Outdated maps might be worth less than no map at all.*
Seth Godin
I confess,
I like maps–
They’re works of art
inviting me to stop and gaze,
And then I keep them well beyond
their sell by date,
including the maps about me–
Perhaps it’s time to pick up
the compass
of my talents, energies, and values
again.
*Seth Godin’s blog: Notes to myself.
We must stay open-minded to have any mind at all.
Nothing opens the mind like the glimpse of new possibility.*
John O’Donohue
*John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.
Thin Silence is not the past and not yet the future.
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.
Based on Casey and Jung‘s models, it is possible to see how an increasingly complex and rich imagination could reach a point where the mind forgets about the everyday world and experiences what it is imagining, as vividly, or even more so, as it does the real world.*
John Higgs
Two human worlds– though some
prefer one more than the other,
We need both.
There is imagination and
myth where we are
little-heroes and artists–
There is the everyday and
transactional where we are
workers and parents and partners–
Figuring out our unique means of
interplanetary travel is critical
lest we become a castaway.
John Higgs’ William Blake Vs The World.
Number one in your life’s blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you feel like you are a nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance …*
Martin Luther King
Character, the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which all self-respect springs.**
Joan Didion
Through ancient ways
and means, and
with impartiality,
The universe has declared
you to be somebody (Ta dah!)–
Now to embrace this,
To be specific
and unrepeatable,
To declare your talents and
energies and values,
To begin what will prove to be
your unfolding adventure:
You start with your 1, and then you suspend judgement on what you’re doing, because you don’t know what you have when you start. No one does.^
*Quoted in Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy;
**Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^Rob Bell’s How To Be Here.
I saw how Jesus answered every question he’s asked with a question: What do you think? How do you read it? How do you interpret it? What do you say about it? This is the opposite of brainwashing. This is the opposite of Just believe and don’t ask questions. He keeps inviting people to think critically, to examine, question, doubt, test, struggle. To own it for themselves.*
Rob Bell
I read every question as a matter of duty. It’s beautiful, actually, a beautiful thing to do.**
Nick Cave
Without the question
my journey is over,
I am over–
To be curious
takes effort, but it is
the effort of breathing–
*Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual;
**Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files: #371.
Coaches and teachers are usually able to provide the knowledge and skills to perform, but the great coaches and teachers help to find the right why in their protégés.*
Victor Strecher
Before you step out
into the day
it is a good thing to recall
your talents and the
enriching environments
you make happen
and especially
the values you live for–
your path to tread.
*Victor Stretcher’s Life On Purpose.
I fill my senses with reality: wind blowing, waves crashing, plants and animals doing their thing. This place was about the same a million years ago, and a million years from now, when people are gone. Humans are just another chattering species, making noise like birds and dogs.**
Derek Sivers
We are not separate from the cosmos; we are its unfolding logic. Our atoms, expelled from volcanic eruptions of distant dying stars, have assembled into thought, love, and longing, What we call life is matter waking up. And just to be clear, life does not emerge from matter. Life manifests through it.**
AleXander McManus
Whilst we are here
we get to be something
beautiful–
Perhaps giving ourselves
in helping one another
live within our significant imperfections,
Each making some glorious chatter.
If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.^
*Derek Sivers’ Useful Not True;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
^Mother Teresa, quoted in Ryan Holiday’s Right Thing, Right Now.
Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like your life is passing by.*
Rob Bell
It requires deep contemplation and commitment to living a real life, full of unsolvable secrets, puzzling riddles, unexplainable bliss, and terrible suffering.**
Arthur Brooks
At the Indian restaurant
we thought that we had to
choose from the dishes on the menu–
But it was a ten-course meal–
And it was wonderful.
-OR-
I sometimes wish
I didn’t get so nervous,
Double-guessing my decisions,
Thoughts taking over if I wake at night–
But I know I am alive.
*Rob Bell’s How To Be Here;
**Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning of Your Life.
The unintelligent jump to conclusions.
The wise just observe.*
Derek Sivers
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery…
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.**
Constantin Cavafy
Wisdom comes
to us as we journey–
Each of us
will inevitably reach our conclusion–
Before this–
Vastness through noticing–
*Derek Siver’s How To Live;
**Constantin Cavafy’s Ithaka.
THIN|SILENCE 
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