🏰 AUTHOR INTERVIEW: 'The Spirit of Love' the spirit of love known as glen

At the peak of his destructive cycle glen was so consumed by addictions, that on any given day saw the abusive consumption of cocaine, MDMA powder, special K, ecstasy, crystal meth, marijuana, prescription drugs (anti-depressants, sleeping pills) and alcohol.

A time that saw him attempting and failing to out race police cars through the streets of a Melbourne suburb one night, to experiencing a near death experience while bleeding out from a glass injury when holidaying overseas, a time of daily self-harming with the prospect of suicide never being far out of reach.

However, through the unconditional love of his parents, glen found himself backpacking though South America where a collection of events and direct experiences with the local people and Mother Earth herself, triggered the beginning stages of what would later become known to him as the shattering and dissolving of the false identity of the illusionary mind-made-self and its “poor me” story.

An inner-journey that awakens the spirit of love, known as glen, to not being a personal identity as such but rather a way of being, a way of simplicity, a way of the heart, a way that embraces and dances with the perfection of the present moment like no other.

You can visit the author’s website at www.spiritoflove.com.au or his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thespiritoflovebook.

About the Book:

The Spirit of Love is a collection of short writings, poems and phrases written by a man who took

himself into some of the darkest and most destructive depths that one can go with drug and alcohol addictions back in his early twenties.

The collection of writings contained within The Spirit of Love are the result of one man’s healing journey within himself and the deep questioning that has arisen from within it.

With the love, support and guidance of his dear friend Edwina, in helping to bring these writings from the handwritten scribbles on paper to how they are presented today, The Spirit of Love is a reminder that no matter how dark, desperate, alone, helpless or trapped one believes they may be, the sheer beauty of the perfection of life in its totality is silently and patiently living within us all, and its love is so powerful that it can heal anything that has come to pass.

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Please accept my deepest thanks and gratitude for creating a little slice of cyber space to be here with you now, at Book Bloggin Princess, I am most honoured that you have allowed this space to be filled with this interview.

As a book bloggin’ and book luvin’ Princess, I’m always curious to find out how authors got the ideas for their books.  How did you come up with the idea for your book?

Spirit came up with the idea for the book, I simply listened and honoured what the voice of the heart requested that I needed to do in order for the book to materialise in form.

It was not long after finishing the third volume of writings that I was sitting up one night at home and what I refer to as the voice of the heart spoke through as a spontaneous impulse feeling asking that I was to make an effort to have the writings published.

That was it, just to make an effort, so with the beautiful help and support of Edwina I honoured and followed what the voice of the heart asked for.

We transferred the writings onto Edwina’s computer in their most basic of forms, and then I searched the internet for any publishing companies that I felt might be open to such writings. I came across two companies (Aurora House Publishing and Barker Deane Publishing) and posted off a printed copy of the writings to each publisher.

It was around a couple of months later when we received an email from Linda, of Aurora House Publishing, saying that she was interested in publishing the writings and that was it. 

The process from when I received the feeling impulse to make an effort, to having the book published and released has all happened within a year.   

Can you tell us what your book is about?

The writings contained within The Spirit of Love are the result of the healing journey out of depression, alcohol and drug addictions, and the deep questioning that arose from within it.

It is a reflection and the result of coming into an acceptance of one’s true nature, through an inner-journey that began not long after experiencing a near death experience in 2002, through to completing  the writings of volume 3 sometime in late 2015 – early 2016.

The book is the result of this fourteen year or so journey.

Can you give us a short excerpt?

Volume 1

 6.

Take me now so that I need never feel again

Screaming inside I keep everything in

Release me now so I may tear this skin from off my shell

For free can I not be from this living hell?

Volume 2

55.

I have no structure I have no plan

What will come of me in this foreign land?

Of winding words and silly phrases

Yet here stands an uneducated man

Laying my eternal heart down upon the blank canvas

That awaits creativity’s abundant dance

Lost I had become trying to be something I am not

No fanciful sonnets grace the land of my soul

Only a singing bird in spring’s early sun

From this the belly fills to its brim

Let wisdom’s tribute stand before any brave man

That showeth his heart wounds and all

Standing before the jury, accepting a tightening noose

To give it all away to one fair day

That found himself where he had always laid.

Volume 3

106.

Everything is a meditation for the One who is aware of being awareness

Silent and still I shall forever remain

No matter what movement life turns out to play

One need not sit in lotus all day awaiting attainment

For nothing more than another fallacy of the so called New-Age movement

What else possibly can be attained?

Is the rainbow missing a colour on a cloudy summer’s day?

Are the songs of the birds missing a note through the mist of spring’s enchanting morning?

Are the flowers missing a scent in the fullness of their bloom?

Is the appearance of the night sky lacking in imagination when the full moon decides to fly?

So continue to wait for something that simply does not exist

While I continue on creating and showcasing thy eternal bliss

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would that be?

Best not to think of oneself as anything

Let go of the mental idea of trying or aspiring to be a poet/writer/author, it will just get in the way and block the potential of what is possible from within you.

Go inside your heart, feel it, open it up completely to a force greater than yourself, yet it is within yourself, and see what wants to come out, just write, no concern about correct spelling, no concern over correct grammar. Just let the hand start moving and don’t look back at what has been written, keep writing. Anything that wants to come out let it out, forget about what anyone else may think about it.

To that which is said and thought by another about yourself let it be of no concern, for in awareness there exists no others of you.  

What would you say is one of your interesting writing quirks?

 I don’t see oneself as a writer/poet/author or anything else when in the moment of writing.

Do you hear from your readers?  What do they say?

If I do hear from a reader, it is usually by coming into face to face contact with them around town. Each reader shares their own perspective and interpretation of the book, which is the book’s way of doing what it is destined to do. People really seem drawn to the front cover artwork and how the book actually feels when it is in their hands.

How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

There is one unpublished manuscript sitting at home, it is titled: Awaken – For those who are willing.

Here are a couple of excerpts from it:

·        Enter thyself from the sound of a butterfly’s wings.

·        You journeyed here from the realm of death before that human shell appeared before your eyes, did you not?

Then why fear it?

·        If one does not find peace and love from within oneself, one will spend an entire lifetime discovering that it cannot be found outside of oneself.

·        The more invested one is with the fortune of one’s inner-nature, the less invested one naturally is with the form of things of the external-nature.

·        If you are paying someone to find out who you are or want to be, best give them everything you have now then walk away with what’s left of you.

Do you have anything specific that you would like to say to your readers?

No, not really, as when one is content with being one’s true nature one realises that there is nothing that can be said that can alter, effect, or change the nature/perfection of who one already is.

True wisdom is best left unspoken

Instead, I will share the following, there are one hundred and sixty six writings contained within The Spirit of Love, if it was suggested that I was able to share only one of them with the heart of mankind, which one will it be?

143.

So you wish to know and meet the nameless One

Can you be a you that no longer has any of you to hold on to?

Can you be a you that no longer has any existence of you to cling to?

Can you be a you that dissolves any and all parts of you into nothing of you?

Can the you that is no longer a you be of service to a love that holds no name or form of you?

Can the you that is no longer a you be of service to a love that is beyond the comprehension of you?

Live yes to such questions

Then know of me you can and meet me in the stillness of eternity you may

Thank you to Book Bloggin Princess for accepting this interview, thank you to all the readers out there and to everyone for being here on Mother Earth in this moment, love knows the way home.

the spirit of love, known as glen

www.spiritoflove.com.au

www.facebook.com/thespiritoflovebook