On the weekend I bought a book of Stuart Wilde's - "The Quickening". He talks about 'warrior sages', and lists those qualities in a warrior sage that people can aspire to. He talks about it as being a way of life for spiritual people, travelling the path that most don't, with the courage that most don't have.

I liked the concept, and knew from what he said that I, in accordance with the principles he presented, am a Warrior Sage. For ease of description, I present this that I found on a website this afternoon:

The warrior sage may be defined as a spiritual philosopher that brings meaning, peace and unity to the chaotic separateness of life. This wise one was known as a healer as well as a warrior and one who had quested through the mountains and the valleys of the earth. Being ever the spiritual truth-seeker, he/she focused on a life pilgrimage that embraced the experiential knowledge and wisdom of the unknown as well as the unity of creation.

It basically describes me! I am a truth-seeker, preferring to experience things for myself. I'm a healer as well as a warrior (although I'm the warrior that is the champion of others, rather than the brutish thug). I teach and I empower others to find their own way of living. I implore people to become more than they think they are right now.

This weekend has been quite amazing in relation to the things that I've learned. I feel I've expanded my consciousness in some way just over the past few days. I've learnt new things and explored new things. It's been awesome.

I went on the ferry to the South Island yesterday. It was a beautiful day for it, as the entire purpose of it was for Penny and I to take photos of the nice things we saw along the way. We left at 2pm, arrived at Picton at 5pm, went for a walk along the harbour and had a coffee, then went back to the boat to return to Wellington at 6pm, arriving back home at 9pm.

A very nice trip, with some excellent photos taken by both of us. I'll be putting up tonight the best that I took.

On the weekend I bought a book of Stuart Wilde's - "The Quickening". He talks about 'warrior sages', and lists those qualities in a warrior sage that people can aspire to. He talks about it as being a way of life for spiritual people, travelling the path that most don't, with the courage that most don't have.

I liked the concept, and knew from what he said that I, in accordance with the principles he presented, am a Warrior Sage. For ease of description, I present this that I found on a website this afternoon:

The warrior sage may be defined as a spiritual philosopher that brings meaning, peace and unity to the chaotic separateness of life. This wise one was known as a healer as well as a warrior and one who had quested through the mountains and the valleys of the earth. Being ever the spiritual truth-seeker, he/she focused on a life pilgrimage that embraced the experiential knowledge and wisdom of the unknown as well as the unity of creation.

It basically describes me! I am a truth-seeker, preferring to experience things for myself. I'm a healer as well as a warrior (although I'm the warrior that is the champion of others, rather than the brutish thug). I teach and I empower others to find their own way of living. I implore people to become more than they think they are right now.

This weekend has been quite amazing in relation to the things that I've learned. I feel I've expanded my consciousness in some way just over the past few days. I've learnt new things and explored new things. It's been awesome.

I went on the ferry to the South Island yesterday. It was a beautiful day for it, as the entire purpose of it was for Penny and I to take photos of the nice things we saw along the way. We left at 2pm, arrived at Picton at 5pm, went for a walk along the harbour and had a coffee, then went back to the boat to return to Wellington at 6pm, arriving back home at 9pm.

A very nice trip, with some excellent photos taken by both of us. I'll be putting up tonight the best that I took.

Polyamory.

I've never heard of it until today.

But I've discovered something that amazes me.

Yesterday I was discussing with Penny my involvement with Wakana. I was talking about how Wakana joked a number of times that if I ever wanted to see another woman, I should. As long as I maintained a relationship with her, she was happy for me to be with other women. At the time I didn't understand it. I thought she was joking with me, testing my commitment to her. I told her I'd never be with another woman while I was with her.

When I was recently investigating Japanese customs, I learned something that shocked me. In Japan it is common for men to sleep with other women. It's part of their culture that they understand and accept that one person cannot fulfill all the needs that a person might have. While women commit to their men, they accept that the men go off and sleep with other women.

This shocked me, because it showed me that Wakana was serious when she was suggesting it to me. The concept in Japan is something that causes their relationships to last a long time, if not until they die together. When the women allow their men to go off and sleep with other women, for them it continues the security of the relationship, according to what I read. There's no need for the man (husband, father, whatever) to leave her under those circumstances.

So I was discussing this with Penny yesterday. I was saying that if I had known this was something that was part of Wakana's culture and she was absolutely serious about her suggestions, I could have potentially explored a relationship with Nicola, while maintaining one with Wakana. It seemed an attractive concept yesterday, in hindsight.

But we discussed how that fits in with Western culture, and how I would feel about maintaining two relationships. It would just feel wrong. But still, the concept was attractive. I admired the Japanese for having that security within themselves to let their partners go elsewhere, knowing that they'll come back home.

Today, the universe shocked me even more. I discovered something that amazed me. The universe certainly works in mysterious ways.

I went to pay for continued membership on a dating site this morning, and found my credit card was declined (although I've got plenty of available funds in it). This had happened a week ago at the same website, and I rang up and asked them why it was declined. They told me they were having problems with transactions with my bank, so they gave me a free week's access while they sorted it out. However, the problem continued today. They gave me another free week while they investigated.

In my curiosity about my credit card account, I decided to go to amazon.com and buy a book online, to see if the card would work elsewhere. I logged in, browsed the books, saw a Relationships category and went into there. I saw a book about polyamory. 'What the hell is polyamory?' I thought. So I checked out the reviews to the book and discovered it was about having multiple relationships at the same time with different people, and getting your needs met via different people without threatening any of the relationships you have with those people.

I was curious. So I did a web search on polyamory and discovered that this is far more widespread than I thought! There's websites everywhere that are devoted to it, and on yahoogroups there are 211 mailing lists for different areas. The best website to explain it all is this website: http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html

The concept interested me greatly! And I also realised that it was exactly what the Japanese do.

I've learnt that in Western society we practice 'serial monogamy':

...jumping from lover to lover to lover, while claiming to be "monogamous" with each one. While no reasonable person expects every relationship to last, it seems that many "serial monogamists" see their partners as expendable, or treat their lovers as a commodity, to be disposed of when someone better comes along...

So, why? What do you get out of this? Besides shagging a bunch of people, I mean.

For starters, being polyamorous doesn't mean you're shagging a bunch of people. It may mean that you only have one other partner.

But that's beside the point.

The answer to this question actually addresses who we are as human beings. Why do people get involved in interpersonal relationships at all? Why become romantically attached to anyone? The answer, of course, will vary from person to person, but at the end of the day we're all social animals. People are happier when they're romantically involved with someone than when they're not. Intimacy adds to the quality of your life.

In relation to my views about relationships, marriages, etc, I feel that this is a healthy way of living and dealing with those people who are important to us. Our Christian-oriented Western society, based entirely on marriage being a commitment of exclusivity, is outdated for modern times. People meet, get married, and then get divorced. Why?

Maybe because it's constricting. Society promotes freedom, but there's no freedom in marriage. People want to explore their lives and their sexuality, and while divorces are common, so are extra-marital affairs.

I really believe that with maturity, honesty and understanding, this new concept of relationships can work. It's been working in Japan, I'm sure it can work with mature people in Western society as well.

Anyone want to discuss this?

I've got a date tomorrow with a Japanese woman I've been chatting to online. As a result of looking forward to it, I've been looking up 'Japanese customs' on the internet.

I'm surprised I never did this with Wakana, but I've learnt something very interesting: How can you expect someone to act as an equal when they don't know what equality is?

Everything I'm learning about Japanese customs is focused on rank and status - not just for women, but especially for men.

RANK:
The highest ranking person usually walks in front. He or she enters a room first and is seated first. He or she is introduced first. All others follow behind, again by rank. Rank is also important in a social setting, for example, usually the eldest son is introduced first and then the other boys, followed by the eldest daughter. There are even special names for the first born son or daughter as well as different names for "older brother" or "younger brother" (likewise for sister).

That's just an example. Basically, everything about Japanese culture isn't geared so much to subverting women, as I once thought, but that both men and women bow down to superior status and rank. And it just so happens that the Japanese culture is founded very much on that kind of system.

It comes from the warrior culture of Japan's origins, with the Emperor and Samurai, etc. Status is very important.

If you are a guest for dinner, they would seat you facing the door, and the host would sit with their back to the door. While the origin of this custom isn't explained in anything I've found so far, it obviously goes back to feudal times, when it was dangerous for a warrior (or anyone?) to sit with their back to the door. Facing it means you're less surprised when they burst through the door. So as a mark of respect, I'd say that the host is not only allowing the guest to feel safe by facing the door, but having his own back to the door is another gesture that "you're safe in my house".

What has made me make a complete about-face with my perception of Japanese women is that I've learnt that Japanese men display the same gestures of politeness and respect towards their superiors as women do. I guess it's just that women are raised into a culture of respect towards men (the warriors?), and the ranks and status that go along with that.

Apparently, I'm not the only Westerner that's been frustrated by Japanese cultural traditions, and it's something that they end up realising they can't change. The only times it changes is when the Japanese person moves away from Japan, and they eventually become more Westernised. While it's possible for a Westerner in Japan to understand more about Japanese society, they can apparently never become 'Japanised' - the Japanese won't let them, as there is always a deep measure of distrust of 'gaijin' (white devils) that live in Japan.

I need to move on beyond this rigid fixation of equality, because some people just don't feel the same need to be equal. And I feel it may be detrimental of me to insist on it in others.

If someone wants to be polite and respectful to me, the best thing I can do is be the same back to them.

Maybe this means I'm getting over my own desires to be selfish, and am becoming more understanding and more prepared to give as well as receive.

Interesting...

I saw Matrix: Revolutions tonight - that's part 3 of the series to those who don't know.

I'm not going to give away any spoilers to it in here, I'll create a dedicated forum for it in another area.

However, let me just say that I thought it was awesome! OHMYGOD kind of awesome. Hehehe.

I've had a headache since yesterday morning. It's been quite strange. I suspect that it's because of a few things all coming together at the same time. On Friday I worked a 12-hour shift because the midnight shift person was off sick. So they asked me to work until midnight and the person who usually works from 5-1am would come in at midnight instead. That was cool by me, as the extra 4 hours was worth quite a reasonable amount of money, what with it being time-and-a-half and all.

However, working a 12-hour shift is probably quite draining. Especially when you spend most of that 12-hours in intensive study of how this bulletin board works so that you can upgrade from a different format without any downtime. I needed to understand the upgrade process, the conversion process, and then the refinement process.

It was intense!

I was still working on it for 3/4 of the day yesterday, and that's when the headache began.

Plus I was dehydrated, so that didn't help. My bedroom gets the morning sun, and I hadn't 'realised' yet that it's not that cold any more, so I still had two thick quilts on. Go the dehydration...

I drank so much water yesterday, but it just wasn't enough.

And then last night. Oh my...

I spent 3 hours trying to get to sleep, and failing miserably. I ended up having to wake Penny at 1am this morning and get her to hunt throughout the house for her 'wheat bag', which I microwaved and put on the back of my neck and head.

It didn't help, but eventually I drifted off to a troubled sleep. And yes, I was taking panadol, but apparently to no effect.

Today I woke up at 7am, after about 4-5 hours of troubled sleep. My headache had dulled down somewhat, to a muted ache in the back of my consciousness. Plus I was feeling queasy. This lasted all day.

I didn't feel well at all.

At around 4pm, I went out to do a little bit of shopping and then to the cinema at 5pm. While shopping, I bought a 'bumbag', one of those things you put around your waste to carry small stuff. I bought it to hold my digital camera, so that it's not around my neck anymore and I don't look so much like a tourist. I also bought some Nurofen, a more powerful headache pill.

I took a couple of them and had a vitamin boosting smoothie while I waited for Penny and some of my workmates to arrive.

By the time Matrix: Revolutions started I was feeling fine! No headache, no queasiness, and just great. I was SO pleased!

After the movie, Penny and I and my two team leaders from work sat around and had dinner and discussed the movie and other stuff. It was cool.

Then I came home.

That's my weekend.

I hope you enjoyed reading about it just slightly more than I enjoyed the weekend.

Cheesy

Thursday, 6th November

7:55am
Wake up. Penny informs me her USB mouse doesn't work. Before I've even done anything else, I'm already doing tech support. Test her computer with my USB mouse, works fine. I go to find a spare mouse, which turns out to be an old cordless mouse, but it needs batteries.

8am
Penny goes to work, I read emails that have come in overnight, news, messages sent to me on a dating site. Find I have a new member of my journal. I talk to them about Reiki.

8:20am
Make myself some breakfast - Coco Pops. Mmmm... just like a chocolate milkshake only CRUNCHY!

8:30am
Get into a discussion about gay men on my journal with the new member, wondering if I'll alienate the new gay guy.

8:45am
Update the journal with links to the photos I updated last night.

9:10am
Update the journal with info about 'A day in the life of Me'.

9:20am
Started doing the dishes, but got sidetracked about an email enquiry about the new Reiki mailing list I started a couple weeks ago.

9:40am
Finally gets around to doing the dishes.

9:45am
Received a phone call that the new mattress I bought a couple of weeks ago has arrived from Auckland and will be delivered Saturday afternoon.

10:25am
Finished dishes and ironed clothes for the day. Time to have a shower.

10:40am
Head off into town for an 11am haircut.

11:30am
Rang Garry, a friend of mine, asking if he wants to meet me for a coffee and discuss his involvement on the USS Scorpion, but he was at home instead of in town at work. Cancel that idea.

Went to Dick Smith Electronics to buy batteries for the cordless mouse. While there I speak to Jardin, friend of Penny's who works there. Talked about digital cameras with him 'cause he's planning on buying his own. Used one of their display computers to show him the photos on my website and sold him on the idea of having a zoom lens. Left him with an invitation to come over for a beer sometime.

12:20pm
Updated my notebook of events since haircut. Showed fireworks photos to some workmates.

12:30pm
Started work.

12:40pm
Responded to a friend's email about Matrix: Revolutions (part 3).

12:55pm
Responded to an applicant for one of the Star Trek games, letting them know the game of their choice was unavailable and to resubmit their application for another game of their choice.

1:15pm
Dealt with an urgent issue for one of Computerland's clients, which I'm responsible for ensuring get good support from us. One of my colleagues (not a workmate - definitely not a mate), who I've never respected since I met her, decided that she wouldn't actually process any of the jobs that she received during a period of time. This was part of her protest at being on the phones by herself for an hour while the rest of her team were either away or on admin duties. The other part of her protest, which became evident when I asked her why this particular job I discovered hadn't been dealt with 3 hours ago when she logged it, was that she was too busy to actually follow up on any jobs because she was the only one on the phones. When I pointed out that there are many occasions when we 'are the only ones on the phones' but that shouldn't stop her from dealing with an urgent job, her reply - which was more of a rant and rave - was that it was all the fault of our team leaders for their poor administration that ended up with her being on the phone.

After turning my back on her halfway through her rant and rave - which didn't stop her from continuing it to anyone else that would listen - I escalated the job and ensured that it would get looked after. However, it was logged urgently by the client 3 hours ago, so I informed the team leaders of this fact as well.

2pm
The client proceeded to complain about the fact that their urgent outage (all the phones were unavailable for the Auckland office) and a Client Service Manager enquired about the slowness of response on this job. I found out as well that Auckland engineers wouldn't be able to respond to it until tomorrow morning - which would have been a different story if they were informed about it at 11am when it was logged.

I advised my team leaders about this problem, and the reason why it had occurred. They sent an email to her asking to have a chat.

3:15pm
Yes, over an hour later she was 'not so busy any more' that she could go over to the team leaders and have a chat about the issue. Their attempts to have a quiet chat with her ended up with her speaking so loudly that the whole room could hear. She told them that it was their fault she wasn't able to follow up any jobs AT ALL because she was too busy (reminder: everyone is, at some point or other, 'too busy', but jobs are always followed up, especially if urgent), and so on. Her rant ended at precisely 3:30pm, when it was time for her to go home. Very convenient, I thought, that she didn't have to take any phone calls for the last 15 or so minutes of her time there.

It pisses me off to no end that I'm surrounded by people who don't enjoy their work, and take it out on the clients and their colleagues. (Note: as I'm transcribing this on the 8th, I've decided to take this further on Monday as an official complaint about her actions.)

4:30pm
Penny calls to say her PC has died. Lots of things going wrong with it. Told her I'd look at it when I get home.

6:20pm
Penny rang for tech support. Unable to wait until I got home, she discovered that she could actually troubleshoot her PC herself. It's amazing the lengths that internet addiction drives us... Her efforts discovered that her USB Hub had a problem with power supply. After half an hour of tech support, she decided to continue a bit more on her own.

8pm
Finished work, went home.

8:30pm
Penny and I started watching Matrix: Reloaded on DVD while I fixed her computer.

11pm
Matrix: Reloaded finished.

11:20pm
I finally fixed her computer, after finding that her registry was corrupt. Fixed the registry, everything worked fine.

11:30pm
Checked my emails.

11:50pm
Went to bed.


The end.

I did the 2nd Degree Reiki course today.

It involved learning about various symbols (three of them) that allow one to focus the energy, specifically for long-distance healing, and also to increase the effectiveness of the channelling that you do on someone.

The biggest challenge was memorising the symbols, and the order in which the lines of the symbols are drawn, and the names of said symbols. The memorising is important because you need to visualise the symbols as you do Reiki on someone, whether it's long distance or whatever, and you can't always refer back to the manual...

Interesting thing happened tonight.

I've been feeling 'charged' after the course, and also very tired. It's like, whatever I learnt or received from the Reiki today had an effect on me in some indescribable manner. (I've been drinking shit-loads of water the past few days, and particularly today as well.)

Anyway, I went to do some Reiki on Penny tonight, to ease some stomach cramps she was having, and apparently as soon as I sat down next to her, the stomach cramps disappeared straight away - before I even started.

Two things happened. 1) they just disappeared at that time, or 2) the energy that I felt 'charged' with had an effect on her as I got close to her, and it immediately had an effect.

These things can happen.

Reiki works by the practitioner being a channel to the Universal Life Energy, allowing it to flow through them and into the recipient.

But there's nothing that really says that you can't have it 'turned on' and radiating from you like the light from a flame. So just coming into my presence might have had a healing effect.