21 years.

Its my birthday on the 12th and il be turning 21. 3 years ago i was 18 and how time has flown. in my head im still the same 16 year old i always have been, with a little more experience and a little more respect i hope, behind my name and behind these eyes.

In 21 years ive seen so much. ive seen 20 autumns but never seen the colours, yet i love the smell of that change evermore :)

ive watched my parents grow older, my fathers hair from blonde to grey, hes still the same 16 year old i knew when i was 16 :)

i saw comet haile bop in 1997, i was 9 :) and it was awe inspiring , im sure i will catch up to that comet oneday when the time comes.

ive lay on the grass in the many fields behind Pendine and watched the day in motion when i was a teenager , just thinking , comfortable with my own presence and id like to think perhaps the dust from the tail of hail bop entered my lungs during those days and had brought me allot of happiness years later.

ive always had a fascination for the things that make us who we are and the moments that have born them.

at 18 i put both feet into the yellow river, the yangtze, to talk to a friend about life.

ive loved the company of the wise, my grandparents in particular.

ive taken countless footsteps and met allot of opinions along the way.

ive been born of frustration some days but happy with my youth in others.

I collected those caterpillars and caught the cabbage white in my hands :)

ive been shy to express myself , i took a chance by the waterfall :) and it felt wonderful.

i grew up in the shadow of mountains and in the light of my ancestors who i pray and talk to time to time :) i am staunch in my belief they should be remembered , for me its with external dialogue and the reserved love of the spoken word.

ive felt the magic of christmas , and watched a leonodis shower with my father on christmas eve when i was 6 and took a fragment of a distant world shooting across the northern sky to be my father christmas :)

ive been touched on the back by a spirit, it made the pain go away.

ive grown up with a brother , and its unspeakable how much happiness he brings to my life and has while i was growing up.
at 19 i left home.

At 19 i put my heart and soul into something.

ive loved many people, and all have been the mirror , and me a mirror to them, sometimes i saw some things i didnt like, other times id be speachless in the presence of something so beautiful as a free thinking being who looks to you to express the feelings of your interior, perhaps to much i have expressed the exterior.
My family has been my life and blood.

In all truths , i dont know who i am, and 21 doesnt iluminate the geography of my spirit, it shows me im 21 cycles of the earth around our star Sol. and neither does it freeze time in the manner that i am 21 for a year! it makes me ask how old am i truly, what should i count if count at all? and where do i begin in all this, in 21 years where do i begin and for who?

all i can say and make sense of it is to be happy , love each other and be kind, and wish a safe journey to myself and hope il find out someday when looking in the mirror of my reality for that space i am truely free to exist in.

Patriotism.

People identify my place of origin by my accent, which is fine and i think i am quite patriotic.

But i know it doesn't stand for some sort of distrust or division between  two or many peoples like the assumption that the English and Welsh don't get on. Some people associate the place of their birth with a feeling of patriotism because it was the place they took their first breath and were within a boarder and outside of the other and it all just gets a kind of tribal feeling about it which i don't like.

truth is i am patriotic about my origin not because of where i was born but because of the experiences i grew up around and within, and within the boarder that existed between England and Wales that does and has marked a change in the geography of a people , language and culture for 2000 years + , its this i am proud of , the experiences of the mountains and the lakes, the language and growing up there and the reminants of that culture which i find so magical and want to hold onto.

I don't associate it with some tribal loathing or some superiority like some do and i think they are not true patriots, all the experiences that have made me .... me  from childhood have occurred within the boarders and culture of Wales and that is what i want to share, to welcome others and to experience other peoples cultures to, as experience is the fabric of life and ultimately knowledge which will help you grow, we all know its important to grow.

I am patriotic because it resembles a different place and a difference in experience, a place worth sharing with everyone for its ability to inspire, so all should be welcome.

My first year away from home - today

Its been an interesting ride of all things.

Leaving family was hard, leaving town was hard, knowing that you want to be free but forget you still needed the warmth and comfort of the familiar and the words of people kind enough to love you.

I came down here with little money and made it happen for me because i wanted it so badly and now i'm learning and getting paid for it and its great ! :)

of the things i miss:

• walking through Alyn waters with Gaz, with my dad at night in winter and calling to the tawny owls and trying to get them to call back, it has worked haha.
  
• Pendine stores! dont know why just do, perhaps i associate it with my brother allot.
  
• midget gems and mints in the box in my nain and taids car!
  
• fireworks at kirsteens.
  
• janes hot chocolate.
  
• lukes banta and arm wrestles.
  
• the mountains.
  
• snowdonia!
  
• gaz and trying to find him direction!
  
• and all the friends!
  
• wrexham town and chester in the snow.
  
• summer chillin in belle vue!
  
• snow in general!

i know all this seems nothing but if you really think about, its the experiences shared by a handful of individuals and myself, its very personal and only exists in a brief moment before its gone,never to surface again and perhaps then its just as important to log as its the bread and butter of life which we don't talk to much about as its perceived as bland. truth is its not. Its the deepest simple loves and truths.

My own personal recession

"A recession is a contraction phase of the business cycle, or a period of reduced economic activity"

I myself find it hard to believe that we have a cyclical system in place, only because of mans constant struggle to tame nature that it seems to me that we have made ourselves a system resembling the struggles of our evolution. The main difference between the two is that during our evolution we worked together and the struggle was to tame the land and now we work against each other, in competition for resources , which is ironic because if you have money or wealth you can buy as much of anything regardless of distributing resources equally as the principal of economics defines itself as:

" balancing out unlimited demand for limited resources"

 The current monetary system does not satisfy this statement as the wealth of these resources is not distributed down, because if it did you would have no rich and no poor and a resource based economy, but also no money.

My own personal recession is getting up each morning , working 45 hours a week on a apprentice wage and struggling to pay for things and thinking why am i doing this? why should i do overtime when its only going to be counterbalanced by inflation and increase the average working hours of men and women whilst ultimately they end up on the same pay, when it only goes to pay for foreign investment and banking profits and enslaves more and more people into working to much, to push production and productivity , for people to sell their goods , and to keep on pushing it until it collapses and we end up were we are today. In recession. in the excuse to shuffle around which big companies own who and what.

i just don't want to compete for food or shelter or all the things i need in life with other human beings because i know for a fact that we are smarter than that and capable of anything.

Im lucky i have what i have as i have worked for it so hard but the irony of it all spits in my face most days.

i don't get down about it, i do get frustrated though when i know things could be so much better if we stopped competing against each other and shared allot more and realised  how manipulated we are by marketing.

In the midst my own personal recession i wish i could create from stone, architecture not governed by profit margins and expenses, to create for cultures sake and knowledge and art things that are wonderful and shed experience from every facet as experience is the food of life and perhaps meaning. I see the need to get rid of money in the coming future.............how? that is a combined effort and for some a sacrafice and we need to design it together which is what i would love to do , to help my father and many others create a sustainable civilisation rich in culture and knowledge.