Enslaving The Cock

I was looking at my penis today, applying some oil and care, and it struck me very sadly how much I have enslaved my cock and my sexuality in my life. I have treated it as if its job was to deliver me certain things, things which are beyond its intended offering and function.Using my cock to please women and ‘be a great lover’ and deliver lots of pleasure and satisfaction so I can feel sexually powerful or even just adequate, is a form of enslavement of the cock, and I’ve been feeling some sadness around that today, some regret. The pressure to ‘deliver’. Of course, all the beautiful connected sex is not in the same realm, but the times I’ve used sex, either with a woman or by myself, to fill a gap, avoid space or edgy feelings, avoid loneliness, make me feel powerful, make me feel lovable or special, to prop me up…..that was not what my glorious cock was born for. I want to apologise to my penis and all cocks of the World for the unconscious ways we have sent them on ‘missions’ they were never trained for. It’s not the cock’s job to get it’s man a sense of well-being, sexual prowess, pride, safety from rejection, safety from humiliation, self-worth, inclusion or any of the other things I’ve leant on it for over the course of my life. Let’s stop enslaving the cock, or the vagina. I’m treating my cock with much more care now. I’m no longer using it as a tool of my unconsciousness, of a tool of my avoidance and escape of emotional and ancestral wounding, as a tool of compensation for the spaces and edges in my masculinity. So a new journey of deeply respecting my cock in a much more aware and focused way begins. Will you join me? Men and women? To no longer enslave our penises and vaginas to ‘get our needs met’, to escape, to fill gaps, to prop us up or ‘get’ us anything? Can we love each other’s sexual parts with that respect and care too? To keep the love and sex as a celebration of this moment only, this intimacy, here and now…..let’s not blame culture, let’s build our new culture as of now, no longer unconsciously prostituting our sexuality to fulfil roles and needs it wasn’t meant for. Together.

If we don't care for our fragile sexuality in this way, how can we ever be trusted with our boundaries? Won't they always be at the mercy of the next 'need' that has to be fulfilled? Safety in relationships, both with others, and with ourselves comes from trust. We will be able to manifest that kind of conscious environment within which we can thrive by dissolving the parts of our sexuality that we've enslaved. Please share your experiences in this…

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How To Be Safe From Abandonment Forever.

It's a painful truth that I have ruined every one of my long term relationships, including my marriage, by trying to hand over the job of 'never letting me feel insecure or abandoned' onto my partner as if they'd made a silent agreement that it was now their job to comfort me, be present with me and stay with me and certainly never trigger me into insecurity by placing their love and attention elsewhere. I now realise that it had always been my very definition of 'abandonment', which was based in the idea of 'someone else abandoning me', that was the root of my repeated stuckness and pain here. While this was my idea of abandonment, 'never being left by someone else', then my sense of well-being was always at the mercy of whichever external person I'd assigned my 'not being abandoned' responsibility to. If they chose to leave me then I suffered horribly.

But I now see that the very act of assigning the job of 'being with me' to someone else was always me abandoning myself. It's no one else's job or responsibility to be dependable in that area, only mine. If I try and get someone else to do it they will inevitably be inconsistent and my misguided expectation of their consistency is what will hurt me.

It makes people feel weighed down when we try and foist this job, which is not theirs, upon them. It makes them feel claustrophobic and ironically usually creates the very rejection that we're trying so desperately to avoid.

It also makes us cultivate the bad habit of absolving ourselves of a primary life challenge: To love ourselves, to be present with ourselves even when we feel depressed or lonely or insecure. To not escape our feelings and experiences in those moments is not as impossibly traumatic as we may imagine.

This is the time to soothe ourselves, talk to ourselves, remind ourselves that we, the steadfast adult, are still here, and are never leaving. This is the time to remind ourselves that we have always been here and survived every tough time, all the challenging emotional periods. We are here and always will be no matter what anyone else does or wherever anyone else goes.

I abandon myself when I try and get another person to do that job for me. Breaking that habit saves me from ever feeling abandoned again.

Next time that emptiness or insecurity arises in us let's not anaesthetise ourselves by immediately running to the distracting comfort of another, or Facebook or food or drugs. Let's become our own best friends or even parents, dependable, steadfast and safe.

What do you need to remind yourself in those moments?

All Workshops and Talks at: www.jamiecatto.com

Cheeky Dissolving

Whenever I have to stop and wait somewhere, sitting in the car waiting for someone, or in waiting rooms, even long traffic lights, I've been recently taking the opportunity to really stop. Like the day has set out for me this series of enforced mini meditations. I've never been one for ritualised meditation. I love folks who have a shrine and incense and lovely things and sit at their special place. Maybe it's because I'm so much on the move (being such an international diamond smuggling outlaw of creative juiciness) - it's NOT because I'm lazy or immature or any other unevolved things <ahem> ...so I welcome each of these opportunities to stop as a rest from anything external that needs my attention and scan myself, say hi to myself, (optional hand on my chest), smile through my body and into any tensions or blocks, as if they're patches of ice that need to be dissolved.

The genius Taoists constantly give their full presence to scanning their whole body, locating any blocked or hard-to-describe discomforts, whereupon they say 'Ice to Water, Water to Steam' and literally use their imagination to SEE that place dissolve and the steam leave their body.

I reckon if we practice this as a cultivated habit all day, whenever we stop, get in a bit of cheeky dissolving - smile some mischief into any tensions - watch them turn to steam and blow away, it would (will) be a massive illness preventer. Let's make this a habit from Now and share it with others.

As we get more into this habit it's also really enriching to do some of these practices with friends and lovers. The places this practice goes to are truly magical and sensual as far as widening the spectrum of your rich human experience goes...more on that as we go....but for now, notice when you dissolve these sensations in the body how many external problems and challenges in your life melt of their own accord as if by magic.

Please let me know, write below, when a drama in your life vanishes seemingly by itself!

This is PRACTICAL MAGIC

All creative and intimacy workshops at www.jamiecatto.com

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When splitting up is SO painful - a letter to a friend

Dear old Friend, waking up at my sister's in Golders Green, thinking of you especially on Sundays which can be brutal. I want to share with you a couple of things you already know such as - don't forget that this is but a painful TRANSITION, not a painful entry into a painful new life. When you were working on me last year I was having an agonising time 'being left' by my ex-wife and battling with abandonment, jealousy, lostness, loneliness. While I was still trying to keep my old reality intact and not surrendering to what was really going on I did a lot of emotional violence to myself. What I didn't know then was how brilliantly abundantly treated I was gong to be, how as soon as I placed my focus on the next chapter, not the last one with all its alluring hooks and safe, known comforts, I was met with limitless support and exciting, nourishing new gifts. I'm not suggesting that you deny any pain or force yourself to 'move on' too quickly, but I do want to remind us both that once your deeper choice and vision is directed to the next chapter, your innate genius adapts and creates and attracts wonderful new circumstances, people and surprises - and that creative genius takes it's lead from where you direct your attention.

You once reminded me to edit the tape in my head. This is a great time to raise one's awareness on the 'version of events' we are playing back in our heads. I don't know in how much resistance you are right now, or how you are faring as regards clinging, turning scenarios over and over in your mind, looking back not forward, injustice and loneliness - but I want to remind you, just in case, that there is a slither of choice here to look through a more optimistic lens, a lens which trusts that even though I have very limited vision here and it looks dark, perhaps the All That Is has a wonderful array of scenery and characters and positive unfoldings, uplifting and healing revelations in store for me.

When I was at my most disempowered and terrified state during my divorce, I had a formative experience on the London Underground train. I was sitting there listening to my music on headphones and my ipod was on shuffle. A piece of really sad film music was playing, and as I sat there listening, my own despondent predicament engulfed me. I looked around the carriage and everyone looked so isolated and lonely. I sank deeper, feeling all the tragedy of my situation, how much of a victim I felt in it and that depressing reality became more and more true. It was painful. Then the next track came on and it was something really triumphant and rocking by The Clash. Immediately my chest swelled a little and my posture became fractionally more erect. The tube doors opened and I strode down the platform, strong and upright. The music pumped along jubilantly in my ears and I walked all the taller. 'Look at this hero' I thought as I strode down the train platform, 'surviving and thriving amidst all these challenges, unstoppable. Come on then!' I felt, 'Gimme what you got!' It was only the soundtrack in my ears that had changed but it really showed me how malleable 'the truth of what's gong on' can be.

The tape in our head is the soundtrack. Our beliefs and attitudes to what's gong on. The 'version' of events on which we choose to place our attention is the truth we energise. We will empower what we focus on, positive or negative. So, as Gabrielle Roth says, it takes immense discipline to be a free spirit. To choose the positive, 'open to miracles and trust' lens over the usual attractive 'doom and gloom' one. It takes discipline. But there is a slither of choice, much aided by kicking music.

And the reward is, a year or two down the line, I now know that what happened when Jessica and I split up was a wonderful life-change for me. I resisted it with all my might when I couldn't see the future, but I am now with a heavenly, intelligent, funny, soulful girlfriend who really gets the Me 'now'. Our sex life is glorious and fresh and deeply intimate. Our soul life is so much more 'equal' that any relationship I've had before. In numerous other ways I am growing into my real wholeness, my less limited shapes, my fullest potential. I have experienced my courage, endurance and self-compassion and awakened a deeper sense of personal responsibility and self-parenting. The list of gifts is long.

I don't want to in any way suggest you rush the grieving, but whenever you have a fraction more energy, allow the next chapter vision to creep in. It's like the motion is the lotion exercises you taught me. Allowing some gentle movement in this let's your innate genius begin to lay the foundations for your next incredibly fulfilling chapter. I believe your higher mind and even the Universe itself is conspiring to set up the perfect, fulfilling, abundant circumstances for your pleasure and growth.

Beyond all that, I am sending love and trust and an extra bank of pumping electric guitars to spur you onward.

You are a Warrior. Allow your posture to reflect this and the mind will follow.

huge hug

Jamie

All workshops at www.jamiecatto.com

Paedophilia

I feel disturbed by the UK's response to the tragic Jimmy Saville events. For the record, I feel to support and promote any words and actions which seek to understand abusers and extend compassion and healing to all living beings. I do not feel to support or feed words or actions which condemn, shame and blame because those impulses are rooted in people acting from their pain and often their inability to relate to their own anger and hurt in any other way, not from their sound-judgement. I understand it but I don't choose to feed or support it as it will never manifest healing for any victim or abuser. Culturally we are not encouraged to do anything but blame and be vengeful, sadly. But no words and actions rooted in condemnation ever lead to healing or closure for anyone, if anything they increase the traumas on both sides. I am a believer in Universal Innocence and seek to discover the roots of abuse that create abusers, not resort to just blaming the most recent in a long line of suffering, compulsive, wounded souls like JS. Sometimes people say 'but what if something like this happened to one of your kids?' - the answer is this: if that happened I would undoubtedly be too traumatised at first to speak or act from anything other than my trauma, I would not be of sound mind and my judgements and actions would be destructive. But just because I would find it almost impossible to practice what I've written above in that situation doesn't make the position less valid. I hope I would eventually encounter someone who would help me somehow seek out compassion and understanding.

Ironically, those who have sought out compassion and understanding for their abusers have found it the healthiest and quickest route to transforming both their own trauma and that of the abuser. Condemning and shaming has never helped a single victim or abuser, if anything it has entrenched their trauma deeper.

It's not the condemnation of the abuser which helps heal the victims, it's the victims' innocence that needs to be upheld and reminded and affirmed. This is not the same thing as blaming the abuser but it does include affirming how ill or even horrendous their actions have been. And in my opinion all abusers are victims too. It can be hard to accept this but no matter what a 'good time' they may appear to be having, abusers like JS are in deep deep suffering and/or mental illness. How else could they possibly hurt so many? There's no need for a clinical psychologist here. If you think it's ok to rape children, then you're ill.

For more info and compassionate good sense have a look here:

http://theforgivenessproject.com/

Phew, now I hope I can sleep...

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4 Levels of Intimacy (at least)

Why so much about Intimacy and what do we get up to on these weekends? For me, Intimacy comes in 4 levels, or at least there's 4 things that especially inspire me right now.

1) Intimacy with my Lover: this has so much to do with dissolving old unconscious behaviours and strategies which fog intimacy. Ways I manipulate and control, even in subtle ways, to stay safe and in my 'perceived' comfort zone. A huge amount of mutual appreciation and effortless Intimacy lies behind these busy blocks. Intimacy arises effortlessly, naturally when we're all in the lightened-up, no nonsense space together and we realise that the thing in the way is only a mirage and once arrived at, has no substance.

2) Intimacy with everyone in my life: which means not turning up to work every day having to pretend I'm not crazy for everyone. I am crazy, you are, we all are, and I believe that the amount of energy we waste keeping up a mask, a role for everyone, a smaller than me version of myself, a crippled brochure of 'just my appropriate parts', is incredibly limiting as a lover, parent, artist, human. We're all addicted to approval from birth. So all my violent self-editing due to my approval addiction is really a manipulation to make you behave in a way I want, approving and accepting me, rather than risk how you might behave if I showed you my big, unapologetic, whole self. I want to loosen that stuff up. I am turned off by your appropriateness. In fact I find it provocative. It makes me want to go to the edge of it with you and see what's really there.

3) Intimacy with myself: I have rushed into so many decisions and actions without really checking in with myself in the moment 'what I actually want'. Things I take for granted, things I make myself do, things I deny myself due to limiting beliefs. I want the space to really listen to me. No one else will meet my needs no matter what they promise. No one will know my needs if I don't ask myself what I need and then communicate it to others. I need to give myself more space and not force myself through experiences that I don't really want just because it's expected or 'what I've always done'.

4) This really excites me - Intimacy with all the unexpected circumstances of my life - when something unexpected or not 'what I ordered' happens in my life, my old reaction would be to immediately control it, and 'guide' it back to how I originally wanted it. But now I want to leave more space. I choose to listen more to how these circumstances that I usually resist might actually be a gift, a benevolent beckoning from my soul to invite me back to a more honest, whole, version of myself. The characters that turn up to challenge me feel like they've been sent over by Central Casting to be just that kind of person who would make me react in that way and see what an over-reactive diva I can be! I believe the whole of external reality is set up to invite me back to presence. This is how I begin to trust what's going on and above all participate with what crosses my path.

all Creative and Intimacy weekends at www.jamiecatto.com - turn right at the crossroads

The Carnival Of Aggression

I've applied to meet my own aggression. It's always been there, it has a familiarity when it rears and rages, but I've never faced it soberly, explicitly acknowledged it exists and observed all it's sudden, surging entrances and thinly veiled expressions.

I know I am aggressive in many ways. Surgically aggressive with emails to people who I perceive as trying to be dishonest or unfair or disrespectful with me. I stress the word 'perceived' because there's often a difference between the perceived disrespect I'm reacting to and the actual disrespect being delivered. It's obvious that my reaction is based on how I'm perceiving the person triggering me into my aggression. If I am seduced, at the time of the trigger, by my anger's clever justification for it's self-righteous raging : "this person's an idiot" "this person is disrespecting me' "this person is trying to be dishonest with me" …then I will mistakenly label that trigger-person as the CAUSE of my anger rather than face the Truth which is that they are just the TRIGGER of the anger which is already there, bubbling away in me, reactive to triggers like this person.

I am a volcano.

The anger and aggression is in me. It's reactive to certain kinds of people and also certain kinds of situations, usually ones where I feel overwhelmed. Recently Memphis had an accident and entered the room screaming with her foot dribbling big blood drops all over the place. My first reaction to the sudden shock and worry was rage at Indy for having not cleared up the glass she had broken this morning more thoroughly. And then rage at everyone not jumping around to support me quickly enough even though there was nothing specific I needed done or had asked for support in. My aggression is useless and misguided in that situation and, if anything, could hinder efficient essential action if not reigned in quickly enough.

Another well worn aggression-trigger is my responses to my ex-wife. I not only look at the way I react to my stories of 'how I'm being treated', but I also have to examine my own manipulative aggression. I'm sometimes feeling like the victim to hers but I also have to look at how I am just like the projected 'her' I am complaining about. How have I distorted facts and information to get my way? How do I present one-sided, incomplete versions of things to get my way? How do I purport this same kind of aggression on others?

ALso, when I receive a snide, sarcastic email from someone who's judgemental about me, recently usually about teaching workshops and writing my take on life publicly, when someone sends me an overtly or covertly bullying email, especially an indirect, sarcastic kind of message, I want to dissect and kill every syllable they wrote to me and spell out their hypocrisy and blindness to them in a way that shows them, silences them and maybe even kills them. In a way that makes them feel as dismissed as i feel.

I am trying to feel into this "saying fuck off to bullies" attraction that I am experiencing. I want to be metaphorically 'upstairs' as the high being that knows everyone is just a version of me, a lesson, a gift for me to lighten up and let go and at the same time be metaphorically 'downstairs' as a human, primal in flesh and bone and say "fuck off you bully!" to those people so articulately that there is no room for anything but How I see it. This is aggressive. It's an Aggressive way to protect the hurt I feel or the fear I feel in my body from old bullies of long ago. And again, I also have to look at both my reaction but also - how am I just like them? How do I lay my own superiority trips on people? Make them feel small so I can feel less threatened? Do I do that? How am I just like the smug, superior, dismissive bullies?

I've asked to meet my aggression.

And I look at how I shame others, how I make them feel guilty for displeasing me as if they are wrong and responsible for how I now feel. Shaming people when they don't behave as I'd prefer is aggression. I'm examining my speech and my verbal tactics with my kids.

I got furious with someone else recently when I felt she was mocking me. I perceived she was. As I witnessed the perceived mocking twinkle in her eye, the perceived bid for humiliation, the perceived, deliberate cruelty for her entertainment, all these BELIEFS justified a rage surge that named her as the CAUSE and all my trust in her vanished and the jarring exposure I suddenly felt, where I perceived my openness had been mocked made me leap up, say something final and leave the area. I can almost summon the burning sharpness in my torso with the recent memory. The version of her as all these negative intentions was of course totally in me and my 'version' that I had attached all this to. None of it really going on in her at all. All projected.

That sense of 'being betrayed' in me makes me want to kill, makes me want them to feel the pain they've just 'caused' me. Wants to strike out in pain, almost as self defence. And then I ask, how am I like this character I'm painting? How often am I mocking, insensitive, a maker of inappropriate and accidentally hurtful things? A lot. I am aggressively insensitive sometimes.

And when I shared with a friend how I had felt about that trigger of insensitivity they said in one breath "you do that a lot" and a surge of rage exploded in me. "why had they given me an irrelevant auto-response in one breath and made me 'wrong' instead of empathising with the story I was sharing?" The rage of being unseen and wrongly judged. Deeper than that, the alienation and rejection of not being stuck-up-for or backed up.

The aggression in me is big. I am a big personality. I drag a lot of power along with me. I don't want my unconsciously arising aggression to cause harm to anyone near me or to sabotage my life. So I applied to meet my aggression and the reply has been a cast of thousands, people and circumstances delivered by Almighty Productions to both trigger my own aggression so I can observe it and also send characters to mirror and mimic my own behaviours and strategies so that I can see myself in technicolor and tie bells to the ankles of my insidious traps - all the better to hear them coming sooner and not get sucker-punched so often.

I'm being punked by God all the time. I am being treated with humour and mercy. I remember that these strong sensations of fear and anger and shame that arise in waves during these episodes are from one perspective, just my body's genius using the moment to discharge some accumulated, blocked trauma and my system is so self-mending that it uses strong sensations as anuses to excrete emotionally. Maybe the whole soap opera simply serves as an emotional and psychic EXPECTORATE for the humans' EMOTIONAL and PSYCHIC EXCRETION.

What's the best first step you've found in response to rising aggression in yourself, or from others?

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Feelings Fully Felt = FREEDOM

When a challenging feeling arises in me, when I get triggered by an infuriating person or situation, the powerful explosion of feelings is an opportunity to discharge some pain I've been carrying around, probably for years, but only if I can resist taking the escape route of blaming the person or thing that triggered me. Each of our body/mind/emotion systems is genius. It somehow finds a way to set up the perfect stimuli to trigger the volcanic discharge of whatever pain or old wound that it needs to vent that day. I believe all these challenging instances are set up to give us opportunities to wake up and feel more of ourselves, often raw and sensitive like blood returning to a sleeping limb. These endless challenges are not to 'get in our way' but to speed us along by efficiently triggering and discharging old pain that's been dragging us back, and thereby reclaiming as much space and aliveness as can be accessed in this human life.

We are in a constant state of efficient healing. The body is designed that way. It doesn't know what else to do.

But in order for my system to carry out its innately genius catharsis, I need to participate by choosing to fully feel the feelings that arise rather than run away from the often uncomfortable surging sensations. Only if I can keep my attention on these feelings as they are fully felt, every nuance and shade and wave of them, become a connoisseur of that whole realm of sensations without moving to hide them or skip them or resist them, then the body can release a chunk of old pain and leave space for creativity and life to rush in.

It's far easier to blame and complain at these times and frame the whole episode as 'unjust'. It takes courage and repeated leaps of faith to dare to let the tough sensations do their liberating work without escape strategies.

If we made it common practice to fully feel our feelings in the moment that they arose, then there would be little or no need for physical disease on this planet.

'I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals, or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of future pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.'

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

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YES!

I read a cool passage about Openness today - about being a YES to whatever is happening, even when it's not our preference, if we have to experience it, find the YES in it somewhere, even if it hurts, savour the exact quality of what hurts, every ripple, colour, texture of it, dance with it, become a ninja expert in this feeling - then we Open to it and it no longer controls us, then we feel it deeper and it can do it's genius work.

www.jamiecatto.com

Heartbreak, Warrior Style

Waking up on this gloomy Sunday morning in London I feel back to when I was so heartbroken last year, how brutal Sundays could be. If you're going through a tough separation, I want to share with you a couple of things you already know such as: don't forget that this is but a painful TRANSITION, not a painful entry into a painful new life. Last year I was having an agonising time 'being left' by my ex-wife and battling with abandonment, jealousy, lostness, loneliness. While I was still trying to keep my old reality intact and not surrendering to what was really unfolding, I did a lot of emotional violence to myself in resisting and not trusting. What I didn't know then was how brilliantly abundantly treated I was soon going to be, and how as soon as I placed my focus on the next chapter, not the last one with all its alluring hooks and safe, known comforts, I would be met with limitless support and exciting, nourishing new gifts. I'm not suggesting that you deny or suppress your pain or force yourself to 'move on' too quickly, but I do want to remind us both that once your deeper focus and vision is directed to the next chapter, your innate genius adapts and creates and attracts wonderful new circumstances, people and surprises which reflect a higher vision of You - and that that creative genius takes it's lead from where you direct your attention. This is where you can be powerful. A therapist once reminded me to edit the negative tape I was playing back in my head. Relationships ending provide a great opportunity to raise our awareness on the 'version of events' we are playing back in our heads. I don't know in how much resistance you are right now, or how you are faring as regards clinging, turning scenarios over and over in your mind, looking back not forward, injustice and loneliness - but I want to remind you, just in case, that there is a slither of choice here to look through a more optimistic lens, a lens which trusts that 'even though I have very limited vision here and it looks dark, perhaps the 'All That Is' has a wonderful array of scenery and characters and positive unfoldings, uplifting and healing revelations in store for me. After all, I've been well supported in my life so far, the evidence and past experience suggests that a positive outcome is more likely than ruin.'

When I was at my most disempowered and terrified state during my divorce I had a formative experience on a London Underground train. I was sitting there listening to music on my headphones and my iPod was on 'shuffle'. A piece of really sad film music was playing, and as I sat there listening, my own apparently despondent predicament engulfed me. I looked around the carriage and everyone seemed so isolated and lonely. I sank even deeper, feeling all the tragedy of my situation, how much of a victim I felt in it and as I allowed that perspective free reign in my mind, that convincing, depressing reality became more and more 'true' for me. It was painful. Then the next track came on and it was something really triumphant and rocking by The Clash. Immediately my chest swelled a little and my posture became fractionally more erect. The tube doors opened and I strode down the platform, strong and upright. The music pumped along jubilantly in my ears and I walked all the taller. 'Look at this hero' I thought as I strode down the train platform, 'surviving and thriving amidst all these challenges, I'm unstoppable! Come on then!' I felt, 'Gimme what you got! I'll take you all on!' It was only the soundtrack in my ears that had changed but it really showed me how malleable 'the truth of what's gong on' can be. It dawned on me that there's a degree of choice here.

The tape in our head is the soundtrack. Our beliefs and attitudes to what's gong on. The 'version' of events on which we choose to place our attention is the 'truth' we energise. We will empower what we focus on, positive or negative. So, as Gabrielle Roth says, it takes immense discipline to be a free spirit. To choose the positive 'open to miracles and trust' lens over the usual attractive 'doom and gloom' one. It takes discipline. But there is a slither of choice, much aided by kicking music.

And the reward and even the proof of the pudding is, a year or two down the line, I now know that what happened when my wife and I split up was a wonderful, much needed life-change for me. I resisted it with all my might when I couldn't see the future, but I am now with a heavenly, intelligent, funny, soulful girlfriend who really gets the Me 'now'. Our sex life is glorious and fresh and deeply intimate. Our soul life is so much more 'equal' and mutually supportive than any relationship I've had before. In numerous other ways I am growing into my real wholeness, my less limited shapes, my fullest potential. I have experienced my courage, endurance and self-compassion and awakened a deeper sense of personal responsibility and self-parenting. The list of gifts is long.

I don't want to in any way suggest you rush the grieving, but whenever you have a fraction more energy, allow the next ideal chapter vision to creep in. Allowing some gentle movement in this let's your innate genius begin to lay the foundations for your next incredibly fulfilling chapter. I believe your higher mind and even the Universe itself is conspiring to set up the perfect, abundant circumstances for your pleasure and growth. When we cling to the out-of-control past we drag that process back. When we surrender and bravely trust the big picture, we free up all the forces of bountiful and progressive architecture to manifest themselves.

Beyond all that, I am sending love and trust and an extra bank of pumping electric guitars to spur you onward.

You are a Warrior. Allow your posture to reflect this and the mind will follow.

http://twitter.com/#!/JamieCatto

'Redefining 'Roadblock' - an arrow pointing in an unexpected direction I didn't realise I needed to go in.' Bashar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uODUBJ1AITk

14 Ways I Love Latvia

because that roof makes me think of young poets composing as the snowflakes drift through their garrets

and hiding from the second world war in dark wooden attics

like the sea in all directions

and because of raw function and dependability

because of smoke plumes and banquets

Winter fuel to carry us through

lonely guard posts on corners

through my eyes

the horses are each one perfect

gathering out in the vast cold

I could have stared for hours

I stayed a little longer

breaking my heart with crooked rooftops

this is why I love Latvia

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Orgasms

In France they call an orgasm a 'petit mort' - little death - I love this because yes, an Orgasm is the moment when Heaven and Earth touch for an instant, when we become at once no one and everyone. When I am with my Lover and she falls off that edge into those ecstatic waves, my focus and attention in those next moments is as fully attentive and present as in the journey we've both just taken to reach that peak together, perhaps even more so. At the moment when my lover comes I feel her at the doorway to all her highest and most magical possibilities, I see light streaming in and all the limitations of her purely earthly life melt away. Her whole being floats in those instants in the ocean of 'All That Is' unbound by any beliefs or limits of the everyday. My great honour is to hold that space for her, to surround her with all the peace and magic I can invisibly bring, like a protective cocoon, empowering and guarding that perfect, fragile space as she gently re-inhabits her earthly body again, renewed and elevated to her next fully realised incarnation.

This energy is reciprocal. I am also transported into my own limitless possibilities when I come and my Lover holds me in that space. She becomes the whole of the nurturing Earth, her arms encircling me hold me in all my vulnerable, naked, unguarded rawness. At that moment I have the possibility to reawaken from the raw elemental ocean as my own highest idea of myself too.

I haven't always felt ready to allow in that safety. For one thing, when I've felt my own orgasm approaching I've often moved my rhythm or sexual energy to prolong the love-making, delay coming. My first question which has unconsciously arisen, still resonating with an outdated yet primal paradigm, has been 'Has it been long enough yet? Is she satisfied?' Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the Taoist controls and disciplines to give and receive everlasting pleasure, but so many times, when I've come earlier than I wanted to, it has been accompanied by a feeling of failure or shame, wondering if I didn't do it well enough, so now, when I come, the shift is palpable. It has been a journey to really fully allow myself to be held in that sacred space, so open and unguarded. To both be a strong man and also melt into my tenderness, control-free, totally vulnerable.

This surrender has only recently arrived in my life. My Lover offers me total love and acceptance. She holds me in my wholeness, without any head-trips, loving me beyond any of my old ideas about myself, fully sharing the limitless abundance with me.

Every moment offers us the possibility to step into a more realised version of ourselves. An Orgasm magnifies this opening like a portal and there we can be with each other in the doorways and on the bridges, letting old things fall away, allowing new energy in.

This is what I feel we can be for each other in those moments. This is our gift to each other as Lovers, as Kings and Queens of the infinite.

Wishing you all a sexy, intimate week. Please write to me and share your experiences.Please join the facebook group Woodsmen For Women and share more about this and all subjects of intimacy and connection...

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Painting of the Entrance To Heaven by Hieronymus Bosch

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All Fools Day

In our age one of the greatest feast days of the whole year should be April 1st - All Fools Day. A day that should be kept and celebrated religiously and universally. A holy day when no work is done. A day given over to the divine fantasy of holy gaiety. A day of the giving away in unending foolish-non-rational-generosity of gifts clothed in the marvels of the imagination. The entering of strangers houses and the placing of gifts upon their tables.

A day of mystical jokes concealing great mercy. A day when all the mercies of the year gather together to manifest themselves.

At night there should be fireworks, the night sky strewn with the holy signs of divine fun - written in streams of fire, and whirling catherine wheels that light up the dancing of the fools. For lovers this is the day of the year to celebrate love; their patron saint is the Fool, for all lovers are one with the Fool, as they are one with the artist and the poet, they are of the same race.

All Fools Day should be celebrated everywhere by everyone; some with dancing, some with feasts, some with fasting. A day when all the failures in life, the misfits, the deformed ones, the simple minded ones should be revered by all men with awe - and to them should be given gifts; gifts piled at their doors in the morning, gifts given all day. They should be celebrated as one of the mysteries of life. Yes, this would be the one day of the year in which all human beings could dissolve the cruel monotony of the utilitarian principle of work and respectability, that with the plausible teeth of its mechanism, tries to destroy the mysterious wonders of life.

thank you Cecil Collins

Loving Me

I'm learning that loving myself means not doing anything to evolve, but just doing things because they look like fun - and there may be evolution involved along the way, yes! But choosing to take actions (or workshops) or 'work' on a certain personal issue feels unloving to myself where I am right NOW. As if doing so is making a statement that 'Jamie is not OK like this, we need to make changes'. How violent that feels to me now. There are certain qualities or characteristics I have that I might have in the past said - "oh, I wish I was less like this" or "I wish I was more like that", and I would even imagine ways that I was going to be rejected or abandoned if I didn't get closer to perfection and improve those limiting aspects of myself. Now I realise that Perfection is observing my own unique characteristics, weaknesses and strengths, attractions and repulsions, and allowing myself to be just like this, with no agenda for any of it to change, but just to choose the most inspiring and non violent paths open to me to experience this unique collection of my 'ways', easy and challenging, in a creative, fun and loving life. The whole notion of 'working on myself' suddenly feels unloving to Me right now. Curious. It feels like a statement of lack, of judgement that something about me should be other than it is. So, yes, I could go to a workshop or a therapist and get better at 'dealing with my issues', learn the triggers, analyse where they were born and how they took root. I could see the negative beliefs that got stuck there and devise techniques to get better at catching myself, saving myself from falling into those traps again

or

I could gently observe myself playing out all those issues and accept that I am a unique, freaky, sensitive, being - someone who finds certain scenarios stressful or even unbearable, and take responsibility for protecting myself, giving myself what I need when triggered, and not making myself wrong, or un-evolved for being this crazy or for avoiding certain things.

Ironically, I have a hunch that the second option will allow those blocks enough space to morph, even dissolve, quicker than the first option, that may be a by-product - but not the aim. It feels exciting now to really let myself be possessive or materialistic, or angry or totally selfish, with full awareness and love, and not get caught in the trap of working to change or protect those around me from their judgements and reactions.

Can I love myself even if I never evolve another inch?

Paradoxically, this 'not doing anything to evolve', but only observing and accepting what's there, feels like it has the potential to allow deeper invisible yet powerful energies in me to shift - more potential for liberation than all the self help books and self-awareness workshops rolled into one.

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2011

I used to remark jokingly "it's all a mirror" after so many occurrences in my daily life that it became a kind of catch phrase, but the literal truth of that phrase becomes more astonishingly apparent with every day. My prayer for myself in 2011 is to truly experience all the challenges and excitements and even stabs of pain as the literal mirrors of me and 'where I'm at' that they are. So much less struggle and the possibility of more excitement, to explore the map of myself, all my edges and cliffs, played out for me in technicolor, posing as 'my life'. I aim to trust more what I'm shown in 2011. Listen more to the spaces in between 'what's happening' and read the 3D writing on the wall which, when I focus on it with openness to be educated and inspired, I get a chance to liberate myself. I am also not afraid to admit that I also ask for the education to be un-traumatic. I don't want to be violent to myself any more. Jamie

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Fear Mirages

fear in the past months and years I've made millions of decisions based on fear, based on preventing something I don't want from happening. The prospect of encountering these things I fear fills me with so much resistance and dread that I can spend hours turning them over and over in my mind, rehearsing scenarios and imagined conversations, trying to impose some control on the approaching chaos.

I'm now noticing that although these things that I fear are convincingly scary on approach, they are usually much emptier upon arrival. i'm driving towards mirages that look so scary as they're getting nearer, growing bigger and bigger, but then, when i actually reach hem, i pass straight through. The experience of the thing I've been so scared of is totally different from my imagined version. I can handle much more than my mind thinks I can. So when it finally arrives it's often like, oh...is that it?

hmmm... what can I tell you? I see a girl in London who lives with her other longer-term-than-me boyfriend. They've had a 'no rules' relationship for 2 years but now I've come along to really test their philosophy (and my own). She thinks monogamy, or 'rules' in relationships are backward, or at least having rules about what your excitement will be on any given day, and if it's ok to follow that excitement or not. There's a group of new friends I've met in UK who hold a weekly 'sharing group'. They are into this guy Paul Lowe. Basically, among other things, they're questioning how our culture has made a group agreement to sweep our sexual jealousy issues under the carpet and enter into untrue relationships where we hide our other attractions to protect our partner's (and our own) feelings. (Check them out at  www.lucid-living.org ) But maybe that protection isn't really protection. Maybe we need to sit with what comes up when our lover inevitably fancies someone else, or even wants to go and spend intimate time with them. How does that sit with you? My (gorgeous) London girlfriend says that when our partner wants someone else, something uncomfortable arises in us. If we say 'I don't want this feeling', deny it, it's really a way of not loving ourselves. A feeling is arising. All our feelings are part of 'us'. We are feeling more of ourselves when those waves come. Like part of us is coming home to be felt, waking up. It's not the 'trigger' of our partner being attracted to another that is the problem, but the feeling in our own self. And that feeling was lodged there long before we even met our present partner. It's been there, a wound of loneliness and rejection and abandonment, since we were tiny. So are we going to live our lives being untrue about our attractions and excitements to protect our lovers from feeling their core fears? Are we going to ask them to do that for us? Is that love? Or are we going to be 100% authentic and risk what comes up? Sit with each other, hold each other, but let the other feel their hard feelings without trying to fix it or save them from them.

My mind is accustomed to attempting to protect me (and others) from impending, traumatic feelings. Yet my truth says, the only way out is to go deeper in. The experience of allowing these waves of pain to hit me and keep moving through me rather than hit me and get stuck in my mind's analysis machinery, is a great release, but it takes courage. To override the busy busy mind and say "Yes! I'm going to feel this fully, breathe, let it come, let it be felt!", is, I believe, the most healing thing we can do for ourselves. Suddenly I realise what 'embracing your fears, embracing your pain' means. Part of me is waking up. Daring to feel discomfort is the same as self-love. It's accepting all of me, even the scary chaotic parts. I am loving myself when I let myself feel what's going on instead of escape.

Despite all this, I mostly still feel like I'm a 1-on-1 relationship person and would love to, through Freedom and fulfillment, not rules and fear-suppression, go deep over decades with a brave and beautiful partner-in-crime. Most of the folks in that sharing group live largely monogamously, even with the agreement that they should be Free to follow their excitement. But I don't want to use my lover as a band-aid to cover my raw insecurities or depend on anyone to fill that hole in my soul.

Now I'm half way through separating from my wife. We've been together 12 years and have 2 small kids. The scenario I'm now living in is brimming with challenges I would never have dreamed I could face a year ago. I'm missing my kids. I'm jealous of how her new boyfriend has been spending more time with them this year than me. I am traumatised by the image of him walking them to school or reading them stories. I miss my home, my house. My chair where I read. I am renting a room on a monthly basis and constantly on the move giving talks and playing solo gigs. But without my kite string, my home-anchor, traveling is very different. There's a thin line between Nomad and Vagrant. And I haven't even started to grieve the 12 year relationship itself yet!

This aloneness has always been with me, this homelessness, this lack of belonging. My previous, gorgeous home life might have anesthetised it for a while, but it has always been lurking there. Now, for the first time I'm feeling it, not running from it. No relationship or success in the world will ever remove it. A little boy who felt too alone to bear once hid in my ribcage, took refuge in an invisible place. Can I love him? Can I love all of me? I can talk to him gently like I talk to my kids when they're upset. I trust that voice. I know I'm a good Dad. I can hold myself.

This feels like a true path to me. The journey to wholeness. Not dependent on anyone else. I want to bring this wholeness to all my relationships.

Please let me know what you feel. And do we let our kids witness us crying fully? Really?

Jamie

www.jamiecatto.com

Love or Need?

We fall in love because the aloneness is an illusion , an agonizing one we live with every day due to our brave incarnation in separate vessels of flesh, and the Togetherness of all of us is the Truth. The relief of residing in that Truth feels so good, so right, it is Love. When we enjoy a concert as a group, the aloneness evaporates, and it is Love. When we dance together in a group or in twos and threes, the illusion of separation evaporates and there is Love, the Truth, the Naturalness. When our eyes meet and connect with the Beloved, and Kiss and Touch and meet Minds and Hearts and Souls, the painful lie of separation disappears and there is Love. It is not avoiding the Self but experiencing the True nature of Self which is not just my separated ego but my joined Oneness with You and You and You and all of Humankind and Mother Nature. One is not afraid of Aloneness, one is afraid of the Lie of separation from the One that is all of us, yet the incarnation in flesh tricks us into thinking we are Alone. We are right to reject this falsehood, not brave to endure it. Soulmates are like the cycles of Nature. The Man or Woman who will switch you on today, at this stage on Life's glorious path, may be a memory tomorrow and another may come along to light you up. It's also possible that you may choose just one, or two such souls and wander the generous and abundant pathways of God together, learning, loving, dancing in the Pleasure and the Wisdom of Surrender together for as long as it feels wonderful and Nourishing. Remember though, to overly attach to this person and use them as the Source of Safeness instead of God, The Light, is perilous. No one can do that for another. We can only receive constant Light and Love from The One. It is a mistake to burden another Human with the responsibility of providing that feeling of Security and Constant attention. Yet, the Love which can be shared with another human, a Lover, a Family member, in Community, on the Dance floor, Making Love, playing Music, sharing Stories, is REAL and to be cherished. It is the experience of the Lie of separation dissolving. It is the Wonder, the relief that all the falseness of Isolation and it's Lonely fears and demons is just our limited human perception as we walk the human path alone, finding our way back to God. We are born alone just so we can remember that it's a Lie and find our way back to Wholeness, to each other to our Community, true Family.

We are One, suffering the Illusion of separation on Planet Earth. When we experience connection we are closest to Truth - and that feels good. It is Love.

Shut Up and Listen

It's a can be a perilous misconception to suppose that when we create we are actually 'doing' something. When I'm about to write a song, or create in any way, I often get this immediate stab of defeatism and resistance because my mind thinks it can't do the job. The truth is that my mind is quite right! The 'mind' can't write a song or give the stage performance of a lifetime because it's a totally different part of our self that does those things. And I believe that 'creative' part of me is RECEPTIVE not ACTIVE. If the thinking mind had to play Hamlet, or write a ballad it would undoubtedly mess it up, yet when my thinking mind steps back for a moment and listens, surrenders, empties, lets the music or creativity 'do' me, then I'm in business.

When I write a song, I don't try and 'think it up' any more than one tries to 'think up' an idea. It just arrives mysteriously from the emptiness and I write it down. I might strum a guitar gently, listening listening, and then imagine I hear a melody. I unhurriedly try and hum it without losing it, also without pinning it down too fast. It's very hard, in my experience, to write something good on purpose. It's the same process with making a '1 Giant Leap' film. We can have all the great concepts we like, but it's not until our own minds are silent and we let the footage speak to us and tell us what it wants to say, that we have a great film. And then I get to thinking that life's like that too, isn't it? The times when I listen to the events that are unfolding around me and let them speak to me, without constantly imposing my desires or limited intentions upon them, usually it all turns out harmoniously. When I listen to others, really listen, I am able to communicate and COMMUNE without my unconscious nonsense interfering.

The mind thinks it can help with everything. It's like a over-keen, yapping, dog, full of good intentions, but also full of the misguided belief that it needs to control everything in order to succeed. In my experience, this goes for emotional as well as creative pursuits. We get heartbroken and our mind says 'don't worry! leave it to me! I'll sort it all out! I'll categorise how you're feeling and make the pain go away!" But none of that ever works because this is not the domain of the mind. For all its good intentions, it is more often a liability than a help, too fear-ridden to be of any use. Ram Dass once told me "Fear says 'I want to keep you safe', Love says 'you are safe'. So my conclusion is (subject to change) that I need to shut-up and listen in all areas. Let the song write itself. Let Hamlet play himself. I need to step back and let the great, invisible, creative spirit do all the work. All I have to do is take the money and the credit, of course!

Manifesto

'We want to put our own selves into the work. We want to create a movement of introspection and self inquiry where the viewer becomes the subject of the piece. It’s about you. If we dare to show ourselves in all our raw glory, really express what’s going on in the chaos and the shadows then we have a chance to connect to something real in our audience. Because when I talk about me, you’ll hear about you. We need to collectively admit that we’re not fine, we’re not confident and balanced and good. We turn up to work every day pretending we’re not neurotic and obsessed and insatiable and full of doubt, and we waste so much energy keeping up this mutual pretense for each other because we think if people saw the truth, if people really knew what was going on in our heads, all the crazy truth of our dark appetites and self loathing, then we’d get rejected. But in fact, the opposite is true. It’s when we dare to reveal the truth that we unwittingly give everyone else permission to do the same. To stop holding their breathe for a moment and actually come into the room. Be here, present, vulnerable and authentic.

We’re on a mission to make self-reflection hip for just a moment, just long enough to save us. If we can all collectively acknowledge our insanity, shrug and roll our eyes at each other at how nuts it is being a human, let alone having to pretend every day that we’re ‘normal’, the amount of energy we’ll inherit that has been wasted on the mask will be enough to creatively solve any global crisis.'

Food

I once saw this great film called ‘Big Night’ which was about these two brothers who were starting a restaurant.  It was beautifully crafted and their roller-coaster relationship built through stages of drama and intimacy all the way to the Grand Opening scene at the end.  But the part of the film that has always stayed with me is the finale, a sublime moment of understatement.  One brother, the morning after their exhausting and climactic ‘Big Night’, enters the kitchen, and all in real time with no cuts, takes out some eggs, cracks them into a bowl, whisks them up, heats the skillet and makes himself a plain omelette. That’s it.  We watch him do the whole thing. Just before he’s finished, his brother comes in, and they sit in silence eating the omelette together.  A moment before the end, one of them puts his arm around the other. I can’t tell you what watching him make that omelette did to me.  Somehow it looked like the most delicious thing that had ever been cooked and so when the film ended I headed straight for the nearest cornershop and bought myself some eggs and butter.  I raced home, salivating copiously, and repeated the process I’d just witnessed in my Mum’s kitchen.  And true to its promise, it was the most delicious thing I’d eaten in living memory.  I still often make plain omelettes now – very occasionally I add cheese, but usually just leave them plain.  Whenever I’m travelling for work I always order omelette and chips from room service and eat it with a little mustard, not ketchup (which I feel totally ruins it – don’t get me wrong, I love ketchup with most things and spread it liberally on hamburgers etc.)

I’ve started eating the omelette with mustard at home now too.  Sometimes with some thickly buttered bread on the side, but never complicating it with mushrooms, tomatoes or onions, no way.

Before my formative omelette experience, the most delicious thing I remember seeing in the movies was the meal Barbara Streisand and Walter Matthau shared towards the end of ‘Hello Dolly’.  I can’t remember precisely what it was they were eating, she was talking and chewing and wondering at the deliciousness as she cut and served the food from a huge platter.  The whole restaurant looked sumptuous and every mouthful she described made me crave a seat at the table.  I could smell the rich gravy and succulent, tender meats.  I’d still like to taste that dinner now, in fact.

My earliest memory of having my saliva glands and stomach juices activated by fiction was in 1978 when I read ‘The Fantastic Mr Fox’ by Roald Dahl on holiday in France (I’m pretty sure that was it) where the descriptions of chicken in particular had my belly rumbling all afternoon while I impatiently awaited a grown up to come home and make me something that would put me out of my misery.  It was intense.

Many years later I read a book that, though I had a totally full stomach at the time, transcended even that experience – ‘The Hunger’ by Knut Hamsun.  If you’ve never read it I urge you to go out and buy it at once – it’s an amazing book.  Recently, when I was enjoying my Paul Auster obsession, the one book by him I could never seem to lay my hands on was called ‘The Art Of Hunger’.  I was amazed when I finally found it that it was all about how much he loved Knut Hamsun’s book. I felt validated and an even stronger bond with the man who’d written such amazing books as ‘Mr Vertigo’ and ‘Moon Palace’. Two adventures I’ll never forget, the latter, I believe, based on ‘The Hunger’.

However, that said, I never got into the scene in the movie ‘9 and a Half Weeks’ where they do the food sex scene, in fact I’ve personally never got the food and sex connection, sensuous as food can be, mixing the two has never turned me on.  Further, food can actually get in the way of sex.  I’ve had countless evenings of rampant promise curtailed by eating too much at the restaurant earlier in the evening.  Driving back feeling bloated and over-full of chocolate mousse (can never resist it – if it’s on the menu, I’ll order it, no matter what) and whatever extra sweets they served with the coffee has put pay to many a night of potential carnal pleasure in my bed.  Also, the dreams I sometimes have after indulging in too many meat courses can be so traumatic as to make me seriously consider vegetarianism, (though usually only until lunchtime.)

The one thing I won’t eat though is torture food.  I just can’t bring myself to order fois gras, which has apparently been force-fed, or veal, which I heard is a baby creature, prematurely taken from it’s mother and kept in a dark box so the meat stays white.  There’s such a variety of choice available, shame on you if you need to go to those lengths to satisfy your palate.

I’ll leave you with a spiritual angle if I may. When I was first taught meditation it was by a man who simultaneously instructed us in the preparation steamed veggies.  It was of paramount importance to cut them in the right way, always along the seed lines, never across, or else the vital chi energy would leak out.  Now I don’t know whether it was the heightened states of Jamie-consciousness I was reaching in those days, or just the newness of it all, but I was continuously bowled over by the perfection of the colour, texture and taste combinations God had put together among his fruit an vegetable designs.  The way a courgette has that light green interior and dark mottled skin, and it’s perfect line of tiny seeds, the snappy crisp of a red pepper with it’s weird pod in the centre and it’s bright shiny skin, the fractally repeating branches of fresh broccoli and cauliflower, the simplicity of a potato, pods full of peas, corn on the cob, the colours and tastes and shapes and smells, well, I was blown away and still am in fact.  Whenever I enter a huge food store and see the variety in front of me I’m immediately reminded of the glory of Natural design and humbled in it’s presence.  And simultaneously I’m aware that if a person from certain regions of Africa were standing where I am he or she would most likely have a heart attack at the mounds of abundance, just not be able to take it in – they’d probably, like me, think they were dreaming.