It is very simple. Explore solitude. Be alone in Nature.

The reason you lose yourself is because you’re caught up in the energy of your environment. Your environment; people, phones, cars, buildings, everything that we have built that we call culture or society wants you to think, speak and act in a certain manner. This pulls you away from the way you really want to think, speak and act.

Nature doesn’t want anything from you. Nature is neutral. Nature doesn’t pull you away from yourself. Nature doesn’t want anything from you. Nature just is. Enabling you to just be… You…

I recently challenged each person in my close family to take 24 hours of 2022 and plan to be alone for that time. No phone, no internet, no books. Just body, mind and a place to stay, preferably in a cabin in nature, or in nature if temperature allows it. If you have read so far, I challenge you to do the same. Take 24 hours out of 2022 and be… alone... No stimulations. Just you.

That is self-love.

The first 26 years of my life was quite an ordinary life for a Norwegian boy born in 1990. I grew up on the countryside by the sea close to a city(Kristiansand). I went to high school and celebrated “Russetida”(An insane celebration Norwegians do the year we graduate). I went to university and majored in physics and in entrepreneurship. I had sex maybe a little bit later than what is normal. I drank a lot of alcohol while studying. I played football. Normal.

The year I turned 26, five years ago, tides turned.

I started to question myself, my own choices, the life trajectory I was on. Why am I doing what I am doing? Why the fuck am I doing what I am doing? (hehe)

I turned the magnifying glass inwards and initiated a path of self-discovery. Typically, as it suits a man with a masculine ego, the first limits to test were the physical and the mental. How much pain and suffering can my body and my mind take?

I went into the Special Forces. A couple of years there taught me that there are no limits. Seriously, there are no limits!(I just love that) Because when you hit the limit it has already moved. There is always a horizon…

After the military, I went back to society. What now? Covid is all over the place, it is May 2020, 18 months ago. What else to do but to increase the intensity of the magnifying glass, and go deeper. Into the emotional and the energetic part of my being.

In silence, removed from external stimuli. In vulnerable heartclose conversations with dear friends. In ceremonies. In raw forest dances. In nature... I listened. I listened. To what the silence speaks. To what moves in the depths of being…. I found there bleeding wounds, deeply hidden emotions of anger, despair and sorrow. Fear of being me. Fear of showing my inner childs deepest desires. Suppressed emotions that have been buried in my body since early childhood, materialised as muscle tensions in my body. When I open up these tensions, the emotions come flushing out, ready to be felt.

I have felt all of them…

This is my choice. To feel everything my body tells me.

““In order to become whole we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom.” — Alice Miller

I have been in a cocoon my entire life. A protective shell of love necessary to keep me safe and able to live a good life. I don’t need the shell anymore. I let it go. I will face the fear that comes with my heart wide open. I choose to.

2022. The year of the Butterfly / Dragonfly

“What is a Butterfly,
if not the flowering of a caterpillar beyond its wildest dreams…”
 — Kailash Kokopelli

Not long ago you killed things — bugs, plants, trees, animals, people — now you cannot kill a thing without knowing exactly what you’re doing and why.

Not long ago you lived as though it had no purpose. Now you know it has no purpose, save the one you give it.

Not long ago you begged the universe to bring you Truth. Now you tell the universe your truth.

Not long ago you sought to be rich and famous. Now you seek to be, simply and wonderfully, your Self.

And not so very long ago, you feared Me. Now you love me, enough to call Me your equal.

Keep on growing. Keep on becoming. Keep on deciding what you are in the next highest version of your Self. Keep on

In relationships there is only opportunity. Opportunity to discover myself in, of and through the other human.

All connections I have to everything in my life is an opportunity to see my self clearer, to create who I am.

I have no obligation in a relationship. I can choose to see everything in my relationships as an opportunity.

Am I in a relationship to end loneliness? To fill a gap? To receive Love from someone? To end my depression? To recover from previous relationships?

What does it mean “to fall in Love”?

Do I fall in Love with the other person, or do I fall in Love with what I experience inside myself when I am in the company of this other person?

I will enter relationships for the right reason.

Is the purpose and intention of my relationships to create an opportunity — and not an obligation? To create an opportunity for growth, for full self-expression, for lifting my life to the highest potential. To heal every false thought or small idea I have ever had about me.

Relationships is about opening up my heart and soul. A gift in life, to learn about myself through the perspectives of others. To learn, discover, be inspired, be captivated, be seen, be loved.

I think about checking if anyone have commented on the story I’ve put out. I reach for the phone. I pause.

“why do I want to check instagram now?” I ask myself.

“because there might be someone that have commented. Someone I am supposed to connect with today”, my mind answers.

I reflect on that answer. I find it a reasonable answer.

I continue the enquiry one level further.

0: “why do you want to connect with someone right now?”

1: “because I like to connect and exchange thoughts with other humans. I like to be social”

That is also a reasonable answer.

0: “Why do you like to be social?”

1: “It makes me not feel alone”

0: “Are you alone?”

1: “Yes and no. I’m always in the company of myself, but still, sometimes I feel alone”

0: “Why?”

1: “I don’t know”

I look out the window. A blonde middle-aged woman stand up from her chair and smile, while speaking some words to her dark-haired friend who’s sitting comfortably at her chair enjoying a black coffee.

0: “Why do you feel alone?”

The same voice continues;

“You’re never alone, you always have me with you. I comfort you when you need it. I am your father, I am your mother. I give you what you need, when you need it. If you ask me for anything sincerely, you will have it.

1: “So, if I ask for company, I will get company?”

“Yes. That means, when you are physically alone, like now in this café, and you receive an impulse that wants you to check instagram, to feel less alone, you don’t need to check instagram. You are never alone. You can check instagram later. Now you can enjoy your/my own company instead. It’s so nice.”

“Yes, you’re right. It is nice“

(This post was originally a mail)

This letter of gratitude goes to: Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Curawaka, Astral Flowers, Maneesh de Moor and Greg Haines.

The last 18 months of 2020 and 2021, I have gone through a tremendous transformation. It hasn’t been through a swift powerful moment, but through diligent, continuous work to find more truth and love and wisdom in myself and in connection with others. I can proudly say that I have gone through deep valleys of fear and grief and anger and sorrow, in courage with my head held high. I have faced the demons and shown up for all the battles inside, every day.

What has been my greatest brother and sister and mother and father and grandmother and grandfather in this journey has been your music!! What you have let come through your being and shared with the world, and with me have nurtured me, held me softly, inspired me to continue standing firm, reminded me of the courage and love I already have inside.

I am forever grateful to you and the music you have created.

Thank you, thank you thank you.

Gracias Gracias Gracias

Takk Takk Takk

With love and gratitude

❤

Donald Trump is as much a human as I am, as you are. Perhaps he behaves in some ways that you don’t like, or don’t support, or wouldn’t have done yourself.

The past years memes, essays, headlines, articles, tweets and interviews, have competed in being mean in the most articulate way.

Think about that, a competition in being mean.

It seems that there’s a narrative that thinks that simply “removing” people like Donald Trump will fix all of our problems. I’m sorry to say, it won’t. More disturbing is it that I never meet anyone with compassion for Donald Trump. And I don’t understand why there’s so few that feel sorry for him.
He is a human as you are, as I am.

Be kind.

To me Bloom is you! Every person I have met, have sincerely connected me more to them, to myself and the universe, in ways, and to a degree I have not experienced, previously in life. I worked outside of Oslo up till 4 months ago, a job that I had to quit unwillingly.

Now, I am grateful I had to quit. I was not expecting that I would ever think that. That is very strange for me to say out loud.

The reason for that is Bloom, all of you.

My gratitude for this is deep. I love the existence as a consciuos being very much, and it stuns me that I get to experience these blissful states of consciousness so often.

I am grateful for Snorre inviting me into Bloom. I’ve had many life-changing and mind-boggling experiences; the enlightened forest at Tromøya, the primal cave at Voss, the vulnerable sauna the impulsive bonfires at Finnskogen. In your eyes and arms, I have removed layers from the depths within me, unveiling and showing me my own light. My strengths, my scars, my goodness, my compassion, my love, my root. And it grows, sometimes slow, sometimes not, sometimes a lot…

A while ago, I was in the jungle, riding on bumpy roads on old trucks out of the thickness and wetness of the dense roof of palms. Suddenly out of nowhere, we drive by a kindergarten. On the wall someone has written:

There are two lasting things we give our children. One is roots and the other is wings.

I think of Bloom in this way as well. Like we all do, also Bloom, needs roots and wings. For a flower to stand firm in the wind of the world, the root needs to be tended and cared for and developed.

In August this year, I had a profound experience while doing Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art. Tai Chi use the concepts of yin and yang a lot, heaven and earth, stillness and action, root and movement. Having a good root is one of the most important aspects of Tai Chi. Having a good root involves remaining stable, upright and balanced.

In a particular posture in the “Tai Chi form”, I suddenly, unexpectedly, felt unusually rooted. My nervous system reacted to this, and emotions welled up through my stomach, chest, throat, face and eventually eyes. Tears formed and quietly rolled down my cheeks. When I sank deeper into my root, by letting the spine fall lower, and by lowering down in my knees, the emotions grew stronger, as the connection to myself grew stronger. The more I sunk, the more I felt. The more I sunk, the more connected I was, the stronger I felt.

A strong root enables me to unlock depths within myself, to discover more of my essence. It enables me to open my heart. I can start to move. I can spread my wings. I can fly.

Bloom gives us all stronger roots. And Bloom needs roots.

When I see better the true strengths inside of me, I see it so much clearer in others. I see limitless strength and willpower in the depths of the eyes I meet in Bloom. When we see this in each other, acts as vulnerable mirrors, unlocking power, collectively, the vision horizon for what Bloom is and what it can create, grows more hopeful and brighter than I am able to imagine.