Happy New Year!

I feel so much more myself these days. This year has truly taught me about my centre and being authentic and how to express LOVE and PEACE more fluidly. I began the year feverish and trying everything I could to fix my life from the outside in. I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted things to look like and I was hell bent on making it happen. My spirit, the Universe and everything In between had other ideas. One small sleepless night in March started a sequence of events that has brought me to a place I thought I had let go of a long time ago.

This year taught me to truly respect myself and those around me. Some people have joined me on that journey this year and some have fallen away, I love them all non the less. It has been trying at times to draw that circle around myself, to treat myself and my environment as sacred. I have learned the real gift of being myself and finding my authenticity again. I had lost it, given parts of myself away to people who I thought knew better and in claiming it back I realised it's strength. When you truly stand in your own shoes, with your own voice in your own head you are unstoppable. You see where your energy has been leaking out and where you have been giving it away.

I have well and truly let go of the image of my life and have surrendered to it's substance. I no longer judge myself through other people's eyes or live by others standards. Believe me I was shocked to find out that I was still doing that. My creativity collapsed around me only to be rebuilt. I reawoke the dream I had as a seven year old to become a writer and finally let myself create in that way again. I learned to love art in a new way and built a community to share it. I even learned to love music again, this time with complete respect for myself and those within and around it.

This year has been a beginning for me. A lot of things have been set into motion, the fruit of which I might not see for a little while yet. The new house, going on holiday, meeting new people, starting a book, setting up an exhibition, cancelling a tour, starting an album, creating new partnerships, this whole process has been a rebirth and sharing it with you has been incredible. I finally live in reverance for my life and I am excited to see where it takes me.

Big Loves

Ry x

Christmas Rush already?

 

Getting ready to take my work to the gallery!

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I can surprise myself how much I've changed. This year has been such a steep learning curve in self respect and self honour and I am so glad to have finally come to this space. I've let go of a lot of old habits and old thoughts and I've even let go of a few people, all of which has helped me to rise to a deeper understanding of myself. I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned so far this year is to completely heal my relationship with loving others. Looking back I can see that I used to believe that if I loved you in any way shape or form then in that I also gave people the right to treat me any way they chose. I made excuses for others behaviours based on MY caring for their well being. I even in most cases put their needs before mine. That has all changed.

 

 

I have definitely been ready this year to put in place the boundaries and self protective energies around me and fill myself with healing and self love so that a line drawn to respect and protect myself wouldn't feel like revenge or malice. I am simply not where I used to be. I don't think like I used to think and I don't behave like I used to behave. From where I am now I look back and cringe at some of things I've said and done. The way I used to let people treat me used to turn my stomach but these days I am more and more at peace with it. I have forgiven and let go. I am absolutely certain that without the sour my life wouldn't be so sweet.

 

 

December the first was yesterday and I can feel a new energy wake and crawl into my system. I am catching glimpse's of a new person waking up within me and it feels gorgeous. I am still working on the pace and momentum of my creativity and the knowledge that peace works on its own time still needs to reach some corners of my mind. I am ready for it to do so though. I have project after project lined up and ready for me to delve into although I still haven't found that new thing I want to learn. Each year I choose to learn a new skill. It doesn't have to be anything huge, yodelling, the cello, painting, crafting, sewing, anything really. I've been looking at maybe sculpting or leather craft. I suppose it's a whole year so I could choose a few things but one will be enough to think about now.

 

 

I have a BIG week of readings ahead and the Christmas Rush has begun. I am eager to meet new people and see new things and see if this new evolution plays out in my work. I know over the last few years I've been getting more sensitive to energies which has been playing out in my readings so I wonder if this is part of that? We'll see and I'l keep you posted! On this lazy rainy Sunday I am going for a hot Sunday dinner in my favourite local and then to pick up the artwork from the gallery, after that it's a well deserved rest ready for the week ahead!

Big Love

Ryan

 

Some pics from the gallery!

 

New energy, new art, new music!

I've had a feeling for a short while that around December 1^st there would be a shift beginning in my life. I don't know what it is exactly but I am sure now that it's begun. Too many things from my history have turned up for me to clear up and resolve. I think the Mercury Retrograde definitely helped me to clear up any unresolved energies from my past. One of the things it brought to the surface was an old feeling of self doubt. I've been working with and healing through a lot of my self worth issues over the last year or so and doing all I can to clear up any residual “not good enough”'s. Something that always happens when you start to go in a new direction is that anything contradictory to that direction within your energy system tends to show up. In the past I mistook these for “signs”, but they weren't. They were just residual ideas of who I used to be.

Everything in my life has begun happening at a much slower, easier pace. Weirdly enough the less effort I have been putting into my life the more that seems to be accomplished. I chip away at bits and pieces of everything, making sure to add slowly little bits and pieces of everything I love to my daily routine, including writing, which now has become my favourite part of my morning routine. Sending out the morning blogs and mailing lists doesn't take a lot of time and I thoroughly enjoy it. I also think I'm not so secretly preparing myself for a lot more writing projects next year with all my book ideas slowly solidifying in my head. I lost a lot of the initial writing I did when the last hard drive went Kapoof! But deep down I wasn't that upset or annoyed so I must know somewhere in my consciousness that something richer can be achieved.

My art exhibit has been up nearly a week now which seems to have been less than the blink of an eye and I have no idea yet if anything has sold. If it hasn't I guess i'll start putting more things online because I am quickly running out of room in my little man cave! I have enjoyed the space to start working on my art and developing it more. I think that there has been an emotional distance within the paintings that needs to be fulfilled. I have very much been working on my technique and colour so now creating something with a bit of belly seems to be the right balance. I still have everything based around character design but they are changing. I'll keep you posted.

Musically the new collection of songs is coming together nicely but slowly. I still get ridiculously excited when it comes to creating music and I think the feverish OCD obsessional nature has finally mostly subsided. “Machine” is the first song that's been crafted ( and that is the right word ) and I am over the moon at how it sounds. I am re-doing “Veins” from the last album and “Heart is Thunder” a piano tune are both nearly at completion too. This first little triad sounds so exactly where I want it to go and want it to be that I am instinctively protective over it. Don't worry though, for any of you out there that like my tunes I shall post stuff and have some sort of party when it's all done. I am also definitely re-branding and re-packaging my creative outlets into a single space. I simply don't have the time to manage an art site, music site and writing site and spiritual site plus with art swaps an origami society and a few other creative expressions it's just a bit all over the place so next year it will all be condensed into two separate spaces. One for my creative work and the other for my spiritual work. I shall facebook the hell out of all of you when it's up and ready.

Big Love

Ryan

Where did that year go?

I really can't believe that we are so close to the end of the year already!!! It' has swung around so quickly and it's that time where I prepare for christmas-mania and family-madness. I start to take stock of what a momentous year I've had. Going on a music hiatus, buying a house, an exhibition, my first holiday in ten years and FINALLY surrendering to peace. It's a lot to take in. My life looks completely different now to how it did only what seems a few months ago. I can say without question I am the happiest I have ever been and although it's not been the gentlest of journeys to peace I'm so glad that I'm here!

Last night I was once again back in the studio recording my new collection of songs. The sound is so different and a complete collaboration and amalgamation of everything Ive ever done and if that wasn't good enough I get to share it with one of my best mates! The sound is different, each song is a little world unto itself and now the feverish obsession has ceased I can fully surrender to the organic natural evolution of each song. I noticed last night though the difference in my voice, not singing live or not singing at all has definitely made it weaker and unable to sustain the strength it used to have. I guess I need to get behind the keys a bit more to get that back. Everything just feels so easy , which is refreshing. I have some re-branding to consider and new things to start putting in place and although this collection is no where near ready to share yet I can connect with the excitement of it without wanting to unleash it yet.

On the art front my exhibition is less than a few days away. All the paintings are done and there's only a small bit of printing out and general faffy bits that need to be completed. I only realised a few weeks ago that this is my first ever solo exhibition and I already have plans for the next. I have learned a lot though. I've done this whole thing the wrong way round and worked to a deadline rather than create work and then find a place to display it. But I am back in the Oriel Bach Gallery from the 26^th to the following Sunday so if you have time that week pop down and have a look at my new work. Ill post some pictures on here for those of you who don't have any spare time

 

Ill try not to leave it so long next time. Every time I write in my personal blog I get reminded of how good it feels.

 

Catch you all soon

 

Ry x

Just a sunset really.

A few days ago I caught a glimpse of this particularly gorgeous sunset from my art room and just had to capture it to share with you. It's been a short while since I've written in my public personal blog but all my paper diaries are full ( which reminds me I need to go get a new one asap ) so I thought Id come and have a good catch up with you all and update the blogs!!

I have a mammoth run of readings tomorrow so Im taking it easy today just sorting out some artwork, newsletter and bits and pieces of music stuff. Before my "admin" days used to feel heavy and constrictive ( its hard to put any artist behind a desk ) but the ease and flow of everything recently has been incredible. I have also started to make some music again which has been a small weight off my shoulders. Ill share with you all what Ive been getting up to as soon as I can. It's just nice to be behind the keyboard again and actually feel like I belong there!

Im just mulling over a few things recently, the construction of reality, which parts of us manifest parts of our lives just how deeply intergrated are we all to the wholeness of who we are and how is this all affecting our day to dayness, yuh know, general stuff. I feel like I've grown up alot recently, kind of like I finally fit into daddys shoes and this new holistic approach not just to my life but to my being as a whole and complete entity has altered everything. My spiritual work has begun to change and get alot stronger which I am enjoying. I didnt think it was possible to fit much more information into my head but I am expanding and becoming more sensitive.

I know this blog is a bit of ramble but then thats kind of how my life is at the minute, Im settled into the new house and and just plodding along for a while. Deciding what I want to create next!!

New House



                Well this will probably be my last ever blog in this house....how weird. I’ve been in my little flat for near enough 12 years now and blimey has the time flown. I remember clearly the first day I set foot in this place, the clear white walls and the open spaces were perfect for need back then but not so any more. Twelve years of an artist living anywhere is enough! There are marks on the walls from drum kits banging up and down the corridor, paint on the wall from old canvases, torn carpet from nights out and endless holes in the wall from continuously rearranging my pictures. I have to admit though, each mark is a memory I completely treasure. This was the first home of my own that I totally loved and to be honest still do and I really hope it can provide the next person who lives here with the same care and attention that it’s provided me with.

                This house held my heart break, held my silence, held my grief and my sadness. This house watched me shed each and every one of those to become joy-filled and light orientated. This house saw endless parties and quiet nights, intimate conversations and full out arguments, beautiful paintings and artistic temperaments’. This house has seen me heart-broken and heart-healed, born witness to me finally learning to love and respect myself. This house has seen friends enter and friends leave, this house has seen me cry more than I thought I could and laugh louder than I knew possible. This has been a place of discovery and acceptance. This place has been sacred to me. This place has been loved. If you believe that homes can house the energy of its occupants I hope the next soul that lives here takes a piece of the peace this space created for me.

                As sad as it is to close this door I am A LOT more excited to be opening the next one. This new house with its fireplaces and rooms and cupboards ( yes I’m excited about a cupboard but after 12 years without one who wouldn’t be? ) I will finally have the space to create and express. Currently I have nowhere to rehearse my music and I have to set up all my paints before I can use them, soon I shall just pop up to my creative room and get going. I can’t wait. Really. I will sit up in the morning with a sea facing bedroom and eat my breakfast in bed. I don’t know what the next house will bring to me but I know I will get to wake up next to someone I love, and that can’t be a bad start can it!

Big Love

Ryan x

Peace and Music.

I can’t really say I’m “back to normal” because what was normal for me was 100 mile an hour mental hysteria! Things have settled though in more ways than one. I have grown a lot and changed a lot, matured a lot and I feel like I’m back in my skin. More than I have been in a long time. It’s weird though isn’t it that you don’t realise how out of whack you get until you either come to a full stop or burn out. I had to experience both to finally put a stop to the internal chatter that was clouding my mind.

My life is peaceful and I mean that deep rooted peace that is born of your spirit. That kind of peace that begins in the soles of your feet and settles in the belly. I have watched over the last six months in particular how that peace seems to be spilling over every area in my life. People, places, situations, all of it is undergoing this personal evolution. I have found this stillness within myself and it’s become integral to me. Anything that is chaotic, inflicting, negative or a weight has been made glaringly obvious and then a way has been shown for it to leave my life. Effortless is the word. My life has become effortless. I love my boyfriend, my dog, my new home, my body, my job, my financial situation and my creative expression.  It’s all where it should be and where I want it to be.

I’ve been back at the piano over the last few days and I can feel the stirrings within my belly again for music. It is different this time. I think I found a reverence for it. Quality not quantity. I think I found the place within me that it should always have been coming from. It literally is like someone picked me up, shook off all the drama I had attached to it and then sat me back down at the keys. It’s taking a while to settle in. I’m watching this peace ride through all other areas of my creativity, art, writing, crafting, sculpture, the whole bunch. I know it’s not quite finished yet and I know there are more things for me to understand but I know now, I feel how completely I am on my way.

Surrendering is the best advice I can give anyone. I bought into the “kicking against the pricks “, the “push and then push some more”, the hard working self defacing persona but I realised all that fight is only ultimately with yourself. I have so much I want to share with you, but I have a little more work to do on myself right now so, in the meantime, I just want to say thank you for listening!

Big Love

RJ

The Palace: A Place for queens.

I remember it like it was yesterday, although it was more moons ago than I dare to count. I had my one good “going out” shirt and my hair was in the just-gone-out-of-fashion curtains. Remember those? No? Damn I am that old.

My first trip to a gay bar was as nerve wracking as you would have expected it to be. That night I kissed my first boy, cried for the first time publically and was comforted by what I can only describe was the most warm and understanding group I have ever found. They were there to watch me take all those awkward first steps from the almost obligatory bleaching of the hair, to the squawking limp wristed wails of the camp defence system right down to the inevitable second teenage-hood and eventually to the quiet and more centred adulthood.

THE PALACE gay bar and nightclub. Those privileged enough to remember it will always have that warm glint in the eye. I know I am in dangerous turf here of slipping into the whole, “it was all better back in the day!” rant and perhaps I am, but its my diary and I’ll write what I want to. So there. Some communities are born out of expression, a coming together with a need to let loose and some communities are born out of a necessity, strength in numbers. The palace seemed a perfect mix of the two. While the gay culture is right now in its “token” phase ( one in every sitcom/soap opera and movie for the sole purpose of being poshitically correct ) back then you would have to knock on the door to be let in. Vetted. Told it was a gay bar before you set foot in the door. And if you overlooked the occasional drugs raid, dirty floor, lesbian brawls and gay slap matches it was mostly fun. People seemed to look after each other more. People weren’t out of the closet as much then so keeping someone’s secret gave most people there a level of respect for each other. Even now if I see some of the old palace crowd the old rules still apply, getting each other a drink and making sure everyone gets home safe. It was my first ever experience of a community.

Sadly, a lot, if not all of this is missing from the gay community at present. We seem to be stuck in a place in between narcissism and forced acceptance. Caricature and indifference. Maybe in all the work finding our place in society we haven’t nurtured the idea of what we mean to ourselves? I’ve only been out for the last 15 years and things have changed so radically and there is no time to readjust, take stock of who and what we are. We have to keep moving forward toward equality but in doing so we can’t lose sight of what we are. A minority. A small section of society that is still fighting for equality, that still needs to look after it’s own. Whenever I am out in a gay bar or come across the occasional “wayward soul” I do my best to help because I remember. I remember the solitude, the overwhelming feeling of awkwardness in your own body and I also remember the relief when this small club, this small space took me under it’s wing and helped me to grow. Amidst the tears, tantrums and tiaras I became the man I am today.

I learned to respect myself, to love myself, and to honour myself and I owe a major part of that to the community I had. I sometimes pity the younger gay crowd these days. There may no longer be a need to protect each other as venomously as we used to but that shouldn’t mean we should stop caring and respecting each other like we used to. I’m not here to preach, or to wave a burning rainbow flag but I am here to gently remind myself of what I had. Of what WE had. And how we find a way of bringing that to the surface again.

In Loving memory of a dance floor drowned in the stench of CK1 and Joop,

In loving memory of a women’s toilet being the only safe place to take a leek,

In loving memory of that bit of curtain by the stage where you could go for a sneaky kiss,

In loving memory of the random arm chair,

In loving memory of that guy who would come out every week and dance like a lunatic,

In loving memory of all the wonderful souls I have met and loved in that one small house of queens,

I bid you love and farewell!

Ryan xxxx

And Reeeeelax....

Ever felt like you’re trying to fit four lives into one? Me too. The level of self invented busyness has run rough shot over my life for far, far too long. I write list upon list and then eventually sit there with so much to do that nothing gets done! It’s absolutely hilarious what I do to myself, but in all fairness it’s come to a stop. I’ve long considered my life purpose to be one of complete surrender to the act of inspiration. Little did I know that inspiration contains one vital component that stops you from becoming overwhelmed. Impulse. I’m not talking about impulse as in doing something on a whim. I mean the beating heart, the pulse of inspiration. The rhythm of the energy the idea has.

My normal way of doing something is, run at it 100 miles an hour until either it or me is exhausted and it’s been fun for a while but I’m breaking up with that way of being. You have to pack your bags and leave I’m afraid. The need to accomplish, or to be more blunt, prove myself, has to go. I am already accomplished and there will always be more to do so running 100 miles an hour in circles is no longer for me. Some ideas need time to grow and accumulate before they are ready to be born, which for someone who is goal orientated has been a little challenging to incorporate but it’s just time to surrender to it ( again ).

Sheer brute force is no longer working for me. It does get things done but the cost to my time, energy and health are just not worth it any more. Allowing ideas, inspirations and energies to flow effortlessly into my life and allowing them to take shape in their own time and at their own pace lifts, enlightens and empowers. Yes, you need to act, and interact, but the second you need to push it’s time to stop. It’s all meant to be fun, so let the joy float through you and bring the true essence of its power as it arrives.

Seeing past red.

On one of my usual speed runs through the city centre on another never ending mission to get things off a never ending list I stopped, briefly, to buy a poppy. Although amidst this insane bustle there was something in the way these old men stood made me stop for a moment. Smartly dressed and upright, shaking a tin, largely ignored by the people walking passed and I thought to myself “I wonder what they think about us?”.

These men held something special, something that we don’t seem to understand. These men were willing to fight and die for a country that now largely, it seems, ignores them. Forced to raise money for an appeal that shouldn’t be a second thought. In my line of work I often get to hear a lot about war-time stories. The incredible strength that women of that time had in order to hold a family together not knowing if tonight their homes would be bombed, their kids would be harmed, their husbands would be killed. The bravery of the men, ill trained and sent to a ditch to fight line by line walking over the dead bodies of their friends and fellow officers. And here these men stood in front of me, hoping that someone would put some cash in a small box and have a poppy pinned to their jacket. I wouldn’t disgrace these men by feeling pity for them but I know that some of them feel pity for us. To have so little love for the country that holds you, to not know who your neighbours are, to ignore a stranger being beaten up or robbed.

But I don’t want this to be about how bad things are. Pick up a newspaper and there’s enough of it in there. I want this to be about what we can learn. I love my country, I love this soil, I love the sky above us and the sea that surrounds us. We have a beautiful idea. A place where people have access to free healthcare, a place where a legal system strives toward justice, a place where even if you’re out of work there are systems in place that help prevent you from going hungry. I’m not saying that these systems are perfect but the idea of them is what I want to promote and perpetuate. The idea of them is in some way ingrained in who we are, it wouldn’t hurt us so much when these systems go wrong if it wasn’t.

I stood and watched these men, their grace, their presence and their lesson to teach us. After everything they have faced, after each injustice from their government, community, press, legal system, being told their poppy is “offensive”, being made to feel obsolete. We built this country on their backs, on their sacrifice, on their sweat and tears and here they stand. Smiling, willing to teach us. It’s just our job to be willing to learn.