Bye bye Myspace...

Ok, so I got to thinking that a good thing to do would be to delete all my blog entries, as well as my pictures, and start again from scratch, what with the book coming out an' all. Then I discovered it would be a complete drag to do that, since it looks like it's gotta be done one-at-a-time, so I guess I'll actually have to close the account and maybe re-open it. So...

1. This is my email address: rorymiller2@gmail.com. Feel free to make a note of that and drop me a line, if you'd like to keep in touch.

2. This will be my book's website: www.discoveringbeautiful.com. That's where I'll have links to my new blog, and also everything else.

3. I am on facebook. I use that quite a lot. I think it's better than myspace for most things, other than the blog. If you want to find me there, the above email address should do it.

4. Do please become a friend of The Toddlanders, my sort of make-believe band that's really just me and some shoddily-recorded demos. I'll probably write barely intelligible blogs there from time to time too.

5. Thanks everyone for reading everything these past couple of years, and giving encouragement, and being so lovely and supportive. If you write a blog I'm sure you know how useful that is.

6. Don't panic! I have all these blog entries on my computer. I deleted my entire journal once. I won't make that mistake again.

7. This isn't goodbye, it's just a new beginning.

8. Yes, I probably will blog again in the very near future, and quite possibly here, on myspace.

9. The title of the book is 'Discovering Beautiful: On The Road To Somewhere'. I think it'll be a pretty good read. It should be available to buy worldwide through sites like Amazon, WH Smith and Barnes and Noble in time for Christmas.

10. Thanks especially to Leah and Shawn and Patti and Janette, who have been unbelievably encouraging with my writing for a long, long time. But, of course, to all the others: you know who you are.

See you soon!

Lots of love,
Rory

Back to Oxford...

Well, here we are, back to Oxford, back to the uncertainty of my living situation, and back to wonderful gigs playing mad frenetic guitar while my girlfriend sings 'Lady Marmalade' and 'Blame It On The Boogie' and, my, aren't we good? Getting them dancing in the aisles at Freud's, tight as, and me loving it, and shredding my hand up on the strings so into it, and actually earning money – which is good, since I have literally not a bean to my name. This time last year I had four grand in the bank: well holidays to India and Spain (twice) and Morocco and no work and a low-paid job before that and various purchases and giving about a quarter of it away have put paids to that and, you know what? It's actually quite refreshing to be beanless again. It gives life a certain edge, minimalises the options, puts me more in a state of trust and flow and openness and desperation and newness: I'm book-free and homeless and broke, practically naked and new-born in the world - and you can't beat that. Now I want to reclaim some of my light - tsk! imagine me writing a book about discovering God and being practically enlightened, and now being nothing of the sort! - and I wonder wither I shall wander to get a slice of that. Or shall I wander at all? Life will give me something, I suppose, now that I've finally done what I was supposed to have done all those years ago, before getting lost and losing the path that had been so clearly laid out in front of me by getting lost in thoughts and ideas and being too spiritually high and wanting things other than what life was trying to feed me, for my goodness and my benefit. Oh, what I'd give to get it back on track! And maybe we're always 'on track' anyhoo...

Done

In Morocco. Book in; finished (in a way); and desperately sad. Thought I'd be ecstatic - that university essay handing in feeling - and all the way I was reliving everything and thinking, God, I wish I was doing that again! All of it: Charlottesville, hitch-hiking, time in nature, the canyon, Mexico, spirituality - and then it suddenly ended, at Mount Shasta, and I felt confused and empty: I wanted that too. And that was God. And God is long gone. Six, seven, eight years...of what? Of wanting this. And now it's done...now, I don't know. Like I say: desperately sad and empty. And like I feel it's not as good as I would've wanted. Too rushed, I guess. But done.

I'm done.

And I don't know what comes next...

Sorry for the sadness. Life begins afresh. I could cry. But a certain excitement: it's been a long, long time since I had a blank canvas of a future...

Oh my.