I hope you are well. Over the last few weeks I have been working hard, finishing off my new book about The Beatles. I finished the book yesterday and will send it off to the publisher this week. It's quite long, about 100,000 words (about 300 pages),

The title of the book is still undecided but at the moment it is called Across the Universe: The Magic and Mystery of The Beatles’ Creativity. I've realised that the book is really about creativity in a general sense, using The Beatles as a case study. It is about the nature of genius and how genius can be cultivated or lost, and how ideas and insights can arise seemingly from nowhere. It's about the link between spirituality and creativity. 

The Beatles are an amazing example of genius creativity. They wrote and recorded amazingly quickly whilst evolving at a rapid rate, continually making creative advances. Their best songs were written in a quasi-channelled way and contained an uncanny transmissive quality which makes them still sound fresh today. As I say in the book, you can really understand The Beatles with reference to transpersonal psychology, and throughout the book I refer to Jung, F.H. Myers, Abraham Maslow and other psychologists. 

Writing the book has helped me to develop some ideas about creativity which I have expressed in some of my recent Psychology Today blogs. You can read them here.

Sometimes people ask me what my favourite Beatles song is, and I usually answer ‘Across the Universe.’ John Lennon said that he didn’t consciously write the song, or own it – it was channelled to him. It describes a state of universal awareness, with feelings of oneness and love. Most beautiful is the song’s serene sense of acceptance of life in all its suffering and bliss, as in the lines, ‘Pools of sorrow, waves of joy, are drifting through my opened mind, possessing and caressing me.’ The last verse of the song contains the profoundly beautiful lines, ‘Limitless undying love that shines around me like a million suns/It calls me on and on, across the universe.’ 

The Leap Audio Book 

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I recently recorded the audiobook of The Leap. It has now officially been released.

In the UK, it’s available here

In the US, it’s available here 

Radio 4 Documentary on Time Expansion Experiences

Last week, a documentary was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, related to my last book Time Expansion Experiences. I suggested the idea to the producer and also put them in touch with the interviewees, most of whom also feature in my book. I am also interviewed on the programme (from 9.00 to 11.15).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002hb5v#

Workshop in Edinburgh on Saturday 6th September

On Saturday the 6th of September, I am holding a one-day workshop at the Arthur Conan Doyle centre in Edinburgh, Scotland. The workshop is based on my book The Adventure and entitled ‘The Adventure of Awakening.’ We will focus on cultivating qualities that arise in awakening, such as presence and acceptance, with poems meditations and other exercises. We will transcend the separateness of the ego and gain access to the essential harmony of our deep nature. In doing so, we will travel further on the journey of spiritual awakening. It would be great to see you there!

Further information at this link. You can also just turn up on the day and pay at the door. 

Poems

Now that I’ve finished my Beatles book, my next project is to publish a book of poetry. I’m going to experiment and publish the book myself, so hopefully it will be out by the end of the year. I don’t know anything about the process of self-publishing – if anyone has any experience in that area, let me know! My son Hugh is very technically adept though, so I’m hoping that he will help me.

Here are a couple of poems I’m thinking of including in the new volume. Let me know what you think.

None of this is Now

None of this is now:
your fears about the future
your guilt about the past.

None of this is now: 
the obstacles that seem to lie ahead of you
and the failures that seem to stretch behind you.

Only this is now:
your moment-to-moment experience of the world 
and of the other beings who share your world. 
    
And only the now is real. 
An unreal past can’t hurt you 
as a shadow can’t burn the ground. 
An unreal future can’t hurt you 
as a reflection can’t break the surface of a lake.

Only your mind can hurt you
when it wanders away from now
and loses itself in restless thoughts
of unreal times and places.

Life is not a Competition

Life is not a competition 
full of stern-faced rivals 
where the most ruthless take the lead 
and the most gentle fall behind 
and everyone is judged and ranked
and ends up as a winner or loser.

Life is not an elite sport 
that requires special strategies and skills 
and intense preparation and practice
and is played with deadly earnestness.

Life should be a joyous children’s game
on a playground under a summer sky
where no one cares about collecting points
but only about laughter and kinship 
and no one separates or celebrates themselves 
but connects and cooperates 
for the good of the game itself
to spread more joy and share more love.

All best wishes and blessings, Steve