Journal

Meanwhile, in 1997… Torn Between This and The Other

Posted on by Duncan Toms

All around is apparent evidence that normality is actuality.
People seem OK, mostly, muddling on, the shops open and close, the days go by.
Unless you explore and delve and experience you may not know anything different, living in blissful(?) ignorance the best you can, not exploring your fear, no sense of wonder.
Or the sense of wonder is easily satiated with some words by those in the know.
Much more fun to find out for yourself, opening up so many questions that the mind boggles.
And once you have opened the door how can you go back?
It doesn’t work that way.
A peak into the other, invalidating the ordinary life of satisfaction and decay.
The sense of nagging, the sense that I should be doing something else, a yearn, a drive.
I am torn between worlds and do not know how to reconcile the split.
The separation between the other and the normal hurts me so much.
Advice is out of the question because who really knows how to live?
Will it be like this forever?
I need some commitment.
But – oh! – the pain of criticism and the uncertainty of it all!
It tears at me and the pain is constant.
Loneliness? Where are my people?
I have no idea who or where they are. I make no attempt to find them, except those who fall into my circles of friendship.
I live in fear and console myself with the, possibly true, assertion that I need no one.
Perhaps it is not loneliness but a more general fear.
Can fear exist on its own?
I don’t think so.
The feeling that I am not doing the right thing, in relation to – what? – my conditioning and ideals I have set, dreams and aspirations.
And thought running through it all.
And sometimes another way of being, of bliss, before thought comes back.
This is what I want to be.
Otherwise life consists of chucking stuff into my senses, criticising, enjoying, rationalising and… going round and round.
There is a big difference between understanding and ideas.
Understanding is final, done.
Ideas are a fucking pain because you can never become an idea. They go on forever, subtly changing.
People’s ideas of me are different than my own and the actuality is different from them both.
Body, energy, waves, vibes seem much truer to me than thought, ideas, faith and trust.
Don’t use spirituality as an escape. It it there, yes, but it is not an escape.
Go through the pain, learn.
It is not a crime to be you.

Iyengar Yoga

Posted on by Duncan Toms

This evening, for the first time in about 8 years, I was in an Iyengar class. It was at Compton, south of Winchester, with a teacher called Sandy. I really appreciate the attention to detail and the time given to each posture, with relatively minor changes once in the pose making a huge difference. Again I was the lone male, and among 8 middle-aged women. This is not unusual, and after all, I am a middle aged man. I was made very welcome and it was a fun class. We were in a special school, so there were bright butterflies and happy faces painted on the walls. After class, I felt a couple of inches taller, elongated gently through many tight areas of my legs, chest high and open. Staying in the poses a while and working with the same posture in a few variations really helps. I’ll definitely go again.

It’s the Easter holidays at Brockwood, so the remaining staff and mature students have the place to ourselves. Once again, relishing the sun as we ate outdoors, chatting with Friedrich, a long term supporter of Brockwood.

At work I am making sure I take breaks, even wandering down to the bottom of the lane, or among the daffodils of the centre every hour. I’ve said it before, but if smokers get a break, why can’t non-smokers?

Steps: 6515

110321

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Comic relief in reverse. It does show up how patronising comic relief can be; not that the causes aren’t worthwhile. And how ridiculous our behaviour is in affluent countries.

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Really like these images of the supermoon. Here’s a few of them:

We all see the same moon. Obvious, yet… makes me smile.

The first day of spring also makes me smile. Roll it on.
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Entered into the world of Uncharted, which so far is much more fun for me than Little Big Planet. Snooping around ancient sites, climbing up stuff, discovering shit. Like a movie you take part in (albeit a B-movie, or LOST)

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Steps: 4977

110319 New Pond Walk

Posted on by Duncan Toms

After yesterday’s rain, a bright, sunny day. We took a walk in the local area, out towards Hinton Ampner, turning back at New Pond Cottages. The daffodils were bowing to the frost as we left.

Gloves in a pot:

Brockwood Park School in the March sun:

Some of the Rhododendron in the Grove are in flower:

Through the woods on the ridge above Bramdean:

Red and black pollen pods:

The sap is rising, spring is almost here:

Going outside now to see if the Supermoon is up. The largest full moon in 18 years, I’m told.

Steps: 12,120

110318 New glasses

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Day 6 each week in Moving Towards Balance is always relaxation and restorative poses, with one day of complete rest. After getting up around 7 we had some breakfast then went back to bed. At around 10, went into Winchester to pick up my new glasses:

Bought a used copy of Little Big Planet, playing on and off during the day. I haven’t played platformers since Super Mario World and this is basically the same thing, with heaps of imagination and some Mighty Boosh . Ultimately though it’s die, try again, die try again and all the frustration that comes with it. What I’m really waiting for is Gran Turismo 5, ordered a week a go but not arrived. I’m going to limit playing to one hour a day.

On Comic Relief they said that the majority of people who watch do not donate. That’s harsh.

Steps: 3129

110316

Posted on by Duncan Toms

The day was all about getting back on top of things at work after the week off. Adam & I worked on the tender for the audio production work. I set up a replacement franking machine. Charles arrived, he’ll be working at the foundation as a mature student. Lunch in the springish air of a hazy sun, wondering about the situation in Japan with the fires and explosions at the nuclear plants. I decided earthquake prone zones and nuclear power do not mix. At all. The evening was all about setting up my new TV, a Sony Bravia, together with a PS3. I really like the remote, looking like the classic Sony remotes of the 80s, with a concave shape.

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Steps: 3376

110313 Sap

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Tidied up the place after my week of bachelorhood, with C coming back from Damascus this afternoon. On getting up I practised from the book Moving Towards Balance, by Rodney Yee, with the intention to follow the whole eight week course and learn some of the subtleties of the major poses, for myself and the class.

This afternoon I attended a nature tour of Brockwood with Phil, a visiting biologist. I videoed some of it and will post it when edited. Perhaps it can go on the Brockwood blog. We walked around the north and south lawns, the field to the south, and the plantation, with Phil pointing out natural features I just wouldn’t have noticed. We ate hawthorn leaf buds and drank a little birch sap, both highly nutritious. (Incidentally, I’d like to have a juicer again to create some super health potions. Maybe I can put these ingredients in.)

After blogging the drum & bass entry, I read the next part of the journal from 97, writing during listening to Megatripolis. I downloaded most of it and will have a session when I go to bed. See later post.

This was the last day of my holiday. Will take some more next month as I have 4 weeks left to use before August meaning a week a month if I don’t carry any over… wow!

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Steps stepped: 4567

110312

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Went to Petersfield, got on the bus to Selborne, walked to Petersfield. That’s my idea of fun.

On the bus there was a little boy with his dad and granddad, going to Alton to ride the steam train. Are you having a nice time? Are you having a nice time? The father kept asking. Are you having a nice time? Because daddy wants you to have a nice time. I’m having a nice time, the boy reluctantly replied. Sat just in front, I wasn’t convinced. Then a sudden retch and sploosh, the boy was sick over the window and seat then promptly burst into tears and wailing. This lasted many minutes as granddad got the wet wipes out and tried to mop it up. Once he’d stopped crying, again the boy repeated, I’m having a nice time. By then I’d moved further back in the bus because it smelt of sick up there.

The walk was very good for me. Four hours out in the open, following the chain of hangers south from Selborne to Hawkley, then over the meaty Shoulder of Mutton hill to Steep and Petersfield, through an area called Little Switzerland. The waterfall is always a delight, so near to home.

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This evening watched The Social Network for the second time. Geeks! Harvard! Jocks! Coding! Not listening! Pilfering! Partying! Blogging! Suing!

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Steps stepped: 21,340 (A new record)

110210

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Reading ‘The Runaways’, a book I read either at school, or during that time, about a boy run away from reform school and a cheetah escaped from Longleat Wildlife Park. About freedom. Maybe we did read it at school because it is set close by to where we grew up, on Salisbury plain. It’s very very 1960s England. Having unknowingly spent the night together in the same barn, the boy sees the cat trying to get out of the barn door below his hay loft bed:

For a moment or two he watched, his mouth open in amazement. Then – with a swift, panic reaction – he slammed the trap door and shot across the holding bolt. He dropped back to a sitting position on the hay, clapped a hand to his forehead, and said out loud, ‘Blimey O’Reilly!’

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Watched ‘The Fighter’. Liked it a lot. Crazy family! Too many sisters! Crack! Punching! Amy Adams! London! Prison! Training! Marky Mark! Christian Bale being all thin and weird!

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Good news on the YouTube account front. Regular readers will know my account was cancelled due to three strikes of copyright infringement, for posting short clips from films and TV. YouTube say you must file a counter notification to the copyright holder, meaning they have to take you to court to remove the footage. Yet each notification I filed was returned because of some error on the form submission, same with email submission. Then I read somewhere that if the copyright holder notifies YouTube directly, the video will be restored and the strike revoked. So I wrote to Mon Onlce Films and MPI Media Group (the third, Lionsgate, I couldn’t find a contact email for), explaining my situation. The next day, someone from MPI said he would reinstate the video for me. Yes! Not sure how long that will take. As soon as I get the account back, I’ll remove everything apart from the walking videos. And download those I don’t have locally. Phew! I have also switched to Vimeo, who I may stick with. Mainly my concern was losing my first 15 walking videos for ever.

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Steps stepped: Oh, around 100 maybe.

110208 Alton to Selborne

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Yoga when I woke up, then breakfast before driving to Selborne. From there I caught the bus to Alton so I could walk the first part of the Hangers Way back to Selborne. The path is 21 miles long and heads south and east from Alton to Queen Elizabeth Country Park south of Petersfield, so today’s walk was a third of the total. I expected the bus to be a mostly empty Tuesday morning rural bus, but no, it was full of teenagers headed to the college. That feeling of being watched as I looked for an empty seat, only one spare because the kids were sprawled over a couple of seats each. The first part of the walk was fairly boring, through the industrial part of town and over large fields. As it got hillier, it was more fun. It took about two and a half hours walking, with a couple of short breaks, sitting in the late winter sun. New growth pushing up in the woodland, the leaves of the bluebells. Keep it rural! Here’s the walk video I made:

Weekend Walk 24 – Alton to Selborne – Hangers Way from Duncan Toms on Vimeo.

This afternoon, resting, editing the video which takes an hour or so, plus export and upload time. Otherwise continuing looking at TVs and buying a Playstation 3. But this morning during yoga I saw through all this entertainment and constant occupation, to something simpler, purer, more in touch, real, whole. It’s a question of right action and what to do with my time on this earth, what to do with each day. At the end of it: ‘Oh, I saw some fine movies and played some games, rode some waves, made some good friends, loved and was loved, worked a lot.’ Well, maybe that’s what there is, but something else is touched upon when deep in a stretch or in relaxation. I can’t force it, but I can allow it to come. It’s not something more, but unrelated to all that I know.

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Steps stepped: 14,706

110307

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Nothing much to report. Mostly just lounging about, researching TVs as I’d like a 32 or 37 inch, 100hz. Went down to Richer Sounds in Southampton and Best Buy at Hedge End.

Enjoying the photos coming onto facebook from the weekend. Feeling lazy, may not go to the Downs this week; perhaps some of the Hangers Way instead.

110305 & 6

Posted on by Duncan Toms

The weekend of my brother Martin’s stag do. I drove down to Southsea early on Saturday morning, dressed in the manner of a country gent. Sort of. Arriving at Tristan’s at 0650, everyone ready, Martin in his military fancy dress, chosen by the best men. We left for the new forest, all in cords, tweeds, wax, arriving early at the New Forest Outdoor Centre for the weekend’s activities. While the staff got ready, we hung out in the centre’s main building, trying to warm up as the log stove got going.

The first activity was archery. Probably my favourite of the day. We learnt the basic techniques and took it in turns in rounds of five arrows. While waiting we could try out the crossbow. Very powerful. I feel I could happily take up archery, with something about the precision, the steadyness of aim really appealing to me. We had a competition, with Martin and I both getting exactly 100. Out of – what? – 150 disregarding the tin can bonuses. After a tea break, shooting guns – first pistols and then air rifles. It was like being in the Bailey’s back garden, shooting down the cans. Quite weedy power but again great fun. Then came the axe throwing and ninja stars. This was harder but very satisfying as the axes or stars thunked into the tree stumps. We had to wear flack jackets and metal helmets for this so we couldn’t thunk the axes into our heads instead.

After a break for lunch, time for the climbing. First a climbing wall wrapped round a tower, then a high and fast zip wire. The assistant seemed to take some time to learn to stop us correctly, with Martin reaching the end at high speed and his hemetted head hitting the wire, then Tristan and Gavin being stopped suddenly by their harnesses. I was glad he had sussed it by my turn. Then the high ropes section, the highest we climbed, balancing across beams and wires way way up.

Martin on the zip wire:

Me on the high ropes course:

I really enjoyed doing all these activities, all things I wouldn’t normally do and haven’t tried for years. The high ropes were comparable to Go Ape, but the sense of trying all these things together was much stronger here. It was a great choice for a stag weekend.

Things got more traditionally staggy by evening; with the sun going down and the fire lit, the drinking started. And continued 12 hours until 5am, for some. We got the heat of the fire well up with an ample supply of logs. I was meeting Martin’s old friends for the first time in over twenty years, as well as meeting newer friends for the first or second time. I went to bed at around midnight, after such an enjoyable, varied day and an evening around the camp fire. There were no pranks on the groom; why do that?

Today, Sunday, of course everyone hung over, or me just tired from the intense day before, and the odd night in a shepherd’s hut, we walked to Emery Down for lunch and sunshine in the pub garden, before the minbus took us back to Southsea for late afternoon, all of us, I think feeling it was a good weekend, and a great send-off for Martin.

110304 Northington Grange

Posted on by Duncan Toms

This morning, we went to Northington Grange just north of Alresford. It’s a fine 17th Century house with a monster of a neo-classical shell bolted on to make it look like a temple. It’s a tremendous building to be sat quietly in mid-hampshire.

This gives it the look of some kind of institution or hospital, or a lego building where you don’t have enough of the right bricks, when viewed from either side.

I guess it was trendy, this Greek Revival style, slopped together with Roman Cement. Surely it is very impressive and that is the idea.

If you go round the back, you see some of the original exterior.

It’s a beautiful location, with a lake and open parkland all around. The lake glistened in the late winter sunshine

110203 Total Immersion

Posted on by Duncan Toms

No idea who I’m writing to, but… hello!

Another four o’clock yoga session followed by that oh so nice lie in till time to go to the office. Which is a one minute commute. Finishing off bits and pieces ahead of a week off starting now. My weekends are Fridays and Saturday anyhow. It feels like my first full week off in a very long time. At 10 I went to Southampton airport to pick up Derek who is over from Ojai.

The dialogue this afternoon about what is a religious place, a religious mind, and into ideas and hope getting in the way of what might be called religious. Not religious in any kind of traditional sense, after all that is just ideas repeating themselves through the ages, but a sacredness, a newness.

This evening I took the students swimming. Swimming and yoga go together so well. With the yoga comes more awareness of the body, and more awareness in the water means you can refine the strokes, fine tune your style. I swim in something towards the Total Immersion style, as few strokes as possible per lap and keep the body low in the water, maximising the time when the body is longest. The principle is the same as in yachting, where slim, long boats go faster than wide short ones. So to minimise the width there is a rolling in freestyle so the shoulders aren’t ploughing the water forward, instead the tilt of the body makes an easier glide. There was no sign when swimming of the sickness or weak feeling; I didn’t even think of it.

Signs of spring all around – daffodils opening, green shoots pushing up through the leaves and many young fresh nettles. Perfect for tea.

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Steps stepped 8410

110302

Posted on by Duncan Toms

YouTube account dead but not quite gone. My counter claims were rejected:

Thank you for your counter-notification. Based on the information you have provided, it appears that you do not have the necessary rights to post the content on YouTube. Therefore, we regretfully cannot honor this counter-notification. It has not been forwarded to the original claimant, and we will not be able to restore your video.

We unfortunately are unable to assist further in this matter.

Proceeded with a too-cheerful “Hi there”

I have replied asking not for restoration of the videos but just short term access to the account so I can download my walking videos, the ones I don’t have here, so they are not lost forever. But I suspect I am replying to an address that doesn’t get read. It’s impossible to contact YouTube directly by email or phone. You have to use online forms.

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Woke up at 0400. My new style is to do a yoga session whenever I wake up, and then rest again if it’s too early. Trouble is, I fell back into deep sleep and by 0830 I was in no mood to get up.

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My brother M’s stag do this weekend. From the clues he’s been given he thinks we are going tank driving. We are not. It’s gearing up to be a memorable weekend.

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A sunny day, with lunch outside. Again, sitting absorbing the rays, waves. From a friend’s facebook comment after watching The Secret Life of Waves: Waves are made of MAGIC. He might be right.

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iPad 2 looking super scrummy.

110301 Marching

Posted on by Duncan Toms

March no less.

Feeling so much better, the sick dizzy feeling a mile away and the tight head easing up. Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. It’s the bomb. For real. I recommend the Sivananda sequence. It’s a classical sequence of 12 major asanas together with some pranayama (breathing techniques) and counter postures (gentle postures in the opposite direction to the major stretch one has just done. With relaxation between every posture. It really is a total workout and touches everything. I mean everything.

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More energy at work, but none of the temper. Fixing a list of all the Krishnamurti videos we have (over 600), for the Centre library, grouped by type of event and location. It’s been quite a lot of work to code them all by genre, but soon we’ll have for the first time the entire list sorted correctly, making it easy for guests and customers to find what they want. This will also help us to organise it online when we get the download shop going.

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YouTube wrote back asking me to put a couple of extra paragraphs in my counter notification because the claim was made in the USA:

“I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief the material was removed due to a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.”

“I consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the district in which my address is located, or if my address is outside of the United States, the judicial district in which YouTube is located, and will accept service of process from the claimant.”

So at least they are looking into it, and for the first time a human wrote the email asking for this. There is hope of getting my account back. Hopefully in time to post the next walking video, as next week I might finish the last two stages of the South Downs Way, from the far eastern edge of Brighton, to Eastbourne.

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Steps stepped: 2580

110228 Restful resting

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Here we are, two months into 2011 already. Life moves fast, we move faster, technology moves faster still, and no one has much of a clue what’s going on and why we are doing what we’re doing. I don’t mean theories and philosophies and beliefs, there are plenty of those, but a real sense of what’s going on, what life is about, why we are here and what is a right action, not just getting on with it because that’s what job was available or that’s what everyone else seems to be doing. It’s easier to get busy going fast than work out anything new, or explore into alternatives.

I had a lot of tension this morning, bundled with a while bunch of energy, making me short tempered and a bit wild. I took it out on a friend and colleague, arguing for the sake of arguing, getting all snappy. Soon I am going to take a good few days off, just for myself. It’s not really about taking time off to be well, but being well every day. But it’s been a long time since I could let go of work and relationships for a while, let go of the difficulties and questions and problem solving at work and at home and just do something… fun… interesting. I tend to take on issues I don’t need to get involved it.

Next weekend it’s my brother’s stag weekend, which will definitely be something different. Met F & A today, who are back from California. It’s good to see them again, old colleagues, and again, friends. I feel blessed to be able to work with people I also like. That really helps.

The book arrived, ‘The Highly Sensitive Person’. I haven’t read it yet but I can definitely tick most of the Yes boxes in the questionnaire. I feel it’s going to be a good read and a real learning ground, I can tell. This morning, again I started with a Sivananda session at dawn, then drifted back into some snoring for half an hour. I reckon you need energy to be able to rest deeply, a restful rest. Otherwise it’s just a sleep and then wake up and carry on. What if a night allowed real relaxation?

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Steps stepped: 4372

110226 Raptors and Owls at the Itchen

Posted on by Duncan Toms

For this week’s weekend walk we went to Brambridge, which is on the Itchen between Twyford and Eastleigh. We parked at the garden centre and were surprised and delighted to see about twenty birds of prey sat on their little perches in a paddock by the river. We had chanced on the base of the Falconhigh Display Team. The birds consisted of falcons, hawks and owls, and some cross breeds. We were able to get right up close to them as someone from the team showed us round.

This owl had been rescued from a life in a box in someone’s flat:

One of the many hawks:

A Great Horned Owl:

Who quite liked to be stroked:

One of the many falcons, perhaps a cross breed. They can fly faster than 150 mph

I didn’t like seeing these great creatures tethered but it seemed they were being well looked after.

After the birdies we walked upstream along the Itchen Way:

Meeting a sunbathing horse:

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Steps stepped: 6485, plus some more when Adam, James and I go out to see True Grit. Edit. = 9805

110225 Counter Strike

Posted on by Duncan Toms

I have submitted to YouTube Counter-notification submissions for all three contested videos. Not because I am really contesting the copyright but because I want my account back. Not because I really want the account but because YouTube is the only place my first fourteen Weekend Walk videos exist. Yes, guess who didn’t copy all their data when they got a new computer.

According to others who have had their accounts terminated – and there must be thousands of cases, with the Film, Music, TV industry going crazy over copyright – the counter submission method works because the original claimant then has to go to court to get the video taken down. Meantime, I get my strikes taken off and my account resurrected. Well, they won’t have to take me to court as I will delete everything I didn’t make. Even those lovely BBC wildlife clips. I just want to save the videos I don’t have locally and to not have to start all over again with views, tags, titles, and oh so much uploading. Please Mr You Tube, be gentle with me.

BTW, the third strike, the IT crowd clip… the entire episode is there on the Channel 4 site. Crazy!

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Had an eye test in Winchester. A slightly curt blonde American optician asking, “better with 1, or better with 2”, and switching multiple lenses. I remember when you used to have to wear this big heavy thing on your face while they slotted in lenses by hand. My eyes are slightly worse than two years ago, the slow decline. Computers since the first home computers in the early 80s is what did it, I suppose. Then the opticians push to get you to buy the frames or re-glazing in-house, which costs twice as much as online.

In the afternoon I was back in Winchester having my car brakes checked, after the nearside front wheel started grinding on braking. Pads worn right down. While I waited for them to fit new ones, I wandered around the shops checking out the TVs, then to the library to finish Dead Lucky. Saw a book in there called ‘The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Survive and Thrive When the World Overwhelms You’ Without being all, er, sensitive about it, from my quick dip into the book I suspect I am one of these types. I’m going to get a copy of the book and will report back.

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Steps stepped: 6804