Why are we not better than we are?*
Eric Threthewey

My question isn’t
Can I be better? but
What’s stopping me?;
Every day
I’m trying to figure this out.

*Maria Popova’s The Marginalian blog: Why Are We Not Better Than We Are: How Poetry Saves Lives.

Well Joe, to me a myth is something that never was but is always happening.*
Jean Houston

Your myth will lead you home,
Not in any specific way, but
in calling
resonating
revealing
recovering
resetting, and
vitalising.

My hope is to encourage you to
uncover your myth –
And here is a doodle you’re welcome to
print off and colour in
as you reflect on your myth.

*Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life, speaking to Joseph Campbell.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.*
Joseph Campbell

Everything is nature,
And everything is relational –
We just make it personal, too:
What is it you must do –
That only you can do –
That will resonate with the universe?

*Kelvy Bird’s Generative Scribing.

I’m the one who needs mercy – my mercy.  The need for this, for my own motley mercy, underpinned most of my lifelong agitation, my separation from life itself.*
Anne Lamott

Being hard on yourself again? –
Perhaps show some mercy –
Like you would with others –
Then see what happens next.

*Anne Lamott’s Hallelujah Anyway.

The story is a natural package for organising many different kinds of information. Storytelling appears to be a fundamental way of expressing ourselves and our world to others.*
Dan McAdams

Perhaps there are things in our lives that
we’d prefer not to be there, but
these selfsame things may be just what
we need in order to to bring richness to others and
meaning to ourselves when
we weave them into our story.

*Dan McAdam’s The Stories We Live By.

A loss teaches humility and resilience. Failure expands our capacity to take risks, to try hard things, to persevere even when success isn’t guaranteed. And it’s only in defeat that we learn what truly matters to us.*
Bernadette Jiwa

The important stuff has no finish line.**
James Clear

This has not been easy but
you are keeping going, not only
pushing on with what you must do –
Seeing it develop as a result – but
also growing a stronger self –
Heart, soul, and mind stronger;
Reflecting on failures, picking yourself up and
starting over are a badge of honour and
nobility and enlightenment:
You are becoming relentless.

By the way,
I’m taking a few weeks away from posting thin|silence, but
I can’t not do it, so I have prepared and scheduled
a little thin|silence for each day –
Thank you for following.

*Bernadette Jiwa’s Briefly blog: You Can Learn a Lot By Losing;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On balancing gratitude and ambition, the best things in life, and feeling like you have enough.

The feeling of being from an alien world passes after a few hours or a few days. Thereafter, we will spend a good space of time at our mundane life, fueled by the energy we gathered on our journey to home and practising interim union with soul through the practice of solitude.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

We are both the authors and the actors. We can shape the plot but not fully. We can toss aside the script but not always. We live at the intersection of free will and circumstance.**
Daniel Pink

You have discovered or uncovered
some astonishing truths about who you are
and what you can do –
These have always been there, but you have seen them now
because you have made your approach
from a different direction.^

As exciting as these revelations are,
They begin to wain when you
reimmerse yourself in the ordinary-everyday,
Where you have to figure out how to employ
your new self-knowledge in the world of
“this is just the way it is.”

No myth or guide for the way has ever said that
this will be easy – that it’s taken this long to come upon this
new self-knowledge is evidence of this – but
what circumstance and script respect is
the person of solitude consistently growing
in their integrity,^^ wholeness, and perseverance.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret;
^My dreamwhispering work is one kind of different direction – contact me at geoffreybaines@gmail.com to find out more;
^^By integrity, I mean connectedness to self, others, Earth, and god – if you believe.

The fairy godmother replied that true magic is to help each thing become its best and most free self.*
Rebecca Solnit

Love God and love every species as yourself. This is the deep challenge of this moment in time.**
Philip Newell

Near to where I once lived in Edinburgh
stands an eight hundred year old oak wood;
Walking amongst these astonishing witnesses
of time, I found myself in awe and humbled.

It is estimated that there are almost
fifty thousand species of animal and
plant presently threatened by extinction –
Some estimates are in nine figures, including insects.

We don’t have to be religious, philosophical, or
activist to deeply appreciate the home in
which we live and move and have our being,
simply an explorer of our profound humanness.

*Rebecca Solnit’s Cinderella Liberator;
**Philip Newell’s The Great Search.

I think if anyone can catch the content of this new myth, it will have to be those who are awakened to the imaginative life. It will have to be the artists and poets, and certainly the dancers.*
Joseph Campbell

Just like you,
I tell myself a story as
I move through the things
my life contains and brings me to.

Just like you,
because this story both iterates my past and
informs my future, I can properly think of it
as my myth.

Just like you,
If it should leave me with some unrealised
potential or unrequited longing, if it should be
passionless or joyless, then I must reinvent.

Just like you, I should feed and free
my imagination rather than wait for
things “out there” to change,
Though, unlike you, this is different for each of us.

And that’s exciting.

*Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life; Joseph Campbell’s wife Jean Erdman was a dancer and choreographer.

The fairy godmother replied that true magic is to help each thing become its best and most free self.*
Rebecca Solnit

We have become a generation of unstorytellers, which is a reason we’re a generation of malcontents.**
Bruce Feiler

The text don’t do it,
The social media post can’t hack it,
The ancients would tell their stories
around family and villages hearths –
Of course, I’m romanticising the past
somewhat, but if you were asked to
tell your story, where would you begin,
Which challenges would you include,
Deepest pain, greatest joy,
Triumphs, hopes?

Why not try writing it down –
Not in some epic- or saga-like way,
But a few lines each day, as you prepare for
what the day will hold.

We shape ourselves as we write.^

*Rebecca Solnit’s Cinderella Liberator;
**Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions;
^Ross MacDonald, from Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze.