That, I think, is the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turn to wine, the coffee to prayer. … What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give ut something of yourself. A homemade ceremony … .* Robin Wall Kimmerer
Improvement is not just about learning habits, I’d also about fine-tuning them.** James Clear
It is far too easy to lose sight of how amazing is the story we are a part of for a little while.
We can unfamiliarise it by slowing down and gazing towards an object close by, Or opening a moment or two for writing its description, Or to draw or doodle it into its moreness. I know what you’re thinking: It must be the same with people – You’re not wrong, And what now?
Success is fleeting, significance is more … significant. … Don’t chase success. Instead chase new and interesting ways of solving other people’s problems.*
Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from , where you yourself came from, and where you will go.* Rebecca Solnit
I couldn’t have learned to teach this without my students who helped me to become convinced about the aliveness of images and the aliveness we feel when we experience them. They can raise the dead hours inside of us that nothing else can reach.* Lynda Barry
The “adjacent positive” is theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman’s wonderful term for all the myriad paths unlocked by every novel discovery, the multitude of universes hidden in something as simple as an idea.* Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
The three postgrad students were hoping to find the mindful journaling session, But it wasn’t happening where the freshers app said, So we created our own session, And this phrase, Hope fights for me, Was what it came to me out of the mindful doodling we included. Hope isn’t waiting for something to happen, Or not; It’s actively working towards an anticipated future possibility.
In life one cannot awaken often enough the sense of a beginning within oneself. There is so little external change needed for that since we actually transform the world from within our hearts. If the heart longs for nothing but to be new and unlimited, the world is instantly the same as on the day of its creation and infinite.** Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s simple logic: if you don’t walk your true path, you don’t find your true people.^ Martha Beck
I love recommending books (And I have some books to give away as a thank you to those who have signed up to Thin|Silence – More information below). The trouble is that I don’t read one book at a time, And the things I’m appreciating and taking away from the reading are the cumulative affect of quite few authors who are helping me keep on my path. Indeed the path seems to be punctuated by the next book or books. Yesterday, I read Austin Kleon’s description of his own reading methodology:
Looking back, one of the things that occurs to me is how my deep influences are not necessarily a matter of a single book, but of a cluster of books – some batch of books that were read in sequence or simultaneously that spoke to each other in a particular way that made a maximum impact.^^
In my own practice, I identify a main read – At the moment it’s Dorie Clark’s The Long Game – And aim to get through twenty pages each day, Capturing significant quotes in my journaling. Around this, I hope to turn a page in several other books, And am often surprised by overlapping or juxtaposing thoughts. I add some reading of blogs – My “blog tribe” is growing and at the moment I have more than 300 blogs to slowly make my way through. A different mix of books and blogs produces different thoughts that I need because they help me to change my heart and keep me on my path.
(I’ve had to make space for my latest books so I am giving away around 20 books. The titles will appear in my blog posts over the next week, Including how to request one or a cluster.)
THIN|SILENCE 
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