Madeira. Facing the ocean. The fabric of place, time and identity roiled with each wave. Dissolution. The old map, familiar and comfortable. No new map. Seemingly a leap in the dark, yet such a strong sense of comfort arising around it. Of being held. Carried. Pulled.

Not all the answers. Still bound, but enough energy to shuffle forward nervously, inching along the proverbial plank. A few more steps... It’s hard. The frequency is there, above the wind and pounding surf.

And endless internal chatter, voice, morphing, shifting and narrating what was on the line; lamenting losses:

security
comforts
certainty

No mention of the coin of a life. All signs pointing away:

“Look away please.”

The command framed the circling myriad projected distractions. Then:

“Take the easy path,” it said.

Convincing arguments ensued; expertly delivered, a constant, fluent, flowing stream of influence. Every reason not to look, bankrolled with unease.

Cold crushing fear on one side, the sense of another life on the other. Caught bang in the middle, strung between countervailing forces.

The knowing. Not mind. Not the voice. An arising sense. Reaching up and out, pointing towards the first layers of held beliefs.

Questions:

Is this true? Where did it come from?

Fact checks.

Was this claim that now lives as a belief uncontested and accepted with no hard credible evidence? The question ‘Who am I’ that seeded the initial line of enquiry, roots now spread deep, down and out across my life. Time to settle it.

But not yet.

No.

No stepping off that ledge. Not ready or equipped to. When full time work duties, other ‘must do’ claims fell away, space would come. Then.

And I knew no-one else could help. It was a paradoxical undertaking - profound and problematic. Framing the core questions and delving into them was, of itself, a daunting prospect. That’s the way of it.

Back in the UK a few months later. Delighting in small things. Nature. Walks. Drives. Reading. Music. Reflecting. Experiencing the incredible beauty of the South Downs. Gratitude. Following the directive enshrined in The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd. Letting go of it all. Allowing energy to gently return. Sitting with things. Open to new possibilities. Exploring. Experimenting. Further.

The voice in my head kept babbling away. Often more like an unhinged rabid sports commentator. Balanced? Objective? You must be joking. Breathless, primal and overbearing. Always on.

The ‘You should. I must...’ Harsh judgement. Controlling. Critical and unkind.

Spin this up, do this, do... do... do...

Relentless. Weeks passed, but then the moment came, a few pages into reading Jed McKenna’s Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment. Recognition from his words. A nudge. Settled into the desk. The ‘don’t go here’ moment had arrived. First question ready.

Felt immediate constriction in the body, signs something was up. The internal compass spinning, searching, then settling.

I see you shadow.

Ready now. Ready to challenge. This was not going to be a gentle move.

Questions my sword; truth the keen edges of its blade.

High stakes. Changes felt across the body on approach. As if walking on a tightrope. Matching the force of my will to counter with its own deepest shaft of fear. Discomfort sweeping over the skin. Inner disquiet rising. Sweat across the brow. Compression everywhere. Fear rampant.

The shadow - a projected energy construct, an identity of sorts. Conditioning, layer upon layer, its form. Hidden from view by its own design.

‘I’m you.’

Facing the fear, attention angled inwards. Bringing the nuance and detail of held beliefs to light. The pictures, images... memories and their alleged significance and crafted meaning.

Breathe fully. Then reach for the sword.

One question at a time. Held beliefs for years, cobwebs of the mind, myths. Cut, cut, deeper... Question, cut, repeat. Watching the debris fall.

Time slows. Each revelation brings grief and joy.

Clarity came as the armour fell. In the days immediately after, a lingering sense of peace. A beginning, not an ending. Recognised that was true. Questions had separated fact from fiction. There was no choice. Is no choice. No going back. Not possible. But doubt too. Could it really be true and would this state last?

Seems simple and obvious now. Looking back it always does; a once you know ‘you know’ experience. But from the other side of it? Not at all. Fiction the shadow may be, but it can take any role, play any part - convincingly. And it will do everything to avoid being seen. The route to it, itself veiled, concealed and bounded with fear.

The frequency of that night abides. Never to be forgotten.

“For it is the doom of men that they forget”

The Merlin, Excalibur (1981)

Spoken as a warning that humanity’s greatest enemy is not external forces, but internal forgetfulness.

We’re not done. Whispers and echoes remain. It’s no longer #1. More than enough to work with.

The immediate days after spent resting, sleeping, reflecting. The engine had quietened. The constant background drive of do-do-do, vanished. Eerie. A new found space of infinite depth, vast and confounding. Unfathomable. Within that emptiness hung the most abiding sensation of peace. Anti-climatic. Just space. Impossible to define and explain. Words flounder. Something the mind is incapable of seeing or interpreting. Sat in it amidst the loss of momentum that had run for decades.

Carried in the tide

Life had turned. Changed for good. As untriumphant and dislocated as it all was, the recognition held of a shift. A new course set. Affirmed today as I write this.

Trust, surrender. Hands off the tiller more. Flow, and be carried in the tide.

Further.

Editor’s note

There’s a flow to these posts. If you are new to the work, the origin piece where the Madeira ledge first appeared is here: What are we optimising for?

Editor’s note

A word on these posts before we get into it. These are reports not lessons. I don’t have answers - or solutions. I’m sharing here because I’m in rehab. Still repairing. And I feel compelled to.

If it works for you, great. Take what you need and leave the rest.

New to the Repairshop? Start here: What are we optimising for

I’d followed the old maps and it drained me. And like every ‘expert’ in the field, I was paid for being ‘right’ in front of the client. There’s a cost to that posture. I’d never really thought much about it. In the comfortable pod, there’s always ‘feedback’, and it was the manager’s comment that rebounded later in unforeseen ways.

Sharpen your critical thinking.

Curt nod. Then shuffle performance review docs, with little real interest in it aside from countering the internal ego stab. Inferiority. And how to make it all go away. Quickly.

In the milliseconds available between client delivery task actions, I conceded the point, but it was not fully understood then.

Critical thinking landed later. Via Substack in fact:

Critical thinking is harder than you think

That did the work. Unlocked the gate. It allowed the adjustment and fitting of a new lens. A seeing tool to direct the focus of innate curiosity inward. The mind, a sword measured to cut through delusion.

Wrote a note on the post and restacked it:

“Question what you believe. It might be the most tranformative step you ever take.”

Typo included - a genuine fingered miss on mobile. The note mirroring the signal back to the noter.

Didn’t expect that to travel. Still running hot as these words fall. It resonated.

Stoic Wisdoms writes:

“Think about the last time you read something that confirmed exactly what you already believed. Notice what happened next… You absorbed it. The feeling of being right moved so fast through you that by the time you finished reading, the claim had already become belief."

Assayed. Felt that. Movement inside the body as the words landed.

Back on the ledge. In Madeira. At the Garden of the Sea.

Belief.

Whose?

And what truth?

A few weeks after leaving the job, I published an AI-scripted LinkedIn post without a second thought. Everything for a reason. No such thing as failed experiments. Always learnings. True.

AI has removed so much friction; drop in an idea sentence, and boom, out pops an article. Looks credible, sounds smart. Very little thought needed, paragraphs of content effortlessly produced - in seconds. Click. Click. All done.

But mostly, it all reads and sounds the same. You feel the pattern landing immediately. A sanded husk remains. Consider the natural diversity present in the world. Then imagine if every leaf on a tree looked exactly the same. Out of place. The green screen of the movie world. Even the arguments persuasively placed land as truth. It’s everywhere, becoming the new normal.

All great changes come with disruption. Restructuring of people, economies; it’s present in the historical record of any civilisation you care to look at. AI in itself was never the biggest challenge. Being able to adapt fast enough may well prove to be.

There’s nothing new to see here beneath the tech. The old map remains, iron rails laid, grooves worn and shining in the sun. It just got a new time machine engine installed. Same shape. More speed. Faster loop.

A lingering question remained:

What are we optimising for?

That’s exactly where the faux costume LinkedIn post I’d written ran out of road. It hit the buffers hard. Dead stop. LinkedIn is the professionals’ showroom. Carefully crafted and curated. Marketing and advertising. Selling. Claim the expert’s seat.

My own engine gassed and fires lit up to present the ‘insight’. The AI prose a quick route to the required deliverable; buffed and ready to tap dance to the tired old tunes.

The content was valid. Lived experience from a professional experimenter. No question. And in some ways, Repairshop’s register. My writing style does have some AI-ness to it. Not deliberately - and it might even handicap it if I’m being honest.

There’s no getting away from the incredible pattern recognition humans have. Once seen, patterns are easily caught and judged. Ever played the yellow car game driving? First person to spot the yellow car and shout wins. Lens narrows. Yellow cars stand out. Same with AI writing. Pattern locked. You see it everywhere. Every time.

And cognition is fast. this isn’t the logical part of the brain. It’s the limbic system running at 60ms. If that wiring is imprinted, whatever’s read and fits that pattern dies. Instantly. Not that the ‘author’ would ever know.

There is truth and value in that LinkedIn post, genuinely, but it was machine manufactured and structured AI-speak. As said. See it once. See it everywhere. Discount it.

No jobs.
No future.
End of civilisation.

The dark seeps all around. Like the wraith’s chill. Cold seeping forth, frost creaking, cracking, enveloping all. Compression. Shrinking. Breath shallow. Cortisol flowing, flooding the senses. Overwhelming.

Thus is fear perceived and felt in the body, the narration comes from the ‘voice’ in your head.

What does AI point at? This future fear running off the projector in the head, reinforced across every screen and feed.

Yoda on the future [The Empire Strikes Back] “Difficult to see... Always in motion is the future”

Uncertainty

If AI claims most jobs and the economy collapses, civilisation falls, what then?

I can’t tell you - it’s a projection based on fear.

The first beams of light weak, growing gradually stronger. Breathe deep, energy rises, darkness retreats, frost melts. Surrender to what is.

All there. Is.

Here’s the companion post to the earlier piece that asked this question of a life, not the machine: What are we optimising for?

Editor’s note

A word on these posts before we get into it. These are reports not lessons. I don’t have answers - or solutions. I’m sharing here because I’m in rehab. Still repairing. And I feel compelled to.

If it works for you, great. Take what you need and leave the rest.

The ‘What are we optimising for’ post which went live yesterday wouldn’t feel complete without insight into what happened around the scheduled publish time.

This follow up keeps it real. Honours it.

Sunday evening. 45 minutes prior to the post going live. Resting up and was thumbing through a book. Mind focused on the publishing moment.

That’s when it came.

The fear dressed as prudence: “Stop. Pause it. It’s the end of ‘your’ reputation.”

Whose?

Body heat started to rise, sweat breaking out across the brow. At the desk in seconds, staring at the screen. Fingers poised over keys. Cortisol flood. The arm held across my chest. Fear…

Compression.

A ghost.

The event horizon was fast approaching, and at the point of no return, in the body, across the rails that had run the carriages for most of a lived life, neurons fired, tracks chiselled deep and well worn. The ghost spoke.

“Don’t do this.”

Asking to pull the emergency handle. Begging, pleading.

The situation poised on a tightrope. Genuine tension working the room. Yet, the body is alight, sensations running across hands and arms.

Facing the shadow. Watching. Still.

Music track. Hit play. Dreamstate Logic, Beyond the Veil, turned up loud, headphones on. Been playing all week during writing sessions.

Animations of the cosmos fill the screen. Locked in.

Box breathing… Tears. Emotion. A funeral then.

14 minutes… 4 minutes… 1 minute…

Live.

Shut the computer down, and a couple of seconds later the phone buzzes. Substack social creative, all dressed and ready for sharing.

Everything seen, felt and witnessed. Calm returns. Rest then sleep.

The morning routine. Day bright, strong sun with strong northerly winds breaking through the humidity. Tend to the animals and out the door with doggo onto the downs. Echoes of the day before. Damn, should have grabbed the voice recorder before setting out.

Less urgency. More stillness. No regrets.

And a different kind of emptiness. Space, with as yet unknown capacity.

Just another day. Now, here, present.

Back at base, grab an espresso and sit down in the garden. No meditation needed. Notes into the voice recorder and up to the office. Pulled there.

Writing into the calm now. Death into life itself. Further.

Report complete.

Editor’s note

A word on these posts before we get into it. These are reports not lessons. I don’t have answers - or solutions. I’m sharing here because I’m in rehab. Still repairing. And I feel compelled to.

If it works for you, great. Take what you need and leave the rest.

A note on post ordering. In Quiet the Mind I said I’d meant to run the origin post (this) first, then didn’t. The signal that morning was just too loud. So, late it is, but here’s the beginning. If you found me through that post, this is where it starts. If you’re new, start here.

The Sabbatical

Taking a sabbatical had always felt like a decadent move. And as work was always #1, and my identity was work - it naturally fell off the radar. Repeatedly.

Keep hustling while the going’s good - and it was always good.

I had the job of dreams. Tech, growing furiously, incredible talent everywhere, inclusive culture, outstanding benefits. Caught and surfed the wave - a long, long ride. Until one day, the wave dumped me.

When the burnout landed, people were kind. Time-off, supportive. And those closest recognised what had gone in to get so far, in what looked from the outside like the perfect career path.

But... I was empty.

Taking a sabbatical went from ‘gratuitous’ to ‘essential’ in short order. Strong digs in the ribs from those closest to me reset the clock, and the request went in to kick off the adventure of a lifetime.

First thoughts leapt to hiking Manaslu circuit in Nepal. A three-week trek. Visited the country back in 2009 and absolutely loved all of it. But I’d aged and while still fit, didn’t quite have the plucky courage that all would land well on a solo mission.

So... something a little more modest - and closer to home felt responsible. Tenerife kept appearing. Dramatic hiking routes and off-world landscapes. Rolling Atlantic ocean, next landfall Brazil.

Not the tourist centres of Los Cristianos - the wild mountainous terrain of the Parque Rural de Anaga and the Teno region in the north. Serious hiking in the EU without the need for crazy insurances or long-distance travel. Found lovely stays and booked it all.

Three weeks before the trip I was reminded by fam an old friend from my early childhood had relocated out there. Good times past - so reached out and connected. I had no idea what was about to unfold - but the energy was sky high and there was no better feeling than exiting cold Northern Europe and hitting the trails in the land of eternal spring.

Tenerife

First base was a good couple of hours drive from the airport area, traversing the mountains of the Anaga before reaching the surf. So I opted for an overnight stay in a local b&b after picking up the car. A grim start indeed, but I didn’t want to be driving those mountain hairpins at night learning the edges of a hire car.

In the room the phone pinged. My friend, where to meet, grab a coffee and load up groceries ahead of the long drive to the coast. What was about to unfold the next day wasn’t expected. It was, looking back, to turn out to be one of the most profound and impactful days of my life.

Old Friends

There he was, older, but nothing whatsoever diminished in his warmth and charismatic presence. Walking across the car park with that Han Solo swagger and cheeky ear-to-ear grin.

Hug

We sat in the coffee shop. Sun and blue skies backdrop. Letting the conversation roll. Covering the 35-year gap since we’d last seen each other... My eyes widened as he filled the gaps:

Out to Africa, exploring the continent solo. Then Brazil supporting ecosystem preservation hand in hand with the locals. Working to preserve the Jaguar territory and population and traditional ways of life and thinking. Saving his young son bitten by a venomous Jararaca snake in the jungle miles from medical help. Having to leave in a hurry with a posse of armed angry loggers on his tail.

Arriving in Tenerife with $200, no Spanish, the clothes on his back and little else.

“I started with nothing.” he said

But he survived, and his knowledge of ecosystem renewal and habitat restoration turned towards the island’s tourism sector. Now an award-winning landscape designer with an enviable book of work and top-notch projects, and found the love of his life.

Incredible. Inspirational.

I don’t remember much of what I talked about. And I don’t recall how we got to it, what prompted it, but he held my eyes and said:

Do you know who you are?

Silence. And that feeling you’re in a lift on the 50th floor and the cable just snapped.

Pause. I answer:

“No.”

He must have read my facial expression. Did I pale? Something uncovered that can never be put back in place and kept out of sight?

“Well, that’s a great place to start.”

Genuine kindness. What a gift.

I took the sucker punch and filed it away. Into the folder that this is.

Shopped and loaded the car, heading up the coast over the mountains, zig-zag hairpins and plummeting drops. Stunning beauty. Out of the raw industrial heart of coastal Santa Cruz over the Anaga, winding down into sleepy surf territory. Dog-toothed peaks and endless surf.

Peace at last.

Days hiking, few encounters with people. Jaw-dropping vistas on the trails.

The flat windows open to catch the rhythm of the ocean. Simple meals. Music. Reading. Walking out across the black sand. Careful swims respecting the power and majesty of the sea. Energy flowing.

Life-force returning.

Teide

The Tenerife trip was incredible, cemented with a summit of the volcano - Teide on the last day before flying out. Driving through the rain to the start early. Through the clouds into brilliant blue sunlight, walking through multiple fogbows across the path. Boulder fields, Martian landscape. Not another soul to be seen. Up the Mordor-like pumice path at the end slowly, feeling the altitude impact, frequent pauses, heavy legs, but weeks of long daily hiking taking care of the physical.

The Body

Something had emerged though, wearing me slowly and growing stronger the whole time. An aching pain in my shoulder blade. Massage or painkillers didn’t touch it. Always on, nagging and uncomfortable. On the flight back my arm was up, hand gripping the side of the luggage compartment above to try and get some relief...

Called the physio immediately. 8pm. Get in the next day. No comfortable position to sleep or sit in. What was this?

I was aiming to be back in the office for the new year, fresh start, hit the road running. But as it turned out my body had other plans. The physio didn’t just probe the physical. He went in deep. Into my psyche. Wanted to know what was going on in my life.

And to be honest that return to the UK was a dramatic loss of positive energy.

The following months were dark. The physio spent a good hour chatting while we tried to find a position to reduce the nerve pain. He’d looked me dead in the eye and said plainly it was going to be a looong journey. It didn’t land, I’d a history of pushing through physical mishaps. Well conditioned on that stiff-upper-lip stance.

Courage Jonny.

Nerve pain is something else. Strong painkiller meds don’t touch it - and we agreed in the end I’d take up the doctor’s prescription suggestions, just so I could sleep. I didn’t like the meds and the contras were terrifying. Being the optimiser, reading the occurrence rates didn’t exactly leave me feeling too cheerful either. Fingers and toes crossed.

One thing did work. Again the physio’s wisdom - an ancient craft.

The Breath

So when I woke in agony, with no sensation whatsoever in my arm, dropping into box breathing: in 4, hold 4, out 4 took the edge off. It was the only thing that worked. And that was puzzling.

The other advice he gave, do the stuff you enjoy ran counterintuitive to work ethics. That was being out in nature, walking with the dog. So we worked around that. Re-training the mind, helping the body let go of the arm. The psychological sigh. None of this was the Zen meditation work or new-age grounded approaches.

Eventually I was able to get back to work. 3 months after my planned return date. A lovely manager eased the process. Back to Mr Optimiser - Experimentation territory then.

I really tried, head down, worked hard. But my heart just wasn’t in it.

What the hell was I going to do?

Caught up with my mate on a call, I think he recognised where I was at. I had planned to return to Tenerife, but found a great stay in Madeira, more hiking and ocean calm. Back to the energy source.

Jed McKenna’s Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing arrived in the post, a week or so later. I think my friend knew what had kicked off during our reunion. This was the prescription. No preamble, note or prompt. Just the book.

Jed’s style is uncomfortable. On purpose. I recall reading the first pass, putting it down and thinking - nah, this isn’t for me. Who the hell is this bloke?

First barrier down.

But I continued. Less woo woo more of the real. Leaned into it hard.

Questions

Then panic

A clear choice.

And fear and excitement held. Weighed.

One direction the old shape - the other something shapeless and unknown. Whispering quietly. Beckoning. I’d not finished the book, Madeira was upon me, so it went in the bag. I said my farewells and headed to the airport.

Madeira

Flowing through the myriad tunnels. Load up on supplies at a store before completing the 50k drive. A few more tunnels before arriving at the Garden of the Sea.

Jardim do Mar

A beautiful and peaceful place. Quiet. Terrace overlooking Praia de Surfistas and no-one looking in. The owner of the place a surfer. Basic accommodation and that’s exactly the fit. Simple. It’s all about the ocean.

The Atlantic waves rolling in. Sea breeze caressing my face, the raw salt smell of the ocean, its rhythm and sound passing like the breath. All of it.

Who am I. What am I.

Unplugging and seeing with a different lens. The ground falling away. Dislocation. Not-knowing. Reality glitching. The analogueness of each moment. Wave after wave. Sadness and fear braided.

I knew what was being asked. Glimpsed the light coming through. But I couldn’t move. The comfortable pod held tight, walking me back from the edge.

Enough for now then. Seen and felt enough to know. To move ahead; question and explore further.

Coming Home

Drafting the resignation letter wasn’t challenging. Abiding relief. The voice in my head babbling away. Excitement and fear in alternating tides. Movies of the future playing out.

Three months was a long time to wait, but the relief was immediate, genuine and provided both mental space and needed perspective. Swept the diary clean for the second sabbatical needed to gather all the threads of the recent experiences together.

Day #1, Sabbatical #2

Bright blue sky. Biked through the forest, up onto the South Downs, across the chalk road spine, alighting on the view across farm fields, dropping down to the English Channel, turquoise and green ruffled by the breeze.

Black windmill in the distance, city out east white. Wind gently pressing the ears, cries of the gulls, alone, silent and peaceful held in awe of the world. To the sea, then into the ocean, cold May water, freezing to the core. Shock. Lay shivering in the spring sun.

Alive. Present.

The days after

No clock. No crazy schedule of stuff to get done. Hands off the tiller. Flow with the tide. Producing music, tending the garden. Meditation, long walks with the dog, drives to the coast. Visit Osho Leela to help out with the gardens for a few days.

Reconnecting with family and friends. Finding the others. Writers, poets, musicians.

Speaking with random strangers - never happened before.

Urgent messages and events arriving. Resonant. Connected. Whether laid out for me or an attuned mind finding the pattern. Couldn’t tell you. The frequency shift, the dial on the transmitter moving, scanning, searching.

And the world seemed to respond.

Just watching. Just listening.

The Door

Then it came. Not in Madeira, not on Day #1. Recently. Days ago, as I returned to write. The last steps I couldn’t take on the terrace, facing the ocean.

Finally then, into the fear. Through. The remaining questions asked, the truth laid bare and the lies exposed; burned to ash.

The voice in my head... Seen. Dark shape, held eye to eye; then dissolved.
Release. Tears. Heart radiating, pounding.

The engine that drove events for a lifetime quiet.

Emptiness and exhaustion. Grief and joy. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

And now in that place - not a name, or shape. It’s quieter than that.

When the armour fell, no heavenly bells or triumphant chorus. No white light or bliss moment. It was never a journey of distance. No seal of approval or rite enacted needed.

So simple, only realised when witnessed.

These things are before you and live within you. They have always been there.
Hidden within, for you to find.

The gold is you.

Now I am, finding the way.

So here I’ll share observations and discoveries…

Take what you need and leave the rest.

Courage, Jonny

My father was a good man, with a golden heart.

He was a journalist - Fleet Street. A hard trade. It meant looking at the worst face of the world, most days. He loved the work, but it took its toll.

He had my back and got me out of a fair few scrapes.

When challenges arose he’d give me a cheeky grin and a wink.

Courage Jonny

I miss him very much.

With thanks: to the friend who asked me the question and posted the book. To Jed McKenna, for the recognition. And to Paul Millerd, whose The Pathless Path opened the gate years before I found the courage to walk through it.

Dog walked early, an hour. Espresso. Out to the garden. The app gong starts my meditation, ten-minute interval bells for pacing, a gong to end. Thirty minutes.

Sit, eyes closed, breathe...

The new-age trope - be in nature, quiet the mind, sit in lotus, light the essential oils, be Zen. Dabbled for years. No issue with any of it, just the movie that plays when my mind rests on that one word meditation.

Up until today, it was more like the Duolingo treadmill. Keep that streak going. Push through the pain of it. Doing duo, but still can’t put a sentence together with a native speaker.

Yeah, that. The should. Energy falling, not rising.

The first ten minutes. Always tricky, the “quiet the mind” instruction fighting the turbulent spiralling reality in my head. A heavy “I should do this”. The mind resisting, restless, wanting to do other stuff.

“Where is this resistance coming from?”

That halted the conditioned thinking. A felt shift. A pervading sense of urgency and rising energy. Surrender. Give up quietening for the rest of the session. Eckhart Tolle’s “Be the watcher” echoing softly in the background. The resistance gone, lightness flooding in.

The mechanically programmed move: The game of optimisation. The streak-chaser, the one who “can’t quiet the mind”. So I called it. Quietly decided I’m no good at this - and let it fall. I’d received the wrong instruction. The gold was hidden under my nose, and the map I’d held didn’t lead there.

Quiet facts bubbled up from within. Choiceless awareness. Ancient wisdom cutting through illusion. Searing the conditioned beliefs.

Just watching. Just listening.

I’d been resisting because the teaching is quiet the mind. But, the lived reality, was a mind with urgent communications it wanted me to hear:

Meditation as the space that allows the communication link; not the silencing of it.

I’d intended to publish the Reports from the Repairshop origin story first. But the urgency of this insight filled my consciousness. No sequenced planning mania. Honouring the signal.

One question.

Who gave us the maps we’ve pinned to our walls?

With thanks: this post began as a note under Stoic Wisdoms’ “Critical Thinking Is Harder Than You Think”. “Be the watcher” is Eckhart Tolle’s; “Choiceless awareness”, Krishnamurti’s.