Dev's Newsletter - March 2024

I’ve decided to put my monthly newsletters online, so that there’s a record of them for people who want to catch up. Apologies if you’re now getting it twice.

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February feels like it's been a busy month for me. Mostly because I wrote a novel. I hadn't had the urge to write one since 2016, when I wrote Ashram, Ashram. I have instead been chugging along with one therapy book a year. But at the end of Jan that strange compulsion started up again. I sat up one Friday night and did 3000 words. And having started, decided to just get into it. It's called Lemurian Pushback; it's full of hippies, billionaires, tech bros, lemurs and accelerationism. In short it's weird but also a comedy. I'll send a mail round when it's up on Amazon, likely next week.

I think Feb has been a month when I've also been getting clearer and more accepting of some of my inner tendencies and behaviours. I see that I like being on the periphery. I like being on the edge, whether in culture or in relationships. I don't really seek stability. I don't really want to be back in what I perceive as a normal love relationship, even though I often tell myself that I do. I don't really aspire to the values of the culture that I grew up in, or the one that I became inculcated into, though they still intrigue and affect me. I feel like anyone observing my behaviour from the outside could likely tell this about me with ease. But that it has taken me a long time to really see and accept it. I sit around reading Phillip Dick or Nick Land and think, dear God this is some crazy shit, but I also recognise that I get development from hanging out on the edges of culture and trying to make sense of what's there. This is somehow where I belong.

Another cool thing I did in February was to go back to the UK for a friend's birthday, just for the weekend. This was good for me for two reasons. It was great to see old friends I have from the therapy scene I was in twenty odd years ago, just to reconnect and reaffirm our relationship. But also just to show myself that I can just take a little trip to get some nourishment if I feel like it, or need it. I can easily get into thinking that I'm a thousand miles from Britain and I need a major reason to go back and that I should stay at least for a week or two. 

For the rest, I am doing basically good. Trying to get my residence permit renewed so I can have another year in Istanbul. They've got a lot tougher on allowing foreigners to live here in the last months but I'm told I should be okay. Fingers crossed. The world is changing, in terms of travel and access, and I like being outside the West where I think it's easier to see objectively what's happening as the propaganda here is much more obvious than it is in the UK. 

I have some more UK workshops in the pipeline. A 3-day residential at Osho Leela in June and a 5-day one next January. In between, I'm doing a few more London one day events. Find out more about all these online here. 

Now that my anxiety book is out, and doing well, and my novel is pretty much done, I'm determined to complete my book on the Qabalistic Cube of Space and Bioenergetics, that I started last year, but gave up on as it was too confusing to try and write it at the same time as the anxiety one. I'll send an update about that next month.

Spring is not quite sprung here in Istanbul but the days are getting longer and sunnier. I will soon take some relaxing trips out to "the islands" a twenty minute boat ride away. The Prince Islands, or Adalar, are just such a treasure.

I send you love.

Devaraj