Bill & Jennifer

In a little less than a month now, Jennifer and I will be leading a tour of the Portuguese Camino, taking 13 New Zealand carers from Porto to Santiago – a walk of about 240kms.

Carers are those amazing folk who care for someone; whether they be sick, injured, infirm, elderly, incapacitated in some way – in other words, those that need to be cared for.

These carers are remarkable people.
But what they do day-to-day is demanding, depleting, and emotionally draining.

I was contacted some time ago now by a wonderful lady named Laurie Hilsgen, who is the head of an organisation in New Zealand that represents carers. Laurie asked if we could mount a pilgrimage walk, because she believed it would be a wonderful way for some of these carers to fill their tank again, so to speak.

She believed a Camino would be a great way to rid themselves of any pent-up anguish, emotional turmoil, exhaustion, frustration, sorrow and any or all of the sundry other psychological debris that comes from what they do each day.

More importantly, Laurie hoped that a Camino would be restorative, and a way for these wonderful carers to recharge their batteries, and to renew and refresh themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We will finish the tour not at Santiago, but further on at Cape Finisterre – the End of the World – where we plan to hold a ceremony at sunset – a ceremony that will represent the “casting off” of any negative emotional energy that might still cling to them.

Cape Finisterre cross at sunset

I’m sure they will find the Camino to be a magic elixir.

On a purely physical level, the mere act of getting up early, walking in the fresh spring air of Portugal and Spain, walking long distances up and down hills and across streams and through magnificent medieval villages – that in itself is incredibly restorative.

Cape Finisterre lighthouse

Then there’s the meditative aspect of walking – walking sometimes 25kms in a day – the hypnotic nature of that, of being at one with your breath, with the rhythm of your steps, with the movement of your limbs.

It takes you inside yourself. It shakes loose old worries, old fears, bitter regrets.
It brings them out into the light, into the sunshine, where you can look at them, and laugh at them, and walk way from them. Leave them behind, on the trail.

It cleanses you.

Valencia – Portugal

Yes you get tired, yes you get sore, yes you wonder sometimes if you’ll complete the day’s walk – but that’s all part of it. That’s what makes getting to Santiago, and getting your Compostela – your Official Certificate of Completion of the Camino – so worthwhile. That’s what makes it such a special achievement.

There is an enormous sense of achievement completing a Camino.

It lifts your self esteem – and that doesn’t fade. That stays with you for years and years.

Santiago Cathedral

They talk about the Camino “glow,” that glow that pilgrims acquire during the walk, and when they get to Santiago. You can see it in photos. You can see it in those around you as the Camino takes hold. It is a glow. It’s palpable. Something happens inside you that imbues you with this very special quality.

Let’s talk about energy – because that’s where, for me, it all happens.

The Camino – any pilgrimage walk – is imprinted with soul energy. The energy of all those souls who have come before you. It’s in the very earth beneath your feet, as you walk. It’s the residue of the soul intention of the millions – yes millions – of pilgrims who have walked that path too. Each footprint has left an imprint of soul energy.

That soul energy then comes up through the earth, through your feet chakras, and it enters your energetic system, and that’s what gives you that glow. That’s what imbues you with that magical quality. That’s what enables 70 year olds to walk 800kms. That’s what heals the sick. That’s what gives cripples the strength to climb mountains.

It happens. It’s real.

After my first Camino I threw away my glasses. I’d had glasses for fifteen years. After the Camino, I realised my eyesight had improved so much I didn’t need them anymore. If I needed validation, last year I passed an eyesight test to renew my drivers license. Before the Camino, I’d needed glasses to pass that test.

Before the Camino – a few years before…

A week after my first Camino

This energy of healing, of restoration, is in the air you breath, it’s in the fresh foods you eat, it’s in the ancient churches and monasteries and alburges.

Jennifer and I are really looking forward to this pilgrimage. For me, it will be my fourth. But this one will be very special, because of the wonderful people we’ll be walking with.

I want to hear their stories.
Because I’m sure they’re remarkable…

On the Portuguese Camino

On my walk to the editing room the other day I noticed a man on a bicycle cycling past, wearing a helmet. On top of the helmet was a GoPro. A mini video camera. (…for those of you who don’t know what a GoPro is!)

I then began to notice this more and more.
So many people riding bicycles were wearing GoPros.

I did some research and discovered they weren’t wearing GoPros so that they could video their journey to and from work each day, it was so they could document an accident should it happen.

I thought about this.

I thought what brave souls they were, cycling to and from work each day, skirting death. They must have such a high level of conviction an accident might happen – so high that they mount a camera on their helmet. Man o man I thought – they must live in such fear each day, on their bicycles.

Huh – and I thought riding a bike was meant to be fun. Liberating. Exhilarating.
Apparently not – at least, not for these folk.

I see people out walking, and they’re wearing safety vests. Reflective clothing. They must worry about being hit by a car. They too must live in such fear.

And then I thought about intention, and about where they’re focusing their attention.

By wearing a GoPro, by wearing reflective vests and so forth, they’re setting their attention on having an accident. My understanding of the Spiritual Law of Attraction is that you get what you believe.

You might say they’re being careful.
Or “covering themselves,” should an accident happen.

With the GoPro camera they will have video proof that the accident, should it occur, wasn’t their fault. Wearing the vest no doubt will help in the obligatory compensation case when they’re hit by a car and crippled for life.

They’ll get more money because it wasn’t their fault. They could clearly be seen, because they were wearing a safety vest.

Why didn’t they pay more attention when they were walking?
Why didn’t they cycle more carefully?

Why don’t they take more responsibility for their actions?
For what they do?

Because they’re afraid.

I’m fascinated by how much fear we allow into our lives.
In the most subtle and insidious of ways.

I’m also fascinated by how much misfortune we attract into our lives because of where we place our thoughts. Our attention. Our energy.

How much fear do you carry with you each day?

For those of you following the progress of my film, well, I mentioned last week that I had made a creative breakthrough – and now it’s starting to cascade.

The thoughts and images are coming.

This is a film which will be made in post production. Editing. I’ve always known that. But now I’m starting to realise to what extent that will be true.

I’m not talking about cutting interviews. That’s the easy part. (Well, we’re into our 4th week now and we’re still cutting those interviews!) But I’m talking about the way the story is told. What I call the delivery system. The aesthetic of the film – the underlying intellectual DNA of the film. That’s what I’ve been searching for. That’s what I’ve been struggling with.

But now it’s finally coming together. I have allowed the film to speak to me, to tell me how best it should be made, and finally it’s begun to have a dialogue with me. And that dialogue excites the hell out of me.

I’m staying with my daughter and her fella in the city part of Sydney, and each day I walk 7kms to the editing room. And after work of an evening I walk 7kms back. I do this to prepare for the Portuguese Camino coming up, but also it gives me time to think.

I’ve found myself listening to podcasts – and I began listening to a series called Serial, podcast by This American Life. I know I’m very late to the party on this one – that it’s been around for a while, and I’ve been aware that when it began it created a cultural furore – huge excitement about the story, but also about the way the story was told.

I have now listened to both Season One and Season Two – and I’ve been fascinated by the mechanics of storytelling within the two seasons. Yes, audio allows you certain liberties not available in film – but I’m talking about an approach to non-fiction storytelling that conventional visual documentary has yet to embrace.

This to me has been the biggest breakthrough in my approach to my film – finding a way to impart information in a way that breaks down the formalism of non-fiction storytelling.

Also –

For quite some time now I’ve been writing a journal of the process of making this film. A whole lot of seriously weird stuff has happened and continues to happen – and I’ve felt that it’s important to keep a running diary.

On one hand it will be an interesting account of the process of putting such a unique film together – but it will also be a wonderful account of how to use your intuition to create something… and the fears and obstacles that present themselves.Because in making the film intuitively, I’ve opened myself up to the vagaries of the Universe, and at times it’s been terrifying, and at other times incredibly liberating.

Anyway, I thought I might now post my entry this morning, which I began writing at 4am after an hour of thinking through my film…

I should also add that I have put REDACTED over certain sections where I talk about the craft techniques I’ll be using in the film. It’s like what the CIA does with transcripts of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, when they don’t want the world to know they’ve been waterboarding them. Obviously I want to keep this craft stuff private until the film comes out…

APRIL 6

It’s 4 am and I’ve been awake about an hour. My head has been spinning with visual possibilities. And I think I’ve settled on something – something that I’ve been grappling with for some time now, and that is to find a way to impart information in a casual and personal way, without diminishing the veracity of what I’m saying – and yet in a way that enables me to summarise and precis, and comment upon and explain.

Most importantly though, I’ve been trying to find a way of imparting information which enables me to express how I feel, and how I’m feeling about things at certain parts of the story. And that’s what I think I’ve found just now. 

It comes back to Serial, and the way Sarah Koenig and her team were able to “jump dots” in their storytelling. What does “jump dots” mean? It means you don’t have to connect all the dots. You can jump dots. You can do the heavy lifting for the audience, and they will not only accept that, they will welcome that because they trust you. That’s the key to it – they trust you. They trust that you’ve done your homework, that you’ve stuck to journalistic principals and truths, and that when you deviate into personal conjecture, which I must in this film, then it’s clear that I’m doing so, and when I’m doing it, and there’s no confusion between objective and subjective. 

That I guess is the key to this – what I’ve been trying to do is find a narrative delivery system whereby I’m able to shift between the objective and subjective. And indeed, even embracing the subjective from a personal perspective in a film like this will be bold. And really scary for me too because I’m really putting myself out there. 

But it comes down to the ….REDACTED…. with the film, and with me. And what I think and what I feel. I can use this device to comment upon what we’ve just seen and heard, and also to prep the audience for what’s coming up. I can also though use this device to make personal observations, and to do so in a very casual and “street” like manner. A bit like a political commentator. 

I’m also thinking about REDACTED use of graphics REDACTED, and also having shifting information REDACTED that’s germane to what I’m talking about. 

The audience now has a whole new grammar which they’re using in their ingestion of visual information – a grammar that didn’t exist even five years ago. That’s thanks to social media, and a technology which allows a multitude of different informational streams. Both software and hardware. 

And yet conventional documentary non-fiction filmmaking hasn’t adjusted. They’re still speaking in Olde English. There seems to be a belief that in maintaining a certain formality in nonfiction filmmaking, that this imbues the film and the filmmaker (perhaps more importantly) with credibility. And in some cases it does – but it’s old speak. It’s old grammar and language and syntax. The world has turned. There are new and more exciting ways of imparting information. 

Particularly with such a complex story as the one I’m telling, I have to find a clear and accessible way to impart information which isn’t alienating, which isn’t confusing, which isn’t soap-box, which is engaging. And real and personal and emotional and revealing. 

I’ve learned so much from listening to Serial, and analysing how they’ve told that story. Really examining the very subtle ways they’ve broken the conventions of nonfiction storytelling. I found a New Yorker podcast of an interview with Sarah Koenig, and on my walk to the editing room last week I listened to it – and it was fascinating to hear her talk about her process.

Thing is – we don’t have to do what what’s been done before. That’s the key to it as far as I’m concerned. Listening to a podcast of Lee Carroll yesterday on my walk, (Lee Carroll channels Kryon, and he’s featured in my film) – he said: “You have to get to the point where you trust what you don’t see.”

That stayed with me all day. You have to trust what you don’t see. There’s huge wisdom in that short statement. He also talked about the dirty windscreen, and wiping a patch clean and being able to see out – and the more you clean, the more you can see. That’s what’s now happening with this film – I’m starting to clean larger patches, and I can see more clearly. 

Anyway I need now to get back to sleep otherwise I’ll be a wreck in the editing room today.

I’ve been editing my intuition film now for three weeks, going through the interviews and pulling the best bits.

It’s an intense process.

I’ve shot more than 50 interviews and after 3 weeks, we’ve only cut 20 interviews – that’s how painstaking the process is.

It’s a wonderful opportunity though for me to take in the wisdom of what these people are saying – to truly absorb it – because I have to go over the interviews many times in the process of selection.

I’m making the film intuitively, and so I haven’t gone into the editing room with a fixed idea of how to approach the film stylistically. I’ve wanted the material to speak to me.

For nearly three weeks it didn’t speak to me.
And I was starting to panic.
In fact I was really starting to freak out.

Then on Thursday night it finally did speak to me. Something one of the interviewees said clicked with me, and I made a creative breakthrough that has truly excited me. I can’t tell you what that is – only that I’m hoping that this will be unlike any film you’ve ever seen.

If I wanted to make a regular documentary, I would have cut all the interviews by now, and I’d be heading towards a locked off cut in two to three weeks. That’s the usual schedule for a documentary.

Not this one. Not the way I’m making it. As it is, I can’t see myself being out of the editing room before maybe August, at the earliest.

But – when I am finally finished, I think the film will be amazing. And it will be something that a lot of people will want to see.

I have more to shoot, and some interesting things to do in post production – and I need more money. I really need more money. Availability of funds will also dictate my timing.

That aside –

I wanted to tell you about a parable told to me by one of the interviewees – the wonderful lady who runs the Bombay Yoga Institute, which is said to be the oldest yoga centre in the world. Her name is Smt. Hansaji Jayadeva Yogendra, and she’s one of the leaders of the Hindu community in India – and a very wise lady.

This is the story she told me:

A man was climbing a mountain. It was snowing, and getting late. He was nearly at the top of the mountain, but night was falling, He wanted to get to the top before it got dark. 

As he got to the top, he slipped and fell. 

He fell and he fell – and as he was falling down the side of the mountain he was quite convinced that he would die. There was no way he could not die. But then he was jerked up – and he remembered – he was wearing a safety rope!

He finally came to rest dangling on the end of the safety rope, swaying in the wind.

It was night now, completely dark, and it was freezing. He knew that he would not survive the night in the cold. He would freeze to death. 

And so in his mind he asked for help – and a “voice” came to him. He believed this to be the Voice of God. The voice said to him: If you want to live, then cut the rope.

The climber said: No, I can’t cut the rope. I’ll die. Please give me another way so I can live. 

Cut the rope, the voice said again. 

Again the climber said he couldn’t. He pleaded with God to give him another way, but he was not answered. 

In the morning, rescuers came, and they found his body.

He had frozen to death.

As they cut him free of the rope, one of the rescuers said to another: What a shame he didn’t realise – he was only ten feet off a ledge. If he’d cut himself free of the rope and fallen onto that soft snow on the ledge, he then could have made his way down off the mountain, and he would have lived. 

Hansaji told me, her eyes sparkling as she finished this story, that so many times we believe we know better than our intuitive wisdom.

But we actually don’t.

We can’t see what our guidance sees…

I was channel surfing last night.

I’d watched the most recent episode of BETTER CALL SAUL (fabulous), I’d watched the final episode of Season 3 of the Scandinavian noir series THE BRIDGE, (heart-wrenching and so so smart), and I’d endured another episode of THE PEOPLE vs OJ SIMPSON (horrible writing, horrible performances, but the car chase down the 405 is still mesmerising, even if fictionalised.)

I flipped channels and came into a programme half way through, called WORLD’S BEST RESTAURANTS. 

I’m always intrigued by the best of anything – excellence in all its forms fascinates me, and I always like to try and learn from those who are the best at whatever they do.

And so I began watching this show.

It was about a restaurant in New York called ELEVEN MADISON PARK. It’s regarded as one of the most expensive restaurants in America, but also one of the best.

Someone was being interviewed – it must have been the Chef, Daniel Humm – because he described how when they first started out, they were given a review by a famous food critic. The review was largely positive, but the review finished by saying that the only thing wrong with the restaurant was that it “needed a bit more Miles Davis.”

Humm was confused by that statement.
What did the reviewer mean?

Instead of dismissing it, or rejecting it as being too obscure, Humm and his team over the following months tried to determine exactly what that reviewer meant by that statement: They needed to be a bit more Miles Davis. 

So they compiled a list of commonly used keywords associated with Miles Davis, and they came up with the following:

• Cool.
• Endless Reinvention.
• Inspired.
• Forward-Moving.
• Fresh.
• Collaborative.
• Spontaneous.
• Vibrant.
• Adventurous.
• Light.
• Innovative.

Eleven words for ELEVEN MADISON PARK. 

This became the restaurant’s mission statement. They put this list up a board and hung it in the kitchen. And they decided that they would become “a bit more Miles Davis.”

It propelled them into the stratosphere. They became one of the top restaurants not only in the US, but in the world.

Their cuisine became renowned for being all those things on that list –

Why do I put this story up on this blog?

Because it’s a wonderful lesson in how to deal with negativity. You can dismiss it, or allow it to consume you, or you can use it to your benefit.

You can examine it,  learn from it, and you can grow.

That’s what those guys did…

We’ve been editing four five days now, and last night I invited two people in to look at some early cut footage.

Geoff Michels and I go back to 1976, when he was my Executive Producer at the ABC, while I was working as a current affairs reporter on THIS DAY TONIGHT. Geoff later left the ABC and built a very successful career in corporate public relations.

Over the intervening years we have remained friends, and many years ago now I told him that I wanted to make a film on intuition, and he thought it was a great idea. Geoff put in some early seed money, and he has since brought in several investors. He’s now an Executive Producer on this film.

Last night he brought along one of the investors and I showed him some cut interviews, and some visual footage. The interviews were:

Dr. Dean Radin – the Chief Research scientist at the Noetic Sciences Institute in Northern California, and one of the world’d leading research scientists studying human consciousness.

John Geiger, academic and former editor for the Toronto Globe & Mail, now CEO of the Canadian Geographical Society. Most famous for his best selling book, THE THIRD MAN FACTOR, which documents the phenomenon of a “sensed presence” that appears to some people when they’re under extreme duress, and when their life is in peril. It’s a term that was coined by Sir Ernest Shackleton on his infamous trek through the Antarctic.

Dr. Norm Shealy, one of the world’s leading research neuroscientists, and an expert on pain management. He’s regarded as being a pioneer in holistic medicine in the west.

James Van Praagh – a celebrated American psychic and author of many best selling books.

So I showed Geoff and the other investor some of these cut interviews, and some footage, and Geoff sent me this email this morning, which he wants me to disseminate to the other investors…

(And, I have to say, Geoff comes to intuition from a rationalist viewpoint. With his journalistic background, he has a healthy scepticism of all things “spiritual,” and leans heavily towards science and a belief in only what can be proven…)

There’s something that I’ve learned.

This might sound simplistic, and self evident, however it’s hit me just now with a profound wallop.

Life is full of choices.
And there are only two choices you can make:

You can choose to act out of love.
Or you can choose to act out of fear.

Most of us, most of the time, choose to act out of fear.
Usually, it’s fear of loss, or fear of lack.

And so we live according to the choices we make.
We live in fear.

Next time you’re faced with a choice, ask yourself:
Am I making this choice out of fear? 

To do this, you have to be aware.
You have to be awake.

Most of us aren’t.

So the first step to making choices out of love is to wake up.

How do you wake up?

Become mindful.
Pay attention.
Be here now.

Make choices consciously, with awareness, and learn to ask yourself:
Am I making this choice out of fear? 

If so, then ask yourself:

Is this really what I want?
Or do I want to trust… 

Today we started editing my film on intuition – called INTUITION IS YOUR PERSONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM. 

The editor is Rishi Shukla, who edited the sizzle reels that have helped get the film such early notice.

By saying we started editing though, that doesn’t mean the shooting has stopped.

I estimate we still have at least a third of the film yet to shoot, and possibly more. But by commencing editing now, I can see exactly what I’ve got, where it fits into the structure, and what I need to get to complete the storytelling.

I’ll be shooting and editing side by side for many months to come.

We are making the film for cinema – for a theatrical release, with a VOD release to follow – and so the technical side of things has to be exact.

Josh Pomeranz, head of Spectrum Films, has come on board as an investor in the film – as have Wayne and Libby Pashley, from Big Bang Sound Design.

We are editing out of Big Bang Sound, but using Spectrum’s gear.

Josh and Wayne and Libby have been long term supporters of me, and of this film. I am incredibly grateful to them.

Jennifer is producing alongside of me. She’s produced my last six movies, and so she comes to this film with a vast and sophisticated knowledge and understanding of story, and cinema.

With this film though her input will be invaluable, because of her knowledge of the subject and the arena. She’s been studying the esoteric principles of spirituality for some 25 years.

The film will be more than just a spiritual interpretation of intuition though – it will explore intuition from a religious and scientific perspective as well.

Rishi and Jennifer and I started the day in a coffee shop, talking about the film – going through the underlying principals of the story.

I have to say – and I say this unreservedly: this is the hardest film I’ve ever attempted to make. I’ve made films in very difficult locations, with very difficult actors, in snow, in searing heat, with technical breakdowns and interfering studios – but nothing compares to this film in it’s degree of difficulty.

Because the difficulties here aren’t exterior, they lie within the very nature of the story.

But that’s what excites me.
That’s what gets my juices flowing.

I have to find a stillness, and allow the film to guide me. If I try to “make” this film, I’ll botch it. I have to allow it to make itself.

It will speak to me.
It already has, many times.
That’s what’s got me to where I am right now.

Going forward, into the edit, I just have to listen to its voice,
and trust,
and follow.

I got a wonderful five star review for my book this morning –

This book really spoke to me. I am finally going on the Camino this June and feel energized yet a bit daunted about what I’ve committed myself to. Will I be able to complete the Camino? Bill Bennet’s narrative has awed and inspired me to take the leap of faith. Thanks, mate!

One of the things that knocks me out about how the book has fared is that it’s encouraged others to walk the Camino. That gives me great pleasure.

The book has been out in the marketplace now about two and a half years, and it has far exceeded my expectations. It seems like each year it finds new readerships – perhaps as more folk consider doing the Camino.

I have now finished a screenplay based loosely on the book – and have initial interest from Universal. The film will be humorous in tone, like the book.

It takes a long time to get a film made – so don’t expect it in the cinemas any time soon – and I have two other films to make in the interim – PGS and DEFIANT.

I am constantly amazed at how social media works.

This blog goes out on Facebook and Twitter.

And just a short while ago I got notification that Fatburger liked my tweet – which was my “Religion is a Fatburger” post, which I put up yesterday.

Isn’t that cool?