The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown to us.*
George Hegel

Get the bucket size right and your life changes. This is probably the easiest, fastest and most productive way to improve our well being.**
Seth Godin

We think we know our world, each
other, ourselves –
We don’t.

We think we need
more to be fulfilled and satisfied but
we probably already have all we require.

Perhaps we should take a closer look?

*John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Bucket size.

Susan Sontag said somewhere something like any technology that slows us down in our writing rather than speeding us up is the one we ought to use.*
Ross Gay

As for writing, so for life.

It is reported that Parisian flaneurs would
walk a tortoise to slow them down to notice more.

Richard Rohr writes about learning to
live in our souls because we are smaller than
our souls – we are also faster, so
we slow down for our souls to catch up.

*Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights.

Women have always been and continue to accomplish heroic feats with the difference that their emphasis has tended to be on process rather than product – making things cohere, relate, develop, and grow … the inner experience being of equal value to the outer action.*
Jean Houston

Consistent, gradual and persistent are the unsung forces of cultural change.**
Seth Godin

Slow makes it possible to
develop some deeper abilities,
The kind that enable us to nurture oneness
and connection, blossoming into collaboration.

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The thing about pressure.

Women have always been and continue to accomplish heroic feats with the difference that their emphasis has tended to be on process rather than product – making things cohere, relate, develop, and grow … the inner experience being of equal value to the outer action.*
Jean Houston

Consistent, gradual and persistent are the unsung forces of cultural change.**
Seth Godin

What if the way we
respond to this challenge is
forming us into the person
able to meet the next one?

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The thing about pressure.

Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality.**
Steven Pressfield

“I am going.” These are the best words ever. Say them. Then go.^
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Yes, there may be resistance to your hope,
But there will also be assistance.

This is not about ignoring reality, but
aligning your imagination with what is true.

So you set out, unsure of what lies before you,
Trusting that things will happen along the way.

*Coddiwompling is to set out in a purposeful way towards a vague or unknown destination;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.

saeculum (n): a period of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a human being

Migration is more than a fact of existence – it’s our essence … We are all part of this great migration, even if we don’t recognise it. Some of us cross physical borders, others invisible ones: fear to courage, despair to faith, stasis to movement. The question is not whether will will move, but when and where.*
AleXander McManus

What kinds of movement have taken place
across your personal saeculum?

Which movements still lie
before us?^

Speed is not the issue,
That you and I keep moving is.

A saeculum equates to around eighty five years,
And the most important measure of this is today.

*will.i.am’s I like to move it, move it for accompanying the blog;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU;
^Not only what we do but also who we become.

What are you singing?
We want to hear it.

(You are welcome to print off and colour in the doodle while you’re “singing.”)

We talk to ourselves.
And we listen to what we say.*
Ethan Kross

You’re welcome to print the doodle and colour whilst listening to your chatter.

*Ethan Kross’ Chatter.

The Mensch is ourselves whenever we go to High Self.*
Jean Houston

The third group of values lies precisely in man’s attitude towards the limiting factors upon his life. His. very response to the restraints upon his potentialities provides him with a new realm of values which surely belong among the higher values.**
Viktor Frankl

We can go on about all the constraints and
limitations there are on our lives, or
we can choose to grow within these, even
becoming playful^ with them towards
a more meaningful life –
Perhaps a larger experience than some who don’t have
half the restrictions we do.

*Jean Houston’s The Possible Human;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

First, … we are to move from a spirituality of alienation from the natural world to a spirituality of intimacy with the natural world. Second, we are to move from a spirituality of revelation through scripture to a spirituality of revelation through Earth. And third, we are to move from a spirituality of justice for human beings to a spirituality of justice for every life-form.
Philip Newell

Tactics are how we win short-term games … Strategies are for long-term games. Strategies are worth sharing, inspecting, and sticking with. A tactic is what we do next. A strategy is all the nexts, one after the other.**
Seth Godin

When it comes to our friend Earth,
We are in a long-term game, and
the best strategies will include our
personal transformation;
Earth will help us –
That’s what friends do.

A story isn’t about what happens in the world. A story is about what happens in the protagonist.^

*Philip Newell’s The Great Search, outlining the spiritual movements of Thomas Berry;
**Seth Godin’s This is Strategy;
^Lisa Cron’s Story Or Die.