change
October 2008 
What has altered your life most dramatically?
Posted on Feb 8th, 2008
by 
Shameslaya
Shameslaya
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for February 08, 2008:
Two things; yoga and fatherhood.
Lots of people have been asking me how I woke up to the degree that I have so here is a brief history of my 24th year of life.
I was living in a converted cattle barn whilst studying to be an Occupational Therapist....I smoked, drank heavily in heated pubs and took drugs to keep me warm...exercise was not an option, so infra dig...you know...so this place was drekkin' freezing cold in winter...so many holes in the walls that I opened the cupboard under the kitchen sink one day and a blackbird flew into my face before wandering out of the open door...
Anyways I did not really want to be an Occupational Therapist...I ws undertaking careerdom to please an unpleasable father, though he had been wont to tell his pals about my successes in the corporate world three years previously until I jacked it all in and fled to the hallucenogenic delights of Amsterdam...but that's another story...
I did not wanna be an O.T...but I stuck at it because I could see nothing redeemable either in the world or in myself...next door to this dilapidated barn bungalow bivouac was a commune with a whole bunch of metaphysically-inclined leftfield types so I felt quite at home doing daily visits when not minimally pursuing my studies...
One of these folk was an occultist who leant me Crowley's "Magick " and asked me to give him my thoughts on what I read...I returned it three days later and told him I didn't grok a word of it...all read like bollocks to me...
Another had been practising yoga for about thirty years and had learned from some old yoga sage type..and I figured 'to each their own' whilst lusting after her lissom frame....
These two, who will remain nameless, were arousing their kundalini through Tantrick shenanikins....I began to become aware of huge waves of energy radiating off them from time to time...the occultist began to shine out of face and eyes....she had been teaching him pranayama....
I could feel this radiant energy sinking into me the more I hung out with them...I felt like I was getting a suntan only the radiation was seeping into my very bones and heart and mind...I began to dream lucidly and yearn for something I could not name...I would spend nights adoring the waxing moon in the clear summer skies and mourning its waning....I began to sit in the nearby woods at night and hear music that did not seem to come from any direction...
One day, I was walking through the town in which i then lived and an inner voice called me into the library..."There's a book for you" said this voice, clear as a schizophrenic's auditory hallucination... I entered the library and walked, without even thinking about it, right up to the 600 shelves....an oblong hardback protruded from the shelf...'That's too drecking obvious' I thought and pulled out an adjacent book...and the oblong job tipped off the shelf and landed on my foot...ow!
Richard Hittleman's "Yoga in 28 Days"...uh, okay...got it out, took it back to the barn...we're in September now...getting braw...chuck book on bed....mmm roll a spliff...book makes a nice table....
And I am gumming the papers together and I am looking at the book cover which shows this gorgeous leotarded woman in asana...and I am realising that yoga is Coming Home...
And I am now sliding all the spliff tackle onto the duvet and opening the book...and stripping to my shreddies...and now I am doing some stretches and breathing and...of course...I have always been doing this.... for lifetimes and lifetimes....and it's all a way of getting the body energies into a state of fitness for long sittings in meditation....I remember yoga...
That first day I stretched for three hours then sat still for about forty minutes....and the next day and the next....and by this time I had raided the lbrary for all the yoga philosophy texts plus the asana/pranayama books...osmosed them in easy as plants assimilate water....cut down on the spliff dramatically, gone teetotal and cut what little meat i had been eating at the time...
a week later, i threw myself at the feet of the occultist and wept and said "I'm not as fantastic as I like to think that I am".
Without any trace of the avuncular, he replied "Well, one of us is evolving...not sure which one of us it is right now"
My yogini friend corrected my asana endeavours and taught me elementary pranayama...I stopped going to college but would sit watching the quantuum sunlight dancing on the riverripples....
One day I suddenly saw myself in the park from the standpoint of a tree...I was the tree....another day my consciousness wandered into a cat....tees began to talk to me in some unhuman language....
I began walking through arable fields barefooted singing recently-learned kirtan songs...I began to smile at people...I took lessons in meditation from the nearby Buddhist centre....I swam in the river naked at night...I went to parties and danced (I had never danced)....I loosened off and came alive...
I walked into the study of the OT Dept head and told her that we are all multidimensional beings...she asked if I took drugs...not for weeks, I replied....she signed me off the course for a year and recommended I see my doctor...
The folk at the commune protected me from being sectionned...by now I was able to see quite distinctly into the spirit world and was being taught magickal protection by the occultist...the barn guardian he saw as a wizened Old lob in a robe...I saw it as seven pink/turquiose balls of irridescent light moving like a beeswarm...I freaked a lot of folk out because I could read their thoughts....this culminated in a highly lucid dream wherein I was initiated into...well...something..in the midst of a stone circle embraced by an old man with light pouring out of his forehead and into mine...
The following day I awoke with the idea that I must somehow ground myself....I did this over the next 12 months by joining the commune and finding, serendipitously, half an acre of waste ground which I could...and did...convert into a vegetable garden...
And that was my 24th year...yoga and gardening and metaphysical study...I calmed down, went on to study kabbalah and thelema and wicca and got myself initiated into a coven...
And I'm still fuckin' wild...
Thanx if you are still reading this...
Regarding fatherhood...I blogged about Lewis' birth last Sept 2nd. That altered me, too.
Jon xx
Lots of people have been asking me how I woke up to the degree that I have so here is a brief history of my 24th year of life.
I was living in a converted cattle barn whilst studying to be an Occupational Therapist....I smoked, drank heavily in heated pubs and took drugs to keep me warm...exercise was not an option, so infra dig...you know...so this place was drekkin' freezing cold in winter...so many holes in the walls that I opened the cupboard under the kitchen sink one day and a blackbird flew into my face before wandering out of the open door...
Anyways I did not really want to be an Occupational Therapist...I ws undertaking careerdom to please an unpleasable father, though he had been wont to tell his pals about my successes in the corporate world three years previously until I jacked it all in and fled to the hallucenogenic delights of Amsterdam...but that's another story...
I did not wanna be an O.T...but I stuck at it because I could see nothing redeemable either in the world or in myself...next door to this dilapidated barn bungalow bivouac was a commune with a whole bunch of metaphysically-inclined leftfield types so I felt quite at home doing daily visits when not minimally pursuing my studies...
One of these folk was an occultist who leant me Crowley's "Magick " and asked me to give him my thoughts on what I read...I returned it three days later and told him I didn't grok a word of it...all read like bollocks to me...
Another had been practising yoga for about thirty years and had learned from some old yoga sage type..and I figured 'to each their own' whilst lusting after her lissom frame....
These two, who will remain nameless, were arousing their kundalini through Tantrick shenanikins....I began to become aware of huge waves of energy radiating off them from time to time...the occultist began to shine out of face and eyes....she had been teaching him pranayama....
I could feel this radiant energy sinking into me the more I hung out with them...I felt like I was getting a suntan only the radiation was seeping into my very bones and heart and mind...I began to dream lucidly and yearn for something I could not name...I would spend nights adoring the waxing moon in the clear summer skies and mourning its waning....I began to sit in the nearby woods at night and hear music that did not seem to come from any direction...
One day, I was walking through the town in which i then lived and an inner voice called me into the library..."There's a book for you" said this voice, clear as a schizophrenic's auditory hallucination... I entered the library and walked, without even thinking about it, right up to the 600 shelves....an oblong hardback protruded from the shelf...'That's too drecking obvious' I thought and pulled out an adjacent book...and the oblong job tipped off the shelf and landed on my foot...ow!
Richard Hittleman's "Yoga in 28 Days"...uh, okay...got it out, took it back to the barn...we're in September now...getting braw...chuck book on bed....mmm roll a spliff...book makes a nice table....
And I am gumming the papers together and I am looking at the book cover which shows this gorgeous leotarded woman in asana...and I am realising that yoga is Coming Home...
And I am now sliding all the spliff tackle onto the duvet and opening the book...and stripping to my shreddies...and now I am doing some stretches and breathing and...of course...I have always been doing this.... for lifetimes and lifetimes....and it's all a way of getting the body energies into a state of fitness for long sittings in meditation....I remember yoga...
That first day I stretched for three hours then sat still for about forty minutes....and the next day and the next....and by this time I had raided the lbrary for all the yoga philosophy texts plus the asana/pranayama books...osmosed them in easy as plants assimilate water....cut down on the spliff dramatically, gone teetotal and cut what little meat i had been eating at the time...
a week later, i threw myself at the feet of the occultist and wept and said "I'm not as fantastic as I like to think that I am".
Without any trace of the avuncular, he replied "Well, one of us is evolving...not sure which one of us it is right now"
My yogini friend corrected my asana endeavours and taught me elementary pranayama...I stopped going to college but would sit watching the quantuum sunlight dancing on the riverripples....
One day I suddenly saw myself in the park from the standpoint of a tree...I was the tree....another day my consciousness wandered into a cat....tees began to talk to me in some unhuman language....
I began walking through arable fields barefooted singing recently-learned kirtan songs...I began to smile at people...I took lessons in meditation from the nearby Buddhist centre....I swam in the river naked at night...I went to parties and danced (I had never danced)....I loosened off and came alive...
I walked into the study of the OT Dept head and told her that we are all multidimensional beings...she asked if I took drugs...not for weeks, I replied....she signed me off the course for a year and recommended I see my doctor...
The folk at the commune protected me from being sectionned...by now I was able to see quite distinctly into the spirit world and was being taught magickal protection by the occultist...the barn guardian he saw as a wizened Old lob in a robe...I saw it as seven pink/turquiose balls of irridescent light moving like a beeswarm...I freaked a lot of folk out because I could read their thoughts....this culminated in a highly lucid dream wherein I was initiated into...well...something..in the midst of a stone circle embraced by an old man with light pouring out of his forehead and into mine...
The following day I awoke with the idea that I must somehow ground myself....I did this over the next 12 months by joining the commune and finding, serendipitously, half an acre of waste ground which I could...and did...convert into a vegetable garden...
And that was my 24th year...yoga and gardening and metaphysical study...I calmed down, went on to study kabbalah and thelema and wicca and got myself initiated into a coven...
And I'm still fuckin' wild...
Thanx if you are still reading this...
Regarding fatherhood...I blogged about Lewis' birth last Sept 2nd. That altered me, too.
Jon xx
Access: PublicTagged with: QaR, choice, life, change, decision, impact, yoga, thelema, crowley, old lob, ma, Pink Floydgick, occultism, Richard Hittleman, Readers Digest
fabulous story, Jon! am suprised to learn, though, that trees didn't ALWAYS talk to you… interesting.
u were led by the Mighty Mouse all along :)
:every man and woman is a Mouse: a. crowley ;P
Awesome story.
Funny! I keep running into Magick, Occultism and Paganism over and over lately, either in my head, on the net or in some book. Perhaps it's a sign that I should to go back to that path. Hmmm!
Not in THAT way Stacey, no.
Liber al vel Vagueness AM, nyet?…Dictated to The Crowl in 1904 by the ascended master Steamboat Willie…not many folk know that….
FA; Don't do it!…..put yr energy into Wall St…….Jon xx
absolutely incredible but at the same time it totally makes sense. thanks for filling in some blanks. of course it raises even more questions! but all the more fun for later…
i needed to look up infra dig - in·fra dig play_w(“I0135500”) (nfr dg)adj. Beneath one's dignity.[Short for Latin nfr dignittem : nfr, below + dignittem, accusative of dignits, dignity.]
Amazing tale…wondering if you were able to please your unpleaseable father ( one would expect that all such illuminating initiations, etc. would have extinguished Old Crumbly to a pile of smoldering ash– or at least transformed him into a cuddly little gnome) & now the midwife in me is chomping at the bit to trip on back to August & experience the birth of Lewis…
I thank you for your generousity !
Jon, did you ever read Charles Williams? I used to find him fascinating…
Nay, jon…twas Liber MMM (Mickey Mouse Magick)
That's a wonderful story! I think my introduction to Crowley came much the same way, though instead of reading it and not understanding a bloody word, I think I read the first chapter and tripped over the man's ego (erm, my own?). The more I read, the more I come to understand that amidst the experimentations of the scientist/practitioner he was, there are some incredible gems of understanding. I know that I love the Craft in all its nuance. It has been the only path that has fulfilled me and left me hungry for more, kept me running after truth and beauty like a child after its mother, laughing in the sun, with the wind for wings.
Blessings and thanks for sharing!
AM; gemetrially that's liber 13 13 13…so..uh..last supper…um..thang..
Sitara, thanx for this…Crowley was disturbed but he did possess genius, I agree and there are quite a few gems in the merdes of his own projected self-loathing…J x
..sorry…Victoria..it's in the Sept 2nd blog…Nicole..never read Charles Williams…like Andy Williams tho'…them seventies Xmas specials…real heartwarming toetapping stuff!
So beautiful Jon, and beautifully written. Thank you so much for sharing. Love to you!
that was truly amazing to read. I enjoyed reading about your transformation. what is thelema. I shall google
I just read a book (Oooo) set in the near future where OTists practiced their trade on machines instead of people and the 'T' part was more 'therapy' in the mental sense. Machine gets balky or in a mood, call for therapy. Glad you got out when you did. Did you?
Shell, Jenni…thanx for the warm fuzzies…
Albert..I read a book once, too..it were a green book…
But seriously; would that be John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar?…read it decades ago…computer called Shalmaneezer….some bloke comes out of cold storage to engage it with socratic dialogue…maybe not…please reference…sounds intriguing…Jon xx
i understood from the first line. beautiful
Yup - I'd read Brunner back in the 80's but never Zanzibar & wanted to fix that error. Hmmm, speaking of books, have you read anything by Fred Alan Wolf?
Now, that was a wonderful story, Jon!!! Thank you–truly!.
At this moment I almost feel as if your recall of your travel has had some real impact on me, here/now—like I was experiencing it this morning. –that event and place/time you describe still radiates considerable energy, I think…..
love and light, dear one,
CG
CG, you are so warm and inspiring… love you both!
I agree. CG, you are so warm and inspiring. I always enjoy reading what you write. You write nice things too Nicole. :)
Blessings,
Shell