The alchemical qualities of journaling showed us how to turn isolation into creative solitude, confinement into connection, and confusion into clarity and calm.*
Suleika Jaouad

Define a good life as more than shallow pleasure.
A good life is contribution.
A good life s resisting temptation.
A good life is being the best you can be.
A good life is diligently following your book.**
Derek Sivers

Without my journal practice
it would be too easy to choose
easy–
I need challenging words
from others to play
upon my daily pages
to work their magic
in me–

*Suleika Jaouad’s The Book Of Alchemy;
**Derek Sivers’ How To Live.

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

Gratitude works.  Gratitude scales.  Gratitude creates a positive cycle of more gratitude.  When in doubt, default to gratitude.*
Seth Godin

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.

*Seth Godin’s blog: If every day were thanksgiving;
**Each Slow Journeys page is two pages wide.

SOME MORE SLOW JOURNEYS
SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

It is my belief that attention to and devotion to the nature of soul represents the quintessential strength.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Perhaps the gap between what is and what ought to be is shrinking. Perhaps the canyon between myth and history, dream and memory, past and future – was never uncrossable.**
AleXander McManus

Nothing lies outwith
a soul–
Thinkings
feelings
doings
a universe
the accelerating more
of all that is and
all that might be–

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

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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Human time is a storied affair.*
Dan McAdams

But to find the meaning of your life requires thinking and living differently from how you have been trained by school, work, media, entertainment, and culture.**
Arthur Brooks

Who sat down with us
to share “the facts of
myth,” what did we learn
in the curriculum, or have
training for as part of
our continuing personal
development?–
And yet it is where
we discover our deepest
joy and meaning.

*Dan McAdams’ The Stories We Live By;
**Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning Of Your Life.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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The matter of individual maturation is a custom endeavour. There can be no rote, “do this, then this.”*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The real talent is being obsessed with the thing. What are you willing to focus on wholeheartedly that you are happy to ignore nearly everything else?**
James Clear

First you find yourself
and then you lose yourself–

First you learn the rules
and then you make your own–

First you focus
and then you flow^–

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: The secret to creativity, how our challenges shape us, and the value of bad workouts.
^Here is my hinterland to the short “poetic”: I have come to know myself as an individual – this has involved a journey from dependence to independence and then to interdependence (shaping my ego and then my Self); also, my creativity began with what already existed, from those who’d explored before me, so I learnt several fields – and then I set out to change them, by adapting and improvising, and coming up with something different; I have become totally absorbed in what I have found and am making, entering into what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identified and defined as flow.

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

I think every time I draw I learn something new and at the same time draw upon everything I’ve already stored before.*
Keith Haring

If the world of imagination were a vast continent, then we have only wandered along the shore – we still have no ideas of the marvels that await us upriver…It is through imagination of human minds that purpose, meaning and relevance enter the universe.**
John Higgs

It’s not a bad trade:
Effort to learn more–
Time to imagine more–
Creating more meaning
and purpose,
Repeat–

*Keith Haring’s Keith Haring Journals;
**John Higgs’ William Blake Vs The World.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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Spontaneous and unstoppable. Roger had not just loved the wild, he had been wild. Not in the austere and chastening sense I had once understood the wild to be, but natural, like a tree or river.*
Robert Macfarlane

Uncertainty prompts us to idealise the future. We tell ourselves that everything will be OK just as long as I can reach the projection of the future.**
Christopher Kayes

As an expression of Earth
seeded here,
What is your wildness?

Ongoing momentum in
slender green becoming serpentine
imagination touching reality–

The perennial you
expressed in an
eternal now.

*Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places; speaking of his friend Roger Deakin;
**Quoted in Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote.

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

Because if your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it’s not success at all.*
Anna Quindlen

Thingness, life, mind, soul.
All real, all with different degrees of form.**
Rob Bell

I had stepped into a role,
I was keeping to the script,
I wasn’t for risking,
I was delivering what people wanted–
The audience was pleased,
One person told me
I was very good at this,
I’m happy for them–
I know I can do it,
I just don’t want to.

*Quoted in Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments;
** Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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Discipline turns intentions into action.
Discipline means no procrastination.
Discipline means now.
Choose the pain of discipline, not the pain of regret.*
Derek Sivers

I tell you about my desk and what’s on it because when you’re creating your life, finding your 1…the details of your life are vital to your staying true to your path.**
Rob Bell

You can wait for the mood
to rock up so you can
get into it, or
you could begin right now–
Designing your creative spaces
is a discipline, filling them
with what you need is a discipline,
Placing yourself within these in
a timely fashion, expressing
your talents and abilities, working
on the smallest iteration, sharing
with others what you come up with–
These are all disciplines, and
look how far they have brought you
already.

*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**Rob Bell’s How To Be Here.

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

In the most connected time in history we’re quickly losing touch with ourselves.*
Ryder Carroll

The ascent always goes through MaximumU. There’s no way around this.**
AleXander McManus

Called or
called away?
Technology can support
but often distracts–
Just watch the person
scrolling–
Yet myths as deeper
stories of
identity, purpose and
meaning provide
traction, and though
we do not know
just where they will
lead us, our hearts
will be beating–
What is your myth?

*Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU.

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