The shadow is that part of you that you won’t allow to show through, that includes good – I mean potent – as well as dangerous and disastrous aspects of your potential … You should find a way to realise your shadow in life somehow.* Joseph Campbell
The truth is there’s no metric for what matters, no way to measure meaning.** Bernadette Jiwa
We tend to measure what can be measured, Which shifts our focus to what we can measure and away from what we cannot, But what about these things we can’t calculate – How what we are doing resonates with what we find meaningful, How our soul is growing, how our Ego is declining and our True Self is developing, How our being rather than doing is fairing – How goes our self-reflection?
Measuring can be very helpful, but it may cover over how what we are measuring doesn’t matter to us as much as we think it does.
Just like me, you’re the constant observer, the solitary witness to the whole of your life.* AleXander McManus
And so love becomes the most gentle and most powerful agent for the fielding and forming of reality. In love the lenses fall away. In love one forms all formings. In love one becomes generate in the aleph. In love one arrives home at last.** Jean Houston
I’ve been observing my life for more than sixty six years, and perhaps I’m beginning to get the hang of it, Especially appreciating how I need others to help me.
As the Johari Window reminds me, there are things about me that others can see but I cannot, As well as some things that neither I nor others can see.^
Here is the continuing journey for all our lives, One formed through love and for love – Remaining open to the observations of others, rather than defensive or denying; we need others to make this journey, And they need us.
*AleXander McManus’ FutureU. **Jean Houston’s The Possible Human; ^The four quadrants of the Johari Window are: Things only we know about ourselves, things that both we and other know about us, things that only others know, and things that neither we nor others know. These are not fixed.
Before each of us can have a voice of our own, we must enter a silence we can enter only together. It’s a silence without walls. By stepping back to be the listener who has nothing to say we discover the just as there is no language that is exclusively our own, there is no silence that is not a shared silence.* James Carse
Two people try to speak at the same time, Two others sit together in silence – Both scenarios appear wrong to us – We know that one has to be silent while the another speaks, And then they swap places – we know this should work better.
James Carse, though, invites us into the deeper listening and silence of the infinite game of life: The listener with nothing to say – to assert, to demand – is moving from Ego to Self, Just as language arises from Human sharing, so does silence – When I am silent to myself, I am also silent to you, Someone’s true voice can only arise from listening in shared spaces, Silence doesn’t hide behind walls, but is open, inclusive.
Silence is not absence from but a deep form of relationship.
Listen then with soul-hearing now, for that is the mission of the story.* Clarissa Pinkola Estés
To live in Kairos time, we need to shift the focus from what we do with our time to how we experience each moment – what you might call mindful productivity.** Anne-Laure Le Cunff
The Ancients thought there were three levels or paths of listening: For the mundane and everyday, For learning and art, For guidance and for wisdom; We can listen or we can be a listener – There’s a difference, As I’m learning, the latter requiring presence, engagement, and attunement.
Mythology opens up the world so that it becomes transparent to something that is beyond speech, beyond words – in short, what we call transcendence.* Joseph Campbell
Mythology is usually inseparable from ritual. Many myths make no sense outside the liturgical drama that bring them to life, and are incomprehensible in a profane setting.** Karen Armstrong
Though not made of dragons, minotaurs, and odysseys, Life is mythological in seeing beyond the appearance of the ordinary or familiar, to the wonder of life within and around us; Our personal and collective myths quietly shape our habits, practices, and systems of energy – Though some will not understand, Many are awakening to their hunger for myth.
[Signs of Egocentricity:] 1 – Playing the comparison game … 2 – Being defensive … 3 – Needing to display our brilliance … 4 – Needing to be liked and accepted* Sunil Raheja
Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognise him and carry an image of him in their mind.** William James
A couple of thoughts on the Ego and the Self:
1. The signs of egocentricity make a lot of sense: We need to know that we are different to our parents and our peers, It is important to look after ourselves and be secure, Expressing what we are good at allows us to live with purpose, Relationship and connection are meaningful for us; These are important as we grow from dependence towards independence – But difference, security, purpose, and connection are multiplied and transformed when we move from independence to interdependence.
2. When we seek to be different persons or versions of ourselves depending on who we are with, It’s likely our Ego turning up, and, whilst the journey is far from linear, I’m imagining that our movement from Ego to our True Self, From independence to interdependence is going to see us becoming the same person towards the many others.
That urge is love. Love for the material, love for the work, love for our brothers and sisters to whom we will offer our work as a gift.* Steven Pressfield
Despite the revelation of the remnant, those in the larger group almost always blame the ones they consider “less than” for whatever they are lacking, a tragic tendency we now call “blaming the victim.” Failure in almost any form is considered “your own fault” in many upwardly mobile or fully capitalistic society.* Richard Rohr
There are two ways to be wealthy – to get everything you want or to want everything you have.** Ryan Holiday
The leftovers are those who are not valued or deemed to have nothing of value to bring or offer, The tragedy being that those so labeled or marked tend to agree by believing they have nothing others may want, But everyone has something of value to contribute.
The wisdom of creation is directly accessible to us in our everyday experience – the universe dwells inside us.^
Everyone contains some valuable element or aspect of the universe within them; This is our wildness, our truest self, larger and more valuable than our educational, employment, or political selves, Forgotten and unknown to us.
If we establish a regular practice of intentional solitude, we invite a conversation between ourselves and the wild soul that comes near to our shore. We do this not only to “be near” the wild soulful nature, but as in the mystical tradition since time out of mind, the purpose of this union is for us us to ask questions, and for the soul to advise.^^
More than ever we struggle to be alone in our quietness, listening for the questions of the soul, questions that echo the universe’s What we will do with your life? – but here is an experiment: To find our secluded place to be quiet awhile and listen.*^
In fact … wealth undermines everyday awe and our capacity to see the moral beauty of others, the wonders of nature, and the sublime in music or art.^*
The universe, began 13.7 billion years ago with a great flaring forth of light. That is when I began and that is when you began.* Philip Newell
Character isn’t fate or destiny. Character isn’t DNA, decided before birth. Character is the result of your little choices and little actions.** Derek Sivers
A lot of work has gone into making you you, though there are some finishing touches required which only you can make – No matter what you think is happening around you and upon you through all those events and people, It’s all about you making your choices, And here’s another day to make a few more.
*Philip Newell’s The Great Search; **Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No.
THIN|SILENCE 
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