The obstacle on the way becomes the way.*
Marcus Aurelius

God made man because he loves stories.**
Elie Weisel

We find ourselves in the best stories when we are
being present, adaptable, imaginative, playful, innovative with
what is happening around or to us;
If we think we’re going to get a story that’s exactly
what we want, we’re going to be
disappointed –
We know the skills to work on.

*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Dan McAdams’ The Stories We Live By.

This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were telling a story.*
Jean-Paul Sartre

Marginalising the ego, abandoning it to the circumference, is a way of entering the soul. In fact it might be more accurate to say that marginalising the ego is precisely the work of the soul.**
James Carse

Back in 2011, I picked up a copy of
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and at
fifty two years of age I was going to be helped to reframe and embrace
many of the stories of my life in a different way –
The myth leads us from our ordinary world into a
special world of challenges and threats, and death and life moments,
Forging who we can be and what we must do with our lives for the sake of others;
We bring these tropes back to our ordinary world towards living
selflessly, generously, and wisely.

Every life looks different from the perspective of a myth.

*Dan McAdams’ The Stories We Live By;
**James Carse’s Breakfast at the Victory.

When you’re present, you don’t have control, and you don’t care. When you’re connected to your power, you don’t need to control … What matters is that you understand that being open is powerful.*
Katherine Morgan Schafler

I was thirty years old before I had an actual thought.**
Steven Pressfield

An infinite player seeks to touch and
not to move another,^
Such a person touches from
their true or super power;
The only power worth culturing is
that which recognises the true power of others,
Out of which a different
way of thinking begins to appear.

*Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work – the other thinking is merely “monkey brain” or the regurgitated thoughts of others;
^James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

I think songs have a way of talking into the future.*
Nick Cave

The future remembers you. Will you remember it back?**
AleXander McManus

Not all write songs but all
create stories, and through our imaginations
we are capable of folding time – so the future
shapes the present and makes it possible to
rework our past through
recognising our talents, energies, and values,^ and also through
foresight, intention, and love.^^

*Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
^Our talents, energies, and values have been shaped through our years and experiences, whether good or bad, meaning that when we recognise these, we shape our stories with reality rather than fantasy;
^^I remember AleXander McManus speaking of shaping the future with foresight, intention, and love, though it strikes me that these qualities also work for the past.

Always ask the questions. Always know that you don’t know anything.*
Adam Kahane

Blessed are the doubters, for they shall see through false gods.
Blessed are the lovers, for they shall see God everywhere.**
Brian McLaren

What if we turn out to be the false gods? –
Nurturing a practice of doubt feels healthier,^
Reflective-doubt in humble solitude shaping tools of doubt
to bring to work –
Certainty can be the enemy.

*Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems;
**Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
^This isn’t doubting ourselves fullstop, but growing an openness to the other.

Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. they are much more like you than you believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides.*
Anne Lamott

It’s where we are though not
where we have to be –
We can take all our screwed-broken-clingy-scaredness
on a journey, out of the familiar and into
wonder and mystery.

First of all into wonder,
As first Philip Newell and then
Robert Macfarlane speak of it:

Our journey of wonder into the landscape of the natural world is, at the same time, a pilgrimage into the inner landscape of the soul.**

Stephen Graham‘s also among a line of pedestrians who saw that wandering and wondering had long gone together; that their kingship as activities extended beyond their half-rhyme^

Then into mystery, as the journey is
imagined by James Carse and then
AleXander McManus:

It is one thing to see something remarkable appearing inexplicably in the world, it is quite another thing to see the world itself as remarkable and all existence is inexplicable.^^

This is the Path of Fire. It cannot be diagrammed or decoded. It must be entered like a mystery. Not because the way is safe, but because something sacred stirs within the flame.*^

Have I forgotten our screwed-broken-clingy-scaredness? –
Not at all, we just haven’t let it get in the way of
what we are equally capable of –
A great search, a hero’s journey – and
who knows what might happen on the way?

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations For Mortals;
**Philip Newell’s The Great Search, seeing nature as a means of returning to our home in Earth and soul;
^Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places, how wandering can upset and reset the way we see things;
^^James Carse’s Breakfast at the Victory, understanding that beneath our labels and explanations, life is far more mysterious;
*^AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments, inviting us into a modern day mystic’s understanding of the hero’s journey .

Experience pain, anger, sorrow, and more.
Don’t judge them as bad.
Notice how they really feel.*
Derek Sivers

Define the dragon … The Innocent (doesn’t know the dragon exists) … The Orphan (overwhelmed or consumed by the dragon) … The Martyr (persecuted by the dragon … The Wanderer (avoids the dragon) … The Warrior (fights the dragon) … The Sorcerer (accepts the dragon … and in doing so transforms the dragon).**
Stephen Gilligan and Roger Dilts

Who understands a dragon, who can look and
listen beyond the fire and stench, and roar. to hear
its voice behind the growl and sulphurous smoke – its pain and need?

Not to ignore or run away or hide or fight, but
facing it with kindness and understanding its fury may even lead
to some path of purpose to tread forwards together.

*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**Stephen Gilligan and Roger Dilts’ The Hero’s Journey.

The world is alive, generous, and waiting patiently for us to figure it out.*
Tom De Blasis

Reality emerges in dialogue, ignites in presence, and unfolds in participation.**
AleXander McManus

We don’t have to slow
down to
listen and
feel and
play, but
we could.^^

*”Autopilot” is how Mindfulness describes moving through our lives without awareness; Theory U refers to this as “downloading.”
**Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick’s A Velocity of Being;
^AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
^^The alternative to autopilot- and downloading-living is to open our minds, open our hearts, and open our wills – and example is the naturalist John Muir who would spend time making the acquaintance of new plants to him, even speaking with them.

But the act of looking at something does not create that thing; neither does the act of not looking annihilate it.*
Viktor Frankl

Staying open-handed, treasuring but not grasping, is critical to the contemplative stance.**
Krista Tippett

Beware the one who squeezes
tightly the name of subject or object;
Welcome the person who appelates
lightly because of what they cannot see and
do not know.

*Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
**Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

We don’t just get wise by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.*
Derek Sivers

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.**
Madeleine L’Engle

If knowledge survives
learning, unlearning, and relearning, and
manifests itself in heart, soul, mind, and
body living, then it can probably be called
wisdom.

*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah Or No;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU; from Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.