Urban Nomad. Who is the Smith?

I am the Smith.

I am the author.

Why ‘the Smith’?

The smiths were the crafters, the metal smiths, the blacksmiths, the makers of Medieval Britain a thousand years ago.

I am the wordsmith.

I’ve written and self-published 8 autobiographical books.

Click or tap the image above to see.

This smith has lived everywhere.

Over 50 dwellings have been my home.

An ancient aboriginal corroboree ground in a wilderness area known as Fairy Hills where the creek met the river was my first memory of life.

And only a few kilometres from the Melbourne CBD.

I’ve just learned they’ve been digging up ancient aboriginal artifacts that suggest this.

I’ve lived with psychics and healers.

And sat with mediums or channels.

I’ve lived with a Reiki Master in New York.

With a Roman Catholic nurse in the north of Italy.

With a Buddhist in the UK.

My lawyer was an Atheist.

I didn’t live with him.

I ran my own freelance copywriting business. in the ’70s

In 1972 I won an award for the best television campaign of the year for a brand of meat pies and donuts.

I was a New Age hippie.

We knew about climate change 50 years ago.

A group of us started a commune on 40 acres north of Melbourne to become self-sufficient and live off the grid.

A year later we’d failed.

I helped launch Animal Liberation here.

Our patron was Peter Singer, who was then Professor of Bioethics at Harvard., and wrote the book ‘Animal Liberation’.

45 years later it’s still active today.

I was the first member of the Permaculture Association.

Which, started by two Tasmanian academics in the late ’70s, today is changing the world

Now there are over one million people certified in Permaculture in over 140 countries with more than 4,000 projects on the ground.

I went bankrupt.

An article I researched and wrote 35 years ago – about the Swiss and Italian gold miners who came to Australia in the 1850s – triggered the launch of a Swiss-Italian Festa which is still running every year today in a local spa resort town.

Their story is in my book here.

I ran a social group called ‘The Springs Whole Health Group’.

We never ran out of guest speakers on healing topics, from ley lines to chemical sensitivity, who I’d enjoy interviewing every month before our next meeting.

Then I would write an article for the local paper which they always published on page 3 or 5.

This while living frugally in an old caravan parked at the end of a street in the spa resort town.

Over 5 years I became known as the man in the van.

I studied many spiritual philosophies.

I studied Religious Experience as an off campus mature age student at Uni –

The Christian Mystics

The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita.

Australian Aboriginal Dreaning.

I practiced Yoga for 50 years from wherever I called home.

Briefly I joined the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, with headquarters in Adyar, India, with the motto ‘There is no religion higher than Truth’.

I met and befriended the Librarian of the Melbourne branch, a Wise Woman, who taught me how and where and why to search for Truth.

What is Truth?

For a time I was married and today have the pleasure of a beautiful family of 2 lovely daughters, 3 adorable granddaughters and 2 mischievous great grandsons.

I’m truly blessed

Visit my 8 fun and entertaining autobiographical books on my Author Page here.

You can find more of my adventures in my autobiographical books.

Namaste.

Neil the Smith (author)

PS. I recommend – ‘Our Thoughts Can Change The World’ (104 pages) and The Great Regency Cover-Up’ (236 pages). Buy both now and pay less P&P.

I Didn’t See This Coming.

Just when I was down-and-out, when my freelance copywriting business of 10 years had hit the skids, I went bankrupt.

Strange things started to happen.

What was going on?

You’d think I had started a new life without intending to.

New things, new ideas, new open doors were rushing towards me.

Which is where my story begins.

Right here.

My first thought was survival.

I needed a place to live.

Cheap.

I had nothing.

I’d been offered a small Victorian holiday flat in a quiet springs resort in the Wombat Forest about one and a half hours from Melbourne.

I packed all my stuff into my car and went to the Central Highlands.

My life, as I knew it, was over.

I arrived with nothing, to nothing, with nothing to do.

Soon I was offered an old caravan for almost nothing.

I moved in and lived there for the next 5 years.

Parked precariously outside my benefactor’s home in the hills I could relax at last.

He created evocative airbrush paintings under the house.

She was a devoted follower of Sai Baba, her Indian Hindu guru.

An interesting couple.

We had many inspiring conversations.

The kind of mental and spiritual stimulus I’d been missing in the corporate world.

It was my new life among the sweet smells of Nature and the soothing sounds of the birds and the waterfall outside the caravan.

I felt at home there to ponder my fate and, well, to recover from the stresses of the past.

Then something happened that woke me from my reflective mood.

A file of documents about an historical mystery fell into my lap.

There was a friendly ghost from the past.

I’d been given, very mysteriously, a new challenge and my mind was off again.

And that mysterious file was the start of a new adventure that had my mind racing in a whole new direction I had not anticipated.

No way.

Which is where the intriguing material from the mystery file grabbed my attention.

Which soon became the focus of a new and amazing true story.

A 250-page book, a true story.

I’ve given my book a knockout title.

A very different title for a very different kind of book.

Of survival without money.

Of the paranormal.

And of the romantic.

Of a hushed up secret from the early days of British exploration around Australia and New Zealand.

One reviewer calls it “fun and entertaining”.

It’s an exciting story that took me to the other side of the planet chasing clues to a true historical romantic mystery across 5 countries.

I’ll tell you more next time.

Watch for my next post or follow me at aussiescribe.com.

Love and Peace,

Neil

“You have discerned an amazing story”.

*SPIRITUAL & PARANORMAL.*

Who was the ghost whose pleas needed to be heard? Was this the secret wife of a British Royal wanting her story to be told 200 years later? What was her message? How can I explain the endless fortunate timing, the lucky appearance of people and places that moved my story along?

What words of wisdom do I offer along the way to explain spiritual and metaphysical events. I invite you to read and enjoy my *fun and entertaining* true story titled ‘Man Steps Off Planet’.

Read of my unplanned and unexpected serendipitous discoveries that led me to people and adventures I had never dreamed I would find. “You have discerned an amazing story,” said Writer’s Digest.

*INSPIRATIONAL EXPERIENCES.*

Here’s how it all began. As I headed for the hills, away from my family, my freelance business now bankrupt, my hopes and dreams, I might just as well have stepped off the planet into another world. I had to learn a new way to live. What can you learn from my experiences? Without any plan, without any guide as to how to survive when broke, I sailed forth on an unexpected adventure that transformed me and my world.

*HISTORY OF EARLY AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND AND UNSUNG HEROES.*

What secrets were uncovered, what historical mysteries revealed, in this unpredictable book about what happened next, full of twists and turns. Hidden evidence was revealed when an innocent ancestry search mixed with 3 mysterious messages each with 3 clues plus the appearance of a real ghost with a critical clue combined to set up an unexpected historical mystery from Regency England 200 years ago.

*ROMANTIC ADVENTURES.*

What life messages, what spiritual wisdom, what historical intrigues did I learn in my untypical fun romantic paranormal historical true mystery world adventure? Read my struggle for survival, the extraordinary events that happened after bankruptcy, the fun and the drama as I describe every moment as it unfolded. This is an adventure for its time. Learn from my amazing story how you, too, can survive and live the good life as if this was another planet. It’s a page turner.

*RAVE REVIEWS.*

“It’s got everything it needs to be a blockbuster: romance, history, the paranormal . . . big stories like this are difficult to tell.” Judge, Writer’s Digest 21st Annual Self-Published Book Awards, USA.

“This is a fun and entertaining manuscript. The characters are fabulous, as is the storyline. I am impressed with your imagination, writing skills and storytelling ability. The readers will truly love this material.” Writers Literary & Publishing Service, USA.

If you would like to learn more about thus unusual non-fiction page-turner click here.

Enjoy.

Neil.

PS. That’s a recent photo of the author visiting a local animal rescue farm.

How a Ghost From The Past Led Me To Investigate a True Royal Mystery.

I didn’t see it coming.

“I always thought it strange my Granny Fitz never ate at the dinner table,” Florence told me, “You see, she was dead.”

Seems that Florence’s dear childhood friend Granny Fitz was probably a ghost.

What do you think?

I’d called in to visit my mother on my way home from the city late one afternoon when I l lived in Melbourne and worked from home as a freelance advertising copywriter.

I thought I was making a social visit to learn the latest gossip about the family but I was in for a shock.

As Florence greeted me at the door, eyes watering and cheeks flushed, she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

I think she had.

She’d been researching the family tree.

So when she came to check the birth and death details of her childhood companion at the Melbourne Cemetery she got rather more than she expected.

According to the information on the gravestone her Granny Fitz had died seventeen years before Florence was born.

Interesting.

What royal secret did Granny Fitz bring beyond the grave with her?

Where did my investigations lead, what major historical characters were revealed from this simple fact?

And what unexpected historical territory did I enter when I started to follow the trail that Granny, or Mrs Fitz, left for me?

Read this amazing mystery for your self in my book ‘Man Steps Off Planet’.

Best wishes,

Neil

PS. Illustrated above is the present day replica of the historic tall ship ‘HMS Lady Nelson’ of which one of our characters was Acting Commander.

Is It True, We Get Nothing For Nothing & There Are No Free Lunches?

I know, these are two widely accepted ideas we have come to live by.

Don’t expect to get anything for nothing.

You need to earn what you receive.

Wait a minute,

My experience of the past 30 years has been quite the opposite.

After I lost everything when my one-man freelance copywriting business and I went bankrupt, leaving me with nothing, something amazing happened.

Total strangers came from everywhere to help me out.

They expected nothing in return.

But then, instinctively, I sought to give back for their kindness.

I don’t quite know how to explain it but the only payment I could give back was of myself.

Nothing of value.

Just me.

I had nothing else to give.

And therein lies a hidden secret of life, an unrecognised unseen Law of Life.

I’ve described how this happened to me for 30 years of my life in my book ‘Back to the Wall’.

Read the book and see how this Law worked for me.

This hidden Law of Life is expressed in Newton’s Third Law of Motion where we have to complete the formula, fill in the missing part, to make it work.

For every action in one direction, the Law states, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So when we are faced with a generous action in our direction we must offer the equal and opposite reaction to complete the working of the Law of Physics.

This is an otherwise unknown Law of Life that will always operate in your favour because it’s a Law of Physics.

Except that it’s the non-physical equivalent of the physical Law.

So are there non-physical Laws that are equally true of all physical Laws?

I believe so.

At this point you must be asking, even so, how did you survive?

While accepting a small disability pension, for my disabilities, I have given back by continuing to use my one true talent, to write.

Books.

You can find them here.

But what about everyone else, how are they to survive without a basic income?

I believe that what is called a ‘Universal Basic Income’ has a lot of merit where everyone would automatically receive from the government a fixed basic income every month.

Everyone would be entitled to earn an independent income as well, run a business, have a job, just as before, but there would always be a basic income guaranteed so that no-one need live in poverty.

No-one.

Of course, we would all be free to use this basic income as we wish, some would use it to live free of debt, others would be tempted to squander it away.

There are pros and cons.

There will be some who will rort the system (just as there are today).

The system has been tried in many places around the world.

And has been supported by Martin Luther King Jnr, Sir Richard Branston, economist Milton Friedman and Facebook founder Chris Hughes.

You can read about the Universal Basic Income and its pros and cons here.

I’d be pleased to read your comments on what I have written here.

Best wishes.

Neil

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I’ve Done Some Crazy Things In My Life.

I’ve swum at the nude beach on Fire Island off Long Island, New York, with a cute school teacher from New Jersey.

I’ve been to the Statue of Liberty.

I’ve known the delight of floating down the Grand Canal in Venice in a water taxi with an Italian nurse with the voice of Sophia Loren.

I helped to launch Animal Liberation here in Australia.

I was the first member of the Permaculture Association started in the 1970s by two academics from a Tasmanian (Australia) university.

It’s become a world phenomenon in the race to save the planet helping individuals and communities introduce a sustainable agriculture into their lives.

I was kicked off a commune a group of us started on 40 acres of land north of Melbourne in the 1970s for opposing questionable practices that would turn it into a religious sect.

I’ve sat with channels who’ve had books published of their words (for example, ‘Earth to Tao’ and ‘Tao to Earth’).

An article I wrote for a local newspaper about the Swiss-Italian gold miners who came to the Central Highlands goldfields in the 1850s was the inspiration for the annual ‘Hepburn Springs Swiss-Italian Festa’.

For a while I ran ‘The Springs Whole Health Group’ with monthly speakers on subjects ranging from hypnotherapy and reflexology to water divining and ley lines relating to health.

I’ve lived in a caravan parked by the roadside in a small country town in the Aussie bush where I became lovingly known as King of the Hippies.

On the side of a hill near a lake in the north of Italy I enjoyed an outdoor family feast of Italian food and wine served beneath a canopy of vines in a magical setting resembling a movie set.

I’ve run my own one-man freelance advertising copywriting business for over 10 years in Melbourne.

My first big ad presentation was at a week long client conference on the steamy tropical South Pacific island of Fiji.

How did I survive being left homeless, penniless, jobless and friendless when my business and I were declared bankrupt and I lost everything?

Before all of that I worked at the Melbourne office of the second largest ad agency in the world now known as McCann’s.

A campaign I created, wrote and produce for meat pies and donuts won an award at the annual National Television Society Awards in 1972.

I had a fairytale reunion with my 21 year-old daughter living on the famous Gold Coast of Australia.

I’ve been twice married, have 2 grown daughters and 3 adorable granddaughters.

I live now in a beautiful seaside resort town across the bay from the city of Melbourne where the Annual Mussel Festival and Annual National Celtic Festivals are held.

I’ve authored 4 books (not novels).

“Either write something worth reading,” wrote famous American author Ernest Hemingway, “or do something worth writing.”

I reckon that’s what I’ve done in my crazy life.

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Best wishes.

Neil