Embers of Illumination: A Journey from Loneliness to Aloneness

A Journey from Loneliness to Aloneness.

This is a memoir of my life, of my spiritual development. It is a book about how I have grown from loneliness to aloneness.

You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.
Anthon St. Maarten

Everyone knows about loneliness, but not many understand aloneness. It is the ability to stand on your own, not propped up by others, to be lonely in a crowd or happy on your own. I sought the latter through my life and found through my spiritual growth. I am happy on my own and even happier when with others. The book explores this.

Chapter 1: In The Beginning

1.1 The Soul Is The Home Of The Spirit

This is the story of a young soul who grows into an old soul, who then finds a new young soul inside.

1.2 Coping With the Physical and the Idea of Perfection

Continuing my story with my physical existence and how my body tried to rule me.

1.3 The Running Away That Never Happened

I learned to seek something that had a sense of purpose, I will never stop seeking but I have stopped hiding.

1.4 Beaten Into Submission—How I Embraced Frustration

I will always have inside me the need to control and the tendency to anger, I have dad to thank for that.

1.5 Getting Away From The Screaming In My Head

I was sitting in my room contemplating a blank future, one I had not been prepared for.

1.6 The Loneliness Of It All

I realise that I am not able to completely throw away what was central to me when I was young, no matter how much I now understand it was wrong.

Chapter 2: Young And Brave

2.1 Finding My Voice—Becoming Creative

The need to dominate or control shifted into a desire to influence which then, in its turn, became a love of teaching and inspiring.

2.2 Learning To Live And Not Look After Myself

I had no sense of identity, either in relation to who I was, or who I wanted to be.

2.3 Drink And Drugs—They Are Not The Answers

I may have been lost but I knew how to dull the ache.

2.4 Running Around But Not Getting Anywhere

In the decade between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies I was out in the world enjoying a sense of freedom.

2.5 Normality Beckons—The End of Freedom

The end of my decade of freedom came when I met a girl and fell in love.

2.6 Still The Loneliness—Still The Void Inside

My loneliness ensured my isolation from influences that could have overwhelmed me. I was lonely with a purpose.

Chapter 3: The Family Way

3.1 It Is Not About Me

As what I set about developing is passed on to my grandchildren, and as they eventually pass it on to their children, I will see the chain of domination and control being broken.

3.2 My Fear Of Responsibility And The Mask

I have looked, previously, at the shift brought about by a growing family, one that moved my focus from me to the others in my life.

3.3 Opening My Mind—How I Stumbled On Something Vital For My Sanity

I lived with my fear of responsibility and set about building my personal strength and power behind it.

3.4 Impending Crisis And My Inability To Cope

This period was a crucial turning point in my life and in my understanding of myself. I was unable to help others involved, something that has upset me ever since.

3.5 Spreading My Wings, Finding Inner Light

I moved on from my anxieties by appealing to a higher power, by looking beyond myself.

3.6 It Is Not About Loneliness—Growing Beyond Yourself

I no longer played small in the world, I allowed my presence to liberate others.

Chapter 4: Fear And Flying

4.1 What Is It About? Success Or Failure?

As I move into chapter four and past the halfway point in my story it will be helpful to pause and consider where I am in my journey.

4.2 Finding My Niche—My Creative Contribution To The World

I was at the peak of my creativity and I understood why I had become a lighting designer: I was good at it but it also entered my soul as my life’s work. I look back on it with pride and a sense of satisfaction that I have contributed something significant to the world.

4.3 Growing Strong, Becoming a Businessman

I was moving forward as a designer but here I was becoming a businessman. I was not sure, at this stage, which I got the most out of.

4.4 Losing My Spirit As My World Crashes

I spent so many years so full of what I was capable of that I never stopped to look at what was going on underneath. I never stopped and looked at the people around me to see what was happening to them.

4.5 Moving On To A New Life

I now made a choice to live my way without expecting others to live my way. I loved it and came to wonder why it had taken me so long to get here.

4.6 What Is Loneliness? What Is Life About?

Loneliness ceased to exist for me because it merely measured me against other people not against what I could be. I could be with people, or not, that did not matter, what mattered was what I was to myself.

Chapter 5: A New Freedom

5.1 I Find Myself And Explore Leadership

My personal quest now entered a void that enabled me to grow and focus on myself and my future.

5.2 I Lose Myself—And Find A New Me

I was not where I wanted to go yet, but I was back at the beginning and I was living a more authentic life.

5.3 The Far Journey To Unknown Places

What happened was life-changing and life-affirming.

5.4 No Return As My Spirit Grows

In my travels around the world I travelled inside myself.

5.5 Writing My Way Home—Exploring My Masculinity

I was changing and developing a greater understanding of the big picture. I was starting to see my role in the growing spiritual world I was living in.

5.6 Leaving Loneliness Behind—Resolving My Personalities

The resolution of my personalities is not about will-power or control, it is not about denying myself or resisting what I want, it is about accepting and loving who I really am, it is about living honestly and completing the journey I have been on all my life. This excites me. This is my future.