Saturday, March 31, 2007





Snapshot .........




I feel a bit empty right now.
It is not unusual when I have given all I have.
I need to replenish
relax
become .........

I can feel my face is lacking in expression
my body is tired
my focus thin
not much of a mind up there

these feelings are signals
not judgements
not negative
not destroying me
just signals.

I am tired
I will rest
I will recover
I will return to energy
I will bubble with enthusiasm soon
I will be excited
I will pump with creativity
I will even feel beautiful at times

................ and all the time
I believe I am beautiful
beautiful
like you
different
but like you
beautiful .................


.

Friday, March 30, 2007


GUTTER FEELINGS

You may wish to miss this blog out - or skim - or print to read?

It is the longest blog I have ever clicked to you from The Wilson Mansions

It is an out-take from my first book 'Gutter Feelings' ........ it disturbs my comfortable ...... and I do this because I have been leading a Training Course TODAY regarding GANGS ....

So take a seat and enter in ........... it is about when we travelled first to live in East London and work with beautiful humans, including Street Gangs there ..............
I plan to republish the whole book soon - 2007 edition ..........
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 3:
Axe holes in the door


I remember well leaving St Helens YMCA with tears in our eyes. The YMCA family had taken us warmly into their lives. The granddads in the snooker room right next to our first floor flat loved our little girls, now aged one (Ann) and seven years old (Joy). The 200 pensioners in the lunch club responded generously to my rather loud humour and often repeated one-liner jokes. Now, in January 1975, following the removal van down the M1 in our blue caravanette, we were entering a new life for our family, and new kind of youth work.

I was struck first by the sheer ugliness of the club building. I would describe it now as non-shalom. (Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning peace, but also with implication of wholeness and completeness; I will discuss it again later.) Outside it looked like a square lump of concrete-no windows and steel-lined front doors. I know now why there were hammer and axe holes on the front door of the club.
It was non-shalom.


Inside it was painted almost entirely in some horrible green gloss paint that had been donated. It gave me and, I am sure, the member a distinct intuitional feeling. This, coupled with the long Pentonville-type corridors, with solid locked doors on both sides gave me a trapped, oppressive feel. It was totally depressing. What sort of kids can come in here and enjoy it? What does this place do to kids? It was so disheartening and yet it challenged me to change it. (Eventually I had most of it painted matt black and bought a lorry load of green fluorescent tubes and colourful pop music and Christian posters.) It had been built for relief work in the 1930s, and on top of that it was really beaten up. Yet it was big-so big that it had two coffee bars, two gyms and a large outdoor football court, an air rifle range, snooker room and boxing room. There were numerous other activity rooms in various states of disorder including one full of four foot high blocks of Scalextrix car racing track. Another sported a new disco unit and sound system.

One of the few pieces of equipment that was available in the open club was a table-tennis table with a plank of wood nailed across it instead of a net. As two kids played - another walked across ‘the net’.

I make recording of my evenings in the club. I can look back now at my notes from my very first night in the club:

Some friendly contact and interest in my arrival, some busy and interested in football outside, plus snooker, table-tennis. Some silly, bored kids messing about-boys barricaded themselves in the beat-up room and then smashed down the panelled walls to get out. Others jumped over canteen trying to nick sweets and money. Remember a few names. Ro’ a black kid, Maria and Carol (bangaged arm), Jim, Skunkie. . . little kids running. Several groups around – girls standing!
Building far too rambling and terrible to supervise-leaders just policing. Activities severely limited.
Conclusion – No one focal point. No warmth of atmosphere – although some team members have good relationship with kids. Great for positive activity and discipline boundaries.
Decisions – redesign toilets, block main corridor, move all refreshments to coffee bar – ONE FOCAL POINT, develop office. . . .

I notice in my second evenings recordings that ‘Carol’s arm is now unbandaged’ . That sort of detailed observation is important in youth work. The recording of it helps to concrete it in the mind alongside many other personal detail relevant to them. Even now, ten years later, I can remember that Carol, now a local mum with two kids, once had a injured arm. It makes me smile to think of approaching her ten years later and asking if her arm is better! But the point is that the first duty of love is to listen. Listen to your eyes.

There was much love practised at this level of youth work – but what did the kids do in club? For a start, try to imagine holding back up to a hundred kids who want to get in quickly, mostly without paying their 5p. ‘Steaming the door’ meant a lot to most youth workers over the years. First interactions were always hostile, and conflict had to be used as a starting point for relationship. We started the evening with at least three of the biggest male team members manning the door. I still have the ‘reception sheets’ for those early days and the first dozen name who came in were always the biggest and toughest. Now in their late twenties, most of them are professional criminals in or out of prison.

A typical evening might be like this. The oldest and toughest, the eighteen and nineteen-year-olds, took their choice of football pitch. In good weather it would be the outside yard, otherwise they opted for the cage gym, a converted theatre only useful for mad games. The slightly younger toughest opted for the top gym and football there. The youngest males, aged fourteen and fifteen, headed for the beat-up room, which was equipped with ropes and cushions from old settees, and let go their energy and aggression by beating each other up. Youth workers often joined in and it was a great place for making contact (and collecting a bloody nose!). The table-tennis table as , and a large snooker table with slashed cloth satisfied some. Mostly they came, I think, to enjoy and meet with others, get rid of energy and bait the middleclass workers!

Amongst all this - some workers had developed wholesome relationships with some kids. Little groups of kids cam in to do various activities and discovered real love from people who came from very different cultural backgrounds.

My second night in club was my big showdown and I had to be rescued by John Bourne who had been acting leader before I came. Young fifteen-year-old Johnny had handed his knife in and at the end of the club he demanded it back. My reasonable suggestion of handing it back at the door on the way out was met by my first confrontation, and it shook me to the roots. Such power, will, determination, psychological dominance and aggression! In ten years full-time youth work I had never met such psychologically strong kids. There were many more such confrontations to be experienced.

As well as individuals in Club we also has gangs with names. In 1975 ‘The Sn*pers’ were a gang who dominated club. They were all seventeen to nineteen-year-old boy who were notorious in the community and much wider afield. They were pub and street fighters, football supporter of the violent kind, and Mayflower was their club.

There were many positives about them. They loved good times and had lots of ‘real characters’ among them with genuine humour. There was also a whole range of skills and trades represented. The real hard men, the expert ‘cat burglar’, the quick thief, the quiet handler of stolen goods – the gang could do anything. They were planners and sophisticated. They were also cocky cockneys!

Doug, on of my clleauges, tells of one of his first experiences of taking The Sn*pers out in the minibus on an ice-skating trip. Approaching the car park and the single arm barrier, Jimmy said, ‘hang on’, jumped out the bus and broke off the barrier like a matchstick.

One member wrote this poem, which will give an idea of the image they hoped to project - their mission::

The Sn*pers Poem

Oh, to be Sn*per,
To be feared foar and wied,
To be on the dole for all my life,
To even go inside.

I’d walk around C*nning Town,
Right stroppy like you’ll know,
I’d never smile or be kind,
Cos roughness and niceness don’t go.

I’d scare the shit out of everyone,
I’d make them really spit,
I would be the top man,
I really would be it.

We have got no leaders,
What would we do with one,
If anyone tried to rule us,
We’d get him with a gun.

The Sn*pers are the bravest,
The Sn*pers are the greatest,
If you mess around,
Then they really put you underground.

I don’t want you to think I am exaggerating or confused due to a ten year time lag. I’ve always recorded on paper the activities, incidents and people and these help me to give and authentic account now. One particular evening, I went home later after club and spoke into a tape recorder. The purpose was to give the publishers an idea of our situation, as they were producing material for us. But I started off by telling them of that particular evening’s club. . .

I have just got in from club, and just to put you in the atmosphere tonight, we had all members come in, and a big gang from the club called ‘The Sn*pers’, and every one of them was armed. Some had hammers, some haad breadknives, and one had a bayonet, one and axe; other had all sorts of ‘tools’ as they call them. They came into club, paid their subs. I was on the door and didn’t see one of them with a tool, and yet when they were inside they were brandishing them, flick-knives and breadknives. . .

They stayed for an hour, and then they went down to a local fun fair to ‘fight the blacks’. It isn’t unusual, of course, to have this sort of trouble; we have run trips to football matches and people have got stabbed, and we’ve had fights in the club, and three weeks ago someone faintly resembling a ‘Paki’ got beat up just outside the entrance. And all these are members. Not that I’m bragging about it – because I am ashamed. But it is people who are real, real members, real C*nning Town kids-and we work with them.


It is absolutely horrible to work with them, love them,and yet see the sorts of things they do. We work with them all the time, and it makes you so sad.

The last time we were open before tonight was Friday. They were talking about how the night before they had jumped on a little Pakistan boy at the same fun fair. Only little, nothing to fight against really, and yet they jumped up and down on him, on his face, so that blood spurted out.

What we have to offer in club, the game and facilities, cannot compete with the thrill and kicks they get out of the violence with makes us feel repulsed, and yest to them is the really exiting thing in life.

When all the lads went out we decided as leaders to do something that we had never done before - because it was such a dangerous situation . We phoned the ‘Old Bill’ (the police, that is) anonymously, and told them that there was a big gang, armed up to their eye-balls, on their way to the fun fair. The ‘blacks’ did not turn up and the Old Bill actually nicked one of the lads for carrying a breadknife. All the rest of them came back having got rid of their energies in a way, just the tension of doing that sort of thing. They enjoyed it.

One of our other members got stabbed during the evening, in the arm, but we don’t know the whole story.

I am telling you this really so that it will fill you in with what is happening night after night, and facing this tension night after night by going to clubs in my relationship with; others you do not. And if they carry a knife it is very difficult to lovingly discipline them, and still keep a relationship. I hope you will pray with us in this. It is such a burden.

Just tonight I was talking to on of the girls. She and her boyfriend are both regular members, but he was picked up a week ago in an armed robbery (he’s only seventeen), and I was telling her how I had written to Billy and sent him some comic strip booklets. She said she thought they were good. When we sent them to Borstal, everyone reads them, not just one lad.

Late on , when the lads came back form the fairground battles, they were picking up literature.
One, called Shortly (whose probation offices is a Christian) was reading Run Baby, Run and he was very interested; I told him that it was a true story. One of the other lads said he’d seen the film. When we turned the lights off at the end of the club, one of the lads swore and ran to the bar where there were lights so that he could carry on reading – and this is what happens with something that is readable.

The first year and more was full of incidents like the one just described in the club.

The lads were difficult to communicate with, They knew little about Christianity and tended to treat Christians with coolness and suspicion. But one of the most effective ways we found of stimulating and challenging the kids, and communicating the gospel to them, was the ‘ Ten o’clock Newz’. This was something established at the ‘Y’ Club, in St Helens, to provide some Christian thought-provoking stimulus to the kids, and we introduced it to Mayflower.

Ten o’clock Newz was held at 9.50 pm in Senior Club. All machines: pin-ball, video, juke box etc. were turned off and lights dimmed. Kids were encouraged to come in to the Coffee Bar, and most did, rather than continue table tennis and other sports or go home.

The speaker stood in a central raised position and spotlighted, using the microphone to communicate. The message had to have real impact and relevance to the kids’ lives if they were to listen. We told our speakers to keep it very short- unless the kids were obviously gripped.

Response was sometimes shouts and abuse from a minority or sometimes comments from the floor, which could be used to build on the message.

We have had some incredible times at Ten o’clock Newz-and, of course, many disasters. The kids, generally speaking, love it. ‘What’ on News tonight, Pip?’ they would say towards the end of the evening and a good discussion would often result from just that. Sometimes a theme would run for weeks and the kids would continue the debate in every corner of the club. Jesus must be news to our kids. Good News too.

One particularly effective method of helping young people to know where they are in relationship to God is the Football Pitch’.

Hanging on the Mayflower club wall is half a table-tennis table painted white with this diagram drawn on it. The question is: Where are you on the pitch? Where are you in relationship to God?

- are you on the terraces, just a spectator?
- are you in the changing rooms getting ready for action?
- are you perhaps even closer to God, on the reserve bench?
- or are you a Christian, on the pitch- where the action is?

Others may place themselves in the showers -cooling off from the action of being a Christian. Some youth workers have placed themselves here -feeling tired, battered, soiled and needing refreshment before returning to the pitch.

In the club, during Ten o’clock Newz this pitch has been used to get kids to think and publicity declare where they are. I always remember Ingrid, one of our beautiful black girls, walking from the disco area across the social area to place herself on the terraces. Others have said, ‘I’m in the pub on the corner of the next street!’ or, ‘I’m on the terraces with my back to the pitch!’ (That says a lot, doesn’t it?) Bones, an eighteen-year-old boy, placed himself on the terraces, but a week later in the midst of a chat pointed out that he had moved to the changing rooms - getting ready!

This device is used a lot in the youth club to make it easier to talk about Christian things. Kids easily respond or bring up the subject without any feeling of threat. Among Christians it is also a very useful device for cultivating spiritual self- disclosure. Often in our full- times’ daily ‘Feelings Meeting’ (a share and prayer time together) we ask, ‘Where are you on the pitch at the moment?’ ‘I’m on the pitch- the touch line, but no one is passing me the ball,’ said a keen Christian. What does that say? Here are other responses I’ve heard during the years:

‘I’m on the pitch, but lying on a stretcher.’


‘I’m on the pitch, but with shins bleeding, playing defence all the time.’
‘I’m scoring goals!’
‘Mid- field distributing the ball and keeping abreast of the game.’

‘I’m dirty, knackered, sweaty- but ‘I’m on the pitch.’

In the club, nasty incidents continued to happen. A worker had his hair set on fire, a radiator was pulled from the wall and the club flooded while a chair was set on fire at the same time. The kids physically harassed workers and I had to develop new skills of responding physically too, but in a non- threatening manner. Sometimes in the early days when I was being verbally abused I used to give the boy a sharp kick in the shins and smile. It was usually unseen by his mates and yet it was felt by the offending young man with positive results. I would be criticised by many for this sort of action and I wouldn’t do it now, but it did get results and respect in those early days of ‘Who’s that fat slob with the funny voice?’

This links with what I now call ‘Get lost theology’. Let me illustrate. During 1984 we had a great deal of disruption and physical attacks from a gang called ‘the Smithys’. They had ‘steamed’ the club, swinging iron bars and broken cues, attacking kids and youth workers. Some time later they turned up when Margaret and Deb were on the door. ‘Can I nip upstairs and get a light for my fag?’ said one infamous member of the gang who was currently charged with burglary and arson- burning down a local corner shop. ‘Get lost!’ said Deb, ‘I’ll get one for you.’ Three years before that, she would have let him in, with the whole gang, and it would have been goodbye quiet evening. The ‘Get lost theology’ is basically being wise enough not to get conned.

Patrick Butler, one of our long-term workers, who has now left us for a professional Youth and Community Work training, speaks of his most memorable lesson which happened early during his Mayflower time.

Oddball, Murph, Pete, Micky and a few others chatting were with me by the coffee bar. Murph pulled me aside and whispered something in my ear. ‘Ask Micky how his mum dances.’ I was reluctant, feeling very unsure of my ground, but not wanting to appear a spoilsport. His persistence soon won over my uncertainty and I asked Micky how his mum danced. A deathly hush fell amongst the group and Micky grabbed me and thrust’, me against the wall. I heard murmurs of ‘the bastard!’, and ‘fancy asking him that’. Micky, with a first held close to my face warned me colourfully and in no uncertain terms what would happen to me if I ever said anything like that again, and it was only confused that Murph explained that Micky’s mum was in a wheelchair and hadn’t got any legs!

It was just a ‘wind- up’, as it is known in C*nning Town. His Mum had legs and it was just part of the aggressive fun!

A teenager approaches me in club and says, ‘Pip, I want to become a Christian.’ ‘Get lost,’ I say. That has happened so often. That question, the most incredible, exciting question a person can ask, and yet I say ‘get lost’. The reason is that you become culturally aware, and therefore understand what they are really saying, gaining respect in the process. Otherwise you are written off as a ‘wally’, as Patrick described in another incident.

One evening I got talking to Kev and a few of his mates. Kev told me he was unemployed and we talked for a long time about how he felt about not being able to get a job. He described his frustrations, staying in bed until lunch- time, having no money. My heart went out to him. I therefore felt humiliated when later I discovered that Kev in fact did have a job and that our whole conversation had just been a joke.

Another wind-up!

‘Get lost theology’ means loving kids so much that you learn how to communicate within their culture. When someone really asks how you become a Christian, ‘Get lost’ is never the reply!

This ‘Get lost theology’ can also be reversed and the kids themselves develop a ‘rubbish philosophy’. I can remember someone fifteen years ago coming up to me after a Ten o’clock Newz at the ‘y’ Club and saying ‘That what you said was a load of rubbish.’ What he was really saying was, ’Tell me more about Jesus.’ It was a question! An aggressive approach that was followed by an earnest conversation about Jesus. That night the young man believed that Jesus followed him home as he walked the dark streets. Some days later he committed his life to his Creator as we sat at the club coffee bar together. That same ‘Rubbish’ approach has been made to e much more recently at the M*yflower too.


You don’t handle everyone in that way, in fact, that was unusual. Sometimes you let things go because there are more important priorities. In that first year, in 1975, I wrote in my Youth Report:
‘As I walked past a corridor in club last week two teenage boys were fighting with knives and I just walked on by. It was a friendly fight.
A few seconds later I paused,

“What am I doing?”
Here am I getting conditioned ….’


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have changed much since all this ...... some of it is not me any more ...... but it was reality then ........... and I have another book to write now .........

.

Thursday, March 29, 2007








Z i g .......

......... our beautiful

non- human person














.... feel I have not clicked much ...... yet I have - even in Norway all last week.
But I need to catch up on myself.

I am .........
Leading a workshop/training session about 'Gangs' tomorrow.

It is ever moving.
Joan tells me that there has been a big statement from the Police today.
More stats etc..
I will need to catch that up and fit it into the session.


Have lots to do, such as the boring 'invoices' and basic communications, and I also have to get my act together because I have scheduled that I write two chapters for 'Gutter Feeling', 2007 edition.
I have gigs to do and pressing matters - but stink! - I need to get these words down. If I don't during the Easter fortnight - I will find it rolling away from me as other priorities will take over. hmmm.

I have lots to tell you - still more reflections on last week's Norway experience. Still more stories from Wilson Mansions............ new things ........ new challenges ...... a few jokes ........ pipturesque ....... no more Pipski !! ................ and always the road less travelled ........... and the journey inwards .....

..... and I have clicked these yearnings - straight from my soul ....... it aches to discover the great and deep ....

.... beautifully human

that is what you are
I mean that
you are not your behaviour
your feelings
your incompleteness
your aching
your fallshortofwhatyouwanttobeness

you are beautiful at the core
your soul
your centre

you are loved
you valuable

you may not feel that
sometimes
anytime
all the time

and thinking
maybe
maybe you don't think you are
beautiful
you are
beautiful

and God loves what you are
loves who you are
- unique
loves your beauty
looking deeper than the feelings
the flesh
the damage
the scars

that love is like
arms around you
hugging
strong
almost hurting
so tight
the arms around

and always
when you glance
his eyes are always
looking your way
and they smile
and
almost
a
tear

beautifully human
that is what you are
you make
life
worth living

beautifully human
is also
an album
by
jill scott
beautiful human
now
listening
just now

it has drawn me to tell you
........................ go to to top of the text
and let it soak again
into that beautiful human person that you are ............





www.pipwilson.com

Wednesday, March 28, 2007


NEXT U2 ALBUM








These are songs that have been mentioned
in the buildup to U2's next studio album::


* "Love Is All We Have Left" - a song Bono named during his May, 2006, trip to Africa as one that he had recently written. "It’s like an old Broadway tune. I thought it was a Frank Sinatra song," Bono said.

* "North Star," a song from the How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sessions which included a guest organ appearance from Michael W. Smith. In this CCM article, Smith describes the song as a tribute to Johnny Cash.

* "Mercy", one of the last songs to get cut from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, described in Blender magazine as "a six-and-a-half-minute outpouring of U2 at its most uninhibitedly U2-ish"

* "Lead Me In The Way I Should Go" -- a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in this February, 2003, interview with Bono in Grammy Magazine

* "You Can't Give Away Your Heart" - a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in SPIN magazine

LATEST NEWS

December 25, 2006: In an interview that airs on Christmas, Bono told BBC Radio 1's Jo Whiley about the U218 album and where U2 may be headed next:

"But when you do these collections, they are usually to mark the end of something, and our band has certainly reached the end of where we've been at for the last couple of albums. I want to see what else we can do with it, take it to the next level; I think that's what we've got to do."

You going to continue to be a rock band?

"We're gonna continue to be a band, but maybe the rock will have to go; maybe the rock has to get a lot harder. But whatever it is, it's not gonna stay where it is."

He also talked about Bruce Springsteen's recent music.

"He's amazing. There's real power there, in voice and the acoustic guitar. I would like to do a couple of tunes in that direction, with just a lot of space around the voice. I'd like to strip things down; that's something I'd be very interested in at the moment."

December, 2006: In the January, 2007, issue of Q magazine, Edge talks about U2's next studio album:

"Will there be a new record next year? We hope, but we don't know. We've got about five or six songs that are in good enough shape that we feel strong about them, but not in good enough shape that we could record them.

"It's going to be a very melodic record. It's interesting to me that some of the artists who were really glossed over in the early period of the band's existence I'm starting to 'get' more and more now. People like the BeeGees. You listen to their work now and think 'My God, how brilliant were they as songwriters?' but totally undermined by a lot of bad hair and living in Los Angeles or whatever.

"And some of the things that the Eagles wrote -- amazing songs. It's a new-found appreciation for pure melody. That seems to be what we're all interested in at the moment."


May 23, 2006: During his trip to Africa, Bono told NBC's Brian Williams that he's been writing lyrics during the trip, and has "up to" eight songs.
He recited this verse:


There's no midnight please.
You're just on your knees.
There is a harbour in a safe port.
What was is now not.
There was no price to pay.
Thank you for the day.

"God's love with skin on"

Tuesday, March 27, 2007









Love that will not let me go ..............



Hello - yes you
you are a beautiful human
maybe you feel beautiful?
Most humans I ask - say NO

Deeper ...........
Some humans I know - are beautiful on the inside.
Some I know, are beautiful on the outside
(my eyes are Western European/ Hetrosexual /Male)

I see beauty in every human

When I see someone doing a thankless job
and I speak with them
warm
personal
light
affirmative
thankful
........ the bud opens like a flower
they respond with light in their eyes ....
(the eyes are a light to the soul)

I believe that all humans are beautiful
not all behaviour of humans is beautiful

If we feel beautiful
we will be beautiful for others
beauty changes the world
beauty is a four letter word ........

Bergen Airport 25.03.2007
One hour delay ...............



.
The Notices::

"The Low Self Esteem Group will meet on Thursday at 7pm.
Please use the back door"


"The Weight Watchers group will meet on Wednesday at 8pm.
Please us the large double doors at the side entrance"


.

Monday, March 26, 2007

"There is a deep beauty hidden
in the luminosity at the heart of
soul...
behind the dull facade of our daily lives.

Only in your solitude will you actually find it,
find the neglected beauty
of your life!"


John O'Donohue
Pipski

..... this was a rare vertical moment .................. believe me ............ still got the pains ........


.




Sunday 25th March 2007

Bergen airport and the first time to reflect ....... and reflect we need to do -
always
otherwise a life experience is lost as a developmental experience .........

Spending time with a group is my favourite activity
I love getting to know
and building relationships

Humans never ever fail
to surprise me
they/we
can switch from howling laughter
to precious moments of wonder
as the click of two fingers.

Harvard gave me his objectives
He desired that his young leaders be given the opportunity to develop wholistically -
(and I never like spelling that with a 'h' - too 'holy' for me)

I like the process of becoming whole .............

He-desired that they become leaders
takers
but
also
MAKERS.
Humans who give to the wider community of humans in the Norwegian town of Voss
and therefore
multiply growth

of humans in this community
and beyond.

During the process of creating a climate of trust -
fertile ground ...........
I realised that the group had SO SO much potential that that I needed to go beyond the development of awareness and skills (Toolbox stuff) - and really get them into stretching their imagination and creativity for the benefit of others ........... and self of course.

So we did a
'reality analysis' together

then a
'needs analysis'
........ all within the concept of 'motion changes emotion' of course.

And then
and then
......... we moved into really great creativity and maximum participation .....

Using models of participation and creative thinking in small groups - they burst through a bubble of the now ...... into futurology ..........
all with the purpose of them themselves being the takers/come/makers ....... the future leaders of programmes which will impact humans in body/mind/spirit.

From then on they all went on a roll - creating contextual programmes which were poured into a funnel ......... resulting in wee mission statements and objectives. Even considering key areas of focus and key targets to get three priority programmes up and rock and rolling.
Youth-full creativity ........... and me?
- I loved it ............. loveitloveit.

So a week-end with a group of young humans ........ wondrous .......... but more to come from my visit to a town with a culture v special ...... think it needs to change it's name to
Vossski !!

Grace strikes us
when we walk through the dark valley of an empty and meaningless life…
when, year after year,
the longed for perfection does not appear,
when the old compulsions rage within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment a ray of light breaks into our darkness,
and it is as though a voice were saying, ‘
You are accepted.
You are accepted,
accepted by that which is greater than you,
and the name of which you do not know.
Do not ask for the name now;
perhaps you will find it later.
Do not do anything now;
perhaps later you will do much.
Do not seek anything,
do not perform anything,
do not intend anything.
Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.’

If that happens to us, we experience grace.



paul tillich

Juliet Bravo here::

I like watching the faces of humans when they are on their mobile telephone.
Also when they receive a text message.
They leave the space I share with them
and enter a different one
with another

Sometimes I see the joy and the smiles and the laughter and the specialness through the facial expressins ............ and sometimes the relationship with another
is not a warm one.

See the (part) Blob pipturesque here - which one are you right now?
and why?


.



Little::Black::Book::Sunday::
25 03 2007

.... on a train .....
just

Just left the intensity of a group Voss beautiful humans.

I feel like a Champagne Cork.
Just bursting out of a bottle of best Bollinger
Intense-participation-action-work-creativity-futureology-love-joy ..........

Now alone for the journey back to the Wilson Mansions .......

I feel like a Champagne Cork. Just bursting out of a bottle of best Bollinger - full of taste as I have just been dipped into a Champagne experience.

Now exploding - out and away ............ separation ........

All sorts of feelings and I want to write them straight away. Experiences, learning, yearning ..... but now I will settle down and think and replenish the energy for the journey ahead ......... but I am full of feelings and all beautiful ........

Black Book Closed ........ tunnels-mountains-snow-fjords-tunnels-beauty- ......

Saturday, March 24, 2007






...too busy to blog and answer my emails but home late Sunday night ...


you are special
and
beutifull


ps
Norwegian beautiful humans here .......
cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

We do not believe in ourselves
until someone reveals that deep inside us
something is valuable,
worth listening to,
worthy of our trust,
sacred to our touch.
Once we believe in ourselves
we can risk curiosity,
wonder,
spontaneous delight
or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

EE Cummings
"People travel
to wonder
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge wave of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars and yet
they pass by themselves
without wondering."


St. Augustine.



Friday, March 23, 2007





I have left Bergen now

I was alone in a four bunked room

I left a little message
under the bunk
so
as the next beautiful human gets into bed
they can see a little message .....





......... today right now
you are ................





... it was great today .... sometimes I went left
sometimes right
sometimes forward
backwards
..... and every time it was with my head in the snow!!!







I am about 2 days late with my blogs but I will catch up .....

..... and thanx for being there ...
...... be patient please - I feel like I have just fell down a mountain - not far wrong!!!!




Alone in a strange city .......

I am OK with that
I would never chose
'alone'

as I wouldn't chose
'quiet'

but I would rather be
alone
it is far better than
quietness
...... but we all beautifully differ

I have Gilles Peterson pumping beats through my iPod now
and I love it

The cement mixer mind need to pour out it's contents
and become concrete.
I never like blocking reflections.
that is why I have 30 years of recordings
before I started blogging some four years ago.

Some of those scribblings became books
I would love to publish more but hate typing
my two fingers get cramp and
I feel like I am becoming the Hunchback of Notra Damn
But - all these little bits could be sewn together
to become a crocheted bedspread .......
and Bingo - a book!

BenjiB my second favourite DJ has found me via my ear buds
we are now together in an inexpensive middle of the road Cafe/Bar
which in Norwegian means 'expensive'
£7.50 for a pint of beer - better not ask for a Cointreau!

The big question
deep philosophy here

Do I have a desert?
Don't normally have deserts unless we are eating out - posh like
At home it is fresh fruit, yoghurt and honey hmmmmm

The Norwegians are fantastic at English.
Even so, when in a session, - I need to get the Norge humans into triads to discuss together every ten minutes or so - so they can reflect in Norwegian.

Decided - I am having a desert.
(I can hear the Sheilas disapproval right now .........)
I have just complained about part of my first course
not being warm enough
in a nice way of course!
I received a free espresso .......
Always best to be warm
and honest .......


More about the humans in Norway soon and more photos ........

you are beautiful


.

Thursday, March 22, 2007


Caroline says I can reprint this.
I want to becaue if you visit her here
it is in some small or great way
support::
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will tell you who I am right now:
I have felt overwhelmed this week
I have felt comforted by total strangers
I have felt helpless
I have felt like I don't matter
I have felt like I don't want to matter

I am a mother, a wife, a loner
someone who is more real online than in real life
I am invisible and in your face
I am too demanding and too eager to please
I am off balance, out of kilter, not quite in touch with reality
I am ruled by my emotions, a reactive being.
I am living in a world of mirrors, I am Alice through the looking glass,
I am living in a world which doesn't make sense.
I am living in a world where I don't make sense.

I feel scared, anxious, grateful, supported, unsupported, out of control

I am afraid to tell who I am because...
if I tell you,
if I show you,
you will reject me
and I have that certainty within me
And whether that certainty is true or not
it is true for me
and that makes showing you all of me much too terrifying.

I am afraid to show you who I am because I need your acceptance.
I need your acceptance because I do not accept myself.

Caroline


Caroline
you are beautiful ..................







Comfortable .... ...... ...... ..... ....... ..... .....
.... ...... .... .... is a dangerous place to be.

I always write on planes trains and at airports.
Being alone for hours of travel - I want to record some of what is in the cement mixer of my mind.

I have no pretence, well - not much, about being important.
I know a man who, at every occasion - seeks out the most important person in the room (he uses the word 'man' - not person) and heads for them and engages with them.

Me - know my ignorance's - well ....... about 5%, but that is enough to know
I have had a poor education,
I have a serious addiction to spell-check,
allergy to clichés and a
celebrity skin rash.


Love is a dangerous activity.

So I know I cannot cover-up my fragility's with a nice smart suit, articulateness,social chatter, business sense, crossword puzzles and charm.
I may as well let it all hang out.
I am fortunate that I have no middle way options soooooo no masks in Pipville - well - I hope and yearn ... .....


Thought for the day::
We all need our backsides as much as we need our faces.

Some of you are fortunate to have one more attractive than the other ......


I am flying over Norway writing this in my little piplifebook ....... and now clicking it into my mac in a little hostel room belonging to Bergen YMCA/YWCA.

I am flying over Norway - Oslo/Bergen.
BenjiB music in my ears.
Sun warm on my left cheek.
I see snow capped rocks and mountains.
Bright and beautiful.
Feelings run deep.
Texts had come at me as I paused a wee while in Oslo.
Humans saying they loved me.
Male female.
The Sheilas and Joan are there for for me.
Torgrim and Oyvin - I am in their manor yet will not meet.
I wish there was a U2 concert - like the last time we hung out in Oslo.

I am going to Havard
great and beautiful human
pulled this together with passion
solid worker - solid worker.
I am going to meet lots of strangers
soon to be friends
soon to be clicking this way as you have now -
thanx ........
(a solid groove comes into my soul via my earbuds
- just beats
- how I love it
- it is there flowing into the cement mixer mind
- flowing water - fresh ...................................)

Now I see below
Snow - a complete white blanket
and now a winding silver river flowing through it
no humans
traffic
no tube
or underground ..................






Wednesday, March 21, 2007























6am/car/airport/security/earbuds/new cam/latte/Norwegian Airways/music/Yusef Islam/Dilla/Wonder "When the summer came ..........."

Plane/Oslo/Plane/Bergen/Train/music/Chronos Quartet/Grieg/Tom Waits/Tunnels/Fjords/Tunnels/Snow Capped mountains ...........

I strive to love like I have never been hurt....... and because I have been hurt, it helps me to be better equipped to 'do' love.

'Comfort' is a dangerous place to be and an impossible place to 'become'.

On a plane ....... found myself being hyper sensitive to my emotions. I had no strong emotions. No big issues in my life.
Trying to read my depth of feelings as I write this.

Intouch/deep/tears//excluded/rejected/rejected/unacceptable/ignored/disregarded/joy/tender/passion ............ I am feeling the feelings of humans I know and want to feel them so I can love even though I have been hurt - feel hurt ................. love and joy flow mingled down .........

I want to live life/feel life/feel others/not hard heart/marble/ducksback/deprivation/on the plane ........ feelings are strong now.
Vulnerable writing this in my little note book. Tender/Tender.
He who was rich ............

Last night in a session I was telling about the homeless man,
I think I may have blogged about it.

I was passing him seated in the street and paused to give him some money ........... and he held out a paper cup and I said - "Can I put it in your hand please" - because I wanted to touch him ......
and as I was telling this -
I was there again with the stranger -
and I became emotional ..........


See from his head, his hands, his feet
sorrow and love flow mingled down .............


.