I hope you are well. Recently I've been regularly going wild swimming. I absolutely love it. It's a mystical experience, to feel part of the water and the whole landscape. It brings a powerful feeling of presence. It's impossible to be distracted or to daydream. The cold water is invigorating too, like an electric shock. It’s so therapeutic that I think it should be prescribed as a treatment for depression. I can’t imagine anyone emerging from a lake or pool in a negative state of mind. 

I’ve been exploring one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, the Lake District. As well as the lakes, there are a lot of tarns (mountain lakes or pools), some at the foot of waterfalls. It’s so glorious to swim in a small pool surrounded by mountains or in a wood, close to a rushing roaring waterfall. 

I’ve been doing a lot of walking in the countryside too. At least once a week, I wake up, have breakfast, then catch a bus. After half an hour or so, I hop off the bus and start walking or climbing. I walk for the whole day, through fields and woods, up hills and mountains, alongside waterfalls and streams, and it feels like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I feel in harmony with the landscape and with myself. 

At the end of the day, when I catch the bus home, I feel like I’ve been away for a long time. All the beauty I have perceived seems to have stretched time. I feel incredibly relaxed too, as if the freshness and richness of nature has seeped into me. It happens on such an unconscious level. I think it would happen even if a person spent the whole of a walk listening to podcasts or daydreaming about the future. The spirit of nature would still pervade their being and make them feel relaxed and contented, without knowing why. 

Another reason why I love the Lake District is that it’s associated with poetry. Two of my favourite poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lived there. So I feel like the spirit of their poetry seeps into me too. As a result, I’ve been writing a lot of new poems. I’ll include one at the end of this newsletter. 

Time Expansion Experiences
 

Last weekend I gave my first online talk about my new book Time Expansion Experiences, for the Institute of Noetic Sciences. You can watch it at the link below (you need to scroll down a little). 

https://noetic.org/experience/connections-live/

I began with a short meditation, then described by own time expansion experiences in a car crash ten years ago. The talk included a really interesting poll, in which 84% of the 450 participants said that they had had a Time Expansion Experience. 45% had a TEE in an accident or emergency situation, while 38% had one in a spiritual experience or under the influence of psychedelics.
 

Also this week, the first magazine review of the book has just been published. Fortunately, it’s a very positive one! Read it here

Pre-Order Campaign
 

Thanks to everybody who agreed to part to the promotional campaign for the book, organised by my publisher. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but publishers tell me that books receive a lot more attention if they have healthy pre-orders. The publishing world isn’t in a very healthy state, as people are buying fewer books than ever before. So authors and publishers are keen to maximise the potential of each book. 

If you would like to support the promotional campaign, there are still a couple of weeks left to do so. If you’d like more details, please write to me at [email protected] (or just lick reply to this message).  

Social Media

Incidentally, if you use social media, feel free to follow me. I often upload my latest poems and other thoughts on to facebook and instagram. My links are here:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Presentation at the European Transpersonal Conference
 

Earlier this month I gave a lecture at European Transpersonal Association conference, at Oxford University. I spoke about my book The Fall, which was originally published in 2005 (a new edition was published in 2018). I rarely speak about this book, so it was fantastic to reengage with its themes. When the book was first published, some people criticized me for idealizing and romanticizing prehistoric and indigenous peoples, partly because I claimed that warfare was a recent development in human history, rare or even completely absent until about 600 years ago. So I was pleased to report that, since the book was published, a lot more evidence has emerged for a lack of warfare, so much so that the idea of ‘prehistoric peace’ is now widely accepted by anthropologists. 

In my talk, I explained how the darkness of recorded history was preceded by a long period of light and may be moving slowly into the light again. You can see a couple of slides below. 

A New Poem

Here are is a poem inspired by my recent encounters with nature. Don’t take it too literally, as I found myself exaggerating a little for poetic effect! (For example, I still do like to meditate and enjoy listening to spiritual teachers!)

My Spiritual Teacher is Nature

These days my spiritual life is simple. 

I never visit temples or monasteries

attend talks or weekend retreats.

I rarely read spiritual books. 

Even my morning meditations are irregular. 

My main spiritual practice is walking. 

My spiritual teacher is nature. 

There’s no need to follow the eightfold path

the way of Zen or yoga or tantra 

when I can climb crumbling mountains

amble over hillsides, wander through muddy woods

and every path I take is a spiritual one

that leads me to inner well-being. 

There’s no need to meditate or pray

when the living beauty of the landscape 

holds my attention and stills my mind

until I’m uncentered from my ego 

and connected to my deepest self.

Why would I sit at the feet of gurus

when I can stand beside ancient oak trees

absorbing their soft sentience, and their calm wisdom? 

Why would I study spiritual texts

when Spirit is a tangible presence 

that pervades rocks, radiates from trees

whispers through the wind, floats on the open air

gives awesome power to mountains

and deep grace to slow-moving clouds 

and shimmers through primal darkness 

glowing with soft benevolence, like autumn sunshine

from an invisible dark sun?

The idea of enlightenment is meaningless. 

There are no stages of development.

There is no future goal. 

The only fulfilment is here and now 

as I walk in oneness 

with the spirit of the Earth.

All best wishes and blessings 

Steve