On the journey toward “true home,” though we may, from time to time, turn back to record or measure from whence we came, we do not turn back in order to turn back.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves.
I’ve come to believe that wise people don’t tell us what to do; they start by witnessing our story. They take the anecdotes, rationalisations, and episodes we tell, and see us in a noble struggle.*
David Brooks
If you would come closer
and listen, then you no longer
are information or even knowledge–
You are wisdom to me.
*David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.
To cross a threshold is to leave behind the husks and arrive at the grain.*
John O’Donohue
You have wrenched some knowledge from the deepest abyss of your unknown self, and now the demons have been closed to wreak their revenge.**
Joseph Campbell
This journey is not over–
After realisation and resolve
rfor what this lifetime can be,
There can be no time or space
for ease–
The Furies and Gorgons
begin their pursuit.
*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways To Bliss.
Beliefs exist to guide your actions. If you’re not acting in alignment with your beliefs, you’ve missed the point of beliefs.*
Derek Sivers
Ritual is simply a myth enacted; by participating in a rite, you are participating directly in a myth.**
Joseph Campbell
If I don’t live it
I don’t believe it
not really–
I form
my ‘liturgy’
build foundations–
To be playful
be creative
today–
Learning a skill and caring enough to implement it, again and again, can give us the firm foundation to see what others might miss.^
*Derek Sivers’ Useful Not True;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways To Bliss;
^Seth Godin’s blog: In defense of the hard parts.
Now it is basic mythological principle, I would say, that what is referred to in mythology as “the other world” is really (in psychological terms) “the inner world.” And what is spoken of as “future” is “now.”*
Joseph Campbell
It is far better for us to return to our own unique and soulful cycles regularly, all of them, any of them.**
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Each day
sweeps us away
from ourselves,
Out out towards others,
A big fussy world,
So we need
our way
back
to our self,
To our deeper place
of gathering
and pondering
and renewing–
*Joseph Campbell’s Pathways To Bliss;
**Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves.
Something in us wants to be consistent. But something in us wants to keep growing, and growing often means changing. So these two desires often conflict.*
Brian McLaren
Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.**
Daniel Gilbert
I have to continue changing
to be consistent,
I have to be consistent
if I am to keep on changing–
Though sixty seven and sometimes
wish it were not so,
I am alive
and I have not done
becoming–
*Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
**David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.
Wisdom is lacking without the human touch.*
Viktor Frankl
You are strong, self-sufficient, you make time for reading, thinking, quiet contemplation, meditation or prayer. This will not cost a penny.**
Tom Hodgkinson
It’s tempting to
turn the TV on,
Doomscroll, or
pour a drink
in much the same way we seek
to distract a bored child,
But wisdom suggests
we care more
and spend a little time
with ourselves.
*Viktor Frankl’s The Will To Meaning;
**Tom Hodgkinson’s Business For Bohemians.
The arch villain of curiosity is certainty. If you think you know, you won’t think to ask.*
Monica Guzmán
*Quoted in Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing blog: Keeping it simple.
“Interest” comes from the Latin “interesse,” that is “to be in-between.” If I am interested, I must transcend my ego, to be open to the world, and jump to it: interest is based on activeness.*
Erich Fromm
Every so often,
I’ll be sharing
a portion of the images**
from my colouring book
Slow Journeys in
the Same Direction–
You’re welcome
to print these
for colouring in–
Not quite a labyrinth
but they’ll slow you down.
*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope;
**Each Slow Journeys page is two pages wide.
I admitted that I was lost. And that was the most liberating thought I ever had.*
Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Myth is the transcendent in relation to the present.**
David Kudler
In a deep unfolding world, certainty
isn’t all it’s cracked up to be –
Lostness, doubts, questions –
These are our guides
into the greater fullness
of here and now and each other,
And then it begins again–
*Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways To Bliss.
THIN|SILENCE 
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