Live better, Help often, Wonder More!!

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Rod's World

With a lot of my blogs I sit at my table in my kitchen and look around the room, How I choose The Sunday Assembly as my subject was that I was reading the article I got for us through my friend Paula, she is sub editor of the Northern leader newspapers in Melbourne Australia and they are always looking for an interesting article http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/central/abbotsfords-sunday-assembly-gathers-atheists-and-others-into-the-fold/story-fngnvlpt-1227092995319?nk=9e95699130ce2590a780890578c00898 I thought that we at the Sunday Assembly were one and she agreed.

So the best way to talk about Sunday Assembly is to tell Rod’s story as too how he became involved. I have a friend that I admire greatly, the always feisty Catherine Deveny read her great stuff at http://www.catherinedeveny.com/ who posted about this thing called Sunday Assembly and if you weren’t doing anything at 11 a.m. on a Sunday you should go along, so I did. I didn’t know about Atheism and no God as I’m a bit of a Deepak and Wayne fan and travel the spiritualist path and replace God with Gaia to make it okay when that word that reminds one of the Sunday School horrors rears its ugly head.

So I went along not knowing what to expect, to my surprise there were all age groups with a smattering of people wearing Atheist paraphernalia gathered in this hall in South Melbourne all waiting expectantly, The Dev came on and lead us singing one of the three songs that you do at the assembly. It was I come from a Land down Under and the next minute we were doing a Conga Line, Catherine has the ability to take you from point A to point Z very quickly. The speaker at this assembly was Ezra Bix https://www.facebook.com/ezrabix and he spoke on Wonder, one of the three premises of Sunday Assembly.

So a little bit of a history re how Sunday Assembly came about.

The Sunday Assembly started on a car journey to Bath when two comedians, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans , realised that they wanted to do something that had all the best bits of church, but without the religion, and awesome pop songs.

The first version of this was in January 6th 2013, and though they weren’t expecting many people, the entire place was full. At the next Assembly there were 300. Then they had to go to two services a day. And then it went viral.

Now there are 28 Assemblies across the world (check here to find one near you), and it looks like there’ll be 100 by the end of 2014. It is the most exciting thing in the world.

People across the world were drawn to our simple values, clear message and excellent mission.

We are a godless congregation that celebrates of life.
We have an awesome motto: Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More.
A super mission: to try to help everyone find and fulfil their full potential.
An awesome vision: a godless congregation in every town city, or village that wants one.

We are dedicated to helping the people that attend, and the folk in the wider community, to make the most of this one life that we know we have. We harness fun and joy and wonder to build communities and to help others.

So who do we have speak at The Assemblies, wide and varied from asylum seekers who had made it to professors who spoke about the statistics of happiness. A few of my favourites, Frazer Kirkman on Mindfulness http://frazerk.net/ Trevor Young on having your own brand in the world of Social Media http://www.trevoryoung.me/, and the comedian Ben McKenzie http://labcoatman.com.au/ at the inspirational and very humorous talk on What would Doctor Who Do.

This month we have Dick Gross ex St. Kilda Mayor speaking about Ritual and a naming ceremony for one of our members new borns, its on the 26th October at 11 a.m. Its called The Grand Hello : A secular ceremony at the Collingwood Senior Citizens Hall behind Collingwood Town Hall in Hoddle Street. http://www.meetup.com/SundayAssemblyMelbourne/events/207136642/

Last of all we cannot forget our musicians who donate their time so lovingly, for two oof the past three months Tom Carty http://tomcarty.com/bio has been our resident musican Tom has an awesome project in mind, Busking for swags, he will pick a specific time and gather people together and when he has the money for a sway for a homeless person, about 70 bucks he will give it to the person.

Unfortunately I cannot make it but go along, bring your cake and have a great sing, be inspired and tell your friends.

Namaste till next time , my friends

You can Dance if you want to!!

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Rod's World

We have come to be danced.
Not the pretty dance.
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance.
But the claw our way back into the belly.
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance.
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance.
The holding the precious moment in the palms.
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced.
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance.
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance.
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced.
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance.
One two dance like you.
One two three, dance like me dance but the grave robber, tomb stalker.
Tearing scabs and scars open dance.
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced.
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle.
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama.
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance.
The strip us from our casings, return our wings.
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance.
The shed dead cells and slip into.
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced.
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance.
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance.
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance.
The mother may I? Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance.
The olly olly oxen free free free dance.
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced.
Where the kingdom’s collide.
In the cathedral of flesh.
To burn back into the light.
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray.
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced.
We have come.

Jewel Mathieson is a 5 Rhythms teacher and an award winning performance poet who lives in the United states, she would like you to link to her on https://www.facebook.com/jeweldancerpoet or obtain her poetry from her webpage www,jewelm.net. Jewel has two books of poetry dedicated to dance.

There is a thriving expressive dance scene in Melbourne, Australia. On many different nights of the week you can go to a dance and shake off your daily worries and enter the space mentioned in the poem above. The largest of these groups is definitely the 5 Rhythms dance practice created by Gabrielle Roth in the states over 20 years ago https://www.facebook.com/groups/5Rhythmsmelbourne/ Led by Woodend couple Meredith Davies & David Juriansz in the north and country Victoria and in the southern suburbs by Madhuma Thompson, http://www.5rhythms.com/teachers/Madhuma+Thompson . On Tuesday nights David gets between 150 to 200 dancers and on every second Sunday Madhuma gets well over 100 who generate an amazing vibe and shift many of their issues through the wave that is danced , here is a youtube clip of Gabrielle herself explaining the wave –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cYYzcTzm6Y.

Smaller gathering are Dancing Freedom from the ground Up https://www.facebook.com/events/968650966484666/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar run by Lydia Marolda one of the convenors of Synergy IDE a fantastic all night drug and alcohol free dance experience held approximately every three months https://www.facebook.com/synergy.ide.australia?fref=ts. Another freeing dance practice is Mojo Trance Dance run by Jules Sutherland, one of many things this powerful shaman offers one to open your heart space, https://www.facebook.com/events/1495720137342784/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar, these events normally have about 50 people so are a little bit more manageable if you require your private space not to be in your face.

Theres theres No Lights, No Lycra https://www.facebook.com/pages/No-Lights-No-Lycra-Melbourne/474387869320625?fref=ts, a concept where you dance with the lights dimmed, they say people do not crash into each other because your senses are heightened, I haven’t been but the concept fascinates me..

Then we come to my personal favourite, a lot smaller than the other but the most powerful I believe, Kundalini dance, developed by Leyolah Antara from Byron Shire, you dance focusing on your chakras and use Kundalini breath practices to open them up, i had my most profound heart opening on the night I did the Heart Chakra with Nemone Sloane https://www.facebook.com/groups/ecstaticbeings/?fref=ts Theres no classes at the moment but if you moved to the shire Leyolah runs regular classes.

I feel like a list so here are what I see as the benefits of dancing expressive dance in Melbourne, Australia

1. Community – This inspired group of people have one of the strongest senses of community that I have come across. Welcoming all newcomers it doesn’t matter what your skill or experience level is, you are a part of their tribe as soon as you pay your first entry fee.

2. Fitness – Attend a couple of sessions a week and its probably the best aerobic work out available, and much more enjoyable that pumping weights.

3. Educational – If your music collection is getting stale you certainly will hear new and funky music you can add to it and you can do the Wave at home.

4. Spiritual – The Wave is the entry to listening from your heart not your head, as you dance more and more you release endorphins that unstick your stuck bits and give you access to your heart space.

5. Sensual – As you free yourself up through the dance, you realise that all bodies are beautiful and have the right to be loved. Many a soulmate are discovered on the dance floor even though that is not the focus.

Well, Namaste my friends until next time

Why do another Freeking Workshop?

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Rod's World

What you seek is seeking you – Rumi.

I have begun doing workshops after a five year break. I had reached the point where I seemed to not be receiving any benefits from spending my hard earned readies on another course I would probably use what I had learnt from it for a month or two and then go back to the old me I knew and loved/loathed depending on the day and my mood.

The last five years could be called traumatic in my life. I l lost my job of seventeen years, pensioned out never to work again, I had to move out of the house I had shared for over ten years and live alone, I hadn’t been in a relationship for ten years, generally you could say it included many nights of the dark soul. As Rumi states what you seek , seeks you and I had shown very little responsibility in any of these areas for a long, long time.

My heart had been yelling at me to get out of my government job at Centrelink for about 5 years and I took no notice going down the I have a secure job route, this manifested itself as mental Illness and four hospitalisations over the five year period. The house I was living in I shared with a drug addicted alcoholic and I must shamefully say I took on a lot of his practices in these areas. In relationships I had decided they weren’t worth the trouble they created cutting myself off from the possibility of love in my life. What I was teaching myself over these years was that being irresponsible and not listening to your heart has costs and they would continue as long as I kept acting in that manner.

This behaviour continued in my new one bedroom apartment or should one say flat as it was a 1950’s double brick structure in Preston. I was the king of take away food and the greatest lender of videos from the local video store, yes they still exist in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne. I also slept up to twelve hours a day. This went on for about a year and a half when I made a decision in the face of all the things that made up my life at the time. I went along to a Colombian film night at a place called the Darebin Intercultural Centre, I had decided it was O.K. to go as it was at six in the evening. It was a mixture of many different cultures attending and for some reason that I did not know at the time but I sense it was my heart screaming at me, grab the opportunity I asked did they have volunteer positions. Inaam, my now inspirational leader said yes even though they did not have any at the time and two months later after police checks etc. I was ensconced in the place.

Where do you know that all cultures are welcome to teach other cultures about the best they have to offer, this is what we do at the centre , link to us on https://www.facebook.com/DarebinInterculturalCentre?ref=hl. I was sitting at my desk one day when a statement passed through my thoughts Love and respect for All, No one left out, which we recently changed to Love and respect for All, Everyone Included as it is more inclusive as the word suggests. I feel in love with the ethos of Interculturalism and had found my passion at 59 years of age. I was still sleeping lots of hours and eating crap food but transformed this after attending a daggy Healthy Eating seminar put on by the local council two months later. I woke up next day at six o’clock threw out all my take away menus and joined my local organic food coop and have not eaten junk food since. The food coop was part of an environmental organisation i had belonged to when I was trying to fix myself up CERES environment park, its contact is http://www.ceresfairfood.org.au/ .

Having changed how I related to life this gave me the opportunity to begin to see what was out there in regard to transformational workshops that fitted into my somewhat meagre budget. The first I took on came out of left field. I saw that my old mate Sun was having one of his Kirtan gigs that I used to attend and there was a thing called Kundalini dance as well. As I used to dance before my hiatus in life I decided to go. The women leading the dance fascinated and scared me all in the one moment with her openness and freedom to move across the dance floor. I enrolled in her dance series as there was a payment plan. You dance your chakras through the series and when we got to dance blindfolded during the heart chakra session this was my first major breakthrough and one of the most massive heart opening I have had occur in my ilife. http://www.kundalinidance.com/

it was also during this series that I got to attend my next major transformational workshop Rainbow Bridge 13;13:13 and discover the amazing work of Tanishka Tantrika. We had to dance and focus on a project that would stretch us. Nemone has told me about this retreat up in Byron the following month that I would like. having $50 in the bank I danced to the possibility of going not knowing how. The fourth email I read that night was the six month payment plan so off I went not knowing what to expect. Over the 8 days of the retreat I got to marry myself and make powerful vows to live by, own my position as an elder in life and generally fall in love with myself. Check out Tanishka’s work at http://www.starofishtar.com

Having started to believe in myself and let go of what no longer serves me I am in the space to choose what workshops I believe will empower me. I have done two Own Your Fuck workshops to deal with my sexuality issues led by Miroslav and Belinda http://www.facebook.com/events/1546442818829919/?fref=ts a surprise workshop at an International Day of Peace event I attended were Emeli promised to get us see what it was that stops us living our dreams, Seems I have to stop running away. Emeli can be contacted at http://www.emelipaulo.com/ – she’s very real. I the did Connecting with Your Tribe to deal with the issues of being twice as old as all the people i was meeting. Led by Michele this is a fantastic look at the within and the without of your life, hence the business name https:// http://www.withinwithout.com.au, To discover what my career could be I did Get Paid Doing what you Love workshop with Charmaine and Miroslav, seems I’m a blogger and an author, contact on https://www.facebook.com/events/561276124006388/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar&source=1 and lastly the work of Arion Light through Thrive to seek support in writing my book that I have had in me for 4 years http://activationschool.com/thrive-2/, I get a support call every week day now.

Are these the last workshops I will do, not really, Emeli is doing a series of workshops called RAW – there are no limits, so I will be going along to check out what areas in my life I have been setting small limits http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/raw-there-are-no-limits-tickets-13594765309,

Namaste to next time my Friends

Surviving Earth

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Rod's World

Will the earth survive the human race? Of course it will, the earth is millions of years old and we have been here for nano seconds of that time. The question that is more relevant is will the human race survive earth? In the time since agriculture and capitalism joined and took over from growing your own food we have seen the need for four earths for humanity to survive in the amount of energy that it uses, I was not going crazy just showing you how many planets we need and its growing expediently, the world population has grown from 2 billion 120 years ago to 7.5 billion and is expected to grow to 10 billion by 2050.

We have the technology to end the use of Fossil fuels as our main energy suppliers but do not have the where with all to do it as the major energy companies spend millions of dollars to fight any reasonable campaigns that eschew this. 98% of scientific evidence points to the need to end the damage that fossil fuels are causing but the companies that make billions of dollars from its use drag out the 2% who are guns for sale and their cronies in the capitalist ideology driven governments around the world buy into it, an example is the extreme policies of the current Australian government in approving more and more coal mines in the name of job creation.

There is currently an argument going on in the city I live in Melbourne, Australia about building a 6.5 kilometre link road that will cost 5 billion dollars. Up to a third of space in cities around the world is taken up by roads and car parks and building more freeways has never resolved the issue of grid lock it has just added more localities for it to occur. I pass over a freeway on my way to work and cannot help be frustrated by the fact that most cars are single occupancy. I can remember the carpooling that went on amongst kids parents when taking them to various sporting events as they grew up, why can this not be legislated as compulsory if governments are serious about providing solutions for the traffic chaos on our roads. Its probably to much like community building for them and the afore mentioned oil companies would not want their profits cut. How much public transport infrastructure can you build for 5 billion dollars, quite a lot I would think.

A solution to the fossil fuel conundrum is the use of alternative fuelled vehicles that are becoming more prevalent with the electric driven vehicle being the most prevalent. The ones being released are top end of the market but a talk I was at last night there was mention of being able to convert for as little as $7,000. The emission from cars is only 7% of the total of emissions on the planet so this helps but I believe we must focus on solar power to generate household energy use which is up to 50% in western countries.

I cannot understand how new houses are allowed to be built without solar panels being a required part of the construction. Australia has gone from 30,000 to 1 million users with a 20 year period. I remember reading an article recently about a state in America who made it compulsory to be connected to the grid, obviously this is influence from the fossil fuel companies fighting their last desperate battles against the march towards alternative energy, which when is becoming cheaper, is clean, efficient and in the end after several years free.

I watched the excellent documentary Surviving Earth http://www.survivingearthmovie.com/ last night at CERES environmental park, a living example of what is possible if like minded people take action together http://www.ceres.org.au/ and what inspired me most about it was the use of Bindi Irwin as one of the spokes persons. Bindi stated that she had grown up knowing that her generation could make a difference , quite different to the time when children were not expected to have opinions, sit there and be quite and do what they were told to do. I believe this generation will take the actions that are required to save the planet. In the film it also talked about having a new generation of political leaders, I see this as a definite requirement.

Namaste to next time, my friends.

Real freedom = Freedom for All.

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Rod's World

I have made many great friends over the social media airwaves. Four in particular impress me with their insights and quality of posts. Annika from Gothenburg, Ricky from Springfield Missouri, Lee from England and Asif from Dhaka, Bangladesh I first met on the pages of Earth we are One, a group site that was set up to discuss positivity that now has 90,000 members. Unfortunately amongst this many people you get the occasional idiot and I have reported several who promote drug use, pictures of firearms and sunglasses etc.

I felt like leaving the group but liked reading the posts from my four new friends and i sent them a friend request which they gratefully accepted. I asked them why they kept posting in Earth we are One and they replied that if you gave in then the reason the group was set up would be lost. it must be hard to admin a group of that size, I am admin for three groups that total 200 and keeping them fresh is a task in itself.

Through Annika, who is one of the great sources for inspiration I have come across on Facebook I discovered a group called Real Freedom = Freedom for All. As my koan is Love and Respect for All, Everyone included the name of the group called to me instantly and when I read the purpose of the group:

This Group is about Freedom and to be more specific Real Freedom which means Freedom for All. This may seem to be very far fetched idea but it is in truth very simple to achieve, if that is the way we want to live as a collective.

It all stems from Oneness, the idea that we all are One. This is quite obvious I think, even our DNA is almost identical regardless of the species.

What makes all the difference is the understanding that all living beings are Absolutely Equal. (equal value). This means that the Free Will of every living being is sacred, and must therefore be honored. And that is the whole “secret”, very simple indeed.

Three years ago this “idea” was “shown” to me during some kind of vision, and what “they” also showed me was that this “portal” is always open. We just have to live according to Oneness to be able to have the experience of that kind of life.

started by a friend of Annika’s K-E Ivares this group has steadily grown as liked minded people world wide discover it by stealth or referral from a friend, I got onto it via Annika who is a verdant promoter of it.

I would recommend joining Real freedom = Freedom for All if you are called by Living in Absolute Equality and fully Respecting every other beings Freedom and Free Will. The link is https://www.facebook.com/groups/realfreedomforall/?fref=ts. See you on the news feed for the group.

Namaste until next time my friends

. friends

My Free Organic Tea Towel

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Rod's World

I get my food from a food co-op CERES fair food http://www.ceresfairfood.org.au/ and they gave me a free tea towel because I sent them a thank you message the other day.

They have a fabulous ethos, sourcing their goods based on miles traveled so that they have the least carbon footprint effect on the planet. They produce a lot of their own goods on the farm at CERES environment park http://www.ceres.org.au/ a not for profit educational site on 4 acres of land on the banks of the beautiful Merri Creek in Melbourne, Australia. You can buy boxes from $27.00 to $72.00 depending on the size of your household and they have specialist intolerant boxes as well. I buy a juicers box as I have a fresh juice every morning and a Mixed basic Box that costs just over $60 and they last me the week at least.

They also help create community by setting up a group of Food Hosts for people to pick up their boxes from, many a friendship has been made at these drop off spots. You can also have them delivered to your door for the measly amount of $6.75 anywhere in Melbourne, a city of nearly 4 million people.

The service now has over 800 customers but my history goes back to their foundation days when 20 to 30 CERES staff got together and created the idea of starting a food co-op to get organic goods at a cheaper cost, we used to volunteer on box filling duty and pick them up from the CERES stables. That was about 10 years ago and my, how it has grown. I dropped out when I lost contact with CERES about 5 years ago and rejoined, its free when I took up eating a healthy diet again about two years ago.

They also have a guarantee that food will be delivered which I was very grateful for because one week someone needed my delivery more than me and took it, it was replaced next day. They also donated food for a Christmas event we hold at the place I volunteer for disadvantaged people in the Darebin area on Christmas Day https://www.facebook.com/DarebinInterculturalCentre.

Chris, the manager and Elenore, the marketing person do a sterling job and focus on providing employment for refugees and that is why I write and acknowledge their great work on a regular basis. If you are thinking of supporting an organisation who cares about your health and providing produce at a reasonable price you cannot go past CERES fair food

Bliss Is my Essence!

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Rod's World

What makes your life thrive? I attended this amazing workshop on this subject this week called Thrive, funnily enough, going along not knowing what to expect. My friends Arion Light and Jules Sutherland have created this sacred space to help people access their vision and set out steps to have miracles occur in your life.

A courageous group of about 20 turned up, some with their vision pretty much worked out and others who where there to find words to express theirs. We go through life discovering things that inspire us but often do not go past that as we lack the support or knowledge on how to make them concrete.

The premise was offered that visions are not results driven but come from the heart because the head or mind can find all the reasons why they will not work. We did a breathing exercise to access our big vision, mine is to gift my book, Ten Words, transform a Life to the world by June 2015. I have always intended to write it but never saw it as a gift to the world so something shifted in the exercise.

As we meet monthly we then worked on a little vision for the month, something that would inspire us to fulfil our big vision, I chose to complete the first draft of the first two chapters, I only have the book title and the chapter names as I write this. I really don’t know how to turn ten words into 20 to 50,000 but as my phone buddy Kira said don’t think about the number of words just write them and see what happens.

We then moved onto the essence of the vision doing another breathing exercise to access this, its amazing how you can access your hearts essence when you focus on the breath and not the head. I have five core desired feeling form the work I do with Danielle La Porte: I am Peace, I am Bliss, I am Love, I am H.O.P.E. – Helping Other People Evolve and I am Abundance. Bliss kept resonating with me during this exercise so for this month my essence is bliss and my commitment is to write in a blissful state.

We then set out our core actions/practices out, I will be writing for half an hour each weekday and for two hours on Sunday and be in contact with Balboa Press about having my not yet completed book published.We then asked for help in regards to having our vision come into reality so I now have a phone buddy for a call each day at 7.30 a.m. to empower the day. I am feeling more and more blissful and its only two days into the month and loving my new Thrive community.

To contact Arion http://activationschool.com/ Jules http://blog.perpetualmojo.com.au/ and Danielle http://www.daniellelaporte.com/

Namaste to next time my friends

Live More Awesome, Jamgrass Music Festival, People Matter.

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Rod's World

What do these three statements have in common? They are the stickers on my music folder that contains the songs I sing at the Moons a Balloon, the community choir that I am a member of led by the inspirational Kavisha Mazzella. We are a Mental Fellowship of Victoria initiative so a lot of our members are in different stage of recovery from the dark times we have had in our lives.

When I was recently in The Melbourne Clinic for 28 days my friends in the choir offered to come and sing me some songs, I was nowhere near being in the space for them to do it but the offer made my heart shudder, that they would consider giving up their time to come and care for me was illuminating to say the least.

What songs do we sing? We have several standards, Tell Me Why by the ever awesome Neil Young, Somewhere over the Rainbow because its a beautiful song, The Moons A Balloon written by the choir when the chirpy Alicia Egan replaced Kavisha for a few weeks while she was off learning a new Tai Chi movement, but thats another story. My Island Home, a song by Christine Anu that should be Australia’s national anthem and Geckoe Song , one of Kavisha’s tunes, by the way did I mention that I have followed Kavisha and Her musical journey for over 20 years and once paid her $50 to sing my favourite song at a benefit at CERES environmental park in Brunswick. She is to me the worlds greatest singer songwriter and has the voice of an angel because Kaviisha is one.

But my favourite moments are when we sing the rounds Like Eagle Flying, another tune by Kavisha, Here are the words, when this song is sung in different harmonies you are moved to tears by its simplicity and power:

As I walk this Country, As I walk this land, I feel you watching over me

As I walk this Country, As I walk this land, I feel your spirit healing me

Eagle flying , Eagle Flying, Keeper of our Dreams

Another favourite is There is so much Magnificence by Peter Maken, simple words, awesome beauty.

Thers is so much magnificence here beside the ocean, waves are rolling in…Waves are rolling in…

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia,

Ahhh Lehhh Luhhhh Yaaaaaa

Often Basil brings his nieces along and its OK to have a cry if its tough out there on the roads of life because we are a family and we love each other, Thanks Kavisha for making our lives more worthwhile by having the choir be on fire.

Namaste till next time my friends

Do you write Love Letters?

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Rod's World

I write Love letters, yes by hand to anonymous people.

I took up the practice when I came across a Ted talk http://www.ted.com/talks/hannah_brencher_love_letters_to_strangers The idea of receiving letters from strangers appealed to me so I looked up the website as you do https://moreloveletters.squarespace.com and signed up about 12 months ago.

I have written about 60 love letters in that time and have had the gift of expressing unconditional love as it cannot have conditions, you do not know them. I’ve written to China, The Philippines, the good old U.S of A., England, Germany and Australia where I live. You are told a little background about the person and away you go. Write on!!

I have also taken up the practice of writing Love Letters to people I know as well, Its quite a beautiful thing to do , to acknowledge the reasons you love another person in your community. If I don’t have their address I email them one, but much prefer using my colour crayons as it appeals to my inner child.

I use distinctly Australian cards that an organisation I sponsor, Indigenous Community Volunteers www.icv.com.au produce. I get about three packs for an additional $20 in sponsorship, so that covers me for three months and its all tax deductible.

So some questions for you –

1. Who do you love that you would take time to write a letter to?

2. Are you open enough to receive a bunch of love letters from strangers?

3. Are you open enough to receive a love letter from family or friends?

4. What is stopping me doing this beautiful practice?

If you want any easy access to self love I recommend you take this on, if five letters is too much you don’t have to write to everyone, just as many as your heart and soul can handle, it will open them up in ways you cannot foresee.

Namaste till next time , my friends

Make a Heart felt decision!

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Rod's World

Our life is filled with day to day decisions that we need to make to get from point A to B. Such as I will leave at this time to get to where I need to go to, I will continue doing the thing I do to make money even though it does not inspire me and it is definitely a job not a passion, and what will I give my priority too to make it through to another day.

When I walked out of Melbourne Clinic Psychiatric unit after 28 days just four months ago, which was my fourth internment in the last 10 years I vowed that I would never return. I have kept getting into these situations by not listening to my heart and just giving up. It seemed easier at the time, a seemingly silly thing to do that put me in a often called looney bin, but your mind is a fascinating beast when left to control itself.

So what have I done since then, I have taken the opportunities that come my way courtesy of my heart. Four workshops, two of the same to cut the mental ties that constrict me. I discovered that I had killed my sexuality 10 years ago in a toxic relationship that I was unwilling to walk away from powerfully and that this prevented me from being in another. My mind was providing the your’e just getting old story, reasonably believable at 60. This story was another one blocking my access to the beauty of my new friendships, I was harbouring the thought its not okay to be twice as old as your tribe, at one of the workshops I linked up with a 22 year old, someone a third of my earth years, it was like we had known each other for ever.

In one of the workshops Michele, the workshop leader http://www.WithinWithoutCoaching asked me had I put myself in the blog I wrote about my favourite ten thought leaders, Listening from my heart I could see this as a possibility, when I wrote the article my mind did not allow this but I have taken it on from my heart felt space. Another opportunity I got was totally unexpected, I attended the International World day of peace in Melbourne, Australia and met this remarkable woman, Emeli Paulo from http://www.collectivepotential.com.au. I had gone there to meditate and abuse my body with Yoga not to gain access to what stops me, this is the promise Emeli made in the mini workshop she ran, I discovered when it gets to great I run away, so I wrote on my card: Stop Running Away.

What is the difference between a heartfelt decision and a thought from your mind – the heart felt decision can transform you, mind thoughts you simply survive, I know this is good enough at times but no more in my life, thank you very much.

So my request, open your heart and soul and make decisions form there, your life will transform, I promise you. Namaste until next time my friends.