I noticed a story in my local paper this morning – The Sydney Morning Herald.

It had to do with research on the mortality rate of sedentary versus walking people in their late fifties.

Evidently if you walk 10,000 steps a day, then you can lower your chance of dying by up to 46%.

Here’s what the article said:

Increasing daily steps from 1000 to 10,000 a day can lower a sedentary person’s chance of dying by 46 per cent, new research has found. The Australian research proved a direct link between exercise and popular devices like pedometers and Fitbits.

Even increasing steps a little to about 3000 a day, five days a week, reduced the mortality rate by 12 per cent, the landmark study by the George Institute for Global Health found.

The research monitored the use of pedometers among 3000 previously sedentary middle-aged Australian men and women, with an average age of 58. The participants were given pedometers and data was collected at the beginning and again approximately five years later to measure the number of steps they took each day.

A spokesman for the George Institute said that these results gave the public greater confidence that death could be delayed, and major diseases prevented, by being more active.  

The research also predicted that the results might even be greater in healthy individuals who increase their daily steps.

So I told this to Jennifer, and she said that you if you embrace your electronic body and the I AM Presence within you, then you can live for eternity without taking even one step.

I wonder if wearing a FitBit is part of your electronic body…

Jennifer in Bhutan

I received this email from Mr George Hay, whom I’m getting acquainted with on this blog.

I post it here in full… 

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Apologies to those of you who are subscribed to the Gone Tours website –

I’m doing some much-needed  tidy-up work on that site, and so have shifted pages to blog posts etc – and some of you might be receiving old posts as though they’re new.

In fact they’ve just been repositioned – and I’m not that much of a Word Press guru that I can figure out how to do this without actually publishing these posts – hence, you get bothered with info you probably already know.

But just on that – at the moment we’re planning three tours next year:

• The Wild Atlantic Way Tour of the West Coast of Ireland – in April.
• The Portuguese Camino – in May
• The Mother Ganga Tour of India – in September.

The Irish tour is already filling up – and the Portuguese Camino, which will involve our beloved Catarina again, is two thirds full.

We also already have some commitments for the Indian tour. And we’ve been approached to mount another couple of tours in India next year as well, so we’re in discussion on that.

It’s pleasing that this tour stuff is going gang-busters. I’m discovering though that we don’t really run regular tours like other companies – we create itineraries that offer the kind of experiences Jennifer and I would like to have, and that often means going to places and doing things that only travellers get to experience, not tourists.

There’s a big difference between a traveller and a tourist.

Anyway, let me know if you’re interested in any of these –
bill@gonetours.com

Once again, Steve McCurry stuns me with his breathtaking images, and his unremitting sense of humanity.

I was impatient.

I had to drive 400kms. And I wanted to get in early to watch a friend’s movie which has just recently opened.

So I wanted to leave.

But Jennifer was sitting on the motel bed, reading a book. It was the Ascended Masters Instruction Guide, part of the Saint Germain “I AM” Discourses series.

This was the fourth time she’d read this book.

It was 9am.

The motel in Goondiwindi was empty now. Everyone else had left. We were the only ones there. The maids were stripping the sheets off the beds of the emptied rooms.

We were the only ones left.

And Jennifer was sitting on the bed, reading a book she’d read three times before.

I said to her: I’d like to go now. 

She said: Give me another ten minutes. 

I said, rather tetchily: Jen, I’d like to go now. I’ve got a long way to drive today, and it’s already late. 

She snapped back: I said, give me ten minutes. 

Jennifer never snaps. She is a calm and gentle person. Buddha-esque. To see Jennifer snap was somewhat shocking. Like the Buddha turning Linda Blair. However I can display personal characteristics that would make even Himalayan monk want to rip my face off.

It became apparent to me that no further conversation would be entered into – she wanted ten minutes – and so I went outside, started up the car to let her know that I was anxious to go, and made some phone calls to LA.

I also left the motel room door open – and as I’d backed into the parking space right outside our room, I was conscious that all those noxious fumes would be heading her way.

If I couldn’t coax her out, I would smoke her out with carbon monoxide.

I try very hard to be a good person.

We were late getting going that morning because I’d woken up at 2am to watch the World Cup Rugby semi-final – Australia beat Argentina in a very exciting game. And of course watching the game in a motel room, I’d kept Jennifer awake.

She never complained.

She never does complain, except when she wants ten minutes extra to read a book she’s read three times before.

Those of you familiar with this blog know that I require only about five hours sleep to be fully functional, while my wife requires ten hours. Anything less and she takes on Walking Dead type tendencies.

The reason she snapped, I surmised, was because she was sleep deprived. It had nothing to do with the fact that she wanted time to read her book, that she’d already read three times, and that I was being a dick.

Finally she came out to the car, coughing, and we headed off.

I was driving to Brisbane – I had a few days work at the University where I’m an Adjunct Professor. Each year I drive up to Brisbane, each year I take the same route. I drive from Mudgee to Goondiwindi, I overnight at the same motel, and I drive from Goondiwindi to Brisbane.

Something happened this time.

Here’s what happened.

As we drove away from the motel, the tension somewhat sweet and ripe in the car, we started chatting as though there had not been a contretemps a few minutes earlier. We resumed normal programming, even though there was some static in the air.

Jennifer made note of a sign to a Botanical Garden, and in my attempt at reconciliation, I looked at the sign and said:

Huh. Fancy Goondiwindi having a Botanical Garden. That’s a must-see next time. 

At the same time I overtook a large semi-trailer so that I could speed off down the long straight road ahead.

And that’s what I did –

However some 30kms down the road, I came to a little settlement that I didn’t recall having gone through on previous trips. And as I kept driving I wondered whether the vegetation, and indeed the road itself, looked a little strange. A little drier, dustier, fewer trees.

It took me one hour and ten minutes, and some 130kms, to realise I’d taken the wrong road. I was heading due west, when I should have been heading due east.

I had to turn around and go back to Goondiwindi. I gunned it. Really gunned it. Because I made it back in less than an hour. You do the math, as they say in America.

So we drove back into Goondiwindi two hours after we left. Ten minutes past eleven.

What happened?

1. In passing the big semi-trailer, I’d missed the sign for the turn-off.
2. In my hubris, and with the static still lingering, I had ignored my unease that I had driven through a settlement that I’d not recalled on previous trips.
3. In my hubris, and with the static still lingering, I had ignored all the signals that I was on the wrong road – like the drier country, the fewer trees etc.
4. I had not followed my Garmin guidance. Even though it had kept directing me another way, I thought I knew better.
5. Because of the little dust-up with Jennifer, I had shut down all my sensory input and over-rode it all.
6. The Universe bitch-slapped me.

Yes, ultimately that’s what happened. I’d been impatient. So impatient I hadn’t wanted to let Jennifer have ten minutes to read a mystical and esoteric book that was very important to her.

I had put my needs ahead of hers.

And so the Universe sent me into the Outback for an hour, in completely the wrong direction, along a route I should have know, and slapped me for being a naughty boy.

I’ve learned my lesson.

And I should have followed my guidance, both inner and outer.

I’ve now posted the itinerary for the Wild Atlantic Way tour, in April next year.

I’ve reduced the price a bit too!

It’s going to be an amazing tour, exploring three peninsulas, or “rings,” on the wild west coast of Ireland –

• The Ring of Beara
• The Dingle Ring
• The Doolin Rng, the Cliffs of Moher, and the Aran Islands.

Plus we’ll be starting and finishing in Cork, which is one of the coolest cities in all or Ireland!

Here’s the link to the itinerary –

Wild Atlantic Way Tour 2016

Let me know if you’re interested –
bill@gonetours.com

Starting to prepare the itinerary for the Celtic Camino tour next year.

Very excited about it!

It’s going to be called The Wild Atlantic Way Tour – in April – and it will include the amazing Aran Islands… http://www.aranislands.com

It will be both a walking and sightseeing tour.

More to come soon!

Next week I’m doing Prof stuff.

Professorial stuff.

As some of you might know, I’m an Adjunct Professor up at the Queensland University of Technology, in their Creative Industries / Screen Studies faculty. This is my fourth year. It’s a part time gig, and my way of giving something back to the industry – in particular film students.

Each year around this time the film course has their student end of year “pitches,” where the students have to pitch to a panel – myself and two other industry professionals – and we determine what films get made the next year.

For me it’s a fascinating process because I’m able to see what stories young people are playing with – and how they’re attempting to interpret them cinematically.

It keeps me young!

Last year veteran producer Tony Buckley was on the judging panel with me, and like me, he lamented the students’ lack of knowledge of film history and culture. It seemed that most of their knowledge of cinema starts with Tarantino and Pulp Fiction. 

Very few had a knowledge of the cinema classics of the 40’s and 50’s – and even the great films from the golden era of Hollywood in the 70s were largely unknown to them.

We’re talking masterpieces such as The Godfather Pts 1&2, The French Connection Pts 1&2, Chinatown, The Exorcist, Network, Patton, The Conversation, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, and my favourite film from the 70’s, Roman Polanski’s The Tenant…. I could go on and on.

Ask the students about the work of Billy Wilder, John Ford, Joseph Mankiewicz, Vincente Minnelli, John Huston, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, Hal Ashby – even Alfred Hitchcock – and they’ll stare at you blankly. There’s no point even mentioning Antonioni, Kurosawa, Renoir, Bunuel, Bertolucci, Jean Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller, Bergman, Fellini…

Plus, most of the students won’t watch black and white films. So that excludes them from the classics such as Casablanca, All about Eve, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, Paths of Glory, High Noon, Marty, etc…

There’s so much to learn from the work of past masters. And yet a lot of young people feel that what’s current is most important. And so they’ll talk about JJ Abrams and Robert Rodriguez and perhaps Paul Thomas Anderson – and yes their hero, Quentin Tarantino.

Tarantino is a good case in point. He knows his cinema. He’s a walking encyclopaedia on cinema. He knows the classics, plus he knows the most obscure art films and B grade schlock. Talk to him about the French New Wave and he could rattle on for hours about Truffaut and Godard and Breathless, and Jules & Jim, and The 400 Blows, and Contempt … these are films that influenced that great American directors that were to come.

It’s the same with Paul Thomas Anderson, who I believe is currently one of the world’s great auteurs. His films Magnolia and There will be Blood I would put as amongst the best movies of the past twenty five years. 

Tarantino and Anderson are making some movies that will last. So too the bigger names – Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorcese, James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis – these guys know their cinema and have studied the classics over and over. But they love movies. That’s the thing. These great filmmakers love movies. 

Often I’ll ask the students when was the last time they went to the movies – and I’ll find that very few actually go to the cinema to watch films. They might download movies, and watch on their laptops – but most don’t even do that.

If you’re doing a tertiary course on filmmaking and you aren’t really interested in films, then what are your chances of success in a highly competitive industry?

Minimal.

You gotta love it.
And breathe it
And dream it
And live it.

Same with anything really.
If you want to be good at something, it requires complete and utter immersion.

I’m looking forward to seeing the students next week, and hearing their pitches. I’m also looking forward to catching up with old Camino buddies – Greg & Donna, and Angie & Ken.

They did the Camino Portuguese tour with us last year, and we’ve become very good friends. For the occasion, I’m taking up some white port…

I know I said you wouldn’t hear from me for a bit, but I just wanted to tell you about a book I read coming back home from India.

First off, to explain: I always allow my intuition to choose for me what book I’m going to read. I used to go to bookstores, and consider various books until one screamed out:

READ ME, READ ME!

Now, particularly when I’m traveling, I read mostly on Kindle. And so choosing a book involves scrolling through my library of purchases and allowing a book to step forward.

(I very rarely buy a book to read immediately. I buy books that I will read at some stage in the future…)

Just before I boarded the flight from Bombay back to Sydney – 16 hours including transit time – I thought about what sort of book I’d like to read. After 7 weeks of fairly intense work, I figured I’d like to read something light and fun – non-spiritual, non-work related, something well written that I knew would make the flight pass quickly.

I’d recently purchased Salman Rushdie’s new book, TWO YEARS, EIGHT MONTHS, AND TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS, which I was very keen to read, as well as Jonathan Franzen’s new book, PURITY. I’ve read all his previous books. Both authors are magnificent writers, and I figured either book would do.

However, when I came to scroll down through my library, I found myself bypassing these two books until I settled on an old arcane book written in 1932 by Alice Bailey, called FROM INTELLECT TO INTUITION.

I’d bought this book after seeing it in a bookstore in Mount Shasta, earlier this year. There was a whole row of Alice Bailey books, and whilst I’d heard of her, I’d never read her. And so later I bought a bunch on Kindle. It was this one particular book that screamed out –

READ ME!

And so I did. And wow – it turned out to be exactly the book I needed to read on that long journey home.

Who is Alice Bailey? She was a very influential writer in the early part of last century. Here’s what Wikipedia says about her –

Alice Ann Bailey (1880 – 1949) was a writer of more than twenty-four books on theosophical subjects, and was one of the first writers to use the term New Age. 

Bailey’s works, written between 1919 and 1949, describe a wide-ranging system of esoteric thought covering such topics as how spirituality relates to the solar system, meditation, healing, spiritual psychology, the destiny of nations, and prescriptions for society in general.

She described the majority of her work as having been telepathically dictated to her by a Master of Wisdom, initially referred to only as “the Tibetan” or by the initials “D.K.”, later identified as Djwal Khul.

Her writings were of the same nature as those of Madame Blavatsky and are known as the Ageless Wisdom Teachings. 

She wrote about religious themes, including Christianity, though her writings are fundamentally different from many aspects of Christianity and of other orthodox religions. Her vision of a unified society includes a global “spirit of religion” different from traditional religious forms.

The book is esoteric, very intellectual, and dense. But full of extraordinary wisdom. It’s written in a very scholarly way and is well researched, citing references from core spiritual texts.

One of the early chapters is on education. She discusses the differences between Eastern and Western education, and summarises thus:

Firstly, in the Eastern system it is assumed that within every human form dwells an entity, a being, called the self or soul. Secondly, this self uses the form of the human being as its instrument or means of expression, and through the sum total of the mental and emotional states will eventually manifest itself, utilising the physical body as its functioning mechanism on the physical plane. Finally, the control of these means of expression is brought about under the Law of Rebirth.

Through the evolutionary process (carried forward through many lives in a physical body) the self gradually builds a fit instrument through which to manifest, and learns to master it. Thus the self, or soul, becomes truly creative and self-conscious in the highest sense and active in its environment, manifesting its true nature perfectly.

Eventually it gains complete liberation from form, from the thralldom of the desire nature, and the domination of the intellect. This final emancipation, and consequent transfer of the centre of consciousness from the human to the spiritual kingdom, is hastened and nurtured by a specialised education, called the meditation process. 

In the west, she says, the emphasis is entirely reversed.

First, there is an entity called the human being, who possesses a mind, a set of emotions, and a response apparatus through which he is brought into contact with his environment. Second, according to the calibre of his apparatus and the condition of his mind, plus the nature of his environing circumstances, so will be his character and disposition.

The goal of the educational process, applied wholesale and indiscriminately, is to make him physically fit, mentally alert, to provide a trained memory, controlled reactions, and a character which makes him a social asset and a contributing factor in the body economic.

His mind is regarded as a storehouse for imparted facts, and the training given every child is intended to make him a useful member of society, self-supporting and decent. The product of these premises is the reverse of the Eastern. 

She goes on to say:

The contrast between the two might be crudely summed up as follows: 

THE WEST / THE EAST
Groups / Individuals
Books / Bibles
Knowledge / Wisdom
Mechanical Development / Mystical Development
Standardization / Uniqueness
Science / Religion
Memory Training / Meditation
Investigation / Reflection

She concludes by saying something that now seems so obvious, and yet it hit me with enormous impact –

The Eastern method is the only one which has produced the Founders of all the world religions, for all are Asiatic in origin. 

When you think about it – Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Confucianism – all come from the Eastern / Asiatic method of education. The western way has given us science and art and philosophy and commerce, but not the spiritual.

Jennifer and I have been away now about seven weeks. During that time we’ve criss crossed India many times – both for the tour and for filming.

Not to mention our week in Bhutan.
It’s been an exhilarating time.

Whenever I travel I learn. And I’ve learned a lot from this trip.

Yesterday, meeting Hansaji – the director of the Yoga Institute – for the second time, I was reminded of her wisdom. She said many wise things, in the interview and off camera, that really struck a chord with me.

This is one of the benefits I get in making this film – that I get to ask questions of wise and learned people all over the world. And I get to learn from them. And what I learn will make its way into the film.

But I also get an added benefit – of sitting with them for hours on end later, going over in detail what they’ve said, in the privacy of the editing room.

This is where I really learn. Because in editing I’m able to fully take in what they’ve said, and it’s my job to pick the sections that say what I want the film to say.

That’s a unique privilege.

Here are some photos from yesterday’s shoot – which we filmed in the Institute’s small museum –

Hansaji has the wisdom of a sage – she is one of India’s leading spokespersons on yoga, of which the asanas (physical postures) are only a very small part.

And there can be no greater advertisement for the benefits of yoga in maintaining youth and energy than this photo below – Hansaji, aged 69, with her mother, aged 89. Both are remarkably fit and full of life –

Tomorrow we return to Australia – and ahead of me is the huge task of reviewing what we’ve got, and what we need to complete filming, and commence post production.

So I’m signing off for now, for a bit…