No photo of Bonny yet - I couldn't get her to stay still long enough to take one! Maybe on my next visit.
Somebody has asked what I meant when I said I was a freedom seeker (in my profile) and since it is a very good question, I shall try to explain myself.
I have been reading an excellent book by Tom Hodgkinson called 'How to be Free' and he asserts that we are all free already, the only reason we do not exercise our freedom is because of our 'mind forg'd manacles'. In other words, we are free to do and be whatever we choose and the only things that stop us are the voices inside our own heads.
So I had a listen to some of my voices. Some are disguised to sound like my parents, some sound like the government and some like the Church. An example from the recent past: 'You can't throw in your job and go live on a boat - it's not the adult thing to do, it's not as if you are 20 anymore and how will you afford it? You can't expect anybody to bail you out if you get into trouble. It's not safe on your own, what if you fall in, get attacked, sink. How selfish of you to follow your own desires - it shouldn't be about what
you want.' (I'm sure you can work out for yourselves which voice is which, although of course, they were all my voices!)
What all these statements have in common is that they have fear at their core; fear of how I will look to other people, fear for my own safety, fear of being seen to be selfish or foolhardy, and fear of being monetarily poor.
But I then had a choice - do I let my fear stand in the way of my dreams (to quote an advert)? Do I let fear be my 'mind forg'd manacle', imprisoning me in a life that was slowly strangling me to death? Or do I acknowledge the fear, but do it anyway? On this occasion, I followed the scent of freedom, yes in fear and trembling, but I took the leap into the unknown.
Now before you label me either a hero or a boastful fool, I have recognised since then, that this move was only the first of many manacles to be cast off in my quest to be free. I still feel trapped by many things - by debt, by what people think of me, by expectations I lay on myself, and of course by the whole weight of should's and ought's that I took with me from the Church. But I now recognise that these things that make us feel trapped are phantoms - only real in our own minds, and so can be overcome. And that is how I am seeking to be free; I am confronting, one by one, my inner voices as well as, when necessary the outer forces that seek to enslave me (like the bank at present - usurers all - they are hell bound!)
I share this (if anybody actually reads my blog!) because I suspect I am not the only one who has felt trapped or powerless or fearful. If anybody wants to leave a comment about the above, or about their own experience / wisdom, then feel free. You just click on the 'comment' green button.