For me, conversation at its best, is a form of advancement and course direction. I don’t know about you but I find I have to write my ideas down to really know what I think. And, further more, I have to say those ideas out loud, or indeed to sing them out loud, to somebody else, before I know if they are valid or meaningful, or not.*
Nick Cave

In the conversational nature
of my work** with another,
I often find myself saying something
I hadn’t posited or connected in my lone thinking.

I mention something
I’m exploring,
They reflect back, and,
Bam!

The next thing I say comes from
I don’t know where.

This is the wonder and delight of conversation.

And so I offer up
my journaling, blogging, and work
as playgrounds for exploring
“Yes, and …”

*Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage;
**This is my dreamwhispering work around a person’s abilities, energies, and values, out of which their personal myth emerges – contact me to find out more.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Sometimes people become confused and think that to be stuck in an outdated rage means to fuss and fume and to act and toss and throw things. It does not mean that in most cases. It means to be tired all the time, to carry a thick layer of cynicism, to dash the hopeful, the tender, the promising.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Here’s how to guarantee you have a good day: do good. Any other source of joy is outside your control or is non-renewable. But this one is all of you, all the time, and unending.**
Ryan Holiday

We think we can control our anger–
All the time it’s seeping into
Our bones, our thinking, our ability to respond.

We want justice but,
Like Godot, it’s unlikely
to turn up as we expect.^

Better to bring our own justice,
The kind that will change our day–
To do good to others is to do good to ourselves.

When we bring imagination to reality
in a generative action, transcendence
and transformation may follow.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^John Caputo (What Would Jesus Deconstruct?) writes: Justice is always to come, never realised, always soliciting from ahead, but at the same time justice is demanded now.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

To be in touch with the wildness of the natural world, in its heights and depths, can also be to open our senses to the unplumbed depths of our inner being and its mystery of light forever shimmering from deep within us.*
Philip Newell

When we ship, we open ourselves to judgement in the real world. Nothing is more empowering, because it plants us solidly on Planet Earth and gets us out of our self-devouring, navel-centred fantasies and self-delusions.**
Steven Pressfield

We are quite the bemusing expression
of the universe.

We not only unfold
through our lifetimes.

We are agents in
its unfolding.

Explorers of the depths
of our wild complexity.

Beyond experiencing,
We become makers.

Some name this productivity–
Though the wild word is simply fruitfulness.

**Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
Anne Lamott

As if to prove you can still
disconnect for a few minutes,
Why not try it now?

No phone
noise
hurry
others–
Just you
breathing
quiet.

You may make
a habit of it.

*Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Gratitude is not a feeling but a deliberate practice.*
Bernadette Jiwa

Ever wonder what God thinks of money? Just look at the people he gives it to.**
Anne Lamott

Gratitude fills me up
today and tomorrow too
and being my purest wealth
will never leave me poor

*Bernadette Jiwa’s Briefly blog: The Extraordinary In The Everyday;
**Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

You have been formed of three parts – body, breath, and mind. Of these, the first two are yours insofar as they are only in your care. The third alone is truly yours.*
Marcus Aurelius

The narrative we run in our head is a choice. It might or might not be based on objective reality and verified history. Doesn’t matter, it’s still a choice…the key question is simple: Is it helping?…If it’s not helping, we can change it.**
Seth Godin

We roughly know how much time we have,
Though not specifically,
But what we do with this time –
How we imagine it –
Is up to us.

It’s strange how some very grounded stories
don’t help at all,
And then,
Some very imaginative ones do.

Perhaps it’s time to have another look
at our stories.

*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Voluntary stories.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

‘Finding your passion’ can often become a distraction from simply being passionate … And if you really think you’re not passionate … act like it anyway.  It beats the alternative.*
Gabe Anderson

Your passion isn’t out there,
It’s a response inside of you to all of that,
So best to look at what’s already there
inside you.

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: A Word About Passion.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

people don’t understand the components of drawing – the learnable components of drawing…they are not drawing skills at all, but seeing skills*
Carol Dweck

Blue moments are the brush of angel’s wings, sacred glimpses beyond the fabric of the named world. They are subjective experience that pull back the veil on something profoundly objective – something more real than the visible world itself.**
AleXander McManus

It is very likely that
nothing is as it seems –
There’s always more to
a person
an idea
an object
a moment
you.

Are we allowing ourselves
to see as skill and
mystery,
To touch the veil?

*Carol Dweck’s Mindset;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

To be made of God its to be made of sacred imagination. It is to have the capacity to dream our way into new beginnings, in our lives and in our world.*
Philip Newell

In the fairytales I chose, the protagonists are not powerful in any conventional way, but they are active participants in their fate, leaving the familiar, taking risks, changing their lives, finding people worth connecting to, reaching out to help others, who will help them in return.**
Rebecca Solnit

In the beginning
imagination.

One life, two narratives–
The everyday and
the hero’s journey.

Neither more real
nor a fantasm
than the other.

Two necessary ways
to see
your one life.

You write the every day
every day,
But what if you were to
pen this as quest?

For the eye altering alters all.^

*Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Rebecca Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There;
^William Blake from John Higgs’ William Blake vs The World.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Stories come from nothing else but other stories. A story becomes especially powerful when it displays the mystery of its own origin. At the deepest level of any memorable story is the haunting presence of another story or even many other stories. They echo in each other.*
James Carse

We are, after all, God’s own question seeking an answer.**
Jacqueline Freeman

You have never been without
a story.

You began in the stories of
your parents, your god, the universe.

Your story has evolved and changed
through the inspirations and aspirations of others.

Nevertheless, your story is unique and,
I dare say, more glorious than you know.

Plumb the deepness, explore the mysteries,
A story answering the question of life.

*James Carse’s Breakfast At the Victory;
**Jacqueline Freeman’s Song of Increase.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE