‘How do you grow?’ said night
‘How do you keep it in the day?’
‘To keep what I have,’ said light
‘I have to give it away’
Lemn Sissay

a mentor arrives after a call to adventure
Martha Beck

Every one of us is a generative being,
Giving away what makes us who we are,
Only to find that we have more:
Giving and more forming us into guides.

*Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in;
**Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity.

Listen to what your life calls you to do.*
Otto Scharmer

*Otto Scharmers Theory U.

If someone is copying you
Remember thereupon
Anyone can find the switch
When the lights are on*
Lemn Sissay

If you opened an old can of pork and beans and found a genie inside who said – Boy it is great to be out of that can!! Thank you! In return I would like to release you from your can. Would a feeling of aliveness be enough?**
Lynda Barry

Every morning with my journaling,
I gather texts from many
books and blogs,
I’m ceaselessly fascinated by what
can emerge
from bringing together different texts in
various permutations.

Here’s the story today’s tell me:
I hadn’t realised I was in a can
for so many years –
After all,
There was a whole world in my old tin –
But when a genie sprung my lid,
I discovered a far bigger world of seemingly
endless ideas and brighter possibilities –
A world in which everyone
has the capacity to be a genie in some way
to others.

*Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in;
** Lynda Barry’s What It Is.

Ecoutez le murmure
De la lune et soleil
A l’aube, ils chantent
‘Accueil, accueil’*
Lemn Sissay

Because we have a basic need for awe wired into our brains and bodies, finding awe is easy if we take a moment and wonder.**
Dacher Keltner

We are creatures made for worship:
From the Old English weorthscipe –
Acknowledging worthiness –
We discover there are many generators of
worthship, or worship:
Nature, music, ideas, athleticism, god:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes …
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware …^

Dacher Keltner provides this question
to guide us:
What is an experience of awe
that you have had,
when you encountered a vast mystery
that transcends your
understanding of the world?**

*Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in:
Listen to the whisper
of the moon and sun
At dawn, they sing
‘Welcome, welcome’;
**Dacher Keltner’s Awe;
^Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air.

simulacrum (n)
an image or representation of someone or something.
an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute.

The surface life is a simulacrum of something we intuit inside ourselves but have not yet really brought to life from the depths. All the time we are slowly in retreat from our own frontier.*
David Whyte

Deep down your dream lies
whispering …
Still whispering.

*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.

We not only create stories for metaphors for life, we create them as metaphors for a meaningful life. To live meaningfully is to be at perpetual risk. … If, should the protagonist fail, life would go back to normal, the story isn’t worth telling.*
Robert McKee

Spiritual life is a way of dwelling with perplexity – taking it seriously, searching for its purpose as well as its perils, its beauty as well as its ravages.**
Krista Tippett

Why retire and
move 200 miles?

Good question –
And we always need a good question.

*Robert McKee‘s newsletter: A Little Risk Goes a Long Way;
**Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

Insist on yourself; never imitate … .*
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Often, when we set out to do our work, we focus on popularity and breadth at the expense of the magic and singular experience that could create a favourite. Something we’d miss if it weren’t there.**
Seth Godin

There is no one else who may respond to
the call upon your life,
Formed uniquely by the choices you have made,
The person you’ve become.

*Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air;
**Seth Godin’s blog: America’s favourite pie.

The world is large, but in us it is as deep as the sea.*
Rainer Maria Rilke

Integrity is the cure for unhappiness. Period**
Martha Beck

Don’t head outwards just yet,
Dillydally inside a little longer,
Exploring the vastness of an
inner world of imagination and possibility.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By;
**Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity.

“What is ready to die here?” may seem harsh, but it opens the gate to the intimately related question “What is ready to be born?”*
David Rome

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonders of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.**
Maya Angelou

Hugh Macleod’s doodle carries the text:
I’m not asking for much,
I just need it to be 1992 again.

That would make me 33 again,
and whilst I can see the appeal of that,
The ensuing years have left me with
so many things that are wanting to
begin, so I will
let go and let come.

*David Rome’s Your Body Knows the Answer;
**Seth Godin’s The Carbon Almanac.

throughout adulthood, we maintain the ability to grow myelin*
Angela Duckworth

This fact keeps changing everything;
Myelin is layered around our synaptic connections as an
insulating coating when we practise our skills –
The more insulation,
The faster the electrical signal,
The more developed and skilful the activity.

We may say, then, today is
bright, and tomorrow,
Brighter,
Especially when we action our stories –
The things we have come to understand that
we must do if
we are to fully live our lives and
contribute to others.

*Angela Duckworth’s Grit.