As followers of this blog know, at this time each year I do an audit of what I achieved this past year, pegged against what I said I wanted to achieve – and I set out what I hope to achieve the coming year.

So, firstly – here is a link to last year’s audit – 2017 expectations

How did I go? I did some, didn’t do some. Here’s what I wanted to achieve in 2017, and what I did achieve –

• The feature film PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System will be completed, and released. TICK
• I will actively market the film. TICK
• I will write two books associated with the film, for sale on release of the film. NUP. WRITING ONE NOW, – WON’T BE FINISHED TILL END FEB EARLIEST. HAVE NEARLY FINISHED ANOTHER (120,000 WORDS CURRENTLY)
• The first two books in the Palace of Fires series will be completed and delivered to Penguin Random House. TICK. FIRST BOOK – INITIATE – COMES OUT JAN 29 THIS YEAR, IN A FEW WEEKS, 2ND BOOK – UNHOLY – COMES OUT SEPT THIS YEAR.
• The Camino film will be budgeted, scheduled, key cast will come on board and I’ll have a workable finance plan. TICK – EXCEPT STILL CASTING
• The Indian honour killing film will be set up to shoot the year after. NOT SET UP STILL. STILL HOPING
• Jennifer and I will mount another Indian tour. NUP. NO TIME
• Jennifer and I will mount another German Christmas tour. NUP. NO TIME

So what do I hope to achieve this year, 2018?

• PGS the movie will release globally and be a success.
• Jennifer and I will travel and help market and promote the film.
• PGS the book will be published.
• JOURNAL OF A JOURNEY – the book on the making of the film – will be published.
• The first two PALACE OF FIRES books – INITIATE & UNHOLY – will be published by Penguin Random House to great commercial success!
• I will complete and deliver the third in the PALACE OF FIRES series – BEAST – to Penguin Random House.
• BUEN CAMINO, the feature film, will be cast and set for filming in 2019
• I will walk 3000kms from my front door to the end of the world.

The last one is the biggie – a walk I have been dreaming about and planning for a while now. Literally walking out my front door in Mudgee, Central NSW, and walking to Cape Finisterre on the far west coast of Spain.

To be able to do that though I have to meet my obligation on my delivery of the third PALACE OF FIRES book – a 100k+ word book which is going to be a tough write.

If I can achieve all of the above, then 2018 will be a good year work wise.

Now that Christmas is over I can give full focus to a big trip coming up – to the US to help promote my movie in its theatrical on demand release across the country.

Jennifer and I will be pinging back and forth across the US in January and early Feb, with ten screenings already in the works, and another three soon to come on stream too.

Here is the current schedule:

10th Jan – San Rafael / Northern California
16th Jan – Phoenix / Arizona
18th Jan – Boulder / Colorado
22nd Jan – Houston / Texas
24th Jan – Austin / Texas
25th Jan – Knoxville / Tennessee
28th Jan – Greensboro / North Carolina
28th Jan – Meditation Museum / Maryland
31st Jan – Seattle / Washington
26th Feb – Minneapolis / Minnesota
To Be Confirmed
5th Feb – Mount Shasta / California
6th Feb – Ashland / Oregon

Screenings are being added all the time. If you want to host a screening in your town or city, then here’s the link where you can sign up as a movie captain:

Movie Captain a screening of PGS

What’s involved?

As a movie captain you work with Jennifer and myself – and the distributors Gathr Films – to get enough people to sign up for tickets. That’s all. It doesn’t cost you anything other than some time and effort. Gathr Films lines up and liaises with the cinema – all you do is choose the date that suits you best.

Jennifer and I will be doing Q&As at all these screenings, except the one in Minnesota at the end of February – so if you want to buy a ticket to any of these shows, here is the link:

To buy tickets click here – BUY TICKETS

It’s going to be a massive trip for Jennifer and myself – and in amongst it all I’m doing media interviews too – but it will be great to bring the film to the US.

Hope to see you at one of the screenings!

As I mentioned previously, I’m currently writing a book of the film I’ve made on intuition –

PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System.
www.pgsthemovie.com

The book will reference the film, and quotes from the various interviewees, but it will also go deeper.

Here is an excerpt on a chapter on The Purpose of Intuition:

So many people I know are unhappy, and when you scratch the surface and dig deeper to find out the real reasons why they’re not happy, it’s often because they’re not fulfilled. They don’t feel as though they’re doing what they really should be doing – what they’re meant to be doing. They’re not being who they feel they truly are. Their life hasn’t turned out like they thought it would. They feel empty. Hope is fading, or has gone completely. And that fuels regret, anger, depression, and often hatred. Self-hatred, and hatred of others.

Sometimes it manifests in health issues. Your health is connected to your emotional state, and if you’re stressed and angry and depressed, then sooner or later that’s going to reflect in your physical wellbeing. High blood pressure, cancer, diabetes – these can sometimes be causal of a distressed emotional state, and often that comes down to the fact that we’ve lost our way. We’ve deviated from our true path in life.

To compensate we eat too much. We drink too much. Alcohol, sugary drinks, whatever. We get fat and we don’t like the way we look. We don’t like the way we behave. We say things and do things we regret later. We watch too much tv. We don’t get out into nature. We take drugs. Opioids. Other stuff. We fight. We gamble. We lose money. We lose friends. That puts us under more pressure, more stress. That fuels our anger and depression even more. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.

Why is life so hard? So brutal?
Because we’ve lost our way.
We’ve made the wrong choices.
We blame others for the way things have turned out,
and we don’t acknowledge that it’s our choices
that have created our lives.
We are responsible for our choices –
for the consequences of those choices.

What is the purpose of intuition? To help us make the right choices. To help guide us to our true purpose in life, to the full expression of who we truly are.

I want to post here an email I received from a man named Zach – a supporter of my film PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System.

This is an extraordinary story – one in which an intuitive “hit” saved the life of Zach’s son, and probably saved his life too. Zach has given me permission to publish this on the blog. He lives in the US.

Here it is:

I had a close brush with death in August that could have been catastrophic if I hadn’t listened to the voice.

My son and I were climbing in the Yellowstone backcountry. I was leading most the day and we were close to the top when I felt or heard a strong impression to move my son to lead and I follow.

My son switched with me and climbed a short face in front of us. Once he was up and stable I moved up to the base to start climbing when I heard an ominous grinding noise above me.

I looked up just in time to see a piece of rock about the size of a vw bug began to slide free from the face towards me. As it broke free it began to roll. I didn’t have much room to maneuver but I was able to move just enough to my left that the rock didn’t hit my head.

It did hit my right shoulder and stop for a few seconds with me pinned under a corner. Luckily it was unstable and slowly rolled over my right side and off the ledge I was on. 

The energy from the rolling boulder went through my right arm and shattered the elbow end of my humerus. It was 530pm. I was in shock. My 10 year old son was traumatized.

We had to figure out how to downclimb. Then hike 9 miles and drive 2 hours to the nearest hospital. My car is a manual and my kid doesn’t know how to drive yet. The hurdles to help were ridiculous, but through the ordeal I couldn’t help but feel how much worse things would have been if I hadn’t listened. 

As I’ve dealt with mild PTSD after the event I have woken up countless times from reliving the moment but as if I hadn’t listened to the voice… I watch helplessly as my son is crushed by a car size boulder.  I look forward to seeing the finished film and the result of all your work on the voice that can guide us if we know how, and are willing, to listen.

That’s a pretty amazing story.

I later wondered if, had not Zach had an involvement in my film, would he have been so attuned and so responsive to a strange “voice.” We’ll never know. But in attending screenings across Australia as I have over these past several weeks, I’ve constantly had people come up to me and tell me stories of how a voice or a gut instinct saved their lives.

What happened to me – hearing a voice which prevented me getting smashed by a truck – is not unusual. It happens all to frequently, it’s just that a lot of people don’t talk about it.

My film, it seems, gives people permission to talk about it.

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I’m currently writing PGS the book.

PGS the book differs from PGS the movie in that it’s a narrative. It details all that I’ve learned in the eighteen years it’s taken me to make the film.

It’s a stand-alone piece. You don’t need to have seen the film to read the book. In fact it goes well beyond the film, because the film largely expresses the views of the interviewees.

In the book I reference those viewpoints – but I go further and I put them into a personal context, and look at how I can use that information to help me in my day to day life.

In the book I also bring up concepts such as mystical intuition.

Here is an excerpt:

This book explores mystical intuition. It explores where it comes from, how it works, and what its purpose is in our lives. Over the eighteen years I’ve spent puzzling over and researching intuition, I’ve come to believe this: that intuition is a legitimate functioning system in our bodies, as legitimate as any other system such as our central nervous system, our circulatory system, our immune system, etc.

Where our intuitive system differs is that it works within our energetic realm – and that energetic realm interfaces with our physiological realm in order to grab our attention – in order to send us signals.

Most of us ignore these signals, because we give them no validity. Most of us don’t even acknowledge that intuition exists, much less that it exists as a functioning system designed to help guide us through life. Guide us to what? To the full expression of who we really are.

Certainly western science discounts the notion of intuition simply because it can’t quantify the energetic realm. It can’t measure it. And if science can’t measure something, then it dismisses it as not being real.

Yet the East has acknowledged the energetic realm for millennia. They incorporate the chakra system in yoga and Hinduism, as well as the notion of prana as a “life force.” Similarly the Chinese talk of chi and the Japanese know it as ki – and the acupuncture meridian system has been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years. Still western medicine and science refuses to acknowledge it – just as they refuse to acknowledge intuition. 

The book will be about 50,000 words. I hope to have it finished by the end of February. It will go on sale when the film is released on Video on Demand later in the year.

Separate to that I have been writing a journal during the making of the film. It’s currently sitting at 120,000 words. It’s massive.

It’s called Journal of a Journey, and it details all the ups and downs during the film’s production – including all the crazy weird stuff that has happened, all the coincidences, synchronicities, all the disappointments – and all the times when intuition stepped in to keep me, and the film, on track.

That book will be released when the film comes out on VOD as well.

There’s so much fascinating background stuff to tell about this film –

Dan Mullins has become seriously afflicted with the Camino virus.

On a whim, and with his wife Jennifer’s blessing – indeed encouragement – he walked a long section of the Camino last year.

It changed his life.

He came back not only imbued with all things Camino, but being a high achiever as Dan is – he’s one of Australia’s top radio producers, and has produced the country’s highest rating breakfast radio show for more than a decade – and being familiar with radio production, he started a Camino podcast, called My Camino. 

Here’s a link to it –

Dan created the podcast to not only get the word out to a global audience about the Camino, but also as a means for he himself to learn more – and perhaps also to keep the Camino fires burning within himself.

Those fires burned alright – and they torched him into doing another Camino this year, from Lourdes in France to Santiago de Compostelo.

It was a walk of more than 1000kms.

This Camino though was different – Dan is a muso. On weekends he sings and plays guitar professionally in pubs, largely doing terrific cover versions of classics – everything from Bruce Springsteen to Dylan to The Eagles. He has more than 400 songs in his repertoire.

So on this last Camino, he “sang for his supper,” as he said – and each night after walking sometimes 30-40kms, he played to his fellow pilgrims. Sometimes to small groups, other times to crowds. Everyone loved it.

Check out his podcast and you’ll hear his account of it all.
https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode/?id=151718

Dan called me the other day and asked if I’d be interested in doing an interview on my movie – PGS – and how the Camino prepared me to make the movie. I jumped at the offer!

Interestingly, it’s episode #44 on his podcast site.

How freaky is that?

Anyone who’s read this blog long enough knows that it was at 4:44am on a morning in mid 2014 that I had a prophetic dream which triggered me into making the film – and in fact we’ll be releasing the movie on VOD on 4/4 and 4:44pm next year.

Here now is that interview –
https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode/?id=157542

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I have been touring the country, doing Q&As after screenings of my film PGS – intuition is your Personal Guidance System.

I get some interesting questions. The film throws up so many questions. Many are very similar –

How did making the film change you?
Who in the movie had the greatest impact on you?
How do you start becoming more intuitive?
Where are the toilets?

But I got thrown a real curly one after the Adelaide screening the other night.

Is your conscience a part of your intuitive system?

Here’s how I responded – and I’d like your feedback on this because I’ve since had other thoughts on it. Here’s what I said:

Conscience is a judgement mechanism, and intuition doesn’t judge.
Conscience is a function of a moral code, which comes through a learned experience.
Intuition doesn’t come through a learned experience, it simply IS.

Later, I thought more about this:

Conscience tries to tell you what’s right or wrong – but associated with that is guilt.
We talk about having a “guilty conscience.”

There’s no guilt associated with intuition.

Conscience is a construct. We aren’t born with a conscience – it’s acquired through the influence of social, familial, cultural, political and/or religious forces.

We are born with an intuitive system already in place. It’s not acquired. It’s part of our energetic system that we incarnate with.

Conscience acts through our intellect.

Intuition acts outside of our intellect.

Them’s me thoughts on it. Tell me if I’m wrong – I’d like to open this up to discussion…

I’ve come across this term – Ready, Fire, Aim.

Of course, it’s a play on Ready Aim Fire, which is what one should do.

One shouldn’t fire before one has aimed.

You waste bullets, or arrows, or insults, that way. And you might hit someone you didn’t intend to hit. Which would be unfortunate for all parties concerned.

Ready, Fire, Aim is a term often used in marketing, or entrepreneurship – in a critical way. You shouldn’t launch a product or a concept until it’s ready, until you know your market and have taken aim, and then you fire – you release it onto that targeted demographic.

But we’re in a changing world. Things are moving so fast. What we knew yesterday isn’t necessarily relevant to what we need to know today. The targets are shifting. They’re changing shape. They’re hard to take a bead on.

Let’s look at this concept of Read, Fire, Aim in a different way. Let’s not see it as a negative, but as something to embrace.

For us to thrive in this constantly changing world, we need to be constantly changing too. Stasis is paralysis. Stasis is death. If we always waited to take aim before we fired, we would often miss the target – whether that be a reward, an opportunity, or an awareness.

If we always waited to take aim before we fired, well, where’s the fun in that? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the growth?

Sure you might hit the target, but maybe it’s not a target that’s worth hitting anymore. Maybe the really interesting, the really productive targets, have shifted and taken flight. And the only way you can bag those beauties is to shift and take flight too.

If you stick with Ready, Aim, Fire, you’re sticking with what’s known, what’s predictable, what’s rational and logical and safe.

Whereas if you run with Ready, Fire, Aim, you open yourself up to the Universe. To the joys of happenstance, of coincidence, of synchronicity – those things that can take you down paths you never would have explored, had you stuck in the predictable buttoned-down IBM world of Ready Aim Fire. 

To play Ready, Fire, Aim, you need trust.
You need to know that the Universe has your back.
You need to know that adventure, real adventure, is just around the corner.

Ready, Fire, Aim leads you to the kind of opportunities you never would have thought possible, had you waited for that target to settle within your sights.

Close your eyes, fire, and trust that your aim will be true –
Because it will be.

Sometimes you don’t know why you do something until you’ve done it.

I came to Japan to research the practices of Ninja.

I now realise I came to Japan to discover Shinto.

Shinto is a uniquely Japanese religion that many say is not a religion at all, because at its essence there is no founder -no Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed – there’s no Bible or Koran or Vedas or Bhagavad Gita.

It’s an ancient religion that’s the closest thing I’ve found to the New Age movement,

it’s not monotheist but pantheistic, and nature based.

It doesn’t believe in sin.

It doesn’t believe you have to suffer to achieve salvation.

It believes in the inherent perfection of each individual soul.

It believes that Kami – the universal god force – is not only all that is, but is also within each of us and we can achieve union with that god force through right thought and action and purification.

Shinto speaks of the horizontal nature of life and death, whereas Christianity and many other religions speak of the vertical nature of life and death.

The vertical view is that there is a heaven above us and a hell below us, metaphorically, and we have to rise to reach God. And if we don’t we fall into the fiery pits of hell.

The horizontal view is that heaven is all around us, in different realms, and God is within us.

What does all this have to do with Ninja?

At their core, all Japanese martial arts are spiritually based. That’s what I came to Japan to research. The underlying spirituality of Ninja. Because in my writing, that’s the wellspring of character.

Many of you who follow this blog might think there is a disconnect between my work on intuition, expressed in my movie PGS, and my work on modern day witchcraft, expressed in my Palace of Fires thriller trilogy, the first book of which is to be published by Penguin Random House in January.

They are different aspects of the same themes I’m exploring.

One informs the other.

And they will appeal to different people, different age groups, different sensibilities.

But at their essence, they’re exploring the same stuff.

In future posts I’ll write more about Shinto, which I find fascinating, and which I’ve just briefly touched on here. And I’ll also write more about the inter-connectedness of PGS and Palace of Fires.

If you’re interested in learning more about Shinto, a good starter is The Essence of Shinto, by Motohisa Yamakage.

I leave Japan later today to resume normal duties getting PGS out to the world.

And now I know why I came here.