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Practising awareness, loving awareness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A key theme of my blog, heroes not zombies, is about awareness. It’s about waking up, living more consciously, more engaged in the here and now. 

When I was a teenager I used to listen to a pirate radio station, called Radio Caroline, which broadcast music from a ship outside of the jurisdiction of the UK authorities. Radio Caroline still exists, and I tune into it from time to time as an internet radio station – my goodness, how easy it is to find and listen to radio stations around the world now using the internet. There’s a great site, called Radio Garden, which looks a bit like Google Earth, but with the radio stations highlighted. You can spin the globe, zoom in on any country, any city, any town, and immediately hear the radio stations broadcasting from there. I recommend it, though, I think, in the UK, the authorities have blocked users from accessing any internet radio stations which aren’t based in the uk! I’ll come back to this kind of restriction another day, but, suffice to say, back when we used an old fashioned radio and scanned the world on ShortWave, nobody blocked us. Ho hum! 

Anyway, I digress. In one of its phases of life, Radio Caroline adopted a slogan “Get the LA habit” – with “LA” standing for “Loving Awareness”. It doesn’t do that any more, but I liked that they chose for a while to promote not just “awareness”, but “loving awareness” – goodness knows, we could do with more of that in this world. 

Back in the 1990s I read Anthony de Mello’s “Awareness” and it made such an impression on me that it sits on my special “books which changed my life” bookshelf in my study. 

The thing about awareness, is that it grows with practice. If you decide to be more aware, for example, by savouring your meal, of by stepping into the garden and listening for the birdsong, or watching the sun rise, or gaze at the Moon when it’s full on a clear night, or go for a walk with an intention of noticing, then you’ll find that even when you don’t think “awareness” your brain starts to become more aware. 

We see the same phenomenon, for example, with breathing. If you pause and take three deep, diaphragmatic breaths, you’ll interrupt an unconscious pattern of shallow breathing which can be keeping you in a state of chronic anxiety, or disturbing your sleep. Yes, if you have chronic hyperventilation during sleep, you can stop it by practising the three deep breaths a few times during the day. 

When I was living in Stirling and working in Glasgow I walked from home to the railway station every day, then took a couple of trains to get to the hospital where I worked. That walk was a time to practice awareness, just by setting off with an intention of noticing. In fact, I found that if I took a camera with me with an intention of photographing whatever struck me, then I’d notice a lot more in the here and now (and who doesn’t have a camera with them these days, even if it’s only the one in your phone?)

Maybe it’s time for us all to get that old “LA habit” again, and practice a bit more awareness, no, not just awareness, but “loving awareness” every day. 

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The perfect diet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Throughout my career, both in General Practice, and as a Specialist in Integrative Care, from time to time a patient would ask me if I had a diet sheet.

I didn’t.

But the question opened the possibility to discuss this particular patient’s current eating habits, and to give some guidance and recommendations. The reason I didn’t have a diet sheet is because, as with much else in life, there is no one size fits all.

There is no “perfect diet”.

There’s no diet which, no matter who you are, where you live, and what you normally eat, will be a healthier diet for you. I know, I know, there are masses of posts and articles which promise you that if only you’d eat this particular foodstuff every day, this other one twice a week, and add an extra helping of something else, then your blood lipids would plummet, your blood sugar would normalise, and the inflammation in your body would calm right down. I’m especially sceptical of those articles which claim that a particular food will produce a specific outcome – reduced risk of cancer, or strokes, or whatever. There really isn’t any way to know what a particular foodstuff will do for an individual, because there are so many other factors in play.

However, there are some broad guidelines which seem worthy of consideration. Michael Pollan. I like his “Eat food. Mainly plants. Not too much” because it captures three useful principles – that we should eat food which is nutritious, that we should privilege plants over meat, and that we shouldn’t over eat. I also like the principle that we should eat ultrahigh processed foods, as little as possible. It seems the bigger the list of chemicals whose names are hard to pronounce, or are presented just as letters and numbers, then the less likely the food will be to be nutritious (and the more likely it will have adverse effects on the body).

I also like the broad teaching that more colourful your plate, the healthier it is likely to be. There’s an awful of beige food in the world, and, to be honest, I prefer a bit of colour (as long as the colour doesn’t come from an industrial chemical!)

I also like the teaching to try to eat seasonally. In France, really every town of any size has a weekly, or more frequent, market, and it’s pretty obvious what’s in season, and what isn’t. I look forward to Corsican Clementines every year, for example, but there are many other plant based foods which only appear on the stalls when they’ve been harvested that year.

But, I think perhaps the most important thing to say before giving anyone dietary advice, is “tell me what you normally eat”. It can be difficult for people to that, so, sometimes I’d ask them to go off for a couple of weeks and write down in a notebook, every single thing that passes their lips. Reviewing their pattern, even over a fortnight, can be revealing. It’s also important to explore food allergies, sensitivities and preferences. So, as is usually the case, it’s best to start by listening, or, if you’re doing this yourself, by observing.

I think if you decide to keep a food diary for a period of time to discover your normal habits, it’s important to write down absolutely everything you eat or drink every day, and it’s actually better to it for thirty days, than just a fortnight. Also, no cheating! Because you’d just be cheating yourself! Don’t avoid what you’d normally eat, to record a diet which you think you SHOULD be eating!

Once you’ve listened or observed, then that’s the time to see what might be tweaked, or changed. And, at that point, it’s pretty obvious, we are all different. There’s no point recommending fish twice a week to someone who is allergic to fish, for example.

Bottom line is, there is no perfect diet, so there is no perfect diet sheet. What we can all do is become more aware, and choose to make the changes we would really like to make – whether that involves a move away from UHP foods, from takeaways, from snacks or sweets, or from cutting down on alcohol consumption.

That photo at the top of this post, by the way, is one day’s harvest from our “potager” (veggie plot) here in France. I can honestly say everything in that basket tastes delicious, and all of it has enhanced my quality of life…..which strikes me as a pretty good way to choose my own diet. You should choose yours.

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What strikes you?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A key theme of “heroes not zombies” is waking up and becoming aware. It’s too easy to drift through a day in a state of semi-consciousness, doomscrolling social media, following routines, swallowing the stories corporations and governments want you to swallow. The Romans used “bread and circuses” to control the population. Modern capitalism uses algorithms.

But there’s a way to break out of these mind-numbing loops….paying attention to what strikes you.

In homeopathy, there’s a teaching about looking out for the “Strange, rare and peculiar”, the symptoms a patient relates which strike you, which stand out, which seem particularly relevant, or particularly unusual. These symptoms might be the key to understanding the patient and finding the right remedy for them. It’s a practice which is the opposite of seeking what is “usual” or “typical”. The thing is, in diagnosis you need to grasp both – the typical symptoms can point to a pathology, but it’s the particular, the personal, and striking ones which point to the patient who has that pathology, which open the path to understanding what the patient is experiencing, how this disease emerged in their life and how it’s affecting them.

I’ve often written here about the power of wonder and awe. I experience wonder and awe when something strikes me. I’ll be wandering through the forest and suddenly see a flower I’ve never seen before, or I’ll hear a bird call I’ve never heard before (or, certainly, not around here). The important thing is to follow that noticing. When something strikes me, I’m drawn to it, I slow down, stop, and explore further. I allow myself to pass a few moments appreciating whatever it is.

We can do the same through the day with lines we read in books. I’m sure you have the experience of reading a novel, or a non-fiction book, and a particular phrase or sentence leaps it out at you. It strikes you. When that happens, why not note it down? Why not slow down, and consider it? I use a mix of methods in this situation. In some books I’ll underline the particular phrase. In others, I’ll get out my phone and take a photo of the passage, then save that photo to my Notes app. Or I’ll get out my notebook and copy it down. “And not or” is my motto. I’ll often do a combination of those things.

Sometimes we’ll be struck by coincidences, or by a feeling of deja vu. These moments can be gold. They can stop us in our tracks and inspire some wonder, some reflection. They are worth noting down too.

Other times I’m struck by a phrase I hear, maybe just a snippet of a conversation, or a remark in the cafe, or in a queue. Again, it’s worth noting these down, taking a moment to consider them, to enjoy then, to reflect.

When I visit a gallery I’ll move fairly quickly through a room, scanning the works of art, then, almost always, some particular painting strikes me, grabs my attention, and stops me. Those always become my favourite paintings.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, noticing what strikes you changes your day. It jolts you out of zombie mode, and gives you an opportunity to make the day your own, to make the day special.

Try it out….notice what strikes you today, and explore it.

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Little Owl

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

When I lived in Genté I had a studio upstairs looking out over old, abandoned barns to a hillside covered with vines. One day I had that sensation of being watched and when I looked out of the window I saw this bird. It’s a “Little Owl”. Yep, that’s what it’s called. There were several Barn Owls living both in one of the old barns, and in a dovecot cut into the wall of the house, just above our front door. I’d become quite familiar with them, but I hadn’t seen a Little Owl before. I reached for my camera and took this photo. No wonder I had the sensation of being watched! Look at that gaze!

We moved to the Charente Maritime, from the Charente, four years ago. I haven’t seen any Barn Owls since. But over the last few days I’ve heard a really loud bird call at night, and, then, more often, in the daytime too. I use an app on my phone to identify birdcalls. It tells me this is the call of a Little Owl. I haven’t managed to see him yet, but I’m hearing him loud and clear. I think he’s taken up residence in the forest area at the top of the garden.

But to return to this gaze……how do we sense that we are being looked at?

It can happen in a cafe, or restaurant. It can happen in the street. Somehow, we are attuned to the gaze of others (not just other people, but other creatures too). I’m convinced it’s not about scanning the environment and just noticing who, or what, is looking our way. It happens too often that I’ll look up from a book (yeah, I do a LOT of reading) and turn in the exact direction to meet the gaze of another. I don’t know how that works.

But, we all have a need to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be taken into account. Solitary confinement, “sending to Coventry”, and exile are powerful punishments. Intolerable, even. We are social creatures, and we can’t survive entirely without others. Yet, on the other hand, we can receive too much attention. We can wish for times where we aren’t noticed. We are living in a disturbing time of mass surveillance, where corporations and governments are watching, keeping an eye on us, and it’s not comfortable, or welcome.

Like so much else in Life, we have to find some kind of balance, some kind of harmony of two polar opposites. We need connections, we don’t want to be ignored or excluded. But we need privacy too, we don’t want others watching over us, following what we do, whether that’s to feed us advertisements, or policies, or to exert a control over us. And like the other balances we seek to achieve, there isn’t an end point, a place where we get to and then that’s it, we can move on. It’s a way of life.

There’s another question I have when I look at this photo. Why?

Why is this Little Owl looking at me? Why is he sitting out there on the roof, looking through the window into my studio, looking directly at me?

Fear? He’s keeping an eye on me, as a potential threat? I’m definitely no expert in bird expressions, but he doesn’t look afraid.

Because he wants to connect? Not, like have a chat, or start a beautiful friendship, but just to connect. Sometimes making a connection is enough.

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Materials, energies, information flows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

One way to understand how deeply interconnected we are, and how change, not statis, is the norm, is to think of three flows – flows of materials, substances, atoms, molecules, and other particles; flows of energy, electromagnetic, gravitational, sounds, and other energy waves; and, information, language, symbols, ideas, and thoughts? You might have other examples for each of these three flows. You might dispute one or more of the ones I’ve chosen, but let’s stick with the general idea here – there are flows of materials, energies and information which swirl around this planet. The flow around, into and through us, for the most part, invisibly. And they flow out of, and beyond, us…changed.

It’s almost like we are a wave, or a vortex. A whirlpool perhaps, a coalescence, an efflorescence, transforming these flows into something which has self-integrity, something which appears separate, and consistent over the course of a lifetime. We, like everything else on this little planet, are transient, and exist only as a temporary flux. Some writers describe us as being like a wave which appears briefly on the surface of the ocean, a wave which can be pointed to, a wave which can located, even named. Waves don’t leave the ocean, and they don’t last for long, soon dissipating and disappearing back into the vast waters from which they came.

The chapter I read in Rick Rubin’s, The Creative Act, today, describes the idea of data, entering us, filling our inner vessel, where it is changed, not least by the relationships which from between it, and what was already there. He says these relationships produce our beliefs and stories, and, ultimately, our world view.

We can choose what we want to make with all of this – our unique stories, our art, our creations – and then we can choose to share them, where they set off, hopefully, to encounter others, other stories, other creations, other people.

I don’t like the word “data”. I’m sure it’s just a personal thing, but I have a feeling or disgust, or repulsion, when I come across the word “data”. I know, for many others, “data” is the stuff of their daily existence, maybe even what gives their lives meaning. But, I just don’t like it. I prefer the word “information”. I prefer “stories”. I prefer “encounters” and “relationships” and “patterns”. But, as I say, maybe that’s just me. I’m also not a great fan of the idea of a “vessel” inside us…..just as I’m not a fan of the idea of memory being like a filing cabinet in the brain somewhere. So, I prefer this concept of flows, flows of materials, energies and information, which we alter as they enter our inner “vortex”, and emerge changed as we breathe, or act, or talk them out into the world again.

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Experience first, analyse later

Posted in Uncategorized on October 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Rick Rubin writes…..

Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.

This strikes me as totally consistent with Iain McGilchrist’s insights into the functions of our two cerebral hemispheres. He says that each engages with the world in a different way, the right with a broad focussed attention, and the left with a narrow one. The right is where all the signals acquired by our senses travel to first. We engage with the world primarily through direct experience. It evokes our sensations of awe and beauty. Some of that information then passes to the left which zeroes in on elements, naming, labelling and classifying. This is our analytic function.

I take a lot of photographs. For many years I’d carry a camera with me everywhere. Since smartphones improved their cameras, I take most photos with one of those. However, I do deliberately take a small camera with me when I go out for a walk, take a day trip, or go and visit somewhere. I photograph whatever catches my eye, and I’ve written before about how going out with an intention to photograph heightens my awareness, enhances my ability to be present. The iPhone has an “I” button for information when you view a photo later. I use that to identify a plant, or an insect, or whatever, and then look up more about it on wikipedia, or whatever…..a clear pathway of experience first, enabling joy, awe and wonder, then analysing next, to better understand it.

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From infinity to this moment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Rick Rubin writes –

Turning something from an idea
into a reality
can make it seem smaller.

This immediately stimulated my memories of reading the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. It’s a few years since I did that, and I’m no philosopher, so I can only share with you, what I, personally, got out of reading some of his work. One concept he described, the one which came to me when I read these lines by Rick Rubin, was that of the “virtual”. I think his idea of the virtual was pretty complex and nuanced, but as I read it, the virtual contained what he called “a multiplicity of singularities”.

A “singularity” is a specific. I think of it this way. Today, as I wake up, stretching before me are a pretty much infinite number of possibilities. The day lies there full of potential conversations, encounters and experiences. There are sights and sounds and smells and tastes and textures which I could pick up on and enjoy. As the day unrolls, I make certain decisions, choices. I have certain encounters, certain experiences. Moment by moment they are the specifics of my day. All the other possibilities that were there at the start disappear. It’s a bit like the collapse of the wave. Like how Schrodinger’s cat can be both alive and dead until we open the box, then it’s the one or the other.

It’s even more complex than that, of course, because, moment by moment new “multiplicities of singularities” emerge….ones which only come into existence because of the actual moments which have led to this particular moment.

OK, that’s spiralling a bit out of control, and I’m sure some professional philosopher will be able to point out how much I’ve got wrong about the idea, but my point is, as inspired by Rick’s words, the actual, the specific, the singular, feels like a reduction. It’s the same with every choice we make. Once we make a choice, we choose one thing, one action, and in doing so, don’t choose the others. That’s why making decisions can be difficult. We can’t help imagining all the other possibilities we are about to turn away from. We feel, perhaps, that we are making the world smaller.

But there’s no alternative here. It’s not possible to live without singularities, without specifics, without actuals. If we don’t engage, if we aren’t aware, if we don’t reflect and consider, then the choices are made for us. Because this moment does actually exist. And the other moments which could have been disappear, or morph into some potential future set of possibilities.

So, I don’t fear this phenomenon of making anything “smaller”. Instead, I choose to be aware, to be engaged, and to co-create this actual moment of my unique existence in this vast universe.

Awareness and engagement open up the universe to us. They open the doors to co-creation of this moment, at this time, in this place. Embracing that is a joy, a celebration, which stirs wonder, awe and gratitude.

What not to like?

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A universe of blessings, gifts, of grace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Rick Rubin refers to “the Source” when discussing the origin of ideas and inspirations. He writes that our creative ideas, the seeds of our acts of art, don’t come from inside us, which is what we unthinkingly believe, but, rather are “precious wisps [arising] from the unconscious like vapour, to condense and form a thought.”

He uses the analogy of clouds.

“Clouds never truly disappear. They change form. They turn into rain and become part of the ocean, and then evaporate to return to being clouds. The same is true of art. Art is a circulation of energetic ideas. What makes them appear new is that they’re combining differently each time they come back. No two clouds are the same.

This whole concept has a foundation on the belief that the universe is benign, which reminds me of the much quoted idea about a friendly universe (attributed to Einstein)

If we decide that the Universe is an unfriendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve safety and power by creating bigger walls to keep out the unfriendliness and bigger weapons to destroy all that is unfriendly and I believe that we are getting to a place where technology is powerful enough that we may either completely isolate or destroy ourselves as well in this process. If we decide that the Universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly and that God is essentially ‘playing dice with the universe’, then we are simply victims to the random toss of the dice and our lives have no real purpose or meaning.

“But if we decide that the Universe is a friendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding the Universe. Because power and safety will come through understanding its workings and its motives.”

Using a slightly different form of language, Thomas Berry, in the final chapter of “The Great Work”, writes about “Moments of Grace” and tells the story of the evolution of the universe from this perspective, with each major “development” described as a “moment of grace” – the “Big Bang”, the formation of the fist stars, the creation of the planet Earth, the first forms of Life on the planet, the emergence of Human Beings, the first use of fire, the first gardens, the creation of writing and alphabets, and so on. Referring to each of these emergent steps in the history of we humans, situates us in a much “friendlier” universe.

Years and years ago I read a short article in Wired magazine which listed new words and their definitions. One of them was “pronoia” – defined as the delusion that others are conspiring behind our backs to help us out. That word popped up again recently when I was scrolling social media, defined now as a belief that the universe was “on our side”, helping us out.

The final writer who came to my mind as I read this idea of positive contributions from the universe, was Matthew Fox, who teaches “Creation Spirituality”. He claims the Catholic emphasis on “Original Sin” is all wrong, and makes a good case for replacing it with the idea of “Original Blessing”, pointing out that the creation story in Genesis is a very positive one, and that “original sin” isn’t described in the Bible at all (I don’t know if that’s true, my Bible knowledge isn’t that great, but he was a Catholic monk, so he should know!) I like his reframing though, and his “blessings” are very similar to Thomas Berry’s “moments of grace”.

It isn’t hard to find thinkers and authors who can help us to see the universe, not as meaningless, not as threatening and uncaring, but as vast phenomenon, which acts to support us in our survival and our creation.

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Tuning in

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“There’s a time for certain ideas to arrive,
and they find a way
to express themselves through us.”

There’s a theory about where ideas come from, and where memories reside. I’ve read this theory, or some version of it, in several places over the years. Most recently I read it in Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act”. He suggests that sometimes great ideas come to us but we don’t act on them, then some time later we see them expressed by someone else. It isn’t that other people have stolen our ideas, it’s that the idea’s time has come, and if we don’t act on it, then someone else may.

I read a very similar view a few years ago in Elizabeth Gilbert’s excellent, “Big Magic”, where she said if we don’t write when inspiration comes our way, then, maybe somebody else will. Maybe the idea or inspiration will flow on to someone else because it needs to be expressed. Maybe we will miss our opportunity.

Iain McGilchrist, in “The Matter with Things”, explores memory and consciousness, and dismisses the idea that they lie encased in our skulls. Rather, he argues, our brains act as “receivers” which filter out some of the signals being received to present us with our experiences of consciousness and memory.

Others have argued something very similar……from Jung’s “collective unconscious”, to Sheldrake’s “morphic fields’.

So, it’s not a new idea that we have the ability to “tune in” to whatever is flowing through the universe, nor that that includes ideas, inspirations, memories, and so on. This tuning in is a bit like turning on a radio, the old fashioned, analogue kind, turning the dial, and listening as voices and music begin to appear in the white noise, first of all quiet and fuzzy, till we tune in better and it comes through loud and clear. Aren’t you still amazed that you can sit in a room somewhere, hearing only silence, but, in fact you are surrounded by, you are bathing in, a whole world of songs, stories and speech? You just need to switch on the radio, and tune it in for it all to be revealed.

That still amazes me.

But the idea that the universe is full of stories, words, ideas, images, and music, and that all we need to do is to create the space for it to appear, all we need to do is tune in, and listen….then be inspired…… then we can choose to act on these inspirations, these dreams, these ideas…..express them. Well, that amazes me too.

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We are all creators

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

There’s been a shift in social media channels. Not long ago many people presented themselves as “Influencers”, but now, not so much. Increasingly I’m seeing the term “Content creator” instead. Or, sometimes, “Digital content creator”. I must say, the first time I noticed this shift I wondered mainly about the word “content” – I don’t find it appealing, but I understand it will cover anything from text, images and videos, to the spoken word or music (and maybe more, I’m not sure!). I do think of myself as a photographer and a writer. I do both of those things frequently…..pretty much every day. But, I guess none of that is “content” unless I publish it (or upload it) somewhere, like here on my blog, or on a social media platform like Bluesky (or Facebook, Threads, Mastodon, Substack, or whatever). However, having wondered for a while about what constitutes “content” I shifted my attention to the second word….”creator”.

A few years ago when thinking about health, and how did I know a patient was becoming more healthy, I hit on a three word acronym – ACE – for Adapation, Creativity and Engagement. Briefly, for me, the healthier someone became the better I saw their ability to cope, to deal with whatever they had to deal with, to adapt and change. In addition, I’d notice they were becoming more creative, more able to solve problems, to come up with new ideas and ways of living, to be better able at expressing themselves. And, finally, I’d see they were becoming more engaged, building connections and relationships, deepening connections and relationships, paying better attention to the here and now.

It struck me then, and it continues to strike me, that we humans are naturally creative creatures. Maybe you learned from a religious teacher that God created us in His likeness? I always thought that meant He created us as creative creatures. (We are more than simply creative creatures, and there are several other factors we can consider which contribute to our “human-ness”, but I’ll explore that another time.

Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”, begins with a chapter entitled “Everyone is a Creator”. He writes –

To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to a friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.

He goes on to explore how through our senses and our brain/body processes, we create experiences for ourselves, we create our internal reality, from the undifferentiated external reality. In other words, just being alive is a creative act.

Finally, he writes –

To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention……your entire life is a form of self-expression. You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s not just “content creators” who are creative, it’s you and it’s me and it’s everyone you know. How does it change your perception of someone once you start to explore their creativity? What do you notice when you start to ask yourself, “in what ways is this person creative?”

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