How on Earth did I get HERE

http://www.taoiching.com/ came thirty years later. I was told at the beginning to expect 'side effects' to meditation, and to ignore them as diversions. However, Lucid Dreaming (when you wake-up in a dream, and the dream continues and you are awake and aware) totally changed my view of reality, and my perception of myself. Meanwhile, it took me 2 years to go through every verse of The Bhagavad Gita, and at some point to discover (seperately, or was it my overwhelming drive to find it) "The Meaning of Life" - not so grand that it couldn't be written down on the back of a postcard, although it did totally stop me in my metaphysical tracks for 6 months. Making sense of 'The I Ching' wasn't really necessary, but I found it very interesting, even though it took me about 15 years to do it. Sometimes study isn't everything and you have to wait for your awareness to catch-up or for life's experiences to divert you slightly. What I found out, in any 'useful' areas that I could perhaps pass-on, is to be found in "Tao I Ching - The Mystic Gateway".

South America

Me in the centre of an ancient ritual.

In hot climates you have to drink a lot.

At some point, when I was in the Royal Navy, I volunteered for 6 weeks as a test subject at The Psychological Research Unit at Cambridge University. Successful candidates got extra pay for 6 weeks and a weeks' extra leave, but you never knew what the tests and trials would be until you arrived. I was part of a 6 week practical study to find the effects of rum on sailors. We were given copious ammounts of rum to drink at various intervals in order to measure metabolic rates and concentration. We should have taken it seriously because a couple of years later the rum issue for the Royal Navy was abolished. The midday drunken haze of hundreds of years of crampt conditions at sea was to be replaced by a new formica factory-hen existence of the modern navy. As we left Cambridge we saw them building the steam enclosures for the next batch of tests. The effects of heat on sailors over 4 hour shifts. In hot conditions you have to drink a lot.

How on Earth did I end up at the end of the Earth.

Second Left Hero of the Antarctic

Welsh Gothic

I spent 4 years at art colloge, ending-up with a degree in Fine Art at Exeter Art College in 1976, specialising in painting and video. You can tell this from the art reference of the title of this mural "Welsh Gothic" on the side of our house at Nanternis, in West Wales. At this point we were running a small picture framing business, painting large scale figurative paintings, and painting for the tourist market. Our Rachael has her own website 'The Keys of Awareness', at www.illustriousartworks.com, continuing in the tradition of psychic awareness in full colour.

3 years on British Rail

I spent 3 years sitting in a box on the Sussex Brighton Line. In my own compartment (and some of them even had pie heaters in them), and very little to do because of the Automatic Breaking System. The guards' job I suppose was to guard the guards' van. So, in the meantime, I got to do a lot of research into The I Ching. And that was a lot, on a thirteen day fortnight, since there was a shortage of guards for trains. Perhaps they were all prison guards, or in the Army.

Look out there's an angel right behind you !

This was not the first time I saw an angel. Once before, when I was sitting in the cafe at Tesco's supermarket store in Swansea, my partner Rachael asked me to look around and see if I could see anything 'on the otherside'. Four tables away was a solitary old man having a cup of tea, but directly behind him was an 'angel' about 30 - 40 feet tall, sort of leaning over this guy. It had huge wings like you see on angels, but it seemed rather 'alien' to me. Not at all the usual angelic stuff of love and light. This was definitely 'not human'. This 'angel' was slowly opening and closing its' wings (sort of superimposed on the scene, and not affected in any way by the material confines of the cafe), and doing so, it seemed, in sync with the old mans' breathing. It occured to me that when the angel stopped moving its' wings (in and out) the old man would stop breathing.
As I figured this out, the angel looked across and could see that I could see it. This is where I should have had the angelic wave of compassion and love, but the 'look' was something else. It was total detachment and innocence, and something I couldn't quite make out. It was 'fun'. (?)

My first day at sea.

I spent 8 years in the Royal Navy. For the first two years I was sea sick every time we went to sea. If you look at that picture, of H.M.S Agincourt, it's no wonder ! At the end of this commission I was seriously considering a medical discharge, even though I was aware that Nelson had the same problem. After 6 months I was back at sea on another ship, but never experienced any sea sickness ever again. Even in a force 8 I had no trouble at all !

AFTER and BEFORE

AFTER and BEFORE, using the same "the last is first" listing of this blog.

I was brought-up at Lampeter, a small market town in West Wales, (U.K.) in the 1950' s. That would have made it a contented childhood, somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. Although, saying that, I was in a fall-out shelter on the weekend of the Cuba crisis when World War III was expected, as an R.O.C. Observer, (and I was still at school). That makes me now old enough to be my father, or to be his age at some point.

I started off as Tony, but like my other brother Fred, ended up as Tom, and like Tom, spent some time in the Royal Navy, not to be confused with Tom Leworthy the sailor who gets to the top of the Google page.

My 8 years in the Royal Navy are long gone. Later, I spent four years in art college, followed by 3 years in a social wilderness in Brighton researching and writing a book on 'The New Testament Gospels'. This was a peculiar obsession because I didn't even believe in God, nor had I any interest in Christianity. At that time, for anonymity and a change of personality, I changed my name to Arthur. The 'confusion' continued for another 3 years in a shift-obsessed non-job, working as a guard on British Rail. That time gave me the space to research the basics of 'The I Ching'.

Great chances and changes were about to happen.

By the time I got to meet Confucius that's all that was left were a couple of books and this statue in New York.