Somewhere, something amazing is waiting to be known.* Carl Sagan
Technology is miraculous but so too is nature – and this aspect of the world’s wonder seems under threat of erasure in children’s narratives, dreams and plots.** Robert Macfarlane
Towards saving our world, A good place to begin could be to include more natural awe in our day – Gazing at a tree and attempting to draw it may hive one place to begin, Spotting and listing the birds or bugs, Or bugs and birds around our homes is another; I’ve just picked up Jacqueline Freeman’s Song of Increase to help me discover the wisdom of honeybees.^
Natural awe is our fuel for what we must do.
*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck; **Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks; ^And anything from Robert Macfarlane makes for awe-filled reading.
You step into the portal to discover what you didn’t know you were looking for.* Austin Kleon
Nothing changes until someone cares enough to build an alternative.** Seth Godin
A portal isn’t only a door, It’s an opening into a previously unimagined or unvisited world: Austin Kleon is describing the place of writing in just such a way, something Henri Nouwen further emphasises when he writes: Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey of which we do not know the final destination.^
A conversation is another kind of portal, And dreamwhispering is a conversation that is an alternative to coaching and mentoring – Not better, just different, and I created it for you.
Genius arises with touch. Touch is a characteristically paradoxical phenomenon of infinite play. I am not touched by an other when the distance between us is reduced to zero. I am touched only as I respond from my own centre – that is, spontaneously, originally. But you do not touch me except from your own centre, out of your own genius. Touching is always reciprocal. You cannot touch me unless I touch you in response. The opposite of touching is moving. You move me by pressing me from without toward a place you have already foreseen and perhaps prepared. It is a staged action that succeeds only if in moving me you remain unmoved yourself … This means that we can be moved only by persons who are not what they are; we can be moved only when we are not who we are, but are what we cannot be.* James Carse
Please excuse today’s long quote, but I have long been fascinated by this passage, and have found myself pondering what I think James Carse is describing.
I find myself imagining the U of Theory U, At the bottom of which is found the rarely discovered world of generative dialogue, Where the true self of one person meets the true self of the other – The alternative being ego meeting self, or ego meeting ego; Only when self meets self can we be surprised by the new.
Otherwise, when there is no surprise, No new, We are acting from our scripts, Not our deeper creativity; And though, sometimes it does not matter too much that we are acting out of our role or job description rather than our genius, We may find ourselves with solutions that have to be revisited again and again, whilst the longer road of true self meeting true self – Giving birth to surprise and a new possibility – We identify not only a way forward, but also experience transcendence and transformation.
We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant ‘life questions.’ Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to – being responsible towards – life.* Viktor Frankl
Now all that is needed is more. More time. More cycles, more bravery. Much more of you. More idiosyncrisity, more genre, more seeing, more generosity. More learning. It’s not working. (Yet.)** Seth Godin
Life asks, Who are you?, What will you bring? – Every day a new opportunity to respond deeper than the day before.
Two things: everything depends on the individual human being, regardless of how small a number of like-minded people there are, and everything depends on each person, through action and not mere words, creatively making the meaning of life a reality in his or her own being.* Viktor Frankl
Longing is momentum is disguise: it’s active, not passive; touched with the creative, the tender, and the divine.** Susan Cain
Do not wait for others, Look within; That which has been stirring within you is already breathing, it only wants to play.
Powerful moments of awe, can help reconnect us to our values, remind is of what truly matters, and out our lives into a great cosmic perspective.* Jonah Paquette
It doesn’t sound all that attractive, to be encumbered, and yet these things that constrain us (nature, family, convictions) are not things we can easily dispose of, either, and in fact, accepting the limitations they bring can lay the foundation for freedoms unavailable without them.** Lewis Hyde
Yes, you and I, We are limited beings, But that’s the wonder of this life of clay – We can add some awe and see what happens.
Curation is the ultimate way of transforming noise into meaning.* Rohit Bhargava
I grow in these moments like corn in the night: this is not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realise what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of words … if the birds and flowers should try me by their standard, I would not be found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself.** Henry David Thoreau
I cannot include everything, You will involve things I do not – Together, a larger picture of all things – Then, for this single life, I must select what is most precious and meaningful to me – Even as you choose what is invaluable to you – Arranging these into a story I might enhance daily, whilst you increase yours.
Towards this, Time to reflect and ponder – Perhaps in silence, perhaps in journal – Is never wasted time.
*Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious 2019; **Nicholas Bone’s adaptation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
awe truly is all around us, if only we take the time to look* Jonah Paquette
As well as opening doors, the children made dens: the doors allowing access and adventure, the dens permitting retreat and shelter.** Robert Macfarlane
As we grow older, May we not neglect the doors to wander, to wonder, to adventure: Where does your mind go when it wanders? My friend Jason points out that this might be where your heart is.^
With each close friend, relative, or lover, a character evolves a version of himself that he could not bring out all on his own.* Robert McKee
No one sees reality. It’s worth repeating: No one actually sees the world as it is.** Seth Godin
We only become who we are capable of becoming through others, Especially those who are different to us – All the people we read or listen to or converse with around the things that concern and matter to us, And especially those interactions around things we hadn’t even thought about and that matter to them.
Openness is key to creativity – Something we know we’ll need plenty of if we are to save our world, Or be saved by the world – And the good news is that for the most part openness is free; The bad news is that it is becoming more scarce as we compartmentalise society and digitalise our lives – I love tech, but have to acknowledge we are losing contact with nature and humanity and the whole news, as well as reading longer texts and handwriting as a reflective tool and enjoying silence …
Creativity is the practice of keeping an open mind – and the thing about maintaining a practice is, well, you need to keep practising.^
THIN|SILENCE 
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