.... have you heard of

Osunlade, J Dilla, Carl Craig?
Some of my favourite music at the moment.
All play and create music in a dance groove
haunting
loads of atmosphere
love the stuff.

Also been playing ::
Matthew Herbert new album and
Joan as a Policewoman
Erykah Badu
Bruce Cockburn
India Arie
........... and a good time listening to my iPod as Joan and Joyce watched the TV football.

Life is different at Wilson Mansions at the moment. Having Joyce with us, my Mother in Law, means we are giving here time and trips out. She is not easy to live with due to her short memory loss. She asks the same questions all the time. She cannot help it - and we know - but it is still strange and disconcerting.
Ann, the little Sheila, came home yesterday and we all hung out. She came to see he Nana but it seems ages since I saw her so it was wondrous.

We had bought her an iPod shuffle for her birthday - what a great present. 120 songs or about 12 albums. A great fab music machine. If you have not got an iPod - this is a great place to start. So light to carry and the sound is perfect for me.

Have a new book out for Greenbelt. Not yet told you about this one. It will be on sale to the yearning public at Greenbelt and from me thereafter. So there will be three on sale::
The Big Book of Blobs
The Very Stinking Rolling Magazine Book
....... and the new one.

Meeting with our Publisher tomorrow and completing the product line for January 2007.
There will be four products out then - including two books.
Also tomorrow is the final Greenbelt meeting before the greatest Festival on earth.
We take Joyce back next week-end and then, the next week-end, it is Thursday through to Tuesday long week-end at Greenbelt.org.uk............

My team won 72-4 yesterday ................ it is all hotting up to the end of the season in October. The next big game for us is the Challenge Cup Final at Twickenham - on GREENBELT week-end grrrrrr.
I think I will be watching it on TV. If I went to see the game it would take the full day and I could not miss that much of Greenbelt.

Watched a dvd late last night.
Unusual
(not the late nights)
It was called
BUS 174
It was about Brazil.
I am really into music from Brazil
Gilles Peterson, my favourite DJ, has produced several radio programmes from there - creates cd's about the range of music from Brazil. And there is some fab free podcasts on iTunes about his visits, music, artistes and the culture there.
The film was about a hostage taking in Rio de Janeiro by a young man called Sandro. Yes it was a documentary. It was full of clips and interviews as well as the live footage from the four and a half incident. Much of the inserts were about Sandro. His terrible slum upbringing. His experience of seeing his Mother murdered when he was eight. He became a street sleeper after the death of his Mother. The street was his family. Then there was an incident, which I remember reading about some years ago, when the Police came a murdered more than 30 children who were sleeping out in the city centre. He was a damaged human.
Borrow the DVD from me.
It is 'the edge of the seat' stuff. Be disturbed.

All bits of me tonight.
Feeling good though.
Five words to describe my life at the moment - goes like this ::
-expectant
-learningyearning
-Greenbelt
-passion
-experiential


...... and you ......... ?



.

.... I guess you know that I have strong connections with the YMCA both UK and Internationally .......
well .....................
URGENT APPEAL

Y Care International has launched an appeal to raise funds for its response to the Middle East crisis.

We are supporting our partner, the YMCA of Lebanon, as it works to provide relief to people affected by the humanitarian crisis brought on by the current conflict.

In Lebanon alone almost a million people have been forced to flee their homes. Many are facing severe health problems and need urgent access to medical care and treatment. The YMCA of Lebanon is working with other NGOs and the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health to get help to those in need.

It is working through the network it co-ordinates of over 450 medical dispensaries and clinics to deliver food, shelter, medicines and basic supplies.

Y Care International's President and co-founder, Terry Waite CBE, has said:
"The images of suffering, violence and fear from Lebanon and the wider region are heartbreaking. The YMCA of Lebanon is a remarkable community organisation whose people and work I have known for many years.
YMCA staff are making a remarkable response - but they need your help"

How you can help::

Find out more and donate online at www.ycare.org.uk
Donate over the phone by calling 0800 013 1055
Please forward this email to your friends and colleagues
Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible support.

Y Care International
Y Care International is the international relief and development agency of the YMCA in the UK and Ireland. Y Care International works in partnership with young people worldwide through the YMCA movement to help them enrich their lives and to build a more just world, free from poverty.
Registered charity no: 1109789

...Wilson Mansions
here .... strange time year with the holiday period ....... and then, here in the UK, we are having these big alerts regarding terrorist imminent attacks.
Strange to see it all on TV.
Must be more scary if you are about to fly. Not the inconvenience - but the issue of death by aeroplane. Joy is abroad at the moment and I trust that all will be safe and well by the time she is due to return in one weeks time. But it is not only the personal which concerns me.
What about loving the world?
It is of great concern to anyone who cares for the positive development of 'society' and the world. If we as a nation are having these issues and priorities - we can be disabled in our work to contribute to a positive world. It feels like we have our backs to the wall and in that defensive position - it is more difficult to do much as a single human. In a democratic country we have to rely on social organisation, government, to have many tools in the toolbox to be in defence and caring and loving.
It is so complex that I will not attempt to offer opinions.
I don't have opinions about everything.
I don't know enough to have a thought out opinion on how to defend our country from terrorist attack. Or how to stop the Middle East Wars. It is so sad, that in this modern advanced age, that we still have to war against each other.

My life and faith and purpose and mission is to be a lover.
I find that I can only really love humans when I am close - nearby - connecting - feeling with them .. ..
Incarnation
Beautiful word
but painful ..........

It’s funny:
I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of
inner toolbox,
full of shiny tools:
the saw of discernment,
the hammer of wisdom,
the sandpaper of patience.
But then when I grew up
I found that life
handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendship,
prayer,
conscience,
honesty
– and said,
‘Do the best you can with these, they will have to do.’
And mostly,
against all odds,
they’re enough.’


.

Prayer
I don't want to be
Alone
Again
In this black pit of fear
The shadows gnawing at me
Stealing away
My hope.

I want to reach out
And know you will hear
And accept what and where
I am.

I don't want to be
Besieged
In dreams
By swooping black cloaks
Which trap and enfold
This child inside.

I want to awaken
And know
I'm safe
Then, now and tomorrow
With no need to hide.

Please call out and say
my name
Please listen and hear
my fear
Please reach down and show
that you know
who I am.



Thank you Caroline for letting me share this ......

He was big and sat on a stool at the bar
six foot five
tattoos all over his body.

Another man came into the bar
Just as big
broken nose
he approached the man who was sitting on the stool
He pushed his face close and said
"I just saw your Mother and I really fancy her"

The man on the stool did not move - no response.

The man spoke again
"I just saw your Mother in her garden and shouted suggestive comments to her".

No response.

He leaned closer and spoke again - louder.
"I have just jumped into her garden and gave your Mother a big snog"

The man slipped off his stool and stood up.
Then he said
"You are drunk again - JUST GO HOME - just go home Dad".


.

NEWNEWNEWNEW

bookbookbookbook

..... hot on the London Tubes ....... like an oven ...... not feeling happy about losing e-mails from my inbox - never happened before grrr .......... but had a good day.. .... an feeling ok ...... bit strange having Mother-in-Law here .......... dear Joyce asks the same question about three times in two minutes ........ every morning I have porridge for breakfast and never with sugar - just honey.
Every morning she says
what's this?
where do you get it from?
it won't come out?
"squeeze it"
where do you get it from?


We all may be like this when we are older - it is not a happy state. But of course she does not know she is asking the same questions all the time ...... it is tough on Joan because she stands alongside her all the time .....

Feeling ok as a human
Lots to do and that is good - other than the boring, admin, bits
Diary quieter than any other month other than December - but gigs coming in which is a good feeling.
Feel a bit 'not ok' about Greenbelt. The Festival programme and plans and sales and all that look fantastic but not so content about my input this year - it leaves me with feelings ..... ..... ... but I know the festival eaxperience will cut my heart out and replace it with a new one and I will never be the same again .......

Miss my Sheilas - just spoke to Joy in Majorca and she is doing well ............ and Ann having an unpleasant job at the moment - but we will be seeing her Saturday as she comes home to see her Nana.

Feel I want to read and soak in all of the things I don't know - all the people things - all the God things - all the awareness things - all the relational things - and love things

I want to be a great lover
not for myself only
but to experience - and see and hear love being experienced and multiplied and passed on and .......
..... it is late night and I want to dance ..... inside ........ interior .......

I have tried my best to express my feelings right here above.
I have no extremes going on.
The deeper ones need a scratching to get them disturbed so I can be in touch with them ... and that is what I have tried .......

Last - how are you feeling?
Do you know?
Not only the surface ones
But the below ones?
Interior ........ it is a a journey we have to do ourselves but I believe it is important to share them too .................... hope you don't mind?

you are beautiful


.

..... if you click d pic you can see the highlighted question to this rugby league player.

ARE YOU STILL
SCARED OF YOUR MUM?

For years I have led courses called 'The Road Less Travelled' and a mixture of humans come for this short experiential course about life management - managing your emotions - assertiveness etc..

SO many humans have issues with their parents. I remember a number who could not relax with their Mother. Always felt 'child' with their Mum. Feeling oppressed by Mother. A number of these were in their forties and fifties and yet feeling not ok about these relationships.

The parents so often using the words 'should' or ought'. Not wanting to 'be' with their parents as adults together. Feeling 'child' and receiving 'parent' behaviour from their - parents.

One thing is - we cannot control the behaviour of others but we can develop skills and awareness to enable us to manage our behaviour and emotions. Life need not be painful in these areas of life. Broken or difficult relationships can hurt - but we need not be trapped in the hurt. OUR communication can so influence any relationship. Just our tone and response and love expressed - powerful.

It is so important to have a relationship of adult/adult with our parents. Otherwise oppression rules. Not good. Ugly in fact. One woman who was on a course was still feeling oppressed by her Mother - and she had been dead for ten years. 'Shoulds' and 'aughts' still ringing in her ears.

So often we don't have the tools in our life toolbox to turn to and use when an issue comes along. It is so for lots of homeless, drug users, alcohol mis-users who I have worked with, and loved, over the years. But, also often, many every day humans are suffering because of these issues. That is a passion of mine - to have one2ones with humans and also lead group sessions where we explore these issues and become better skilled with managing our relationships in life.

"If we only have a hammer - we see every issue as a nail".

.