Personal History of Ken Aitken ....

I, Ken Aitken had a very severe brain injury in December 1995 while surfing at Peregian Beach in Queensland, Australia I fell off a boogie-board in metre of water, hit my head on the sand and ended up in the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane in December 1996. I was in a coma for four weeks and it took six months in hospital before I was able to walk, talk and function in a reasonably normal manner. I had suffered a severe brain injury and I wasn’t expected to live.

I am now in a new Season of Life. I originated and now facilitate the BRAIN INJURY SURVIVOR NETWORK around the world to hundreds of people. The Network is about HOPE and RESTORATION. It is about going from being a Victim to being a Survivor to finally being an over Achiever. It is about Sustainable Solutions for life which will continue to work in the years to come. I would like my story to be an inspiration to other people.
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MY PAST HISTORY:

I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s at Wilsons Creek, up in the mountains out from Mullumbimby in Northern New South Wales, Australia. I was raised on a banana plantation amidst the steep slopes of rainforest and wet sclerophyll (gum) forest and occasional cliff outcrops. The creek we swam in was a very clear, clean freshwater rainforest creek with big deep pools. People now in the City, would give their `eye’ teeth for it as my late father used to say.

Wilson’s Creek is about twenty minutes (about ten kilometres) up in one of the many valleys west of Mullumbimby, in the Northern Rivers area. During this time, I developed a strong spiritual love of Creation, Nature, Country Living and the Environment.

It was a hard and simple life with a Dad and Mom and three younger brothers (Gerald, Rick and Colin). My father had come through the Great Depression of the 1930’s. His father had died when he was only thirteen and he had to leave home and fend for himself. He had learnt many lessons of self-sufficiency …. personally and economically.

I went to Mullumbimby High School in the 1960’s. In 1968 I left home to begin a new section my life at Avondale College at Cooranbong right down near Morisset, near Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. I went to do a Science Degree. I had a Commonwealth Scholarship to go to the College.

I stayed there for two years (1968 / 1969) then I came up to Brisbane to live. I finished a Science degree (in biological science) at the University of Queensland in 1974. The Federal Government provided free university fees in that era compared to the Hex fee arrangements which are part of the Federal Government's policy now. I married Harriet (nee Kent) from Melbourne. We were married in Melbourne in December 1975. We have been married happily for thirty three years in 2009.

Instead of going into a science profession, I went into my own business. Unknowingly, I had always had an artistic, innovative creative side from my farming background. I could pictorially visualise things in detail long before they were constructed. This was visually, in colour and in three dimensions. That I understand is a special gift in life.

Having grown up in the rainforest country of Wilson’s Creek, meant that I had developed a special affinity to nature and the natural environment. My father had taught me by example, how to make things from the bare minimum of scrap, to turn unwanted scraps into useful items. He had come through the Depression days of the 1930’s. This was recycling long before recycling was a fashionable term. I had put this knowledge into good effect in the building of our future house. My mum taught me unknowingly to have a love of beauty, art and garden layout. She planted and arranged a huge flower garden around our simple house grown in the red volcanic soil and abundant rainfall. See my personal experiences website: www.kenaitken.net. See the following posts as an overview of the house and garden.

I ran a small business in upmarket landscape design and construction for wealthy clients around Brisbane. It was called ‘New Earth Systems P/L’. I was an Outer Gardener concerned about Outer Sustainability. This Outer Sustainability was fragile and easily eroded, dependent on my performance and people's acceptance of my work. Two specific posts of my past gardens are these:

· Greenmount Beach Resort … 28 years on from when I did the garden in 1980

· Sheehan's Garden in October 2007 .... House and Garden in West End, Brisbane … 23 years on from when I did the garden in 1984

I thought of a landscape as a three-dimensional piece of space that people walked through. This space changed with time as it grew and changed with the time of day: shadows vs. sun patterns, boulders, colour, plants, trees, earth-forms, solid structures and water. These were the ingredients in a subtle flow of landscape design and construction. Rather an intangible product to sell and run a business with!! Out of this stage I built a structure for my life: my marriage with Harriet, our business and the our house plus we had a family of two children. I was more an artist than businessman which caused STRESS.

I wanted to be successful in making money but the creative side and the financial success of the business were in constant tension. With the landscape business I was in, there was enormous amount of work in spring and summer time however In winter time there always had a severe downturn with little $$$ coming in. My creativity in my business couldn’t be standardised. A successful business needs to be like a biscuit cutter …. Making a few $$ off large numbers of components.

I was more an ideas, admin and marketing sort of person, good at the design side but not so good at the practical implementation side of the business. Because of the fluid nature of a garden, it was very difficult to be involved in just design, without having to get fully involved in the production side.

In 1995, I had very little work and money was very short as a result. It was the worst year for business I have been through in twenty odd years. I felt under incredible stress and my wife Harriet and two teenage children were really feeling the pressure as well.

I was under such extreme pressure from the lack of work and at a point of desperation. I was ready to give it all away. I didn’t know which way to turn as I had invested years of study and resources into my chosen career and now it seemed fruitless. I had finished a B.Sc. at University of Queensland in the early 1970’s and had completed most of a Graduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture at QUT in the late 1980’s. I found it is impossible to have business and exam deadlines running together and on one very important project, I had let an important exam assignment pass by.

The business changed overnight when I had a simple accident which resulted in brain injury. Thirteen years ago in December 1995, while surfing at Peregian Beach in Queensland, I fell off a boogie-board in metre of water and hit my head on the sand. I ended up in the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane where I was in a coma for four weeks. It took six months in hospital before I was able to walk, talk and function in a reasonably normal manner.
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A NEW SEASON OF LIFE: I am now a former brain injury survivor who has chosen to be not a victim but to be a victor though the worst situations in life. I am now on a permanent holiday for life a life time Income Protection Policy.
(How that came about is the infinite – personal God!!). Now the same policies are not commercially sold …… they have gone up to 500 pages before you even apply for one!! I now have a generous monthly income for the rest of my life through I do not ever have to work again.

The monthly income is quite adequate for our needs. I am now an internal Life Gardener to hundreds of people around the world by e-mail.

One of the main changes is that l have lost of drive as I cannot intuitively take all the information still at the moment. My wife Harriet drives me around or I go by public transport. However, I have learnt to travel on the Internet. ….. I can go around the world and back again to my office in a few minutes all for $25.00 / month and see hundreds of people along the way …... more than I ever could before trying to drive or fly there!!

I went through a real transformation of life whereby I went from being:

1. Physical Gardener (Outer Sustainability) >>>>

2. Life Gardener (Inner Sustainability)

1. Outer Sustainability: ..... can certain practices be maintained ….. is what you doing now preparing the way ahead for a new garden which will growing successfully in twenty years time. I ran a small business in upmarket landscape design and construction for wealthy clients around Brisbane. It was called ‘New Earth Systems P/L’. It was a very difficult business in which to make a profit which depended on whether I had costed it properly. Each project was very non-standard and there was a seasonal nature of the work. Every project was a “one off”’. My former life was not sustainable ….. my creativity in my business couldn’t be standardised.

Since my accident, I have come to value people. I have developed a passion to build inner community with many people around the world especially by e-mail. As I am on a permanently paid holiday through my life-long Income Protection, I have time to spend with people in a way I never could do in my busy business.

2. Inner Sustainability: …. Can your life be maintained? ….. is what you doing now preparing the way ahead for new life? Inner sustainability flows from having a wholistic way of life where problems are dealt with by personal accountability. Inner determination then flows outwards.

I have also discovered the significance of the Inner and Outer Life. Sustainability I have come to see, has to be of Inner, Middle and Outer Persons. Problems come because things do not change from the Outside to Inside but from the Inside to the Outside.

Inner Life Gardens ..... Everyone of us has a private space in our lives that we carefully guard. I call it ‘The Garden of Life’. A garden is a personal space you can go out into and to enjoy the peace, the cool air, the shadows of trees, the sun shining with translucent light through tree leaves and palm fronds, the perfume of beautiful blossoms.

No one else comes there except yourself and your family and close friends. They are invited out there with you after you have let them into your house. Strangers who come are intruders and will be dwelt with by the police.

It is the same with relationships. You have enter someone’s inner life with their consent. You do this by understanding the persons inherent value and by listening intently to what they say. You are as it were gently knocking on the door of their inner house. If that person trusts you, they will then invite you into the inner garden of their life demonstrating that they accept the value you offer them. Then you can talk with them. They will open their door of their inner life at a later time if you knock. To keep that process going is a Sustainable Relationship. If I act suspiciously or try and crash the door with a sledge hammer, I will not be let in. That is what I call an Unsustainable Relationship.

Some Inner Life Gardens are very ordered whereas others are very weedy as people do not understand their value so anything goes. There are definite values and principles of life which really work. I say ‘Go through open doors, not closed doors …. Otherwise you will get a very sore forehead. …. Look not at closed doors of the past but look to find new doors of opportunity. That is why I have become an Inner Life Gardener (Inner Sustainability) to hundreds of people around the world to encourage them.

NEW EARTH COMMUNITY… After leaving hospital, I came to the realisation that in order to cope with my radically altered life, and become a thriver, not a survivor, I had to develop a workable solid framework. I entitled this "The Sustainable Life" . It is based on three things: Spirituality, Social Network and Structure with each component having equal weight in a very wholistic way. Inherent in this framework is an understanding of your uniqueness and identity as a created being, sustained by a loving Creator. I have a Christian Spirituality and not a Christian Religion. Having a clear identity enables you to become people focussed rather than self focussed.

The purpose of this community is to bring a new sense of belonging with a real discovery of or an affirmation of identity through the Sustainable Life. The basis of this life is one which has the ability to be continually renewed and maintained. This life has three elements to it:

· Structure gives order, direction, aims and overall purpose

· Spirituality gives ultimate significance. It is the inner room of your life which answers such questions as: Who are we?, What is the meaning of life?, Are we significant?, What values should I live by?, What gives identity and destiny

· Social Network … gives a feeling of belonging… Family & friends, Clubs and Organisations, Associations, Churches, work colleagues. 

I am now an Inner Life Gardener concerned about Inner Sustainability. When you are secure in yourself, then you are able to reach out to other people and assist them in their journey. I have a desire to bring the sustainable life, not just to brain injury survivors (see my Brain Injury Survivor Network I facilitate to hundreds of people around the world) but people everywhere. I facilitate by communicating this by the Internet to over a thousand people around the world. Some group identities have many Cyberspace members as well.

Even though I have had a severe brain injury … I have moved from seeing myself and others as brain injury survivors to seeing the possibility of being brain injury thrivers. I have written my story ‘The Rose Water Story’ which outlines how to be a victor though the worst situations in life. ‘The Rosewater Story’ can be down loaded as a PDF download 567KB.
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MY NEW PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WEBSITE at www.kenaitken.net: The purpose of this website is to relate to you in a personal way and build a bridge over which we can travel and make a better future for us being in a community. We can help to make a better future for those we are in close relationship with who are around us. I have had a real interesting life and I would like to build you up and inspire you as well through what I have written and the photographs used in this website. I find as I give away life to others, it comes back in far greater abundance.

The essence of inspiring you is to treat you as a very valuable person. You in turn can then treat others around as being very valuable as well. No matter what has happened to you, life is about choices. Life is 10% what happened to you and 90 % what you do about it.

That approach in life changes the world. Seeing yourself as a valuable person gives yourself a whole new identity. The underlying theme with the Brain Injury Survivor Network which I facilitate is about ‘Beyond Being a Brain Injury Survivor into being a Brain Injury Thriver’, I have begun writing up the stories of other survivors I am in personally in contact with …. and there are lot of you around which the world which the world hasn’t heard about yet. One amazing lady I went and saw a few years ago was Meriel Stanger who lives at Deagon on the opposite side of Brisbane city here in Australia.

Her Story: She was in hospital twelve months with many operations after a serious brain injury. She is now in a manual wheelchair for life, is blind in one eye and can only type with one finger. She has already written and self published her first book: a 200 page book called ‘Permission to Shine - The Gift’ (the book is in the tenth reprint) which she sends around the world for a price. 

She has written her second book already called ‘Shining On’ …. A book about happiness. She is involved in so much eg. She is on the boards of several disability advocacy groups in the City, she advises on local Council boards on the needs of people with disabilities in their local council areas and she goes everywhere around the City. I met Meriel again with others at the ‘Unmet Needs Campaign’ meeting held in August 2005 at a hotel in the City of Brisbane, Australia. She gave me a copy her book which I read with great interest. 

It was after this time, I went by train to see her at her home at Deagon to interview her. What really got to me when I interviewed her at the end of the time together was the following insight: 'See the gift in your accident'

I have attached five Blog Sites on Meriel’s outlook on life:

· Self Confidence
· A Meaningful Life
· A Response to Ignorance
· Meriel Stanger’s Book Review P&H
· Legalised Murder - Rethinking Life-sustaining Measures
· What is The Value of People?
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Since March 2001, I have started the following e-mail broadcasts supported by the following websites:

· Brain Injury Survivor Network (BISN) for Brain Injury People: I help facilitate the Brain Injury Survivor Network ..... e-mail broadcasts and an international blog site: http://braininjurysurvivornetwork.blogspot.com. I am in contact with hundreds of fellow survivors around the world.

· My new personal experiences website at www.kenaitken.net. This website is a free one downloaded from Word Press. You can download the free Word Press website here. On this website are a number of pages with multiple posts under each page. The pages are:

1. ABOUT: I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s at Wilsons Creek, up in the mountains out from Mullumbimby in Northern New South Wales, Australia. I was raised on a banana plantation amidst the steep slopes of rainforest and wet sclerophyll (gum) forest and occasional cliff outcrops. The creek we swam in was a very clear, clean freshwater rainforest creek with big deep pools. People now in the City, would give their `eye’ teeth for it as my late father used to say. 

Wilson’s Creek is about twenty minutes (about ten kilometres) up in one of the many valleys west of Mullumbimby, in the Northern Rivers area. With this time, came for me a strong spiritual love of Creation, Nature, Country Living and the Environment.

It was a hard and simple life with a Dad and Mom and three younger brothers (Gerald, Rick and Colin). My father had come through the Great Depression of the 1930’s. His father had died when he was only thirteen and he had to leave home and fend for himself. He had learnt many lessons of self-sufficiency …. personally and economically.
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2. MY STORY .... 1949 – 2009:
Early Days of 1954 – 1955:
· 1. s1.1: The Wilsons Creek Packing Shed House 1950-1956
· 2. Black Cotton Fishing Story from 1956
· 3. Wilsons Creek Primary School ….. 1956 - 1960
· 4. Banana Growing in the 1950's - 1970's
· 5. Brown’s Rd
· 6. Mullumbimby ..... A township in the Northern Rivers Area in New South Wales
· 7. Pathfinder Club Experiences from 1960 - 1967
· 8. The Bat Cave
· 9. Brunswick Heads
· 10. The Train Story
· 11 The Cairns Trip ..... A Student Experience in 1968
· 12. The F.J Holden Story 1974
· 13. University of Queensland ….. The Buildings
· 14. The Wheels Story from 1970 -1974
· 15. NORTH WEST ISLAND TRIPS No. 1 & 2
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3. OUR HOUSE: Harriet and I are into simplicity and recycling. We live in this amazing house built out of rejects for $32,000.00 in 1981 (28 years ago). See the house and garden:
· OUR HOUSE ….. an Overview
· OUR HOUSE ….. The Actual Garden
· OUR HOUSE ….. Overview of the Land
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4. PAST WORK: I had been in business for twenty years but I am now in a new Season of Life now. I ran a small business in upmarket landscape design and construction for wealthy clients around Brisbane for twenty years. It was called ‘New Earth Systems P/L’. I was an Outer Gardener concerned about Outer Sustainability. This Outer Sustainability was fragile and easily eroded, dependent on my performance and people's acceptance of my work. Two specific blog sites of my past gardens are these:

· Greenmount Beach Resort … 28 years on from when I did the garden in 1980
· Sheehan's Garden in October 2007 .... House and Garden in West End, Brisbane … 23 years on from when I did the garden in 1984
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4. RECENT DAY OR WEEKLY EVENTS: These are single day or weekend events that were not on our holiday trips overseas. There are many days and weekends given in photographs and words.
Read and look the many entries under this page.
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5. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: this page records through photographs and reference websites the beauty of natural areas I have been through. There are many places like this in Australia and around the world:
Ocean Shores Beach April 2008

Mt. Tamborine ..... A Drive through Closed Forest in 2005
· AUSTRALIAN BUSH AREAS ..... Blue Mountains: May 2009
· Minyon Falls Forest Walk: March Easter 2008
· Kendall Beach: December 2006
· Alpine Landscape Thredbo 2008
· Alpine Landscapes at Thredbo 1992
· Roma St. Parklands
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6. TRAVEL: An International Perspective

With the freedom of life we have and having no mortgage on our five acres of land plus a house we built from recycled materials in 1981. Harriet and I have been travelling overseas every two years to see the world. In between we have been seeing parts of Australia which is a very large country.

The freedom of life enabled us to go on four week holidays to England in 2003, Italy in 2005, and France in 2007 and Canada in 2008. See the Travel page for the different photographic posts and words. 

Attached files: 

The_Rose_Water_Story.pdf