The Celtic imagination always sensed that beneath time there was eternal depth. […] While something may come to an ending on the surface of time, it’s presence, meaning, and effect continue to be held and integrated into the eternal.*
(John O’Donohue)

When the way is flat and dull in times of grey endurance,
May your imagination continue to evoke horizons.**
(John O’Donohue)

Status quo is another way of saying something has got stuck when it needn’t be.

There’s nothing like our imaginations for getting unstuck, imaginations that understand time to be deep and that although this looks on the surface to be be the destination or conclusion, it isn’t by any means.

Our imaginations dwell most richly in our creativity, our art, and there’s nothing quite like our art to disrupt what has become too settled. Art is where something can begin or begin again.

Each person’s art is different and must be seen for what it is so that it may be honed into something powerful. Size has nothing to do with it, it’s goodness, though, is everything.

An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity and boldness to challenge the status quo. Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does.^

While I’m not thinking of art in a traditional sense, sometimes introducing some drawing or writing into our daily experience is a really useful way of disrupting where we find ourselves when are used as habits or methods or practices to bring us to our artistic expression.

(*From John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us.)
(**From John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: For One Who Holds Power.)
(^From Ben Hardy’s blog: These 20 Pictures Will Teach You More Than Reading 100 Books.)

Some people as they grow up become less […]. Other people as they grow up become more.*
(Eugene Peterson)

The wanderer becomes one with himself or herself and the universe. We connect with the energy of all living things. We live according to our inner nature.**
(Keri Smith)

Over twenty years ago, Eugene Peterson’s Under the Unpredictable Plant stimulated a growth spurt in my life, one I have not yet found the limits to.

Integral to this is knowing everyone has a capacity to grow beyond what they know and who they are.

Today I become a sexagenarian and take to heart some words from Rohit Bhargava which I offer here as a blessing:

May you continue to know the agitation of your curiosity,
May your eyes open ever wider so you may observe more around you,
May you be playful and not fixated,
May you always be deeply thoughtful, knowing there is always more around the corner,
And may you be elegant in your life, your work and your art.^

(*From Eugene Peterson’s Run With the Horses.)
(**From Keri Smith’s The Wander Society.)
(^Heavily contrived (curated) from Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious – 2018 edition: ‘be curious, be observant, be fickle, be thoughtful, be elegant’.)

Where is your bliss station? […] You have to try to find it.*
(Joseph Campbell)

How much will it cost?

If we’re talking technology, the cost will go down over time. Kevin Kelly notes, although the price will never become zero, how:

In the goodness of time any particular technological function will act as if it were free.**

If we’re talking about your art then the cost will go up over time.

It’s why we find ourselves using words like sacrifice.

Artist and writer Austin Kleon quotes Joseph Campbell having created his own bliss station or sacred space, a place to disconnect from the outer world and all its demands and for a little while to connect to the inner world of becoming and possibilities.

Some will connect to their god, others to their muse, still others to the universe and some to all three and more.

You may think, then, that because you don’t consider yourself a writer or an artist, you don’t need to worry about a bliss station.

Joseph Campbell’s words, though, are aimed at everyone, his gift to open our eyes and hearts to the specialness of every human life and how we each have something to bring, something artistic.

The cost is more about time than money. It’s why time is the most precious thing we have.

Tomorrow I turn sixty years of age and yet I believe that with this kind of investment some of the most exciting possibilities are ahead.

(*Joseph Campbell, from Austin Kleon’s Keep Going.)
(**From Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable.)

Extended, the lines of relationships intersect with the eternal You. Every single You is a glimpse of that.*
(Martin Buber)

Even though there’s something that gives us great meaning and satisfaction on a personal level, it’s unlikely that it will be completely joyful without some kind of intersecting of this with the lives of others.

Towards this, in the words of John O’Donohue:

May [you] live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Gentle in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.**

(*From Martin Buber’s I and Thou.)
(**From John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes; I have changed an “I” to ‘you’ to make it into a blessing for passing on.)

That moment when you’re found out, what do you do?

You can start blagging, but there’d only be another moment like this, probably worse.

Or, you can own up and do something about it.

Bernadette Jiwa has it right when she reflects:

It turns out that genius isn’t just about intellect, it also requires an open heart.*

Blagging affects both the blaggee and the blagger. Hearts become more closed than open.

And we need an open heart because, as Joseph Campbell reminds us about what matters in life:

One way or another, we all have to find that best fosters the flowering of your humanity in this contemporary life and dedicate ourselves to that.**

(*From Bernadette Jiwa’s Hunch.)
(**Joseph Campbell, from Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.)

Integrity not only harnesses our passions but focus our intentions.*
(Erwin McManus)

Significance […] hides in plain sight. Carrying out seemingly small, unimportant acts, with intention and conviction. Without permission, to rewrite the future.**
(Bernadette Jiwa)

Significance is more about finding the right self than it is about finding the right thing to do.

Finding the right self is about having a oneness (self to others, self to the world, self to self) and resonating deeply with this – it’s much more likely to say “Look at you!” then “Look at me!”

The next thing step is then to turn up as that person every day.

The significant life is your life.

(*From Erwin McManus’ Stand Against the Wind.)
(**From The Story of Telling: The Myth of Significance.)

Read, look into other areas, use different learning mediums, ask better questions, reflect, be open to ideas, be surrounded by learners, and prioritise learning.*
(Michael Heppell)

It’s said that the humble know their place, but they don’t, not really.

True humility causes us to be curious and open about our place and places, to ask questions and to imagine, and, when the time appears ripe, to leap into another world.

(*From Michael Heppell’s The Edge.)

A little imprisonment – if it’s of your own making – can set you free.*
(Austin Kleon)

Busy is the new stupid.**
(Warren Buffet)

The best routines are how we hold together all of our curiosity, dreaming, knowledge, passion, imagining, creating and making … every day.

And every day, we get to hone these a little more.

Obversely, the freedom we sometimes long for can become the real prison.

(*From Austin Kleon’s Keep Going.)
(**Warren Buffet, quoted in gapingvoid’s blog: The one thing you cannot afford to be stupid about.)

anywhere at all, cross the street, open your eyes*
(Agnès Varda)

Open mind

Open heart

Open will

… keep moving.

(*From Agnès Varda’s film Cléo, quoted in Lauren Elkin’s Flâneuse.)

What is it that is eternal: the primal phenomenon, present in the here and now, of what we call revelation? It is man’s emerging from the moment of the supreme encounter, being no longer the same as he was when entering into it. The moment of encounter is not a “living experience” that stirs in the receptive soul and blissfully rounds itself out: something happens to man.*
(Martin Buber)

Once upon a time there were commodities.

Over time we saw all the different things that could be made from these commodities and we created goods. Lots of goods.

As goods became more complicated they needed to be serviced.

More time passed and we saw how these interactions with goods and services could be more enriching and we made them into experiences.

After a good experience in a moment and hour or a day, we saw how these experiences could be extended over time if they became transformative.

The encounters we have with people can make the same journey.

(*From Martin Buber’s I and Thou.)