I’ve got the whole summer booked filming a couple of property shows all along the South Coast of the UK.
So spent the last two weeks in Poole, Hastings, Rye and Eastbourne in Dorset and East Sussex. Despite dodging the torrential rainstorms that seem to be plaguing us this summer, I have been treating the whole thing as a long stint of Homelessness. (Which in Buddhist terms is a good thing!) Instead of stressing about being away from home, away from London and away from Julian, I’ve recognised that you have to think what you want things to be – and then they’ll follow suit. So if I think filming is going to be torture, it will be. If I think it will be spiritually fruity jaunt across the chalky downs of the South – it will be that too.
I’m borrowing all this positive thinking mularkey from The Secret which in turn borrow it from the first verse of the Dhammapada. But despite its ultra consumerist gloss, the Secret has some wonderful truths in it. Or is a fresh new lens on old ones.
I guess everyone can learn something powerful here – I know at least 2 people whose lives have been changed by it – but for me, it re-confirmed in my growing conviction that desire is good and holy. You might stumble over the wrong desire now and again – but the juice, the energy and vim to create and recreate is not unspiritual. It’s the motor of the good in life.
I’ve been diveboming the yoga tradition since I came back from Holy Island. The Bhagavad Gita (great manual for those stuck in their careers…), the Upanishads and Pantanjali. I was reading this morning about how – according to the Rig Veda – the initial impulse for the creation of the Universe out of Void was tapas, the desire for transcendence, the push to the light. And unless you embrace that desire you’ll get stuck in the bywaters of the universe, spinning around in a puddle, instead of surfing off into the glories of the Ocean.
Talking of surfing, I am also completely buoyed up by America TV. The glorious HBO. After feasting giddy on series 1 of Firefly (light fun) I then moved onto the extraordinary stuff of John from Cincinnati. Tipped off by some well-meaning comment that I was like the idiot-simplicissimus of the title, I watched the first few episodes in various seaside hotels along the south coast. It’s genius – sort of David Lynch genius.
At first it seems like pretty sub-OC surfer drama and then the weird quirks start seeping in. Not just the paranormal levitation and spooky resuscitation of parrots and surferdudes but hints at Biblical corridors and glimpes of the apocalypse. The episode when the simple chap leans forwards an whispers: ‘see God, Kai’ to the dudette from the board shop and tips her into a visionary coma made my hairs stand on end.
Don’t anyone dare tell me what happens next. I’m expecting at least a cosmic reveal like Chapter 11 of the Baghavad G.
