Why Beautifully BROKEN?
It Is What It Is...
I used to think that world peace and personal happiness were unobtainable, impossible, the ultimate in naiveté.
Negative thoughts filled my day-to-day existence, trapping me in a world of suffering and inaction:
I feel disconnected from the world and others around me. Looking around, everyone else seems to be caught in the same trap. Worse, the modern world encourages this isolation in order to profit from our fears and desires.
Powerful people set the rules to suit themselves, resulting in poverty, homelessness, injustice and war. What can anyone do? To protest, boycott or raise awareness doesn’t seem to change anything. Even when positive change takes place, it doesn’t last long and eventually swings back in the opposite direction. The future of the world seems to be one that’s devoid of hope, especially when we consider the worst aspects of human nature and what it is capable of when empowered by modern technology.
The world is what it is: a big, ugly, complicated mess; an impossible system that's beyond any one of us to fix.
Becoming Beautifully Broken
These thoughts formed an impenetrable prison that became my day-to-day existence; gradually smothered by the psychic weight of what seemed like inescapable, self-evident truths.
Thankfully, I’d been studying with excellent Taoist teachers and reading mystical poetry from the East and West. Those traditions promised an escape; that I could remember what it meant to be free.
It’s one thing to understand this, though, and quite another to experience it.
With that promise in mind, I entered into a year of intense meditation in Rochester, New York, and when I was at my lowest point, underwent a revolutionary enlightenment experience.
What came to me shattered those negative thoughts, blew apart the walls of my reality and opened me up to a greater reality. Weeks later, as I resumed a normal state of consciousness, I found that I had to piece myself back together, to make a new self, informed by the experience I'd undergone.
The Japanese have a method of repairing broken pottery; mending the fragments with a glue mixed with powdered gold. Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery or golden repair"), takes something that is broken and useless, and rebinds it to make it useful again but also more beautiful than it was before.
A broken creation held together by a glue of pure love and acceptance.
Who Am I? Who Are You? Who Are We?
Internationally published author of fiction and non-fiction books (Macmillan, Tor Books, Benbella Books). Signings at San Diego Comicon, BookExpo America. Co-author with Claudia Christian.
Non-fiction small press publisher at Floating World Press (spirituality & meditation, mind-body health, inspirational memoirs & cookbooks).
Some highlights from my career as an author and publisher. Teacher of tai chi and meditation at The Willow Tree School with over 30 years’ experience (Cheng Man Ching tradition).
Investigator into spiritual traditions, seeking the gold in humanity's religious instinct. Was once the resident Taoist in an interfaith household with a Catholic theologian, Tibetan lama and Hindu yogi. Lecturer and panelist at interfaith symposia, featured on ABC national radio Australia.
30 years as a teacher and student of tai chi, meditation and Eastern philosophy. I’ve been fortunate to learn from great teachers.
Psychonaut who ventures into the dreamworld to dredge up and decode deep mythological information. Dream apprentice of CG Jung, Philip K Dick, Haruki Murakami, David Lynch, Joseph Campbell.
Reportage haikuist, who captures Zen moments through photography and poetry. A poor man's Jack Kerouac drunkenly stumbling into Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Adventures as a reportage haikuist and dream psychonaut. Bibliophile and regular at The London Library in St. James's and the Royal Society of Antiquaries Library in Piccadilly.
At the Royal Society of Antiquaries Library in Piccadilly, London. Devotee of analog living, slow life and mindful travel ( I live between France, Britain and Australia).
That's a short profile of me. I am one of eight billion humans on a round rock orbiting the sun. We have that in common, along with so very much more. The body that allows us to function in the physical world is far from all that we are. The spiritual explorer uncovers his or her identity as a small flicker of light arising from a universal spiritual fire. I am fueled by a loving life-force, as are you, as are all things—the universal “we” of creation.
No time to wait
I’ve been processing my Rochester, New York enlightenment experience for 20 years. I’m still trying to understand it. I’m by no means an enlightened being. No Buddha or great spiritual master. I still swing back into human suffering (I have two teenagers and a pre-teen) and, like the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri*, occasionally find myself lost mid-way through the journey of life. But each time I become aware that I’ve fallen back into the labyrinth, it gets easier to navigate my way back to freedom. I’m beautifully broken, light shining through my many cracks.
Passing on the light
When I became a teacher of tai chi under Master Law Lun Yeung, he gifted me a painting from his teacher. A figure held up a lantern and Chinese calligraphy ran down the side, reading “passing on the torch of learning from teacher to student, from generation to generation”.
Beautifully Broken is my way of passing on the torch, of sharing the light. One step towards doing what I can to fix a broken world. I’ll share my experience through art and writing in the hope that it will help you and others find their own moments of enlightenment.
Our personal unconscious fears and desires are dangerous to our own health and those in our immediate surroundings, but the magnified fears and desires of a nation are enough to drive the world to destruction. There’s simply not time for anything else.
There’s a Chinese saying that “even a scrap of paper blown on the wind can save the kingdom, but only if it carries the words of the Tao”.
Beautifully Broken is a unique newsletter that inspires us to work together. Let us learn to shine and extend our light to heal the world. If that sounds naive, impossible, then you’re where I was not too long ago. Perhaps this is exactly the newsletter and community for you!
Subscribe to commit to transformation, to begin the journey to a better world. 10% of all proceeds go to Kids For Peace.**
Daily Inspiration with a Relaxing Weekend Edition
I publish weekly every Saturday morning along with a daily, inspirational photo-haiku.
Saturday writing alternates between the following four regular segments that combine to form a monthly digest:
PRACTICAL ENLIGHTENMENT: Methods that can be put into practice immediately to start healing your life and a broken world.
SHORT FICTION: Eye-opening surrealist fiction with a dash of dream spice.
ON THE ROAD: Short pieces on things that come across my path as I interface with a kaleidoscope world.
FRESH LOOK: Considering the spiritual in art, writing and film.
Examples of each segment are available to Free Subscribers.
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Beautifully Broken is for anyone who believes (or hopes to believe) that world peace and personal happiness are not a lost cause. Art and ideas that will repair your beautiful world.
* Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
From The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
** 10% of all income from Beautifully Broken will be donated to the Kids for Peace charity. Since their founding, Kids for Peace has engaged more than 15 million youth around the globe with their peacebuilding efforts. They’ve carried out over 750,000,000 acts of kindness, and have delivered more than 10,000 peace packages. They have also built 2 peace centers and 3 playgrounds. And in 2020, they ensured nearly 7,600 people in Kenya had access to clean drinking water.
