Indian tour – The Golden Temple too!

For those of you coming on the Indian tour in September, we’ve added another great attraction to the itinerary – the Golden Temple at Amritsar, in Punjab.

Golden temple 5

golden temple 4

It’s the holiest site in India for Sikhs, and it’s one of the great tourist attractions of India.

It’s also a great addition to our tour of the spiritual centres of India.

Here is the wikipedia link to the Golden Temple –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmandir_Sahib

Check our website for the revised itinerary.
http://gonetours.com/mother-ganga-tour-sept-2015/

Not much has changed to accommodate this – but I’ve also decided to do a day trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and not overnight. We’ll see the Taj at sunset, as the sun goes down, then have a beautiful dinner in Agra, then make our way back to our luxury hotel in Delhi. The following day we’ll head to Rishikesh, and the Ganges.

For those of you considering the tour, there are still places available. If you’re interested, contact me on: bill@gonetours.com

Golden Temple 2

Uluru / Utopia: What did I learn – pt2

Donald Rumsfeld, the United States Secretary of Defence from 2001-2006, famously said to a news briefing in 2002:

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or vice versa.

Now what I find interesting is the last sentence, which normally isn’t quoted:

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or vice versa.

Let’s take that concept out of a militaristic and political context, and apply it to our life more generally.

The unknown unknowns.
The ones we don’t know we don’t know. 

Science is based on evidence. It’s based on a theory being provable time and again. We in the West live in a quantitative age. We believe what we can see, measure, and what is validated by scientific research.

We know what we know.
And to an extent, we know what we don’t know.

But we also live in an age where we don’t know what we don’t know.

Let me give you some examples –

It was less than 140 years ago that we discovered germs caused disease. Something so basic – that we take for granted now – that’s so much a part of our understanding of how the world works – yet, what? only seven or eight generations ago our forebears would have died from cholera or typhoid because physicians did not know that these diseases were caused by certain microorganisms.

Robert Koch, in the mid 1880s, came up with his “Four Postulates” which led to the discovery that a disease was caused by a particular organism. That groundbreaking work won him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905.

1905

That’s only 110 years ago.

Let’s go back further, and look at something even more fundamental –

The earth revolving around the sun.

It was less than 500 years ago that the common belief was that the sun revolved around the earth. It took astronomer, mathematician and Catholic scholar Copernicus to come up with a theory that in fact the earth and other planets revolved around the sun.

This was blasphemous at the time, and the church reacted strongly.

Later, Kepler and Galileo would further warrant that Copernicus’s theories were correct. But they enraged the Church, which was firmly of the belief that according to scriptures, the earth was the centre of the universe. They cited Biblical references:

Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30, that include text stating that “the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.”

Psalm 104:5, which says, “the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.”

Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that: “And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place.”

Galileo had to face the Spanish Inquisition in Rome to defend his theories.

Now that was only five hundred years ago.
In the whole timeline of human history, that’s nothing. 

For several thousands of years, Eastern philosophy, religion, and medicine has acknowledged and accepted that the human body has energetic channels, including a system of nodal points called chakras.

This notion that our bodies are full of energetic pathways and meridian points is what Chinese medicine is based on, and how acupuncture works. The Chinese have used acupuncture and herbs and massage for more than two thousand years – working in accordance with their understanding of this energetic system.

Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Yogis, and others, all hold beliefs in an energetic system within each of us. They call these energies by different names, but they’re the same thing. We’re talking billions of people here who believe this – India has more than a billion people alone, and then there’s China, and Asia –

Yet in the west, science and medicine won’t acknowledge the existence of these energetic pathways, or of chakras. Their belief is that if it’s not in Gray’s Anatomy, the definitive medical textbook, it doesn’t exist. If you can’t find it in an autopsy, then nah – it’s not there.

I find this astonishing – that chakras aren’t acknowledged in the west by science. Chakras and chi and prana are such an integral part of life in the East.

Western doctors know that our bodies run on electromagnetic transmissions. Electrical impulses.That’s how our brain gets messages to our organs and limbs. That’s how our heart pumps blood. Surely then there must be some way these energies are disbursed throughout the body, beyond the central nervous system.

Perhaps in five hundred years science will “discover it”, and then once validated by it will be accepted by the West.

Full disclosure:

I started off doing Medicine at Queensland University. Both my mother and father were dentists. My brother is a veterinary surgeon. My elder sister has three degrees in medical related fields. My youngest sister is head of a Social Work department at a huge hospital.

I’ve been brought up to believe that science has an answer for everything. I’m only now starting to see that science is playing catch-up, and not doing a very good job of it. And hasn’t been for a while.

In researching this post I discovered that it was the ancient mystics in India, long before the birth of Christ, that originally came up with the theory that the earth revolved around the sun – over a thousand years before our scientists. But they could never prove it.

Back to Uluru –

Kryon, through his “partner” Lee Carroll, says some pretty weird and whacky stuff. I used to dismiss it as New Age white noise.

I don’t anymore.
I listen, and I listen carefully.

So the biggest thing I’ve learned coming away from Uluru is that I’m now prepared to be more open minded about things. I won’t immediately discard a concept, no matter how weird and whacky it might be, just because it doesn’t fit into what I know.

I know I don’t know a lot, but I’m starting to realise there’s also a lot that I don’t know I don’t know…

energy chart 3

Uluru / Utopia: What did I learn – pt1

For some reason, this last trip has had a profound impact on me.

I didn’t think that seeing a big red rock in the desert would be such a big deal.

But it was.
And is.

If it hadn’t been for this Kryon Consciousness Retreat, I probably would never have gone to Uluru. And it wouldn’t have bothered me. It was never high on my To-Do list.

In fact, it wasn’t on my To-Do list at all.

But when I first saw it, as I drove around a bend in the road and there it was in front of me, the power of it struck me immediately. But the strange thing was, I’d felt it before I saw it.

I can’t explain it any better than that.

The rock radiates a palpable energy that impacts you from afar. And that power is now still within me, here in Mudgee.

It seems that once connected, you are always connected.

Why did Lee Carroll stage his Consciousness Retreat at Uluru? In part, because of the potent spiritual power of the place. And partly because of his creation myth, delivered to him through his Source of Kryon, which he discovered is consistent with creation myths from many cultures, including those of the aboriginal peoples of Australia.

I will go into this in greater detail in a later post – but first I want to tell you about Lee Carroll, Kryon, and channelling.

This is perhaps the most profound thing that I’ve learned from this trip.

Lee Carroll was a very accomplished sound engineer. He worked in film and established a studio that did sound tracks for movies, television and tv commercials.

His wife was into New Age stuff. She was on a spiritual path, and he had absolutely no interest. As he tells it, she would drive him crazy walking about their house with metal Tibetan meditation bowls, rubbing them with a stick and making them hum OM.

He wanted no part of her world. He was happily becoming very successful in his world of audio and music.

And then one day his wife gave him a gift – she paid for him to go to a channeller. And so he went. Reluctantly, but he went. At that channeling, he was told that an “entity” named Kryon from the Magnetic Grid wanted to get in contact with him.

This of course freaked Lee Carroll out.

But being something of a nerd, he went off and began researching channelling, and became intrigued. He then went to another channeller, this time he paid for it himself, and he got the same message: an entity named Kryon was trying to get in touch with him.

Lee immediately thought this was some kind of set up – that the two channellers had been in contact with each other, they’d swapped notes, and given him exactly the same story. But he discovered that there had been absolutely no communication between the channellers, and that this message had come through twice, from two completely separate people.

Lee became even more intrigued. And so began his union with Kryon.

Who is Kryon?

This is where it gets very tricky – and this is where Lee Carroll, sweet man that he is, says that some people think he’s evil, and that channelling is the work of the devil.

I must admit that my naive view of channelling was from Lynda Blair in The Exorcist – all funny voices and head turning and vomit. Or sleazy white-shoed smart talkers who claimed they were channelling Nefertiti or John Lennon, and charging vast sums of money for the privilege of hearing these pearls of wisdom from the netherworld.

Lee Carroll is none of these.

There is a truthfulness about the man, a sincerity, a humility and a knowing that immediately made me feel, when I first saw him on stage at the Retreat, then later when I met him, that this guy is the real deal.

There’s nothing phoney about him. No agenda, hidden or otherwise. And yes he makes some money out of these seminars, and he sells books, but most of his work is free, on his website. It is a huge resource, available to anyone at no cost.

http://www.kyron.com

But what’s astonishing about the man is the channellings. The ideas, the articulation, the eloquence, the wisdom. And the love.

Who is Kyron?

Kryon is the Creator, the Source, Spirit, God.
Whatever name you like to put on it.

Kryon has chosen Lee Carroll to be his mouthpiece within our culture, and using our language. But Kyron is beyond time and space, and multi-dimensional.

This to some people is blasphemous – the notion that God could manifest in the form of an audio engineer from San Diego.

But even the Dalai Lama says that God is in every atom – and this is a fundamental belief of Hindus and Yogis too.

Just to explain – Jennifer has been following Kryon for the past 25 years. She has listened to pretty much every channelling, and has read many of his books.

She would have Kryon playing in the kitchen of an evening, while making dinner. And I would come in and demand that she turn that crap off. It used to bug the hell out of me.

I thought it was New Age Weird & Whacky, taken to the nth degree. But I respected that Jennifer took it seriously, and was taking on the concepts that came from Kryon.

And then something very strange happened. I don’t know how I heard of it, but when I discovered that Lee Carroll was going to channel Kryon at Uluru, I immediately knew that I, or we, had to attend. I didn’t even ask Jennifer. I just booked straight away.

And then later when I told her, she was shocked. Shocked that I, who had been such a Kryon cynic, would want to attend a seminar.

But my PGS led me. That’s all I can tell you. I had an immediate and unequivocal “yes” to going, and I’ve learned from past experience that I have to listen to my PGS. And so going there was on my instigation, not Jennifer’s. As I say, Jennifer was stunned.

As Kryon would say: And so it is…

If you’re interested, here’s some more reading –
http://www.kryon.com/k_25b.html

And here’s some text from his website, explaining the nature of channelling –

About Channelling… 

From Lee Carroll

I want to take this opportunity to speak of channelling in general. It is often misunderstood as something spooky and weird and I’ll bet you have certain friends that you would never tell.. that you were looking at this web page! Some feel it is evil, and many don’t want anything to do with it. They would rather stick to other information that isn’t channelled (they think).

Channelling Definition: The divine, inspired words (or energy) of God as imparted to Humans by Humans.

The above definition is what channelling actually IS. That means that not only were most of the sacred scriptures of the planet (all religions) channelled originally, but also much artwork and music too! It is absolutely commonplace, but like so many other re-emerging processes in the New Age, it has a stigma about it that is strange. God did not write the Bible… Humans did, while divinely inspired.

We have been used to having “authorized and sanctioned” men and women of God passing information to us… not the common folks. Therefore in this New Age, where the actual basic intent of the New Age Master of Love is beginning to surface (that of self enablement for those other than the priests of the land), we are seeing more and more “common folk” passing on the information of God.

Even in our own culture, we accept the letters from a common man to his friends in several cities in the Holy Land… as the sacred words of God! (This is how much of the New Testament of the Holy Bible was written.) Think about it. That’s channelling!

We believe that God did not stop speaking to humans 2,000 years ago. To think that God stopped communicating is to deny your own divinity, or to assign some special sacredness to the past, not feeling worthy to consider yourself part of God’s continued plan for an enlightened Earth. You are worthy of a continued communication with God… which I teach is actually a part of YOU!

But there is something that comes with channelling….

Responsibility!

Anyone can channel, and Spirit is not proprietary in this regard. It’s for all Humans, and not just a few. Therefore the ability and potential exists for this attribute for us all. Like so many other things, INTENT of the human means everything. Not all channelling is given with PURE INTENT. Therefore, some is real, and some is not… and YOU should be able to tell the difference when you HEAR or READ it. Is it really from Spirit?

Many men and women are spouting verbiage these days, calling it inspired… some on web pages just like this. How can you tell if it’s real or not, since there is no organization telling you who is “OK” and who is not? (Aren’t you glad?)

The responsibility of a REAL channel is AWESOME. Sacred, anointed information can change lives! Self-serving egocentric and fearful information can be confusing and actually halt a persons spiritual growth. How can you know the difference? Kryon tells us that we have the power of discernment to know, and that we will even be able to “feel” the difference.

For those of you who are still learning what that feeling is, I have some information that may help. It was published originally in New Realities magazine, July 1987… two years before I began channelling (how appropriate). The article is called “Guidelines for Spiritual Discernment.” Twelve (12) guidelines are shown in the article for the reader to watch for, both negative and positive. I believe this information is accurate, and was developed by enlightened Humans to teach other Humans.

Below I present Seven (7) of the twelve (as also presented in Kryon Book Six, “Partnering With God”).

The next time you sit before a channel or read a transcription, consider these seven items presented below. As you listen to or read the words of a channeller, also try to ask “what is the intent of the human speaking?” Is there any ego or Human agenda? If you detect it… then stop. There cannot be Human ego present for the information to be accurate and true. Spirit demands this of the channeller… I know. I also know from almost 20 years of live channeling experience that the message will ALWAYS be filled with love, and not fear. Watch for this!

Do you “recognize” the energy as familiar and feeling like “home?” This is another key. If you don’t, and you can’t identify with the entity or entities that are channelling through the Human, then perhaps you should pass on the message for now. Not all channelling is from an entity. Much of it comes form your own spiritual center. Don’t always try to determine “who” it is, asking for a name or trying to put skin and bones to it. Consider that your core is the Love of God… and is also able to give YOU messages for YOU.

IMPORTANT: Please take a moment to read the “four attributes of love” as presented in chapter one of the Kryon Book – Partnering with God. It will help you to understand an ego-less state… and some of the attributes of pure sacred energy.

Discern for yourself. What is happening? Messages from a human? … or messages from a loving and wise God? I expect and welcome this test for everything I write and speak as a channel for Kryon. It absolutely must stand up every time.

GUIDELINES FOR DISCERNMENT – New Realities Magazine – July 1987

Paraphrased…

1. There will always be useful information for everyoneBeware of the channel that gives you useful information for only a few, or tells you that it’s only for a special group or a sequestered number. It must be useful for ALL humanity, every single Human. This is an area of discernment allowing you to know you are hearing the truth. 
2. The message should be uplifting. Watch for an empowering message – NOT ONE OF FEAR, not one that drags you down – not one that makes you want to take fearful action or hide – but an enabling message! This is a staple of God energy. It must be there. It should inspire the listener and reader. Every recorded angel appearance before a Human Being has begun with “Fear not!”
3. Spirit (God) will never, ever channel a message that asks you to give up your free will. Never! For your free will is what your experience on Earth is all about as you sit in your “chairs of gold” (a metaphor created in Kryon Book Six). Free will! FREE CHOICE is what drives your future. 
4. Spirit will never give you a message – ever – that asks you to violate the integrity of what you believe. You are honored in your thought processes. Spirit will never trick you or “talk you” into anything. The message must never violate your integrity. You must feel comfortable with it, and it must ring true to your heart. 
5. Spirit will never represent a channeller as being the only source. Watch for this, for there are many channels of Spirit and they all coordinate their information to create a bigger picture, especially in this New Age. They will NEVER represent themselves as the ONLY source of information. 
6. Watch for the fact that the information is normally new information. Beware of the channel that simply re-hashes the old, for they are not channelling anything but the ego of the Human Being. New information is necessary, combined with “core information,” it is the entire reason for the channel. Think about it. 
7. Watch for the fact that channelled information should have spiritual solutions presented. Solutions to life challenges on Earth, via new information, is the purpose of channelling. 
Offered in Love,Lee Carroll

Tussocks

Home, at last ~

After driving 7,500kms in less than three weeks, we’re home in Mudgee.

Thankfully there were no issues with the car – it went like a dream – and there were no problems with roos, emus, or Highway Patrol officers!

It was a safe journey, and for that I’m grateful – and I did a little meditation beside the car once we’d unpacked, just thanking those concerned… It was an extraordinary trip – and in the next day or so I will elaborate on what I’ve learned, but just to list the highlights –

  • Having dinner in the Glenrowan pub in Victoria – a place of myth, where Australia’s most infamous bushranger (outlaw) had a shootout with cops
  • Kelly armourWalking through the William Ricketts Sanctuary in the Dandenongs, feeling the spirits of the aboriginal elders, women and children captured in sculptures that sprang from the rocks and the trees…
  • Ricketts.12Photographing the wedding of Alex & Matt – two truly beautiful people in every way –
  • Alex in makeup.4 copy Alex & Matt bendy kiss.smCatching up again with The Landers Express – Peter and Julie – and talking into the wee hours. Two special friends…
  • Julie and Peter 2Sleeping in an underground motel in Coober Pedy –
  • Motel extDriving north into the Red Heart of Australia. Such beautiful country…
  • Road to UtopiaSpending time with Cowboy Loy Pwerle, and filming with him and his family – Cowboy a wonderful artist and a true gentleman.
  • Cowboy with dogsOur time in Utopia, which I will remember always

RoscoCowboy in truck.1

  • Walking around Alice Springs late one afternoon – drinking in the beautiful light.
  • HillMeeting Lee Carroll and interviewing him. An extraordinary man…

Lee Carroll 2

  • Attending the Gaia Consciousness Retreat – and witnessing Lee Carroll channel Kryon.
  • Trying to avoid taking touristy shots of Uluru at sunset, but finding myself taking shots like everyone else.
  • Uluru wsWalking around the base of Uluru at sunrise with Jennifer.
  • Uluru_day4-10Meeting Doug and Grace, and experiencing the wonder of their energetic machine that can show what’s happening in your body.
  • Energetic scanDriving through the flatland desert – and being deeply affected by the ancient beauty of this land.

Rest stopOn this last leg back today, I took some shots – Wrecked cars Man at cafeSilos Jennifer and I are not back for long.

We’re home for Easter, and then about a week later we leave for Italy, to meet up with Elena in Tuscany and finalise everything for the walking tour, starting April 27th in Florence.

And after the tour, we fly to Turkey to film with the descendants of Rumi in the centre of the country. This for a Sufi perspective on intuition.

I feel very fortunate to be doing what I’m doing – and doing it with my mate. Jen MCU slightly out of focus

Good enough –

Jennifer and I are in Adelaide at the moment. For those who aren't familiar with Australian geography, Adelaide is the capital of South Australia, at the bottom end of our country.

We came here to meet with some possible investors for PGS. An added benefit was that we could watch yesterday's cricket World Cup final on a decent tv!

We won by the way.

Today we make our way back to Mudgee – about 1300 kms – which we'll do in two days. It will be good to get back home.

Once home I'll do a recap of what I've learned from this trip. I've learned a lot, and changed my views on some formerly held beliefs.

This has been a very important trip for me.

I thought I'd put up a post now though about something that I find quite interesting. I've been thinking about this for a while.

In researching my PHOTO CAMINO book, I came across an interesting term that's used in tech circles.

It's “good enough..”

Good enough describes a threshold beyond which buyers of cameras, or other tech products, won't breach.

A camera manufacturer for instance might put out a new model camera, but sales will be flat because most consumers feel that their current camera is “good enough.”

They're not prepared to shell out money for a new model camera that has new technology that they don't really need, or would rarely use.

Same when deciding on what camera to take on the Camino. A lot of people would say their iPhone or smartphone is good enough.

Why do I find this interesting?

Because the term “good enough” used to be a pejorative term. If someone did something that was merely good enough, then that person was deemed lazy or lacking ambition.

We don't want good enough, we want excellence. We want the best.

But technology has introduced this term good enough to describe buyers' take-up behaviour, and I look at it now in a broader social context.

Perhaps “good enough” = “satisfied.”

Now that I find interesting.

Could it be that we're becoming more satisfied with what we've got? That we're not succumbing anymore to marketing bewitchments? That the allure of materialism is starting to wane?

I used to rail against the whole notion of good enough. In my work, good enough was never good enough. I had to make it the best I possibly could, and I would demand that of those that I worked with too.

And that's still the case.

Good enough just doesn't cut it.

But then that's not entirely true.

I worked with a wonderful lady who was a true perfectionist. But she would always be late on delivering because nothing was ever good enough. I remember saying to her once, what's more important, packing your suitcase perfectly? Or catching the train?

Catching the train.

How you pack your clothes in your suitcase is good enough.

And now I'm starting to think of this term in ways that can impact other areas of my life. The clothes I buy, the places I stay, even the food I eat.

I used to live in Adelaide. I used to go to all the fancy restaurants. I used to follow the fortunes of chefs. I don't do that anymore. Last night Jennifer and I had miso soup with bok choy and broad beans, cooked in our hotel room with the aid of an electric kettle, and eaten from tin cups.

It was good enough.

In fact it wasn't only good enough, it was superb.

I'm starting to rethink my attitude to good enough. I used to bristle at that term. I used to think of it as a loser's term.

Now I'm starting to think it could be a winner's term.

 

Assisi tour last chance ~

We're less than a month out from the Assisi tour, and we now have to finalise hotel numbers etc. So if you wish to join us, last chance to let us know…

It's going to be an incredible walk – meeting up in Florence, then we'll bus to the monastery at La Verna, high on a hill top. This monastery holds great significance for St. Francis.

We then commence our walk through to Assisi, about 220kms away. We arrive in Assisi on a weekend when they're celebrating an ancient Rights of Srping festival. It's an amazing festival apparently, with processions and dancing and markets etc. Should be fun!

Jennifer has been studying the life of St. Francis, and the relevance of this pilgrimage route. She's become a walking encyclodedia on it all. So those who want to know more about St Francis and some of the places we'll be visiting can walk with her, and she'll yabber on for hours!

We'll have a support van with us all the time, and our gorgeous assistant Elena, who will accompany us and help sort any problems should they arise.

Details are on http://www.gonetours.com. Go to the Via di Francesco link in the menu. Or contact me, Bill Bennett, at bill@gonetours.com

The tour is going to be an amazing experience.

Assisi at dawn

 

Uluru to Coober Pedy ~

I’ve driven probably hundreds of thousands of kilometres on Outback roads over the years, and I’ve never heard of anything happening such as happened today.

We’d driven about 300kms from Uluru, heading south towards Coober Pedy. At around lunchtime we passed a roadhouse at Kulgera, about 20kms north of the Northern Territory / South Australian border.

It’s very remote here.

This shot below is a rest stop. The next rest stop is 109kms down the road.

Rest stop

Just past the roadhouse, on the highway, I saw what looked to be some construction workers on the road.

As I got closer I realised it was a police roadblock, stopping southbound traffic. I pulled up and a cop dressed in civvies – not in uniform, but wearing a police vest – signalled for me to stop.

He said the highway was closed for an hour, maybe more, because a very wide load was coming through. He told me to wait at the roadhouse until he advised that the highway was clear.

This sounded odd to me. There’d been wide load transports coming through regularly. Some were so wide you had to drive nearly completely off the side of the highway – but they were always preceded by escort vehicles warning you the wide load was coming.

Irrespective, there was no arguing with a police roadblock, so we drove back to the roadhouse where the manager had a police radio. He told me what was really happening.

Kulgera roadhouse

Evidently the driver of a huge three-ganger road train – called a Tanami truck – had gone nuts and was deliberately crashing into oncoming traffic and forcing cars off the road.

Road trains are massive. Ninety-six wheels. Three times the size of a regular eighteen wheeler. And this one, according to the roadhouse manager, had a huge bullbar, which he was using to crash into cars.

Reminiscent of the film DUEL,I thought. 

I’m sorry I don’t have any photos of this, because I didn’t get a chance to take a shot of the roadblock, and everything else for Jen and myself was a waiting game in the hotel bar.

After about an hour the copper at the roadblock drove up to the bar and told all those waiting inside  – about 20 of us by that stage – that the highway was now clear. I asked the cop what had happened, and he confirmed what the manager had said – and confirmed that the truck driver was now under arrest.

If we had left maybe 20 mins earlier, we could have been one of the cars that the truck crashed into…

Anyway, that’s pretty weird, no?

Road and sky

The Stuart Highway, running north south through the Red Centre of this country, is I think the scariest highway in Australia. All sorts of crazy stuff happens on this remote road – serial killings, people going missing strangely, never to be heard of again, cars breaking down unexpectedly then the occupants raped and murdered…

This is not myth. This happens in Outback Australia.

Anyway, Jennifer and I made it safe and sound to Coober Pedy. I stopped a couple of times to take photos –

Outside of Coober Pedy I took a shot of an old opal field.

Opal field

We stayed in the Underground Motel again, and I asked Mike who runs the place where was a good place to have a feed. He suggested the Italo-Australian Miners Club.

Italo Australian Miners Club Italo Aus club ext

Hoping for a genuine Italian meal, I was disappointed to see that there was nothing Italian, nor indeed Australian, on the menu.

italo Miners club menu

But then we were told there were specials, including an Indian curry. Jennifer settled for the Lasagna with salad, I went for the chicken and mushroom risotto.

Both were truly disgusting.

Lasagna Risotto

The risotto was cold half an inch below the surface, which was hot. Very apologetically, the staff grabbed it off me and then spent the next twenty minutes nuking a lasagna so that it was definitely hot inside.

I should add, when Jennifer ordered the lasagna the lady who took her order asked the kitchen if they had any lasagna left. Someone from the kitchen yelled back: Yep, we got two left over from last night. 

I’d asked to change from risotto to lasagna because eating the risotto could have put me in hospital. There was a strong chance though that the lasagna could be equally as hazardous.

I shouldn’t be unkind to the Italo-Australian Miners Club – all those working there do so voluntarily, and they were very sweet.

mining hats

As I drove back the sun was setting, and the last rays of light were doing wonderful things to the high wispy clouds.

This really is very beautiful country out here.

Coober Pedy sunset

Uluru – leaving ~

Tomorrow we leave this place to return home.

It’s about a 3,500km drive.

I think Jennifer and I both need that drive, that space, that time, to absorb these last several days.

I won’t go into any specifics about the Kryon Consciousness Retreat, because some of you might find it alienating and seriously weird.

It was seriously weird.

But also seriously profound in ways I did not expect.

Through his channellings, which are pieces of unscripted oration to rival the best I’ve ever heard, he speaks about issues which confront us all. The big questions of life.

The huge questions of life.

And he does so with wisdom, compassion, and relevance.

Lee Carroll is a rock star.

And the interview he provided for my film was fabulous.

From the PGS film perspective, the trip out here has been very worthwhile. Not only was the interview with Mr. Carroll spectacular, but I also got some wonderful footage up at Utopia with the aboriginal people there – and as well I made some contacts for future filming in the US.

The Retreat finished this evening, which coincided with the World Cup semi final, with Australia playing India. It’s a testament to how seriously I’ve taken this Retreat that I didn’t stay back in my room and watch the game. Instead, during the evening’s events, I kept peaking at my iPhone to check the scores.

(We won, convincingly.)

One of the biggest surprises I’ve had during this time here is that before I came here, I had no idea how strongly I would be affected by Uluru.

Prior to coming here, I thought it was just a gigantic rock in the desert.

But it’s more than that.
Much more.
Much much more.

I think it will resonate with me for a very long time…

Uluru tourist shot

Uluru – day 4 / Base walk at dawn…

Jennifer walking before dawn is like watching something out of The Walking Dead.

She’s alive, kind of.
At least, she pretends to be alive.

I’d made her a double shot latte on the Aldi espresso machine in our room before we left, at about 5:30am.

I don’t know what you give zombies to activate them, but I was hoping that coffee would do the trick.

It did, kind of.
Her mumbling became slightly more coherent.

Driving out to the rock in the dark, there was a line of buses and vehicles in front of us. A convoy. But they all peeled off somewhere else. We were headed to the sunrise side of the rock, to do the Base Walk, which is a complete circumference of the rock – almost 11kms.

It was still dark when we arrived, although the sky in the east was starting to lighten.

We set off at 6:15am.

Uluru_day4-1

Uluru_day4-3

The walk would sometimes loop wide, and sometimes hug the edge of the massive monolith.

As we began, in the dark, Jennifer turned to me and said with a huge smile on her face: Can you feel them? They’re with us. They’re walking with us. 

She then walked off on ahead of me.

Uluru_day4-2

I stayed back and began to take photographs as the sun began to rise.

Tussocks bush

There were signs up in certain sections requesting that you don’t take photos or shoot video, because the traditional landowners regarded those parts of the rock as sacred.

And climbing the rock is now forbidden, for the same reason.

This place is as much a place of reverence as any holy site.

Uluru_day4-8 Uluru_day4-10

We walked clockwise, which at the beginning of the walk had us heading into the rising sun.

Uluru_day4-11 Uluru_day4-12 Uluru_day4-13

As I walked I felt a very powerful sacred energy – the same sort of energy I’d felt by the Ganges, or gazing up at the snow-peaked Himalayas, or walking into the Notre Dame in France, or in the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

The difference though was that this energy was ancient.
And very much of the earth and the stars.

There’s scientific evidence that the aboriginal people have been living around Uluru for at least 40,000 years, and some believe up to 55,000 years.

After about 4kms we came to a shelter, and a chair made from local wood.

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Jennifer had a sit down. I suspected that sometime in the last fifteen or twenty minutes, she’d woken up.

We then walked together for a while.

The sun came up – and as we wound around the base I looked up and saw what I regarded as a head. It was etched into the rock.

Face wider faace closer

Interestingly, it had a protuberance where the Third Eye is.

As we walked, it seemed to follow us – just like the Mona Lisa’s eyes are meant to follow you around the room!

Face vws

We walked further around the base into the full glare of the sun, now well into the sky. The light had changed dramatically. But the majesty of the rock was undiminished.

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Walking further around. And found new contours in the rock to marvel at. I could walk around Uluru a thousand times and see something new each time.

gaping mouth

This shot here above gives you no sense of how huge this is; from ground level to top of the rock is possibly twenty-five stories.

After about 2 and a half hours we decided to stop and have breakfast – a sandwich. Someone very kindly took our photo.

Bill and Jen on seat

As we sat having breakfast, this is what we were looking at.

What we're looking at

We finished our sambos and continued the last few kms of the walk. The sun was now behind the rock, starting to peak at its rim.

sun peaking 2

After nearly three hours we arrived back at the carpark. When we’d pulled in at 6am, ours was the only car – now it was nearly full.

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I took a photos of two tourists wearing nets to keep out the flies.

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Most of the tourists were wearing these nets, because the flies are so intense they get into your eyes, up your nose, into your ears. Insect sprays etc simply don’t work with these little buggers.

As we got into the car to drive back to the hotel, Jennifer and I agreed that it was one of the most extraordinary walks we’ve ever done.

I mused that we travel so much, and yet one of the great walks is right in our own back yard. But then that’s the same no matter where you live….

We tend to think that the ultimate experiences are in exotic foreign places.

Sometimes they’re right at home…

Jen looking at rock

Uluru – day 3 ~

My day started early this morning – 5:30am.

I woke up, and realised that Jennifer would probably sleep till 11am if she was undisturbed. And 10:30am if she was disturbed.

Not wanting to kick my heels in a darkened hotel room for some 5 hours or more, I decided to head out to catch sunrise over the Olgas.

I got to the Park Ranger Station leading into the Uluru National Park, and there were two cops there doing a random breath testing.

And it was just on 6am, and still dark!

Looking around, hoping there was a film crew shooting it all for RBT (a reality tv show in Australia that I’m addicted to) – and disappointed to see there wasn’t, I submitted to the breath testing somewhat churlishly.

I had cleaned my teeth fifteen minutes earlier, and wondered if there was any alcohol in Colgates Whiter than White. Fortunately there wasn’t, and they let me through.

Anyone who has read my book, PHOTO CAMINO knows that good shootable light at sunrise is fleeting, compared to good shootable light at sunset, which tends to last longer.

I didn’t want to go to Uluru again, so I headed to The Olgas, a line of bulbous stone rocks about 40kms from Uluru.

I had to move fast though, because the sun was already rising, and there was a layer of high cloud over most of the sky.

Part way I stopped and got a distant shot of Uluru –

Uluru at sunrise

And then kept driving towards The Olgas.

I climbed a ridge some distance away, but by this time the light was pretty boring – the sun had risen into a band of high cloud, but I still took some shots.

Olgas

I raced back to wake up Jennifer – who would have slept till 11am if undisturbed – and at 9am we attended the second day of the Kryon Consciousness Retreat.

There were people lined up out the door to get a seat.

Line into conference

This guy is hugely popular. There are people attending this retreat that have come from 23 different countries. Some follow Lee Carroll around the world attending his events, like groupies following a rock star.

I can see why.

We walked in, and immediately stepped into a meditation that was accompanied by two didgeridoo players. The two players, working in harmony and at times out of harmonic, created a sound that took the top of your head off.

Mesmerising, and profoundly a product of their land, and their unique and ageless culture.

Sorry I have no photos to accompany this, but photos were not allowed.

After the session I did the interview with Lee.

He was incredible. Articulate, smart, and on the button with intuition. He will be an important part of the film. A great interview.

I then did another interview with a wonderful Chinese doctor – Grace Moy O’Brien – (yes it doesn’t appear to be a Chinese name, but she was born in Penang, in Malaysia.) She talked eloquently about the chakra  system, and energies within the body that Western medicine is yet to formally acknowledge, yet Chinese medicine has worked with for centuries.

This evening we were invited to have our energetic imprints scanned by a new machine only recently brought into this country. I will write a separate post about it later, because it’s amazing, and what Doug Strandly and Grace are doing will revolutionise conventional medical thought.

machine ws

They scanned both Jennifer and myself, and as I say I will write more in depth on this in a separate post, but I just wanted to report that the machine, amongst other things, measures chakras. It measures the energetic level of each chakra – the “size” of the chakra – and the alignment.

Jennifer's chakras

Jennifer’s chakras were strong and healthy, and got very many murmurs of admiration from Doug and Grace – particularly as they were mostly all in perfect alignment.

Then they did my scan, and showed me my chakras.

Mine were friggin’ HUGE!

my chakras

Now, I know this is not a competition, right? And I am a mature dignified bloke with grey hair (or white as Jennifer cruelly described it this morning, after she had woken) however my chakras were bigger than hers!

Let me repeat that in caps:

MY CHAKRAS WERE BIGGER THAN JENNIFER’S.

my chkras bigger

Yes, mine were out of alignment a bit. In fact one was almost off the chart, but I’m not fussed about a straying chakra. A couple of shoulder stands will fix that.

Those who had previously murmured in appreciation at Jennifer’s chakras were now gasping in wonderment at mine!

Seriously, this machine is something else. I lost a filling in my upper left tooth. No-one knew about it, not even Jennifer.

It showed up on this scan.

Early night tonight because we want to walk the Base Track around Uluru at sunrise tomorrow morning.

If I can wake Jennifer up, that is…

tree at sunset