What do we mean by the real world? Because isn’t that ours to create? Don’t we get a say in what the real world even is? Who says we can’t make something new?* Rob Bell

You don’t have to be particularly brave. You just have to be a tiny, tiny bit more interested in something than you are frightened of it.** Elizabeth Gilbert

(My apologies for formatting today – something has gone wrong with my blog editor, and I’m trying to sort it out.)

Some may not want you to know this-

When you imagine something, and then do it, you alter reality.

It’s going to work best when it’s something you are interested in.

Obsession is even better,

*Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual; **Quoted in Suleika Jaoud’s The Book Of Alchemy.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE – THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

In every crowd there are Diminishers and there are Illuminators. Diminishers make people feel small and unseen…Illuminators, on the other hand, have a persistent curiosity about other people. They have been trained or have trained themselves in the craft of understanding others.*
David Brooks

Such an abundance–
So many different people
with a contribution to make–
Some begin earlier,
Others join in later–
Everyone important–
Scarcity isn’t someone lacking
but a life untried.

What do you bring?

*David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM YEAR AGO

A useful north star: Work that matters for people who care.*
Seth Godin

You would think finding work that matters to us
which focuses on and encourages what others care about most of all
would make an ideal marriage
but it turns out there’s another important factor–
Are they ready?

*Seth Godin’s blog: Chasing the snipe.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

What is invisible in your field of vision because of what you are focusing on?*
AleXander McManus

We hold, however, that man does not want to be happy. Rather, he wants a reason for being happy.**
Viktor Frankl

Are we those prepared to ask,
“What else is going on here?”

This wonderful, mysterious life
always opening new meanings and possibilities–

Charging us with energy,
Pushing us from within–

This exhausting but glorious aliveness,
Bringing us to meaningfulness that touches others–

Everything true to itself has its own secret language and an internal intentionality with a secret, surprising flow, even to the person who puts it all in motion.^

*AleXander McManus, in an online conversation;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor And The Soul;
^David Whyte’s Consolations.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

“You can pick anyone, and I’m anyone” is not a useful marketing slogan.*
Seth Godin

As humans, we’re at our most valuable when what we do can’t be faked or automated. This is what being an artist means.**
gapingvoid

*Seth Godin’s blog: Value creation;
**gapingvoid’s blog: The Next Picasso?

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet designed for joy.*
Anne Lamott

Resistance is a small, playful collaboration with my friend
Rebecca, who showed me her screenprinting project
exploring four forms of resistance–**
I loved it, offering to doodle each word–
Today’s resistance is joy;
I’ll be sharing some words
from Rebecca when I post the fourth doodle.

*Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

The task of the novelist is to deepen mystery. But mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern world.*
Flannery O’Connor

Here’s where your role as an author becomes vital. The constraints of your life are the womb of your creativity.**
AleXander McManus

I wonder how mystical
we have to become to be a mystic?

Do you have to become full-time
with a pension plan?

Or is it possible to practise often, deepening solitude and quietness
and contemplation, and still qualify?

The noisier and busier the world becomes,
The more I’m drawn to this way.

I think we all could be very good at it–
We seem ready-made to stand before all that is reflectively.

Not instead of explanation
but beyond explanation–

Moving from mind to heart and then, I hope,
towards a willingness to goodness.

*Quoted in Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

It is easy for me to imagine that the next division of the world will be between people who wish to live like creatures and people who wish to live as machines.*
Wendell Berry

Yet the cosmos you were just then experiencing was no physical reality. It was nothing more than your imagination, the one you have created inside your mind. In this example, you were the Universal Man or Woman inside which that immense cosmos existed.**
John Higgs

I imagine a universe when reading a compelling description–
But what I imagine is not the universe.

I discover how well-designed or -evolved I am for listening–
Quietly being present to and leaning into all that is.

Beyond science and the machine, naked before the mystery–
Feeling what creatures feel for a few minutes, or a day.

I return to the science, I turn again to the machines–
Remembering, I am not these, I am profoundly a listener to the mystery.

*Quoted in Austin Kleon’s blog: Ordinary abundance;
**John Higgs’ William Blake Vs The World.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

The most valuable real estate in the world is the graveyard. There lie millions of half-written books, ideas never launched, and talents never developed. Most people die with everything still inside of them.*
Derek Sivers

So often the affirmation we receive is merely a byproduct of what’s been true for a long time.**
Gabe Anderson

There’s an eBook to put together,
Collaging to play with, and a linocut kit to try out–
They’re not huge things, but who knows
what they will produce
or where they will lead?

Affirmation from others lies further down the line,
And will most likely be redundant
by the time it arrives,
Because we’re affirming ourselves this morning,
To begin what it is we have a heart and mind for.

*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: Performer Affirmation.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won; the hero comes back from this adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men and women.*
Joseph Campbell

A myth shows me
that life is hard, and also
that it is transcendent.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO