So much water.

It's as if I were standing on a bridge; in my imagination it's a small stone bridge and I'm leaning over the edge watching the flowing stream below.

The water is crystal clear and the pebbles, stones and undulations of the stream bottom are clearly visible.

Twigs, air bubbles, leaves, small fish and, sadly, polystyrene containers, paper, card and other junk all floating along together - the good with the bad.

It seems to me that the stream is my life.

And the water that briefly flows beneath me is like the present moment; and then it's gone headed towards the horizon between the banks of the stream.

The twigs and leaves represent the moments in my life that gave and give me joy.

And the junk represents just that - the junk in my life.

Sadly, as the moment flows on I can see the junk in the distance much more clearly than the twigs and leaves.

So today I am meditating on the steam that is my life and asking myself some important questions.

Is the water in the stream always polluted? No it's not. It was crystal clear until I or events added items to it.

Are the stream banks forever fixed? Of course not. The flowing stream can change it's course and so it is with my life - I can change it's course if I want to - and if I act.

Can I limit the amount of junk in the stream? Of course I can by simply filtering the junk out - and so it is with my life - I can filter out junk.

Is there any way that I can see a moment more clearly even once it has passed under the bridge? Sure I can - by journalling and by being sure to record the good moments rather than the junk; by journalling it's as if I were running along the banks of the stream watching a favoured twig or a beautiful fish.

We should all take a moment to look at the stream flowing under our bridge.

The power of ideas.

“Nobody,” Sage reads, “who looks at a shard of flint lying beneath a rock ledge, or who finds a splintered log by the side of the road would ever find magic in their solitude. But in the right circumstances, if you bring them together, you can start a fire that consumes the world.”

This excerpt from The Storyteller, a work of fiction by author Jodie Picoult, brings us face-to-face with one of the great discoveries of living life and human potential. Ideas.

Today I am meditating on the the power of ideas.

Every day a million ideas float past, like butterflies, not necessarily bound anyplace, rather just circulating, just being.

These ideas often go unnoticed because of our inner clamor, our preoccupation with other matters that engage our attention.

And yet, in these fluttering, unassuming, wisps of singular thought is the power to change our perceptions of everything; and to combine two or more is to supercharge our potential.

What great ideas have we failed to notice and combine today?

This book is full of confronting ideas, it's a great story, it's a slice of history, it's an examination of humanity - and inhumanity.

Perhaps if we saw the blood and gore we'd care more?

Parramatta, NSW, Australia. Friday October 2nd, 2015.

It seems appropriate that I should re-emerge in my aging warrior role just several days after a NSW police employee - an administrator - is gunned down, shot in the back of the head execution style, by a young Muslim man aged 15. My preceding post puts this comment in context.

I meditate today about the victim's family - seemingly ignored by politicians and the bureaucracy; but not to worry, before the blood and gore were washed from the pavement, our Prime Minister had engaged with the Muslim community for fear they are concerned about the potential for, arguably understandable, retaliation by an increasingly marginalised majority.

I meditate on the unwillingness of the majority of Australia's journalists to tell the story the way it happened - to simply report the facts.

I meditate on the dangers we face as Muslims increasingly kill and maim people guilty only of being non-Muslims - it used to be in far away countries but now it is happening on Australian suburban streets.

There is occasional talk about appeasement. But the truth is, it seems to me, it is more like cowardice. Those in authority no longer have the moral strength or certainty, or the nationalistic spirit to stand up, and speak up, for our land, and our way of life. And they certainly don't speak for me most of the time.

None of this is going to end well for traditional Caucasian Australians, for Christians, and ironically for the chattering classes that so want this already doomed social experiment to continue - the intelligentsia will be the first to face the sword come the overthrow of our political system and our religious freedoms; if you're a politician, a bureaucrat, a journalist or political commentator, an educator, a doctor, an author, a minister or priest, a gay person, or just somebody Muslims disagree with - like the elderly historian recently killed for protecting historic treasures, you stand a very good chance of sharing the fate of Mr Curtis Cheng, Friday's innocent victim.

Remember if you are a non-Muslim in an Islamic society there are only three options:
- you can become a Muslim - and for later recanting your decision the penalty is death, or
- you can decline to become a Muslim and pay special taxes, and live as a second-class citizen, or
- death.

Isn't it time more people had an opinion, and spoke up for what we thought we once were?