Journeys and Star Gazing

It’s great hearing from you.  You asked me how I am so here goes ….

I’m sitting here ruminating about stuff.  Kinda like reviewing a movie, a film called “My Brilliant Career in TAFE”.  It has been 5 years since I left TAFE. In the first year images of TAFE World – faces, encounters, engagements, conversations and meetings kept flashing across my mind.  Scenes  rose like steam from a drying towel in the sun. Rather than in a sequence, my mind made it all appear like one of William Burrough’s cut up stories.

When TAFE got rid of Principals it also got rid of access and equity principles. From a college it became a Corporation. My nervous system became programmed to corporate tunes that had nothing to do with education. TAFE gradually became a health hazard to my hopes, dreams and life. Sure, working there helped pay   the mortgage and bills but  I feel  I am still rehabilitating from the “brilliant career”. After   5 years away I am a lot more relaxed and do not feel the need to “perform” to some KPI. Yes, I remember some of those acronyms.

I am getting to know me again.

I remember how afraid I was to leap into the world of university study. Fear may be too strong a word, but I felt I was going to lose my “mindful” innocence,  that the systemic conditioning of my thinking into the University Academic  Mould, would destroy my individuality – my soul.  Yes, it was my own Blakean song of innocence and experience.  It was my own small town version of Paradise Lost. Whatever I feared at the beginning of university became a tool of remembrance   for my  efforts  to work on myself in the Fourth Way. Fourth Way? Yeah, something I couldn’t talk about with any of you.

That’s the other thing. I wanted to tell you that one of the reasons I had to leave when I did was to ensure I didn’t have my second Saturn Return while still working in TAFE.  If I stayed my life patterns showed it would be a disaster   because I didn’t have the courage to follow my heart. I felt I couldn’t say this to you because you and others in the system would just laugh. Little did any of you know how often I used Astrology and the I Ching to strategize and coordinate projects that won national and state quality  awards. In case you’re interested here’s an example that helped introduce English for Specific Purposes Program in the BHP Workplace. No one knew except me and my muse 🙂   This is not the place to explain  Saturn Returns but if you’re interested let me know.

The old Zen images of enlightened Mind  –  “Chop wood, Carry water” and “No Moon, no water” are now hovering around my attitude.  I’m getting something nutritious in just chopping and splitting  logs for our evening fire, painting the new sleeper pine wood pegola and garden boxes with decking oil, planting seeds, cooking, reading and trading at a much more relaxed pace. Ah, trading! Yes, I’m now a Forex Trader. That’s a whole other letter – again, if you’re interested.

I’m reading drafts of many unfinished works and instead of flogging myself with guilt that they exist and NOT finished, I’m just reading them. I’m playing around with ideas and don’t know where it will take me except that I’m enjoying just catching up with my stuff…….catching up with me.

Yes, I know it all sounds narcissistic, and maybe it is,   but I feel  I need to nurture that part of me the Corporate World could not and did not value.

How are you?

Stavros