Moonstone New Age

Wizard Aldred's Insight

Welcome to the whisperings of the wise one. I can call myself wise because my age allows me to do so.  My razor sharp wit is always at the ready with some clever retort, that is if I can hear what you say, you may have to repeat yourself (several times)- but I will get there in the end!

I have been walking, or shall we say teetering the spiritual path for far more years that I care to remember, and I have seen many changes occur over this time.

Lets start with the 60's ... Free Love was the catchword of the day. The trouble was that I never saw any of it. After spending 3s 6d on taking the girl of my dreams on a wild and wonderful romantic evening the only physical contact that I got was a handshake, or if I was really lucky, a peck on the check.    Another catchphrase that was banded about was - Make Love Not War - oh the follies of youth ...  We imagined a world full of Love and cannabis , then sadly we grew up.  From a carefree youth - when the words: Heavy  Man - meant that we were either too tired too work or that the weight of our ridiculous Afghan coats  (that we never get round to cleaning) became too heavy to wear, to a world where some of the youth of the time are now declaring war on almost anyone  who upsets them ...

Don’t get me wrong there are still peace loving people around from that era - mostly in a settlement in Glastonbury, who although at times find grounding difficult, are some of the loveliest people you could meet! Normal everyday conversation  is difficult for them - there are only a certain number of ways to say yeah man - but ask them about where we are spiritually, then their knowledge is endless!

I meandered through life until I hit the 70's and saw a totally different youth culture emerge. Punk and anarchy  ruled ok! Interesting to see that a great deal of financial institutions have people in their mid-forties running them, this includes banks with the exception of my bank manager, who is totally loving, giving and caring ... grovel, grovel.

Moving swiftly on before my bank charges are increased, we come to the 80's which we started by looking back to the past, when men were Real Men. Who can forget Adam Ant in his dashing highway costume or his overdraft with Boots cosmetic counter.  That period did not last very long (did Boots run out of make up?) only to be overtaken by the Thatcher age and the Yuppies  who wanted, got and  some of them lost it all again, which teaches us a very valuable lesson never listen to a lady who takes milk from children!!!

My ramblings do have a certain point to them. When we embark on a spiritual path, we're like children with a new toy - we have high hopes for it, we love it, we nurture it.  If we don’t stay grounded we can't make sense of the information that we're getting.  When we first set foot on this path, it's like a child in a sweetshop - we want to try all the sweets at once, but eventually we have to confine it to our favourites.  We also have to learn to work with our own personal boundaries and limitations ... As the Punks discovered - anarchy is not a workable system.  After the boundaries have been set, we very often go back to the past -whether it be looking at Native American, Egyptian, Celtic, Mayan etc, because of the need to integrate our spiritual roots in order to understand  fully the enormity of the task we have chosen.

So ... the lesson for today is don't try to run before you can walk! If we use spirituality  for power, or with ego, it can turn itself against us and we can become cynical and operate from fear rather than from Love.