Maybe ours is not the
leading role;
Perhaps we do our best work in
enabling others.

Genius is inseparable from the creative process. The word “genius” is expressive of the capacity to be generative. The genius gives birth to something new. The genius creates. … The genius speaks the future into existence.**
Erwin McManus

The myths, when they are translated into rites, organise the field.^
Joseph Campbell

There is something each of us that
our lives want to give expression to –
Something that feeds us with energy when we
engage.

My joy is to help people identify and
organise their genius;
I have a few spaces available
for the beginning of 2024, and
I will share a little more after Christmas:
Watch this space.

*David Shenk’s The Genius In All of Us;
**Erwin McManus’ The Genius of Jesus;
^Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.

The drive for equilibrium becomes a character’s super-objective.*
Robert McKee

It turns out the acute angles, rough edges and the imperfect matches of diversity actually work better. Especially when you’re dealing with a human.**
Seth Godin

It’s there in so many stories:
The protagonist finds herself in
a challenging, unfamiliar world, and
all she wants to bring about is a
return to her known, predictable existence,
Only to find that she must play
this story out;
But it will be here that she will face her
demons and daemons, and
she will either die or
be reborn with
renewed sensitivity towards surprise and possibility.

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Cobbled together.

Look everywhere for difference … See the earth as source, … celebrate the genius in others, be not prepared against but for surprise.*
James Carse

Here is my desire,
To live this wilder existence
in clear view of the everyday and ordinary,
Which are never this and anything but –
Amen, amen.

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games (my italics).

When we satisfy our need for wild awe, it is good for our minds; we concentrate better, handle stresses with more resilience, and perform better on cognitive tests of different kinds.*
Dacher Keltner

The walks were magical and full of delight. Mr. Tayer seemed to have absolutely no self-consciousness, and he was always being carried away by wonder and astonishment over the simplest things. He was constantly and literally falling into love. … “Jeanne, look at the caterpillar. Ahhhhh!” I joined him on the ground to see what had evoked such a response.**
Jean Houston

We do not have to live in wild places to
encounter wild life;
It is all around us, and perhaps
all the more awesome for it:
I want what Mr. Tayer had,
A life orientated towards
surprise and wonder …
And a falling into love
wherever I am:
look everywhere for difference …
See the earth as source …
celebrate the genius in others,
be not prepared against
but for surprise.^

*Dacher Keltner’s Awe;
**Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life;
^James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

Is the life I’m living the same as the life that wants to live in me?*
Parker Palmer

Myth has always demanded action.**
Karen Armstrong.

“Next time it will be different,”
But this time wasn’t, and
next time, well, it
may be, but, really, we know what we’re doing
is putting off having to admit that
it won’t be;
The alternative is to do something
different for the sake of
things turning out differently.

We don’t know what our lives can be until
we allow wonder to break in,
Allowing ourselves to be changed
by awe, and led into new explorations, so,
Perhaps a walk in nature
(large or small), would be
somewhere
to begin –
And if you tell yourself,
“That’s not the kind of thing I do” –
Exactly!:
Encounters with images of nature
lead to the activation of dopamine networks in
the brain,
which animate … exploration and
wonder.^

*Sunil Raheja’s Dancing With Wisdom;
**Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth;
^Dacher Keltner’s Awe.
^^The doodle: After pondering this theme, I heard Jennifer Lopez’s character Kat Valdez, in Marry Me, deliver this line.

The sages taught their disciples to look within themselves for truth and not to rely on the teachings of priests, and other religious experts.*
Karen Armstrong

Before we conclude that truth lies within
everyone,
It is important to note that we must first be a
disciple, a padawan –
One submitting and embracing a discipline, a way, a school, an order;
Formal or informal does not matter,
Only that we are seekers of truth in mind, heart, and
body:
Myth has always demanded action.*

*Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth.

On a quest, the process of transformation is at least as important, maybe more so, than the destination we’re trying to reach.*
Sunil Raheja

“So far” and “not yet” are the foundation of every successful journey.**
Seth Godin

I had thought the destination
was the important thing,
Only for the journey to
endlessly surprise me.

*Sunil Raheja’s Dancing With Wisdom;
**Seth Godin’s The Practice.

Evolution favours species that move their bodies in the way they were meant to move.*
Dacher Keltner

Flow is a symptom of the work we’re doing, not the cause of it.**
Seth Godin

Sunil Raheja offers four signs of
egocentricity:
We compare ourselves with others;
We are defensive;
We need to display our brilliance;
We need to be liked and accepted.^

Our movements become unnatural and
distorted, and whilst we need to develop ego
to become an independent person,
When we become stuck in our individuality,
It’s like dragging a ball and chain.

Interdependence frees us into who we are
uniquely,
To immerse ourselves in what
we must do
and bring to others,
And to value how we
could not do this without each other:
Near the end of March 1845,
I borrowed an axe and went
down to the woods
by Walden Pond …
It is difficult to begin without
borrowing.^^

*Dacher Keltner’s Awe;
**Seth Godin’s The Practice;
^Sunil Raheja’s Dancing With Wisdom;
^^Henry David Thoreau, from Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air.

That’s what humans do: We make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.*
Katherine May

As our circumstances change, we need to tell our stories differently in order to bring out their timeless truth.**
Karen Armstrong

This adapting, unfolding, growing nature
of story is really
important for me to embrace right now:
I am newly retired,
I have moved my home two hundred miles,
Yet there is something I must do –
My timeless truth – and
I must do all I can to keep sight of this,
So I keep coming to this quiet place
each morning to
reimagine:
I thought of the old Latin root of the word desire,
meaning de sider, 
of the stars. 
To have a desire in your life literally means
to keep your star in sight,
to follow a glimmer,
a beacon,
a disappearing will-o’-the-wisp
over the horizon into someplace you cannot yet
fully imagine.^

*Katherine May’s Wintering;
**Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth;
^David White’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.