I’m in a bit of a rut at the moment. In the midst of a seven day stretch of work and having little time for my personal commitments, I find myself quite dissatisfied with my current setup. Not having time for exercise, reading, writing and meditation beyond the level that lets me barely keep up is frustrating.

It seems like I keep grabbing at time. There’s always some new obligation taking me away from my passions. Working a big block of days doesn’t help, surely, but I also sometimes find it hard to juggle time with friends while working on my growth and base of knowledge.

I’ve taken some initial steps toward shaking up my life, because I’m tired of letting myself idle when it comes to my working environment. I’ve applied to enroll in a psychology program at Dalhousie, where I studied computer science when I first went to university. I may have to wait until January to begin, but I’m very happy to be moving back into formal education, even if I do feel a healthy bit of trepidation.

Come September I hope to be either attending classes or at least having a work setup that works better with how I wish to be living. As much as I do enjoy the people I work with and the job itself, financially and in general structure it is becoming one of the biggest liabilities to moving forward with my life. Where I might work if school is put off until next year I’m not sure, but there are plenty of options that seem appealing. A fresh environment alone might be beneficial.

All I know is that clinging to old patterns won’t suffice much longer, so I might as well dive into change.

What, if anything, do you believe we owe the world? Why?
Do we not owe everything to Earth? Our very being arises from this sphere and our lives, so far, are contained to it. I believe good stewardship of this world is demanded of us because of our many capacities and our reliance upon the Earth for all we do. As we are moving into an era when our own lives can be extended greatly, it’s in our interest to ensure that not only all of life to come but our own selves can benefit from an environment that is well cared for in all ways. Why would we not choose to preserve and create a world that is good, beautiful and true?

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received from a friend?
I’m sure I’ve received many valuable pieces of advice from my friends, but for the life of me I can’t think of a single one that stands sturdy outside of the immediate context it was in. There is one bit of advice I can’t attatch to any one friend — because it came from several — but that has served me well. “Holding back your potential out of fear is wrong.” Simple, but something I needed to learn and embrace a couple years ago in order to step forward in my life beyond a very stagnant period.

How can you get paid to do what you love?
I find flow most in writing and am very satisfied by it. Being paid to write would likely require finding a way to monetize my blog. I think the biggest obsticle in doing this would be to create a greater span in audience, something I find very challenging. Writing in an accessible way while maintaining depth is, I believe, one of the highest skills a writer can have and I very much want to cultivate that. Fame and fortune awaits?

What’s your favorite poem? Why?
Rumi’s “Like This“, as transalated by Coleman Barks, is my favourite poem.

Rumi’s mix of divine and sensual experience lights me up every time I read his words. This poem resonated with me immediately because the erotic and the mystical seem perfectly coupled, reminding us of the everpresence of Spirit.

Are you “green”? And how so?
Like most people, I take far less care to limit my harmful impact on the world than I should. There are so many tiny steps I could take to improve my interaction with our enviroment, but I’ve been a bit slow in adopting better practices.
That said, I do act to create less harm in my daily life. I am making efforts to I try to buy items that are less harmful than others, especially in packaging. I’ve chosen to only use public transportation when at all possible. I am a vegetarian in large part because it has less negative impact on the environment than a meat-heavy diet. I try to consume or collect as little physical junk as possible. Overall I think I do well, even with a lot of room to improve.

What is your most vivid memory of nature?
After a good deal of time thinking about this, I was able to narrow down to one memory. There were a lot competing, though; The Rockies, California redwoods, Niagra Falls, a beautiful, gnarled tree in the woods behind my parents’ place and rocky shores have all provided moments of genuine splendor. I have to consider myself blessed with much intimacy with nature.
My most vivid memory has to be an afternoon I spent with Ashley in 2003. We went for a walk down a woods road and then descended down a wooded hill toward a brook. I remember the greens being incredibly vibrant that day, the moss especially full of textures and the sound of the brook was a chorus. Spending time with someone I love in an unspoiled piece of nature seems to make me connect with it in a way that burns the moments into my memory.
If there’s one place in nature I have inextricably rooted in my memories, it’s Point Pleasant Park. I’ve spent wonderful times there with many of the people I love most and profound moments alone in stillnes there, all of which makes it a sacred place for me. Just this past Friday I was lucky enough to visit there again and form some fresh memories.

What’s your relationship to the Earth?
The Earth and I are very close and I couldn’t live without her. At least not until I can make a trip to Earth 2 #1. Thinking of the whole Earth is daunting. Beautiful, alive, endlessly mysterious and home to all I know, my relationship to Earth might as well by my relationship to existance. I feel a deep sense of responsibility, awe, and wonder toward all of this, and am compelled to be in service of all the aspects of this orb, from physiosphere to theosphere.

You have nothing to lose. Now what?
With no money, no job and no prospects on the horizon I imagine I’d first have to shake off the shock and horror of that and, having dusted myself off, find myself a nice monastery. I’ve long been facinated by the ascetic life, but have felt my place lies elsewhere. However, if I found myself without a means to support myself I would want to contribute and develop myself in some manner. Taking the leap into monkhood, I believe I would be able to do this.

What do you love most about yourself?
I most appreciate my ability to adapt and evolve. Being able to embrace change with equanimity and having the resourcefulness to respond to new situations is immensely rewarding. I can’t imagine how I survived when I was paralyzed by change and adversity, but there was a time when I was overwhelmed. Now it’s all a dance of whatnows and ohthismightbefuns.

What would make you smile, right now? Now go share that smile!
This. I’m surrounded by beauty in every dimension. Past, present, future, here, there, everywhere, life, death, formlessness, it’s all radiantly beautiful. I try to consciously employ smiles at every turn, even in what seems the worst of situations, because there’s a lightness that lingers with me.

What was your favorite toy when you were a child?
It was Lego for me. I loved having the ability to create anything I could think of with the myriad of blocks I had. I always wanted my constructions to be functional, solid and aesthetically pleasing. I think this is reflected in my approach to most of my life today. I try to marry a solid knowledge of how things work with a passionate and creative spark. All that from little plastic blocks? Maybe not, but it didn’t hurt.

What’s the nicest thing you’ve done this week? What’ll be next?
I think I need to make a conscious effort to be nicer, because it’s terribly hard for me to think of something nice I’ve done this week. Most kindnesses I do each day are small, unnoticeable things. I gave my roommate a box of pear slices yesterday, so let’s go with that.

How old do you feel?
I feel 24, my actual age, more or less. I don’t identify with any age, honestly. Thinking about age to me seems like a very foggy prospect. Beyond a certain point it stops giving a good indication of someone’s growth, knowledge and other important traits. I often actually forget my own age. It stopped mattering sometime in the past few years and I just lost track of it. It my sound funny coming from someone so young, but it’s true.

When was the last time you had an argument with someone?
The last arguement I can recall was one with a co-worker of mine about politics. He has a tendency to blame the Libral party’s loss in the last Canadian election on the leader of the New Democratic Party because the Liberals stopped co-operating with the NDP and the NDP forced an election. I tend to defend the NDP and point out that the Liberals ran a poor campaign and didn’t market themselves well (just as the party is doing now, sadly). Politics is something that frustrates me greatly, mostly because of the narrow visions and poor implementation of policy I see so often. I can become quite passionate about the need for a blend strong policy and strong presentation, a mix I find sickeningly lacking. I’ll usually make a point of bringing attention to deficiencies in either of these areas, sometimes with heated responses following.

What will you be doing five years from now?
In five years I imagine I’ll be doing some travelling and extensive writing, living more deeply involved in my practice. If all goes well I’ll have completed a psychology BA or BSc and possibly have done work on a masters or doctorate. Beyond this, I don’t tend to plan that far in advance; I’d rather be responsive to whatever arises in my life.

What’s your greatest fear?
Stagnation is my greatest fear. Whether it’s the universal stagnation of humanity not quite living up to its potential, mucking about, or my own lapses in working to improve my abilities and consciousness, it worries me that we might settle for something less than radiance. The longer I refrain from pushing at my limits, the more I feel as though I’m shrugging off my responsibility to evolve. I fear not being able to contribute to pushing the world deeper into truth, beauty and goodness, and I fear all of us failing in this as well.

Should human cloning be allowed?
I think cloning will happen whether or not we have laws against it, so the question, in a way, is irrelevant. We should work to ensure it happens ethically and so that we can reap the many benefits cloning could offer us. There’s always danger of any technology being in the hands of those not morally capable, but that’s a risk we must take in order to advance and bring new good into the world.

I’ve been neglectful of these Zaadful questions. Here goes.

Write the obituary you’d like to receive.
Apollo became transparent to the divine, reaimed his evolution and lived a life that served to make the world more beautiful, good and true.

What are the top three most important things you’ve learned?

• Love need never die or contract. Our unfolding can be an endless process of creating greater and greater love.
• Becoming transparent to divinity should take place in all aspects of our lives, whether in the gym, the workplace or in bed.
• Freedom and joy come with losing fears and attachments.

Describe yourself from another’s point of view.
I most often think others would see me as slightly distant, quiet, focused and serious. I’m surprised, however, by how frequently people can pick up on my other traits. My deep caring, playfulness, spiritualness and other less obvious traits come out as people get to know me. Still, some near-caricatures pop up; I’ve been compared to Jesus, The Undertaker and rock stars.

What is one movie that has changed your life? How?
Films have been less influential for me than books, so this one is tricky. The Fountain lit me up, though. Spiritual, mystic, death-facing, achingly beautiful and with immense depth, it’s as close to a perfect film as I’ve ever seen. Seeing it deepened my commitment to my practice and left me with a lingering sense of inspiration for days following that and helped me make some decisions regarding the direction I will be taking my life in.

What philanthropic organization would you start?
I’m very interested in and concerned about politics, so I would start an organization that would apply an AQAL approach to politics, especially in discerning type and stage differences. One of the main tasks would be to find existing good policy and use knowledge of development to present the policy in a way that would appeal to a large portion of the population. Discernment and strong marketing just might help policies be implemented, especially in places like Canada where we have what looks like a long period of minority governments ahead of us.

What’s the most important thing you own?
My laptop is easily the most important thing I own. It’s the one object I would feel lost without. I use it to communicate with many friends, to write, to read articles, to watch video, to listen to music, do banking and countless other important tasks. As my link to the internet, it’s like an extra eye. Without that connection to the world offered through the internet, it really does feel like a sense has been lost. This technology has become a vital part of my life, enriching it in ways I’m sure I don’t even realize.

Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World is the most important book on spirituality of our times. It offers religious people a way to revitalize their religions and put them into service of divinity and evolution, becoming beacons of human development and defenders of all stations of life. To do this, the religions have to step up and address the brutal and unaddressed critiques of the modern and post-modern eras.

In Integral Spirituality Ken Wilber presents an integral vision that includes a vast range of truths from all major disciplines, including science, psychology, sociology, systems theory and spirituality. In order to be as credible as other disciplines, he calls on religions to give up their untestable metaphysics and instead subject any claims to Integral Post-metaphysics. Source of Miracles summarizes the approach nicely in a review of the book.

Beyond this, Ken explains how religions can be vital in guiding us through stages of development (see Holons’ altitutes) and embrace every station of life. Ken’s compelling presentation unfolds a shocking danger of our current situation and a heartening hope. Over half of the world’s population are at the ethnocentric or lower stage of development; bluntly, we’re surrounded by Nazis. He continues to outline how the world’s religions are specially equipped to facilitate growth beyond into world-centric and higher stages. The religions are called to offer a salvation that follows up toward divinity with grace.

Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while will know that my greatest inspiration is coming from the integral movement and Ken Wilber, a man I have no doubt is the greatest philospher we have. Ken and his fellows at Integral Institute are doing vital work to bring greater integral — “inclusive, balanced, comprehensive” — understanding and practices into our world. This work is giving me hope for our future in the midst of the fragmentation, stagnation and incompetence of most approaches — pre-modern, modern and post-modern included — used today. If we are to defend and evolve the leaps Spirit in action has made, we need to heed the call for a move to integral.

Armageddon’s Children is a post-apocalyptic novel from Terry Brooks, one of fantasy’s enduring greats and a storyteller of rare skill. It’s an exploration of good and evil, of the dangers we face if we don’t rise above our pathologies. Even with the heady political themes, it’s still an exciting adventure story.
Terry Brooks is an author I’ve been reading since I first was enchanted by the volumes of the high fantasy Shannara series that my father kept on his book shelf. I enjoyed all his Shannara books, but his Word and Void series were what cemented Terry Brooks as an author I follow to this day. Dark, contemporary, pre-apocalyptic and expertly written, it was a source of much inspiration during my high school years.
Armageddon’s Children is the beginning of a series that will bridge the time between the Word and Void books and the Shannara books, essentially uniting all of Mr. Brooks’ novels into a coherent chronological order. As a fan of his works, this is quite exciting, but it shouldn’t discourage anyone new to them; the book stands as a distinct and compelling story without the three books that come before it.
The story follows four main threads that begin to mesh as the struggle to find purpose and a chance for survival in a fallen world takes root. A group of street kids struggle to survive the dangers of a ruined Seatle. One of two “Knights of the Word” works to save children from beseiged compound, before being given a mission that may allow her to save a few survivors from further destruction. Another knight attacks demon armies and tries to find a foothold in a world sliding further from civilization, before discovering a piece of hope to do so. In Oregon two elven youths try to preserve a tree that holds a magical barrier keeping demons sealed away.
As with all great speculative fiction, the modes of fantasy and science fiction are used here to explore higher themes. The real threat of a slide backwards from civilization is exagerated and set in a fantastic story, but Mr. Brooks is successful at bringing the immediacy of fictional struggle aside the tangible threats facing us today. The adventure can disarm us enough to slip parallels into our awareness, and it’s potent in the hands of a master like Terry Brooks.

I was looking at my book shelf today and realized I haven’t mentioned my favourites of the books I’ve read this year. I have three exceptional books from three of the authors I most love that I want to recommend. I should take the time to share them before I forget to entirely.

Up first is Mark Z. Danielewski‘s Only Revolutions. It’s a strange creation, a free-verse love story, road adventure, and destruction tale unlike anything else. I expected something like this from the author of House of Leaves, a book that blew my mind with its radical experimentation, deft storytelling and brilliant layering of meaning.
We follow Sam and Hailey, two reckless teens, as they shift through landscapes, transportation, characters and time. They fall in love, destroy everything, and create a story that is gripping and touching in surprising ways.
Only Revolutions immediately engages us in its makeup. The story is told twice, once from each of the main characters’ perspectives. We’re asked to read 8 pages from one story and 8 from the other, alternating by physically turning over the book, and marking our place with yellow and green bookmarks. Each page has upside down text, we notice, and find that this is the continuation of the other story. Certain letters and words are coloured, a more elaborate take on House of Leaves‘ blue house and red minotaur. The font size changes depending on the ego of the narrator. So many tricks of design enhance the story.
On the side of each page is a list of historical events that take place as a background to the main narrative. During the making of the book, Mark asked readers to send in events that would end up on the sidebar. I e-mailed about the Halifax Explosion of 1917, one of the defining moments for my city. This participation created the backdrop to the story and gives the work a compelling and surprising flavouring. I couldn’t help but grin when I saw my contribution within the pages of such a fantastic book.
There is so much to absorb from this book that I can only urge you to find a copy and experience it for yourself. It takes the form of the book and reshapes it into a fresh, immersive and thrilling experience that leaves most other books pale in comparison. Mark Z. Danielewski may very well be the most important voice in saving the novel’s vitality, and I would not want to have missed his newest contribution to that work.

A snow covered landscape greeted me when I woke this morning. Spring seems to be taking its time in arriving here in Nova Scotia, sending out teases before allowing Winter to blast us with cold and ice. It’s beautiful outside the window here in my parents’ living room, but I can’t say I’ll miss this weather once it has passed.

Friday morning I arrived here, had some lunch and then headed out for a walk. In the city I miss being able to walk within the quiet of a rural environment, so now when I return home I make it a point to go out. I walked down the main road and then climbed Lemmon Hill, deciding to make my way back to my family’s maple sugar camp.

I grew up with each Spring ushered in with a heart-warming time rich in family and sweetness. My fondest childhood memories are set at the maple camp, enjoying maple syrup and time with many people very dear to me. From the sugar buzz of a chugged mug of maple syrup to the joy of gathering sap from the trees, there was nothing like the time I spent in the maple woods.

My grandfather began the maple business and my uncles and father have continued it through the years. Demand for our syrup always surpasses the amount we can produce; even expanding production to new woods hasn’t stopped this. The syrup is of such quality that I am usually very disappointed when I taste what can be found in stores, so I’m very happy to be returning to the city with a few litres of the sticky, sweet treasure.

When I arrived at the camp I found my uncles Gerry and Cyril, my aunt Lucy, my cousin Marsha and her son Tyler, and some friends of the family. The camp is usually a magnet for the family, so it’s not surprising to see it filled with people. There was such an air of warmness there that I almost didn’t notice the most telling sign of being at the camp.

The scent of the sap boiling into syrup is magical. The moment I come into contact with it I’m hit with memories and a sense of rightness. I’m home in that space of maple transformation, at peace in a way I seldom am anywhere else.

The next day I helped my aunt Lucy get her computer running more smoothly. Working with Windows is even more tedious now than it was before I left it. It’ll be a fine day when people are running stable, efficient and aesthetically pleasing operating systems.

I’ve had a nice, relaxing stay here in Dean, where I grew up. It has been refreshing to be away from those obligations that normally demand my attention. Dial-up has kept me from reading over a hundred articles each day as I normally do, but as much as I miss that stimulation, I’ve enjoyed a simple weekend.

Writing about the specifics of my daily life often falls by the wayside here. I think that’s mostly for the best, but today I want to share some bits from my life.

Saturday night I attended a management party for the hotel I work at. Out in Enfield, after a limo ride, we gathered for food, drinks and talking. It was less boring than I was expecting and there was one moment that surprised me quite a lot.
During the course of the night’s conversation, Spencer, a new employee, asked me what sort of person I am. He guessed I was “a hard rocker.” I sarcastically agreed, knowing my look brings that to mind for a lot of people.
Sara piped up and said I was something of a philosopher and wrote poetically. Then our general manager, Shelly, joined in and said, “you have the website Frozen Truth.” It seems more people who know me in person have read my site.
It still feels strange to have such open expressions available for anyone to read here, and to actually have people I’d never expect to be reading knowing about it. It’s part of this brave new world of less walls around our personalities, I suppose. I’m glad there’s this outlet for people to discover more about me, and to maybe become tuned into some of the exciting things I’ve discovered, but it’s still jarring sometimes when I learn who’s reading here.

When I started working at this hotel, as it was under construction, I was given a pair of steel-toed work shoes and had been wearing them whenever I just needed something comfortable to walk in. They finally reached the end of their life, so I picked up a new pair of sneakers to replace them. It was my first new pair of sneakers in close to 3 years, as I’d been wearing mostly boots and dress shoes. There’s an odd feeling in changing a pair of shoes; after countless footsteps it’s liberating to start afresh.

Also on Monday, Mark and I had one of the greatest and geekiest IM exchanges yet.
Mark: You figured out what you’re going to do re: life/school/everything?
Apollo: 42.

Like so many others, I’ve become a Twit, and use Twitter to tweet. I’ll be using that to fill in the pieces of my personal life I’m not sharing directly in entries.