Category: diary

Thoughts at christmas Eve December 2015

25-12-15
… went to the English Reform Church in middle of Amsterdam last night … really beautiful building … joined about 2,000 people, queuing outside for the Christmas Eve Carol service. We slowly went in through a small door. Inside: high vaulted ceiling and real organ playing.

The singing made the decorated rafters shake… it was tumultuous, especially the last verse of the last carol…”born this happy morn”…”Oh, Come all ye faithful”… the whole people and building and organ sang as if riding a giant wave together … a spiritual, ecstatic experience. Unforgettable.

,.. and then everyone filed out through another small door and the Minister shook hands with, looked deep into the eyes of, and said “Happy Christmas” to : every single person as they passed him, one by one, through the small door … a phenomenal feat!

I re-evaluated Christ’s (Gods?) teachings … they were / are, mostly pretty cool, and, still are, really cool and unconventional… and a challenge to the status quo…

… I like them and I mostly live by them … all these years later when I don’t even go to church …

… Later, that evening, I watched , on TV the bishops in their finery .., and realised, Jesus didn’t wear finery, only the everyday robes of the time, like everyone else back then. In fact he wasn’t financially rich or anything … and he didn’t even ask to be worshipped…

.., after that it gets more complicated of course … like everything in life…

… but overall 1 think the stories Jesus told were and still are pretty awesome…

… Oh, and by the way, I think during the “mysterious” missing years, between Jesus’s childhood and when he arrived  on the scene, aged around 30, meaning business, he lived with the Gnostics in one of their communes, in the desert … this makes perfect sense, it would have given him the context, the medium, the ideas, the form through which his (God’s, the Universe’s, his Subconscious, whatever you choose to call it), could work its original and paradigm shifting magic!

… so, there … that’s what I think, ’cause I read a book about the Gnostics of his time, who had these communes in the desert near him where they processed all sorts of ideas that were coming from the East , China, India and so on, with the silk and other goodies ..
So it makes complete sense … no-one works or lives in a vacuum (read ” Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon), not Einstein, not Leonardo Da Vinci, and not Jesus. It doesn’t make him (or God in him ) any less awesome! it just shows he had a cultural context … his wonderful words didn’t come completely out of thin air! so, there, that’s what I reckon, 🙂 and I’ m sure he doesn’t mind me thinking that….. and also by the way , while I’m at it… I think everyone has a need the go beyond there everyday reality occasionally (ie. a need for some sort of “spirituality”), I do it through a very simple meditation form (my own), l just sit still, with my eyes closed for half an hour and let my thoughts do what they want . .. I don’t try and control them , I let them process everything they want to process … in the last few seconds of that half an hour all my tension drops away and its really like a profound re-birth. Amazing. (that’ s actually my secret … why people mostly like me … don’t tell anyone…  🙂 .

Other people find this rising above everyday reality through religion (very complicated , and fraught with dillema’s and difficulties for everyone in my opinion. Other people find it through drugs or alcohol. However you do it … it has to be done.

l think: simple, no tricks or hi-falluting ritualistic, esoteric, cliquey, rarefied, chosen ones, complications, just simple . sit still, upright, eyes closed, and meditate ( for half an hour, twice a day if possible ) and we would have paradise on earth

well that’s what I think . So there. 🙂

and I read another book about Saint Thomas’s gospel … fascinating stuff!..

diary entry for today: rubbish tip beauty , present moment recycling thoughts, the rich tapestry of Tony Chapman’s “reality”

22nd Dec 15

So many things to say. Chair scrapes accross the plastic tiles behind me in this cafe. Before I started writing I had so many ideas of what to write about in my brain. Now I start I don’t know which idea to use first.

I think the first thing is: people actually follow me on my blog!

TThis gives me a totally different feeling about my writing. It has added meaning … but I must remember it is still MY diary I’m writing … I’m still writing for me.

So, my diary, is about what is happening to me, today!

Well, I’ve just dumped a lot of  “rubbish” at the rubbish tip, a surprisingly beautiful place, in its organisation … a skip for every category of stuff we have no use for anymore.

As l tipped the empty cardboard IKEA packages into the cardboard and paper skip, I saw them as precious materials to be recycled into something else…

… and isn’t that what we all are?… precious materials, that will be recycled into something else after we die …(indeed nothing is lost … )

and, taking that thought further , aren’t we, in one moment, (or, indeed, isn’t the moment itself?), precious materials to be recycled into a totally different form, (even though it may appear the same), in the next moment?

So, this is my diary. I have just eaten a cheese roll, (like a sausage roll except cheese,) here, in the Amsterdam Hema, (a shop I want to write a song of praise about), and  I’m trying not to eat wheat , or all grain products) , hard not to when I’m finally on my own and writing my diary / blog…. in the Hema cafe …

( l like using 3 dots… it flows … more like my life, no clear cut endings or beginnings except in my songwriting and paintings )

… And I’ve also, in the past, made a website for my music teaching and it didn’t take off, even though my teaching method works like pure genius in the  real world, and now as I write about me and  about my life … I get followers! imagine that.

I feel one of my problems (but probably its one of my strengths if I work it right  ), is that I’m a kaliedosope of things, a patch-work quilt of interests, passions, skills, ( a pure aquarius ) … I find it hard to categorize myself:

I’m a visual artist, musician, writer, therapist , poet, gatherer of ideas, songwriter, listener , teacher, inspirer, sculptor … the list goes on …

well that will do for now. See you tomorrow , or later today, in the next available, completely different moment!  🙂

19-12-15
so, finally made ANOTHER Clay figure! while tele was on – washing machine working quite well, will make bed tomorrow (Ikea bed).
20-12-15
well it seems Ireally do havea digital diary I am using to record my thoughts , it really does work. Lying in bed at 6:00 am, !

NOW, in Hema, Santa Claus brass band have slowly meandered in among the tables of people chattering and clinking china. They are all dressed like Santa’s and are playing christmas music of course me? I’m eating a kaasbroodje. at this round while table as the day outside the shop window… darkens. A MIX of cultures at these round white tables , different languages dance side by side through the air … different clothes , costumes, head wear, me, I’m, a bit crazy, ”m eating soft cake now, I guess I’m clogging up my veins, but I did run this morning and cycled here , and I’ am so, so, happy to be writing morning pages / blog, / diary. …