Have a problem? Check your backyard for the solution

Imagine if you didn’t have to learn things to know things? Imagine if all the information of this planet was stored within the very atoms and energy we see and feel around us. Allow your mind to believe (just for a moment) that if you needed to know something, often that very piece of information could be accessed by you, if only you were more aware?

Yah. I know. As if, right?

When a man falls sick, the plant that is his cure is always close by

Often I read things and forget where I have read them and therefore the source is missing. In ancient Greece, there was a theory that if a man fell ill, the plant that would contain the cure to his disease was often right near where he fell sick. I cannot find the source now, but I hope this principle still holds fast. So…When things are wrong – can it be said that the solution is always at hand, close by?

Learning a new trick by tuning in

I have a Hungarian friend who reads this blog who told me a story of when he was a little boy in Hungary. I forget the details, but it involved an aunty, his mother or some other collection of adult relatives and a runaway chicken. My friend was only a boy of seven and had never had to deal with chickens before. No one knew how to catch the chicken, he told me, but he had an idea.

Somehow, he knew that he could control the chicken by drawing a line on the ground and holding the chicken’s head to the line. The chicken became immobile. (Ok this is really true; everyone from Nietzsche to Al Gore has discussed chicken hypnotism.) He claims that no one ever told him how to do this trick, that the information was just ‘out there’ in the ether, waiting for someone who needed it.

He picks up the chicken, draws the line, the chicken becomes hypnotised and could be killed for dinner. Do you believe this story? I do. But when I first heard it, I did not. I thought, ‘What rubbish.” But throughout the course of my life, I have come to realise that often, things like this seem to happen to me, maybe they happen to you too.

Words pulled from the ether

Have you watched American author Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk? It’s quite famous and in it, she talks about a poetess who would “feel” a poem rolling through the hills, hurdling towards her. She said, as a poet, it was up to her to grab her pen and “catch” the poem, before it found another poet.

Does genius come from heaven?

Gilbert goes on to tell the story, saying, that this poetess would sometimes only catch the tail of the poem, and would reel it back in, and the poem would come out backwards, inside-out. It’s a marvellous concept and one that I can relate to. The talk Gilbert gives relates to the notion of “genius” which she says the ancient Greeks believed was like a genie, who bestowed his gifts upon humans. “Genius”, they said, was not the product of man at all, but a gift bestowed by the Gods.

Connect with your Genius Genie

The good news for all us mere mortals is that (if the ancient Greeks are to be believed) genius could be accessible to us all, we just have to be ready and willing to receive it. It may never come. Gilbert says that with her second book (which wasn’t a flop but certainly failed to capture the world’s attention like Eat, Pray, Love) she committed to sitting down at a certain time each day, waiting for the genius genie. She says she sais to the universe:

“If this book is not successful – I want the records to reflect that ‘I Showed Up For My Part’!”

1. If you have a problem, check your backyard for a solution.

2. If you need help, the best person for the job might be right behind you.

3. If you are searching for a word, it may be written on this very page (or somewhere else close by)

4. If you are looking to connect with your spirit, don’t feel it is far away.