Our Journey
Julie and I are(were?) pretty ordinary people. One book launched us onto a path of discovery.
Our mystical journey into finebushland all began when one of Julie's customers at Constantia Pharmacy lent her the book
Fingerprints
of the Gods by Graham Hancock. What this book did for us was made us question
our beliefs that had been firmly rooted in modern science, and allow us to realize that
there are still mysteries that have no known logical explanation out there.
Of course, once somebody has lied to you once, you can never fully trust them again - and so we started questioning all sorts of things about the establishment. This was not very hard for us since we were already on the fringe a bit. This book is a wonderful travelogue, whodunnit, Indiana Jones adventure thriller THAT REALLY HAPPENED. Even if it doesn't make you think, it's a good read.
Things you might want to think about include the following:
- If we only learned how to draw accurate maps in the nineteenth century (when we could measure longitude accurately using a chronometer), and we only found the means of tracing the Antarctic coastline under the ice during the last decade or so, how come there is an ancient map (from the times of Constantinople) that accurately shows the Antarctic Coastline UNDER THE ICE?
- While Egyptologists and historians tell us the pyramids were created six thousand years ago by large numbers of slaves, there are a few anomalies. For one, the erosion on the sphinx was caused by rainwater - the desert where the sphinx is located was a rainforest twelve thousand years ago. For another, some of the internal architecture could not have been done by hordes of slaves, as the number needed to lift some of the blocks exceeds the amount of space where they could stand. Even today, we could not build machinery that could assemble the pyramids!
The seed was planted. In order to improve my effectiveness at work, I started reading the corporate propaganda books like
"The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. It all backfired on the corporate world
when I read his "First Things First". The message in this book is that you can't plan your time effectively
if you don't know what your life priorities are. In order to set your priorities, you need a personal vision and mission that
is congruent with that of your family. When I asked Julie what our family vision was, she blurted out "to have a farm".I immediately snatched up the classified section of the Sunday papers lying on the floor, and retorted "Okay then, let's start looking for a farm now so that we know what to look for when we can afford one." The first farm I noticed was way out of our budget but sounded marvellous - so we went to see it as part of our information-finding stage.
We decided we had to have the farm while still on the dirt road going up the mountain! We sold everything and learned some serious negotiation skills to drive the price down to what we could only just afford. Our vision is to return to natural and ecological principles, using the natural purity and energy of the fynbos floral kingdom. Our mission was to get the farm productive exporting proteas within 5 years. This would enable me to resign from corporate consulting (I hate helping Life Insurance companies be more successful - they frequently make money at the expense of their customers).
Regrettably, exporting proteas in this consumption-based world requires un-ecological use of insecticide sprays. We have changed our mission, and for the time being are trying to pay off our huge debt by working in the city (still consulting unfortunately). When we can afford to move to the farm, we will run eco-cottages and healing seminars. This website is part of our mission to build increased awareness and access to the natural wonder of the fynbos floral kingdom.
Read: "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn - In this book, Daniel Quinn
explores why it seems that we are in conflict with nature, and implores us to resume the
wise ways of "primitive" peoples that lived in harmony with it. You will
discover that man is violating three fundamental natural laws that nature always follows.
These laws are vital to the preservation of a harmonious system (which is why they are
built into Nature).
If you then read
Conversations with God,
you will realise that we are doing this all to find out who we are not, so that we can eventually be who we really are.
As a Space Physicist, I have always been very sceptical of religious texts - especially since they seem
to be riddled with contradictions and implore you to just "have faith and everything will make sense".
Well, this book is the first intelligent explanation I have ever come across. It even explains the autocratic tone of the bible as a misinterpretation by us and gives a far more plausible definition of the ten commandments. If you are intelligent and have occasionally thought that something about the bible wasn't quite right, then this book can help you. If, on the other hand, you believe the bible to be the only true word of god, then this book can help you too.
A lot of the messages given here agree with what Deepak Chopra has to say in his book
The Path to Love,
especially the parts about us all being one anyway, and that love is the opposite of fear. It also
gives some practical ways to manifest peace and love in your life. And they work for me.
At about this time, Julie and I read "Mutant Message Down Under" by Marlo Morgan. This is the story about a woman who
is taken "walkabout" by an aborigine tribe and learns a whole lot about the
spiritual powers of true aborigines. I dare you to read this, because if only a fraction
of it is true, it shows that we are far more powerful than we realise, and therefore far
more responsible than we think. After we read it, we stopped being afraid of spiders
and snakes. We have since heard that the entire book is a fabrication, and still we are not scared
of spiders and snakes.
I am busy reading this book by Caroline Myss. As
somebody with a scientific background, I must admit that I struggle to get excited about
"unprovable" spiritual happenings. But, reading books like this is at
least an attempt at opening my mind to new possibilities. Also, from Goedel's theorem, I know as a
scientist that not every truth can be formally proven Anyway, I used a crystal
pendulum on Julie and aligned her Chakras and it was fun. Well, a few months after reading this
I think this book has only been a brussels sprout on the smorgasbord of life. It
didn't do anything for me and Julie couldn't stay interested long enough to get into it. Maybe the timing
and context wasn't right.
Here's a quote from Chief Seattle's speech "How can one sell
the air":
"Man has not woven the web of life. He is but one thread. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."