Trading with the exchange of energy

I live near Lewes in East Sussex and Lewes is a transition town, it has its own currency, the Lewes pound which can be traded just like pound sterling. Now you do not have to create your own currency but trading your skill with someone else without changing money is a good idea.
If we look at who we deal with there are many who have very useful skills and there are others who  would like to learn the guitar but they cannot afford it until you look at what they have to offer and then their skills become something that you trade with. Also you are honouring them either with what they have as a physical object or ability, this I find a very powerful bond between people.
So artists can trade their work, trades people their trade, skilled service people their services. As long as you have money to pay the bills you can expand your income indirectly by tapping into this way of thinking. I find this very important as it develops others self-esteem and what do you need to develop someone’s musical and artistic skills? You need to raise their self-esteem.
Have a look at the types of things that you need and see who you can bring into learning the instrument but trading their skills with you
Try it, it works!

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

The Small School

‘Mainstream education has utterly lost sight of the child. It was hard to maintain any joy in teaching, and the feeling that you could change the world through education was lost to the stress and anxiety of Ofsted inspections and ever growing class sizes’ Louise Hopkinson of ‘The Small School’ 

I have been involved in education as a peripatetic music teacher for over thirty years and I enjoy the work that I do going in schools and teaching music. Not only am I teaching music but I am also, for those interested enough, am teaching creative thinking through music that they can apply to other areas of their life.

There has always been a debate around education to whether it is to train someone to a do a task or for it to broaden the mind, and currently the mainstream of education is to funnel them into a skill so that that they can get a job; unfortunately it is organised (and I use this term very loosely) by the government and therefore I believe this idea to be flawed.

Historically governments have been proven to be unable to organise a piss up in a brewery and the idea that governments can make the decisions about the education of your child is equally fallacious and that goes for either side of the political spectrum.

On the right we have a bunch of misfits that did not go to a state school so they have no idea what they are doing and as for the left the ideology gets in the way. By the time the Brown administration left office there was so much legislation in the pipeline that the skilled artist and teacher would have to have spent hundreds of pounds to license themselves as independent teachers, insane!

Fortunately because of the balls up in the economy the incoming shower saw fit to dump the proposed legislation to save money.

The education system in this country is failing most of the children unless they are so intelligent they learn in spite of the regulations and stress put on teachers in this country.

If we look at the idea that education is about broadening the mind then we can equip the young to think and be creative and this is what we need for the future. Unless the political puppet masters have a crystal ball to tell us what will exist as a job in the future the ONLY thing that we can do is enable our children to think and be creative and to communicate, be that with other humans or by computer code; every other skill may fall by the wayside as obsolete.

When a child finds learning fun, which most children do before they go to school otherwise they would not have learnt to speak, they have an insatiable appetite for learning but once they go to school it can so easily be snuffed out because of the ‘experts’ knowing was is good for them.

So let us foster that love of learning and discovery and stop thinking of education based on the style of the factory. This may have suited the ruling classes in the past but because of connectivity amongst the ordinary people that will not do anymore; it is time to take our learning power back.

Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

 

Advertisers use magic... Now it is your turn

At the moment the people who are using shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers rather than try to wake people up. Their shamanism is used as an opiate to tranquilise people to make people more malleable – Alan Moore



Language is power and the power contained in words is overlooked by us as simple communication but they are the tools of the marketer, the confidence trickster as well as the great orator and the artist.

Words have power because of the associations and memories that we lock into them and the dictators past and present understand that; but we have forgotten.

When teaching song writing I often get people to walk around the room saying words that are uplifting and happy and get others to watch their body language and then to do the same thing with distressing words and the effect is instant and very noticeable. Not only that the people doing the walking and talking will feel very different in the contrasting states.

It is possible to talk yourself into a depression because for you to process these words the brain will create the chemistry to do so, and likewise you make yourself feel euphoric.

Moore’s analogy of magic and the art of the advertiser was to draw ones attention to how far we have gone to allow ourselves to be enchanted by the sellers of objects  and also by the organisers of things such as education, the health ‘service’ or should that say the pharmaceutical companies. My point is that for you to open people up to be creative they need to see what has closed them down in the first place; then in order to take their power back they need to know how and who from. The how is by using language in your work and in your music and from whom? From all of those that have told you that you are not good enough or from those that said you cannot do this or have that because they are the ones who have it and own it.

Now go and listen to the political speeches from the parties left and right and feel out what it does to you. Does it liberate you? I think it is time to write a song and use the great skill and tool of the Bards; satire.

Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. Reggie Leach.

One little pastime I have is foraging and various bush craft stuff like lighting fires by friction, for those of you who have not tried this it is bloody hard work.

This is such a great metaphor for the amount of work that you have to put in to do anything meaningful, just having the right material is not enough, essential but not enough, the missing ingredient is your hard work and consistent hard work as well.

In today’s world most people do not have that in them because they have been made lazy and been made to believe that they do not have natural talent. That is rubbish everyone has talent but that is only the basic materials the added ingredient is your sweat.

I have spent many years learning to play and teaching others to play the guitar and I can safely say that you can never learn it all there is too much. This realisation comes after you think that you are the best and you know it all (the teenage years) and then as each year goes by you realise you know less and less; that is wisdom.

To succeed you need to put in the hours and keep going and then keep going some more, till the flames come out of your fingers, smoke is not enough.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Just do it

Quitting my day job and starting my life as a writer was a tremendous risk, it was a fool’s leap, a shot in the dark. But anything of any value in our lives whether that be a career, a work of art, a relationship will always start with such a leap and in order to be able to make it, you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding. You have to do these things completely, purely without fear, without desire, because things that we do without lust of result are the purest actions that we shall ever take. - Alan Moore
Ah this might be the answer to many things. This is something crops up again and again in the lives of the successful, that they do it because that is what they do, not because they are searching for fame or wealth but because they are doing it, period.
Like the journey in a myth or saga, the hero sets out doing what is needed in the moment and in many cases they do not heed the warnings of the wise, taking them to places that are unique to their development. The use of guile and cunning, and this is particularly important in the Irish myths, often plays a part in their success. You see this in the Tolkien stories of Middle Earth where riddles need to be solved in order to progress or survive.
The aspect of doing something for the love of it not the lust of the result, being purely in the moment; which in itself is what great artists like Lou Reed, Picasso, Hendrix are doing.
The idea of doing something artistic for the doing of it seems rather odd today because some accountant somewhere needs to measure what you do, that seems to be the nature of accountability that we have entranced ourselves with, but maybe we need a dose of Alan Moore’s anarchy to get the creative juices moving.
Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Grief and music

The work now is the willingness to propose grief as a radicle political alertness to life, that is not a drag, is not sad, that the power of grief deepens the capacity of being alive. It is the realisation that it is not going to last. Steven Jenkinson.
 

This guy is one of the most profound speakers that I have ever heard and he is dealing with the idea of grief. He worked with hundreds of people in the last days of their life dealing with their fears and thoughts and I find hear something very powerful.

Music is a way of exploring emotions that we would rather keep at a distance. However keeping emotions unrealised can lead to problems. This is an area that for some of us can be a good way of developing your work; people exploring their own ideas musically with some prospect of self-healing. The idea of music therapy is not new but I think that it is something worth considering even as a stress buster for professional people who would rather not go to a therapist.

I have always found music a potent force for dealing with life’s twists and turns and I know of a number of people who sight playing a musical instrument helping them not having another breakdown (their words not mine). The idea of exploring grief and maybe writing something of an experience and making something artistic and beautiful out of it is a positive way of transforming shadows into something very powerful. Think Leonard Cohen.

Vic