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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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What is homing? It is the instinct to return, to go to the place we remember. It is the ability to find, whether in dark or in daylight, one’s home place. We all know how to return home. Not matter how long it’s been, we find our way. We go through the night, over strange land, through tribes of strangers, without map and asking of the odd personages we meet along the road, “What is the way?”*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

You are not at the end. You are standing at the next beginning–called not by certainty, but by resonance. The future remembers you. Will you remember it back?**
AleXander McManus

This future–
This me–
I remember,
And this remembering
forges the journey,
And the journey is my making–
As it is
for each of us–

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments.

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THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Don’t beat yourself up. Build yourself up. Make yourself better. That’s what friends do.*
Ryan Holiday

It doesn’t matter if someone else doesn’t believe this,
It matters that you believe it–
And act accordingly.

*Ryan Holiday’s Discipline Is Destiny.

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To hope is a state of being.  It is an inner readiness, that of intense but not-yet-spent activeness.*
Erich Fromm

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 hope;
I’ll be sharing some words
from Rebecca when I post the fourth doodle.

*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution Of Hope.

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THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Pain, then, is often the teacher that transforms the hero into a guide. That is, if their attitude toward pain is accepting and redemptive.*
Donald Miller

“When choosing a new habit many people seem to ask themselves, “What can I do on my best days?” The trick is to ask, “What can I stick to even on my worst days?”**
James Clear

It turned out that what
I thought I wanted to do with my life
wasn’t,
Not really–
Pain tried to teach me this three times
(I’m a slow learner),
And then helped me find my way.

**Donald Miller’s Hero On A Mission;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: How to start a new habit, the power of responsibility, and prioritizing the long-term.

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You’re either the person who creates energy. Or you’re the one that destroys it.*
Seth Godin

Rate your individual acts as good or bad, if you like. Seek to perform as many good ones, and as few bad ones, as possible. But leave your self out of it. One final implication of thinking about selfhood in this way – and arguably the most significant one – concerns the idea of selflessness.**
Oliver Burkeman

Tribal Leadership proffers five perspectives on life–
Life sucks!
My life sucks!
I’m great!
We’re great!
Life is great!

The first four include the destructive subtexts–
Life sucks!
Your life is okay but mine will never be!
You’re not great!
They’re not great!

There are too many reasons for destroying energy–
I don’t want to be here!
I don’t want to be with you!
I don’t want to be doing this thing!
I don’t want to look inside!
It’s all unfair!
You hurt me!

There are a few good place to begin changing the narrative–
Humility, truly seeing oneself and others–
Towards selflessness;
Gratitude, thankful for all that fills one’s life–
Towards generosity;
Faithfulness, giving daily form to humility and gratitude–
Towards wisdom.

*Quoted in Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
**Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote.

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

No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.*
Carl Jung

He’d read The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People
but not Steven Covey’s sequel The Eighth Habit–
“What’s the eighth habit?”

“Find your voice and help others to find theirs.”

He’d come to make a survey of our home
but we spent more time talking about the books
on my shelves, our reading habits, and the work that I do.

He’s gone now,
On to his next appointment, but it was
an enjoyable way to start the day.

*Quoted in James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On thinking long-term, how to attract like-minded people, and one sign of mental toughness.

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THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO