guy james.

Spreadsheet Brain

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 11:47:18 +0200

“The inability to conceive of its own devastation will tend to be the blind spot of any culture." — Jonathan Lear in Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation.

“What is soul? I don’t know
Soul is the ring around your bathtub” — Funkadelic, What Is Soul?

(meme courtesy of Ashley Colby)

Ashley Colby, a US citizen, resides in Uruguay, lives a ‘Little House on the Pampa’ trad-wife lifestyle (it’s not LARPing if you do it for real), and crucially for this essay, is the coiner of the term ‘spreadsheet brain’.

Check out the Alquimystica Podcast

Sat, 06 May 2023 11:47:18 +0200

Not enough content and information in your life? Ok yes I know you are drowning in it, as are we all. But if you are interested in the very specific topic of psychedelic integration and how to bring the insights of your entheogenic adventures into your daily life, then I think you will be interested in this particular episode, featuring an interview between my friend Emer and Marc Aixalà, the author of Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness and a founder member of ICEERS (The International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service).

Liminal: A New Literary Magazine

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 15:01:09 +0200

Just to draw your attention to the fact that one of my articles, Time And The Infinite Game is featured in the new literary journal, Liminal.

This online publication comes out of the Creative Word writing course taught by Daniel Pinchbeck (and which I believe has improved my writing style). The standard is very high so I feel privileged to be included. Check out some of the other articles and please do sign up for the digest if you enjoy them.

A New Space to Think

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 16:34:09 +0200

I decided to re-do this website because I was getting a constant error with the previous version and it meant that what I posted wasn’t actually being published. Also the images were annoying me somewhat, being too large, too small etc. I prefer the cleaner look of this new Hugo theme. It feels like it gives me, and the reader, more space to think.

I think ‘finding space’ is a key attribute in life. It is particularly visible in football, where the great players are the ones who find space. Everyone tends to charge headlong towards ’the thing’, but if you don’t do that, and just hang back a little, have a bit of composure, you maybe see spaces which need filling, be they evolutionary niches, or goalscoring opportunities.

A Beginner's Guide to ReFi

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 19:10:30 +0200

A short presentation about Regenerative Finance or ReFi for the Earth Regenerators community, started by Joe Brewer.

Upcycle Moloch! Conversation with Rieki Cordon from SEEDS

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 19:30:30 +0100

Rieki is the co-founder of the SEEDS project which is a community dedicated to the regeneration of the biosphere by means of coordination through Web3 tools (and Web2, there is a Discord and Telegram too).

We go into where SEEDS is at now as a project and the new regenerative villages initiative and its implications, communities vs economies, work vs inspiration, and so on.

Thanks to Rieki for a very interesting conversation! Hopefully we can do another one soon and I will link up my decent camera and mic rather than using the built-in ones on my old Thinkpad.

Check out my newsletter

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 11:55:30 +0100

My newsletter is well under way now, with a series on Dark Forces, coordination failures, myth, metaphor, DAOs, psychedelics, philosophy etc. now reaching part five: Do Look Up - John Lilly and the Solid State Intelligence.

In the series I go into the possible reasons why ‘we can’t have nice things’: Are autonomous ‘dark forces’ conspiring to enslave us to their techno-agenda? Is it simply a series of coordination failures or a tragedy of the commons? Were people like Rudolf Steiner, Terrence McKenna and John C. Lilly onto something, on drugs, or merely crackpots? What roles do myth and storytelling play in all of this?

guyjames.eth can now be described as 'Award Winning'!

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 11:00:30 +0100

If you visit the site guyjames.eth using Brave browser or use an IPFS plugin on other browsers you can directly access the decentralised version, otherwise best to use https://guyjames.eth.limo which can be accessed by all browsers.

Thanks to the search engine for the decentralized web for the award:

http://esteroids.eth.limo

http://esteroids.eth.link

guyjames.eth

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 20:00:30 +0100

I am pleased to say that I am now the owner of the ENS domain name, guyjames.eth. ENS domains are domain names which are registered on the Ethereum blockchain.

I had been hesitant to register one because of the horrendous gas fees but I regretted not doing so sooner, as there recently was an airdrop to everyone who had one of these domains in ENS governance tokens, and which ended up being potentially quite lucrative. Of course one of the integral parts of dabbling with cryptocurrencies is a crushing sense of disappointment on missing out on lots of free money every now and then, so I take it in my stride. I have also had occasions of being gifted tokens which ended up being worth something so I can’t really complain.

The Swap Fair

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:00:30 +0100

Por la noche en la ciudad

Es la puta realidad

Solo existe policía, desgraciada policía

¡Oh no!

Documentación, me han pillado de marrón

Me habeis cortado el vacilón, a comisaría

Oh no! - Eskorbuto - ‘Oh No! No! No!’

At night in the city

It’s the fucking reality

There’s only police, the goddamn police

Oh no!

Documentation, I’m busted

You’ve spoiled my fun, now off to the police station

Oh no!

WTF Is Mutual Credit, or: How To Avoid Another Economic Crisis

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 19:15:30 +0200

I attempt a relatively brief and accessible explanation of why we are in the mess we are in economically and how we might get out of it using Mutual Credit currencies.

Talk given at the Unconference at the end of the Tools For The Regenerative Renaissance course, organised by Renaissance University.

Ordinary Mind Is Buddha Mind

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 15:11:11 +0200

There is a zen saying: “ordinary mind is Buddha mind”. I did understand this saying, but yesterday I realised it in a whole new way: Often what prompts us to start investigating ’this spiritual stuff’, is a feeling of isolation; we feel as if, as this quote from A.E. Housman illustrates —

‘I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.’

We feel cut off from the source of life in some undefinable way, atomised by societal conditioning and our own past. Worried, scared, controlled by our own thoughts, unable to ever really find a sense of peace or rest. So we start looking for alternatives, and if there is a way to somehow recover something like the sense of being connected to the world that we had as a child.

When Meditation Makes Things Worse

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 20:36:30 +0200

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” ― C. G. Jung

Some practitioners of meditation appear to be holding on to assumptions which, while possibly beneficial in the proper context, can in fact end up being actually harmful when misunderstood. I speak from personal experience here, and also often see others struggling with this. You may well recognise it from your own practice. One of these is ’the more I meditate, the closer I get to being enlightened'.

Is Your Life Really Predetermined?

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 22:20:30 +0200

I was watching, and enjoying, the series Devs, developed by Alex Garland - if you haven’t seen it, it’s a philosophical conundrum wrapped in a streaming mini-series format, something like Black Mirror or Mr Robot, with a very nice aesthetic to the music and design. Or it’s a standard sci-fi mini-series with pretensions to having something to say philosophically. Anyway it got me thinking, which presumably is the point.

This site is now on IPFS

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 17:07:30 +0200

Thanks to fleek.co, this site is now mirrored using the decentralised IPFS network. The direct link is https://delicate-field-7734.on.fleek.co/, but easier to use the subdomain at ipfs.guyjames.com.

Nice to know that I can’t be censored when I break out the news that Bill Gates is secretly developing a new mandatory vaccine which connects recipients to the forthcoming 6G mobile network using embedded receivers in the eyelid (joke).

IPFS is one of the most exciting new technologies around at the moment, maybe actually starting to realise the promise of Internet 3.0, which is itself a reboot of the original decentralised premise of the Internet. Fleek makes it super-easy to convert a static site based on Hugo (like this one), or using one of the other popular site generators like Gatsby or Jekyll. This gives time-poor people the opportunity to avail themselves of exciting new tech without spending ages learning how to do it and configuring it - I set this up in literally five minutes.

Mi Charla Sobre 'Criptomonedas Sociales'

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 16:06:30 +0200

Some posts on this blog will probably end up being in Spanish, here’s one about an online talk I did about Social Cryptocurrencies.

Aquí publico una charla que hice para una hackathon que tomó lugar en La Palma, Canarias y se llamaba EcologyHub. Unos proyectos muy interesantes, organizado por pandorahub.co y La Palma Renovable, dos proyectos super-potentes.

Hablo de la situación actual con la economia yendo de crisis a crisis, porque el capitalismo es eficiente pero no resiliente, porque la demanda es más importante que la oferta cuando se hace el diseño de una moneda alternativa, el crédito mútuo, criptomonedas, Holochain, etc. Espero que os guste.

Interview With Me About Mutual Credit

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 10:06:30 +0200

Thanks to my friend and FairCoop colleague, Mario, for the interview. Follow him on Twitter: @TalkAlternativ1

Now The Dancing Begins

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 17:46:20 +0000

Disrupt the Foundations, Then What?

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 19:48:22 +0200

“We broke the ruptured structure built of age.” - David Bowie, Cygnet Committee.

I was just listening to the eMERGE podcast, the interview with Jamie Wheal by Daniel Thorson, and they were talking about the perception that, bit by bit, everything familiar is being deconstructed. And I remember that I had the sensation the other day when I woke up, that money had no value; that I would live to see a day, or there will be a day when, suddenly or gradually, money has no value - that we would have completely lost faith in the concept of money itself. Essentially money is a shared reality, an emergent property of a network. Without belief in it, a credit card is just a piece of plastic, and ’ten Euros’ just reverts to being a piece of paper.

...and we're back on air

Fri, 08 May 2020 15:13:02 +0200

After an abortive attempt to relaunch last year, I finally locked myself into an apartment and didn’t let myself out until I had it more or less done this time. There are still a few things to do (more technical details for those interested, below), such as paginate the stream of posts - at the moment it’s just one long list, and crucially, add comments - my technical demands mean I can’t just go for the easy option, so those will have to wait. If you have a burning need to comment on something either send me a message via the contact form or contact me on Twitter or one of the other social networks listed at the bottom left of this page. The RSS feed is also not working, it was but now it’s broken again, and I promise to make it a priority to fix it for those who prefer to use a feed reader (I am also one of those people so I understand).

The Emperor's New Clothes

Fri, 08 May 2020 10:39:54 +0000

The kid was waiting for a train. Alfie paused as the previous one roared without stopping through the station. Deathly silence for a second, then a thought, a naked flash.

He had heard that the Emperor had asked for a new suit of clothes. The fabricators had told him they would use the latest technology. It was all over the networks. They would use a quantum-potential fabric which would appear thicker depending on the intelligence of the perceiver.

The Myth of Progress and the Fear of Death

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 18:44:27 +0000

have you seen the moon tonight
it's very nearly full
so eat and drink your fill
for soon 'twill come to pass
the king will feed the grass
and sacrifice his personality
to the tree
to the sea
cos 'it's not me'
oh no personality
will never pass for me
because I'm really the grass

- Daevid Allen, Song of Satisfaction, from the album 'Good Morning', 1975.

All contemporary political movements are in some way progressive, and in this article I will argue where that comes from, and why buying into the idea of Progress, as currently understood, will only serve to deepen our current predicament.

“Code is Love”: Justice On the Blockchain

Wed, 16 May 2018 15:01:27 +0000

We all know that ‘love’ is a dirty word these days. It is relentlessly abused by advertisers who always seek to exploit our earliest psychological bonds with our parents and then by sheer repetition, associate themselves with those symbols we learnt in our childhood relating to those bonds. ‘Love’ is one such, and massively overused by Hollywood to boot, in its romantic aspect.

However, as Cornel West so eloquently put it —

Here Be Dragons!

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 10:39:54 +0000

Manifesto For A New Adventure

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.“ – Rosa Luxemburg

“Don’t get caught up in the spectacle of opposition. Oppose the spectacle.” “Those who lack imagination cannot imagine what is lacking.” – Situationist graffiti

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate”. – C. G. Jung

“Why should you study and practice Magick? Because you can’t help doing it, and you had better do it well than badly.”” Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears

Eczema As Koan Update

Sat, 09 Jan 2016 10:22:56 +0000

I thought I would add a brief update related to my previous posts about becoming healed from severe eczema. These passages are adapted from replies to people on the Eczema/Topical Steroid Withdrawal group on Facebook. Given the ephemeral nature of Facebook I wanted to save them somewhere in case they might be useful to anyone in the future.

“There is no urgency. Summer does not rush towards autumn. One tiny blade of grass is not trying to…”

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 15:18:03 +0000

“There is no urgency. Summer does not rush towards autumn. One tiny blade of grass is not trying to grow faster than its neighbour. The planets spin lazily in their orbits. This ancient universe is in no hurry.

But the mind, feeling so divided from the totality, wants answers now, wants solutions today, wants to know so badly. It wants to reach its precious conclusions. And, ultimately, it wants to be in control.

The Goal – El Objetivo

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:11:29 +0000

The goal of meditation – if there is a goal – is to make thoughts, emotions, and apparent limitations transparent so that the absolute reality, the changeless and limitless, can be perceived through them.

El objetivo de la meditación – si hay un objetivo – es hacer transparente los pensamientos, emociones y limitaciones aparentes, para que se pueda percibir la realidad absoluta, lo inmutable y sin límites, a través de ellos.

The Raptcha

Fri, 15 May 2015 12:37:01 +0000

Raptcha – when you are swept up to heaven based on correctly copying some random letters and numbers into a text box.

(I actually dreamt this bizarre pun)

via tumblr http://ift.tt/1L6PFZq published on May 15, 2015 at 01:37PM

Some rights reserved – Creative Commons Licence.

The Emptiness of ‘Emptiness’: P2P Spiritual Knowledge and Community

Sun, 30 Nov 2014 18:40:29 +0000

Michel Bauwens points out in his article ‘If we can have p2p economics, why not p2p spirituality?’ that the dominant spiritual and economic models of a particular age often mirror each other:

“Spirituality and religion always bear the hallmark of the social structures in which they were born and become embedded. Emerging religions often represent a partial transformation of these social structures because they represent new forms of consciousness, but they can never become hegemonic if they are not rooted in, and accepted by, the mainstream social logic.”

Eczema As Koan Part 3: The Way Out

Sun, 24 Aug 2014 11:38:57 +0000

This is part three of my account of how I came to experience full healing from a very severe experience of eczema lasting several years. Part one is here and part two is here.

3I have covered my journey of healing and discovery up until this point, which took the form of a voyage into the depths of Hell and out again.

Eczema as Koan Part 2: The Descent Into Hell

Sat, 16 Aug 2014 19:19:10 +0000

This is part two of my account of how I came to experience full healing from a very severe experience of eczema lasting several years. Part one is here and part three is here

Having ‘turned the corner’ as it were, (in terms of hope for the future if not in an actual improvement in my health), although I didn’t know for sure then if it was a genuine ‘touching rock bottom’, or merely one more step on the way down, I began to search for something which might genuinely make a difference to my health. I had the deep suspicion that the cause of the eczema was not merely physical, and that as I had already completely changed my diet, was taking much more exercise than before (including playing squash, swimming (although not in the sea – way too painful!) and doing Chi Gong) and was still suffering a great deal, I felt that there must be a way of liberating the subconscious energy which I felt must be at the root of the skin condition.

Eczema as Koan Part 1

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 18:51:03 +0000

This is part one of a three part article; part two is here and the final part is here

An excerpt from a recent article on my blog:

“About four years ago I spilt up with my girlfriend and subsequently became rather ill – I was eventually hospitalised and on admission the first nurse who saw me in a hospital gown assumed I had been burnt in a house fire, so badly destroyed was the weeping, bleeding skin all over my body. I took the drugs they gave me and the skin got better quickly. The drugs eventually weakened my teeth to the point that I broke three in just a couple of weeks so I stopped taking them. Within about a week the skin was really bad again. I tried every therapy, alternative or otherwise I could find, changed my diet completely. Nothing really worked.”

Rock Bottom

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 21:08:58 +0000

The recent article by Josh Ellis ‘Everyone I Know Is Brokenhearted which has apparently gone viral, seems to have struck a chord among large numbers of people seriously disaffected by the current state of affairs in which we find ourselves. I also read a moving companion piece in A counterpoint for the brokenhearted in which the author provides pays tribute to a friend who did everything he could to relieve the suffering of desperate people.

Privacy, Responsibility, and ‘Floating Anarchy’

Sun, 20 Oct 2013 19:50:14 +0000

If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation become necessary. There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state everyone is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbour. In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there is no State.’ – Gandhi

‘Anarchy is not misrule but no rule’ – Floating Anarchy Manifesto, Daevid Allen

Following on from my previous post, ‘Big Brother is the Reincarnation of God, I have been considering how we give up our power to our god-surrogate, whether that be in the form of governments, corporations, or indeed organised religions.

Of course one of the main ways in which we surrender ourselves to the ‘Man Upstairs’ is through opting for convenience over our own long term benefit. I remember when Google first launched the GMail service, and certain troublemakers pointed out that the Big G would have to analyse all our private emails in order to supply us with targeted advertising. I considered these warnings for a few minutes, to be sure, but then remembering the Google motto of ‘Don’t Be Evil’, and their perceived track record of generally being pretty good around privacy issues, I chose, as apparently a vast majority did, to ignore the potential dangers and focus on the features of this new email service. And I have to say, that GMail is a great email service, and certainly pushed the whole notion of how to provide email up a level, introducing many innovations which have since been copied by other providers (even Microsoft eventually caught on, after a few years).

But with the Snowden revelations, and those of other whistleblowers, we realise that our trust in Google was misplaced, or perhaps being more charitable, our trust in how the internet works was misplaced – we still don’t know how much Google or other corporations knew about, or are able to prevent, the likes of the NSA spying on everyone’s emails. We may assume that as they didn’t see it as a problem to analyse everyone’s emails themselves, that personal privacy was not exactly at the top of their list, but of course we had the clear option of rejecting the GMail model on privacy grounds, and we chose not to, which brings me to one of the main points of this article.

Big Brother is the Reincarnation of God

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 10:40:44 +0000

‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms.’ — Nietzsche, The Gay Science.

‘In one period of experimentation with acid, Barrett and another friend, Paul Charrier, end up naked in the bath, reciting: “No rules, no rules”.’ – Manning, Toby (2006). The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd.

Taken from Boing Boing

Ok here we go… I had a dream last night – I was in a large, old-fashioned wood-panelled library; on the wall was a painting of a mischievous looking wizard – in appearance something like a cross between Alan Watts and Gandalf as played by Sir Ian McKellen. He was winking. The painting was somehow alive, and I realised that he was watching me – I ducked under the large wooden table which occupied the centre of the room (not unlike the table in Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper) and his eyes followed me down there. On waking, I realised that this paternal figure represented God and his omniscience – he knows everything we do, he is watching all the time, he knows when we’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake (or was that a different conditionally-loving Father-figure?).

A Question?

Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:04:57 +0000

Swift easy despair

Tempt me to the edge

A senseless swoon

Black eyes point

Back to the womb

A narrative spent-

The infant only has moments,

No breeze of story

Catches his sails.

He twists in the winds of hazard,

Careless, not free

Because freedom is owned by its opposite

As all things

Extracted from the fabric

Like time

A conception laid bare

Shown to be without foundation

We fall

Ananta

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:13:34 +0000

The endless sweep of the horizon

From my window seat, the sea

Gazing past the concrete holiday boxes

Today the wind is fierce

A hulk with two cranes shelters distantly in the bay

Overpowering banks of light trained on the shore

Pin points as

The sun sinks into the grey beyond

The steel sides groan against the waves

Its lights now become the sun

We can only know the endless by that which seems to end

Everyone in the dream is you.

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:27:54 +0000

Everyone in the dream is you.

via tumblr http://tumblr.guyjames.com/post/42777140802 published on February 10, 2013 at 09:09PM

Some rights reserved – Creative Commons Licence.

Just uploaded Dirty Electrick Prog to Mixcloud. Listen now!

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:55:45 +0000

Just uploaded ‘Dirty Electrick Prog’ to Mixcloud. Listen now!

If we can learn anything from the 20th Century, surely it is the utter futility of utopias.

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 07:26:11 +0000

If we can learn anything from the 20th Century, surely it is the utter futility of utopias.

via tumblr http://tumblr.guyjames.com/post/42170441000 published on February 03, 2013 at 08:00AM

Some rights reserved – Creative Commons Licence.

Everything in the movie is temporary; even the camera and its lens are decaying.

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:56:01 +0000

Everything in the movie is temporary; even the camera and its lens are decaying.

via tumblr http://tumblr.guyjames.com/post/41790931871 published on January 29, 2013 at 05:51PM

Some rights reserved – Creative Commons Licence.

Meditation without honesty is like trying to sweep leaves in a blizzard.

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:55:26 +0000

Meditation without honesty is like trying to sweep leaves in a blizzard.

via tumblr http://tumblr.guyjames.com/post/41692512969 published on January 28, 2013 at 11:41AM

Get A Job

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:31:23 +0000

I wrote this article at the height of the ‘Occupy’ protests around the world – for some reason I never posted it – the other day I found it and I believe the majority of it is still relevant some months down the line, so here it is:

The end of drudgery and the start of doing some real work.

When I was in my early 20s, and searching around in some kind of depressed fug for ‘a job’, I had a memorable dream. A brass band was marching around inside a large open-plan office, several floors up, followed by the employees of that office. At one end of the room there was a large floor-to ceiling glass window which had been opened – the whole party simply marched out of the window to their deaths. Somehow at the time, I failed to recognise the significance of the dream, although I did write it down so I must have known it was important in some way. The meaning now couldn’t be clearer.

Rebel Leader – No Wars

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:37:07 +0000

A tune from back in the day by my electronica offshoot, Rebel Leader.

Why Do Santa’s Reindeer Fly? A Video by Guy James

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:43:51 +0000

The psychedelic and shamanic origins of Christmas.

You Are The Seer of Everything

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:08:58 +0000

New spacey track by me featuring the voice of the spiritual teacher, Mooji.

This is the first time I’ve used the ‘glissando guitar’ technique as pioneered by Syd Barrett and perfected by Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage in Gong.

Guy James Album Available

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:37:32 +0000

My self-titled album has now been re-released. It was available for a short time at amiestreet.com but that was bought by Amazon and everything on that site was never seen again.

So you can listen to it and if you like, buy it (please do!) at music.guyjames.com.

It was a real labour of love and I have to say I am very pleased with it. Big thanks to Scutty Lefunk who helped out with large parts of it and contributed two of the greatest guitar solos you will hear, on ‘Crashing on the rocks in your head’ and ‘Residue’.

The Beginning Is Nigh

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:12:38 +0000

Having read Douglas Rushkoff’s excellent appraisal of the Occupy Wall Street movement, I felt I would like to add some thoughts.

There is a new consciousness crystallising, and Rushkoff said something which (as usual) was very insightful, in that the mainstream media are having trouble getting to grips with the (r)evolution because they can’t see it, it just looks like a jumble of different causes all mixed together, and the people at the heart of it refuse to discuss it on the mainstream media’s terms, and reduce everything to black and white and soundbites.

Kill Your Practice

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:53:42 +0000

Buddhists call what they do when they sit down to meditate ‘practice’. Of course all words are imperfect when we enter the tricky realm of the non-dual but I really feel this term is misleading if we are wanting to enter the Absolute in our meditation. The idea of meditation being something one practices and gradually becomes good at creates the feeling that in the future, when we are ‘good at meditation’ we will enter the Eternal Present. On reflection, of course this is absurd- the Eternal Present is present in this normal, workaday moment we have here, with me writing these words and you reading them. There is no greater opportunity than this.

Art

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:01:02 +0000

What is the purpose of language? To communicate.

What is the purpose of art? To communicate that which language cannot.

Humility

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:06:40 +0000

Be thankful for your imperfect human body, because if our bodies were as beautiful as our soul, we would be insufferably conceited.

Just BEING is a Revolutionary Act

Thu, 26 May 2011 10:54:29 +0000

By which I mean, just ‘being’ without doing anything, thinking anything in particular, or trying to be anyone special.

In this way we are not ‘productive’, we are not caught in the trap of ‘becoming’, we are not placing hope in an illusory ‘future’ which acts as a drug to stop us seeing the reality of how things are right now.

We are defying the corporate mindset that all people have to be efficient cogs in the machine, the machine which will deliver us to our inevitable technological Utopia.

Winners

Wed, 25 May 2011 11:36:20 +0000

“O gifted men, vainglorious for first place,

how short a time the laurel crown stays green

……………………………………..

A breath of wind is all there is to fame

here upon earth: it blows this way and that,

and when it changes quarter it changes name.”

– Dante.

It’s a shame that the winner in Formula 1 no longer gets a laurel wreath like they used to. Perhaps because we have forgotten that success is inherently transient.

Resonance of Place

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:57:55 +0000

How much does location play a part in your sound?

“I am fascinated by the resonance certain places can have, which invests them with almost heroic proportions. The very name of a place itself can inspire awe and credibility. There are countless examples of this in American folk and pop music and beyond and I am trying to key into a mode which elevates places around Britain, which have a personal resonance, into the realm of myth and mystery. In this sense certain locations play a big part in the music we make; trying to mythologise a place which provided the backdrop to some great personal realisation or other.”

–Alex Neilson, Trembling Bells

William Blake: ‘Proverbs of Hell’ Read by Guy James (amb traduccions en Catala)

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:52:50 +0000

William Blake: ‘Proverbs of Hell’ Read by Guy James (amb traduccions en Català)

It's time for a new colour on earth!

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:43:44 +0000

It’s time for a new colour on earth!

Guy James – White Horses of the Wind

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:48:10 +0000

Instruments, production and vocals by Guy James.

Vocals by Jenny and Natalie.

On SoundCloud

Guy James – Sweet Nothing

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:50:27 +0000

On SoundCloud

This is the News

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 10:43:12 +0000

I just realised what ‘The News’ is; it is not primarily a record of the day’s most important events but is actually a presentation of a point of view about a single subject. That subject is Death and the opinion you are invited to have is that it is a Bad Thing. Look at the grim faces of the newsreaders as they describe how many have perished and in what way. There is never the suggestion that death is part of life and that it might not even be worthy of mention. As we don’t know what happens after we die, to assume it is a bad thing is just as ignorant as assuming we all go to heaven and should all therefore be happy about it.

Proud to be British

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:48:06 +0000

The only time I’ve really felt proud to be British in recent times was watching the recent Bill Hicks documentary. In the USA Bill was playing tiny clubs and people just didn’t ‘get’ him. He came to the UK and was soon selling out the 4,000 seater Dominion Theatre in London. His relief at finally being understood makes me proud of our ‘black’ sense of humour.

Poetry

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:27:14 +0000

All can be poetry when you are in tune with the present moment.

Holotropic Breathwork

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 11:29:10 +0000

The psyche has an almost relentless tendency to create and draw toward itself experiences that match the experiential quality of the unconscious inner material. Thus, a person with leftover trauma from choking in the birth canal will unconsciously create situations of high stress, with no room to breathe or the world closing in. These patterns can persist indefinitely until the material is faced on the level from which it originates as powerful leftover emotions from within the psyche.

Guy James – Squinty Straight Lights

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:04:52 +0000

On SoundCloud

A Dream

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:26:42 +0000

Dream: i heard a noise coming out of the bean bag. i undid the zip- i sensed that this was the place all my songs came from. out came a big black spider, which started spinning a web. the spider changed into a panther with strong piercing eyes. i was repulsed by the spider, but was less afraid of the panther. i put my hand out, and it jumped at it, but more playfully than anything. it cuddled my arm in the way cats do when they’re play-fighting. in the morning i found a large spider in the flat, the first one i’ve ever found in here. i flattened it.

Nothing is Sacred

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:12:06 +0000

nothing is sacred

look above the clouds

the wind blows in the space between you and the distant stars

nothing is sacred… no one knows where it will go

the wind is silent until it touches you

you are part of the wind

the stars are in your brain

a black hole in your brain

nothing is sacred… no one knows how long

the sun is cold until it touches you

Guy James & Sarah Sansom – The Brunettes

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:47:00 +0000

On SoundCloud

Thanks to Sarah for playing piano and cello on this one.

Multiplex: Unknown Control (Guy James Remix)

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:24:01 +0000

A remix I did of a track by the band Multiplex. It was released in Canada only by Piehead records.

On SoundCloud

Music of the Sun: The Eternal Fascination of Yes!

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:26:53 +0000

Prog rock. Progressive Rock. Filthy, hated, heretical noise, utterly shunned since Year Zero (1976). But I love it… or a great deal of it anyway.

Those who lump dazzling avatars of God’s Own Progression like Yes, Genesis (the early version, naturally) and King Crimson in with lumpen regurgitators of egoistic bombast like Emerson Lake and Palmer are merely demonstrating their own cloth-ears. Where ELP sound totally of their time, Yes in particular are still in the fantastic future world they created for themselves.

Are You the One?

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:13:59 +0000

I was just thinking about the concept of ‘the One’ in relationships and how it affects our expectations. People fall in love and in the midst of the euphoria of those initial weeks (or months if they’re lucky) of bliss, they often believe they have found ‘the One’ – whether they already believed they were waiting for such a person, or the intensity of the experience leads them to believe in such an ideal relationship.

Colliding Utopias… and John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:41:43 +0000

Last night I had the realisation, but to be honest it felt like a revelation, (and like all good revelations I can’t now understand why it wasn’t already obvious to me), that a great deal of the conflict in the world is caused by clashes between different groups trying to promote their own version of ‘utopia’. I had vaguely intimated this on being sent an article on John Gray, a distinctly anti-utopian philosopher, by my friend Nils Borg.

Nobody believes in god like an atheist

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:57:41 +0000

But the atheist, you see — the man who advertises his disbelief in god — is a very pious person. Nobody believes in god like an atheist. ‘There is no god, and I am his prophet.’

Alan Watts

I’ve always thought that Richard Dawkins and his followers have an evangelical air about them, confirmed by the ‘Atheist Ad Campaign’.

I mean if religion is a bad thing, then why drag yourself down to their level? Who cares what other people believe, surely it’s a personal thing? What happened to ‘live and let live’?

The Bubble Burst

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:00:56 +0000

I’ve been hearing a lot about the Stock Market bubble bursting, or the financial bubble has burst or whatever, but what it really seems to be is that the whole bubble of our culture is about to burst.

And why? For the same reason that these big financial institutions are in trouble: when something gets totally cut off from reality, it forms a bubble, and forms a little reality of its own- the trouble is, this reality, like any bubble, will pop sooner or later.

Thoughts on Herzog’s ‘Heart of Glass’

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:35:22 +0000

I just saw this film yesterday and it totally blew me away. Someone had said I should see it but I couldn’t remember why, I watched the whole thing with this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that there was something very odd about it.

After it was over I looked it up on the net and then I remembered: the reason I particularly wanted to see it (apart from the fact that I want to see all of Herzog’s films), and one of the reasons it is very odd, is that all the actors in it are hypnotised, except one, Josef Bierbichler, who plays Hias, the herdsman who can see into the future.

Living in a World Without Trends

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:46:24 +0000

I’ve just realised something that may have been obvious to everyone else for ages: that now the vice-like grip of major label record labels has been loosened, the music business has more or less reached the end of trends.

About Me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ruminations on consciousness, collapse, regenerative cultures, Web3.0, psychedelics and music.

Currently working with The Elevator.

In the past I have worked with the Cooperativa Integral Catalana - you can see me and others talking about it in the documentary Autogestió - also the Ecoxarxa Garrotxa, and FairCoop. For more details see the CV page.

In my opinion humanity is approaching a threshold: we are in an extended process of birthing a new consciousness. The increasing collapse of default systems, both internal and external, is part of this, and the outcome is not assured. My interest is in stepping up to help the transition and in building the systems we need.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

To get in touch send me an email at info [@] guyjames.com

Or schedule time with me using this form:

Hire Me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Basic

Male
Born 1969 in the UK
Currently living in a town in NE Spain (Catalonia, north of Barcelona)

My LinkedIn Profile

Work/Affiliations

I currently working at The Elevator which is a nascent ‘consciousness accelerator’/think tank. I am producing a digest/newsletter on consciousness research for The Elevator in collaboration with the author Daniel Pinchbeck; it can be found at wearetheelevator.substack.com
I am collaborating as a trainer with the EcologyHub project based in Terres de l’Ebre in the south of Catalonia
I co-managed the retreat centre Les Gavatxes in the area of La Alta Garrotxa, Catalonia, Spain for 7 years
I have collaborated with SEEDS on their tokenomics/currency model
I worked on the FairCoop project, effectively one of the first DAOs, for 4 years: 2014-18
I have worked with the Cooperativa Integral Catalana and the Ecoxarxa Garrotxa, localised cooperative projects in Catalonia, using local currencies
I was collaborating with the P2P Foundation around 2014-16
I worked with Guerrilla Translation, co-creating their website, translating and copy-editing 2015-16
I have collaborated with Pandorahub on their website, and helped them create grant applications
I have published several books, both printed and electronic using open source tools, details on request
I have produced a monthly magazine for the British Society of Catalunya since 2016
I ran my own IT business repairing computers, fixing problems, creating websites, and teaching for 15 years

Education

Institutional

I have 10 ‘O’ levels, 3 ‘A’ levels, and one ‘S’ level
I have a BA in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Sussex, UK

Courses Taken

Commons Engine course on Currency Design with Jean Russell, Ferananda Ibarra and Jean Russell
Future of Money course with Grace Rachmany
Money and Society MOOC with Matthew Slater and Jem Bendell
Building Our Regenerative Future with Daniel Pinchbeck
The Creative Word with Daniel Pinchbeck
Crossing The Threshold with Daniel Pinchbeck
Secret Histories and Spiritual Revolutions with Daniel Pinchbeck
Tools For The Regenerative Renaissance with Stephen Reid and Phoebe Tickell
How To DAO with Stephen Reid
How To DeFi with Stephen Reid
The Promise of Decentralisation with Stephen Reid
SEEDS Ambassador Academy
Intro to ReFi with Antonio Paglino and Joe Brewer
Civichub incubator/course with Diana Moret and many other facilitators
Ecologyhub Canarias with Diana Moret
Sensemaking 101 with Rebel Wisdom and Ivo Mensch
Breathwork and Growth with Rebel Wisdom and Prema McKeever
The Art of Difficult Conversations with Rebel Wisdom, Sara Ness and Geof Krum
Distributed Governance Salon with Jean Russell and Melissa Pierce
Wisdoms Of Water with advaya
Dionysus with advaya
I have participated in several Zen retreats, including with Michel Dubois Sensei and Roshi Jackie Demmers from the White Plum Soto Zen lineage
I had several years of Spanish lessons, and also did various Catalan courses including the online parla.cat one
I am learning Portuguese at the moment using an app

Skills

I speak English (native), Spanish (fluently), Catalan (fairly well), French (fairly badly), Portuguese (beginner)
Translation from Spanish to English
Copywriting, proofreading, and editing
Book publication, both printed and ebook formats
Adobe InDesign and Photoshop
HTML and CSS, Typo3, WordPress
Linux command-line admin
Local AI setup (ollama, LM Studio, etc.)
Hardware and software admin and diagnostics on Windows, MacOS and Linux
Music and video editing using open source tools such as Audacity and Kdenlive
I can play the guitar to a solid level

Events

I have spoken at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona on blockchain and currency design.
I participated in the Network Convergence in 2018, representing FairCoop, with participants from networks including Enspiral, Holochain, Outlandish and many others.
I was present at the theCAREconomy Meet-Up in Caux, Switzerland in 2018, again representing FairCoop, and talking about local currencies and blockchain with participants including Kate Raworth and representatives of local and national governments including Finland and Ghent, Belgium.
I have appeared on several podcasts and been interviewed by academics, mostly on the subject of currency design and blockchain/Web3.0.

Interests

I love almost all kinds of music, particularly jazz fusion and prog rock, but also folk, jazz, singer-songwriter, neo-classical, orchestral, etc…
I am an enthusiastic participant in Holotropic Breathwork therapy, developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof. So far I have done 29 one-day workshops in this and am planning to become a facilitator
I have been meditating since I was 18
I am working at improving my writing, particularly for my newsletter
I am an advocate for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and have been using Linux as my main OS since 2012
I enjoy walks in the mountains here in Catalonia
I am learning photography and own a Sony Alpha A6000 mirrorless camera
I love cinema, favourite directors include Tarkovsky, Bergman, Fellini, Buñuel

Favourite Authors (in no particular order)

I mostly read non-fiction although I am currently enjoying the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks
Alan W. Watts
Robert A. Johnson
Oscar Wilde
Daniel Pinchbeck
Carolyn Elliott
Nassim Taleb
John Higgs
Julie Rehmeyer
Jed McKenna
Daniel Ingram
Rebecca Solnit
Charles Eisenstein
Iain McGilchrist
Paul Levy
Jamie Wheal
Paul Krafel
Ken Wilber
Marie-Lousie von Franz
Philip K. Dick
Patrick Harpur
Terrence McKenna
Barry Long
J. Krishnamurti
Douglas Rushkoff
Alan Moore
Venkatesh Rao
Gary Lachman

Music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Click here to go to my BandCamp page

I have more songs and info at my SoundCloud page and you can listen to the album and subscribe to updates at my Facebook Page

Music, not for taking drugs to, but that is in itself a drug.