Keeping the Ego, but seeing it for what it is.

After my fear last night that the only way to spiritual enlightenment was to destroy the 'Ego', I have fiddled around with the theory to make it more comfortable in my belief system. And I have come up with the solution, as I see it.

Keep the Ego, but see it for what it is.

When we become 'aware' we are in the moment. We can see our thoughts and emotions for what they are. They are NOT us. All of mankind's problems come from not realising this. When an emotion is strong it can take us over, and it can be difficult to seperate our 'real self' from this emotion, which pretends that it is us.

It isn't though.

I have spent the last few days since my Reiki session in some sort of 'in between' world. A lot of the time I have spent sitting. Just sitting.

Yes, thoughts came and went through my head. But I am not my thoughts.

Keeping this consciousness is hard, as we can be easily snared by the traps of the Ego. But when a negative thought surfaces in our head, it is important to detach from it, and see it for what it is.

Letting go of the Ego (and also perhaps, the opening of my throat chakra) hs also led to conversation being more interesting, more stimulating. When conversing, very few of us actually listen. This is due to the endless chattering of the Ego. Part of us is hearing what the other person says, but the majority is thinking of what we are to say next.

When you let go of the Ego, or see it playing its tricks. You stop the chatter. And you actually listen. The effects have been amazing. People are responding to me in such a positive manner, and the simple reason is that is how I am responding to them.

Of course a life-time of bad habit can not be changed in a day, a week, a month, even a year. Its a learning curve.

But all you need to do is sit down and meditate for ten minutes at the end of the day. Close your eyes, watch your thoughts, but do not attach to them. Remember who you are is different from how your Ego constructs you.

You are the blue sky. Your thoughts and emotions are clouds flying past. Do not attach to them. Do not see them as real. They aren't.

I'd like to finish with a quote from a very inspirational blog that I discovered (http://beyond-within.com/blog)

The ego, represented by the false creator, or Demiurge, is not something to be defeated, destroyed, relinquished, killed or otherwise done away with, but neither are we meant to indulge in or be ruled by its false beliefs about itself. The ego is an aspect of the self, a tool used for having experiences and interacting with the material world — but when we go to war within ourselves, who wins? No, the ego is to be transmuted by the purifying, alchemichal flames of gnosis; to be balanced and shown its true form by Spirit. This catalyzing process is every individual’s apocolypse, which literally means “unveiling”; a trial by fire that brings forth a whole new creation.

Death of the Ego

The way to achieve spiritual enlightenment is to kill the 'Ego'.

The Ego is how we construct the reality of this world.

But the Ego is an illusion that is the root of every human misery. Without the ego there would be no pain, no suffering, no war, no disease.

To reach true enlightenment we must look inward, not outward, and figuratively 'kill' the Ego. To accept that this is all an illusion, and the Ego is a false master. That we spend our lives in a false world, in a false self, tricked by the Ego into thinking that this is it.

To kill the Ego we must spend hours, in 'awareness watching awareness' mode. Where we lie down and watch our true self, watching.

Nothing else.

I meditate and believe that it is important, but this 'Killing of the Ego' scared me.

If we lost all of our 'self' then what is left but an empty shell? What is the point of going outside, making friends, embarking upon relationships, travelling, going to the cinema, reading, going for a walk in nature? After all these are just an illusion created by the Ego to divert us away from our true nature.

The point of this 'awareness watching awareness' is to realise our true essence. The 'Ego' that we think is real is not real. Nothing is real. So why bother? Let's just stay in a room all day in a meditative trance, reach enlightenment and never have to go through the endless cycle of birth, death, rebirth ever again

(The book would say that what is now speaking is my Ego, which has been frightened that it has been discovered, and is trying to stop me from killing it)

Jacob and the Angel

I remember watching Angels In America a few years ago. The closeted gay Morman in the play opens up at one point to describe his inner struggle, between his faith and his sexuality.

He talks about a biblical account where Jacob spends the night wrestling god's angel.
In the end Jacob triumphs, and the angel says:

"Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and men and have prevailed" (Genesis 32:28)

The Morman talks about seeing this scene as intensely homoerotic. Two specimens of masculinity spending the night locked together in an embrace. The irony of him being sexually excited by the scene, and also of it being a metaphor for him battling his sexuality, does not pull any punches.

For the Morman, he can never see his sexuality as a blessing. It is something he must fight against and never win. For him, faith and sexuality can not be reconciled. Unfortunately this a myth perpertrated by fundamentalist religious people, who spend their time looking outward, instead of inward, judging instead of embracing.

The angel can represent something different in every person. For the Morman, it was his sexuality, for others it may be their lack of a partner, for others it may be an addiction to something, for others it may be a fear of something.

We all struggle against something. The secret of mastering it it is to realise that many times our struggles can actually be our blessing, and that why it is an angel he battling against, not a demon.

And yes, it is very erotic.

Something. Nothing. Everything.

When I originally decided to travel it was to find something

Shortly after I found something else, which very quickly became everything

And I no longer needed anything

Until I lost what I thought I had found

And travel became everything, because I had nothing

Now I have realised that even though I am nothing

Inside I have everything

And therefore I need nothing.

A Coral Room

Kate Bush has a song called 'A Coral Room'

It's so beautiful, so personal, that you almost feel like you are 'intruding' by listening.

Today, through a very intense experience, I finally discovered its meaning.

The 'city draped in net' is the collective unconcious. All the experiences, memories, hurt, pain, dissapointments, hopes, desires that are floating underneath the surface of our concious mind.

Our concious mind is our self identity, as reflected by our five most easily accessed senses. It is represented in the song by a boat, gliding over a river.

When an experience is so difficult for us to process, or the hurt is too painful to deal with, or understand, we push it down, underneath the water.

We feel better, on the surface. But we haven't expressed that fear, that hurt, that pain, so it turns into a knot. A knot that twists inside us, causes negativity, anxiety, stress. The thing is we don't even realise the knot exists, until it is released, when we put our hands over the side of the boat.

'Put your hand over the side of the boat.

What do you feel?'

'In Ignorance, To View A Small Portion And Think That All'

I spent most of the night online, doing some more research into Gnosticism

I find it really fascinating, for me it is the only religion I have come across that makes any sense.

William Blake was a great advocate of it, and I think the aforementioned quote sums it up really. Everything in the world works towards making us think 'this is it' I am here, I struggle I die. This is the Atheist's world view

The Christian world view is equally dangerous, if not moreso. I am here, I am imperfect. God is perfect. To keep him happy I must follow a set of laws, rules, instructions. If I don't he will send me to hell.

For Blake on the other hand, 'The Divine resides in our Imagination'

For years, the church has advocated this idea of faith, belief, looking outwards

Atheism has advocated reason, sense, humanism

Both are based around a number of laws.

Blake personified reason as Urizen, "the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensnares people in webs of law and conventional culture."

'Urizen' has put all these laws in places to keep human conciousness relegated to a very low level. This is the purpose of the Church's doctrines on sin, to take all pleasure out of life, to limit what the individual can do, and to keep his/her conciousness from achieving it's full realisation

This is a false knowledge, as Urizen is a false godhead (remember, Urizen is not literally a 'real' person, he is a metaphor)

Because we are wrapped up in all these laws, we are constantly looking outwards

But what if it is all inside us?

True spiritual knowledge (if you wish to call it such) comes to us in our dreams, in our imagination. This is the true meaning of Gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge.

And in their stead, intricate wheels invented,
wheel without wheel:
To perplex youth in their outgoings, & to bind to labours in Albion
Of day & night the myriads of eternity that they may grind
And polish brass & ron hour after hour laborious task;
Kept ignorant of its use, that they might spend the days of wisdom
In sorrowful drudgery, to obtain a scanty pittance of bread:
In ignorance to view a small portion & think that All.
Blake, Jerusalem

'The Night Owl Effect'

Always nice to put a name on something

And here is the name - Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

But what does it mean? Well in Wikipeida it is defined as

a misalignment between the patient's sleep pattern and the sleep pattern that is desired or regarded as the societal norm.... In most circadian rhythm sleep disorders, the underlying problem is that the patient cannot sleep when sleep is desired, needed or expected.

And what does it literally mean? Well here is my definition...

Trying to go to bed at 2 or 3 am and lying there in the dark, wide awake, eyes open, listening to the sounds of this house in the middle of the night.

Lying in the dark with my iPod on for hours, staring at the celing

Sleeping all of the day, avoiding the heat, missing the sunshine

This is what my life has become in Darwin. And when I think back, it's always been like that.

When I was studying I would stay up most of the night reading, burning candles and insence, meditating, listening to music

I remember working in Tesco, starting my shift at 10pm and finishing at 7am. Sleeping all day.

Even more recently, when I was working in the school here in Darwin I never got to sleep until about 2am and then I had to get up out of bed at 7am. And what an ordeal! At night time, I lie awake for ages, desperately trying to close my eyes, to go to sleep. Yet when that alarm went in the morning, I could sleep at the click of my fingers. And god what a struggle to get myself out of that bed. 4 to 5 hours sleep most nights. And then I'd make up for it at the weekend by sleeping most of the day.

Since I have broken my foot this has intensified normally. I now do not get to sleep until just before dawn (between half 5 and six every morning) Then I sleep soundly and beautifully for most of the day. Today I woke up at 4pm.

It is NOT insomnia, for which at least I should be grateful. As wikipedia tells us

People with DSPS have at least a normal - and often much greater than normal - ability to sleep during the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon as well. In contrast, those with chronic insomnia do not find it much easier to sleep during the morning than at night.

Boy do I find it easy to sleep during the day!

So now I have decided to stop fighting against it. To stop forcing myself to try and align my sleeping times to normality. Who wants to be up during the day time anyway in Darwin, when it is so hot, sticky and humid? Better to just accept that I am a nightowl. I have always preferred night time, I have always had difficulty facing the morning. And now that I am not working, lets just go with it. Lets become nocturnal.

To sleep or not to sleep

The past few weeks I have been having real difficulty sleeping (at a socially acceptable time)

I always fall asleep just before dawn (between half 5 and 6) and then I sleep all day.

Before I broke my foot, when I was working, I had a routine of going to sleep at 11pm/12 and getting up at 7am. So much so that I didn't even need an alarm to waken up. How I miss that now.

There is a real negative energy in my room. How do you know, you may say. Well you can feel it.

A few times this week, the power has gone off in the room. This always happens when everyone else is asleep. The first time I thought it was a storm outside that caused it, but the second time there was no storm.

All I can do is battle through it, but I'd love to know the history of this house, It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't exactly 'pleasant'

Gnosticism

Last year I was sitting on the bus on the way home from town. I was at a very very low point. I was numbed. And this old woman came over and stood in front of me.

Through my numbed state, I thought nothing of it. It was just some old woman looking at an advertisement above my head. Before I knew it she had gone.

But something magical happened after that. I was standing outside in the back garden, smoking, looking up at stars. And I had this feeling of happiness. I felt ok, not deliriously happy, but just ok. To go from almost suicidal to 'ok' in such a short space of time, was pretty impressive. Then I felt the hairs on my back stand up. I felt a shiver throughout myself when I suddenly recalled the old woman on the bus. That night was the first night I slept, since the incident I was grieving about had occurred.

She cleansed my aura. I tried to rationalise it, make 'sense' of it. But there was no sense to be made. She cleansed my aura.

This is just one of many examples of the spiritual experiences I have had, and continue to have. Unfortunately I don't have time to write them all here, there just isn't room.

This leads me on to Gnosticism. Gnostic means 'Knowledge'. The DaVici Code began a resurgence in this mixture of Jewish, Christian and Pagan mysticism that was huge before Christianity intervened (Madonna's Kaballah is a branch of the Jewish section of this). The people who created the bible, in the form we know it today (Constantine and Co.) conventiently left out all the Gnostic scriptures,which shed a completely different light on Jesus and his teachings. One that Constantine and Co. decided to suppress

Gnosticism then died out as Christianity triumphed.

That was until 1945, when the Gnostic Gospels were found in a cave in Egypt. Since then the movement has come back.

Basically, Gnosticism believes that religion is not a dogma, of rules and punishments if you break those rules, but it is about coming to a knowledge of one's own spirituality through meditation, dreams, auras, sixth senses, and all that 'new-age malarky'

Gnosticism also brings the feminine to the centre of it's philosophy, after years of the purging of the feminine out of the Bible. Sophia (Greek for Wisdom) is embodied by a female, and it is only through knowing and understanding this wisdom that a person can achieve fulfillment.

Gnostics believe in Jesus, but that what we know of Jesus was heavily edited when the 'official' books of the Bible were chosen. The Gospel of Thomas, Mary and Judas (yes, Judas) were hidden away in a cave. But now they have been rediscovered and published, and anyone can read them (not just the powerful churchmen as before)

The world is an illusion, but in each of us is this 'spiritual spark' Lots of people suppress it, mostly as a result of disenfranchisement with the main religions and their blatant hypocrisy. But to get to a higher level of fulfillment we must embrace that spark, and come to a greater knowledge of our own spiritual identity.

Gnosticism does not believe in the rules and regulations of mainstream Christianity. For Gnostics, these rules and regulations are used to keep our spirituality at it's basest level, and to dull us from this 'spark' that gives us meaning.

Researching it, I am amazed at how many people have been 'Gnostics' Here are just a few:

William Blake
William Burroughs
WB Yeats
Herman Melville
Allan Ginsberg
Albert Camus
Jorge Luis Borges
Carl Jung
(Madonna) [!]

It's amazing stuff. Google it, and see what you find out.

I'm reading the Bible at the moment and I will be interested to see how these hidden biblical books change the meaning, and what these people where trying to suppress by expurging them from the official version of the good book...

Electric Blue Eyes

(Fragments, of a dream on walking, jotted down in my journal as and when they came)

Figure sitting behind me

In front psychic/woman. With blue eyes/blonde hair

She was resting? (sleeping) and I spoke to her

She spoke about the person she didn't want to see. I was worried it was me, but she said it was the person behind me

She liked me. We talked. She talked about passing messages on through thought.

I tried to talk to her through thought, telepathically, but my lips were still moving.

She sent messages to me without words, and I received them. What they were was lost upon waking.

She had beautiful light blue eyes, and was wearing some sort of headress, under which was her blonde hair.

She was sleeping/resting her eyes initially.

I spoke to her first.

Salome

Salome

One of many biblical representations of evil women, and the reason why JWs don't celebrate birthdays. Because who know, if you celebrate one you might get beheaded! And we couldn't have that..


On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist." The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. Matthew 14:6-12


John's head on a platter

What a monster eh? Damn these women.

Eternity in a Moment

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment."
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

I had another one of those 'moments' tonight.

Where a scene, or an experience turns into something else.

A moment where you are reminded of how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.

I was sitting in a beautiful bar, on another hot, Darwin night, with two people who have become very close to me in my time in Darwin, Tom and Gina. We were drinking beer and having a really good conversation, while looking out at the sea.

From the distance, across the ocean, there was a flash of white. This started slowly, but became more and more frequent. The temperature dropped, somewhat eerily, and the palm trees starting blowing in a wind which seemed to come from nowhere. Then the thunder came.

Watching this beautiful storm rolling in across the ocean was something which I will never forget.

A moment where everything comes together, and for a moment you see this world we find ourselves in all its glory and mystery.

And you realise that we are nothing but ants, crawling around, caught up in a web of regrets about the past, concerns about the future. Emotions take over - anger, frustration, boredom, jealousy, sadness.

But for a split second, in the face of this spellbinding storm, I became detached from everything

And just simply 'was' Immersed in a moment.

In this madness, there are moments of clarity, moments of beauty.

And it's moments like these that make it all worthwhile.

Pilar

The angel flew across the city, looking down on all the people. And somewhere in the process the angel and I became one, and it was me flying across the city looking down at everyone. I was in control. I could make myself fly higher. The cityscape spread out below me, and I woke up with a name on my lips. 'Pilah' or 'Pilar'.

To confuse things even more, I was humming a song in my head, 'Snow (hey oh)' by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Not a band I listen to, and a song I haven't heard for a long time. So why was it there?

I quickly wrote this down before it faded from my memory. And then I turned to good old google to try and investigate the meaning.

Pilah

First result, wikipedia of course.

Kuala Pilah is a town and district in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Commonly called Pilah by the mainly Malay Minangkabau inhabitants, it is also the name of a district. It is an old valley town with many of the pre-war Chinese shophouses still fronting the main streets surrounded by traditional style Malay kampung houses built on stilts nestled amongst extensive rice fields.

When I put Pilah and Angel together, I got the following...

Enochian magic for beginners: the original system of angel magic - Google Books Result by Donald Tyson - 1997 - Body, Mind & Spirit - 384 pages
Moreover, you lifted up your voices and swore obedience Pilah, ...

I then typed in Pilar

First result, wikipedia of course...

Pilar is Portuguese and Spanish for pillar. It has assumed a great religious significance due to

* Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Our Lady of the Pillar), the name given to the Blessed Virgin Mary for her appearance in Spain, where she is commonly depicted as standing on top of a pillar
o María del Pilar (Mary of the Pillar), derived from the above, is a common female name in Latin American countries. In Spain, it is usually abbreviated to Pilar, and as such developed into a name in its own right.

So far, so weird. Am I meant to visit this town, Kuala Pilah?

What is this mysterious 'Enochian magic'?

And what about the name's 'great religious significance' and the female angel in my dream?

And more importantly, what the hell was The Red Hot Chilli Peppers doing in the mix?

Of course, I looked up the lyrics. Because if a song that you don't normally listen to is stuck in your head, in that grey area between sleep and waking there's got to be a reason surely?

So the lyrics came up, quite profound (apart from the inane refrain)

But here's the strange bit. The next plus twenty entries that came up on the search engine linked back to everything that came before: "Angels And Airwaves - True Love lyrics" with these bizarre lyrics that link in completely with my dream...


...
The snow, has come down, on top of everything,
The town, was alive and well without you.
The lights, they peer out, of the leafless trees,
And you won't, be alone, I am beside you.
...

The stars in the sky illuminate below,
The light is the sign that love will guide you home.
The stars in the sky illuminate below,
If the world were to die, the light would guide you.

Tears, spilling out, across a dead end street,
Your house, is a lonely box that holds you.
The star, bright and loud, is in dire need,
Of the fear, that is an empty fear inside you.

And the meaning of it all?

Answers on a postcard please.

Lights, Lanterns, and a Broken Foot.

I feel like I'm trapped in that song by the clash. But whereas when they asked 'Should I stay or should I go?' they were talking about a relationship, and I am talking about a country.

The decision to come out to Australia was not taken lightly. And most of last year was spent waiting, waiting for the 11th January when I would I would fly off into the great unknown.

And when you take that plunge, into the great unknown, the great unknown quite quickly becomes something quite familiar. And you realise, its actually pretty easy to go to the other side of the world. You may be in a different place, but you're still the same person. The same person, but better.

Your eyes become opened to a whole new place, new people, new mindset. Years spent floating around in a pleasant bubble, in the same town, with the same people. Safe, comfortable, but so very boring. And all of a sudden it's all new. That stagnation, that predictability, is gone.

And you meet people. Some of the most amazing people you could ever meet. And because you're on your own, out of your comfort zone, you make the effort. And it becomes so very easy. In a couple of months you have a more intense relationship than you had back home with people you'd known for years. But then, you move on. Such is the nature of travel. And those friends you made in that place, in that moment, become strangers again. And then you find yourself in a new place, with new people, and you do it all over again.

The past year, I have just been floating around. It's like putting a blindfold on and putting your finger on a map, and going there. And once you go there that brand new, unfamiliar territory, becomes familiar. And then you move on somewhere else. I've seen the lights of Sydney, I've experienced being stuck in the outback, I've been to some of the most beautiful places on earth, such as Broome. And then I arrived in Darwin.

Arriving in Darwin, something just clicked with me. I fell in love with the place. I remember exploring the small city centre a few nights after I arrived. The luminous city lights shone against the backdrop of the balmy, tropical evening. And I heard music, beautiful music. I followed the music and arrived in a park.

The trees were filled with lights and lanterns, oranges, reds and indigos against the leaves and the starry sky. There was a tent in the middle where a female vocalist was singing, and people were lying on the grass. Some smoking, some drinking champagne, some just closing their eyes and taking in the energy. I closed my eyes, lay on the grass, let the music and the heat wash over me and I thought, "This is it. This is the place I want to live"

Everything conspired in the first few months to prove my initial reaction. The sunsets, the indigo ocean, the luscious plants, the exotic animals.

The Thursday beach markets were out of this world. Hundreds of stalls selling exotic jewellery, aboriginal artwork, candles, insence, tarot. Lots of food stalls sending the smell of Asia out into the still night air. Digeridoo music floating up to the star filled sky, and me, lying on the beach watching the ocean. Thinking I could sit there forever.

And the job! What a job. Teaching beautiful, well mannered kids, the timor sea your backdrop through the wide open windows.

Then the bike accident.

Hours spent inside. Sitting in hospital wards. Sleeping most of the day. Not able to work. Not able to do anything but think.

Then 'home' loomed in my thoughts. My family, my friends, all the things I left behind ten months ago. Darwin was too hot, too sticky. The heat was oppressive. The slightest task became a monumental event. I needed to take a couple of hours to psych myself up before having a shower, because of the effort it now involved. What was I doing in this isolated place on the other side of the world anyway?

Part of me wants to settle down, wants to get a full time job, wants to be in a position where I can embark upon a relationship in the knowledge that I'm not going to be moving on somewhere else in a few months

But Darwin still has its grip on me. Last night, for example, I went to the deckchair cinema. Outdoors, under the stars, surrounded by trees. The ocean to the left. Distant lights of ships hovering. The beautiful balmy night air. The smell of the plants

I don't want to go.

The Storm Broke

Written in the midst of a HUGE storm, last night, in my journal.







The storm broke.
You could hear it through the house
Battering down the walls
Like a blind person
Hitting a hammer against a nail

But most of all
You could smell it
The smell of the wet vegetation
The aroma of the tropics
The lightning illuminating the sky
The frogs singing in chorus
As the rain pelted down

I wonder am I sleeping, back in Belfast? I wonder when will I wake up? and how will I feel when I do? If I do. When I do.

Frozen in a Moment

The heat is oppressive. You go outside and within minutes you can feel it dripping down your face, dripping down your hair, making your t-shirt stick to your skin. But you adjust, you get used to it. It is the natural state after all. Embrace the sweat. It's all that you can do.

I'm not complaining. I could sit out on the verandah for hours looking at the lush vegetation, listening to the birds and frogs, watching the lizards

I just miss being able to do things. When I think of a few weeks ago, cycling along East Point at sunset, people-watching, looking at the tropical sunset through the moisture, and thinking, "This is it. I'm here."

The last East Point sunset I remember vividly. I was smoking a cigarette on a bench looking out at the swollen orange sun hanging above the Timor sea. And I felt content. Not happy, not sad, just content.

A woman came near, with her daughter. The daughter had down syndrome. She didn't look like she spoke much, and she retreated to the corner, and looked away, to a place where she felt safe.

The woman had spent too many years in the blazing heat and her skin was shrivelled up like a used condom. But there was a kindness in her gait. Kindness and sadness. Sadness at how life can be so uninspiring, even in front of this ecclesiastical sunset.

For a few moments we sat in silence, watching the sun go down.

There were three figures which in the distance had looked like whales, or dolphins. But as they came closer it was clear they were people. People in rowing boats. I was thinking how stupid they were, as there were signs all around the beach saying it was dangerous to go into the water. Unless, of course you wanted eaten by a croc, or stung by a box jellyfish.

"Look at those silly people, out in the sea. Don't they know how dangerous it is"

It was the woman beside me. I agreed with her and went back to my sun gazing. But it was no use. A dam had been unlocked, and she didn't want to close it again.

So she talked and talked. Told me about her history, her life, her family, all that had brought her to this moment, watching another lonely sunset with her silent daughter.

I could imagine her, living alone with her daughter. Looking ater her, wondering who would when she was gone. Watching sunset after sunset. Alone. Silence. Endless silence all day. Endless silence to think about the past, to think of the people you met, and lost, to think of the people you never met, the things you didn't do.

Too much time alone is a dangerous thing.

My initial desire to experience this spiritual sunset with my constant companion of the past year, Solitude, was quickly surpassed by my desire to be nice to this woman. To listen to her, to talk to her.

Her daughter stayed at a safe distance, looking over occasionally, too frightened to come close.

As the sun went down over the horizon the old woman said,
"That was a disappointing one. I've seen better."
I laughed and said,
"There'll be another".
She then said she must go on, and that it was nice to meet me, and that she hoped I enjoyed the rest of my travels.

I remember cycling off and thinking to myself how sorry I was for that woman, how afraid I was of getting old, and how happy I was to be young, fit and healthy and on my bike in this beautiful part of the world.

That was the last sunset I saw overlooking the ocean in Darwin.

The next day was the day I fell off my shiny new bike.

The old woman and her daughter are probably sitting there right now, where they will always be sitting. Looking over the ocean, watching the sun go down.

Frozen in a moment.