THREE THREADS

I'd like to begin by sharing with you the three threads that were to weave themselves into what was to become the fabric of my life.

The first thread I'll share with you is that I was adopted at just over five weeks old.  I didn't think that my adoption had anything to do with anything. I'd always known that I was adopted, but it has become quite clear that with the vast amount of work I have done around it, that it had a far deeper impact upon my thinking than I’d previously thought.

A thought will only become a belief because a thought has been thought over and over and over again. And if that's the case, well, you’ll shortly understand why I ended up doing what I did.

Whilst I had always known, rarely did I think of my adoption as anything ‘weird’, anything to be ashamed of, anything that had to do with anything really – yet somehow,  something deep within was stirring.

I’d created a belief, deeply unconscious, “that if my natural mother could give me away, how much can I be worth?”

So right from when I was born, deeply unconscious, a thread had been woven, a deep undercurrent of ‘worth-less-ness’.

Biological Parents

A little bit of backstory about my biological parents. My natural mother was very young, only nineteen years old, a young girl from country Victoria. To be unmarried and pregnant in 1965 Australian society was deeply frowned upon.

I am the product of an era when disgrace was brought to the whole family if an unmarried daughter became “with child”. The matter was dealt with swiftly before the daughter started to “show” by arranging for her to spend the remainder of the pregnancy as far away from home as possible. Many big cities had so-called, “Homes for Unmarried Women”. These ‘Homes’ were where these poor girls stayed and were cared for until after the birth of the child. Adoption of the baby was arranged and the daughter went home to a family whose reputation, hopefully, remained intact.

No thought whatsoever was given to the mental wellbeing of any of these women, let alone my biological mother.

I pray life has been good to her.

To allay ‘any embarrassment brought upon the family’, my biological mother was forced to leave country Victoria, come up to Sydney and give up the baby. Baby me.

The nuns in the orphanage shared to many that she was ‘a very nice young girl’.

Recently, there’s been a series on television called ‘Love Child’. I was one of those babies.

I spent the first five weeks of my life in an orphanage, untouched. The only time I was touched was when babies were fed or their nappy changed. And as we all know, babies that are left untouched fail to thrive.

There isn't much information about my biological father, however, we do know he was from Hawaii, or somewhere in the Pacific Islands.

Hence, I have a nice tan and big nostrils. That's the only information available about him.

COME GET ME

My adoption transpired due to my adoptive parents, John and Elaine McMillan, being unable to have children.

Whilst the story of why Dad couldn’t have kids is not entirely clear, it is known that Dad had either, mumps, a viral infection of the salivary glands (but if contracted as an adult can make one sterile) or it was an old WWII grievous bodily injury that had resulted in him not being able to do so.

Sadly, no one survives to collaborate with certainty on this.

I spent my first thirty six days in St Margaret’s orphanage in Darlinghurst, Sydney, until Mum and Dad, the only parents I know, came to pick me up at the end of July 1965.

I grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney in a very kind, loving, ‘normal’ middle class, kind of “happy go lucky, lucky go crazy” environment. It was a very average upbringing with both my parents doing the best they could with what they had.

The second thread I will share with you is that I was a very sick kid, very ill with asthma, repeatedly in and out of the hospital, nearly dying nine times before I was ten years old due to the lack of medical technology and research around asthma at that stage.

As a young fellow growing up, I was unable to run and play with the friends I had. One can imagine, my mother's fear of losing her firstborn, whether that firstborn be biological or adopted, presented as her being very strict - and understandably so. The way I was perceiving ‘things’ to be whilst being so ill was everyone around me was not allowing me to learn to live life on life's terms, to learn by my mistakes. As human beings we learn by our mistakes, sometimes slowly, sometimes swiftly.

 “Oh you poor little thing, I will do that for you,” was how I perceived my life to be as I was growing up. I was not taking responsibility for myself, I wasn’t even aware I could, I was inherently ‘lazy’, the primary thought being,

“Why would I do that, when I’ve got you to do it for me?” or

“Mum could you please do this, mum could you please do that?”, being the most common refrain.

Thus, I was growing up to be VERY irresponsible.

How could I learn to become responsible (response - able) when I had a whole bunch of people doing everything for me?

So – to that end – in combination with a very deep sense of worthlessness, I was growing up to be exceedingly irresponsible.

Thus I’ve shared with you the first two threads.

The first thread being a deeply unconscious undercurrent of ‘worth-less-ness’, the second thread being one of irresponsibility.

The third thread that I’ll share with you, is what happens to all of us.

That process is called Puberty.

I was a late bloomer, mine didn't start until I was about thirteen and a half years of age, but between thirteen and nineteen, I went from about five foot five and fifty kilos wringing wet, to six foot three and one hundred and two kilos -  more than doubling in weight.

In that space of six years, one can imagine that there's a lot of physical pain, joints, and bone growth, aching all over, plus the emotions and hormonal turmoil, everything that goes with a young boy, not only getting stronger but more than doubling in weight.

Around about the same time, about fourteen or fifteen years of age, I was becoming extraordinarily interested in the opposite sex - as they did me. Because I'm physically growing so quickly, because there was a deep unknown undercurrent of worthlessness, because I was becoming quite irresponsible, I was unpinned.

I didn't have a deep internal knowing that I was okay, that I was enough. 

I was untethered.

I was unconsciously looking for validation outside of me, looking for the validation to let me know that “I was ok”. My body was getting stronger, I was able to bicycle everywhere, was able to swim and surf, I felt good in my body and my asthma was beginning to dissipate.

And if I've got a whole bunch of girls telling me I’m ok?

“Look at you, look at your muscles, it's fantastic, look how strong you are!”  and the like.

Over and over. These girls are taking an interest in little ol’ me, they're telling me how good I am and if I do not have an internal compass to let me inherently know that I’m ok, how do you suppose I am going to respond?
I thought I was “King Shit”! 

I thought that because all these outside people were telling me how good I am, well…. That must mean I am GREAT!

“Wow! Look how you’ve grown!!”

You know the deal – that elderly aunt who I hadn’t seen for a while?

“My, look at how big you are!”

I had turned into an arrogant, smug, self-serving, self-absorbed, BIG idiot who thought I ruled the world. In the body of a six foot three man with the mind of a child.

I call it the “Wanker Factor”. LOL!

Little did I know that by the time I was twenty years old I was a worthless, irresponsible wanker and I didn’t even know about it!

I've never met my biological mum.

I’ve always known that I was adopted, but to the lengths that the woman who became my mother went, the pain she endured raising me, and the love that was unconditional - of that, I did not realise, not until I became a parent myself.

She has always been a way better mother to me than I have been a son to her. I do hope that I live into the image she has always held for me - and for that - I am deeply grateful. My life, all my longings, all my questions, the searching, the loss, the discoveries, and the constant, never-ending fuel that leads me onwards - all stem from the woman that became my mum.

Was it the act of devotion that made her my mother? Did she gain that label when she found me in those lonely rooms? If people were measured by their deeds, on one hand, I had one woman who had chosen to give me away; on the other - and to this day - I had a woman who sat with me those endless nights as a very sick young boy in those sterile hospital rooms, who cried with me over lost girlfriends, whose flaming applause at guitar recitals swelled my heart. Which acts made her more of a mother?

I have come to know that it is both. Being a mother is not about bearing a child - it is about bearing witness to its - my - Life. I do not necessarily need to have her DNA. For when the DNA of love flows through my life - I KNOW she is my mum.

Life gives and takes from us all, as parents and families, providers and communities. There are times when I am reminded more acutely of this as a father, a husband, a son, a friend, and a man.

Many times, all my lives spill together, and the memories of mothers I know gently intrude into the celebration of my mother, my wife, my friends.

I have many stories to share …. but none more poignant than a mother’s love for her child.

And for that - I am obliged to pass it on to my own.

With my deepest respect to her wishes regarding her tightly held privacy, none of Mum’s stories will be shared here. However, she has let me know that many would just plain ol’ knock your hair out, rollicking yarns of her younger years with many well-known, high-profile figures.

Let alone her many forays into the development, management, and ongoing input into many well-known, country-wide charity clubs.

Mum is full of intrigue, stratagem, and chicanery.

All of which echo down the years.

Bless you, mum - I shan’t tell a soul!

Mum and dad separated in the early 1980s and remained great friends until Dad’s passing in 1991. Mum and Lloyd, my now stepdad, have been together for many a year, meeting in 1983.

She’s eighty five now, sharp as a tack and fit as a fiddle. Taking care of my elderly, ninety two year old Lloyd stepdad is taking its toll, however - every phone call and conversation lets me know that she is as loving, kind, patient, exceedingly politically incorrect (MUM! You can't say that!!) I just LOVE THAT! and as irreverent as ever.

John Alexander McMillan was born in New Zealand on Apr 6, 1914, to Scottish parents and he led such an extraordinary life.

In 1918, the port city of Haifa was captured from the Turkish Empire by Indian soldiers serving in the British Army.

My grandfather, a Scottish engineer, and his family (dad was the middle child of three) were posted to Haifa, Lebanon in 1920, to take part in the British Mandate. Haifa’s development owed much to British plans to make it a central port & hub for Middle Eastern crude oil. The British Government of Palestine developed the port and built refineries, facilitating the rapid development of the city as a centre for the country’s heavy industry.

My grandfather was heavily involved in this expansion, but with a wife and three kids in tow, grandfather was rarely available to see the children. However, that was soon to change.

In 1921, as a seven year old curious child, John junior, my dad, would explore the port city and play on his own, much to the chagrin of his mother and sisters.

At the same time as dad’s explorations, there was the beginning of a rapid influx into the city. Due to immigration, Jews from Europe flooded the area as well as Arabs, many from surrounding villages as well as Syria.

One can only imagine the turmoil in the city at the time; the Turks had been routed from the city only three years beforehand, there was a major influx of new peoples into the area, a large expansion was going on and my grandfather was high up in the echelons of British engineering, guiding the expansion of the city.

His middle child was the last thing on his mind.

Some of the local villagers took it upon themselves to ‘teach the British a lesson’ and one balmy evening when Dad was playing by himself, four Arab head dressed – and clearly fanatical – villagers used a slingshot to fling a stone at Dad, striking him in the forehead, knocking him out.

As a way of ‘getting back at the British Empire’, they kidnapped my father and held him to ransom, the son of the lead engineer on the expansion of Haifa!

Whilst everything did turn out for the best, Dad’s main recollection of the whole incident was somewhat dimmed by a very full life, yet his most striking memory being the meeting with T.E. Lawrence, THE Lawrence of Arabia.

Dad was introduced to him after his safe return after four days with his kidnappers, Lawrence being a close friend with my grandfather.

Was Dad returned safely due to Lawrence’s involvement?

Had the kidnappers heard of the Battle Of Aqaba and who instigated it?

Did they know that, at that time, that same man was in Haifa?

Did they know that Lawrence was a close friend of my grandfather? 

The answers to these questions remain somewhat murky. Dad passed away in 1991 and no family remains to verify the story, only very faded black and white photos.

But here was a man, a very passionate man, who went on to serve in World War 2 with the New Zealand Air Force, suffered a grievous injury, and went on to have a distinguished racing career with the likes of Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, and Jackie Stewart.

He helped design and reconfigure many different car types, especially for a jolly old Italian fella named Enzo. As in Ferrari.

He helped Bill Buckle (a high-profile car enthusiast here in Australia) reconfigure many a vehicle.

It’s interesting how old Bill was a client of mine for many years.

Dad married my mum back in 1959 and remained somewhat of an enigma to me as a young fellow growing up. He was always ‘there’ physically, but deep down I knew he really was not.

It was not until very recently that I found out that Dad was a deep meditator, a great thinker, and pursued an interest in the mysteries of the Universe and Spirit.

He was always saying to mum, “This is all an illusion, is all ‘this’ just a dream?”

How could he possibly have known the impact that these snippets of his life would have on his adopted son?

That the connections that bind us all, the twists and turns, the plots and counterplots had begun to weave into something magical?

That Lawrence of Arabia had unified many disparate values, beliefs and feelings to route a common ‘enemy’?

That this man had had a very big impact on my father’s life?

That, despite a rather distant relationship with my dad, there were things that he experienced that would echo my journey?

That many parts of my father’s life would not only mirror but would lead me onto a path of being able to see the bigger picture and articulate the connections?

Quite clearly there was something far more vast operating here, one that had plans way beyond my limited reckoning.

Just as when the seed is planted there is so much that is deeply mysterious, unseen and not fully understood that has a deep-rooted connection to nature herself.

We are not ‘apart from’ nature – WE ARE Nature herself.

These are unanswered mysteries.

Dad's best friend was a very kind fellow I knew as Uncle Tommy. Tom Sulman was another extraordinary man, his dad being Sir John Sulman.

Uncle Tommy’s dad helped Walter Burley Griffin redesign Canberra, the capital city of Australia, as Burley Griffin had done the commission site unseen. Not taking into account all the hills and dales, gullies, and creeks requiring Sir John to reset the design.

Mum still has Sir John’s drawing instruments and a couple of those original drawings of Canberra.

My most striking memory of dad was him visiting me via a dream over thirteen years ago (at the time of this writing) – he’d been gone over seventeen years at that particular stage, nevertheless, the dream was so vivid and so real, so life-changing and weird that I shall never forget it.

I’ll explain the dream to you shortly.

Some days I miss him terribly, there are others where I hear his voice.

He told mum that no one would ever visit him, being buried up in Blackheath, a beautiful country town situated in The Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

It’s a bit cold up there but we do visit. Very regularly.

And I know he’d love our kids. They’re very curious about you ol’ mate.

Vale John McMillan, my dad, my guide.

BEING A TEEN

Do you remember what my Aunt May had said to me?
“Look how big you are!”

Did you really take that in? Did you hear what my Aunt May said?

“LOOK at how big you are.”

Right from the start, there is a full immersion into ‘appearance”, looking at what we perceive through our senses as ‘reality’.

“How extraordinary!” was all Aunt May would say for the rest of that day.

I remember being about fourteen years old, having a whale of a time at my cousin’s property, swimming with my favourite cousins, carousing around like the young teen I was. My mum’s younger sister, Margie, said to me, (or so I thought, in actuality, my mum was standing directly behind me),

“Wow, look! Well done”, of course thinking that she was talking to me.

Of course. It’s all about me, isn’t it?

She wasn’t though – she was talking to mum.

“Not you Lex (my family’s name for me, short for my middle name, ‘Alexander’). I’m speaking to your mother.”

WHAT? What does she mean?

How crestfallen I was. Of course, she was not being disdainful or mean (Margie is not only one of the toughest women I know but also one of the gentlest) just equating how I physically looked (there it is again) to something outside of me. (Mum helping me heal, rather than my body doing what it naturally was going to do with medical support).

Maybe it was ego, maybe not, maybe that untapped well of my soul had been seen, but not really understood.

Maybe the soul seeds of what we ALL arrive with were being watered with love and attention, yet, with a deep undercurrent of ‘worth-less-ness” and being completely incapable of responding to life on life’s terms, (irresponsible),  it sure as heck didn’t feel like that.

It felt hurtful. Separate. Unseen.

I’d allowed the unrecognised ‘feeling’ of worth-less-ness, those external circumstances to dictate how I felt. And at full tilt, it ran.

And right in that space, a thought was created.

“I must look outside for validation.”

Weird though my thinking being, it was all I could come up with at the time.

The natural progression was as follows.

“If I focus on what I don’t want, if I push it away and keep at arm’s length then I won’t have to deal with it.”

And we all know how that works, right?

“I don’t want to feel like this so I’ll push it away.”

There are universal laws at work here, laws that were yet to cross into my orbit that are eternally at work. Always working, regardless of whether one is aware of them or not.

The Buddha said it quite eloquently.

“All that we are is a result of what we have thought.”

Not yet recognised, nor yet seen, or aware of – yet operating nonetheless.

There was a multiplicity of things going on, accidents and incidents that were creating safeguards to keep me where I was. Or rather -  how I perceived my ‘self’ to be.

I had bought into the age-old ‘original sin’ thought pattern, the construct of EGO that the masses buy into, like Wayne Dyer, the internationally renowned author and speaker so eloquently wrote and spoke of being,

I am what I do, I am what I have, I am what YOU think I am, I am separate from you, I am separate from what I perceive to be missing and I am separate from God or Spirit or Infinite Intelligence, The Universe or whatever you’d like to call it.

You’ve probably noticed the word ‘AMBULANCE ‘ written backward on the front of a vehicle so that a person seeing it in their rear-view mirror can read it. When you look into a mirror, what you see is backward, too. Your right hand is your left, what you are ‘seeing’ is backward. You understand that this is a backward view that you are seeing and you make the appropriate adjustments. You do not confuse reality with the image in the mirror.

The ego-idea of yourself is very much like the mirror example, without the adjustments. Your ego wants you to look for the inside on the outside.

Outer illusions are the major preoccupation of the ego.

By the time I was in my early twenties, I was still living at home, had been instilled with the ‘hard work’ ethic, had the ability to play even harder, and was completely unaware of the machinations of the seeds that had been planted in my Soul before I’d even shown up here, on this Earth, in June 1965!

There was much outside recognition and validation of ‘appearance’ going on for me. And it was my appearance that I was most enamoured with. How I looked, how I showed up, how I ‘appeared’ – “Look at me!” was the name of the game, my Ego was working overtime, yet way down deep I was still feeling like that eight year old child that was so very ill. An undercurrent of worth-less-ness, totally incapable of ‘responding’ to outside appearances – let alone what was trying to emerge. Weave those threads with a substantial amount of external validation of how I looked, the thinking that I was just God's gift to everything (you know? King Shit!) and being a bit of a mummy’s boy?

I was perpetually uprooting the seeds that were trying to emerge, to grow through and show me the way.

Site unseen.

Nevertheless, a gem-like flame had been sparked to life.

Deep within.

Waiting.

Watching intently.

REVISITING THE EIGHT YEAR OLD ME

Let us step back a little. I’d like to share with you some thoughts I had as a young boy.

Whilst I’ve never been a religious person, I’d always known of something far vaster at work here, something intangible, something wondrous, something that I, paradoxically, stood in awe of as I lay in bed as that sickly child.

Mum had instilled in me a deep love of reading from a very young age and once I could comprehend those black lines, dots, and marks on a page, that was IT!

A lifelong love affair was born with reading that continues to this day.
Being such an avid reader, I would devour whatever I could get my hands on, one of those books being The Bible, a dusty tome that lay at the back of one of mum’s bookcases. The only book I had not yet read at that stage.

As I lay ill on sweat-soaked cotton sheets in the peak of a hot summer day, I’d peer into the mysteries of the Universe – not really understanding what I was doing as such, but doing it nevertheless. Focussing upon the fine cotton thread of the sheets I lay upon, looking at the minuscule space in-between those threads, it held something deeply mysterious, something vast, but something that was inherently known.

‘If these gaps in-between, so small, so tiny, was the whole universe? Then how big am I?

Who is this ‘I’ looking at these spaces?

Not ‘Who am I’ but rather ‘Who is this ‘I’ looking outwards from inside this body.

Did these eyes really ‘see?’ or was this something else?”

These were only some of the questions that tumbled through my eight year old mind – yet to be deeply looked into, but from the vantage point of nearly five decades later – a vision was emerging. A knowing. I didn’t know it at the time, but all that was required was for that ‘ground’ to be nurtured and loved. Cultivated in the right conditions for the seeds to grow forth.

Of course, as an eight year old, I was yet to perceive ‘religion’, ‘spirituality’, and the space in between – that gap had been seen, but not recognised.

How could it?

I was eight years old for goodness sake, growing up with loving parents doing the best they could to heal a very ill child, a child who had been given away (or unable to be kept) by his natural parents, not feeling well physically, unable to express the undercurrent of unperceived ‘worthlessness’ or a feeling ‘less than’. And as I lay in my bedroom, on one of those hot summer days, I’d devour the pages of whatever was close at hand - at that stage - The Bible.

What I’d also inadvertently done, was to plug into a consciousness of ‘all things are connected’. Of course, I could not possibly understand the emergence of Quantum Physics, the science of connection and Source.

In good time.

In due course.

The seed had been planted.

Within the Bible, it states, ‘’We are born into original sin.”, being originally written in ancient Aramaic, then translated in the fourth century AD into ancient Greek.

The word ‘sin’ is actually an archery term, meaning to ‘miss the mark.’

Fundamentally, this means that we are born into a ‘mistaken identity’. We are born into a ‘consciousness’ that believes in separateness, of being different and separate from each other. Separate from me, separate from what is perceived to be missing (nothing), separate from Spirit, Source, The Universe, Infinite Presence and All Knowing or God.

ALL these ‘words’ meaning the same thing. A power far more vast than all of us that we all have different names for.

A consciousness of believing that everything is OUTSIDE and EXTERNAL to what is really true. Buying into the world of appearances.

Behind these eyes, to a depth previously unknown, I would ‘see’ things unknown to others. It was more a ‘felt’ sense than anything else. It was tough growing up with this knowledge, not knowing how it fit into my own soul’s code, if anywhere.

Clearly, some seeds had been planted, but from where, I knew not.

Yet.

I’d question some of the thoughts I’d had as a young boy.

What if it were true?

What if the thoughts I had as that young boy were true?? Those being,

What if we come into this world to experience what it is to be human, an infinite soul, with everything we need already planted within the soil of our Soul?
All our greatest desires to find and bring forth what our purpose is, already instilled in us?

What if it were true? What if I’d made a pact with Source, before I came to be this ‘John McMillan’, what if, deep down, I knew the enormity of what it is we are put here for, on this Earth, at this time?

What if the lessons were re – presented for, not for us to “get” or “to understand”, but to REMEMBER?

But I was YET to remember - to re-member, to put pieces back together.

Spirit ALWAYS has plans far beyond comprehension – ones that if they’re able to be humanly understood, would change the direction and trajectory of all our lives.

And I went promptly back to sleep, falling back into being ‘unconscious’ of what is.

THE FIRST DRINK - THE SLIPPERY SLOPE BEGINS

I had my first drink of alcohol when I was about fourteen years old. Not so much for wanting to change the way I felt about myself, but more so for being a very curious kid. In fact, I’m still extraordinarily curious. Mum would have wine in the fridge and dad would have a bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey in the pantry. I would love to crack the whiskey bottle or smell the cork, fresh out of the wine bottle. One day I took a drink, but you can imagine, at fourteen years old, still quite ill with asthma, but getting better, pouring poison (ethyl alcohol is a poison) into a young, fresh, clean body??  I got so very sick, so sick that I was able to say to myself.

“Geez, if this is what a hangover is, I am not going to do THAT again!” 

And I didn't.

There are two types of alcoholism, primary and secondary. Primary alcoholism is when the person takes their first drink, and it switches them ON, changes their life from black and white to colour TV and they cannot stop the intake of alcohol. Secondary being when a heavy social habit is continued for sometimes years to alleviate an underlying issue driving maladaptive behaviours.

I didn't drink again for another three or four years, but growing up on the northern beaches of Sydney, in the late seventies and early eighties, with some great boys and girls, good friends whom I was hanging around with, of course, it was only a matter of time before I drank again.

Eventually, I did.

I'd have three or four beers and that would be that, but every now and then I’d really turn it on, have a drink, thoroughly enjoy myself and get quite drunk. But it got to a point where I was able to say, “You know what, I feel like crap, I'm not going to do it again.” 

And I wouldn't.

OFF TO WORK WITH THEE

As a sixteen year old boy, I’d inadvertently been led into a job at an amusement park in Sydney, Luna Park, following a couple of friends along, as we all looked for some casual weekend work.

Little did I know that casual weekend work would become a fifteen year career in the Food and Beverage component of the Hospitality Industry.

I fell in love with the industry immediately, did not at all mind the long hours, LOVED working nights and weekends, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting thousands of varied and interesting people from all walks of Life. I swiftly moved ‘up the ranks’ from washing dishes in the kitchen of the function centre, to Grandmaster Fairy Floss Maker (cotton candy to those of you that may be sugar product illiterate), to the supervisor of the various Food and Beverage outlets, to finally ‘graduating’ as Assistant Food and Beverage Manager of one the most well-known amusement parks in the world.

In the middle of this half a dozen years at Luna Park, I left to explore another facet of the food industry, becoming a store manager of a roast chicken franchise store located on a main road in Gladesville, a thriving continental suburb of Sydney.

It was here, with a hard-driving, somewhat autocratic boss and many & varied young staff, I learned more about the service industry, swiftly winning Store Manager of the year in a statewide competition. AND what it takes to order, store, produce, cook and sell over three thousand chickens every five days in a family-run, tight-knit community of hard-working folk. But my heart lay back at Luna Park and it was only a matter of time before I walked those grounds again.

It was through these rather formative years that I learned what it is to serve others, to pay attention to detail, to manage people, to be able to respond swiftly to emergency situations, to roster over one hundred staff for the various outlets (BY HAND as fancy computer software to manage this part of my job scope was years away), to placate panicking parents with lost kids, to managing customers and their expectations to name but a few.

In essence, seeds were being planted deep within my soul, the fruit of which would not be borne until decades into the future.

However, before being re-employed by Luna Park, an ad for staff in the snowfields of southern NSW appeared in a local newspaper.

It was not long before I was in the employ - for a season - of a resort in the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW.

With a couple of friends in tow, we presented at the, as yet not fully constructed, Blue Cow Ski Resort, now part of the Perisher Valley complex of ski fields and resorts.

For the first time in Australia, a SkiTube was being constructed.

The SkiTube is a deep under mountain range, Swiss-designed rack railway system, transporting skiers from Bullocks Flat near Thredbo Village, under a vast mountain range to Perisher Valley, then from Perisher up to the Blue Cow Resort and ski fields.

When I’d arrived in February 1987 (ski season opening in June) the SkiTube tunnel was still under construction, the unfinished section from Perisher Valley to Blue Cow was still being drilled.

A massive tunnel boring machine was slowly but surely grinding through thousands of tons of eons old granite mountain range on its way to Blue Cow, eventually allowing what would be millions of skiers to access the nearly finished Resort.

Now.

Here’s me thinking that I’d get a job perhaps working in a restaurant or bar, maybe I would be ‘in charge’ of ‘something’ - for all my experience working in an amusement park and a chicken shop! 

Oh, the ego of that young fella!

As it turned out, the resort was not even completed at that stage. We swiftly met a few others who had been employed for the same purposes, that being as part of the Food and Beverage team. We found where we were to live and as I was the only one with a car, I would charge (fuel money only) a few dollars each person for a ride up the mountain and back again.

As it was a seventy kilometre round trip, five to six days a week, it was far cheaper for them to catch a ride with me, rather than packing onto the lumbering old bus that took hours to get up the mountain to Perisher Valley from where we were staying, a little outside Jindabyne.

And besides. If it was snowing, it was not ME who’d have to hop out of the car and put the snow chains on. That was all part of the deal to get a ride in the car!

As we gathered together for our first staff meeting, we began to be allocated into various ‘positions’, according to our background and skill level, with me ultimately taking care of the cellar, supplying all beverages to various bars and restaurants.

However - prior to any of that occurring - along with a new friend from the UK, we were placed in charge of bringing ALL the restaurant furniture, tables and chairs, stools, and bar tables from Perisher Valley car park up to Blue Cow Resort.
But yet, the SkiTube tunnel was not yet completed!
How were we going to complete this massive task ahead of us?

In conversation with a few of the mountain staff, one of them asked if any of us had driven a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

“Of course I have!” I said, having ever NOT.

Of course.

Thus armed with a brand new, resort-supplied, Toyota 4WD Landcruiser Troop Carrier we proceeded to liaise with various furniture removalist trucks to leave the furniture at the northern end of Perisher Valley car park. To which we would then load, piece by piece, jamming as much of the furniture as we possibly could, into the troop carrier.

Back and forth, uphill and down dale, we’d lug the furniture up the mountain on the worn-out track, the only vehicular access available to us at that stage.
Back and forth, back and forth.

One early morning with the troop carrier fully laden, we were slowly trundling our way up a very steep part of the track, 4WD engaged, chains installed upon the Toyota’s big tires. Unbeknownst to us, a Kassbohrer snow groomer machine was on the track not far ahead of us. These lumbering machines, with a top uphill speed of about 10km/h, were specifically made to groom the snowfields, not race uphill at top speed.

Being aware of the particular part of the track, how steep it was, and how much speed we needed to get to the top of the hill, I rounded the corner with enough speed to zoom us to the top!

But what was in the way, only three-quarters of the way up?
The lumbering snow groomer! 

The driver slowly trundling up the track, completely unaware of what was about to eventuate behind him!

     A Kassbohrer Snow Groomer

I had to STOP the vehicle directly behind the groomer as - of course - there was nothing else we could do.

However - being on a steep icy road in a fully laden three ton vehicle, two colleagues sitting to the left of me, braking to a sudden halt, what does one suppose is going to happen?

The steep part of this mountainous track did not allow much room for error.

With an eighty degree angle steep upward slope to the left of us and a seventy degree, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY METRE drop to the creek below to our right, cold sweat beaded my forehead.

With my right foot firmly planted upon the brake, the handbrake engaged tightly, the low-range gearbox jammed into first gear, the Landcruiser began to slip.

With the snow groomer driver blissfully unaware of what was happening directly behind him!

My passengers began to panic, yelling multiple directions AT me, all at the same time.

“LEFT FULL LOCK”, one would yell.

“RIGHT FULL LOCK”, the other.
“Accelerate! Accelerate!” they panicked and yelled - with, of course, NOWHERE to go because of the snow groomer only six metres ahead of us!
“Holy crap!” I was thinking, “SHUT THE F - - K UP” I shouted to them as they BOTH tumbled out the passenger door, leaving me to deal with a slowly slipping three ton four wheel drive.

The vehicle was slipping, ever so inexorably, closer to the drop into the icy creek far below!
Left full lock! Right full lock! This is not helping! What the hell am I gonna do? How the hell am I going to get out of this vehicle without it rolling on top of me?! How? HOW?

Vehicles here in Australia have the steering wheel on the right-hand side and with me positioned as the driver there was nowhere I could go.

As the four wheel drive vehicle was slipping, two restaurant chairs had tumbled into the space where my passengers were sitting, and out my door, not twenty cm away was a FIVE HUNDRED FOOT drop to the waters below!

The vehicle had slipped and slid about twenty metres down the track, my passengers were beside themselves and there was nowhere for me to go.

Meanwhile, the groomer driver was slowly trundling up the steep mountainous track.

As I was furiously trying to push those bloody chairs out of the way, with one foot jammed on the footbrake, the other hauling on the handbrake, in between white knuckle gripping the steering wheel, a five hundred foot drop only inches from my door, the troop carrier’s, right-hand side, rear dual axle wheels dropped into a dry and hardened truck tyre rut, lurching to an unsteady stop, less than 5 cm from the drop into the valley below!

All in about forty five seconds!

It was only about four or five Celsius that morning, but I was soaked with cold sweat and in dire need to use the bathroom! My passengers clapped and cheered, so loudly, in fact, it caught the attention of the snow groomer driver who kindly reversed back to tow the 4WD out of, what could have been, a rather inglorious end.

It took us weeks to bring the furniture up to the resort, weeks in which I would have a passenger walk ahead of us, just to make sure there were NO slow-moving vehicles ahead!

Word passed around swiftly that day and as the tunnel was still incomplete, I’d be charged with hauling staff up and back, on that steep mountain track. I have no idea why, I suspect my passengers that day ‘talked the story up’, making it sound as if I was a better driver than luck would have it.

Thank you, dry muddy rut - you saved my life!

Having all the furniture finally unwrapped, assembled, and installed in place, having brought up that mountainous track, crockery and cutlery, glass, kitchenware, and the like, one can imagine the piles of cardboard and paper we had to dispose of.

The UK chap I was living with and I had become firm friends, both of us with the same sense of humour and irony, tomfoolery, and total lack of respect for the strictly Teutonic Swiss and German management.

“YOU WILL DO IT THIS WAY!” was met with our usual snorting derision, but get the job done, we did.

Having a large store room full of paper and cardboard scrap had us wondering what to do with it.
I asked one of the Swiss managers,

“Franz, Sir? What shall we do with all the cardboard waste?”
To which he replied rather huffily,

“Aah John. MISTER SCHNEGELBAGELFRIDLWEISINGERHOF to you (name change to protect the identity of said manager)

You have a good brain, why don’t you use it?” was said to me in his deeply accented, “high horse” manner.

“Righteo mate - leave it with me. Thanks for all your help….”

My UK friend and I, very cleverly, decided to burn the paper waste in the large resort fireplace!

What an outstanding idea we thought!

The fireplace had just been completed, a gorgeous granite hearth with old teak railway sleepers as its mantelpiece.

A truly beautiful piece of Australian workmanship, of which we started to haul the cardboard and paper up from the storeroom to set fire to within.

I had asked one of the construction chaps on-site if it was ok to use, and met with a good old Aussie, “Ahh for sure mate!” and off we went to find ourselves some matches.

The fireplace was stacked, the cardboard and paper were well alight as we wandered off to get some more.

But unbeknown to us, the flue for the chimney was NOT OPENED.

We walked back upstairs, arms full of cardboard and paper, to be met with a raging inferno, the teak mantelpiece ablaze, the massive dining room quickly beginning to fill with smoke!!

I hurtled around to the kitchen looking for a fire extinguisher, my friend and work colleague grabbing for another, as I snapped on the large industrial exhaust fans.

We cracked open the chimney flue, fortunately allowing the inferno to be brought under control, calmly standing close by, as if it was a normal day-to-day occurrence.
Swiss manager Mr. Bagel Head was none too impressed, however being the hard-working staff we were, we managed to keep our jobs!

Blue Cow Resort and ski fields opened in July of 1987.

I quickly realised I was not cut out for those cooler climes, returning to my old job at Luna Park in October of that year.

However, due to some managerial oversights, Luna Park closed shortly thereafter.

My UK friend and I, to this day, remain firm friends, our pyrotechnical skills yet to be further utilised. LOL!

At twenty years of age, I’d finished up a job in an industry that I’d been involved in since I was sixteen. An industry and people within it that I had fallen deeply in love with. Whilst the management team that I was part of at Luna Park had known for a few weeks prior, once the hammer dropped and we were formally given notice of the park’s closing, I was truly saddened.

With many fond goodbyes to staff that had become friends and with fair weather promises to ‘see you soon!’ I was gone.

A TWO WEEK HOLIDAY

With a dream of travel in my head and a yearning in my heart, some cash in my pocket, and in serious need of an attitudinal adjustment – I pinned a map of Australia up on the wall at home and I had one dart. Where that dart landed was where I was going to go on holiday. The dart could’ve landed anywhere, however, it landed on a place named Palm Cove.

Palm Cove is located approximately thirty minutes drive north of the city of Cairns, about forty five minutes drive south of Port Douglas. Nearly three thousand km north of the place I called home all my life.  Whilst not one of my most spectacular ideas, I hopped on a bus for the next forty one hours, heading north on a two week holiday.

A two-week holiday that took me FIVE YEARS to return to Sydney. A two week holiday that was the embarkation upon an expedition that would last for the next twenty years, a soul-searing journey into the depths of my humanity.

Mum recently shared with me her memory of me standing by the main road bus stop. Unbeknown to us both, it would be the last time we saw each other for another TWO YEARS.

Soul will always lead you home. If you allow it to.

I’d been conditioned, right from the outset, as we ALL are, to feel what I felt, not even being aware that I could be responsible for how I felt, and at the same time, thinking I was a pretty cool bloke. In truth, Soul was calling, lessons were being presented to REMEMBER who this ‘I’ actually is, my resistance was paramount and the only way to ‘block’ off those feelings of ‘less than’ and ‘separateness’ was to push them away.

I’ve shared with you the three threads, those being that by the time I was in my early twenties, I perceived myself to be a worthless, irresponsible wanker and completely oblivious to it!

I'd landed in Far North Queensland out and away from Sydney, nearly 3000 km from home, and for the first time in my life, I had to learn to be responsible. I may as well have been on a different planet! However, I was working, living, and playing with some extraordinarily interesting people on that ‘holiday’.

                  One of the first images I’d taken of Palm Cove, Far North Queensland, late1980’s

Far North Queensland in the late nineteen eighties was a place in the sun for shady people. Why would one be on welfare down south when one could do it there? Golden sands and palm trees, tropical storms, and the Great Barrier Reef.

A few strange characters crossed my path, many of whom I became friends with, ultimately becoming that which I judged.

“Who’d want to be like THAT?” I'd ask myself many times.

Of course, I was unable to see that I was possibly the weirdest of them all; outgoing but introverted, making up stories about where I was from so as to feel better about myself. At the same time, I was about to start working very hard in an industry that is not particularly conducive to honesty, openness, and a willingness to really get to know a person – let alone myself. 

It was one of ‘better than’ and political in-fighting (or rather, that is how I perceived it to be), one of plain old long hours, hard work for not much return, dealing with literally thousands of people from all walks of life, from all over the world. And I loved it!

I didn’t know then, nor was capable of bringing into my awareness, that all these personalities and traits, some good, some not so good, were different facets of myself. It all just a projection and reflection onto the screen of my mind of what was going on for me at that stage of my journey.

I’d truly forgotten that little guy lying ill in bed, full of those awe-inspiring thoughts and wonder.

Timeless. Spaceless. Beyond language and thought.

I was having the time of my life, yet yearned for more, deeper connection, a deeper insight into others. I was seeking.

I didn’t know that at the time, but the fact is that is exactly what the seeds in my soul were longing for.

We are like many-faceted diamonds or gemstones.

Each side represents different aspects of ourselves. We have our emotional sides and our shadow. Competencies and strengths, desires and hopes, destructiveness and negativity, doubts and resentments. There is also a massive desire to serve and a very deep-seated yearning to connect to each other.

The soul knows, right? Way down deep inside, just out of range of my conscious thought at that time, I just wanted to return “home”, not to where I grew up, but to that place of Silence, a place where all was well, despite outside appearances. A place that I’d breathed into as a little guy. That place from whence we come and to which we are returning.

And here I was fuelling myself with work and play, drink, and the odd hydroponically grown weed that seemed to proliferate the Far North Queensland coast.

Work and play, drink and drugs, sunshine, pretty girls, and the Great Barrier Reef.

Slowly drinking more and more, more so to keep up with my buddies than anything else – but my soul knew more.

Only about ten days after I arrived, on a wing and a prayer, I interviewed for a job in a five star resort.

In my swimmers!

The HR department must have been desperate because I got the job!

Unknowingly, I’d had “an immediate start, please John” turn into the trip of a lifetime.

I’d stepped back into the Hospitality industry, landing a job as a waiter in one of the many restaurants within a five star beachside resort. Being so in love with people, being gifted with an ability to anticipate customers' needs (and usually supply that need before the client knew they realised they’d even wanted it) it swiftly came to the attention of management. Not long thereafter, with promotion after promotion, supervisory positions morphed into managerial positions and here I was, managing many restaurants in various 5-star resorts and International hotels.

In one of the resorts I was working in, I met a food and beverage manager from Belgium. He would’ve had to have been one of the most arrogant people I’d met to date. And me being me, that did not sit very well.

It was the late eighties, we were living and working in Far North Queensland for goodness sake and while we all prided ourselves on swift and friendly service, we were NOT in a fine dining affair in an upper-class European city.

Teamwork and staff cohesion were paramount to my way of being, not arrogance and thinking I was somehow ‘better than you because I’ve studied here, in that place, with those people.’

It was all a bit “la de da” for little ol’ me!

Remember - it was the late nineteen eighties, staff conviviality was the glue that connected us all, and gentle, good ol’ school Aussie ‘ribbing’ was par for the course. Anyone not thick- skinned enough to ‘take it’ AND ‘dish it out’ never lasted too long in that kind of environment.

There was certainly NO malice or meanness intended, just good old-school Aussie humour, camaraderie, and irreverence.

So, in order to alleviate my feelings about his seeming arrogance, I deemed it necessary to impersonate him on a regular basis.

Strutting through the resort with my chin jutting out, hair slicked back, I flicked my head upwards every minute or so. At the same time, pitch-perfectly impersonating his Flemish accent.

He’d say “Uh” at the end of every sentence he voiced.

“So John, I see you here UH”

“You’re a good manager of people John, UH” flicking his head upwards, cocking one of his carefully groomed eyebrows above his googly eyes.

At the same time, our Belgian ‘friend’ joined the management team of the resort, I had become friends with the BBQ manager chef Keith. We immediately connected with our same irreverent humour and disregard for the ‘hoity toity’ arrogance of many of the European staff we came into contact with.

Keith, my BBQ Chef Friend, mid picture

He and I would purposely impersonate this new food and beverage manager, carrying on like the pair of clowns we were, once in close proximity with each other.

Much laughter and hilarity ensued, not only from ourselves but the people we were doing it in front of.

One fine spring evening, our Flemish food and beverage manager was hosting a Japanese travel agency, forty travel agents fresh off the plane.

Whilst my BBQ manager chef friend and I had picked up on his quirky ways, we’d both had not much to do with him, let alone knowing what he’d like to eat or be served for dinner.

He’d only been at the resort for THREE whole days, how could we possibly know?

Upon the arrival of his guests, showing off ‘his’ resort, pretending to ‘know’ all the staff, he led the group to the outdoor gazebo, with twelve barbeques ablaze, Keith, my chef friend, and his staff, primed and set to cook up a storm.

Trays full of marinated barramundi and coral trout, lamb, beef and chicken, prawns, crayfish, mud crab and a whole variety of tropical fruits and vegetables glistened under the lights.

Mr. Belgium, hands on his hips, strutting about like a fine feathered peacock.

Head tilting upwards, eyebrow cocked. Googly eyes were a’googling.

He self importantly brushed past me to look at Chef, forty Japanese travel agents in tow, as they excitedly chattered away like a flock of hyperactive parrots, pointing to the trays loaded with tropical foodstuffs.

In his thick Flemish accent,

“Sooo Kees, I see you here UH!? Well! You know how I like it, UH!”

Chef and I quickly looked at each other askance, the only thing Keith could say was

“Yes sir. I know how you like it”, cooking him a plain old piece of rib-eye steak, medium- rare.

Without KNOWING what Mr. Belgium liked, Chef thought swiftly on his feet, ultimately picking well, because said F & B manager was allergic to seafood!!

We cannot imagine what would’ve happened if Chef cooked him up a plate of prawns and crayfish!

All whilst he showed off in front of his forty guests. WITHOUT telling any of his staff.

We’d swiftly come to know he was a wily old snake, purposely attempting to ‘catch us off guard’.

Our regard for him slipped a few points that night.

One day, I was impersonating this particular ‘gentleman’ to my friend. We were working in a resort that had a large industrial-style kitchen. As he was preparing the evening’s dishes at one end, with me standing at the other, I yelled at the top of my voice in his Belgian accented voice.

“So I see you here Kees UH? You're putting the saffron on the lamb. I see you're skewering the fish UH?” usually with Keith joining in.

But this day, he was not, he was just looking at me, and nodding his head, which I took no notice of.

I was carrying on for about three or four minutes. With my barbecue manager Chef friend just nodding and tilting his head to the side slowly, trying to get my attention.

It was only a couple of minutes later, when it dawned upon me WHY Keith was not joining in.

With a horrified dawning comprehension, I realised Mr. Belgium was standing RIGHT BEHIND ME!

“What have I got to lose?”, I thought and in my best Mr. Belgium The Peacock impersonation,

“SOOO UH?! I am standing right behind me UH?”

I slowly turned around, a cheeky grin on my face as he was standing directly behind me, arms crossed, straight legs akimbo.

He quickly said to me, “So John, I will see you in my office, UH!”

That day I truly thought I’d lose my job, on the spot, but bless him.

He said, “You're a funny guy John, I appreciate your humour, just don't do that out in public, UH!”, with a slight grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye!

He had the same sense of humour as us!

To say I was surprised would understate the issue.

From then on, despite his arrogance, despite him sitting in the corner of the restaurant, putting his hand up and clicking his fingers to grab one's attention (of which I’d summarily dismiss as him being a twit), I did respect him.

He taught me a great deal about true European five-star service and we maintained a collegial relationship for the remainder of the time I worked at that particular resort.

                                                Five Star Resorts and staff - me included

However, my Chef and numerous other staff member’s humour was not to dissipate AT ALL. In fact, upon reflection, it had the complete OPPOSITE effect!

Between three or four of us being able to impersonate various French, Swiss, British, American, Italian, Greek and Japanese management staff, behind the scenes, all hell would break loose at the most inopportune moments.

All due to our Monty Python-esque antics.

Between the General Managers executive secretary having a, shall we say, ‘crush’ on Mr Belgium, or the fine dining restaurant managers complete disdain for any other ‘lower down the staff member totem pole’, to the Japanese interpreter’s spectacular sense of humour, timing and purposeful misinterpretations, we were having the time of our lives.

All of which allowed us all to wreak havoc to carefully laid ‘behind the scene’ plans, not once, our antics ever affecting the guest’s enjoyment of their holidays.

EVEN when told by a wealthy Texan oil well owner.

“Jarn! Ahm just soooo amayyyzed how well you speak English.”

Well, what do you say to THAT??

“Well of course Sir. We ALL went to university to learn it for you.” You twit.

Or while standing on the beach at an evening function. By the same said Mr Texas.

“Jaaarn!?” in his lengthy Southern drawl.

“Tell me what’s the closest beach to the ocean?”

*sigh and surreptitious eye roll*

“Mr Williams. You’re STANDING ON IT.”

Or having just employed a young, very keen Aussie waiter. He was wonderful at his job, going out of his way to learn snippets of many languages.

He wanted to learn some Japanese.

The interpreter was only too happy to help and for weeks, Mr Young Waiter, with the interpreter's patient guidance, taught him to say in practically accent-free Japanese.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Glen. I will be taking care of you this evening, please ask any questions you may have that will make your evening more comfortable.”

Young Glen practised this for WEEKS.

As it was, the perfect opportunity arose for him to practice his newly acquired language skills.

At another dinner function for sixty five Japanese travel agents, Glen walked into the large function room and announced to the seated visitors.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Glen and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Please ask any questions you may have that could make your evening more comfortable.”

But oh no. Naoki interpreter had other plans, didn’t he?

ALL of the guests listened intently, their jaws dropping open, every woman covering their mouths and tittering like little girls!

Glen was a little perturbed, nevertheless continuing to serve his guests.

Unbeknown to him, what the spectacularly humorous interpreter had taught was this!

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Glen. Despite how I look, I really do have a tiny willy.”

Glen was horrified, Naoki was cackling with glee for days and days, the guests knew of the good natured joke that had been played and left the resort with glowing reports of their magical tropical holiday, the food and a poor hapless embarrassed waiter.

But time rolled on.

Word had gotten out and with a reputation that somehow preceded me, a fellow from Melbourne and little ol’ me from Palm Cove were ‘poached’ by a wealthy chap from South Australia. He, with us in tow, opened up a gorgeous little cafe style restaurant, sitting forty five guests at any one time, a bar to die for with views of the tropical ocean that went on forever, just up the road from where I’d worked in a five star resort.

It wasn’t long before amazing floor and kitchen staff were interviewed & hired and an executive chef from Melbourne brought up north to join the team we had put together.

Not long thereafter, the locals began to frequent the restaurant and bar, international trade began to pass through the doors and it wasn’t long before people began to talk.

One day, a young tourist couple walked into the cafe. I met them at the bar and we launched into a conversation as I served them drinks. They shared with me they had arrived in Australia only two weeks before, all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

They began to share a story with me that allowed me to ‘string them along’ a little.

They’d been told by friends of theirs back home, about six months before leaving on their trip Down Under, about a guy who ran a cool little café in a place called Palm Cove, way up northern Australia.

That piqued my interest, leading me to ask, ‘What was the guy’s name? Can you remember?”

“Of course we remember, we travelled up here to meet this guy! We were told he was hilarious, had many funny stories, took our friends to places that tourists don’t know about, went out of his way to make their stay super comfortable and he seemed to know just EVERYBODY!” in their delightful Southern twang, y’all.

“What’s his name?” I asked, knowing full well who they were talking about.

“John McMillan is his name, do you know him?” they inquired innocently.

With a twinkle in my eye and a smile on my face I said, “As a matter of fact I do! He's busy right now, but I know he’s close by. I’ll introduce you to him as soon as I get a chance. Would that be ok?”

They’d had a few beers under their belts by then and were only too keen to ply me with questions about this John guy, in their gorgeous Southern drawl, “What’s he like, when will he be here, how long have you known him?” and the like.

It was about an hour and a few beers later, as the camaraderie and conviviality of the café had set in. A light five knot nor'easter was whispering through the café’s plantation shutters, sighing through the palms and eight hundred year old melaleuca trees that proliferated the coast. The sun was beginning to set, as salt spray wafted across from the beach. They leaned comfortably back in their wicker cane chairs, snacking on chilli mud crab and mangoes.

With dawning comprehension and a smile and laugh on their faces, they looked at each other, then looked at me and screamed at the top of their voices, “OH MY GOD! YOU’RE JOHN!!!!”.
To which, of course, I said yes!

We became firm friends for the rest of their stay in Far North Queensland and to this day we remain in contact, nearly thirty one years later.

THIS is what drove me, the connections I was able to make, the ability to be able to serve others needs. To create special moments and memories for others. I was fulfilled by the day to day goings on of a young man in his early twenties but unknown to me, unconscious thoughts and my somewhat errant behaviour were beginning to lead me astray.

Whilst still living and working on that same stretch of golden sands, I was in relationship with a beautiful girl. We bought our first house together at twenty three years of age (ego was going bananas at that! Loooooook at meeeee! PLEASE validate me, PLEASE tell me how good I am. Please, PLEASE!) and while working and playing together it wasn’t long before my drink and drug fuelled behaviour presented as something quite dangerous.

Unbeknown to myself, but apparent to others, that deep seated ‘worth-less-ness’, irresponsibility and me thinking I was ‘King Shit’ was beginning to rear its unsightly head.

Friends would say, “You’re MAD! You are a nice guy when you don’t drink too much, but when you do – Look Out!!”

I was NEVER violent, but could become verbally abusive to those I perceived to be out of line, (which was everyone)!

The “You’re MAD!” was worn as a badge of honour, I was unable to actually see it for what it was.

All they were doing was sharing their concern for me, NOT telling me how I should behave.

Right in that space was an emerging seed, something that ought to have been looked at then, but oh no, I was maddest of the Mad, it was all a big holiday for me, yet deeply disturbing to those who cared.

We are all going to live up to, and down to, others' expectations of us. I took that and wore it as a badge of honour and if I've got people around me telling me that I'm mad? Well then, I'm going to be mad, aren't I?

Let me share a frame of reference for, when I say the word “mad”, what would happen to me when I drank, you will totally understand what that means.

What is it inside me, that makes me think it'd be a good idea or funny, (really, upon reflection, all I was doing was death wish attention seeking) to steal a friend’s GSX 1100, then, one of the most powerful road bikes on the planet, at two o'clock in the morning, drunk as a skunk, in a monsoon and ride it from Palm Cove to Port Douglas, about a ninety km round trip?

A ninety km round trip, at two o'clock in the morning on a stolen motorcycle, prodigiously drunk, riding at over one hundred km/h, unlicensed and uninsured in a monsoon.

IN THE NUDE.

Absolutely stark raving MAD.

Slowly ever so slowly…. Down, down. Sound asleep. Deeply unconscious and purposefully separated from that which I inherently knew to be true. That we are all connected to, that which we come from and to that which we are returning. But turning my back on it, I did, thinking I was in charge of ‘all this.’

How extraordinarily arrogant.

Laid up for two months after a serious motorcycle accident (and NO, I was not nude thank you very much) practically brought me undone. Spending any time in my head was a dangerous proposition. Not being able to work at what I loved was maddening but I could not see my way through. Feeling sorry for myself fuelled a deep desire for connection to something far deeper than what appeared to be.

I had lost my peace. Having lost it, I searched everywhere for it. I was grabbing in desperation to that which did not exist, something made up, something akin to a lie. I was yet to remember that our own capacity to love was what I was truly seeking. My own thinking had doomed me to an endless loop of looking for happiness where there cannot possibly be any (in the bottom of a bottle) and for satisfaction in a place where there was only longing.

I was only a thought away from salvation, that being ONLY a spiritual solution would save me. Whilst it was only a thought away it was disallowed from entering into my consciousness for another two decades.

The recollection of this period of my life is a little dulled by the mists of time and the vast volumes of alcohol I was consuming.

Running on empty and at full tilt of alcohol fuelled thought patterning (extremely toxic poisoning more like it!!) disturbed the beautiful, well meaning, kind hearted girl I was living with.

She came to me one day and told me that she wanted to go to Europe.

What a cool idea I thought to myself!

“Let me get back to work, put some money away and off we go!”

But oh no. She wanted out.

To go and be by herself & within a week – she’d gone.

Upon reflection, I now know that she was just far too kind to tell me what she needed – time out from me – and didn’t have the strength to say so.

“Get your shit together and follow me over”, was all she said.

Right there, right then, in that space – my heart broke. Another girl has given me up and abandoned me (not really, but that’s how my unconscious mind processed it)

The pain of what I was feeling about this particular girl that I deeply cared about, deeply in love with, leaving me, had touched upon a gaping wound that I was born with.

“If my natural mother can give me away how much can I be worth?”

I was so unconscious, so unaware.

The only way I knew how to deal with the pain was to continue to drink. Of course pouring poison into a body, things are going to escalate, and they ARE going to get worse.

I was totally unconscious, in a deep amount of pain, and because of that, the only way I knew how to alleviate that pain was to continue to drink. Everyone around me could see that I had an issue with my alcohol consumption, except for me - because I was so immersed in it.

I rented out our little house to generate some income but because I was in so much psychological pain, I’d usually spend all that money on alcohol.

I bounced from job to job, travelling around the countryside working here and there, hopping from Lizard to Dunk Island, Daydream to Hayman Island, living in the tropics of northern Australia.

I missed this girl terribly.

It was only a matter of time before I received a “Dear John” letter in the mail and essentially this is what it said.

“I've met a nice guy here in England, and I'm staying here.”

It was in the pages of that letter, I crossed what, in the rooms of recovery, is called, The Thin Red Line, that demarcation between heavy social drinking and tipping into active addiction.

I could NOT tolerate feeling like this. That which I feared had come to pass. She’d gone and I was all tapped out. Completely incapable of ‘getting my shit together’, feeling incredibly fragile and vulnerable, egotistical (What? How could she?), angry and sad all at the same time. My irresponsibility kept me from healing – we cannot heal what we do not FEEL – and had blocked out the sunshine of the Source and all that is good.

That is all I wanted. To feel good. To feel what some call God. This was a natural consequence of feeling this way and the only way I could stop the bad feelings was to drown them in alcohol. If I stay drunk, I won’t feel & that’ll work, won’t it?

If I keep the ‘bad’ out & at arm's length, then at some time in the future I’ll forget and THEN I’ll feel better.

I’d bought into the original sin.

A mistaken identity.

One that was only making things far worse than I could possibly imagine.

And so it came to be. Social drinking became a terrible habit and I succumbed to the destruction of active alcoholism. Another three years ensued … years of loss and pain, anguish and unhappiness.

I pushed the boundaries too far and sunk to the lowest of lows.

I know what it is to lose everything. Everything material and more poignantly those gifts we are all born with … Compassion and empathy and an inherent knowing to serve others.

I know what it is to wake in the morning feeling total despair and desperation.

I understand the feelings of frustration when circumstances sabotaged my progress.

I understand the darkness born out of overwhelm.

I know isolation and feeling totally alone.

I know the emptiness of feeling unfulfilled.

In a flash - I was physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually bankrupt, broken and crushed.

I was totally decimated, cleaned out and the ever widening chasm almost conquered me.

I was unable to continue with life the way I was living and the way I knew life to be.

I eventually somehow limped back into Sydney, in and out of various relationships with some really lovely, kind, gentle, compassionate girls.

I’d bought - with the help of mum and step dad Lloyd - a great little business, delivering bread for a major bakery in Sydney. The hours were horrid, having to rise at two a.m., to be in the bakery no later than three o’clock, to have my truck fully loaded with a daily ration of about seven thousand loaves of bread and be OUT of the yard no later than five a.m.

It was a wonderful business to generate extraordinary money, but because I was at such a low ebb, I could not see it for what it was - a mechanism to help build some financial independence for myself. Because I was working ‘on my own’ I missed the camaraderie of working in a busy environment.

I was so terribly ashamed of my drinking behaviour and in turn, because of my inability to understand that I was suffering under the yoke of active addiction - the only way, THE ONLY WAY, I could alleviate those feelings was to continue to drown them in bourbon and vodka.

Everyone around me - my family, my friends, the girl I was living with, the girls I'd been in relationship with, all knew that I had an issue with my drinking, however I didn't recognise it.

I’d say to people who would say to me, “John, we’re concerned about your drinking.”

“Well, the reason I drink so much is because I have all these problems”, not recognising that I had all the problems because I drank so much!

And if I'd had that backwards, what else did I have backwards?

My life was continuing to spiral downwards and get progressively worse until there came a time when the three most powerful women in my life, my mother, my sister, and who I now call a ‘future ex girlfriend’ because, shortly into the future, she was going to be an ex girlfriend, conspired to have a chat to me.

To let me know what was going on for them. It was June 1994.

My mother whom I have a very kind, loving, gentle relationship with, was very concerned about my behaviour. They all took me out for breakfast this particular day. Mum should have worked in advertising, because what I bought that day, what she sold me, I bought hook, line and sinker.

This is what she said to me,

“There's a new hospital that's opened up in Curl Curl (a suburb on the northern beaches of Sydney). You might want to go there for a bit of a rest.”

Here's me thinking that I would be going to a hospital to have a rest, to learn how to perhaps “drink like a gentleman.”

Little did I know that I was about to be in for the time of my life.

I had presented in South Pacific Private Hospital. The hospital was only six months old at that stage and it was only a matter of time before it became - and still is - Australia's leading treatment centre.

So here I am in June 1994, thinking that I'm going to a holiday farm, thinking I am going to have a nice little rest, to perhaps learn to drink in moderation.

Nevertheless, for the first time in my life, I am introduced to John, I am introduced to the concept of alcoholism, I am introduced to the disease process, introduced to the road to recovery and also to the premise that maybe, just maybe, that

“John, you may be an alcoholic.”

How do you suppose that was gonna work for me?

Here I am thinking of going to a holiday farm!

I got the shock of my life!!

I was in the facility for five weeks, thirty six days in total, and was introduced to a potentially life changing model that has helped thousands of (future) patients, the twelve Steps AND the rooms of recovery.

I treated it like a college degree, I treated it like I was doing a course, not recognising that what was on offer, the model that that hospital uses in combination with what the rooms of recovery have on offer, would allow me to get better. That would allow me to heal from my perceived ‘broken-ness’.

However, I've shared with you about the ‘wanker factor’, right?

I think that I'm King Shit, but I don't feel very good about myself.

Every single doctor and nurse, psychiatrist and psychologist, therapist and counsellor, were extraordinarily concerned about John and his behaviour. I WAS NOT going to “trust the process” or “get with the program”.

EVERYONE was exceedingly concerned.

While in hospital, I celebrated my twenty ninth birthday, still with the mind of a child unable to grasp the enormity of the issues at hand. Well meaning friends and family would visit with me in the treatment centre, wishing me well.

But deep within, I was on a psychotically charged, adrenaline burning race that had no finish line, hurtling along at three hundred miles an hour and not conscious of ANY of it, right into the eye of the biggest storm of my life.

Here I was with the chance of a lifetime to participate in a world class program to allow people to heal from whatever it is that's going on for them. And I didn't. With the mind of a child still thinking that “they don't know who I am, they don't know what's going on for me” but, of course, they did. They were very concerned about me.

What I'm about to share with you is what killed Amy Winehouse, an English singer songwriter. She put her drug of choice (alcohol) down only a few days before she presented in a treatment facility. She went into a treatment centre for 28 days, and shortly after she left the facility, she took the same amount of alcohol that she did before she went in there - not taking into account that her body had been clean for weeks.

And sadly, it killed her.

At the end of my drinking I would start my day with six beers and at least half a bottle of vodka. That was just enough to get me going.

I was in that hospital for thirty five days, and then I was out for a week. My body had been clean for nearly six weeks, there was no alcohol, good rest, plenty of water, very healthy decent food, no sugar, tea or coffee.

Plus a whole world of therapy that I was NOT really participating in.

My body was physically clean. I was getting ‘better’ very quickly, mentally still extraordinarily unstable and spiritually, seemingly disconnected from that which is far more vast than all of us. Something that I had been deeply connected to as a young boy, of which I had seemingly forgotten.

And here's me out for a week.

I was FREE! I’ve completed my ‘course’ and I was ok.

Or so I thought.

It was only a few days before I received a call from a friend of mine saying,

“It's a friend's birthday, we're gonna play some pool in town. Come on down.”

He didn't know that I'd been in hospital for for a month, he didn't know I had a problem with my drinking and right there, the “Fuck It” switch flicked off.

My mind had gone completely blank, conveniently forgetting all I had seemingly learned in the treatment centre.

Fuck it.

I swiftly found myself in the bottle shop!

Without having any connection to thinking that perhaps I could call the hospital again because I was thinking about taking a drink.

Deep down inside, I knew I ought not drink again, perhaps I could call one of those people in the rooms of recovery or the treatment centre, perhaps I could speak to them and they would help me not drink that day, perhaps I could do that.

To not fall back into my default drinking again, the old patterning of relieving myself of ANY kind of pain I was in.

All of which I did NOT do.

I found myself in a bottle shop that day, buying a six pack of beer and a bottle of vodka, swiftly proceeding to drink the whole goddamn lot.

You can imagine how drunk I was after SIX WEEKS of no mood altering chemical crossing into this body.

I have come to believe that messages are given to us through God, Source, The Universe, All Infinite Power and Knowing whatever you like to call it, it's all the same thing. Messages are given to us through others. Family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, incidents and accidents, even our intuition is ALWAYS whispering to us. Sometimes the messages are subtle, sometimes not so subtle.

I needed to be brought to my knees, I needed to be totally humbled to understand that the biggest problem I had in my life was me and my thinking.

It was not my drinking.

It was me and my THINKING.

The not so subtle message I needed presented swiftly, oh so extraordinarily swiftly.

In the space of four hours, I drank that day, I nearly knocked two policemen off their motorcycles because I was drunk driving, was arrested, lost my licence for three years, received a three thousand dollar fine, got a five year good behaviour bond, the girl I was living with left me, the real estate agent I had rented a little property on one of the northern beaches here in Sydney reneged on the lease, and I had to move back in with my mother. In turn, because I had lost my driver’s licence, I had to sell my bread run business.

All of that only six weeks after I presented in South Pacific Private Hospital.

How do you suppose my fear & loathing, shame & guilt was going to behave?

I was in so much psychological pain, the only way I knew how to alleviate that pain was to continue to insanely drink.

So it was.

I moved back in with my mother.

Twenty nine years old, broken in mind, heart and spirit, bereft and so very very ashamed.

I’d not only let myself down, but also my family and well meaning friends. I’d let all those people down, those that I’d held in such high esteem.

They’d all had such high hopes for John, yet I’d dashed those hopes against the sharp rocks of some pretty embarrassing behaviour.

I was yet to realise that the behaviour I was exhibiting was relatively ‘normal’ addictive behaviour - NOT actually me.

John does NOT behave like this.

But John with copious amounts of alcohol in his system has no choice but to behave like this.

Under the burdensome and heavy yoke of active addiction, one has NO CHOICE.

But I was years away from THAT freeing realisation.

Living with mum was fine, however, living with mum and my stepdad?

For me, then, THAT was a difficult proposition. He and I've known each other for a long time now and he used to be very autocratic, meaning that it was either his way or the highway.

My long enduring mother had the equivalent of two bull headed teenagers living in the house!

I knew I ought not be drinking - but could not stop.

He was experiencing the pain of living with someone under the punishing lash of addiction, not quite understanding why he couldn’t help me.

He wasn’t at all happy to see the love of his life, my Mum, hurting.

“For goodness sake, if he keeps on like this, he’ll never amount to anything, he’s failed our family” he would remark.

“Why can't he just stop drinking?” he’d say to no one in particular.

Lloyd is an old school, very tough, ‘pick yourself up by the bootstraps’, ‘just get on with it’ kind of man, having experienced the theatre of war in Korea in his early twenties.

At his core, a very kind, well meaning man, sadly, without the ability to voice his pain in a way that enabled him to be heard.

So deeply mired in shame, I could not answer.

All I could do was quietly fester, mumbling away under my breath until I could get that next drink and “ forget all this.”

*Sigh*

I was enormously grateful to have a roof over my head and a warm bed to rest my crazy head on however, it was a difficult time. For everyone concerned.

At that time, they lived in a gorgeous country town called Bowral in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. It is one of the most beautiful areas in the world. However, for my mindset, for the way that I was feeling, the shame, the guilt, the anger, the fear and loathing, I was unable to recognise the beauty I was surrounded by and living in, all the wonderful things that I had around me.

To make an analogy - as I limped through my life, it was as if I was covered in a dirty, wet grey blanket, a dark & sinister, all pervasive feeling of God knows what.

As the cold wet winter ground on that year, for one of the first times in a very long time, it snowed.

As I’d lost my driver's licence, I’d pace those freezing cold, snow driven streets, head bowed in shame, hands shoved deep into my dirty Drizabone (a full length, waterproof leather horse riding coat) pockets.

I’d look up at the steel grey skies, cloud borne snow yet to fall.

I’d wander in the bitter winds under the blackened twisted branches of those winter trees, twigs gnarled and bent like the fingers of Old Man Winter himself.

Feeling so very alone and lonely, ashamed, guilty and through all of it, I continued to drink.

Addiction to alcohol truly had me in its icy grip.

I defaulted back into what I had done for years, falling back into what I was good at, which was to get another job looking after another restaurant.

It's interesting how alcoholics attract each other.

The restaurant owner was a heavy drinker, in fact, drank more than I did. So in my mind, “if he's drinking more than me, well, that must mean that I'm okay!” What a relief! He actually said to me, “John, you can drink what you like. As long as you replace what you drink and it doesn't affect your work.”

It was only six or seven weeks before he turned to me and said,

“Fuck you drink a lot….” which was interesting. To say the least!

And still, whilst realisation was not far away, the light still didn't come on.

I was shuffling through my life, drinking excessively, working when I could, grateful for mum, not very tolerant of Lloyd stepdad, wandering those freezing, windswept streets as I experienced - at depth - an extraordinarily dark time.

It was in that space, where two well meaning friends introduced me to a girl.

Mandy and I - 1995

THE BEGINNING OF THE END Part One

The girl I was about to meet had an unparalleled effect on my life. We had actually known each other for a very long time being at school together, but because I was the school clown and she was the school sports superstar, we never had very much to do with each other.

We knew of each other, but we didn't know each other, and were brought together literally on a blind date.

A little backstory about her.

She was only eight months out of an extraordinarily emotionally and financially abusive relationship when we met up again and here's me drinking. She was doing the best she could to heal the wounds of her past and I was still flat out like a lizard drinking!

She was looking for somebody to fix and I'm looking for somebody to fix me!

We came together like two little peas in a pod!

And I'm telling you, we put the ‘fun’ into dysfunction.

Eleven days after Mandy and I met, I asked her to marry me.

How could she resist and she said yes!

Eleven months after that, we were married.

And six months after that, our twin boys were born.

Of course, at the beginning of our relationship I AM going to be on my best behaviour.

I’m not about to let the dark side of John appear, now am I?

If one is barrelling down the highway of life at four hundred miles an hour and a big boulder rolls out in front of you? Well, all hell's gonna break loose, isn't it?

But it broke loose before then.

We had moved into a beautiful timber pole home on the central coast of New South Wales. The owner of the house had gone overseas for a while and asked us to look after it.

It is such a beautiful area, close to a meandering river, surrounded by eucalyptus bush as far as the eye could see. 

The pole home had ninety stairs up to the house, which is hard enough to negotiate UP sober, let alone coming DOWN drunk.

Prior to us meeting, Mandy had a trip booked away to go skiing in the Rocky Mountains in the US, and it was the beginning of our relationship.

I inherently knew, “I'm going to have to get better, I'm going to have to do something”

I didn't know how that was going to present, but unconsciously I knew that I was going to have to somehow heal.

Views for as far as the eye could see

What I did was this.

I thought to myself, “Well, she's going to be away for two weeks. I'm going to have the biggest party I possibly can. On my own.”

WTF?? What kind of preposterously bizarre, maniacally insane, thinking was that??

I thought it was quite clever actually.

I bought enough alcohol to keep an army drunk for months, enough to at the least, last for those two weeks.

I proceeded to drink myself silly, knowing that I'd have to lay off it as soon as she returned.

So drunkenly silly, in fact, that I had a ridiculous accident. I was under the house using a very sharp tomahawk to cut some kindling for the slow combustion fire we had in the house. The reason I was cutting firewood in the middle of Summer, I do not know. However - I was. With a bottle of vodka under my belt and armed with an extraordinarily sharp tomahawk, chop chop chopping until I accidentally slipped, the hand holding the timber turned over on itself, down came the tomahawk and ….

Again - clearly something far more powerful and vast than I was taking care of me that night.

Although I’d inadvertently nearly lopped off my left hand’s little finger, just above where it joins my hand, a friend lived just up the road. He took me to the local hospital, about a thirty minute drive away. Because I was so drunk, doctors could not operate and I had to wait for fifteen hours for the alcohol to process out of my body.

A tourniquet was put in place to stem the bleeding with a local anaesthetic block placed into my hand to numb the pain.

Despite common thinking that “alcohol numbs the pain”, that night it DID NOT.
It hurt like blazes, bone, flesh, veins and tendons nearly smashed off by that drunken swing of a razor sharp tomahawk.

Those hours were horrid as I watched my finger turn an appalling black, immediately decomposing because of what I had so carelessly done.
The operation to cleanly amputate the finger was performed the next day and I am forever reminded to this day that John and alcohol, sharp instruments and uncoordination DO NOT MIX.

Happy days post tomahawk ridiculousness

But yet - back then - I continued to drink.

I used to have a big blue sports bag that I’d keep all my gear in. But of course, I didn't need that sports gear anymore, so all the beer and spirit bottles were thrown into that bag, which I’d purposely left in the main bathroom’s bath.

I would not, could not, admit to myself how much I was drinking. I could not possibly leave it in plain sight, now could I?

Knowing soon enough that I would be picking her up at the airport. I’d take that bag and throw it away.

I would have had a good time and she didn't know.

What a great idea!

But of course, what does John do when he drinks?

He forgets.

What a dumbass.

But perhaps not.

Soul was leading me forever onwards - yet again.

I picked Mandy up at the airport and drove the hour and half home. It was such a beautiful day, my girl was home, “I’m so in love with you, I missed you so much, I’m so glad you’re back. You’re back with me.”

The sun was glinting off the river below on a warm Summer’s day, I had the barbecue going, you could smell the steak & onions sizzling away and hear the birds singing in the trees. A light breeze sighed through the trees as we enjoyed each other's company.

Mandy was having a glass of champagne, and I was sipping on ONE beer.

I was on top of the world.

Then Mandy needed to use the bathroom, and guess what?

She found the bag!

I heard the swift intake of breath and knew in my heart of hearts that I was BUSTED. I was caught out, pants down, nowhere to run with nowhere to hide.

In that one moment, in one minute, that one woman had one message that would change the trajectory of my life.
She picked up that bag, stomped down the stairs, threw the very full bag onto the kitchen bench, looked me clean in the eye and said,

“John, is there something you need to tell me?”’

For the very first time in my life, it was as if a quantum window had opened in front of me. I had a crystal clear vision of what was going on and could see myself for what I was. An average joe blow, garden variety, active alcoholic that needed some help.

For the first time ever, I admitted before myself and another person, my issue.

I said to her, “Bub.You know what? I think I have a problem with my drinking.”

She swiftly responded with, “YA THINK?”

She grabbed my hands and led me to the couch, sat me down, looked me in the eye and she said,

“John, there is something far more vast running through you, than you can possibly see right now. You are sick, sweetheart, I want you to get better AND I want to stick around to see it happen.”

As an aside, Mandy and I have spoken at length about my ridiculous amputation accident. We both agree that it was more than likely a primal scream for attention for her to know of my pain and for her to help me heal.

And THAT she has.

MANDY

Let me share with you the lengths to which this spectacularly courageous woman would go to not only take care of herself and the newborn twins, but also my welfare.

The first two years of our relationship, whilst very exciting, was somewhat tempered by the swiftness at which it moved.

Within the first twenty four months of our relationship, the twins were five months old.

Not only THAT, as I was beginning to frequent the rooms of recovery, we'd purchased a block of land next door to where we were living up on the Hawkesbury River. We loved the area so much that a decision was made to stay a little longer.

With the help of a pole home designer and builder, we had plans into council to build a gorgeous four bedroom pole home overlooking the vast sweeping views of the bush and river beyond.

As we excitedly awaited approval of our plans, we found out Mandy was pregnant!

You've more than likely heard about fathers fainting during birth, but as we were rather innocent and naive (Mandy was 'showing' rather quickly, perhaps we'd mucked up the dates of conception), I nearly fainted during the first sixteen week ultrasound.

As the radiologist swept the ultrasound wand across Mandy's growing tummy, she exclaimed,

"Ohhh look! There's one head. And LOOK! There's another!"

To say we were caught off guard was the understatement of the century!

I collapsed into a nearby chair as Mandy and I both looked at each other somewhat dumbfounded.

I called a close friend who - as only a cheeky friend could say - immediately said, tongue in cheek, down the crackling phone line,

"Are you sure it's not a two headed kid?"

"Oh F off you idiot" I laughed, turning to Mandy.

I was stunned beyond belief, at the same time as feeling very excited.

I'd always wanted to be a father and inherently knew I’d be a good one.

Mandy was overwhelmingly delighted, gleefully waving to drivers tooting at her driving the wrong way down a One Way street!

"Yes! Yes! Thank you for tooting! I'M HAVING TWIIIIIIIINS!", she joyfully exclaimed to no one in particular.

I cannot tell you how many well meaning friends, who already had, say, four and two year old kids.

"How are YOU going to take care of TWINS?!" they'd unthinkingly ask.

"Gosh! It's going to be really hard!", only projecting on to the both of us, the sum of their own fears, not at all taking into account how well surrounded we were by loving and generous family.

It's funny, you know. Or maybe it's destiny at work.

EVERY SINGLE person in our lives, friends, colleagues and even some family who told us frequently,

"You guys will NEVER LAST, you'll be done in less than a year, your crazy relationship will end SOON."

Every single one of those people who voiced their opinions to us are now the ones who are on their own, either divorced, separated or acrimoniously at each other's throats.

The arrow of time inexorably flew on.

Mandy and I were doing the best we could with what we had.

Mandy was travelling into Sydney as a special education teacher at Stewart House, a school for underprivileged children from within New South Wales.

I had recently purchased a gardening business, beginning to take care of clients' lawns and gardens.

Not long after we knew of our impending parenthood, Mandy had a fall. Fortunately it was only a small trip up one of the stairs to where we were living, next door to our newly purchased block of land.

That began a train of thought, having us begin to question if we had made the 'right' decision.

Only a few weeks later Mandy had another trip, heavily pregnant, landing hard on her side.

Where we were living at that stage, the new build we were about to embark upon, the travel back and forth into Sydney and Mandy being uncomfortably pregnant had us decide, very quickly, to sell up and move back into Sydney.

We moved closer to family, work and to medical care with somewhat peace of mind knowing we'd made the right decision.

Especially in view of how close the twins were to being born.

After swiftly looking at six rental properties, we settled into a beautiful little house in St Ives Chase, a leafy suburb on the North Shore of Sydney.

Not long after settling into our new abode, Mandy started to have contractions!

But how could that be?

Surely not SIX WEEKS early!

We were both very busy, full time working, busy with teaching and gardening, setting up 'house' for the twins.

But those pesky contractions kept on coming, finally warranting a speedy trip up to the Hornsby Hospital maternity ward.

What we both did NOT know was the odyssey we were about to embark upon.

Mandy was made as comfortable as she could be while contracting, however, due to the twins possibly being born five weeks early, the obstetrician was very concerned.

Back in the late 1990's, and at that particular stage, Hornsby Hospital was a training facility for new medical students.

Embarrassingly surrounded by doctors and nurses, midwives and students Mandy was contracting. HARD! They were only minutes apart and those boys were wanting out!

Very quickly, she'd dilated five, seven then nine centimetres.

BUT her obstetrician was concerned about the twins coming far too early.

Because of his concern, combined with the use of salbutamol (an asthma medication that can be doubled to slow down the contractions) she was hooked up to a drip full of the stuff.

The concern was well warranted because, as the babies were coming prematurely, their swallowing reflex was not fully developed, their lungs were not strong enough to breathe unaided and he wanted to keep them in the womb as long as possible.

However, all that medication did was to have Mandy's heart rate shoot through the roof to one hundred and forty beats per minute!

For twenty four hours!

Whilst it did slow the contractions, it made Mandy exceedingly uncomfortable. Understandably so.

The obstetrician decided to ease up on the use of salbutamol as he wanted to see what would happen to her contractions.

By then, Mandy had been in labour for nearly FORTY hours!

Twin one's amniotic sac had burst hours before and he was engaged in the birth canal.

Mandy was in a great deal of pain and uncomfortability.

Meanwhile, an extraordinarily rude, arrogant Frenchman anaesthetist was brought into the birthing suite to give Mandy an epidural.

Dr FrenchAnaesthetistMan's bedside manner left MUCH to be desired!

He practically yelled at my suffering wife, "YOU NEED TO STAY STEEL, YOU NEED TO STAY STEEL (still)" in his thickly accented, decidedly irritating nasally voice.

Mandy was contracting every minute or so, heavily pregnant and trying as best she could to do as she was told.

I've already spoken of my thoughts of arrogant Europeans!

One can imagine the scenario!

A room FULL of (what I deemed exceedingly unnecessary staff and 'looky-loos') loudly beeping & tweeting monitors and machinery, cables all over, people stepping to and fro, poor Mandy TRYING to lean over in her bed so Mr Pompous could jam a giant needle into her spine for the epidural, Twin One's heart rate beating off the charts and little ol' me calmly about to throttle EVERYONE especially the anaesthetist.

All of these chaotic goings on as my poor MandyJane trying to lean over, so as to have her a spinal epidural.

Whilst she is contracting, he is yelling, "pleez keep steel!"

Mr Dr Pompous turned to look at me, giving me the perfect opportunity to whisper angrily, "Oh COME ON MATE! CAN’T YOU SEE SHE CANNOT BEND ANY FURTHER FORWARD, SHE’S CONTRACTING WITH TWINS! HURRY UP AND HELP HER!" which had him turn a peculiar shade of grey.

With Mr Pompous being a neat little man, I'm not quite sure if it was the one hundred kg and six foot three inches of me towering angrily over him or just the chaos of the moment, but he was out of that room quick smart!

Even after ALL THAT, all that epidural did was numb Mandy's left side. Meanwhile, Jack had been in the birth canal for sixteen hours! He was beginning to stress, Mandy was stressed, I was stressed, the room was stressed and pandemonium ruled the moment.

As Jack traversed the birth canal, he turned, resulting in his nose getting stuck against the rear of Mandy's pelvic girdle.

As his heart rate went off the charts AGAIN, the obstetrician cleared the room of all unnecessary staff.

Pointing sharply with the voice of command that I was pleased to hear, "Right! You. You. YOU. YOU." to those that were to leave immediately.

'Get OUT - NOW!"

The birthing suite was expeditiously emptied as my poor MandyJane was prepped for an immediate emergency Caesarean section.

Bless the obstetrician and his team.

Clearly, he must have known this would eventuate because, as we pushed Mandy into the operating theatre, there were two teams of eight medicos ready to take care of not only Mandy, but each of the twins.

Within twenty minutes of stunning surgery (that I was blessed enough to watch!) the twins were born SEVENTY HOURS after Mandy had presented in the hospital.

My poor dear wife had been subject to a seventy hour labour, when they could have taken the babies out three days earlier.

However, that was not to be.

Jack Alexander and Joshua John were born mid March, 1997, weighing a diminutive two kgs each, spending the next four weeks in humidicribs, in intensive care of the hospital.

We had to travel from home to the hospital every four hours.

Mandy was able to breastfeed the boys, they were getting stronger by the minute and it was only a matter of time before we were able to bring them home.

Let this be testament to how powerful Mandy is, her strength and courageous heart being tantamount to the both of us being able to persevere through the days that lay ahead.

As aforementioned, the lads were born prematurely back in Mar 1997, five weeks early and raring to go! At two kg each, after spending a month in Intensive Care, they were finally strong enough to come home.

Phenomenally active babies, toddlers, young boys then teens had us have our fair share of cuts and abrasions, stitches and broken bones. It was interesting to watch their progression from four wheeled little push around buggies, to three wheel tricycles, to two wheel bicycles and scooters to unicycles, four wheeled skateboards and now a constant stream of four wheeled motor vehicles. They’re both marvellous drivers, I suspect the ‘need for speed’ being satisfied on their one hundred km/h scooter and skateboard riding, hurtling down ten metre ramps only to double (sometimes triple)! somersault to finish off!

Talk about frightening the heck out of mum and dad!

I’ll never forget the time as young boys, they’d come home from kindergarten with some paintings they’d done. They would’ve been four or five years old.

One being a messy bunch of incoherent scribblings, the other some circles and squares.

I asked Jack, being the encouraging dad I am, “That is wonderful sweetheart! I love it!
What is it?”
To which he replied with his ever present nonchalant way, “It’s just scribble dad…”, looking at me like I was an idiot.

Of course, being the swift learner I am, I asked Josh the same. “How fantastic Josh, that painting looks amazing! What is it?”
Again. With the same easygoing, nonchalant way they both have,
“Circles and squares dad. It’s a painting of circles and squares.”, with that look in his eye of, “OMG. What? Are you really that big of an idiot?”

Keeping it very real indeed.

At six foot three and a hundred kilos EACH, the last twenty four years have been wonderful. They have settled into their lives gracefully, the both of them only scaring us now by persistently hurling themselves out of a perfectly good aeroplane to freefall at two hundred and twenty km/h, parachuting to the ground with a grin on their face and love in their hearts.

So frightening in fact, that Mandy and I joined them last year in doing just that.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END Part Two

After Mandy had sat me down that fateful day and said what she said, it felt as if, for the first time in my life, that I was being met with kindness, empathy and tenderness.

It was not the first time that kindness had been presented to me, but it was the first time that I'd heard it.

It was the beginning of the end.

I wasn't going to put the drink down that day.

But it was the beginning.

I began to frequent the rooms of recovery, I would boundary ride and fringe dwell, I would arrive late at the meetings and leave early, I wouldn't speak to others but slowly and surely, seemingly by osmosis, the message from sober others was filtering through.  Those days would turn into weeks, the weeks turned into months, the months turned into two years, four years, six then seven.

In that seventh year, things begin to go awry.

Whilst I wasn't lying to others, I wasn't being completely honest. I was absolutely terrified about how well things were going. I was being given back what are called the gifts of recovery. My relationship with my wife and children was great. Finances were great, health was great, I was feeling super well, mum and Lloyd were happy, my social life was fantastic, my spiritual contact with a power greater than ourselves was intact, and at the same time I was insidiously - and unconsciously - afraid.

I was so used to mucking things up, I was so used to failing, if you will, that ‘failing’ was my baseline, the ‘standard’ by which I’d monitor my progress. 

Yet, when things started to go really well, I was unused to that ‘feeling’.

I now know what it was that made me uncomfortable but we shall get to that later.

TERROR REIGNS

‘That’ feeling was very uncomfortable and although I was not altogether conscious of it, it was thorny and wearisome.

I have already shared at length what I used to do to ‘not feel’.

And ever so quietly, the voice began to whisper.

And ever so effortlessly, I’d begun to listen. 

Like King Theodin’s chief advisor in The Lord Of The Rings Two Towers, Grima Wormtongue, forever poisonously whispering in his ear,

“Late, is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear. Lathspell I name him; Ill news is an ill guest!”

I started to listen to that inside voice. Yet here I am being given back the gifts of recovery, everything was going so very well as I've mentioned, yet … I was intently listening to that voice in my head, that ever present, incessant whispered mutterings, faintly chipping away at my hard won recovery.

I wasn't being honest and I wasn't lying. But most importantly I wasn't sharing with others how terrified I was about how well things were going.

That creepingly insistent, pestilential and septic voice started turning me inwards towards its own end. Turning everything that I was doing, everything that was allowing me to have my life, my wife, my family, my service, my honesty, my dignity, my truth, turned me away from remaining in the rooms of recovery. Turned me away from having a sponsor, remaining reasonably sponsorable and being a sponsor, I was swiftly forgetting that what I was doing WAS my recovery and therefore MY LIFE. 

“Ahh, look at how well YOU are, YOU’RE doing really well, look at everything YOU have, YOU don't need to go to these meetings anymore, what would THOSE people know?”

Slowly but surely, with each turn of the screw, I turned away from my life support machine. We all know what happens to people who are unplugged from a life support machine. They die.

Slowly but surely I was dying inside and all by listening to an inner malevolent voice that was incongruent to what was true.

Evil at its purest. Yet ‘evil’ spelled backwards is LIVE.

But turning away I was.

Slowly but surely, three to four meetings a week would drop to three to four meetings a month, my calls to others would drop away, my service to others stopped, I was beginning to drop away because I was buying into that egotistical voice that it was ME that was doing everything.

It was NOT ME that was doing everything at all.

It was me doing as I was told and participating in a way of life that had direct correlation to how I was experiencing my life and thus, how my close others were experiencing theirs.

And Life was GOOD.

Then, with one slip, I was away, I was unplugged from what was keeping me safe. I was disconnected from what was keeping me sound of body and mind, what was keeping me in touch with a God of my own understanding, and in one thought, I stepped away. One slip, I was on the road to ruin, incapable of thought to consequence.

I was only gone for three or four months. For an alcoholic who is not surrounded by well meaning, supportive, members in recovery, it's only a matter of time before one drinks again. Truth be told, I am surprised I lasted that long.

GRACE

              Grace - our gift from God

Two years before that fateful stretch of time, an ancient soul graced us with her presence. The “keeping it real” gene runs strong in this family, Grace’s first words, not being ‘mumma’ or ‘dadda’ or some such but “STOP IT!” voiced to PoppyLloyd when he was pulling silly faces at her.
We all were swept into gales of laughter how this precious little bundle had - and HAS - such a big voice.
Always one to see others' incongruencies - and swiftly voice it - “Don't do that” or “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??”, rolling her big green eyes like a teen she was yet to become.
“What EVERRRRRR …..” *eyeroll, eyeroll, eyeroll*

One hot summer's day we were playing in the pool, the whole family was having fun fooling around on a Saturday afternoon.
A 747 aircraft flew over our house in an extraordinarily low holding pattern, probably only seven hundred metres above us.
The twins would’ve been twelve or thirteen years old, Grace about seven.
Jack exclaimed, “WOW! Grace, look!” pointing to the lumbering 747.
“What's the lowest plane you’ve ever seen?”

To which she replied, straight out of the mouth of babes, rolling those big green eyes at her brother.
“Well DUH! The lowest plane I’ve ever seen WAS ON THE GROUND stoopid.”

Forever keeping it real.

At the time of this writing, she is nineteen years old, blossoming into an amazingly beautiful young woman that does not tolerate any tomfoolery whatsoever.

I feel sorry for any boyfriend that will eventually cross her path.

THAT FATEFUL DAY

It was our ninth wedding anniversary. My mother had gathered the courage to look after the twins and Grace was about four years old.

For the first time in nine years, Mandy and I had a night on our own! We booked a gorgeous room in town, overlooking Circular Quay and The Sydney Opera House. It was one of the best nights that we'd ever experienced in our relationship together up until then.

Psychologically and physically, the way we are wired, is to forget how painful things are. If I was to recall with full senses, what it was like to cleave my little finger off in that moronic accident to not have it sewn back on?

I would still be yelling at you.

Mothers who have had children, drug free? One probably wouldn't do it again.

Yet we forget, don't we? It is the way we're wired. We are hardwired to not remember how painful things were. An evolutionary biological sleight of hand.

Mandy had forgotten how painful things were at the beginning of our relationship.

And at the same time, for far too long I had listened to the sinister malicious voice within, was forgetful, was not remembering, was far afield from what had kept me sober all those years.

As we sat at dinner on our ninth wedding anniversary Mandy turned and said to me, “John, we've never been able to have a drink together. Do you think you could have a drink with me tonight?”

Now here is a girl, a beautiful, well meaning, kind, loving girl, a girl I dragged through a couple of years of carnage at the beginning of our relationship, with all the lies and deceit, the drunkenness and sheer insanity that goes with active addiction giving me permission to have a drink!

And here's me.

Absent from what had sustained an incredible recovery.

What do alcoholics want to do?

They want to drink, right?

I had four beers that night and it was one of the best nights we'd ever had. But as soon as that first beer went into this body, I knew that it wasn't on, I knew in the back of my mind and the bottom of my heart that what I was doing was totally out of my control.

One slip.

There was on the insane side of my Self, the everpresent ego, saying,

“Ah, you'll be right, no worries, I’VE GOT THIS!”

What I'm about to share with you is the progressivity of alcoholism in John.

As soon as that first beer went into my body, not even a mouthful down my throat, I am setting up how to buy a six pack of beer - and drink it! -  for the following Saturday afternoon.

It is said that alcoholism is a three-fold dis-ease.

Meaning that it is physical, mental and spiritual.

AS Human Beings we are also three-fold.

Physical, Mental and Spiritual.

If one has a propensity to become addicted, as soon as the drug (or process) of choice is imbibed or entered into, a physical compulsion begins to run in the body where one cannot stop, a mental obsession starts in one’s mind where one cannot stop the thoughts of “where and how can I get MORE and Spiritually, all contact with a power far more vast than we can possibly comprehend is lost.

Disconnected. Separate. Irrational.

The Ego is running the show (Edging God Out) rather than allowing Spirit to flow through oneself.
“Thy will, not mine, be done” loses all meaning.

I’d COMPLETELY detached from what was so important to me, what I valued the most. Connection to family and service to others.

The following Saturday I'm drinking a six pack of beer. Mandywife said,

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

and I said, “ Well, come on, you know, it'll be okay. I was okay last week so I'll be okay today!”

And sure enough, the next day - the NEXT DAY - I was drinking more than I was seven and a bit years beforehand.

That drinking spree was to last for three years. One or two bottles of vodka a day was par for the course - if not more.

I wasn't to lose anything materially, except for the most important things. Instantaneously, within the gap of that first beer going into this body, the dignity and self respect, the trust of my wife, the honour of myself, the ability to look myself in the mirror and say,

“John, I love you. And you know what? You're doing okay.”

All gone in an instant, blown out of my life like the gutterings of a burned out candle.
One slip.

One slip into the wilds of active addiction for the next three years.

AGAIN.

One afternoon, I arrived home drunk. Again.

MandyWife had been long suffering, forever enduring, in a deep amount of pain for what I was putting her through. I was never violent but just behaving with all the crap that goes with active addiction.

She had had enough!

All her fear and disappointment, discouragement and anger, pin pricked into one moment, I think I may have scared her with some incoherent ramblings about nothing. She slapped me, deservedly so, her fingers pointing HARD, directly into my breastbone.

This is what she hissed to me, with all the well warranted derision she could muster.

“That's it, That's It, THAT IS IT!  I cannot do this anymore. I cannot sit by and watch you kill yourself slowly in front of me and the kids. You have six fucking weeks to get it together because mate, I will NOT BE the one who is leaving.”

AWAY FOR CHRISTMAS

Mandy had had enough on December 03, 2008.

On December 08, 2008, on my knees, I called Australia's leading treatment centre, asking for help, to which they replied,

“Of course we have a bed for you, John.”

What a relief.

On December 20, 2008, I finally put the drink down and on December 22, 2008, I presented back into Australia's leading treatment centre, South Pacific Private Hospital.

Mandy did not need to drive me down to the hospital that day, but being the kind hearted and gentle person she is, she did.

The twins were eleven years old by then and were happy.

“Yay. Dad is sick and he is going into hospital to get better.”

Our daughter was very young, only six years old and she didn't know what was going on. She thought that Daddy was going away forever.

It was a distressing moment for us all.

I was heading back into rehab and leaving my close knit family on their own for Christmas. That time of year is very special for our family, a time for connection and giving, reflection and joy.

And wasn't to be there with them.

The next five weeks were exceedingly difficult for Mandy.

She was not working at that stage, having left her teaching job to take care of our young daughter Grace and the twins.

It was troublesome for her to manage my little gardening business with the help of some good hearted friends and herself not having an income.

She had suddenly become a single mother, with no or minimal income, husband gone, left with three young children, a pair of them being rather rambunctious, bills to pay and day to day life to live.

Yet - she was prepared to stand her ground.

She looked to help herself in a rigorous walking and exercise routine, learning to meditate, focusing deeply upon taking care of the kids.

She learned to pace herself and square away the dark thoughts that could affect her in moments of inattention.

She's never one to be interested in the stories of others or their seeming incongruences.

She has ALWAYS had an amazing ability to 'see'.

You know? Those 'friends' who would say one thing but actually do another?

She brought curiosity & understanding to why others would behave like that.

"Why do people do that?" she'd ask, confused as to why they would act differently to what they actually had said.

Her alignment to what is 'true' is enlightening to experience and learn from.

She is one to ALWAYS see beauty - even when it wasn't pretty every day.

She has never shrivelled and closed up from fear of further pain.

She is always one to put her feet to the fire and not shrink away.

She allows me to fail - over and over - but still stand straight and say "YES!

Keep going."

She is always one to live with my failures but still stands strong every day, in the face of her deepest pain.

It doesn't interest her one little bit, not at all impressed by who you are or what you do, where you live or how much money you have.

What she wants to know is what sustains you when all else has fallen away.

She wants to know what gets you up in the face of betrayal and do what it takes to get through the day.

What deeply interests her, what drives her, what fuels her is what you - and in turn ME - ache for, what your heart's longing is.

She doesn't care if I look like a fool as I pursue my dream.

She allows me to feel my tears, to let them flow.

Mine and others. She’ll just sit close and listen.

Just listen and hear with a warm gentle hand on my back as she whispers,

“Keep going, keep going.”

She can 'see' my Mandy.

She drives me to know of my deepest pains, she honours, she encourages and she pushes.

All for the experience of being alive.

My Mandy.

My anchor.

My mirror.

My Wife.

THRESHOLD MIRACLES

I’d disconnected from what had not only kept me alive to survive, but what sustained me to eventually thrive!

My behaviour had not only affected me, but also EVERYONE I had come into contact with, especially close family, especially Mandy, the kids, my mother, brother and sister and of course, step dad Lloyd.

As I was walking up the road into that hospital, all the Wormtongue mindless chatter was chittering away, the senseless mutterings of a madman.

“Perhaps I could call my old sponsor, perhaps I should go back to the rooms of recovery, you know what to do, you've been in this joint before, you were in here a long time ago, perhaps you should do that, perhaps you should do this, bla bla blaaaah”

Insidious, mindless chatter.

None of which had any impact upon me.

Yet here I was AGAIN, physically, mentally and spiritually bereft.

Very very ill, presenting in a treatment centre.

AGAIN.

There is a sign in the foyer of that particular hospital.

“Expect A Miracle” hangs in the foyer entrance. I did not see that sign that day.

                        The sign I did not see that day

However, twenty two days into a thirty five day in house stay, it dawned upon me that,

“For twenty two days, I have not wanted to have a drink!”

Not for the lack of access to alcohol, but for as soon as I stepped through the threshold of that facility, it was as if something far more vast than I reached into the depths of my Soul to pluck out the compulsion and obsession to drink.

There is no way in the world I could have done that on my own, I had entered into the hospital stuck between knowing I ought not drink but not being able to stop and wanting to stop but not being able to.

A dark place indeed.

That was the first of two miracles that were to occur to me - or through me - during my exceptional stay in that facility.

REST IN PEACE

Miracle number two is something that I will share about my dad.

Twenty eight days into my thirty five day stay in the treatment centre, I had such a vivid “aha!” moment, one of deep remembering of a dream of dad.

Having been alcohol free for a month allowed me to recognise that I had actually had the dream about six weeks before I had entered the facility.

There'd been a ten week space between having the dream and the remembering of it.

For me, dad was somewhat stand offish, my perception being of him not particularly interested in the welfare & wellbeing of his adopted son.

He was fifty two years old when I was born, so one could imagine as an extremely curious and bright young fella, for a man in his mid sixties, I was, shall we say, tedious?

Upon reflection, what I really needed was a strong, male role model, and whilst dad did his best, I inherently knew it wasn’t enough.

I needed strong guidance emotionally, physically and spiritually.

There is no malice nor anger when I share this – it was what it was.

Here is where the dream gets weird. And I’ll let it be known that it’s weird, so y’all don’t think that I don’t know that it’s weird, alright? LOL!

Dad appears in the dream with me wearing a very fancy dress

I was in the body of a one or two year old boy again, yet knew what I knew as a – then – a forty three year old man. Dad was holding me in his arms and I could smell him.

I could smell the Old Spice aftershave and the Borkhum Riff pipe tobacco.

I could feel his whiskers against my skin, his hands around my little body and for the first time in my life, I felt the way I suspected many a son does with his dad.

I felt loved, I felt safe and I felt secure.

Now this is where it gets REALLY weird.

Dad passed away in 1991, seventeen years before I had the dream.

We were sitting on his grave and he had me sitting between his legs. We sat on those cold white pebbles upon his grave up in Blackheath, a gorgeous country town in the Blue Mountains of NSW.

He leaned over my shoulder and pointed at his headstone.

“Look, really look.”

“What are we looking at Dad?”, I asked.

“Here, look…” he pointed.

And said this.

“Look at that dash between these dates, 6 April 1914, DASH, 7 MAY 1991. It is that dash between those dates that ALL our lives amount to. Just that dash. Right now, yours is not really amounting to what we all know it can be. Perhaps you best be off to do what you need to do, yes?”

He then slid me backwards across that grave and pointed again.

“Look at this. Look. R. I. P.”

“You do not need to be dead like me to Rest In Peace today.”

My voice is deep. Dad’s voice was 2 octaves lower. It was a joy to hear and listen to.

I didn’t have any idea then, of what it was that the dream foretold. It was tremendously weird as a vivid memory, especially as there is no ‘RIP’ on dad’s headstone. Just a memorial to his time during WW2 and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

     Dad’s grave in Blackheath, The Blue Mountains, NSW

It was life changing, yet another message from another person in my life.

Another re - presentation of Spirit speaking through others.

In One moment, in One minute, that One Man passed on One Message.

“You do not need to be dead like me to Rest In Peace today.”

Shared by a visit from a man that had passed seventeen years before, it is forever etched upon my life and those of whom I share this with.

In that treatment centre, at the moment, I did not fully comprehend the enormity or portent of what that message foretold.
However, with the clarity of years of sober living I now know.

I now know what Dad meant.

I know what it is to Rest in Peace today, free from the icy grip of active addiction.

I used to look for my Peace in the bottom of a bottle. I now know that my Peace is forged in the fires of humility and discipline, routine and service.
My peace is found in strict discipline and routine, habit after boring habit.
Dad was right, you know.

None of us need to be DEAD to Rest In Peace today.

That dash between the dates of our birth and death CAN amount to something.

This “Parenthesis in Eternity” so eloquently coined by Joel Goldsmith, has forever been guiding us.

The Soul knows.
And as another person in my life, my cherished MandyWife said to me over a quarter of a century ago (at the time of this writing) -  in that one moment, in one minute, that one woman, with one message told me.

There is something far more vast running through you, than you can possibly see right now.

Whatever it is that is keeping you stuck is exactly the thing that is leading you home. It is your intuition whispering to you. It’s your SOUL endeavouring to get your attention.

What is in the way - IS THE WAY.

The long ago thoughts of an eight year old, sickly boy rang clear and true.

What if we come in to experience what it is to be Human, this infinite soul we are, with all we need already planted in the soil of our Soul, our greatest infinite desires to bring forth what our purpose is, already instilled in us?

All my studies and learnings, mistakes and corrections, has led me to coming into contact, and being taught by, some extraordinary humans.

One of my teachers, Derek Rydall, has deeply resonated with my hundreds of thousands of hours as a landscape gardener, forever - like a kid - playing in the dirt.

He explains.

There is a Divine Pattern within you. Already planted. And, like any seed, when correct conditions are created, it naturally, perhaps as planned, emerges. But whereas the seed of any plant is indigenous and, therefore, can only thrive in certain external conditions not within its control, we, as human beings, are endogenous, which means your conditions are internally derived or generated.

It doesn’t matter what external conditions you’re planted in, your Soul is your soil, and if you generate the right inner conditions — physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually — the seed planted deep within will have the correct nutrients to thrive. Even more interestingly, whereas most seeds require external light to grow, human beings are “self-effulgent”, meaning YOU generate light from within. This is not some namby pamby woo woo kind of thinking, a spiritual fact discernible through meditation, but scientific instruments have now detected that human beings ‘glow’ with a measurable light!

No matter how thick the clouds scudding across the sky of your life, no matter how dark the night, the light is always shining within, ready to illuminate the seed of your true Self and nourish its growth.

Science is proving these ideas in rigorous studies. Research in cell biology, as documented in Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief, shows how our genetics do not determine our mental, emotional, or physical outcomes; rather, it is the environment that the cell is in which dictates its health and growth. And this environment, as described by Dr. Candace Pert in The Molecules of Emotion, is created by the activity of our mind, which causes a cascade of electrical impulses and chemical messengers that speak to our cells, making them turn various functions on or off.

The scientific proof of the mind-body connection is irrefutable. Armed with the understanding that our consciousness, not our genetics, creates our outcome, the ‘sins of the father’ no longer have to be visited upon the son (or daughter).

Quantum physics has taken this even further with ‘the Observer Effect,’ (also related to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle) which states that the act of observation changes what is observed.” Taking this further, it states that the observable phenomenon doesn’t even exist until it’s observed; it’s in what’s called a superposition, meaning it’s neither wave nor particle, neither here nor there, it’s just ‘a possibility.’ It is NoWhere. At this deeper level, our mind and emotions seem to not just impact - and even create - our body, but potentially our entire experience of the world.

In Genesis it says, “God created man in His own image.” This principle is stated in different ways by the majority of religions, sometimes interpreted to mean that we have the same physical features as God. It’s like some metaphysical joke: God made man in His own image, and man has been trying to return the favour ever since!

In other words, we keep trying to understand God in human, material terms, like some anthropomorphic being sitting on a cloud, somewhere up in the sky, that will grant our wishes (prayers) depending upon how he is feeling and if we’ve been a good boy or girl. But this is a ridiculous literal interpretation of ancient teachings. The bible says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Or from the Tao Te Ching, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

Mystically understood, being ‘created in His own image’ doesn’t mean we ‘look’ like God, it means we possess the same constituent qualities — which have been described as Spirit, Truth, Love, Beauty, Power, and Intelligence, among others — just as the wave contains the same elements as the ocean. Just as the seed within contains all that is required to grow into a vast forest.  Psalms 82:6 says, “You are gods, children of the Most High.”

So put another way, we’re just chips off the Old Block!

This Divine Inheritance, this seed within includes our ability to decide what we focus our awareness on (free will) and the creative power of our consciousness.

Because our focus determines what’s in our consciousness, and our consciousness determines our experience, we ultimately have a godlike power over our world!

The powerful poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley states, you are “the master of your fate, the captain of your soul.”

No matter what kind of childhood you had, what “side of the tracks” you were born on, what challenges you’re facing, or what race, colour, creed, or age you are, when you create the right inner conditions, the great purpose for which you were born MUST emerge.

Thus - my two greatest teachers, my MandyWife and my adoptive deceased dad are correct. They both tapped into exactly what I needed to hear to allow the seed in my soul to be planted within the soil upon which ALL our lives can thrive.

There is something far more vast running through you, than you can possibly see right now.

And

You do not need to be dead like me to Rest In Peace today.

Make that dash between those dates of your birth and your passing COUNT.

EXIT - STAGE LEFT

I stepped out of South Pacific Private Hospital the morning of Australia Day, 26 January, 2008.

After leaving the treatment centre, the next twelve months were formidable.

I was in a relationship with a person I had not 'seen' for years (me) and Mandy was in relationship with a man she didn't know.

As I immersed myself in what the rooms of recovery have to offer, as I threw myself into everything I could get my hands and mind on, I had begun to remember the person I used to be, the Soul’s longing to connect and serve

Upon coming home, it was as if two strangers were thrown in together as we began to learn, know and truly LOVE each other.

To say it wasn't challenging would be absurd.

However - our love for each other held strong.

We both had a choice as to either weather the storms that every relationship encounters or pull the pin and go our separate ways.

Mandy had an avalanche of reasons and excuses to 'leave' when I was actively drinking, and seemingly even more in the year following my stay in the treatment centre. There were many a moment when she could've left.

But as I've already shared, her vision for me, combined with our love of US, held strong against the squalls that invariably raged across the stronghold of our relationship.

It seemed what she said to me all those years ago was bearing fruit.

That there was indeed something 'far more vast' running through ALL OF US and she was undeniably "sticking around to see it happen".

If I was to have sat down and written out what I expected my life to be, thirteen years down the track, I would’ve sold myself exceedingly short.

My little gardening business blossomed into a remarkable enterprise, allowing me to connect with and serve others, deeply participating in the mysteries of the Universe.

The people who know me best, know that, at heart, I am just a peaceful gardener. My gardens have probably taught me the most about how things grow - and thrive in a vibrant manner. These lessons have shaped my approach to encouraging responsible growth and to the ways I apply my intention, attention and energy.

A gardener sees the world as a system of interdependent parts - where healthy, sustaining relationships are essential to the vitality of the whole.

 "A real gardener is not a person who cultivates flowers, but a person who cultivates the soil."

In my life and business this has translated for me into the importance of developing relationships where vision and values, purpose and intent are articulated, considered and aligned among all involved and natural environments.

The garden has taught me about patience and persistence and the ethical principles of generosity and reciprocity.

It illuminated the importance of appreciating the cycles of life and decay. For the gardener, composting is a transformative act - whereby last season's clippings (or failures) can become next year's source of vigour.

I've learned that it's not just what you plant, but how you plant it that brings long term rewards in life, work and the garden.

Gardeners know that once strong roots are established, growth is often exponential rather than linear.

Also gardening, like life, is inherently a local activity, set within an ever-changing and unpredictable global climate.

Showing up in person, shovel and secateurs - and humility in hand is essential.

Gardeners are obsessed with latent potential - and can be known to be pathologically optimistic.

We can vividly imagine the bloom and the scent of the rose even in the deepest of Winter.

As the American naturalist Henry David Thoreau once wrote: "I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

In essence, the gardener's work is a life of care. We cultivate abundance from scarce resources. We nurture, encourage, fertilise - and prune when necessary - while being respectful of the true and wild nature of all things. We know that creating enduring value requires vision, passion, hard work and the spirit of others.

I am just coming to understand this work of business and gardening - and investing in keeping people mentally well and healthy - as an act of universal responsibility.

His Holiness Dalai Lama reminds us all: "Each of us must learn to work not just for one self, one's own family or one's nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace."

And so it is.

Growth. Grace. And Life herself.

How blessed to get my hands dirty.

However, Life has NOT been a bed of roses. Like two poles of a magnet with both positive AND negative poles, Life is similar.

While many of my relationships are intact and thriving, many had to be pruned away.

My relationship with Mandy is blossoming, nearly twenty six years after our swift connection, the twins are nearly twenty five years old and Grace, our little gift from God, is nineteen.

These powerful souls that I get to live with, be a husband and be a father to, are my greatest teachers.

They all have a way of perceiving life the way it is, rather than the way they’d like it to be.

“Just keeping it real, Dad, just keeping it real”, they perpetually remind me.

LEAVING HOME

While many old & stale relationships fell away, many wonderful ones replaced them. We are surrounded by many amazing souls, with me inherently knowing I’d serve others in some capacity or another. The five star hospitality industry, then the twenty five year career in landscape gardening has given me a wonderful base upon which to SERVE. Free from the icy grip of active addiction had me finally realise that I could truly help others - once I’d helped myself.

Deep involvement in many coaching and healing modalities, various accreditations, multiple learnings, tens of thousands of books read on human behaviour and Universal Laws, various religions and spirituality, addictions and the healing of them, prayer work and meditation, psychology and applied physiology to name but a few, has me very well versed in helping others out of places they invariably get themselves stuck in.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.

~ Sören Kirkegaard

The Covid 19 virus swept the planet as a global pandemic set in. Australia was blessed not to have been troubled as much as many other countries, however the impact was keenly felt.

My garden landscape business, clients and staff were profoundly impacted, business falling, seemingly overnight, by 65%.
Immediately into damage control and with much help from the others, I stepped upon a path to finally step away from a very physically demanding, hundreds of thousands of hours old career to follow my destiny into becoming a fulltime coach, speaker, teacher and trainer.

Despite an outward appearance of “What the heck am I gonna do now?” I was very excited.

I knew in the bottom of my heart and the back of my mind that NOW was my time.

Little did I know of what was swiftly approaching, ANOTHER ‘fall’, one that would bring to bear the true meaning of Keeping It REAL.

With many plans in place and the backing of years of training, destiny called.
I made the decision to step away from a twenty five year career into my calling.

However, seemingly overnight, as if the sum of our lives was a whiteboard, mine was WIPED CLEAN.
Weeks ensued of deep pain of perceived ‘loss’, I had forgotten the lessons of my past and bought into “a mistaken identity”. I had forgotten those hard won lessons that had allowed me to recover.
I had finally, for the first time IN MY LIFE, come to a complete and utter STOP.
Not by design mind you, but Soul knows.

There was No-Thing to be, no-thing to do, my life had come to a grinding halt.

No business to attend to, nor clients and staff to take care of, no major spinal surgery to heal from, no uprooting family to live elsewhere, no demolition of our little House of Love to rebuild anew, no transplanting eleven HUNDRED mature trees, shrubs and plants to hold off site, no immediate mature garden to install after eighteen months out of ground - no nothing.

It was as if my whole identity had slipped away into the night, stealing away who I thought I was.

Upon life’s twisted branches, lay tattered the remnants of what had passed.

It was a thundering transition from what and who I thought I was into who I am yet to be, snapped into the ‘Gap’, if you will, of that space in between, the crack between worlds just as it gets light at dawn but the sun has not risen.

Combine that with the decades old & dusty thought process of “if my natural mother can give me away, how much can I be worth?”

Merging that with “Who am I?”, “Why the heck am I HERE” and “What is my purpose?”, it was as if I had forgotten EVERYTHING.

Being plunged into a radical unknowingness, it was a call into a pilgrimage where immense “alone-ness” began and it was time to leave “home”.

It was time to wake up from this trance state of ego.

Religion and science were not going to head me home.

All my past learnings were not going to lead me home.

My sense of reality has been questioned and tricked. I had to separate psychologically from the ordinary life of family & community and turn away from the fruits of my first life.

Life had become a riddle again and I’d become a stranger to myself and others.

I was no longer willing - or even capable - of continuing life in the way I knew it to be. This shift had loosened the beliefs about the world and the way I existed in it.

It was as if, since I walked out of the treatment centre, that I’d developed some kind of practical personality and had become forgetful to my prior life, but unlike the sufferer of amnesia, my goal was not to rediscover my old life but rather who I REALLY AM.

COMING HOME

It was as if psychic roots had grown deep into the bare rock of my surface life and driven deep into the fertile soil of my soul.

The lowest ebb is the turning of the tide.

I opened myself to the possibilities that my destiny, what my soul has in store for me WILL learn to bring forth what these gifts to the world are.

I learned that joy and suffering dance long into the night.

I remembered that one does not drown falling into the ocean but by staying submerged in it.

Endlessly the devotee of thousands of books, Soul recalled many writings from remarkable humans.  Memories flooded forth.

The age old axiom authored by St John Of The Cross, 

“In order to come to the knowledge you know not, you must go by the way you know not.”,

Jean De La Fontaine’s

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”,

David White’s

“Find the image at the centre of your being that you were born with.”

The Gospel Of Thomas

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

And

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's

“There is a perfection in the Universe that few people ever get to know, but for those who do, their lives are changed forever.”

As a flash of lightning cracked across the current thinking of my life to date, my locked down heart split open.

A chill shot up my spine as an incandescent flame illuminated my whole being.

THIS IS my path - to light the way for others, to highlight that the magnificence of who we ACTUALLY ARE far outweighs any thoughts, feelings or actions ‘society’ can put upon us.

There weren’t any elders in my youth to soften my ego or do that for me.

Seemingly in an instant, Soul had executed a swift U-turn, all these decades later, recapturing all that had gone before me.

Dr John De Martini, a preeminent human behaviour specialist, another one of my teachers, explains that identifying our highest value, what is MOST important to us, is one of the most significant things a human being can do.

Until you value yourself, one cannot expect anyone else to do so.

Ancient Greeks termed it the “Telos” meaning, ‘the end in mind’.

Napoleon Hill called it The Ultimate Aim, others The Magnificent Obsession or Primary Objective.

Our very Life revolves around it!

Our Ontology - the study of our own being - emerges from our highest value.

Our Teleology - the study of meaning and purpose - emanates out of our highest value.

Our Epistemology - the study of knowledge -  maximises according to our highest value.

Discovering, uncovering and re-covering our highest value IS the most meaningful thing one can know and organise one's life to fulfil.

All others are a means to an end.

At the level of our sense’s things ‘appear’ to be missing. However, at the level of our Soul NOTHING is missing.

We ALL have a unique thumbprint specific value system, the hierarchy dictating the aim of our lives.

When we are aligned with what is most important to us, we are inspired to live it.

When we maximise our lives by priority, the Universe WILL support our endeavours. Our Telos dictates how we perceive our environment and what we learn.

There are seven areas of Life, all of which can be maximised and we cannot have one without the other.

We all have a spiritual quest and a desire to wake up our genius - our mental capacities. We have a desire to contribute & serve others and an eagerness to have beauty and vivacious energy.
A desire to have an intimate and loving family dynamic, to have influence and be able to lead and financial independence.

ALL of which can be brought forth by aligning oneself with what is most important, the quality of our lives being based upon the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest and philosopher stirringly said,

“You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.

We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”

Undoubtedly, the thoughts I had as a very young boy were true.

That we do indeed come in to experience what it is to be Human. We are this infinite soul, with all we need already planted in the soil of our Soul.

With our greatest infinite desires to bring forth our purpose already instilled in us.

In concert with staying exceedingly close to the rooms of recovery, full immersion into thousands of books on a variety of different interests and with an ever present yearning to learn as much as I can about human behaviour, dichotomies became apparent.

I noticed that self-improvement seems to be - commonly - when we're trying to improve ourselves or trying to 'manifest', fix or somehow change something within.

However, many do not know that we already are perfect and complete - here and now.

Very often, this comes from a misconception of the Self.

A thought process can often arise that we are somehow broken, flawed or damaged, that something is wrong, that something is missing.

This is an inaccurate premise, an imprecise concept of one's self.

You can do all the 'right things' as the age old axiom says, BUT if our thinking is skewed, when you come from a premise that you're broken, damaged, lacking or something is wrong and you're going to try to improve yourself, you end up manifesting MORE of that false or limited self concept.

'To he or she who is wrong in mind, they can do all the right things and it will still turn out wrong, but to he or she who is right in mind, they can do all the wrong things and it will still turn out right.'

It's as if we believe we can dig ourselves out of a hole while we are digging in the same hole!

Many have noticed or experienced - the more they try to attract, improve or achieve or in their life, the more frustrated they become!

And very often, they have LESS of what they are wanting to manifest, experience or develop.

Manifest a new relationship? Yay! Same old arguments.

More money? Yippee! Just broke at a higher income bracket.

What I've realised however, is the following;

The considerable field of personal development, where one is endeavouring to 'develop' certain parts of oneself is more so related to a seed and the tree that lies within.

Over one hundred thousand hours planting, growing and tending to a variety of different trees, plants and shrubs has taught me that a rose hip will become a rose. A tomato seed will become a tomato, the acorn the oak.

That we are not apart FROM Nature - we ARE Nature herself.

The acorn is not somehow broken, lacking, damaged or has something missing.

When we realise we want to develop ourselves, we realise that POTENTIAL is latent, that the acorn has all the potential WITHIN itself to become a full grown tremendous oak tree.

Knowing that, we can develop that potential, but we're not doing it from the standpoint that something is incomplete or somehow missing.

We're doing it from the viewpoint of there is unexpressed potential inside us.

The starting point for all true growth and progress is "I'm already whole and complete, I already have it all".

All we need to do is find a way to release that which is already within.

As the poet Robert Browning expressively quoted,

“There is an inmost centre in us all, where truth abides in fullness; and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendour may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.”

You recognise that when you are yet to express your full potential, it's like the acorn.

The seed of the oak tree, the acorn, is not an inadequate oak tree.

The acorn is a perfect acorn, but it also has a whole lot more potential within it.

Wherever we find ourselves, we are not an inadequate or diminished version of our future self, we're a perfect version of our current self.

THIS is the key distinction.

Let's use the example of getting in better shape, studying the body and working with a trainer. We inherently know that if we are to build that perfect body at the gym, it's not going to happen overnight, yet we know the potential lies within us.

How often will I train? What do I need to fuel my body with? How much water do I need to drink? What kind of exercises do I need to do?

You want to make sure you're doing it from the viewpoint of understanding you're learning the skills, you're developing the potentials, because they are already IN you, not because you're trying to attract or achieve it or add something that you don't already have.

Everything you need to do what you want - IS ALREADY WITHIN YOU.

Just as all my years digging in the dirt taught me, the plant is already in the seed and that seed doesn't 'attract' the plant or 'achieve' the plant.

When the seed is planted in the soil and the conditions within the soil match the pattern in the seed, what is already within, WILL naturally develop.

When the gardener is working on a garden, they know that they don't make the plant 'happen'.

They know that all they can do is create the best conditions, then the laws that govern our existence, already in the soil, begin to do the work.

IT does the serious work!

We can water it, we can feed it and we can weed it.

We expose it to the right amount of sunlight and as soon as the conditions match the pattern within the seed, the plant that is already in the seed WILL begin to appear.

The same is true for us.

A pattern is already in us, the perfect pattern, a divine design, a masterpiece of power & bounty of love and genius.

Instead of us trying to go out and make ourselves into those things, we must begin with the understanding that we already are it, we already have it, and we begin to cultivate the conditions to become a match.

When you come from a frame of mind where you are trying to 'attract' something, you are in a mindset that is already incongruent with the truth about you. You're already saying that something is missing, that something is lacking, that I don't have it.

The ‘mistaken identity’.

As it says in the Bible,

'To he who has, more shall be given, but to he who has not, even that which he has will be taken away.'

It's all about the state of a "HAVING consciousness".

The great mystical statement, 'I Am,'  means exactly this.

It doesn't say 'I was' or 'I will be,' it says,

'I AM.'

I am, I have, it's happening HERE, it is happening NOW.

THIS is the state of consciousness that is congruent with our True nature, which is, that we do indeed, have it all and it is happening now.

As I have already mentioned, the starting point for all true growth and progress is "I'm already whole, complete AND I already have it all".

I also deeply pondered something I had noticed as a very young boy, but it was just out of reach, just beyond my ability to language it. However, now? With the benefits of decades of hindsight and surrounding myself with some incredible minds, the experience of it is far too valuable NOT to share.

In sharing it and to give it the gravity and substance it truly deserves, I’ve written it in a very different fashion to the aforementioned.

Thus - if you’re curious - go here.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WE GO

If not, that’s ok.

Just remember that if you do, come on back!

(if you do not, it will not affect what I am sharing, however, from the bottom of my heart, I would strongly recommend you do).

I’d finally remembered the lessons that had been re-presented over and over, the gem like flame that had fluttered as a low ember for decades now burning bright.

Assuredly and most certainly, Soul is leading me home.

As it always has and I suspect - always will.

Our SOUL. as my teacher, Dr John DeMartini so eloquently mentions - Our

State

Of

Unconditional

LOVE.

EPILOGUE

 “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

~ Patanjali

        AURALIE - My very excellent Grandma’s property in south west NSW

As a young boy, growing up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney was amazing and what was even better was spending time on my Grandmother’s (my mum’s mum) property, Auralie, in southwestern New South Wales. Hundreds of acres of beautiful, hard, flood and drought-stricken country, country that had been planted deep in my soul. Land upon which I wandered along creeks and rivers, learned how the trees and flowers grew, how the seasons turned and melded into each other, how one follows the other in a natural, clear and distinct pattern. How the winds blew through the trees, the songs nature sang and naturally how attuned I was to it all. Unaware. But so in love.

In love with the sound of frost crunching underfoot early on a winter’s morn or the groaning of the big pines in a summer storm.

The smells of Grandma’s cooking and a freshly lit fire on a cold, cold day.

The sight of freshly bucketed milk in the dairy shed and young lambs gambolling in the top paddocks.

The sadness felt as mum tells of how my grandfather died there in a horrid accident. The hard years that lay ahead.

What an impact that has had upon me.

I drove down there a few weeks ago.

Down to Auralie – that land where all those seeds that had been planted in my soul had begun to emerge.

I drive past the land that now belongs to another and slow right down. I stop on that dusty road, and take my old boots off, wind down the window and deeply breathe. I let myself out of the car to stand barefoot on the ground where so long ago, I stood hand in hand with Grandma. She's been gone over twenty three years now.

I breathe in. The sweet smell. There’s so much space. More trees. I just love that.

I feel love and hope, tragedy, sadness and death. I feel it as it wells in my body.

Tears too.

It is beautiful. And horrible, this feeling.

I drive on. So much mystery. Memories. Thoughts.

And as I let mercy wash away all that I have done, I know it to be true.

Unquestionably, it IS such a beautiful Life.

Many years have passed since those summer days when my drinking gave me all I wished for.

For many a year I could feel my drinking’s call, her heat and dusty whispers.

It was hard to keep my distance however, my time was coming soon.

It's been many years since she stripped away all that I knew, to finally allow me to become who I am becoming.

There IS a way home.

All those long years, out in the wilderness.

Slowly, slowly, at what would seem a glacial pace, I remembered that there is nothing to fear.

Gardening has taught me that planting and growing a garden is the same process as creating our lives. This process of creation begins in Spring, in co creation with something far more vast than ourselves, when we break up the soil and start anew. Then it's time to clear out the dead leaves, debris and that which is laid waste to in the depths of the Winter.

Any gardener worth their salt will make sure that high quality fertiliser (surrounding ourselves with those who have our best interest at heart) and proper nutrients (congruent thought processes) are correctly mixed in the soil (of our Soul)

It's important to aerate the topsoil and leave it loosely packed on the surface. We won't get those beautiful blooms in life until we FIRST do the work.

When the gardens of our Life are balanced with care, we can harvest the beauty of living a life of grace, of elegance and gentle finesse.

In forests, when trees realise - through their roots - that another tree is ill, they will send a portion of their nutrients to that tree to help them to heal. They never think about what will happen to them or feel vulnerable when they do.

When a tree is dying, it releases all of its nutrients to other trees that need it the most. Below the surface, we are all connected by our roots and sharing nutrients with each other.

It's only when we come together that we can honestly grow.

It's the same for humans in the garden of Life. In this garden, when the caterpillar transforms into a chrysalis, this involves struggle.

But it's a challenge with purpose.

Without this painful fight to break free from the confines of the cocoon, the newly formed butterfly cannot strengthen its wings.

Without the battle, the butterfly will die without ever taking flight.

It seems my life's work to date is to illustrate how to integrate  our human connections into the gardens of our lives. Nature is full of enchanting wisdom for this transformation and is creative energy waiting to be birthed.

It's a deep participation in the mysteries of the Universe.

Uni - verse. One song - sung by us all.

Our gardens are but a mirror that cast their own reflection into our waking lives.

So nurture your talents and strengths while you appreciate all you've been given.

Remain humble to healing.

And maintain compassion for others.

Cultivate your garden for giving and plant those seeds for the future.

The garden is the world living deep inside of all of you.

Life is amazing. And appallingly tough.

And in-between it is boring, routine and mundane.

And soul searingly beautiful.

To all of you, with deep reverence for all our journeys. I thank you.

Here’s to this hard path.

Life is hard if lived the easy way.

Life is easy if lived the hard way.

Let us pray this day.

For love and understanding

For connection.

For deep respect and true understanding that we are not apart from Nature.

We ARE Nature herself.

I do not believe that Life keeps getting better.

I KNOW it with every cell in this body.

It always has, and I suspect, always will.

Just because yours may have been difficult, it does not mean you cannot change it.

Make it count and come on home.

You’ve been missed.

AFTERWORD

There were many habits formed over the first few years of my recovery, in concert with staying close to the rooms inhabited by amazing folk that I get to be friends with. Many of these routines were cemented into a daily routine very early on, ALL of which are discussed in the chapter ‘Checklist for Awesomeness”.

I’d like to share with you one thing that I’ve not touched upon however.

About fifteen years ago, I was blessed to be able to take care of the exquisite gardens and lawns of an elderly client. She was fastidious in her demeanour and so it was in her gardens. Not a thing out of place, always healthy and vital - a direct reflection of her.

She always had her long hair carefully coiffed and sprayed, make up applied perfectly. Even though she was nearly seventy five years old, one could see how striking she was.

One hot summer day I was due at her place mid morning to spend the rest of the day tinkering in her grounds. They deserved to be cared for in the manner she expected.

As she could no longer maintain them herself, I was charged to do so.

I cannot recall exactly why, but that day something or other was annoying me, some miniscule day to day irritation. 

At the same time, I was working very closely with a friend of mine in the rooms of recovery on The Twelve Steps, something around letting go and forgiving.

It’s a testament to how important it must've been  - seeing as I cannot remember ‘why’ I was so annoyed!

But I will forever remember what was about to transpire later that day.

I’d been taking care of her gardens for a couple of years by then.

Ursula always had me come and sit with her a while. She would share stories of her now adult children (her doctor son was another client of mine, hence we were bound to meet), I would regale her with stories of arrogant Europeans while I was in the Hospitality Industry.

Her ready laugh punctuated her accented German, blue eyes twinkling as she roared with glee, knowing exactly what I was talking about.

Every now and then she’d nearly lose her dentures laughing her head off!

A deep love of languages enabled me to speak enough German for us to carry on a decent conversation, her correcting my grammar gently, me asking her the word for this and that.

But this day she noticed I was a little ‘off’, somewhat distant and not really myself. As I sat in the sun with her, overlooking her front expanse of emerald green lawns, sipping on my cup of tea, she leaned across and grabbed my hand, tapping a wizened finger atop of it. I was used to her affection and although I knew what she was about to ask, I really did not want to speak about it.

Nevertheless, she asked in that lilting German I can still hear as I write this to you,

“Come on dear boy. Do tell. What is it that ails you so?”

I looked at her and said,

“Ahh Ursula. Thank you for asking. It’s really nothing... just some stuff that has come up that I need to work out. Don’t worry about it.”

Her blue eyes shone bright that day. She leaned back in her chair, peering at me over the rim of her glasses.

“Oh John. Speak. Perhaps these old ears will hear something I can help you with”, she said gently in her ever present accent.

I sighed to myself and related my apparent tale of woe.

I watched her closely as her face hardened into a sombre mask.

Had I said something wrong? I never swore in front of her, swiftly trying to recall if I’d somehow offended my elderly friend, me shifting uncomfortably in my chair.

She must've picked up on my discomfort because a smile quickly replaced that look I saw darken her face not seconds before.

What she was about to relate would teach me a lesson so deep, so life changingly incredible, that I have NEVER forgotten it.

She slowly rolled up her blouse sleeve exposing the forced labour serial number tattoo scrawled upon her forearm.

My friend was eleven years old when she walked through the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1944.

She shared with me in a distant tone how she was to lose her mother and sister, father and two brothers.

She was practically whispering as she told me that, as a young ballerina, she would be made to dance for Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel Of Death.

She shared that, in the moment, as a young girl, she KNEW she had to forgive the German soldiers as they drew blood from her with their blunt syringes.

Watching her eyes carefully, I could tell she’d wandered back into the mists of time.

She shared the meeting with a kind man that had arrived in the camp at about the same time she had.

She wasn’t to know who he was, but recognised him after reading a book, Man’s Search For Meaning, published in 1946.

His name? Victor Frankl.

I could not help but sit in awe, with tears in my eyes as my wise old friend shared a deeply intimate, horrific part of her life.

I asked her if she had forgiven Adolf Hitler, Josef Mengele and the numerous infamous monsters we all know of.

“John. Of course. I had to. If I had not, they would live forever more in my head”

Here is little ol’ me, getting all wound up over NOTHING, blathering on about some slight indiscretion perpetrated by someone or something in my life.

And across the sunlit table, sits my friend Ursula.

Opening up about her past to help me realise a lesson I needed to learn.

“Forgive swiftly young man. It is about giving to YOU. For - giving, yes? You understand?” she said directly.
Right at that moment, I didn't really. She could see I was troubled.

“What EVER happens John. You must forgive. If you do not, YOU drink the poison wanting the other person to be hurt. But they will not even know what is happening in YOUR head.”

It was then, in that moment, some writing by Mark Twain meandered through my mind.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds upon the heel that has crushed it.”

Over the next decade or so many opportunities to forgive were presented, some just so ridiculous, one could do nothing but, but others?

These situations presented to truly learn what it is to forgive.
And I must say, whilst I’m getting better at it, I am certainly not at, what I call, ‘Ursula Altitude’!

My old friend and I parted ways a few years later, I cannot recall exactly why. I think her young adult grandkids needed some weekend pocket money.

Nearly twelve years had gone by when, only a few months ago I was driving near where Ursula lived. I thought I’d stop by to say hello.
I parked the car out the front, fondly remembering the many conversations we had on that sunlit porch, overlooking her front gardens.

I hopped out of the car and as I traipsed up her long driveway I wondered how she would be, would she still live there? Had the years been kind to her? And the like.

I bing bonged the front doorbell and as the front door slowly opened, I saw that old familiar face.

With a big smile I said, “Ursula! It’s John! I took care of your gardens a while ago, how are you? I was passing by and thought I’d come to see how you are!”

She smiled that familiar smile but I could see something was out of sorts.

Nevertheless, she held out her soft hand for me to shake and said in her lilting German accent.

“I am truly sorry young man. Thank you for dropping by. My mind is not what it used to be and I cannot remember you. “Old Timers” has got me. I am sorry.”

“Ahh nevermind Ursula, I will never forget YOU!”

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked as I turned to leave, parts of her still there, her kindness, her hospitality.

I wasn’t to stay long that day, just long enough to let her know of the stupendous impact she’d had upon my life.

I thanked her deeply and turned to leave.

As the front door quietly closed, with tears welling in my eyes, the door suddenly swung wide open and I caught a sunlit glimpse of the striking young girl who was liberated from Auschwitz, all those decades ago.

“Young man! Thank you for coming by. Please excuse me for not recalling you, I pray you know what forgiveness is.”

I slowly walked away, those tears glistening in the sun, knowing that, “Indeed I do, my old friend. Indeed I do.”

COMMON SENSE GUIDELINES TO LIVE BY

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ~  T. S. Eliot

It seems we have now come full circle.

I cannot begin to tell you how it feels to become fully responsible and accountable to one self.

Once we do, we get to participate in resolving our history, then get to move on to the next mystery in an ever widening, upward spiral of what it is to be Human. Freedom is NOT free and we must take responsibility for it to flow through our lives. To keep our freedom requires us to ‘do’ certain things.

Remember. Please take care of yourself. First and foremost.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I’d forgotten how to do this as I wandered out in the wilderness for all those years.

Even when surrounded by good hearted, well meaning people, we still have to take FULL responsibility (RESPONSE - ABILITY) for our lives.

No one is going to do it for you.

Simple, basic, easy to do habits will combine into a daily routine that will take your Life into the Incredible.

All common sense really, but common sense is not that common, is it?

The following are some suggestions to take to take care of yourself.

-       Drink plenty of water - the universal solvent

-       Get enough sleep

-       Quit or at least lessen your sugar intake

-       Light exercise every day

-       Practise Gratitude and Prayer work

-       Learn to Meditate

-       Learn to BREATHE properly

-       Affirm and Visualise

-       Make YOU the priority in your life

-       Surround yourself with people that are of a like ‘mindset’

Once the basics are habituated within, move on to discovering, uncovering and

RE - covering what is most important to you. Your values. Once you begin to work in YOUR Genius Zone, life will never be the same.

Practise this affirmation every day.

I AM A GENIUS AND I APPLY MY WISDOM DAILY.

You’ll become responsible, accountable and a genius in your own right.

You will come to know that it can be a long way back to your purpose and WHY you are here.

You will come to know although it is not easy - your journey WILL be worth it.

And finally - you will know in the depths of your Uncommon Soul that “Coming Home” is what YOUR Soul longs for.

And of course - Wherever your ‘Home’ may be, it lies within your Heart.

CHECKLIST FOR AWESOMENESS

You’ve been gifted with an extraordinary life.

While it’s important to find your own way, here are some more ideas, thoughts and information for you to make your OWN CFA.

Your own Checklist For Awesomeness.

This checklist is called “The CHRIMSOM Creed''.

I called it this because it sounds cool, not because the letters are in priority or order of importance.

Incorporate all or some of these into YOUR OWN routine.

Click on each of the links below to access the information. ENJOY!

C ontemplation

H ydration

R aise your Vibration 

I nspiration - The 5 Steps To An Inspired Life

M anifestation

S  A  V  E  R  routine

O ptimisation

M editation

Go well into this day my new friend - for as it was so eloquently coined by W. Leibniz,

it holds true within, that there unquestionably is “A perfection in the Universe that few people ever get to know, but for those who do, their lives are changed forever.”

Let me close out with this.

I wish that the Universe provides you with the unfailing sense that everything is okay, no matter what life throws at you, or may be ‘apparent’ now.

I pray that when you feel as though you are falling into the chaos of your extraordinary mind, you remember that you have wings, and find the courage to use them.

I pray one day our journeys decide that our paths will cross again if we do know each other or if we do not - that we soon will.

And most of all - that fate is in our favour.

Until then,

My name is John McMillan and I AM in deep Re-covery, Dis-covery and Un-covery of The Most Amazing Life. May yours be revealed soonest.

Much love.

Mandy and I, married in 1996                                 Same place, same tree, same Souls, 25 years later

I commend these words to you.

Because I walked in darkness for years, I have also learned that the Light is far more powerful than darkness, of that I am sure.

I have learned that people are capable of remarkable things and we need to know that is what we are - a Consciousness that can confront potential - with ALL its catastrophe.

That is WHAT WE ARE.

That is what makes us in the image of God.

THAT is what gives us our intrinsic value -  just for being here, right now, at this moment.

It is the idea that we have that value, that gives us the bedrock upon which we stand.

Will you question that?

Or WILL YOU LIVE IT OUT?

I say to you it is better to LIVE IT OUT.

Find out Who You Are.

AND LIVE THAT.