I just wanted to share something with you that I read this morning – about the Camino and its symbol – the scallop shell.

Caroline Myss is perhaps the world’s greatest living medicinal intuitive. She is also an extraordinary spiritual teacher and renowned speaker, as well as being a five times New York Times best selling author.

She is also a true mystic.

Caroline Myss features prominently in my film, PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. 

Aside from teaching and holding seminars and workshops, she also regularly conducts spiritual tours. I’m on her newsletter feed, and this morning I got an update on a tour she’s leading in April next year, to amongst other places, Pamplona.

As most of you reading this blog will know, Pamplona is a city on the Camino, and for many it’s their start to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

Well, Caroline is starting her spiritual tour there next year. Here is what she wrote in her newsletter. It resonated with me because it’s about the two things I’m most interested in – the journey of the soul, and the Camino…

CAROLINE MYSS:

In recent years, I have become devoted to teaching spiritual direction and contemporary mystical spirituality.  It is my deep belief as a teacher, a medical intuitive, and a mystic that most people have been searching for a way to embrace the power of their soul for most of their life. 

Perhaps you have not been conscious of that search, but that is because you are not familiar with the subtle tactics of the way the soul maneuvers in your psyche, your heart and even in your physical biology. 

For all the many ways we can describe this rapidly changing time in which we are living, I see this time as the era in which the consciousness of the soul is emerging as the core power of the human being.  A new understanding of the soul is essential, one that is based upon the truth that the soul is our mystical consciousness, not an object of religion.

I am passionate about teaching mystical consciousness and introducing people to the power of their soul.  To accommodate this workshop theme, CMED and Alternatives UK. have created a workshop experience in Spain that begins in Pamplona, a town on the famous Camino de Santiago, the long walk across Spain (or France or Portugal) to the Church of Saint James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela. 

We chose that town as the start of our workshop because of a legend associated with a Pilgrim. According to the legend, a Pilgrim, exhausted and thirsty from traveling the Camino, met a stranger, also traveling on the road. This stranger happened to be the Devil in disguise. The Devil offered to show the Pilgrim a hidden source of water but only on the condition that he renounce God, the Virgin Mary and Saint James.

The Pilgrim refused even though it meant dying of thirst. At that moment, Saint James, also disguised as a Pilgrim, appeared and led him to that hidden fountain and using a scallop shell, he offered him water to drink. 

Eventually pilgrims walking the Camino began to wear scallop shells around their necks, indicating that they were officially on a pilgrimage.  For centuries, people were honor bound to offer food and shelter to people wearing the pilgrim’s shell out of respect for the holy journey, as hotels did not exist along the roads to Santiago de Compostela.

People have walked these pilgrimages for over 1,000 years.  And those caught wearing the shell under false pretenses as a way of entering homes to steal were put to death. 

The Pilgrim’s shell is still the official icon of the holy journey.  And so, we begin our holy journey at the place where the Pilgrim’s shell came into being.

If you’re interested in doing this tour with Caroline, then I suggest you sign up fast because  it will sell out quickly.

Here’s the link:
https://www.myss.com/workshops/exploring-mystics-path-soul/

India is truly an incredible place – if not for the sheer spectacle, but for the minutiae.

Jennifer and I were waiting for our car to take us from our ashram at Rishikesh to the airport at nearby Dehradun.

The car pulled up outside, it was raining – monsoons – and the driver hopped out to help us with loading our bags in the back.

The driver was a young man, I guess in his early 20’s, and he went to open the back door. But he noticed that there was a tiny itsy bitsy spider on the door handle. In fact it was dangling just below the door handle, by a thread of its own making.

It was pouring with rain, the driver was getting soaked every second he stood by the car – but even so he tried to flick the spider away from the handle so that he could open the door without in any way harming this tiny insect.

The spider didn’t want to go. It must have been nesting in the handle, because it resolutely refused to be flicked away.

The driver tried again.
Again the spider clung on.

By now the driver was almost soaked to the skin, principally because he didn’t want to hurt this itsy-bitsy spider.  Anyone else most probably would have thwacked the damn thing and squashed it flat, opened the door, slung the luggage in and got out of the rain.

But not this driver.

He persevered until the little creature was safely out of harm’s way, then he opened the door.

In the flurry of leaving the ashram, in very heavy monsoon rain, it was a moment that would have gone unnoticed, except I noticed it. To me it said so much about that young man, and what he values.

At the airport bookstore in Bombay I was drawn to a book by a Yogi Master named Sadhguru. I don’t usually buy book books now, I usually read Kindle books. But this one stepped forward and said Buy Me, Buy Me.

So I did.

It was called INNER ENGINEERING – A YOGI’S GUIDE TO JOY. I started reading it in the terminal waiting for the flight to Sydney, and almost finished it by the time we landed. I know now why it screamed out to me to read it – it’s a very important book for me right at this moment. It’s less about joy and more about what’s important in life.

I highly recommend it.

Anyway, there’s a large section about food. and about how many Indians will, before their meal, take a portion of their food and go outside and give it to the ants. This from the book:

There has been a tradition among many women folk. An ant is the smallest living entity you can see around you, the most inconsequential organism you can think of. So, for that very reason, you feed it first, before you feed yourself. You make an offering not to the Gods, or other celestial creatures, but to the smallest creature you know. 

This planet belongs as much to them as it does to you. You understand that every living creature on this planet has the same right to live as you have. This awareness can help create a conducive atmosphere, mentally and physically, for consciousness to grow. 

So there you have it – feed the ants and don’t smash the itty-bitsy spiders!

Gotta love India!

I love to wander too… (Steve McCurry takes the best travel shots!)

I’m delighted to announce that the trailer for PGS the movie is now online. 

PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System is a 90 minute theatrical film exploring and demystifying intuition. 

It details my global journey to find the source of a voice which saved my life. 

The film will be released in cinemas in Australia through Fan-Force from early October, and in the US through Gathr Films in early January next year. 

Check out the trailer – share it – and come see the movie! 

This story was sent to me by my good friend (and sound designer extraordinaire) Wayne Pashley. Thanks Wayne.

Wayne and Libby Pashley, through their sound post company Big Bang Sound, have been fantastic supporters of my film on intuition PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System.

Back to the story.

You might know that James Dean, iconic actor of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, GIANT, and EAST OF EDEN, died in a car crash in 1955 on Highway 46 in California.

This is an account of a story told to famed British tv interviewer Michael Parkinson by Sir Alec Guinness, possibly best known as Obi Wan Kenobi in the STAR WARS films.

On Sept. 30, 1955, James Dean died after his Porsche 550 Spyder was in a devastating accident while he was cruising along California 46.

The cultural icon was 24. 

In 1977 interview on the BBC’s Parkinson Talk Show, a somber Guinness recalls how he warned the young man that if he drove that car, he would be killed. That conversation took place the evening of Sept. 23, 1955, just one week prior. 

It all happened when Guinness and a friend were turned away from a packed restaurant in Hollywood, so they began to head elsewhere. 

“Then I heard feet running down the street, and it was James Dean,” Guinness began. “He said, ‘I was in that restaurant and you couldn’t get a table. My name is James Dean, would you please come and join me?'”

At the time, Guinness had numerous film credits to his name and an Oscar nomination for The Lavender Hill Mob, so clearly Dean knew he was a big deal. 

Guinness and his friend agreed and started back, but before they went inside, Dean wanted to show off his new car, Guinness recalled. 

“There in the courtyard of this little restaurant was this little silver thing, very smart, all done up in cellophane with a bunch of roses tied to its bonnet,” Guinness told Parkinson, adding that he asked how fast it could go. Dean replied it would do 150 mph. 

“I said, ‘Have you driven it?’ and he said, ‘No. I have never been in it at all,'” Guinness said. “And some strange thing came over me. Some almost different voice and I said, ‘Look, I won’t join your table unless you want me to, but I must say something: Please do not get into that car, because if you do’ — and I looked at my watch — and I said, ‘if you get into that car at all, it’s now Thursday (Friday, actually), 10 o’clock at night and by 10 o’clock at night next Thursday, you’ll be dead if you get into that car.'” 

Dean brushed the warning off and the group proceeded to have a “charming dinner,” Guinness told Parkinson. 

“And he was dead the following Thursday afternoon in that car,” said Guinness. “It was one of those odd things. It was a very, very odd, spooky experience.” 

I have a better Alec Guinness story;

Before the first STAR WARS movie commenced shooting, producer George Lucas approached Guinness and asked if he would reduce his fee and take profit share points in the picture instead.

Guinness, thinking the film would tank, graciously declined.

Clearly his intuitive voice didn’t speak to him that day!

Yesterday was it.
Enough is enough.
I mean, it had gone beyond a joke.

Yesterday, twice yesterday in fact, they did it one too many times.
Or at least, two too many times.

Yesterday I felt compelled finally to document it in a photo, which is below. It’s a none too elegant photo, but it serves as documentary evidence as to what they’ve been doing to me this entire trip – these past four weeks while traveling around the US.

I got a park right in front of where I needed to be.

I had a meeting at 10am on South La Brea, in Los Angeles. Anyone who knows anything about South La Brea at 10am would tell you that street parking is difficult, especially outside one of the coolest coffee shops in the area.

But there it was, straight out front.

Now, you might say that this was just coincidence.
A lucky break.
But this has been happening to me time and time and time again on this trip.

I began to laugh about it with Jennifer.

Every time we’d go somewhere, even to a Starbucks on a busy Saturday morning, a car space would be there for me literally right by the front entrance. When every other car space was full.

A few days ago in a crowded 4th of July carpark, where getting an empty spot was near impossible, someone pulled out in the perfect spot, allowing me to slip right in. And it was right by the entrance to the store we needed to go to. It would not have been possible for me to get a closer car space.

So what’s going on here?

In my film, PGS – INTUITION IS YOUR PERSONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM, there is a short section on the so-called Parking Angel. Lee Carroll, the famous channel for Kryon, says that it’s a heightened intuition which has a bigger overview than you.

As part of the film I went to the Vatican, and I interviewed a high level theologian who “swore” by the parking angel. He said: To get a park in Rome, it requires a miracle, but all I do is ask my parking angel, and I get one. 

It’s about setting the intention, asking, and trusting.

This trip though, it’s been ridiculous. I don’t go to Starbucks and set an intention for the best park. I’m more concerned about getting my double-shot tall cappuccino, regular milk,  for Bill, into my energetic system (sadly) as quickly as possible.

They’re giving it to me now, unasked.
Like I said, time and again.
When I park now, I let go. I trust.
And the trust is delivered upon.

I’ve come to realise that when you start to sit comfortably into an intuitive life, as Jennifer and I now do, things become easy. They become light. They become effortless. The fear dissipates. Fear of loss. Of missing out. Like missing out on getting a parking space on a crowded 4th of July holiday morning.

Okay – here’s the thing. And here’s what I think is going on. They are telling me, reminding me, that the energy of finding the perfect parking space so effortlessly can be applied to other aspects of my life.

My work life, my personal life, my family life.
Every aspect of my life.

As Lee Carroll says in my film: People say you’re just lucky. There’s no luck about it. I’m working on my intuition!

From my “inciting incident,” to use a film term, which was hearing a voice that saved my life, to right now, it’s been eighteen years. That’s how long it’s taken me to make this film.

For those of you unfamiliar with what happened, in 1999 I was in the US working on a movie, and early one morning as I was driving to the airport I heard a voice which told me to slow down.

I was approaching an intersection, I remember I had a green light up ahead, and if anything I wanted to speed up to get through on the green because I was running late for my flight, but the voice said again slow down, so I slowed down.

As I entered the intersection a huge truck ran a red light on the cross street, thundered through and missed me by inches.

That voice saved my life.

And even though I didn’t realise it as the time, not only would that voice be the trigger for this film I’m currently making, but it would change my life fundamentally.

I didn’t immediately think: Wow, there’s a great movie in what just happened to me! No, in fact I got busy making the movie I was doing at the time, and then my father died, and I forgot about it for quite a long time.

But it kept tugging at me, gnawing at me, and it wouldn’t let go.

it took me many years of just thinking about it before I shifted into the next phase, which was reading and researching. Even then though I didn’t consider a film.

The research was fascinating – but it was daunting.

To research intuition properly you have to go back to the classic religious texts, to the classic spiritual texts, then to the more modern works on spiritual learning – not to mention the latest findings in psychology, neuroscience, and of course quantum mechanics.

The research took years. And gradually it occurred to me that perhaps there was a film in all this.

That’s the “backstory,” to use another film term!

During the many years it took to finally put the film together, I met many people who immediately “got it,” and promised me the finance to make the film.

Some were very colourful and over dinner wrote me out promissory notes for millions of dollars on the backs of napkins. Then wouldn’t return my phone calls the next day.

Some were what I would call General-Ledgerists, and of course the numbers would never add up to their satisfaction and even though they felt in their hearts it was a good prospect, the General Ledger numbers spoke louder to them than their heart.

Some were very wealthy entrepreneurs who delighted in the concept of intuition but when it came down to writing a check they couldn’t get over their fear.

And some I came to understand just liked wielding power, and dangling the prospect of major finance in front of me, requiring me to take step after step as they kept moving backwards, forever backwards, until they finally disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

I look back on all these people now, now that the film is financed with legitimate and supportive investors, and I could look at all those people I dallied with and I could be snarky and bitter and call them time-wasters, or wannabes, or simply bullshitters.

But I’ve come to realise that no, they were an important and vital part of making the film.

They were what I called “Bridges of Hope.”

And I really do believe they were part of the guidance I received in making the film. A crucial part. Because they kept me in hope. Even though as it turned out that hope never materialised into anything real, they gave me hope nonetheless.

The provided a bridge for me to get over long periods where nothing happened. Where there was just a void of nothingness. They were the bridge over that void.

To give you an example – for nearly three years I kept in regular contact with a financier who promised me total funding of the film. We swapped deal memos, we spoke on the phone regularly – and it all sounded upbeat and great.

But there was always a reason why the money never came. Actually it’s not that it never came, it’s that it was always late. There was always a reason why it was late. Usually it came down to a bereavement.

This happened many times in fact – in dealing with many such so-called financiers, often the ultimate excuse was that there was a bereavement, or some life-threatening illness, that prevented or delayed interminably the flow of funds.

You’d think I would have the right to kick the cat.

(I don’t have a cat.)

But no, I now thank these people – some of whom will probably be reading this blog right now. I thank them for being a Bridge of Hope.

You guys kept me going.
Without you I might have given up.
Without you I might have spiralled into depression.
Without you the film might never have got made

I don’t harbour bad feelings. I don’t blame you for wasting my time, and money. I spent a lot of money on some of you – traveling to meet with you, entertaining you, in legals and whatever.

None of that matters.
You kept me going, by giving me hope.
You helped make this film.
Thank you.

(This was posted 15 months ago. At the time it created a bit of fuss. I’m reposting it now because of our recent talk about spirituality vs religion.) 
We have different types of hamburgers.
We have McDonalds
We have Hungry Jacks.
We have In ‘n Out Burgers.
We have Fatburgers.
They’re all hamburgers, but they’re different.
They appeal to different tastes, they sit at different price points, they come with different sides.
Some appeal to the young, some to Baby Boomers, some spend a lot on marketing, some are popular through word of mouth.
But still, they’re all just hamburgers.
They’re all essentially the same, selling the same thing – meat in a bun.
They’re like religions.
Religions are all different. They appeal to different cultures. To different beliefs. To different nationalities and historical predelictions.
But they’re all selling the same thing, which is God.
You don’t need to go to Maccas, or Hungry Jacks, or Fatburger, to eat a hamburger.
You can make one yourself.
And you can make it just the way you like it, not the way a fast food joint makes it.
The fast food joint makes it for the masses, to appeal to a broad based clientele. The more generic it is, the more popular it’s likely to be.
The fast food joints want to appeal to the masses, because that’s how they make money. They don’t mind that their hamburgers are generic.
But you might not like your hamburger generic.
You might like it different, to your particular taste – with those special things that make it appealing to you.
Chilli sauce, Turkish bread, avocado spread instead of butter, pineapple…
Whatever.
It’s still a hamburger. But it’s the way you like it.
That’s spirituality.
Versus religion,
Which is a Fatburger.