the pearls of Wisdom. Trauma can be a blessing & we need to begin allowing ourselves a little more living from this fleeting truth or the consequences for all of us will be dire.

 "Courage Is a Love Affair with the Unknown" - Osho

   Moving forward in life is as much a risk as was entering the world through a hole that seemed too small to be born out of. We are all born of darkness.  Then why are we all so afraid to go there again?  We are flowers of the moist, dark, earth.  Children of the unknown.  If we would only allow the unknown to parent us then the freedom of sky would surely rain down its tears of joy upon us?  In birth we risk death.  In order to grow forwards & not get stuck in life it is necessary we embrace the true nature of life, continuous change, rebirthing ourselves in every breath, embracing the 'risk of death' as if he were a long lost sibling who had returned from exile.  Exiled by 'society' and 'culture' he was for they feared his bravery & intelligence would inspire the rest of the human family to revolt. So they tried to kill him but he who truly risks death never dies. His spirit was simply exiled.  They teach us that he never existed & that death is real. Its all lies.  We are all complicit in a socially conditioned pact of collective suicide.  The truth is...we are eternity.  The truth is...nothing is out of our reach. We only have to have the courage to risk reaching out towards the dark night sky, bringing what we find back to our lives, open your palms out wide, it is there from where the sun shines.

A Parable:

The Prisoner In The Dark Cave

There once was a man who was sentenced to die. He was blindfolded and put in a pitch dark cave. The cave was 100 yards by 100 yards. He was told that there was a way out of the cave, and if he could find it, he was a free man. After a rock was secured at the entrance to the cave, the prisoner was allowed to take his blindfold off and roam freely in the darkness. He was to be fed only bread and water for the first 30 days and nothing thereafter. The bread and water were lowered from a small hole in the roof at the south end of the cave. The ceiling was about 18 feet high. The opening was about one foot in diameter. The prisoner could see a faint light up above, but no light came into the cave. As the prisoner roamed and crawled around the cave, he bumped into rocks. Some were rather large. He thought that if he could build a mound of rocks and dirt that was high enough, he could reach the opening and enlarge it enough to crawl through and escape. Since he was 5-9", and his reach was another two feet, the mound had to be at least 10 feet high.  So the prisoner spent his waking hours picking up rocks and digging up dirt. At the end of two weeks, he had built a mound of about six feet. He thought that if he could duplicate that in the next two weeks, he could make it before his food ran out. But as he had already used  most of the rocks in the cave, he had to dig harder and harder. He had to do the digging with his bare hands. After a month had passed, the mound was 9ft high and he could  almost reach the opening if he jumped. He was exhausted and extremely weak. One day just as he thought he could touch the opening, he fell. He was simply too weak to get up, and in two days he died. His captors came to get his body. They rolled away the huge rock that covered the entrance. As the light flooded into the cave, it illuminated an opening in the wall of the cave about three feet in circumference. The opening was the opening to a tunnel which led to the other side of the mountain. This was the passage to freedom the prisoner had been told about. It was in the south wall directly under the opening in the ceiling. All the prisoner would have had to do was crawl about 200 feet and he would have found freedom. He had so completely focused on the opening of light that it never occured to him to look for freedom in the darkness. Liberation was there all the time right next to the mound he was building. It was in the darkness.

(taken from 'Healing the shame that binds you' by John Bradshaw)

The Prison of Addiction

The lies most often told about addiction are that it is an illness of the individual & that only those with very strong and obvious addictions are actually addicts.  This is a socially conditioned belief that exists in order to prevent us from seeing the truth of what really is.  The truth to one extent or another is that addiction is systemic & we are all addicts.  The only difference between us is in the level to which we are addicted.  When we display a level of 'addiction' that is culturally unacceptable it is at that point that our behaviour is labelled as an illness, or an 'addiction'.  Addiction is in the polluted air that we breathe.  Addiction is a state that is kept alive with advertising, consumerism & media fear mongering by a society that wishes its citizens to remain powerless.  We have been conditioned to believe that 'freedom' means being able to express whatever we would like to express whilst at the same time continuing to inject ourselves with 'heroin' supplied by the state in the form of 'information'.  What has been conditioned is a blindness to true freedom.  A Pseudo-blindness fuelled by fear.  We dare not look for fear of....better to be blind, better to pretend true freedom dosen't exist.  First & foremost addiction is a fear of freedom.  If we come back to the parable for a moment. Imagine the story a little differently. Imagine that before the man is born into the cave of this world, the person who puts him in there tells him, 'there is a tunnel deep in the darkness of the cave but don't go down it, if you do you will surely die!' then food is lowered down into the cave as long as he is still alive. The floor is mostly stone and only partly dirt and so building a mound to the light will take many years and its still not certain its possible to escape to 'freedom'.  This is our conditioning.  Our minds tell us to fear the dark unknown hole in the side of our cave & that death awaits us there.  Our hearts tell us that death awaits us everywhere, there is nowhere to hide & that we may aswell enter the unknown holes of life as we really have nothing to lose & everything to gain.  The only real 'loss' happens when we are subservient to our fear. We lose the opportunity to really live!

The Great Escape

Listen to your hearts.

It is our courage to step into the unknown that will carry us into a new era. It is our willingness to look death in the eyes and without turning away bring our awareness into our hearts that will break the bonds of fear that keep us powerless.

It is our willingness to try things that we have never experienced before, our willingness to feel the fear & step forward regardless, our willingness to follow our hearts regardless of what our fearful minds are saying that will open the pearly gates of 'heaven upon earth'.

Only Love can set us free.

Pioneering Pathways

A Spiritual Teacher & A Spiritual Community

I would like to tell you about some important discoveries that I have made through stepping into the unknown myself over the past 2 years.  In 2006 I walked across Spain on the ancient Pilgrimage route to Santiago De Compostella for the 3rd time.  The Way of Santiago is a route that mainly runs 767km across the Northern Part of Spain that is commonly walked and cycled by 'Pilgrims'.  Some months before this particular pilgrimage I had discovered a radical approach to therapy called Family Constellations.  One day whilst walking in the hot sun I had one of my infamously crazy ideas, I immediately ran to the nearest internet café (well actually I walked, it was some 26km away!) to check it out.  I knew from so much experiencing of walking that it was a great way to integrate bodywork & psychological process. I wondered if there was anyone running Family Constellations in any of the cities along the camino & I swooped into GOOGLE to find out!!!  My idea was to do Family Constellations on weekends and walk during the week.  Of course I didn't find anyone running them anywhere near the Camino but I did find a pdf flyer for an 8day Training near Barcelona with a therapist called       Svagito Liebermiester.  He was offering Family Constellation intensive training together with Osho meditation.  I had little knowledge of Osho & had never done any Osho meditation, I had never heard of this therapist, I knew no-one who had worked with him before but my heart told me to go. So I did!  3 months later I was sitting in a large group of beautiful Spanish people on the coast listening to Svagito.  Let me tell you I grew more working with this man then from anything else I had done before or have done since!!!  I would like to encourage any of you who really want to move forward in life to come and work with Svagito on one of his trainings or workshops!

You can find all the information about his workshops & trainings at www.family-constellation.net

Or our UK website www.osho-family-constellations.co.uk

We will be running a workshop with Svagito in London in October 2011. As yet unconfirmed.

Whilst on training with Svagito I met some wonderful Swedish people who told me about a community in the West of Sweden called 'Angsbacka'.  This was another great discovery.  After studying storytelling intensively for 3 months last year in the East Sussex countryside I was hungry for some foreign adventure.  My family were heading away on a cruise so I was stuck for somewhere to be over the Christmas period.  So without having any idea what it would be like or who I might meet there I set out on a Journey to the Angsbacka Christmas & New Year Festivals.  I followed my heart & I found home.  Words can not describe my experience over these two weeks.  How can the nameless ever be named?  If I am to talk about the different parts of Angsbacka I would talk about the amazingly open and loving people, I would talk about the healthy food, I would talk about the beautiful surrounding nature, I would talk about the great workshops & dance parties, I would tell you about the numerous nights we spent in the café & performance space dancing, sharing performance in Open Mics & inspiring each other, I would talk about the community's openness to new members & their openness to new ideas...However it is not any one of these things that makes the magic at Angsbacka, it is the synthesis of them all together.  Wherever there are many people working together with loving intentions & openness, there you will find the magic of life manifest in a form totally unique to the group/organisation expressing it.  I would like to invite all of you to come and be a part of the loving magic that is taking place in the community of Angsbacka in Sweden.  Follow your hearts, take a step into unknown territory & trust that where-ever you end up will bring you that one step closer to the truth of who you really are.

I will be at Angsbacka this summer helping to Co-Ordinate the festivals from 2nd July - 1st September. JOIN ME!!!

"Intelligence needs tremendous courage, intelligence needs an adventurous life. Intelligence needs that you are always going into the unknown, into the uncharted sea. Then intelligence grows, it becomes sharpened. It grows only when it encounters the unknown every moment."  Osho

Everybody at Angsbacka speaks English, the Swedish are famously good at speaking  English so don't worry about language & cultural barriers! At Angsbacka we all live from the understanding that we are all born of the same universe!

ARE YOU READY... For a great adventure?

Summer Festivals 2011

Welcome To Angsbacka Sweden

www.angsbacka.se

Angsbacka Course Centre is one of Scandinavia's most expansive meeting places for personal & human growth. It is surrounded by beautiful nature; lakes, forests & fields. Come to Angsbacka whenever you need some new inspiration, a sense of community or a break from your ordinary life. We offer courses, trainings, retreats & festivals all year around.

Angsbacka offers 6 summer festivals in 2011

Midsummer for Singles              June 23-26

No Mind Festival                         July 2-9

Yoga Festival                                July 18-24

Future Perfect                              July 28-31

Raw Life Festival                          Aug 3-7

Women's Festival                        Aug 10-14

Welcome to Angsbacka also as a volunteer

Angsbacka's festivals could not happen if it weren't for the incredible help from a large number of volunteers that work to build the festivals together with our all-year-round staff.  It is a time of much fun, community, playfulness, new experiences & of course some work! Some people say volunteering during the summer is the best festival of them all...

Join us for the whole summer or the following periods:

Pre Camp                                 6-19 June

Little Pre Camp week 1         6-12 June

Little Pre Camp week 2         13-19 June

Single Midsummer Camp      19-26 June

No Mind Big Camp       19 June - 10 July

No Mind Little Camp    26 June - 10 July

Relaxing Space               10 July - 15 July

Yoga Camp                                   15-24 July

Yoga & Future Perfect Camp     15 July-1 Aug

Future Perfect Camp                  24 Jul - 1 Aug

Raw Life Camp                             1-7 Aug

Womens Festival Camp              8-14 Aug

After Party Gathering                 14-20 Aug

All VOLUNTEER information:

uk.angsbacka.se/page/page.asp?i=222

For more info e-mail volunteer@angsbacka.se  or call +4655310035.

We are also flexible to different dates so whenever you are available to volunteer just let us know & lets see if we can work something out!

Festival Links

Single Midsummer Festival

23-26 June

 uk.angsbacka.se/event.asp?i=102&h=1&go=2

No Mind Festival

2-9 July

uk.angsbacka.se/event.asp?i=101&go=3&k=1

International Yoga Festival

18-24 July

uk.angsbacka.se/event.asp?i=190&go=4

Future Perfect Festival

28-31 July

uk.angsbacka.se/event.asp?go=5&i=490&h=1&ev=Future-Perfect-Festival-2011

Raw Life Festival

3-7 August

uk.angsbacka.se/event.asp?go=6&i=343&h=1&ev=Raw-Life-Festival

Womens Festival

10-14 August

uk.angsbacka.se/event.asp?i=472&h=1&ev=Womens-festival

Also I would like to say that the Angsbacka website does not give a very good representation or feeling for what you may find at Angsbacka.  If I had to make a decision on whether to go or not only based on their website then I would never have gone in the first place.  Use my words & your own intuition to gage whether this is a good place for you to go, try not to make a pre-judgement based on the website design.

LOVE ANU

Take a step into the unknown this summer!!!

This is a revision of my original reply..'The dance is something that just happens when we allow life to simply flow through us as it wants to, when we allow spirit to dance us exactly as it wants to.  Our Spirits are the drivers of our body vehicles, Our minds are the key!!  Our spirits want to dance our bodies & our minds control whether this is allowed to happen by us either saying YES or NO. When we say NO it is usually because some uncomfortable feelings rise up in us that we don't want to feel anymore & so we stop moving.  There is no life in physical stillness.  Nothing in this universe physically stays the same over any period of time, everything is always moving and changing, just at different speeds.  Stopping moving is a decision we make, stopping our bodies dancing is a decision we make. We can not decide to dance, as dance is not an action or something that we can decide to do. We can only decide to allow our spirits to dance.  Dance is something that happens independently of us.  It is something that naturally takes place once we begin saying yes & letting go.  This is the way that life & spirit expresses itself, through movement.  We can see this truth in all things.  When we begin saying yes to everything then the real dance of life begins.  Man & Woman's next evolutionary step is a dance step.

When I let go into the dance I dissappear.  I become invisible.  Somehow this invisible place rejuvenates me, In this place I connect deeply with the earth & when I reappear it is as if my soul has been cleansed by the innocent tears of heavenly children, my darkness is eradicated in the invisibillity of the dance...'

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