The title of this piece comes from the last line of a poem I shared a few months ago, Say No And Smile. It captures a theme I have been thinking about a lot lately. That is: “what does me doing right by myself and what I know look like?”

I was deeply inspired by and her podcast with to consider more in-depth about where I am feeding digital control systems with my complacency.

Doc Malik Honest Health

#394 – Clare Wills: Digital ID Is Already Here and What We Can Do About It

THIS PODCAST IS HIGHLY ADDICTIVE AND SERIOUSLY GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH…

Listen now

6 months ago · 60 likes · 10 comments · Doc Malik and Conscientious Currency

I realise I’ve been compromising my integrity regarding my stances on personal sovereignty by continuing to support various services, methods and means of doing things, while knowing that there are alternatives and solutions out there. The narrative I’ve been telling myself is that “Most people just aren’t ready to move to a more sovereignty-respecting system”. That itself links in with another belief system of “I won’t survive if I don’t capitulate to all their ways and patterns of doing things”. I see now that these are purely fear narratives. The people who truly want to support my work will find a way to do so that works with my needs as well as theirs. Plus, if I am not modelling how I can show up in the world without capitulating to certain control systems, then I am actually sabotaging myself, my entire message, and all my attempts to promote that through my work. I do not encourage self-emancipation if I am not emancipating myself from these systems and ways of operating.

I know I can do better, even if it means alienating those who refuse to operate in ways outside of the various control structures that exist. As someone who uses digital technology to both reach people and receive financial reciprocity for my work, every decision I could make will require a “sacrifice” to some degree, whether it means I cannot reach certain people or provide as much “convenience” for others. The conclusion I came to when considering this is that the disadvantages from fuelling the digital control grid system now rearing is head is a far worse outcome than allowing people to find and support my work in “conventional” ways. And, right now, there are some straightforward steps I can take to begin that re-orientation with the digital world.

Here’s what I’m planning:

Your Weekly Piece

Firstly, let’s talk about Substack - the tool I use to both send out my poems as emails and have my archive of past poems available for the world to see. The following article by the excellent highlights very well how Substack is falling into the patterns of all the other co-opted social media platforms, including shadowbanning, taking down certain content, moving towards a more centralised, walled-garden model, digital ID incorporation and so forth.

Actionable Truths & Actions

The path forward for Actionable Truth Media

In case you didn’t know, the platform I have been using to publish my work till now is called Substack…

Listen now

6 months ago · 32 likes · 11 comments · Michael Ginsburg

This has been further compounded by Substack’s response to the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which has neutered both my ability to bring new pieces to people, receive important pieces of writing from others, and my enjoyment of the platform in general.

Michael points to a viable solution that is more privacy-oriented, less influenced by external agendas, and that is actually more flexible for my needs: Ghost. I’d heard of Ghost before, but avoided using it as I didn’t think it had the discoverability tools or online shopping tools for my books that I needed. I have just discovered that both of these are no longer the case. With a move to Ghost, I’d also be able to combine my current website into it, keeping all my offerings in one, easy-to-navigate place.

The best part is: you as a reader have to do absolutely nothing in order to keep reading my works. As long as you are subscribed now, once the migration happens, you’ll keep receiving emails as usual - and anyone who currently reads through the Substack app should still have emails sent to them too.

Subscribe now

While it’s not too complicated technically to set up a Ghost account, it’s not free. To help cover the cost of migration and web hosting, please consider purchasing my latest book, Go Forth, Butterfly! and, if you feel inclined, adding a tip at the checkout. This really helps me out, and will also help me adequately support other writers using poetry to elevate others, which I’ll touch on later.

Go Forth, Butterfly!

With this, I would move my entire archive over to Ghost, then clear out the available articles on here. I will likely still keep a Substack account open (at least initially) and take advantage of its Notes feature, similar to what seems to be doing, to drive people from Substack to the new Ghost site. However, my existing archive will be cleared out. I may also keep it for things like writing guest posts for other people, but I won’t be keeping my own newsletter under my own name there.

Reciprocating Value

I disabled paid subscriptions a while ago and would not reconsider re-implementing “subscriptions” at the moment. You can read my reasons for doing so below:

Something else I value is being able to offer multiple ways to reciprocate value for my works, such as being able to pay with crypto for my books. I like solutions that don’t lock me in to one payment processor. The challenge is, at this moment in time, there aren’t too many other viable options for collecting card payments, and I still use Stripe to accept card payments for books via my website.

Part of me likes to think that with a combination of crypto and making time to build out real-life networks that operate on reciprocity, a bankless and sovereign life with internet access is possible. Right now, we’re in transition to a point where that’s possible. Even if I feel cryptocurrencies (done right) provide a far better solution for digital transactions, I know that, at this stage in time, digital card payments may well be the only avenue some of my readers have to reciprocating the value of my work. I want to maintain this ramp for now, and I do have costs associated with my work that are currently only payable in fiat. The loss of not helping elevate others through poetry is far greater than the “gains” made from avoiding digital fiat currency.

This is another advantage of moving to Ghost: although only Stripe is supported natively, there are ways of incorporating other payment processors for both one-time purchases and recurring payments - and, I’m also not having a cut taken by a company like Substack should I wish to introduce an offering which necessitates recurring payments.

Again, setting up the hosting to make this possible is not free. A purchase of my book goes a long way.

Go Forth, Butterfly!

Modelling High-Integrity Community

In my mission to inspire others to reach their highest potential through poetry, I’ve come to learn that I cannot be a “lone wolf” in the field. It takes a village to bring profound, heart-centred shifts in how we communicate and collaborate to people. There is a place for me to provide a dedicated vehicle that supports others interested in this work over a longer period of time, that can’t be achieved in a one-time course or session alone.

As such, I’ll be launching the Sovereign Poet Society this summer.

Here’s how it’s relevant to everything else we’ve discussed today: A move to Ghost provides a way for me to integrate the Sovereign Poet Society with my website and writings in a clean way that doesn’t interfere with your experience, and that doesn’t fund more of Substack’s increasingly ridiculous shenanigans. The Society is also a different proposition from the “subscription services” that proliferate on Substack; one that Substack can’t fully support. But it’s an offering I know I need to bring to this world to help others find the words they need to move forward in their lives.

Next week’s poem and my comments will be dedicated to outlining the Sovereign Poet Society, but if you’d like an insight into what to expect (and to take part at a discounted rate!) you can head over to my website now:

Sovereign Poet Society

What The Future Holds

Continuously navigating and re-negotiating my relationship with technology is proving to be a never-ending process. There is a benefit to me being able to connect with you all through these digital digests, and the Sovereign Poet Society represents the extent to which I think the digital realm can be used judiciously - something I’ll explore more next week. As ever, I’ll continue evaluating the digital services I use on a regular basis, seeing if and how I can minimise my reliance on them and focus more on being present in the real world. Some of my reflections going forward will model what that journey is looking like, and I think it may inspire some of my readers to do the same.

Some pathways forward would involve creating significant difficulties for myself and for you to enjoy my work. For example, in a “fiat-free” world beginning tomorrow, I would have to use any crypto I receive to buy prepaid debit cards (or cash-out to an existing one) and then use that to cover the production costs of my books, from printers who only accept fiat.

This is the dance between honouring boundaries and knowing what my skills and capabilities are at any given point in time. In time, I know it will be easier to achieve. Access to the right tools is becoming more widespread, especially on the crypto front with wallets like Stack Wallet or Edge. More and more individuals have some cryptocurrency, which makes it easier to purchase directly from other people where possible, without the need for Digital ID verification or middle-men (e.g. with an exchange like RetoSwap).

Is this a scary thing for me to be on the frontlines of making change? Absolutely. But I have an unwavering faith in the divine. If I choose to show up in the most genuine way I can, even if it may “disadvantage” me in some way or another, fate will still look after me. I hope in doing so that I inspire others to do the same where it makes sense for them in their lives.

The people who need my works will get them, and I know the connections and relationships I build through that will be far stronger and more nourishing for all, precisely because we are connecting outside of control-based systems. All in good time.

Your Turn

Please support my upcoming plans through purchasing Go Forth, Butterfly! or by making a “Founding” commitment to the Sovereign Poet Society:

Go Forth, Butterfly!

Sovereign Poet Society

And if you aren’t in a position to give, I would love to hear from you how you’re making shifts towards living a more harmonious life:

Leave a comment

Thank you for making time to read this piece. I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

I find it fascinating what works I put on here get traction and what works get less. My last poem, which leans slightly on the sillier side - characteristic of my most popular pieces - gets comparatively little fanfare compared to other recent pieces.

Yet, a darker more brooding piece like It Was No Accident - which admittedly saw a lot less time going into its composition and that I was less satisfied with - becomes one of the most popular pieces on here.

As I’ve come to discover, this isn’t just a phenomena exclusive to me and the creatives of our age, but it extends well into the creatives and figures of the past.

T.S. Elliot - one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th Century - found it curious that most people knew him for his poetry, despite producing relatively little poetry compared to other contemporaries and poets. In a letter to his former Harvard professor, J.H. Woods, he writes:

"My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing two or three more poems in a year."

A.A. Milne considered himself a playwright and essayist above everything else - and yet, most people could not name a single play or essay he wrote. Winnie The Pooh, however, has become a household name in the UK and many parts of the world, despite being completely outside the wheelhouse of his previous works.

Meanwhile, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the following to say about his Sherlock Holmes work, across various letters to his mother:

“I think of slaying Holmes… and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.”

“I must save my mind for better things, even if it means I must bury my pocketbook with him.”

“I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much…”

As well as the following:

“If in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes then I will have considered my life a failure.”

At least now he has passed and will never have the horror of discovering the truth.

All this makes me ask the question of myself: What would I like to be remembered for? In some ways, it’s futile thinking about it: other people will choose to remember me however they see fit, and I can’t make them “remember me” in a certain way. Sure, I can make wills and make my case for what I think is important from my legacy to be carried on - but I have no real guarantee that anyone is truly going to honour that. In other ways, however, it’s an important question. I can still influence how I’m likely to be remembered through the quality of my character and the things I accomplish in my lifetime. My mission is to give myself the best odds possible of a good legacy, and then let history decide what happens.

This has implications beyond me and you as individuals, scaling up to societal and generational levels. If people can’t control how they’ll be remembered, then neither can those influencing the world in more overt ways. The difference is that their legacies are written not just in books or poems, but in policies, conflicts, and the conditions people are forced to live under.

This leads me to wonder: What are those complicit in genocide and crimes against humanity hoping to be remembered for? I struggle to think that poisoning and killing a bunch of people is a “good way” to be remembered - and I would be surprised if they didn’t see that.

And clearly, they’re thinking about their successors through schemes like the WEF’s Young Global Leaders to groom them philosophically (and perhaps sexually, too). In what world do they think the prospect of continuing to create graveyards in the Middle East, or taxing people to death while they suffer increasingly ill health, or continue to strip territory of natural resources for the benefit of globalist corporations, is a good thing to advertise to young people? And in what world do young people think that’s a great legacy to inherit and continue?

Maybe they’re of the opinion that they can’t control how they’ll be remembered - so they’ll indulge in the most immoral behaviours and practises possible. Or maybe they have a very twisted view about who they should be serving, and why. Maybe they believe they can outrun judgement, or reshape it in their favour. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a complete answer. Regardless, if history is anything to go by, legacy has no interest in conforming to those who demand it do so. I can’t see humanity in 1000 years time - or even 100 years time - feeling inclined to see their actions and their results in the same way.

Which leaves the rest of us with a quieter, but arguably more important truth: we are all building something we won’t be around to explain. That can be a frightening prospect - until you realise that it’s not always your job to explain your actions.

Your actions and creations alone will speak and justify themselves, if you let them. Even if Conan Doyle, Milne and Eliot didn’t expect their creations to garner the interest that they did, they were successful precisely because they contained a truth or idea that resonated with people. It doesn’t disregard the other works they completed - in fact, it might even be their experience writing in formats other than what they were famous for that gave them the ability to create something that would truly stand out.

I don’t believe these acts of artistic creation are ever done in vain. The pursuit of finding truth and beauty through poetry, linguistics and language is one I am proud to take on, and one that I know can bring long-lasting benefits for people well after I am gone. The words of Emily Dickinson give me comfort in this regard:

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain: If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”

Maybe they can give you comfort, too.

Your Turn

Thank you for making time to read these reflections. Leave a comment and let me know: how would you like to be remembered?

Leave a comment

For a few different reasons, I have sadly had to cancel my appearances at both Confluence and the Cheshire Wellness Festival. For any of you hoping to catch my offerings there, I hope you are able to instead join me for my free presentation tomorrow (Wednesday 8th April, 7pm). It’s all about how language can change physical reality, shape the narratives we tell of ourselves, and why poetry may be the most under-utilised tool in creating the world in which we wish to inhabit. There’s still time to sign up using the button below:

You Are Permission

If you’d like to support my work financially, please consider making a one-time donation or getting a copy of my poetry book, Go Forth, Butterfly! - these small things really helps to keep my efforts going, and you can do both of these at the same time as signing up for the webinar, if you so wish.

And finally, if you’re in need of poetic support in dealing with the challenges you’re facing in life, I can help.

Find Out More

I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

Correction: The original article originally referred to A.A. Milne as a “she”. Not quite sure how I ended up with that despite knowing the opposite is true, and how I missed it when editing and proofing. It has since been fixed here.

On February 22nd 2026, media reported that El Mencho - a cartel leader based in Jalisco, Mexico - had been captured and killed during a joint US-Mexico military operation. This coincided with a spate of arson and shootings in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, the two major cities in Jalisco, reported to be a retaliation by the cartels at the actions of the military.

I was in Puerto Vallarta on the 22nd February. The first thing I noticed was the smell - there was a strong, plasticy odour in the air. Looking out of the apartment I was in, I could see multiple black plumes of smoke rising in the distance. I began seeing messages come through on my phone of cars and buses being set alight, and news of taxi drivers being shot in the street. A few of the attendees of the event I was at earlier in the week had their taxi driver shot while en-route to their next location - and lost their luggage in a subsequent burning of the taxi. Others had to evacuate their apartments when the shop units below them were set alight. Pretty much everywhere in Puerto Vallarta closed down.

I decided to do laundry.

My washing was done by hand - we didn’t have any washing machine in the apartment, and it’s not like I could go to a laundromat that day. I hung them in the courtyard out back to dry, the smell of burnings lingered and the sky began to cloud over with haze. Occasionally I’d stick my head out the front to see what was happening, conclude “not much” and then go back inside.

It was hard to maintain a sense of inner peace at first. Our apartment had become a sort-of control room for coordinating messages and support between us all. But we weren’t particularly at-risk, and I continued to do my laundry.

It took about two days for them to dry out, and they still weren’t quite ready before I moved to a hotel right by the airport in advance of my flight. I ended up laying the last few pieces out in the sun at the convention centre where we’d had the event, and proceeded to pack up and clear out all the things as usual. I flew out as planned from Puerto Vallarta the following Thursday. It ended up being more difficult to navigate the half-renovated Mexico City airport than it did Puerto Vallarta, but eventually I found my way through and left the country.

The term “kabuki theatre” comes from Japanese culture. It refers to a form of theatre involving extravagant outfits, exaggerated movements, and a series of moving setpieces and trapdoors, deliberately designed to be a visual spectacle. It has found a new lease of life in Western culture as a metaphor to describe when there is a deliberate performance or show for external audiences (such as the public) while something very different is going on behind-the-scenes (e.g. with politicians and hidden hand global actors).

I came to the conclusion that the “cartel violence”, the events in Iran, and many other things we are witnessing are not what they seem. Kabuki theatre, if you will. The media are deliberately used to rile up fear around uncertainty for something that has been meticulously planned.

When I was confident that what I was seeing was a deliberate psychological operation, I asked myself: what is the best way of responding to such displays? And the answer was simple. I did my laundry, as I would have done if nothing had happened that day. I am the one who gets to control how I respond. And through my actions, I get to create the environment around me and inspire others to stand in their sovereignty.

As W.E. Henley states in Invictus - a poem I spoke to in my Anarchapulco talk:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

So if you’re in the end-times, and you want to do your laundry - then do it. You know what you need to be doing.

Your Turn

Leave a comment and let me know how you remind yourself of what is in your control and what isn’t.

Leave a comment

If you’d like to take another step in claiming agency in your life and finding a mastery over your experiences, there is no better tool than poetry - and I am doing a poetic meditation and integrative writing practise later this week, on Saturday 28th March at 3.30pm UTC+0. You can see the first part of the meditation, and find out more about the live event, at the piece below:

Thank you for making the time to read this piece. If you’d like to support my work financially, please consider making a one-time donation or getting a copy of my poetry book, Go Forth, Butterfly! - these small things really helps to keep my efforts going.

And if you’re in need of poetic support in dealing with the challenges you’re facing in life, I can help.

Find Out More

I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

Community

1. A group of people living in the same locality.

2. A group of people having common interests.

   the scientific community; the international business community.

The search for a “like-minded community” is one that many people I speak with are on. For many reasons, people are feeling that those they have spent much of their life with are no longer aligned with the values and beliefs they now hold.

This is a journey I know - I left dental school and let the connections I’d made there dissipate when I realised that allopathic Western medicine was not aligned with holistic healing. I allowed other past connections to fade too, pursuing the company of those who saw through the various manipulation and control systems operating globally. I believed that was the solution to why I felt myself to be so at odds with my surroundings - I just needed “better” surroundings, and people surrounding me!

Yet, I found no permanence, nor sense of “home” - I could cycle between different communities, still not feeling like I was “seen” for what I could bring, in one way or another. I would join more and more communities, without ever being able to be fully present in one. I remained uprooted.

What was going wrong?

The answer, with hindsight, is unsurprising: I was looking for the wrong thing. All this time I was searching for “community” - when what I needed was integrity.

Integrity

1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.

   a leader of great integrity.

2. The state of being unimpaired; soundness.

   The building’s integrity remained intact despite the earthquake.

3. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

   replaced a lost book to restore the integrity of his collection.

When I am at my highest integrity, I can be depended on. I make decisions and engage in interactions with a clear judgement. I do not compromise on my needs and values for the sake of convenience or appeasement. I refuse to fracture my identity; I refuse to edit-out the parts of me that some may find undesirable, because those parts of me are the exact reason why I also have the gifts and offerings that I do.

I thought integrity used to mean adapting to the container. And when my inner compass was telling me to stand my own ground in the face of discomfort, I would give in to the ease and comfort of simply hopping over to a new community. It should have been no surprise I could never find the sense of completeness I was looking for - and, subsequently, why I felt it difficult to bring my gifts of holding space and narrative rewriting into the spaces that needed it most.

The leash here was the wrong way round; the container should be shaping itself to my most integral self - and calling me up when I’m not meeting the mark.

If I’m in a community where everyone has high integrity, it doesn’t matter if we are not all “like-minded” - in fact, it’s a strength. I can disagree with people who have integrity, knowing their standpoint comes from an experience or perspective I could never have achieved myself. I can still be satisfied with the outcome of challenges that we work on together, even when that outcome isn’t what I was originally looking to achieve. Even in those moments, integrity creates the safety necessary to say what needs to be said without a corrupting filter, allowing for disagreement without destabilisation. It removes the fear that difference equals disloyalty.

Without integrity, community becomes conformity - something that Orwell’s Animal Farm illustrates brilliantly. Shared ideals are corrupted into blind allegiance, with dissent becoming betrayal. The language of unity and the poetry of “The Beast of England” masked the loss of moral clarity.

No matter what happens, I will always have to live with myself and the decisions I’ve made. My integrity must be the starting point of any action I take and relations I enter in to. That is the place that durable trust is built; any community that forms without that will be performative and fragile. Yes, choosing integrity can be painful. Yet, there is strength and healing in the act of choosing not to abandon who I am.

When integrity leads, community usually follows. And a community that follows is better than chasing community wherever it goes.

Write to me and let me know: what is your experience with changing communities? And how do you remain integral no matter the circumstance?

Leave a comment

Thank you for making time to read this piece. I put together these thoughts just as I was finishing up my commitments with Anarchapulco and right before I head to Florida as part of the Young Builders program with Solari. Integrity was a big piece of the first conversation I had with Catherine Austin-Fitts, and I suspect it won’t be the last time I’ll be covering the subject with what’s to come in the weeks ahead.

As some of you may know, Puerto Vallarta was embroiled in a swathe of violence and arson in relation to the murder of the drug lord El Mencho - right as I was in the town finishing up Anarchapulco. Things have calmed down since and things are returning to normal right as I finish this piece up. I am absolutely fine and safe, but very exhausted. As such, I’ve made the decision to cancel my appearance at PORTAL Gathering in Tepoztlan, Morelos. I hope everyone going still has a wonderful time, and I hope to come to a future event. (Florida is on my route back to the UK anyways, and I have no speaking commitment there, so I made the decision to keep it.)

It’s too early for me to bring my thoughts together on this, but I have a poem in mind that I hope to work on in the coming weeks about this.

With gratitude,

Tom

I used to listen to a lot of podcasts between 2020 and 2024. I began with the likes of Jordan Peterson, Triggernometry and Joe Rogan before moving on to the likes of Warfare, Aubrey Marcus and - as well as a scattering of episodes from elsewhere. This was absolutely necessary for me in coming to terms with just how much I had been led to believe from the conventional educational and media systems was correct. I certainly wouldn’t be here writing to you if that hadn’t happened to me, and I’ve been fortunate to listen to some phenomenal episodes from all of those mentioned above.

Throughout 2025, however, the time I made for podcasts significantly decreased. While I still occasionally check-in to see what some of those podcasts are exploring, I find I’m now only listening to episodes if I’m researching a very specific topic for more info (such as and conversations with Dani Katz around language):

I’d come to the point where I was too saturated with (admittedly, really useful!) information to effectively take any more on. This coincided with a lot of inner work that helped me trust in my own abilities and in the universe, dissolving my “need to know” that characterised many parts of my life before then. I trust that new information will find me at exactly the time I need it to, which has brought a much greater sense of calm and control to my life in the face of fearmongering narratives that I may come across in others or in the places I go.

Now I suspect that others are coming to the same conclusion - and for good reason. For the past few years, a lot of people have been in a huge learning process like me. Now, I believe we are being called to create something with that information.

My Internet Presence

The first element to this act of creation is clearing and setting the space for something new to emerge - something that Emma Garrard was great at exploring in the Non-Conformist Series I hosted.

For me, has tied in to my changing relationship with social media. I feel called stop taking in so much information to begin with, and work with what I already have. As I explained in my reflections a few weeks ago, I am uncomfortable with engaging with algorithm-based social media where I and others have to fight through social propaganda and AI-generated clickbait in order to connect with meaningful content. There are platforms and means of connecting that simply do not require giving energy and data to that. I also wish not to support any platforms engaged in social engineering or data harvesting.

There is so much value in connecting with people outside of the noise of the asynchronous, algorithmic public internet. I connect with many souls through being in the physical, or in live video calls, and through others referring and reaching my work on their own accord. This is more successful and nourishing for me, and also provides more opportunities for me to engage in poetry for my own self-reflective process.

It’s right for me to say that live spaces are my social media - primarily physical, and secondarily live calls. It’s why I’m excited to be a part of upcoming events like Anarchapulco, PORTAL, Confluence and Sounds Beautiful amongst many other events.

To this effect, I’m deleting all my other social media platforms. I’m pretty sure my reach is being throttled on those platforms anyways, and my ability to reach new people is limited. If anyone wants to find my work - and be a part of my work - they can come here and to my website.

Collaboration, Not Competition

For my podcast appearance a year ago with , we decided to prepare a piece of writing each specifically for our conversation, with my contribution being Growing Pains. Doing this exercise specifically allowed me to bring completely fresh insights about myself and the world around me into my conversation with Matt, which is still why it is one of my favourite appearances I’ve done to date.

This was the breakthrough moment for me: I realised that very few people are actively showcasing the process of creativity live for other people to see and be inspired by. Almost all podcasts and shows are purely informational and do not require the generation of anything “new” as part of the conversation. Doing this kind of writing exercise as part of the show, however, adds a whole new depth to the experience. Here we see a pathway on how to generate and shape the world around us through our words and ideas. This is what is needed now - and why I want to bring this to more podcasts that are already out there so that others can see the power of this exercise.

I originally planned to launch my own podcast series - but I realise it is far more impactful to provide that opportunity to the existing podcasts and shows already out there. I don’t need to flood the internet with more noise of my own noise when there is far more power in me contributing to another’s symphony - and, in doing so, it also creates a space through my own communication channels for us to have quiet reflection.

If there’s a podcast you listen to that you’d love to see me on, send me an email using the button below:

Connect With Me

The Abuse of Silence

I am seeing more and more that my role as a poet is to create opportunities for silence - which might seem like a contradiction on the surface. How can someone who works with words see their goal as creating silence?

Silence from a place of fear - such as failing to challenge the overstepping of a boundary or an immoral imposition on people’s lives - weakens our spirit. But, turn the leash the right way round, and silence is a superpower - where it is consciously held in order to allow the transmutation of the stories and ideas we carry into something more beautiful. It creates space for the words that precede and succeed it to land as they need to, giving the words that we do say their power.

The over-explaining of our reasons and actions is also a negligence of the power of silence. If I need to do something to ensure a basic need of mine is met, I don’t need to over-explain all my reasons and rationalisations for a fear of being misunderstood by others. The silence is the justification for my decision.

Now, let’s look at poetry:

• It uses carefully-selected words and phrases to create clear imagery, without over-explaining itself

• It carefully considers pauses to create space for different lines, rhymes and other techniques to fully land

• It invites us into a sense-making process where the words inspire us towards our highest sense of self, without explicitly defining what that might mean for us.

In its essence, I am using words as a tool to create space for silence to be this superpower - both for myself, and for everyone who experiences my work. I’m still in the learning curve of what this means for me - and I look forward to reaping the benefits that exploration brings me.

Hopefully, it inspires you to do the same with your words too.

With gratitude,

Tom

My mind felt incredibly clear following my exorcism… and my body was yet to catch up. I was so light in my head, without the endlessly-echoing negative thoughts reverberating, like I’d acquired a few layers of soundproofing… and my body was incredibly heavy, as if I was feeling the weight of the grief and sadness behind everything that I’d been led to believe about myself for the first time.

I stayed up for a few more hours talking with everyone who had been involved in my process. One participant, who had sat outside the yoga shala to keep guard in the latter portion of my process, reported that the darkness got visibly closer every time my body made a struggled noise. This is also the time I learnt a lot of details I shared earlier in this story.

I slept very well that night and don’t recall having any dreams in particular. I made sure to finish up thanking everyone I hadn’t seen yet since my exorcism, and almost all made a a comment about how much “lighter” I seemed. I certainly felt that way, moreso than I could remember for the longest time. I definitely have a memory of that demon being present in me during primary school (about 6 or 7 years old), and it may have even come to me before then. And because it’s been in me so long, it was perhaps no surprise that my body was still catching up to that not being there, and still feeling a lot of sluggishness. Even as I write this some time later, the core of my being is still uncomfortable - not from dread or fear or from being sapped energetically, but from simply trying to re-calibrate and un-learn the conditioned behaviours and feelings I acquired from being inhabited. In time, I know I can re-solve that, precisely through many of the techniques and tools I learnt from the very community that I was on retreat with, where before I was blocked from ever truly “getting it”.

I was honoured to be invited by Aliya, who had curated the altar through the event, to work together on re-establishing its form and significance in a new way. She came to me with the idea of creating an eagle - something that felt intuitively right. We set about creating a white eagle with black and gold-tipped wings out of beans and corn kernels. This was complemented with flowers and rocks to round out the corners, and a polished piece of jade in the heart of the eagle. This last piece was significant; Aliya had purchased two identically-shaped pieces of jade prior of my exorcism with the intention of me and her working with them before my process. However, on arriving back at the property, she dropped one on the floor - it broke into several pieces. She said she’d had a vision about this happening as she was driving back, that she was hoping would not manifest in reality… And yet, this was perfect - the altar during my exorcism had featured the broken piece of jade, and now here was the altar with a piece of jade made whole. It was symbolic, and as if that was exactly how it was meant to happen. Aliya gifted me the whole piece of jade at the end of the retreat, and it is something that I still carry with me wherever I go.

With the new altar established, we closed my process with a poem that immediately came to mind when Aliya suggested incorporating the eagle: Immotus, which I had scheduled in advance to go out via Substack and which I’d felt called to include the visual of an eagle along with that poem. This ended with me repeating the final few lines as an affirmation to myself - something I absolutely needed to begin closing this process off for me.

The true end to this process, however, came in the breathwork exercise we did later in the day, led by Aliya. Following some more intense breathing practises, we had a long period of rest in which I really tuned in to how my body was doing after many years of harbouring a demon. I was exhausted - and why wouldn’t I be?

It was as my grief was really coming up to the surface that I began to see angels. The first one came to hold my face, and I was gifted with experiencing every moment moment of joy through time where two souls looked upon each other with love and comfort, from lovers to families to pets and beyond. Gradually, I had other angels come with their hands along my arms and legs, reminiscent of a moment I had during the exorcism itself, and I knew in that moment that I was being supported on a higher level to learn what it is to be fully embodied in my existence now that this demon was no longer occupying that. It was comforting, and still is comforting now. I remained there for some time, even after the other participants had finished their practise, and took time to let everything settle as it needed to.

That was the true conclusion of my exorcism, and the beginning of learning how to navigate this world with fresh sight.

It’s hard to know where to begin when exploring everything I feel now about this experience. It felt clear to me that this was not the last time I would encounter a force like this anywhere with the world - and the other facilitators felt this much about themselves in their own life too. I go back to what Christ said to me (“the world will become a darker place”) and wonder whether part of my life’s journey is to know what it’s like to harbour a demon for so long so that I can help others get rid of theirs, especially with an increasing awareness of the amount of evil happening in the world today.

With this, I’m finding a much greater sense of trust that, even if others are set to experience hardship, difficult times, and the presence of “evil”, that light and truth will ultimately win out. Even in my personal life, I don’t have to risk keeping things from people out of a fear of causing people discomfort - they will find their way to healing and to what they need. I’ve already done a lot of work with this “people pleaser” persona, and now it feels like I can readdress this coping mechanism in much more tangible ways now there is no demon intent on undoing any progress I make.

Initially, I was surprised that this experience hasn’t shifted my conception of God and religion in a way I thought it could have done. On reflection, I realised it didn’t need to: I was very happy with my conception of God, Christ, angels, and the validity of their “existence” well before going into this experience, and this was really just an affirmation for me that I’m on the right track with how I square those experiences with what I feel to be true about many native, indigenous, spiritual and other religious traditions. All of these are part of one great tapestry of comprehending how the divine - a being not governed by time - chooses to operate in a world that is subject to it.

I know I have a very specific role to play in that tapestry, even if all the details are not immediately clear to me at this moment. The work I am doing with poetry and narrative is naturally bringing me to the people I need to in order to share the experience of re-connection with soul. There is something greater on the horizon for all of us, with many civilisation and cosmic timelines coming to an end within the next few years. This experience is helping me to feel honoured by the fact that I get to be involved in such an important moment and learning experience for myself, for the greater consciousness, for those who come after me, and beyond.

And with that, it’s time I get back to writing some poetry.

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When I set out to write this series of three pieces, I had no interest in how it was going to be perceived by others who have been following my work for some time. It is simply a story I knew I needed telling as part of my coming to terms with what happened to me. I’m keen to hear how it’s landed with you, whether its sits comfortably with you or not.

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Thank you all for making the time to read this piece. I look forward to sharing more poetry (and beyond) with you soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

The morning of my exorcism, one of the other facilitators who was set to be in the space with me, shared a vivid dream he had the previous night. Sean, a powerful psychotherapist and mentee of David, said he had seen all of the participants of the retreat we were on in Costa Rica (me and him included), hiking up to a cliff face with a fence along its edge. He had witnessed me pushing the fence on the cliff outwards, putting all the other participants in danger of falling to their death at the bottom of the cliff. He told me to “make of that what you will.”

It would later become apparent that he’d not been observing me in that dream. In truth, he had been observing the demon that he would come face-to-face with later that day.

There were ritualised and sacred elements that were necessary to bring the demon inhabiting me out into the open for interrogation. This began with setting up a dedicated altar within the yoga shala where this process would be taking place, and where I was invited to give a tobacco blessing before being smudged with sage. Other members who would be holding space for me in this container, who had being doing their own self-emancipation work as part of this retreat, were then invited into the space and were also smudged.

The entire group were then led through a Wim Hof exercise, which another member of the group had intuitively felt called to lead earlier in the day. It felt too artificial and forced to me before we began, and a part of me was keen to see this process done at a different point in the retreat. With hindsight, I realise it was absolutely necessary.

Darkness had fallen, meaning I could see my reflection in the glass walls of the shala entrance as we did this breathing exercise. It was my reflection, at first… until it began to morph and warp. My limbs became narrowed and contorted, my features shifted, and I could literally see a cloud of darkness emerging from me. I was not looking at myself: I was looking at my demon who was in the process of taking over my body.

I remained conscious of what was happening throughout the whole process of my exorcism, but I had very little control of my body. The little energy I was able to exert into my body went in to preventing this demon from seriously harming anyone. It’s what prevented me from strangling one participant, punching another in the face, and clawing or biting those who put their hands on me to imbibe me with their love. But the demon had full control of where I went and what I said. His words were foul, constantly playing games and mocking everything that the other facilitators (here, in the role of exorcists) said. Indeed, he even berated Sean with the line of “You saw this in the dream,” confirming that it was indeed this encounter that had been envisioned.

At one point, the demon made his way up to the altar using my body. The mushrooms that I’d picked as part of the previous day’s outings, intended as an offering for the altar, were strewn carelessly across it in a sacrilegious manner. The tobacco bundle I’d prepared as a prayer of strength was torn open and scattered in equally careless manner. A sense of dread came over me as I realised what was about to happen. One by one, he turned the six flowers placed on the altar upside down, until deciding it was time to flip the entire altar and send sand, seeds, flowers and all across the floor. The strongest of the participants were able to hold my body back and prevent the demon from flinging the intricately-carved wooden base out the window. Had I still had control of my body, I would have burst out in tears.

It didn’t take long for the energy to completely drain from my body - even for the demon. My body collapsed, completely limp, and I was lowered to the floor by the other members of the circle who were (literally) supporting me. The demon was turning his attention within, realising I was keeping him from unleashing as much fury as he could, and getting nowhere with David, Sean and the other facilitators who had realised his game. Afterwards, the other members of the retreat would tell me that my hands had gone completely cold, and that they knew full well that it wasn’t me inhabiting my body. I heard their loving words throughout the remainder of my exorcism, and I needed that reassurance. Had that not been there, I’m not sure I would have had the emotional strength to confront the demon as he turned his attention solely on me.

Mephistopheles is first mentioned by name in late 1500s Germany, where he is used in relation to describing the alchemist Faust. Shakespeare and Goethe would incorporate this figure into their own works and give us a more fleshed-out view of Mephistopheles as the figure which Faust makes a bargain with to act as an agent of the devil. He is regarded as a messenger of Satan, and operates through negation, corruption, lying and cheating. With this, however, he can be incredibly smart and charming.

I am admittedly yet to read Goethe’s Faust, and yet I find it curious that I was so engaged with German studies in school. It’s almost as if a part of me knew this entity within me had a particular connection with German folklore.

That said, I got the sense during my exorcism that this entity may well be older than his incarnation as Mephistopheles. It wouldn’t surprise me that this is just one mask and invention of this demon. The demon had named himself to me prior to setting off to Costa Rica and during my exorcism as Balatrussk, which you will find no record of online or in print. It became apparent to me first that this was simply a persona created by Mephistopholes as part of his process to inhabit my body, and this would be congruent with his nature as a trickster.

This was confirmed to me afterwards by Sean, who realised that this was indeed Mephistopheles - only because he had met Mephistopheles before. In his practise as a psychotherapist, he had once had a client who had said some of the exact same words to him that I was saying during my active possession. The client had fired him before he could seriously work with this entity that he struggled to understand. But he knew it was the exact same entity, and that it was clear it was Mephistopheles. He said this much aloud during the latter portions of my exorcism, in which my body would make tormented sounds from time to time in-between periods of deep rest in its attempts to expel this entity. And, just like me, he was terrified by it.

While I had no concept of time in my possessed state, my body would remain in a state of semi-dormancy for a few hours while our struggle moved into a different spiritual realm. Here, I would face against Balatrussk - revealing himself to be a mask of Mephistopheles - whipping my tortured being with the traumatic memories and negative belief systems of my past. And yet, it was in this torture that I felt my own spirit strengthen.

Most of the other members of the circle broke off for dinner, drained by the process and sensing the threat of danger to them was over. Sean, however, stayed with a watchful eye over me. He continued with attempts to reassure me (and perhaps himself) and later confided in me that he had reached the point where he was ready to fully sacrifice his own body and being in order to take this demon out of me.

Although I had no idea that this is what he was thinking, it was at this time that something dramatic happened. I was transported to a place spiritually that I had only ever been once before, during a deep meditation. It is a red sandstone desert in perpetual twilight, with purple skies constantly pierced by lightning and giants roaming in the distance, so big that only their feet were visible.

The last and only time I was here, I had met Christ. He had a blurred face, but I knew instinctively it was him. Now, he had returned again, and me and him stood side-by-side, facing Mephistopholes standing a few feet away. The messenger of God had come to meet with the messenger of Satan. Still with blurred face, he shared these words:

The time has come to let go. Yes, the world will become a darker place - and that’s okay. I will be there for them.

In this moment, I turned to Christ and watched his face become un-blurred, his features clear for the first time. I turned back to Mephistopheles, and watched him dissolve before by eyes. Not banished eternally, but gone from my body. In an instant, I was back in control of my body and returned into the physical world. I opened my eyes to be greeted by Sean looking at me. And I said to him “He’s gone.”

There was no crawling up walls, no levitating, no Satanic chants. But everyone in that room knew they’d been in the presence of a demon. There’s a lot of intuitively-communicated information and insights I had as a result of this experience, as well as a visitation by angels the following day. We will need a dedicated post, however, to give justice to that and bring us up to the present day.

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Thank you all for making time to read this piece. Leave a comment to let me know what shifted for you as you read this piece:

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I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

As 2024 moved in to 2025, I was house-sitting for my personal mentor David Cordes while he was in Poland. With just two dogs and two cats to keep me company as January 1st hit, it proved to be an emotionally-challenging time for me. I was struggling heavily with my finances, unsure if I could complete my commitments with Anarchapulco and even survive beyond that. I found a swirl of nasty thoughts and self-limiting belief systems echoing around my head endlessly, seemingly amplified as each day turned to the night. I was seeing no way of resolving my strife and feeling disconnected from those who might have an insight. It was horrible.

In a desperate frenzy, I took some thick twine from the outside garage and made my way into the attic, with some vision of hanging myself from the rafters. Nothing of the sort happened, but I sat there in the attic for a while, my feet dangling down into the opening. Eventually I made my way back down and crashed into sleep from the mental exhaustion.

David returned a few days later, at around 4am. He immediately noticed the latch for the attic opening and the ladder slightly out-of-place (his perceptiveness is one of the things that has made him such a great mentor) and challenged me with a forceful tone on whether I had been up into the attic. My invitations at delaying the explanation with replies of “it’s personal” and “let’s talk about it after sleeping” were declined. Full of agony and tension, I told him the truth, and his eyes looked into me as if he actually saw what was going on. It was the first time I remember anyone looking at me like that.

I don’t remember if it was that night or the following morning that he told me he’d seen a demon within me in that moment. I’d never used that language in attempting to understand what was within me, and yet it felt so apt and fitting. So many times in my past it felt like I was conversing directly with another entity within my head in trying to silence my negative thoughts, whether in response to rejection in the playground, when I felt compelled to run away from home one night in my teenage years, or when I tortured myself for “going along” with what was expected of me in Dental School even when I knew better.

For the first time, I felt like I had a better sense of what was happening to me. He made a promise to me that we would get this demon out of me through an exorcism - something he had done once before in his life. I knew it needed to happen, and did my best to hold tight until the right opportunity came around.

I grew up in a non-religious household. My dad, although raised a Christian in the early portion of his life, moved away from that religion after believing his nan (my great-grandmother) died unfairly before he moved into his teenage years, and that no benevolent God could ever take such a kind and loving soul away from him in such a manner. My mum has never spoken much about her relationship with higher powers, at least to my knowledge.

As such, I came to believe that Western science - as was promoted in schools and the societal structures around me - was the only path to comprehending the world around me. I did very well academically, including in science, and poured myself into all sorts of extracurricular and supercurricular studies outside of classes to pursue this further. This became a part of my motivation to train to be a dentist; I wanted to use the scientific knowledge I was acquiring in a practical way that I thought would help people tangibly.

Another part of my motivation was the perceived sense of security I saw in pursuing a degree with a 99% employment rate and regular work hours. Sitting with this now, it seems likely this need for “security” came from some innate understanding that the prevailing scientific mindset of the time was accurately answering all the questions I had about the world. Even before university, I’d already started listening to the likes of and and begun seeing how prevailing narratives in society - even ones that mask themselves as scientifically sound - could be inaccurate.

The tyranny of Covid, which kicked into gear during my first year of university studies, proved to be the catalyst that tore down the remaining castle walls. The god of Scientism had been defiled and removed from the altar of my mind. I began to appreciate how much of “science” was wrong, the relevance of energy, frequency and ancient wisdom, the falsification of history and, ultimately, how there were divine powers at play.

This opened the door for another conception of where my individual agency and purpose came from. A big moment for me in this was in reading Carl Jung’s memoirs (Memories, Dreams and Reflections) and in how he found God in appreciating the design and beauty of nature, rather than through scripture - something that highly resonated with me. This still rings true today. My belief in God (and, as we will get to in a subsequent piece, angels and Christ) have their foundations in my lived experiences. I am not a Christian, nor do I prescribe to any other organised religion or denomination of faith. I suspect all of those threads are simply attempts to tell the stories of those who have attempted to bring the power of God into the matrix we inhabit. And too, I am certain many of them have been laced and subverted with false information and narratives designed to corrupt whatever pure intention they may have once had. Especially after my experience with an exorcism, I suspect this is ultimately Satanic in nature. My conception of God is also completely congruent with many native and indigenous cultures seeing God as divine energy as well as other spiritual practises around the world.

I believe it was this development in my life that prepared my body and soul in a way that I could let go of the entity I would later see within me, and that had been working in the shadows up until this point. I may not have felt qualified to deal with it fully - and I didn’t need to. God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

In November 2025, I went on a private retreat in Costa Rica as part of a container of individuals who had worked with David. The theme of the retreat was “A Third Way”, where we would explore what it meant to step out of tribalism and fake binaries across every area of our lives in order to create a more harmonious world around us.

The main bulk of the retreat was comprised of individual experiences for each of the participants involved, with contributions and space-holding by the other members of the retreat during that process. What this process was, exactly, rose organically based on what had been alive for them coming into the retreat and where there were narratives and pieces from their past where they were still “stuck”. In some ways, I was an exception to this, as me and David discussed in advance that my work would be the exorcism he had promised me at the beginning of the year. In other ways, it was no different to the other participants; neither me or him had any idea what this process would look like. That was okay. One of my other reasons for holding David as my mentor is his ability to tune in intuitively to the needs of the moment and act accordingly. Sure, I was terrified of what might happen, but at the same time I knew I would be safe in the hands of David and in the hands of the container.

The demon began to come online in the lead-up to the exorcism. I had a shower shortly before it began and looked at myself in the fogged-up mirror as I came out. Only, it wasn’t me. The image in the mirror morphed. The face that confronted me was jet-black, with a dark aura around it attempting to shape itself in a sketch of this demon I’d made a few weeks ago that I’d binned out of fear and fright. I found the light energy within me that I needed to temporarily contain it, and made my way down to the yoga shala where we had been conducting the inner work of the retreat.

It was necessary that a majority of the participants had already completed their processes before my time in the spotlight came. It made sure enough of the participants who needed to hold space for me had already gone through an emotional cleansing so that that they could effectively bring their light into my process. I am certain I would not be here writing these reflections now if that had not been the case. If my experience has taught me anything, it’s that it absolutely takes a village to confront and expel demons, and I could not be more grateful for the support they provided.

I will showcase exactly why this was the case in the follow-up to this piece.

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Thank you all for making the time to read this. I invite you to share your experiences with me on what those ideas of “demons” and “exorcism” mean to you, and if anything has shifted as a result of you reading this pieces.

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I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

Find subsequent instalments in this series below:

These reflections have been a long time in the making. Its genesis came from something that said during one of her debates at last year’s HowTheLightGetsIn Festival in London. The conversation was on how the constant snapshotting and documentation of our lives on social media may be detrimental to the health of future generations - something I believe to be true, and something Freya has spoken about previously on Substack to great success.

GIRLS

You Don't Need To Document Everything

I’m sure by now you’ve seen this video of Paris on New Year’s Eve, where everyone is so busy filming the countdown and fireworks on their phones that they forget to experience them. It’s surreal…

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2 years ago · 4874 likes · 304 comments · Freya India

At one point, she specifically used the term “becoming rare” to describe the value of not being online constantly, and this piece has stuck with me ever since due to how many elements of my own life it resonates with. For a time in university, I ditched my smartphone and social media entirely, choosing to stick to a Nokia feature phone that I hardly took with me anyways. Despite “losing contact” with many of the friends and acquaintances I had made through school and early adulthood, the experience was incredibly liberating. The times I spent with people in-person became far more meaningful and beautiful, precisely because these were “rare” moments that would never be repeatable in any digital form ever again. It was a key part of what helped me to experience living in the moment more and more, which did wonders in all aspects of my life - setting boundaries, overcoming false beliefs about myself, and so forth.

We live in an age where we’re still trying to constantly advertise on “shock value” to an audience that I believe are no longer shocked by anything. I am no longer shocked by someone doing something ridiculous for social media, by the sexualisation of film, music and celebrity culture, nor the point-scoring posturing of politicians. Now, we have AI-generated content that is flooding these social media platforms, capitulating to the same shock-factor mentality. Anything is possible, from raccoons doing professional wrestling to celebrities made to say and do outlandish things.

The development in AI content - something that is wholly artificial - is what prompted me to return to these ideas, and to consider my relation with this digital matrix once more.

As a poet, I meet people where they are at with my words. I provide a bridge to the possibilities beyond their current reality, catalysing a journey to a place where false narratives about who they are and what their purpose is in the world do not reign supreme. Online platforms have been a significant part of my toolbox, as they allow me to reach people in distant geographies who find value in my work who may never have connected me otherwise. And a lot of those people are on the “conventional” platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and so forth.

I do, however, feel conflicted about using them. I am continuing to give energy to a system that captures its “users” data, attention and souls. Even if they engage with what I share, they are still bombarded with other baited content designed to pacify their humanity. That perpetuates the system of control that benefits those interested in technocratic visions for society. I don’t feel particularly great about that.

For my own use-cases, I still fight through seeing that same content just to be able to share my own pieces. I am giving my energy to that system that is deliberately designed to keep us locked in to an artificial, de-souled environment. I make time to look at what other “content” is getting engagement on this platforms in case there’s anything I can utilise. But, again, this is continuing that “game” of absorbing people into a highly-tailored digital environment where they cannot exercise their divine sovereignty to its fullest. And while I can break myself off from this environment without getting too sucked-in, so many continue to feed on these empty calories of content because there is nothing fulfilling on their plates.

There is nothing “normal” or “human” about using these platforms. Yes, I know I cannot “save” everyone I reach - and, as someone who’s encouraging people to reconnect with humanity, where does that put me in this dance?

I feel hesitant to continue to give so much time to the digital matrix for precisely all of these reasons. The connections I make through in-person events, especially with people who may disagree with my views, are simply impossible to achieve through most digital media (or at least from what I have experienced). My favourite uses of technology are when they are directly supporting in-person experiences, such as live video calls where I can interact (almost) real-time with other people. That’s why I’ve brought in my monthly CandleWrite sessions, precisely because I’d rather people make time for that sort of environment when online than for social media or even group chats. Furthermore, it gives far less energy to these online systems deliberately designed not to encourage originality or critical thinking.

I haven’t fully made a decision yet on how I’m going to progress. Part of me wants to ditch doing any maintenance of my online presence - something I absolutely have experience in doing from my days with my little Nokia “dumbphone”. Part of me also knows that my mission now and how I bring that into the world is very different from when I last went without the digital noise. I’m interested in cutting down significantly on the time I make for algorithm-based means of reaching people. My Substack and the emails I send out through doesn’t really fall into that category, and the experience of creating and preparing something new every week, in a way that is mostly not reliant on algorithms, does help calibrate my narrative towards some greater sense of truth. But for other social media platforms, I don’t get the sense they are serving me quite as well.

The missing piece of the puzzle for me is this: How do I encourage people to find me outside of those control systems?

Maybe my decision lies back in ‘s words: “becoming rare”. Maybe it involves acknowledging that I can wait for an invitation from another in order to share what I need to with the world, and not feeling I have to constantly be parting the endless sea of digitised, propagandised, tribalised madness. Sure, there is a fear element there for me; I hear narratives in my head of “What if I don’t make enough of a splash to keep myself sustained?” “What if my gifts go unshared, or I never reach someone I am in the right position to help?” “What if I end up a failure?”

But I am in a position where I know those narratives come from a place of trauma and adverse experiences that do not really define who I am and what I am here to do. In fact, it has been recognising they are there and then diving in to the things I fear in spite of that which has wielded the most powerful and enriching results in my life. The right people and opportunities then come to me, and not the other way round.

The journey to acquire rare treasures always requires some leap of faith - and a “leap” is very much a physical action, that happens in real space and time. The digital world is not real space and time. Maybe it is on me to make that leap of faith into the physical, and to set a path for others to follow and make their own leaps of faith so we can all enjoy the treasures that exist here together. Maybe it is on me to show there is a way we can all “become rare” together - and in doing so, become uncatchable and uncontrollable by those who wish to make us subservient to their worldviews and visions for mass society.

However it looks, it’s certainly something that can never be snapshotted for likes and follows online.

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Thank you all for your ongoing support. Leave a comment to let me know if you have any ideas for encouraging all of us to move into the physical while maintaining the best elements of modern communication technology.

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I look forward to sharing more with you soon - and maybe that can be in the physical? Let’s find out together.

With gratitude,

Tom

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More and more people are reading poetry. I am both optimistic and cautious about this. Attempts to convey truth beyond the diminished ways of being that many have become accustomed to is worthwhile - and poetry is absolutely a pathway towards this. My main question is, what “poetry” are people reading - and is it any good?

Take “insta-poetry” as an example. How many users of Instagram are likely to remember an “insta-poem” in a years time? How many in five? As I shared in response to in one of my notes some time back:

Most of the best poets have been swallowed up by a techno-corporate machine who doesn’t even refer to them as “poets” - they refer to them as “marketers” and “copywriters”. Here’s some examples of advertising I’ve seen recently which can absolutely fall into the category of poetry:

In some ways, this is no different from the Epinician poets of Ancient Greece, who were paid to compose anthems and epigraphs celebrating particular athletes or heroic war victories. That said, it is different in one key area: the Greeks still aspired to create a sense of beauty in their work. In our modern day context, the “poets” are not here to create beauty. They merely rely on a condensed set of poetic tricks to create a lust for a product or service.

But what about the poets not working for some corporate purpose, who are producing poetry for the sake of poetry? Publishing houses are still releasing collections from new authors. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, something similar has happened. The aspiration towards beauty - or a transcendent value - has been lost for many self-proclaimed artists of today. The insta-poets efforts are striking examples of this.

Poetry is the pursuit of beautiful communication. Set forms and structures, with rules about rhymes and syllable counts, contribute to this sense of beauty. This, too, is often neglected today, despite poetry being defined by its reliance on structured speech.

It’s this structured speech that gives poetry its ability to cast a spell on us. In the delivery of precise vocal frequencies in a particular pattern, we use a form of magic that affects us through means psychologically, spiritually and psychically - and even physically. It is why we can talk about a great poetry or spoken word recitals “moving” us; we are experiencing a flow and movement of energy from the orator to the listener.

As such, the words we use will affect, shape and in-form the world around us. One of the most striking examples of this comes through studies on water, where the likes of Dr Masaru Emoto and Veda Austin have shown how our thoughts and communicated information can affect the structure of water. Given our physical bodies are made of water, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that the narratives and stories we tell ourselves are affecting the structure and functioning of our bodies - and of others around us.

If I’m telling myself that I am “ugly”, “unlovable”, “unwanted”, “not good enough” and any variation of those ideas, then I shape myself and the world around me to reinforce those ideas - and I have been there! Similarly, if we parrot the lines and excuses of political leaders of why their increasing impositions on our personal lives are acceptable, we only perpetrate the Orwellian society that some would like to see implemented.

So what happens when I tell myself the opposite: that I am valuable - I am loved - I am worthy - I am the captain of my soul? The world around me shapes to this lens. When I state my value and sovereignty to the world with my word (note that “world” and “word” are just one letter apart - and, too, that “In the beginning was the word”), the world supports what I state - but only if I truly believe it with every ounce of my being. This has absolutely been my experience, even when temptations towards darkness surround me in different aspects of life. When I acknowledge that I am here for a purpose, and that I bring a gift to this world, I arrive exactly where I need to be, whenever I need to be there, and will be supported all the way. I find great comfort in that, even in “stressful” times.

To say that road is easy would be a lie. My own patterns of self-sabotage and hideous belief systems required heavy dedication to rewrite and “dis-spell”. It’s perhaps no surprise that I turned to poetry to accomplish this. The best poetry is a magic spell that changes the way we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us. When I read, write and recite poetry that speaks to the beauty of the human experience - and the return to it from periods of “ugliness” - then my experience of life increasingly becomes one of beauty. Beauty becomes the spell I cast for myself and for those around me, and creates a beautiful world around me.

Where the souls around me have been trapped in hideous thoughts for too long, my mission is to Make Thoughts Beautiful Again. If you’d like to join me in this mission, I invite you to join my Master Your Word program for monthly poetry workshops (the next one will be on Sunday November 30th) and/or my 1-on-1 poetic coaching. Use the button below to see all the details.

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I will leave you with this short video of Peter Hitchens who crushes this question on a panel some years ago regarding remembering and reciting poetry, which sums up my thoughts perfectly.

Thank you for making the time to read this piece. From next week, I’ll be moving to release my pieces on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. I find Tuesdays are generally quieter than a Monday, and as such I can make more time to truly enjoy creative and educational material that comes my way. I suspect the same may be true for many of my readers and supporters, and look forward to accommodating you when you are less in the “doing” and more in the “being”.

With gratitude,

Tom

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Some of my earliest experiences with writing come from my contributions to the SCP Foundation project. As a teenager, I became fascinated with this online-based, community-driven horror writing project, detailing the activities of a secretive supra-governmental organisation designed to contain and secure world-ending creatures, objects and phenomena. Inspired to be a part of the project, I penned two contributions which still stand today, SCP-2389 and SCP-3228. These are some of the earliest pieces of writing that I have ever had published in any format.

As the idea of super-governmental entities acting, with paranormal interests, to conceal things from the general population seems to come increasingly closer to fact than fiction, I was inspired to re-visit my experience with the SCP Foundation. This included looking at what I had saved in my “sandbox” area on the website where I had my work-in-progress pieces. I was surprised to find a poem that I have only a vague recollection of creating, written from the perspective of one of the foundation’s “test subjects”.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Corridors. Red lights. Left turns and rights.
Another door in sight as the sirens
wail in fright, trapped in this place forever,
crying. Dying. The sound muffles my
mumbling, stumbling through this endeavour.

I have no name.
Just a number.

I don't know, don't know where or who or what.
A void fills my mind, keeps me blind and
All I can find in my thoughts is grey walls
and concrete on repeat. Where am I?
Heart beats like a butterfly. Who am I?

It would be a lie to say
that I wasn't scared.

There! What's that? Oh, just
another body, once somebody, another one
dead. He's done. Take the gun and run.
He's fucked. He's screwed, shit I'm fucked
I'm gonna die alone and unknown with no friends, no family, no name.

Just a number.

Corridors, red lights, left turns and rights,
I feel like I've been here before. Where am I?
Is this where I started? Or another dead end?
Every way is the same, grey and grey,
concrete on repeat, following my feet.

Is this how it ends?

The door to the office is distorted,
disfigured, destroyed, and the bodies inside
have suffered the same fate.
Spools of limbs in pools of blood,
in the place where salvation came too late.

I didn't ask for any death,
but I am powerless now.

Light breaks in where the metal is bent,
Rays of hope from heaven, sent
to guide me from this roaring hell,
this empty cell. Memories of my former self
would help but they've been swallowed whole
by snakes and eels, torn seals, and the last of
my past traded for a chance at freedom.
Now look at me - I may have escaped but I'm still alone,
nothing more than just skin and bone.
Institutes, orange suits - all I've known
means nothing now. Maybe one day I can answer
that question of identity, find serenity, but for now

I have no name.
Just a number.

Judging by the timestamp, this piece is around 8 years old, which would time perfectly with some of my poetry experiences towards the end of school. While I wouldn’t seriously focus on poetry until my experiences with studying dentistry led me to reconsidering how I was showing up in the world, it’s clear I saw the value of poetry to give voice to my inner realm.

Given I am now focused on sharing and working directly with others in poetic fashion, the community element of the SCP project is something I’m thinking a lot about as I write this piece. The conventions and themes of the writing were community-driven, with vibrant community-led writing rooms for feedback, and voting systems to allow the best pieces to rise to the top in a true free-marketplace of literary ideas backed by an organically-forming community. If that isn’t a demonstration of voluntaryism and anarchism at its finest, then I’m not sure what is.

I believe part of everyone’s mission in life is to transmute the experiences they have within this world, passing on the insight they receive for the benefit of future generations. The details and the context will differ greatly from one being to another, but the overarching purpose is the same. We were not born to bottle-up our inner turmoil or expressions of joy. We were not born to be lone wolves - at least, not for our entire lives. We were born to be in communion with other souls within this matrix we call Planet Earth. We were born to exchange.

The SCP project has taught me the power of sharing my written creations with the world. Poetry has taught me the power of sharing my soul with the world.

It’s for this reason that I’m honoured to be hosting the upcoming Non-Conformist Series from Anarchapulco later this week to highlight others who are using their chosen creative mediums to shift false narratives and create a more free world around us. We’ll have talks from , Andrew Treglia, Brother Ali and many others - and I’ll also be contributing a talk of my own on the power of poetry in giving voice to our innate sovereignty. Check out the button below to find out more - and if you’re all-in, you can use the code MASTERYOURWORD for a nice 10% discount.

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Thank you for continuing to read and support my work. I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

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I’ve written a few pieces already on some of the films that have really resonated with me and changed my perspective and outlook on life. With my recent exploration on how Mickey 17 is not a film that did this in a positive way for me, it seems apt to give mention to a few more that I do hold in high regard for expanding my own horizons.

And, while not a prerequisite for this piece, you can find the other two instalments of this series linked below:

Contents

1. Interstellar

2. Pulp Fiction

3. Blade Runner 2049

4. TRON: Legacy

5. The Men Who Stare At Goats

6. Soylent Green

7. Full Metal Jacket

8. CODA

9. Exhuma

10. Dr. Strangelove

Interstellar

I have a complicated relationship with Interstellar. On the one hand, it pushes narratives about space exploration and the faking of the moon landings in a way that I feel is intentionally there to ridicule those who question the nature of space.

On the other hand, we get beautiful sequences about the atemporal nature of our higher selves and the higher dimensions that we can access. There’s even some poetry, in the form of Michael Caine’s character reading an excerpt of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas. It gets a brownie point for that.

Pulp Fiction

I nearly put Reservoir Dogs on this list instead of Pulp Fiction just to be a contrarian and not have the most-beloved Tarantino film as one of the films on the list. I like both films very much, but there’s a reason why Pulp Fiction ends up on so many lists.

Pulp Fiction was released at a time when most studios were focusing on somewhat sanguine PG-13 films in an attempt to appeal to a mass market. Pulp Fiction chose a far more contrarian route by going for something far more gritty, unconventional, and with some very stylish dialogue. It’s aged particularly well as a result, and I suspect it’ll continue to do so.

Blade Runner 2049

I’ve already confessed my love of the original Blade Runner in a previous instalment, and it feels even better that its sequel, made 35 years after the original, is just as worthy of being included on this list, in an era where so many other sequels are just nostalgia cash-grabs for the studios that own those IPs.

On top of being a very stylish film visually, it has its own story to tell that doesn’t rely at all on the original film to support itself. Like the original, it still explores what it means to be “human”, and whether robots and AI could ever really become human, and what should happen if AI became self-replicating in physical form. An absolutely worthwhile exploration in our current social climate.

TRON: Legacy

While Blade Runner 2049 is visually stylish, it has nothing on TRON: Legacy. Designed as both a soft reboot and a sequel to the original, it seems to be one of the only franchises Disney owns that they haven’t yet desecrated. Combining a meaningful exploration of absent fathers with the perils of becoming consumed by our creations, all in a brilliantly-packaged sci-fi spectacle, I can only hope the new TRON: Ares can capture some of the same magic that this film was able to.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Does the CIA really have trained agents who can do mind control tricks and psychic powers? Was this film made to try and pass off their attempts as “larger than life” when, in reality, this phenomena really does exist?

It’s a topic that often gets laughed off as something truly silly, and yet we know that so many governments and powers of the past, even in recent history, have believed we have far more control of physical matter with our minds than most would believe. I would encourage you to watch this film and make your own decisions.

Soylent Green

It was who introduced me to Soylent Green with his investigation on the cannibalism narrative in institutional media outlets. Given the prevalence of highly-processed food in our diets and prevailing anti-human ideas amongst world governments, Soylent Green begins to feel more and more prophetic with each passing day. I can’t think of any films that tackle food supply and human morality in a more convincing way than this.

Full Metal Jacket

I suspect that Hollywood manufactured anti-Vietnam War films to create the impression that there was resistance against the US’s actions in the country when, really, there wasn’t. I now wonder if the same is going on with the current conflict in Gaza, with just enough dissent to become acceptable in media discourse, and stories of individuals being persecuted for taking the side of Palestinians, to make the majority of people think that there’s some kind of resistance happening and that they don’t need to take action.

These films still make for excellent cinema for many other reasons though, which Full Metal Jacket absolutely proves. The standout for me was Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance as Pyle - a young recruit turned mad by the demands of his training and the bullying he experiences. It is highly captivating, and one that has shaped my other in-progress works on the impact of war on young men.

CODA

CODA is the most recently-watched entry on this list, and one that I didn’t expect to impact me as much as it did. The film follows a deaf family who rely on their hearing daughter to essentially make their lives possible, forcing a tremendous amount of pressure on her and inhibiting her own ability to fully develop into her own sovereign individual. Couple this with the communication issues that the family has with the rest of society, and it becomes a powerful allegory for anyone who’s found themselves trapped sacrificing their own needs for others to take advantage of. That’s what made it stick in my mind so vividly after I’d finished watching it.

Exhuma

I struggle to understand why this film reviews as low as it does. Exhuma feels incredibly refreshing for a horror film, with a great premise and a great twist, interweaving elements of Asian mythology, folklore, cultural superstitions and generational trauma - all things that massively piqued my interest. The message I took away from this film is that it’s a bad idea not to honour the past… and if we do, there is still a pathway there for us to resolve it. It doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy or painless process, and probably quite the opposite, but it’s absolutely worth it.

Dr. Strangelove

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Another Kubrick film? Absolutely. His films feature a lot in my film lists, and for good reason. This one mocks the absurdity of mutually assured destruction of nuclear war, with Peter Seller’s multiple roles all standing out.

I find it interesting that, while the character of Dr. Strangelove has gone on to inspire many other characters in famous films (including other films I’ve included in the other lists, Network and Brazil), the character himself is inspired by Rotwang, the mad scientist of 1927’s Metropolis. I’m very familiar with the character thanks to my recent re-translation of the novel version, which you can find out more about below:

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History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. This is why it’s still a good idea to read Lewis Carroll’s magnum opus in our current times, and gleam lessons from Alice calling out the zany cast of characters in Wonderland for demanding obedience to clearly absurd rules, changing the definitions of words to suit their own agendas, corruption of the courts and engaging in meaningless discussion when there are far more pressing matters at hand - and the list goes on.

I find one of the more illuminating and interesting characters living in Wonderland to be the Cheshire Cat, who appears throughout Alice’s Adventure to guide her through the craziness she finds in Wonderland. This is often done through him posing philosophical and amusing ideas to Alice which, while often frustrating her, forces Alice keep her mind open and to lead from her own heart and intuition in navigating this unfamiliar realm. It’s no coincidence to me that The Cheshire Cat is one of the only creatures in Wonderland that commands any respect from Alice whatsoever.

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And he isn’t afraid to mess with the other characters of Wonderland and their senseless actions either, seen when he derides the court proceedings for a short while when various members of the “Hearts” are trying to prosecute Alice. It’s clear that The Cheshire Cat has no real ulterior motive or agenda other than to experience the happenings of Wonderland and provide his insights on the workings of this world where relevant - reminding Alice in the only way he knows how that this world they are in truly is absurd.

For me, there are many parallels with the Cheshire Cat and how some of the best guides and mentors can show up in our lives. Good mentors, like the Cheshire Cat, lead with curiosity first and foremost. Yes, their insight can frustrate and confuse us if we do not have the tools or experience to fully make sense of it or put into action - and yet they never impose their worldview on us. Good mentors realise that everyone’s path is different, and the Cheshire Cat’s approach encourages Alice to forge her own path through Wonderland for him to observe and learn from.

As someone called to guide and mentor others, I’m using my piece this week to look at a few lines from the Cheshire Cat that I’m increasingly finding wisdom in. Let’s dive in:

Starting anything is always the most important, and often most difficult, step in a journey of mine, as it’s what breaks me out of whatever patterns of behaviour I may subconsciously fall into that end up preventing me from making progress. It is the first step that opens the door to other ways of living that are possible. It doesn’t matter if what I have accomplished at the end is (by whatever metric) “good” or “bad”, what matters most is that I began. The act of doing will naturally get me closer to “good”, and that living in the fear of what might happen at the end of the road is often not founded in reality. The Cheshire Cat understands this.

This is the quote that got me interested in re-reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in preparation for this piece - one I shared via Substack Notes some months ago:

This line rings especially true for me in a day and age where pretty much anyone can be derided as “crazy” for having contrarian views - even when the “mainstream” is, by many standards, the “crazy” one. For the Cheshire Cat, this absolutely it true: the reality of Wonderland is different from Alice’s reality. And I feel more and more like the realities of those caught in groupthinks are very much different to the one I am experiencing. I’m not complaining.

This may well be the most well-known of the Cheshire Cat’s lines, although I suspect many people who know of it don’t realise that this is its origin. Taking a very narrow definition of what constitutes as “wandering”, I often enjoy taking a hike without a planned or known route in mind, just to see what I can find that surprises me. I’m purposefully choosing to do this, and not at all “lost”. Like I explored earlier, it’s taking that first step into the unknown and “wandering” down that path with intention that allows me to grow - and you as well!

Out of the many lines said by the Cheshire Cat, this may well be my favourite. Imagination is vital for creating things that bring us out of our self-limiting belief systems and, by extension, society’s self-limiting ways of being and the challenges that creates.

It seems that, so often, we brush aside our children’s expressions of imagination because we’re too busy thinking about something “more important”, or that we only want them to focus on something like academic expression. What are we teaching children when this happens? That their imagination is not welcome. Is it any wonder, therefore, that we seem to be drowning in problems with no way of being able to find solutions?

Where are you afraid to take the path you know, deep down, you need to take?

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There were several occasions in school where I was identified by other classmates as “most likely to become Prime Minister”. Perhaps if I’d continued on a path of appeasing whoever was above me in the structures I operated in, that might well be the case. Life, however, had other plans.

Politics is a messy game, especially in the modern day. I’m a firm believer that most change comes from outside those systems. The biggest change I can see us needing right now is a reminder of our soul’s existence. Political quabbles mainly serve to keep us divided, rather than realising that we are all real people trying to do the best in our lives (no matter how twisted our idea of “best” might be). More often than not, politics is only triggering people to the point that people’s minds cannot be changed on topics they believe they are correct on, even when they’re not. I’d rather connect with people directly through their souls, then work outwards.

This line comes in response to Alice claiming that the Cheshire Cat seems to know everything. This line is key to showing that, even though he has wisdom to impart at various points on Alice’s journey (where she would not be able to figure something out by herself), he maintains humility in acknowledging the limits of his capabilities. This is something that any aspiring, and even current, leader could learn much from. Whether they will remains to be seen.

With that, we come to the end of this exploration. Thank you all for reading, and I hope these words sparked something within you. If they did, please consider leaving a tip to support my work, and subscribe for free if you aren’t already to make sure you don’t miss my future pieces.

With gratitude,

Tom

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Further Reading

Not all poems are made equal. The best poems in the world invite us to consider new perspectives on our experiences and emotions, displaying a beautiful mastery of rhythm, metaphor, rhyme and so forth, all in a way that no other forms of storytelling media can.

Much of what passes as “poetry” in the modern age is more akin to a postmodern world salad with weeks-old, wilted leaved of cliche arranged “artistically” on a plate without much substance. Yet, poetry of the past has kept some of the most influential myths of past civilisations alive, from the Homeric epics to Beowulf, Milton’s Paradise Lost and even to the likes of Neihardt’s epic Cycles of the West, chronicling the rise of the American west and the demise of Native culture. Poetry, at its best, shows us how to communicate the most important ideas of our time in the most impactful way possible.

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Unsurprisingly therefore, there are plenty of poems that changed my life (just as there have been books and films). For this piece, I have selected ten of those poems whose words have refused to leave me since I first read them, and which I believe showcase the power that this art form has over other forms of artistic media. Where possible, I’ll be using video readings that give a sense of the rhythm of each piece, or linking to where you can find the full text if this is not possible.

And, if you’d like to watch or listen to me read these pieces live, I did a livestream the other week just for that very purpose, which you can find linked below:

Table of Contents

1. Percy Bysshe Shelley ~ “Ozymandias”

2. William Wordsworth ~ “The Prelude [Extract]”

3. H.P. Lovecraft ~ “The Conscript”

4. Charles Bukowski ~ “Bluebird”

5. Edgar Allan Poe ~ “A Dream Within A Dream”

6. Keith Douglas ~ “Vergissmeinnicht”

7. Amos Russel Wells ~ “Talk Is Cheap”

8. C.S. Lewis ~ “The Future of Forestry”

9. Khalil Gibran ~ “A Tear and A Smile”

10. William Blake ~ “Auguries of Innocence”

Percy Bysshe Shelley ~ “Ozymandias”

This one comes at the top of the list as it’s one of the earliest poems that graced my life which showed me the power of poetry. In just 14 lines, Shelley does wonders at highlighting how all empires and tyrants will ultimately perish to time. To this day it is still one of my favourites.

William Wordsworth ~ “The Prelude” [Extract]

Here’s a piece that came to me around the same time as Ozymandias, and one that still forms part of the Basecamp Poetry Workshop that I run. Taken from Wordsworth’s biographical poem, it recounts a memory of stealing a boat and encountering a mountain under the black of night. I love to work with the idea of the mountain as a metaphor for hardship and imposing challenge, and this piece does a great job of highlighting that metaphor.

H.P. Lovecraft ~ “The Conscript”

While Lovecraft is better known for his incredible horror-writing abilities (which I am also a big fan of), his anti-war poem The Conscript hits me in a way that other anti-war poems don’t quite manage to. Horror poetry is something of a rarity, yet this piece takes some of Lovecraft’s cosmic-horror strengths and imbibes them in the very-real horror of war. It’s gut-wrenching, dread-inducing, and a masterpiece of a poem.

Charles Bukowski ~ “Bluebird”

I sometimes struggle in enjoying free verse as much as I enjoy formic poetry. Bluebird is a great exception to this. One of Bukowski’s most well-known pieces for good reason, the rawness of the piece instantly struck me on my first experience with it, and has stuck with me ever since.

Edgar Allen Poe ~ “A Dream Within A Dream”

There are many poems by Poe that I could have picked for this spot, but “A Dream Within a Dream” is the one I most often find returning to my thoughts. It’s moving, existential examination of the fleeting nature of happiness can take me back to so many points in my life where I was frustrated at the perceived futility of chasing something meaningful. Poetry is well-suited to do just this, and Poe masterfully shows how it’s done here.

Keith Douglas ~ “Vergissmeinnicht”

I specifically include ’s reading of Vergissmeinnicht here because this is how I discovered the piece. War is dehumanising, and Douglas’ poem illustrates this beautifully in contrasting the British soldiers’ relief that their enemy is dead with the fact that their combatant, like any of us, loved and lived a life back home. The fact that Douglas was the same age as I am now when he died during the Second World War speaks volumes to what a literary talent he had. I can only imagine what other works we might have gotten would Douglas have lived beyond the war’s end.

Amos Russel Wells ~ “Talk Is Cheap”

Read "Talk Is Cheap"

This is likely to be one of the least well-known poems on this list, and it’s perhaps a travesty that it does not enjoy the same level of fame. It’s a poem I always like to bring up when discussing the power of words and language in speaking to truth, and I revisit it when in need of a call-up to be impeccable with my word. Language is powerful, and this poem is fantastic at highlighting why.

C.S. Lewis ~ “The Future of Forestry”

Like with Lovecraft, C.S. Lewis is not often remembered for his poetry. While it certainly does not form the main bulk of his work, the pieces of poetry we do have from him are incredibly poignant and speak to many of the same themes around industrialisation and loss of mythology/ethics that characterise his other works. The Future of Forestry, exploring what might happen to the British people as the natural world is lost, is perhaps one of the best examples of his work while also being one of the most accessible.

If you like this piece, I also talk about a few other poems of his in my essay Writing The Desecration of England, which you can find below:

Khalil Gibran ~ “A Tear And A Smile”

Khalil Gibran’s work passed me by for many years until a conversation with finally encouraged me to dive in.

From the very opening lines I resonated strongly with the sentiments that Gibran puts forward, and he goes on to poetically illustrate the opportunity that sadness brings to return to happiness once more. It is a perspective on life I’ve been learning to embody more and more, and returning to this poem always reminds me of the value in doing so.

William Blake ~ “Auguries of Innocence”

Blake’s poetic case in support of truth and morality remained unpublished for many years after his death, yet it is packed with incredibly powerful and moving imagery that calls us to examine humanity’s moral decay in the context of a highly-interconnected universe. It is a complicated piece, deliberately packed with paradoxes and interweaving metaphors - which, for me, means I always end up finding another layer of meaning whenever I revisit it.

Leave a comment if any of these resonated with you - or if there are other poems that have inspired you in your life, and what they mean to you.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this piece. I hope it sparked something within you.

With gratitude,

Tom

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This piece began to write itself when I saw the following note from and which I resonated with instantly on first seeing it:

I’d like to go one step further than Derek, and propose we stop practising “mindfulness” altogether.

People familiar with my writings here will be aware of my advocacy of moving into a heart-centred way of being, and away from the mind-centred mode of “doing”. I’ve previously said that to practise “mindfulness” is a lost cause, as trying to schedule it as if it’s some sort of set activity to do at designated points in the day doesn’t move us into a state of being.

There are, of course, particular modalities that make it easier to experience a sense of presence, and I don’t intend on stopping my trips into the woods and the opportunities to ground that they provide me. I’m also not going to let that be the end of me being as present in the now as I possibly can for the rest of the day. Those exercises, if anything, are benchmarks for me to say “this is what I need to be experiencing all of the time”.

Notice, too, how I switched from talking about “mindfulness” to talking about “presence” - a gift that Derek has given through his note that adds a linguistic element into why the “mindfulness” paradigm is not helping you in finding ease in the discomforts of your life.

I see the mind as an antenna, sending and receiving signals between the matrix we inhabit (which includes our physical body) and the wisdom of our individual, collective and soul memory. That wisdom lives in the heart - something innately recognised in Native American traditions, amongst others. It is experienced in sensation - love, anger, grief, and so on - and whenever we are blocked from feeling those sensations to the fullest, our mind begins to create patterns of behaviour and narratives that attempt to “wake us up” to that blockage - most often through doubling down on destructive patterns that keep us from becoming stable and contempt in a compromised state. We then transmit this into the world through our actions to create an environment that supports and reinforces exactly those things.

The calling in all of this is to be present to what is alive within our heart, bring it to consciousness, and thus be able to release the parts of our “mind” that are “(mind)set” on holding us back. This is reflected right down to the language we use in trying to communicate this phenomena. It’s not about being “full” in the mind. It’s about experiencing the present without the chatter in our heads that would distract us from it, or the rationalisations and reasons we give to what we do as being “good for our blood pressure” or whatever.

It’s no coincidence to me that the words “gift” and “present” can be synonymous; being in the present is what gifts us the opportunity to grow. Being “mind-full” is, therefore, a state of stagnation. See how powerful even the language we use can be in driving particular narratives? That’s exactly the reason why I’m a poet - I am exploring the language that best communicates our intentions and that allows us to bring our soul purposes online. I am devoted to the art of wielding the lexicon of our species to bring about the most beautiful forms of flourishing we can for the benefit of all.

In an age of Orwellian newspeak where words seem so disconnected from actions, it is so tempting to try and change the action to match the word. But we can’t change actions without changing the narratives that inform those actions, and the narratives at play are formed from the words we give to them. It is time to bring the words we use in alignment with how we are showing up in the world - and how we are called to show up in the world in accordance with our higher principles and morals. This starts with remembering to feel our presence in this existence, right here, right now.

So stop practising mindfulness. Start practising presence.

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P.S. I’ll be doing a livestream on Sunday 15th June Thursday 19th June (Rescheduled) at 8pm to do some readings of Poems That Changed My Life. I was originally going to time it with a corresponding Substack post, but I opted to delay that piece a bit in favour of this one. So if you’d like to come listen in to some of the poems that have shaped me in how I look at the world today (and suggest some of your own!), you can join me using the link below tomorrow, or keep an eye out on Twitch for when the feed goes live.

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My struggle with having a set of “paid subscription” posts and emails that go out is something that has continued to haunt me ever since I started using Substack for this purpose. I was preparing to another round of overhauls to the benefits of the paid subscriptions… and I stopped.

While I am always looking for ways in which I can make the sharing of my writings financially sustainable, I was attempting all of these changes and adjustments while ignoring the fact that the whole concept of paid subscriptions just wasn’t working for me. There was something fundamental that I was missing.

In thinking on this further, the course of action became clear. As of this post, I have cancelled all paid subscriptions and refunded all of the outstanding months that my paid subscribers had left.

Everyone reading this in their emails is now a free subscriber, and that’ll be how things continue for the foreseeable future.

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Here’s a few reasons why I did this:

1) A desire to be more offline

Put frankly, I don’t enjoy being online so much. I want to be offline and doing things in-person as much as possible. Perhaps nowhere was this more evident than in my highly-underused “Chat” for paid subscribers. As someone who has no desire to engage in group chats even with close friends and family (other than to coordinate an in-person meeting!), it’s perhaps no surprise that I had little incentive to use it.

I know a lot of other Substack users really hone in on this to help build community. As for me, I want to build my communities in-person—and encourage others to do the same—more than anything else. I want the sharing of poetry and writing to occur live in the presence of real human beings, which is where I believe it can be most magical. Trying to have this as a paid “benefit” was silly considering it really feels like more of a burden for me to use.

As such, my “Chat” is now completely disabled. I encourage those who want to have a discussion with me and other readers about the posts that I put out to leave a comment instead:

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2) How I work is not conducive to consistent benefits

Like other highly creative types, I generally have multiple projects on-the-go at any one time, and will cycle between them depending on my motivation. Sometimes I can go days without writing a single word, other days I write pages and pages in one sitting. It balances out for material I put out for free as the poems I write during high creative output can be saved and scheduled for times of low output.

This is absolutely not the case for live workshops and events, especially those online. I travel a lot and live and work where I go, and often the places I end up are not conducive for me running online workshops or calls, or I end up being too fatigued and I have to cancel at short notice. Because this becomes inherently unreliable for me to provide, I shouldn’t be expecting someone to pay for the privilege of accessing those spaces.

3) Doubling down on the best bits

By freeing myself from having to consider these additional paid subscriber benefits, I can focus all my efforts on the most important aspect: the writings.

For me, writing is medicine. It is how I come to make sense of the world, and through my own explorations, things arise that others may also find helpful. Having a paid subscription took a therapeutic effect of writing (joy and relief) out of it. That doesn’t make it sustainable long-term, and also dilutes my ability to ensure a high quality of each piece. As such, I’ll be focusing mostly on a poem or reflection each week, and the occasional live video & recording, all of which will be free to access.

4) Jumping off the bandwagon

I’ve been coming increasingly conscious of the push everywhere in the world to go to subscription-based models, and how difficult that is for a platform like Substack where there are so many great independent writers. Readers are being encouraged to fork out for so many different paid subscriptions for writers, even when they’re objectively “good” writers, with no guarantee if subsequent pieces will resonate with us (or even if we’ll get time to read them!) This doesn’t even consider how every other aspect of life and service is trying to lock people in to long-term subscriptions.

I’m the kind of person who would much rather pay as-I-go for the things I use and enjoy, and so providing a paid “subscription service” of my own has been feeling increasingly out of alignment for me. Gift economies feel far more in-alignment with me, which I’ll be looking to encourage more going forward, even if means my own “income” isn’t nearly as “predictable”.

5) Pushing me out of my comfort zone

This leads in nicely to my final reason: I want my works to stand out based on their individual merit, without falling into a false sense of security that people will continue to be paid subscribers to me regardless of what I put out. I like the thrill and challenge of having each piece needing to be the best piece so far, on the basis that in doing so it’ll encourage people to support my work financially.

To that effect, here’s some ways you can support my work going forward:

• I highly encourage you to “leave a tip” on individual poems and posts that resonate with you. Keep an eye out for green buttons that look like this:

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• You can also support me financially and get more poetry from me by picking up some books (physical and digital) or merchandise from my store:

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• If you’re not in a position to support me financially, you can still help me out a ton by referring people to my work, and I’ll send you some of my poetry books or even do a private reading for you in return based on the number of referrals. Use the button below to give it a go:

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With that, I thank you for continuing to support my work. I look forward to bringing you more poems and writings—completely free to read—in the future. I’ll leave you with this slightly silly little haiku to sum it all up:

…and there’s very good reasons not to watch TV.

With gratitude,

Tom

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I was tweaking the bio that I use on my website and About page this week. It’s a process I spend a lot of time with and often find myself revisiting, as it gives me the opportunity to ask myself questions in order to understand myself better. In finding answers that feel accurate for me, I often find that this is the genesis of a profound poem or other piece of writing that changes how I show up in the world and that moves thoughts and emotions of others. I believe that our soul—the essence of our humanity—holds everything we need to become our most authentic selves, and I alluded to this in one of my Notes that many people were resonating with:

Getting curious about who we are and what we’re here to do in the life we’ve been given forms a key part of the poetry workshops that I offer, and I’m always looking for how to have more of these kinds of dialogues in the things I attend to.

With this in mind, I’ve put together ten questions that I regularly ask myself. I believe others would benefit from asking themselves these same questions, knowing what they do for me. These questions will prompt you to explore the deeper parts of yourself—perhaps the parts that don’t get to come out in the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis.

The questions you’ll see are, first and foremost, for you to answer for your own use. I’ve deliberately written them in the first person and I encourage you to read the questions aloud as you see them. Furthermore, I recommend writing your answers by hand somewhere that you can return to every now and again for your own reference. I will leave this piece pinned on the Reflections page of my Substack should you wish to return to them at any point.

You are not required to enter any answers into the boxes provided. If you are open to sharing what comes up in your self-inquiry with me, I would be incredibly grateful, as this can help me to tune into patterns emerging across all of our psyches, and thus I can tailor my poetic efforts towards this. The results aren’t shared with anyone except for myself, and it’ll go a long way to helping my work be more than just a poem or reflection that arrives in your inbox.

Click Here To Begin

That said, if you do wish to share some of what you found in your self inquiry with myself and other readers, I welcome your contribution wholeheartedly. You can do so by using the button below to leave a comment, and I invite other readers to check out the comments too so we can all become strengthened by those willing to share their process:

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Here’s what came up for me as I explored just one of the questions in the list:

Who is the version of me that I let nobody else see?

I let nobody see the “lazy” me. I am always putting up a facade that I am being productive, that I am generating and creating, when so much of the time I desire to neglect my opportunities to up-level and instead just sit back, maybe watch a film or listen to an album, and do nothing. Or the times when I reside myself to eating shit food because I was too lazy to cook something more nutritious. I am uncomfortable admitting these instances; the times when I sleep in all morning, or spend an afternoon on the sofa procrastinating on whatever would be useful to be working on. I have a lingering fear that I will not be welcomed by others for admitting the times when I am unproductive, or that I didn’t accomplish what I’d told myself I would do because I felt too lazy to do it, and find creative ways to avoid admitting that I didn’t achieve as much as I’d set out to do.

Perhaps there’s a poem for me to find in this.

Thank you for taking the time to engage with this, and I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

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P.S. I also experimented with Substack’s Live Video feature this week, where I read a few poems live and worked with of to finish up his latest masterworks. I have some plans to do a more formal live reading very soon using the feature, but in the meantime, you can check out my preliminary efforts below:

I was ready to jump in and write a comment, and then I stopped. I realised there was something far greater opening up for me that deserved its own reflection. So that’s what I did.

So let’s talk about judgements.

In many ways, I believe us judging others (and projecting those judgements on to others!) is an inevitable consequence of the current social climate. Right now, we’re in a dehumanised world that brings with it ample psychological and social trauma. Couple it with social media platforms with incentives to amplify the sharing of judgements, it’s a deadly combination.

Our souls have picked this difficult time to come to Earth for a reason - we were ready for the challenge. Many of us are supposedly in societies with access to technology that’s meant to be the pinnacle of human achievement. Getting the material stuff sorted is the easy bit. However, the rational objectivism of the past few centuries has encouraged to believe that the material is all that exists. We’ve chosen to come here because the desecration of meaning and of the divine that has ensued as a result is one of the most difficult challenges our species may ever face, precisely because the answer does not lie in the material.

In my eyes, wanting to pass judgement on others, or experiencing a sense of judgement, is our soul’s way of telling us that there’s something unresolved within us from our past that needs our attention. At this time in history, we are all being called to be most skilled shaman of our inner realms, precisely because it was us as a species who defiled the role of the spiritual healer. Delving deep within, to our psyche and our spirit, we must heal a wound not just for ourselves, but for generations to come. We must, so that they, in turn, are more resilient should they ever find themselves in a similar position again.

This is why we are here - and why we have judgements. I don’t identify as a Christian, and I still agree with the Christian sentiment that Judgement should be reserved for God - because God, as I understand, lives within. When a judgement is passed from somebody else on to us, we are tempted into sinning by passing our responding judgement onto that person. In this context, sin is the perfect word; the original definition of sin means “to miss the mark”. In passing judgement onto another, we indeed miss the mark, because the real calling is to take that judgement and head within to see where it comes from, and to bring an unconscious pattern of ours into consciousness and into the light.

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Likewise, something that brilliantly pointed out when I was discussing these ideas with her is that this applies when we pass judgements on ourselves as if we were someone else. The times where we create stories about what other people might think of us and how they will respond, we’re doing exactly the same thing. The call here is to find the version of ourselves we are holding in contempt—the source of our judgement—so we can forgive them and release them from the role they are in.

For me, forgiveness comes in when I realise that me and everyone else is still on their own journey to work out how to take their judgements within. Everyone is at a different stage in that process. In fact, the inevitability of encountering people who pass their judgements onto us, to me, says that this is intentional.

There is a potent Christian analogy that holds wisdom in understanding this, The Book of Job, something both Carl Jung and Paul Levy took great interest in unpacking.

As I understand it, God allows Satan to create hardship for Job because the encounter with evil is what Job needs to become the hero of his story and to recognise the divinity and power of himself. God is challenging Job to see the appearance of evil as a corrective mechanism for where we neglect our humanity within, and to not succumb to a victim mentality and the turmoil and disharmony it creates.

What this story holds for us in our modern condition is key: offence is optional. We are the ones with the choice. We either act out of our triggered state and feed the darkness in the absence of love, or we realise it is a sign from the universe that we are out of alignment with our true nature. Here, we must honour that evil is showing us where we are stuck in our lives. The more offence we choose to take, the greater and greater the disturbances in our lives become, until we finally experience something great enough to force us to reconsider.

This is one of the many layers of meaning that Dostoyevsky’s tale of The Grand Inquisitor as part of The Brothers Karamazov holds for me. In the Inquisitor becoming so blinded by the insecurity that humanity (and himself!) was “not good enough” to make good on Christ’s blessings, it necessitated Christ coming back to kiss him in an act of unconditional love, then to leave with the door open for the Inquisitor still to follow his footsteps. The “sinning” of the Inquisitor has encouraged Christ to re-emerge in his life, so that he may now take that judgement he passes on humanity and go within to find the freedom that he needs.

In this regard, it feels fitting that has chosen to title her Substack . With that, we have come full circle.

We have been given a gift: the chance to play our part in the cosmic drama unfolding. Either we get caught up in the stage-fright of other people’s judgements and let it consume us, or we use it to deliver the most authentic performance of our lives, transmuting the circumstances of our existence into an art that elevates ourselves and those around us. And if we don’t get it the first time, that’s okay. Our soul is simply waiting for the right time and teaching us what we need to look out for next time. When I’m finding myself surrounded by judgement, I know I’m exactly where I need to be. You are exactly where you need to be too.

Judgement is inevitable. Offence is optional.

Thank you for taking the time to read this piece. Leave a comment if it sparked something within you.

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While I have a new poem on the way for the next week, in the meantime, I’m pleased to announce that you can now buy my three poetry books as one bundle direct from my store, with shipping available to most places in the world.

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I look forward to bringing you more poems and writings soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

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You were expecting a poem: that’s on the way for next week. Here’s a film review in the meantime.

At the beginning of March, me and fellow Substacker went to see Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 on its opening night. I’m a fan of his other films, especially Parasite and that film’s ability to portray very human characters - flaws and all - getting in to ever-more gut-wrenching situations in order to survive their life circumstances, intertwined with nuanced, unpreachy commentary on class distinctions.

As such, I went into this film somewhat optimistic that I might be in for a good time, despite knowing pretty much nothing about the film. What I ended up watching did not feel on the same calibre of his previous filmmaking efforts.

We discussed the film at length afterwards over a curry. There were some small standout bits that both of us really enjoyed. The film’s premise - having an “expendable” worker who can be reprinted in full every time they die - brings with it a wealth of ethical and moral depth to explore. It’s a great concept that the film seems to at least be somewhat conscious of. I also like how the film deals with its alien race and the sense of personality they’re given to help lighten what is otherwise a pretty sci-fi heavy film. Bong Joon-Ho’s decision to make the protagonist more of a klutz as opposed to his original screenplay treatment of being more intellectually-minded was a wise move in my eyes, too.

Those are the positives I can give the film credit for. For me, everything else I experienced turned into a lesson of what not to do when it comes to creating compelling characters and executing on the central ideas of the plot. I can’t help but feel that Mickey 17 is exactly what happens when the desire to push obtuse cultural agendas in the arts takes over the need to tell a coherent, meaningful story. This is a theme I’ve explored in some of the reflections of my recent poems.

With how concrete and contemporary of an example Mickey 17 is of this, it felt apt to do a deeper dive into some of its intricacies to highlight the pitfalls that the current generation of the arts is falling into. Mickey 17 could have been an excellent film; here’s why it missed the mark for me.

Exposition & Narrative Nudges

A significant portion of the film’s runtime is entirely exposition, detailing the backstory of the central protagonist, Mickey, and the context surrounding why there is a spaceship hurtling towards an uncolonised planet with a human printing machine on-board, all to the tune of a fairly uninteresting narration from the title character.

I struggle to find sequences of this much exposition compelling, and Mickey 17 is no exception. Rather than using character interactions and interesting dialogue to explore these things, we get the inclusion of characters who literally are just convenient exposition devices - like Timo, Mickey’s “friend”.

What was perhaps more insulting is that this dry info-dump took the time to pack-in almost every political and cultural agenda under the sun. The idea of the antagonist - Kenneth Marshall - being a failed showman of a politician, more flashy words than smart action, leading up this voyage is one that, given the film’s concept, I quite like. By the character being deliberately made into a Trump caricature - dance moves, intonation, supporter base stereotypes and all - and having a cheap gag of him crying to his wife constantly about how hard things are, any interesting commentary that could be gleamed from his inclusion is lost for me by going full “orange man bad”. I say this as someone who finds discomfort in Trump’s cosying-up to technocrats, Making America Zionism Great Again and ongoing support for the pharmaceutical industry.

This is what most of the online discourse surrounding this film has been centred around, with praise from media outlets about how this is “the anti-Trump film people deserve” and the corresponding backlash from Trump’s fanbase. Yet the agenda pushing goes far beyond this. There is a segment dedicated to how Mickey becomes a saviour for the human race by getting himself infected with a deadly virus, dying several times, and having his biological data harvested and used to develop a vaccine so that he leaves a meaningful “contribution to the human race”. I nearly choked in the cinema at how on-the-nose this was.

There is also the romance between Mickey and Nasha which covers a portion of this exposition dump. Their relationship is characterised almost entirely by Nasha’s sexual fetishes and desires as opposed to any meaningful connection. Naturally, this is the character who goes on to be the saviour of the story without any significant personal development forcing her to look at the behaviours and traits that bring her into conflict with others. With how prevalent this has become in other films, part of me is not surprised. What upsets me more, however, is how other female characters with somewhat more depth and development - from the other shipmate Kai, who loses her best friend in an accident and falls in love with Mickey as a coping mechanism for her grief, to the socially-awkward scientist who realises the cognitive abilities of this planet’s aliens and bonds with Mickey over their realisations - suffer from too-short storylines or an introduction so late in the plot that there’s almost no time to flesh out the character fully. I get the impression that this film’s definition of “female empowerment” means giving a free pass to any destructive behaviours, rather than celebrating the journey that female characters could go on to overcome them and become an even better character in the process. That is the antithesis of a hero’s journey and of telling a compelling story.

Then, there’s how the film deals with its central plot device - the human printing machine. Rather than getting a situation- and/or character-based exploration of the moral implications of this device to drive the main plot forwards, we get a series of narrated flashbacks where we’re told how scientists and ethicists debated the implications of such a device, how one of the developing scientist used the machine to commit a litany of murders, and all sorts of sequences that fly in the face of a “show don’t tell” ethos. These sequences did not make for compelling cinema for me.

Missed Opportunities

The handling of the human printer as a plot device is a clear example of how many missed opportunities this film had for me. There could have quite easily been another character on the ship who chooses to use the printing machine in nefarious ways in a far more engaging manner than in the flashbacks that also drives the plot forward. We even get a hint that something like this might have been considered; Mickey’s nightmare of Trump Marshall’s wife bringing him back to life after he is killed is a plot twist that could’ve gone a good way to strengthening this film had they run with it as reality.

The same goes for the handling of the supporting characters. The “guys can be jerks” character of Timo and most of the sequences on Earth involving him and Mickey trying to escape loan sharks could have probably been cut, with the screentime reallocated to fleshing out the character arcs of the more notable characters. We could have had these characters more intimately involved with the human printing device too - what if Kai reprinted her friend earlier in the plot, violating the ship’s protocol and suffering the consequences, only then to find their friendship is not the same? What if Nasha was the one sent by the loan sharks to get Mickey to pay up, and realises the power of the printing device to circumvent the violent desires of her boss?

For me, all this goes to show how a good idea can get lost in its execution. I use “execution” in a twofold meaning here, both to describe the carrying-out of the idea to tangible completion, and in death. Mickey 17’s potential died on the cutting-room floor so that dying societal agendas could take another pitiful breath. I could nitpick away at a bunch of other aspects of the film that caused a disturbance in me, but the aspects I’ve mentioned were the ones that needed highlighting the most.

A Valuable Experience

With all of this said, it might surprise you to hear that I’m grateful I was able to see this film - cultural programming, bad characters and all. Sometimes it’s useful to have references on what not to do when creating stories to inspire future generations. When I see films like this, I do the same as when I see deliberately-framed news items or posts on social media. I celebrate what is in alignment with what I feel to be true, then honour and discard what is not from my consciousness. This is the process that allows me to sharpen my intention as I move through the world - whether that takes the form of writing poetry or holding space for youth.

Intention is what matters most, not perfection. Furthermore, I believe stories carry their own intention which should be honoured in the process of creating art. I can hold films that remain true to the intention of their story in high regard, even if their pacing or dialogue is clumsy in places (The Book of Vision comes to mind for me). Films that sacrifice the intention to tell a good story in order to promote shallow, outdated and divisive narratives of how others “should” be will not hold the same status in my consciousness. Mickey 17 falls into the latter category for me.

I’m here to tell the best story I can of my own life, and share stories and analogies which help others do the same. I honour and thank Mickey 17 for sharpening my own blade through showing me what not to do when creating compelling and truthful narratives. Now I let it go into the sea of the myriad of other films that do the same, letting them run their course and prepare the world for even better stories to take their place.

Maybe it’ll be me who creates something that brings the update. Maybe it’ll be you. Either way, I look forward to seeing the creation of something that does what Mickey 17 - a re-printed replica of the outdated framework that humanity is trying to shed - could not. I hope you’re looking forward to that too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this piece. Let me know if it sparked something within you.

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And for those who have seen the film and disagree with my take - all the power to you! Let me know your experiences below as well.

With gratitude,

Tom

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Over the coming weeks, I’ll be doing a number of live readings across the Dorset area in the UK as well as online. Use the button below to see all the events I have coming up and how to join:

Events Coming Up

More Like This

The works of C.S. Lewis were absent from my childhood - and I struggle to consider the few instances where I saw film versions of various Chronicles of Narnia instalments as part of that. As I have gone through my twenties, however, I’ve come closer and closer to delving into his works. On December 18th 2024, I finished C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength for the first time, on recommendation from and ’s excellent lecture series on the books.

Reading it as part of a complete trilogy, beginning with Out of The Silent Planet and then progressing to Perelandra, it was obvious to me why Cynthia felt so compelled to talk about these books. Over the three books, Lewis provides a brilliant critique in allegorical form of eugenics, moral relativism, and state totalitarianism in the name of “science” that began it’s rise in Lewis’ time and, arguably, is coming to full fruition now. I won’t say too much more on it here, mainly as Cynthia has already highlighted so many of its gems more eloquently than I could have done.

Through A Glass Darkly

‘That Hideous Strength’: A Tale of Transhumanism and the Occult

This is the third and last installment to C.S. Lewis’ sci-fi trilogy. The first installment can be viewed here…

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3 years ago · 49 likes · 8 comments · Cynthia Chung

What particularly jumped out in my reading was the sense of soul and connection to the divine that characterise the protagonists forming company with the Pendragon - unlike the antagonists of the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E), who all attempt to narrow the definition of what constitutes life, in order for them to control it. This connection to the divine also necessitates a reverence for the mythology and lore that has made the towns of England what they were in that day, made intrinsic to the plot in the resurrection of Merlin, from Arthurian legend. The Pendragon company understand this, but the N.I.C.E are all too willing to destroy and desecrate the parts they cannot objectively rationalise, all in pursuit of their own transhumanist desires.

Lewis explored these themes across many of his writings, including his poetry, which is often overlooked considering his many other works that have (rightfully so) garnered praise. The very nature of poetry forces poets to convey their message in concise, yet beautiful and imaginative ways. Delving into his poetry following my completion of That Hideous Strength, I found that Lewis was able to do this with his own sentiments regarding the times in an incredibly powerful way, and I felt compelled to share them with the wider world in the hope that more may benefit from his insights.

I’ve selected just three that have something poignant to say about our modern condition, what we have done, and how we might heal.

I won’t include the full text of each poem in the body of the article directly, but I will link to places where the texts are available publicly for you to read at your own leisure.

The Condemned

Read "The Condemned"

Lewis’ concern for the increasing destruction of countryside life, and its replacement by the soullessness of industrial cities and politics, is one he shared with his close friend at Cambridge, J.R.R. Tolkien. And, it’s on full display in The Condemned in a particularly pessimistic manner.

P. M. Geddes Writes

The Shire as Little England

In the first essay of this series, I argued that the influence of G. K. Chesterton on Tolkien’s work is evident in the latter’s aesthetic scheme. Tolkien’s attitude to art, advocation of simple devotions and defence of fairy-stories mirror and build upon the ideas of Chesterton. These principles were most famously put into practice in Tolkien’s perpetua…

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2 years ago · 1 like · 2 comments · P M Geddes

We see that it’s not just the nature itself that is under attack, but the rich history of poets and people who put words to its magic, which Lewis makes explicit reference to. Their rich traditions and reverence for the man-nature connection is being gassed out like vermin, along with the spirit of England itself, in the pursuit of “progress” and of a caged, ordered, and highly controlled society. The relics of its culture are thus relegated to the “zoo” of entertainment as some outdated antiquity, and to create propaganda about how man with its “Guns, Ferrets and Traps” has triumphed over the “strange”.

It paints a sad picture - but there is still hope in my eyes. We’re seeing a rise of populism and grassroots protest movements, as the spirit of England comes increasingly under attack by postmodern and globalist agendas pursued by councils and governments. Here are ordinary people defending the “wildness” in England - its grassroots, communal spirit, and the right of an Englishman to have a home as his castle and to be free to work with its rich land. And it seems to be working. If Lewis is right that it cannot be tamed, then really it is the “Ministry” and its totalitarian desires that are “condemned”.

The Country of the Blind

Read "The Country of the Blind"

Throughout his life, Lewis was highly critical of the mechanistic view that writers took on human beings and life, in particular H.G. Wells. Indeed, much of Lewis’ Science Fiction Trilogy responds directly to works like The First Men in the Moon, heavily modelling the antagonists of the various books on the protagonists of Wells. And I suspect Lewis’ The Country of the Blind intends to dig at Wells’ work of the same name.

To me, the comparison to the scientific “experts” dominating the world in recent years is a clear example of the phenomena described by Lewis in this poem - not just through Covid, but also in the disguise of political activism as “social sciences”. Despite literally “losing sight” of important aspects of the human experience, the subjects of Lewis’ poem endeavour to say they are better than those who’ve retained their sight. With “tricks of the phrase”, they posture their “abstract thoughts” and pretend to know of the “green-sloped sea waves” they have never truly known. Moreover, they have no desire to understand it fully; they are “mouldwarps”, living underground, contempt in “attempt[ing] speech on the truths” from within their narrowed view of life, explaining the views of others away with increasingly convoluted rationalisations of their own.

And yet, it is not a wilful blindness in many cases - hence why “it was worse” than if one had actually questioned the descriptions being brought to them, rather than retorting to a generic dismissal of “we’ve all felt just like that”. The moral blindness has been a “slow curse” through the centuries, through which people have forgotten what it is to breathe and go forth with a full appreciation of life. So many have been willing to comply with the authoritarian dictats of the past few decades, and why so many either buy the propaganda of warmongerers and perverts or submit to the idea that this is just the way things are.

For me, this poem is a call-to-action for us to truly see the world - to explore the merits of what our culture has lived through with openness that there may be something important we’ve been blind to. We need to see, once more, the corners of England unspoilt by the pursuit of a cultureless, soulless, globalist scientism - the kind of England under destruction in The Condemned. There are things worth conserving here - as our final poem will explore.

The Future of Forestry

Read "The Future of Forestry"

The line that hit me hardest on my first readthrough of this was “What was Autumn? They never taught us.”

If The Condemned is about what is happening, and The Country of the Blind is about how it has gotten to this point, then The Future of Forestry is the reason why it is worth making a stand for the traditions and native culture of England. We’re warned of a world with no real access to the nature that inspired our ancestors and thinkers - and where the only reference to them is in records of old.

It’s a shame that, in a way, we’re already there. Significant swathes of children living in cities have never been to the countryside, with its “elm” and “chestnut”. And then combine this with a lack of local community in which to share that joy, and it makes for a deadly combination.

It’s no wonder that so many - including myself - have turned to online communities to get a sense of that shared joy, with it being so difficult to find in-person anymore. But the online world is not the real world. The temptation, therefore, is to make ourselves acceptable to the abstracted online universe we inhabit; a world of fake narratives and finding the next outrageous and dangerous fad to hop on to. In this world, there is no divinity and sacredness of the self - and indeed, we are encouraged to literally sell our souls for the gods of algorithms and internet clout.

Nature doesn’t work in the same way. Nature couldn’t care for the whims of the moment. Nature doesn’t thrive off of who can achieve moral decay the flashiest. Nature is about permanence and true connection. Nature is about the respect for life and its manifestation, not the poisoning and desecration of it. It inspires us to grow, rather than to reside as a diminished version of ourselves.

With that in mind, the “Future of Forestry” is, really, the future of us. Will we choose choose to cut the tree of our life short by allowing the beauty of nature and history to be destroyed? Or will we nurture it, conserve it, and enjoy the fruits of that labour for generations to come?

I hope it will be the latter.