The Irish got it Right!!

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Rod's World

I was given the honour of being declared someone’s Anam Cara the other day. We are entirely different people – Emeli is a kick Ass entrepreneur who is about having people see their purpose in life through workshops and retreats and I am a wordsmith who loves blogs and conscious dancing.

Historically, your Anam Cara is a person to whom you look as the person to share, confess and reveal the hidden intimacies in your life. With your Anam Cara you can express your mind, your heart, the very core of your innermost self. Your friendship with your anam cara is not just a friendship, but also an act of belonging, a place of recognition. Therefore, the most powerful gift you can bring to your friendship with your Anam Cara is your attention and awareness. It is your responsibility to be completely present with your Anam Cara.

So what does society have to say about Anam Cara’s, I have chosen 15 pertinent quotes to examine this, here we go.

1. Your Anam Cara may not be your lover or partner, He or she may not even be your bestie or live in the same state or country. But you simply know when you meet them that they are.

2. Back in the 1500’s Paracelsus came up with this beautiful quote that to me describes the Anam Cara relationship divinely. Partelsus was strangely called the Father of Toxicology as well as beng a being a philosopher.

3. Its said that with your Anam Cara you could sit there for days and days and resolve deep issues. My friend Kavisha, who is a renowned musician and chantress says the healing is not in the words, its in the silence in between.

4. It could have been easy for me to overlook Emeli as on of my Anam Cara’s, we meet putting chairs out at a yoga and meditation event mutual friends were running. It was when Em did a 45 minute workshop promising that you would know what stopped you in Life and delivered that caught my attention.

5. I love Ten Years After I’m Going Home from Woodstock , one of the great raw guitar performances Adam Cara Live. it reminds me of the joy you feel being around these people.

6. I was at a party Saturday night and overheard my friends housemate saying she was bored. it was full of bush doofers who would open a conversation with which doofs do you go to. She had just come back from working on AIDS projects in Africa and Asia. We had this amazing conversation about what we saw as making a difference for several hours. It was an honour to meet her soul.

7. John O’Donohue wrote the 1977 best seller Anam Cara. A former ex priest , he traces the expression back to the monastic traditions. I love you have arrived at your most Sacred Place – Home. Here is his last recorded talk on the subject – The beauty of Anam Cara.

8. John O’Donohue was skilled with his words and his quotes on the subject are very moving and this one touches me in many places.

9. More from John, after all he wrote the book on the subject, its on my list to read with about 6 others. This mystical quote speaks to how I feel about Emeli because it is not how we look, and what we say that draws us to be Anam Cara, it is other worldly.

10. I don’t know how many Anam Cara you are allowed in your life but another dear friend and I were discussing Yoni staring, I think this constitutes feeling the confidence to share everything.

11. I think this is self explanatory as to what it has to do with Anam Cara, it is breathtaking beautiful in its simplicity.

12. It was only less than two years ago I met Emeli, I am 61. but those two years feel like they contain as much of a journey as the previous 59.

13. Time for another song, Continental Robert Desouza and the Dynamic Hypnotics from 1984, he’s still performing around Sydney. Its a soul kind of Feeling Anam Cara Feeling.

14. Elephant and Cat, Anam Cara come in strange combinations, but they always feel Oh So right.

15. I like throwing in an Oprah quote or An image without words, I believe these beautiful butterfly friends are Anam Cara.

So when Emeli explained Anam Cara to me, I believed I entered a new phase in my life, as well as being an Elder, no longer a little boy I am an Aman Cara, sweet.

Namaste until Thursday , my dear friends

Where do you get Yours?

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Rod's World

I recently started my new small business, Rod has a way with Words. I started with a rush, dedicating hours to it, getting cards made, a webpage up, made bids for contracts but it has suddenly stopped lighting my life up.

I was speaking to my business mentor Arion, yes even startups need one about this in my usual clinical mind driven manner, when he asked me what was the Essence behind my vision for it. I do work with Arion via the Activation School, Creative Mastery for Life and with Danielle LaPorte via the Desire Map Process Your core desired feeling for a Luscious Life.

So after a healthy battle with my mind fighting me getting in touch with the Essence that I had come up with I was able to be in the presence of being Valued. For each project we have in our lives if we do not have an Essence or a feeling why we are doing what we do it quickly become day to day drudgery.

So where do you get your value from. It may be in Bliss, Ecstasy , Power or any other of the many feelings that empower us in our lives, we each have a different version of it. I have chosen 15 quotes as to what being valued means to me, here we go :

1. Don’t ever forget your value, find the people who cheer when you enter the room because they see it in spades. They are your keepers.

2. Bob Dylan had a world wide hit with I want You Bobs Hit, can you imagine it selling so well if it was title I Value You?

3. Steve Maraboli is known as the worlds most quoted man. He directs us towards placing value on ourselves that you should step up to on a daily basis.

4. Armies do not lead themselves, they need people who value the cause they are fighting for. Be it Joan of Arc, or William Wallace We Few Men, it is the great leaders that have triumphed in life.

5. Famous American Naive artist Grandma Moses who began painting in earnest at the ripe old age of 78 knows the Value of looking at the moments in life that satisfy not degenerate the value of your blessed life.

6. What you did with your time is what you will value your life for, your family , your friends who will attend your funeral and say I remember the value they were in my life.

7. Up to the age of 50 I was physically fit and then my mental health issues began. Hospitalised 5 times in 8 years I learnt the hard way the value of personal freedom, I lost it for over a six month period. I do not recommend having this occur in your life.

8. As I mentioned in the quote above about time, its not about the money exchanged it’s about the Essence of the actions people take, done from their passion they are giving you their everything.

9. My friend Emeli Paulo, founder of Collective Potential is currently doing 30 Days of Real videos on Facebook, I think they are called Vlogs. Em’s FB Page. She would love this quote. She values getting real as much as I do people being valued.

10. Author of my all time favourite quote ; Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead was a cultural Icon back in the days of the hippy movement. Her words and wisdom still live on.

11. Known as the leader of the French romantic school of art in the 1800’s Eugene knew way back then it wasn’t about the work that was being done, it was the purity of the essence behind it.

12. Love and Respect for All, Everyone Included the ethos I created for my FB page Interculturalism. Join up and help transform the world.

13. Time for some directness, living in that you are Valued does not include this practice. Time to let go.

14. Negative Feedback is about them not you, replace them with people who have you walk the talk and live inside your values and praise you for doing it, A Ho!!

15. D. H. Lawrence, the man I simply call Lawrence. I have watched David lean’s classic film about 20 times over the years. When you live from your Essence or Core Desired Feeling this state is obtainable whenever you wish to enter it.

So what is Yours? I wish you the best in locating it, it will transform your life. Namaste until next Monday, my dear friends.

Doing the Honourable Dance!!

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Rod's World

I went to my friends Jules Mojo Trance Dance on the weekend. Its a dance where you change partners each song and dance to a theme. This month it was on being Honoured, not a subject that I think of much when it comes to Conscious dance. Jules is a beautiful, beautiful soul who’s commitment in life is to empower people’s souls and build community. Here’s the link to her Facebook page – Perpetual Mojo.

So how do you honour one another at dance. You follow the two signals, I want to dance with you, but I don’t want to be touched, there are a lot of Contact Improv people among the attendees who just love being touched and the other signal that I want my own alone time. You always get so much out of the night and the group Hug at the end is worth the money alone.

So what do we as human beings have to say about honouring one another. No Oprah again but some quality insights among the fifteen I have chosen. here we go :

1. We go way back to 400 B.C. for our first look at honour. Sophocles is one of the three surviving Ancient Greek playwrights, imagine out of such a prolific era that only three people made it through. His message is simple, Honour is all that matters, corrupt success is bad for the health.

2. Our school system seems to be focusing more and more on the three R’s, turning out corporate clones. What matters later in life is how you relate to others not your ability to know the 12 times table.

3. Samuel Langhorne Clemens is Mark Twain’s real name. He lived by this famous quote above, a true man of honour.

4. Remembered for saving England and smoking Cigars Winston Churchill was meant to be a man of simple tastes and it seems simple words – freedom, justice and of course Honour.

5. Back to the 400 B.C. time frame Socrates is held to be one of the founders of Western Philosophy. This cute and pithy quote points to how to live a great life, be who you say you are going to be, Astronaut or President or Postman. it doesn’t matter, the joy is in the honouring.

6. Winston again, He had a profound belief in the fact that if you kept your word that you could do anything, but that honour and good sense were vital ingredients in the recipe required. He helped save a country with this belief.

7. I have several of Martin’s speeches on audio. They go for over 15 minutes but you are riveted the whole time. One of the most honourable men of all of history he made a race of people believe they weren’t niggers, they were proud African Americans.

8. Balastar is a cool name, he is a Spanish Jesuit prose writer. He was also known for his insightful quotes, why say something with more words that necessary. Balastar points to the value of keeping your words in the face of pleasing others is what counts.

9. Looks like this has been taken off a graffiti installation, How many of us create our present moment to moment. I know I’m guilty of not doing this 24 hours a day.

10. The Law of Abundance, always remember that abundance does not mean more possessions. In fact most awards are given to those who have contributed the most to society, get out there and be abundant by giving of yourself.

11. Taking us back to the the fact that Honouring oneself not be so significant is well known screen hero Chewbacca. I could’t find the language on Google Translate but I’m sure it is profound.

12. Prepared to die, not many people live by this creed. Nelson Mandela was one such inspirational being. I remember singing Free Nelson Mandela in our singing group Soulsong and how much we were moved by it each time we sang it. Here is the Specials great version of the song The Specials.

13. Off to ancient Egypt for this one, 1300 B.C. Akhenaton was a Pharaoh. I suppose the Pharaohs words got saved before anybody elses. Interesting that the soul had importance way back when.

14. I have been a bit male centric this Blog, and unfortunately this is by an other man. But it is about our mothers. Sai Baba, eccentric Indian Hindu guru from the 1970’s made a promise that we would come to no harm if we honoured our mothers.

15. Misunderstood critical thinker Werner Erhard, founder of the Landmark Forum, the mainstreams rite of passage into Transformational work came up with this classic. I did his work back in the 80’s and 90’s when he was still around. We did courses led by out there Americans who shocked us naive Aussies, so much that I went to the States and did two of their advanced course and ran the Moscow Peace Marathon the year before the Berlin Wall came down.

So I promise that my Blog on Thursday will be focused on that the wild women of our society have to contribute. Namaste until next time my dear friends.