Author Archives: C.J. Birch

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About C.J. Birch

I was born on Thursday 13th July 1972 in Harare, Zimbabwe, to an English father and a South African mother. I was christened Catherine Jane Birch and - from the outset - I've been inquisitive about most of life's elemental questions; its myriad paradoxes and unpredictable anomalies, their sources, solutions and their propensity for unmitigated change. From a very young age I was captured by the enigmatic life process, the challenge of living and what it 'means' to be alive. I spent countless invaluable hours in nature, watching the world at its work. I had a fascination for everything around me, curious about what things were, how and why they worked, what they represented in relation to one another. I began writing at the age of 5. Journals, stories and poetry, illustrations, have been a constantly evolving source of quiet self-reflection, expansive expression throughout my life. I'm fortunate to have travelled many miles, to have visited a variety of differing destinations and though I've learned a lot about life in the last 50 years, my questions about its complexities are neverending. I currently live in the south-east of England, having returned to the United Kingdom after a particularly harrowing period of 7 allegedly 'invisible' or 'non-existent' years of absolute hell in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. I've decided to erase those memories, altogether. My 15-year-old son lives in Switzerland, with his father.
13 May 2013 · 08:47

Forgiveness – Blog No. 38

forgiveHow do you forgive the guy who sells you fake tickets for a Justin Bieber concert in Johannesburg?  After explaining to the children who arrive at the turnstile after a two hour wait – children whose ages range from 6 to 11 – that mommy somehow bought rubbish tickets from a con-man, you must stand outside with the children and watch everyone around you go into the stadium.  What do you say to the broken smile of each child?  That kind of cruelty to children cannot be forgiven.  Not in any hurry.  How senseless a human being do you have to be to know (and care less) that you are selling a non-experience to a child with stars in their eyes?  It’s shocking.  It is an outrage that people do such things in the name of money.  Worse still, selling fake tickets for a meet-and-greet.  Conscienceless.  These people with no scruples should be named, and shamed.  Then prosecuted.  One by one.

Forgiveness is tricky at the best of times.  I often wonder who we think we are that we give out forgiveness like God’s blessings bestowed.  If someone has wronged you, I suppose it is your right to decide whether or not they deserve to be forgiven, but be careful that you are sure what is wrong and what is not.  In this age I think it’s the feeling of forgiving that is wrong.  I think too often we go about it in a self-righteous manner and self-righteousness is a dangerous game for anyone to play.  Do not hand out forgiveness like alms.  Be aware that it is serious – if you choose to forgive (which is advisable for your own peace of mind) then you must know you mean it.  True forgiveness comes where you can coerce your heart into complying with your mind.  If your heart cannot let go of a hurt, you cannot forgive.  It is simple.

Forgive where you can.  Remember it is destructive to hold on to a hurt for too long.  The hurt stagnates, it becomes boring to think about and its persistent nag is a drain on your energy resources.  Get over it.  People hurt each other.  That is what they do.  Expect people to be unpredictable, perhaps thoughtless on occasion.  Expect disappointment.  We are all learning, that is important to remember, too.  How can we get the best from one another if we aren’t allowed to make mistakes with our handling of each other along the way?

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10 May 2013 · 09:22

Instinct – Blog No. 37

instinctInstinct is not your sixth sense.  Your sixth sense is extra-sensory perception.  Instinct is there to be heeded.  It is not a fleeting feeling that you cannot pin down, it is a concrete feeling that you cannot pretend you do not have.  We all have strong instincts.  A lot of us are just good at suppressing them.  We teach ourselves to ignore our instincts, too.  This is not productive.  Instincts are powerful enough to make us act when we let them.  When you have to trust your instincts – and we all rely on their being there when we need them – you find yourself acting quickly, decisively.  Your instincts steer you towards the ‘safest’ option for your human in a given situation.  A driving instinct is our desire to survive.  Most of us operate on auto-pilot in this regard.

I think some days how fragile our existence, really.  We need air to breathe, otherwise we die.  Simple.  We need trees to produce oxygen.  Why are we letting deforestation go ahead?  Why are we allowing certain nations to decimate their jungles?  There should be someone who can say no to these things and have people listen for a change – someone who has the ears of a collection of civilised leaders.  The jungles do not belong to the people.  They belong to the earth.  She should be considered in all of this.  Like the animals should be considered in all of this.

How much longer are the humans going to waste going in the direction of money?  Money is helpful but it must be kept in perspective.  It does good when it’s used properly, but it also makes palm oil plantations grow.  It makes logging a viable option for a lot of people.  It makes dogs fight, cocks fight.  It makes circuses trap animals and it kills rhinos, whales.  Money makes sex into big business.  How do we slow down a people obsessed with its power?  Money in this world is a god.  It is worshipped as such.  How can it be in a world this rich that the global economy is failing?  There is too much about this man looking out for himself only, and that man taking more than his fair share.  When you have this imbalance you have a problem.  You do not have to give the shirt off your back to the next homeless guy you see.  That is not what charity is about.  Just be aware that as a person taking up space on this planet you are obliged to give something back.  Every single human has that duty.  There are currently too many takers, not enough givers.  And you cannot say you have nothing to give.  You give of yourself if you cannot give materially.

 

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06 May 2013 · 08:49

Chaos – Blog No. 36

lightningEmbrace it.  It comes to us all and if you cannot accept that fact you will not recognise it when it arrives.  Despite their status, even the most serene souls experience chaos.  That theirs’ is within and remains within is no mean feat.  The turbulence beneath the surface – in our subconscious where our archetypes reside – is relevant to our development.  The archetypes fight.  You can be a Buddhist monk and your archetypes will still fight.  It is in learning how to watch them fight that you conquer their effect.  Watching them leads to an understanding of their actions.  It leads to seeing reason for their being.  For our archetypes work.  They are active in our self-expression, they are active in manipulating our behaviours so that we manoeuvre smoothly into the position where we are best-placed to face the choices that we have made for ourselves.  Our human nature shows us the way.  Importantly, human nature is not negotiable.  We are all what we are:  part wild, part not.  Part human, part not.  Part nature, part not.  Our complexity is what makes us interesting.  We are of Nature.  We are first and foremost of Nature.  Not of sacred mud, nor of Adam’s rib.  Should that really be the case then we are all borne of incest.  If Eve was of Adam’s rib, then Eve was of Adam’s DNA.  That makes brother and sister by my reckoning.  Sex between brothers and sisters is frowned upon no matter who you are or where you think you belong.

I would rather believe that I come of a miracle of evolution called procreation than from a story of incest in a book so old its message is virtually obsolete.  Perhaps the guy who wrote the bible spoke the universal language.  Perhaps.  I think there were moments when he translated the truth.  However, he rambled a lot.  The bible goes on too much about stuff that doesn’t matter anymore.  The church has failed to realise that the universal language does not ramble any longer.  Or mumble.  Dusty sermons served to dead ears are these days, obsolete.  I think the church has got dead ears – they fail to hear the very loud call for their God to turn up and take responsibility for his humans.  If God said and it was so, then God is what we think.  Because thinking makes it so.  That is fact.  Change your thinking and you change your world.  That is Buddhist wisdom.  There is a lot be said for Buddha’s wisdom.  He got to where he was through perseverance, and experience.  That makes him someone we can trust.  I would trust the say-so of the real man more than I would the imperative of an invisible God.

The church really has a lot of work to do.  It is so behind that it precludes itself from joining world debate.  Its message is outdated and its methods archaic.  Who in this day and age could possibly advocate no contraception?  Which god would want his own planet (for I believe that Earth has an overseer) over-populated and ravaged by the likes of poverty?  This world is struggling to cope, it is subverted by poverty.  Please understand this.  Poverty makes people do inhuman things.  If you have never been short of money, then consider yourself very, very lucky.  Whether through your own provision or private circumstance, consider yourself part of a privileged minority and be thankful.

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03 May 2013 · 08:33

Love never fails – Blog No. 35

love is kindLove never fails.  That is what to take from the lesson on the left.  In an ideal world, love would guide everyone.  It doesn’t.  Also, it would be everywhere.  It isn’t.  This world is far from ideal.  However.  There are those who have it, and those who do not.  It is clear to see those who have it. They walk around like the Dalai Lama with a heart open, oozing pure love.  Feeding the environments – both physical and mental – with positivity, like prayer flags feeding the breeze.  To be able to do that takes a lot of practice, and it takes an extraordinary amount of personal work.  You don’t get to be the Dalai Lama by accident.  To him, love comes naturally.  Love is breathing.  Alive.

To understand that we are a reflection of this love is to achieve perfection with your life.  Unfortunately there are a great many obstacles between realising perfection and achieving it.   But obstacles are just that.  They are in the way, they are not insurmountable.  They are sent our way to challenge our complacent ideal, our idea of life.  We are all affected by our externals, those naturally-occurring factors that shape our realities.  Realise that reality is pretty reactionary.  It responds to you.  It is a pity we cannot control every one of our externals.  Nature has the element of surprise on her side.  She is never complacent.  She is in her same cycle of hot, cold, hot, cold.  At the moment she is heating up again.  Her path is prescribed.  She rolls around as does spring, summer, autumn, winter.  Each time, the same.  Nature knows what to do.  What she did not anticipate was the rush of humans on the face of her earth.  There are too many of us.  That fact is not worth panicking about, but it is a reality worth waking up to.  Who are you to have more than a handful of children?  A handful is enough in any culture.

Be aware, too, that you do not need to keep children as contingencies.  You do not need your genes out in the world over and over again.  These days be prudent.  A reasonable number of children should satisfy family needs.  How hard must some parents try to get it right?  Or is it that a breed of women just do not care that they are breeding creatures rather than people?  For that is what they are doing.  There is a breed of women with five children by five different men who are not around.  What does that say about society?  It says society is failing.  What can a teenager teach a child?  Life experience is what you share with a child.  I have seen these mothers swearing at their kids so many times it becomes unremarkable.  I do not believe that it is productive for a child to grow up being sworn at.  That is like being spoken at.  It is rude.  From the other side – would you want to be trapped as a dad (and keep in mind a dad is different to a father) as a teenager?  Not a chance.  These teenage mothers are a problem.  The solution?  Girls should keep their legs together when they drink or learn to use contraception.  They should stop the rush to motherhood.  It is not an escape.

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29 Apr 2013 · 11:21

Boredom – Blog No. 34

boredquotesHow do you prevent yourself from morphing into that most heinous of beasts; the cause of boredom?  That bore that comes of common complacency, and the bore that you become to yourself when you refuse to use your life for the purpose it was built?  Your life was built for your self-expression.  If you fail to express yourself – anywhichwayhow you can manage it – you fail at your core purpose.  Self-expression and self-esteem are inextricably linked – do not forget that.

Boring is tiring.  It is a decimator.  Boring is adhering religiously – yes, religiously – to a certain set of circumspect rules that you allow to govern your life.  You should stand up for yourself more.  You should stand up to yourself more.  We’re tyrants.  Each one of us.  That is perhaps no comforting thought, but it is fact.  When you learn to meet and greet frequently your menace you will find yourself more able – and better-equipped – to face your demons.  Demons are in fact not as terrifying as we make them out to be to ourselves.  They all have their reasons, they all have a message to share.  It is in watching their behaviour(s) that you will find resolution, if you choose to use their (very manageable) resources to your benefit.  Again – that choice is up to you.  Deny that you have demons and I will laugh.

Back to boring.  Boredom.  A low boredom threshold is not a sign or symbol of a maladjusted human being.  It is the sign of someone who will not tolerate mediocrity in either their own lives, or those of the people they allow to influence their days.  We all allow someone to influence our days.  A friend, a dead someone, an abusive memory made by one of the ego-tamers in our lives.  We all meet those – and believe me, we need them.  Ego-tamers are like gifts from the gods.  Learn to recognise them for who they are and celebrate their attention.  Ensure that you do not confuse an ego-tamer with an abuser.  They are very different creatures.

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18 Apr 2013 · 14:15

Breaking the rules – Blog No. 33

RulesThe rules of life:  there are no fixed rules.  We all make up our own.  We start with personal rules – these we develop as guidelines for what we like and what we don’t when we are quite little people.  Crossing the line – emotionally and physically – is not appreciated, clearly, from a very young age.  What makes us set down our first boundaries?  I think it is instinct.  Children are intuitive creatures.  They feel us, our vibes.  And they mirror our behaviours.  It’s hardly surprising that there is a delinquent overdose in the UK – too many kids have been brought up watching their parents lack focus and ambition.

Children should have tolerance.  Even young children.  If a child is missing tolerance in its repertoire of behaviours then it is disadvantaged.  Tolerance is learned.  Tolerance is a word every person understands by virtue of its effect.  To be tolerated – particularly when you are being frustrating or damnably changeable – is a gift.  Tolerance is not accepting the unacceptable.  It is not mindlessly putting up with somebody or something that offends you, or breaks your personal rules.  It is about realising that you are in a bigger picture than the one in which you are affected.  Tolerance is about standing away from yourself; your troubles, your desires, your judgement.  It is about following your heart to a place of feeling rather than taking your head to a place of reason.  You cannot reason with intolerance.  It is easy to find reason for tolerance when you consider that we are all learning in this life.  Even God is learning something new each day, about how humans have evolved.  That first-world man has freedom of choice does amaze me some days.  That he refuses to appreciate it and fully make use of its facility infuriates me.  I do not understand a man with a lethargy for choosing the path of his future.  How can you leave your life to run its own course when you have no idea where your future is?  That is like driving a car with your eyes closed.

Should you find yourself swamped by official rules – rules that you recognise as being imposed upon you by a needlessly anal bureaucracy (society can make you feel that way on occasion) then you must allow yourself to break a few of those rules.  Try not to break the law, that is different.  It brings with it due consequence.  Consider that if you make the rules that govern your days, you are entitled to break them.  Break with your own rules, your old traditions.  Open your future out in your mind.  Your possibility is limitless.  Really limitless.  You have to see beyond your limitations because you have imposed them upon yourself.  Trust that you can do what your mind dreams of if you allow yourself to step outside of your own box.  Stepping out of your box means pushing parameters, letting go of what you know in favour of the unknown.  The unknown is a place worth visiting.  It is found on the other side of your strict personal regime.

 

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15 Apr 2013 · 09:51

Letting go – Blog No. 32

let-goSo you let go.  That means what, exactly?  You tell yourself in your head that you have made a conscious choice to detach yourself from a thought, an idea, a dream.  (A point in hand – do not detach yourself from too many of your dreams.  They make your present liveable).  Then you stand objective and feel how it feels to be ‘without’ whatever it was.  A person, a situation, a memory.  In analysing that feeling – the emptiness – are you honest enough to admit to yourself that lurking on the sidelines of your thinking is the forgotten whatever it was?  It is always watching you try to forget it.  You are busy trying to forget how it feels to be with that thing.  How it is to carry its weight.  It’s just not possible.  The minute you turn your back you will find that your subconscious is busy soliciting the forbidden thinking.  It’s rebellious like that.  So how to really let go?  You have to make an arrangement with your heart to let go.  Heart holds on tight.  In fact, it is a bit like a child.  It holds tight to what keeps it happy.  Your mind can understand that you must separate yourself from something that is causing complications in your life.  Your heart can’t.  Heart accepts all and this makes for complications.  Complications are put where they are to keep us from getting too easy with being.  Life demands respect and should you fail to show due respect for its display it will send you reminders that you are merely human.  Each time a complexity unveils itself in your space – like an unexpected emotional outburst, or a twist in your life path that you were not expecting – it is a small test of your capacity.  If you freak out each time life hands you something you thought you did not require, think again.  You never get what you don’t need.  You have made sure of that.  Learn to accept what it is that has been put on your plate and work with it rather than against it – that is better for your development.  If you keep fighting the learning you are sent you will have to keep being taught.  That can be guaranteed.

We have all heard this:  If you love something, set it free.  If it comes back to you it is yours.  If it doesn’t, it never was.  How about this – you are making a mistake if you set what you love, free.  You have to think of both sides.  Who are you to free what it is that you love in the first place?  It was never yours to set free, or hold on to.  Love is a force.  It is true unto itself.  Love chooses what it wants because of what you need.  It is considerate that way.  Love is alive.  It is not something superficial, something to be trifled with, something you can cling to.  You cannot cling to love.  You cannot bend it to your will.  It dictates its flow, you just have to hold on tight and know that wherever it is going will be interesting.  It is surprisingly powerful, love.  It can make you do things you thought were impossible.  It can make you push yourself harder than anything else can push you.  It can make you feel things that you cannot explain and perhaps do not want to explain.  Love defies labelling.  It is nothing but itself.  It tickles.  It hurts.  It keeps you from feeling alone – that is why it is in you in the first place.  We are born alone?  We are only born alone in the sense that until we take our first independent breath we are empty of spirit.  We die alone?  I do not think we die alone.  I think we die safe in the arms of our deepest beliefs once consciousness is shut off.  That means death is nothing to fear.  It is just a part of life.  Where your head goes – now that is where you want to be concentrating your energies.  That is where you will end up for your eternity.

 

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12 Apr 2013 · 09:14

Blame – Blog No. 31

FingerPointingThe very first thing you need to understand about blame is that it is a waste of your time.  It is absolutely pointless.  Do not weaken your standpoint in life by whining about who did what.  You allow what happens to you to happen to you.  Understand this.  Take accountability, do not lay blame.  The power in taking accountability will make itself apparent in your everyday.  Be proud of who you are, what you believe and why you choose to do what you do.  Taking accountability is empowering.  It is not a punishment.  It is standing up and saying, ‘Yes.  That was me.’  That is self-awareness.  Self-belief.  Recognition.  Have faith in your actions, your (mis)deeds, your subconscious striving for actualisation.  The striving keeps us alive and faith in yourself is never wasted.  You must take accountability for your thoughts, too.  I would like to point out that it does help – both yourself and others – if you would add to your statement of fact, ‘… and my reasons for doing said such and such, were …’.  Give reasons willingly.  They help with clarity.  I have learned that in most instances it is a waste of time to hide your justifications.  We all have that painful desire to justify our existence.  It’s there.  It is a part of wanting to be understood.  We would all like to feel understood, it’s a deep-seated need.  How many people have you trusted with your insides?  We cannot know someone or understand them until they have shown us their insides.  That is how it is.

Remember that taking accountability is not taking responsibility.  Responsibility is a whole different kettle of fish.  It depends on your need to play the martyr – and we all have that tendency at times – as to how much responsibility you will take on that is not yours to carry.  Only carry what is yours.  You must understand that you are not responsible for another’s reality.  You are not responsible for the illusion they are living.  You are not responsible for their existence.  Until you can consciously penetrate another’s thoughts you are not in any way responsible for their thinking, either.  Know that.   A person’s choices are their’s alone and for those choices they will pay penalties or reap rewards when the time comes.  And the time is coming.  Soon we will find ourselves blending with the futures we have selected for ourselves.  It will be interesting to see who is happy with their lot and who is not.  Should you not be happy with how your future is going to look – given that its reality is based on your projections at present – then you had better start shifting your mindset.  That starts with realising who you are at this moment and being proud of the person you have become.  Know that personal pride is not a waste of time.  You did not get to where you are by accident.  Please remember that you are always becoming.  That is evolution.  That is going forwards, meeting your real self (time and again) – and reaching your full potential.  Reaching your full potential is what you are here to do.  So do it.

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08 Apr 2013 · 09:18

How real are you? – Blog No. 30

inner-childHow seriously do you take yourself?  I hope that you pay yourself due attention.  Know when to be serious about your life, but know that if you are too serious you run the risk of missing the point of being.  We are also on this planet to play.  Each of us humans has a child inside of us that requires indulgence and parenting.  Even if you have no children of your own, realise that you are still a parent.  You are a parent to yourself.  You cannot avoid this role.  That voice you hear nagging in your head, that chase you feel in yourself when you are doing right, or wrong, that is part of being responsible for your person.  Do you respect your inner parent?  How do you respond to its criticism?  Do you hear criticism, or do you hear words of love and encouragement?  Listen and decide.  What type of parent are you?  Analyse your patterns and your proclivities.  As both child, and parent.  You will see in your style of parenting your understanding of yourself.  You want to understand yourself, your inner child.  You will find in the child your shelved dreams.  Your core beliefs.  How you respond to the world of your inner child is of grave consequence.  Should you show no respect for its evidence you will find yourself relying solely on your conditioning to get you by in this life of trials.  The child has no qualms about leaving you to your own devices.  It has enough with which to occupy itself.  Should you ignore it, it will ignore you.  A warning – do not rely on your conditioning.  It is not who you are.  It is who you have learned to be and in that you may as well be an automaton.  Be who you are.  Work around that which is already in you – your conditioning.  It is essential if we wish to meet our real selves.  Separate from what you know.  Find yourself in the unknown.

Your parent is a construct.  Understand that. You have built it into what it is.  Now take its essence and mould it to the kind of parent you know your inner child needs.  Make the conscious choice to give yourself what is necessary to bring out your best.  That is in your power.  It is good to know you have power.  Use it.

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05 Apr 2013 · 11:34

Armchair idealism – Blog. No 29

wheelchairWhat is the point of sitting in your armchair thinking about the changes you would like to see in the world?  There is no point to that.  You have to do something constructive in order that your thoughts have any sway at all, otherwise you might as well not bother having them.  Thoughts without an active thinker are not helpful.  As I have said before, act rather than don’t in this world because your voice – however you choose to speak – might be the one that makes the difference.  The good news is that there are a great many situations in our world that need improving.  This world is as yet far from perfect and that means there is a lot to work on.  We are a lot.  The odds are in our favour should we put our minds to making a change; we can make a statement and simultaneously tidy up some residual untidyness.

Should you dislike circus animals, for instance, then find out how the Netherlands set about banning performing animals from their country and get busy making that statement in your own arena.  How about this time being the person who stands up and does something instead of being the disillusionist sitting on the sidelines griping?  Do you know how tiring a whining voice?  It precludes itself from being heard.

Boycott oriental arts across the board because the Asians refuse to honour life on earth, refuse on principle to visit zoos and circuses because your money is what keeps these sideshows in business.  Do not forget that there are a lot of animals currently trapped in circuses and housed in zoos.  What will happen to those helpless creatures once the circuses shut down and the zoos lose their patronage – because I do believe that they eventually all will.  Perhaps there are private reserves that could house these wild orphans.  Perhaps.  One would hope that when they are freed from their particular brand of slavery they will find their way to a place they could call home.  It will not be the wild as it once was in their blood, but it could be a safe haven free from prying eyes and ringmaster’s whips.  I believe there is place in Africa for every one of these exploited animals.  Africa is like that with her big heart.

I marvel at man’s audacity.  He attempts to tame the wild and uses his mastery to bring misery to living creatures.  I am sure this was never our purpose.

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