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

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.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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.

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

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.

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