Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.*
Ernest Shackleton

There is in each of us the desire for adventure.

We’re nothing if not inventive as we seek to satisfy this through different ways and means but the fire will not be assuaged by anything less than the venture we are here for.

Sometimes it all begins to emerge when we go slow, alone and silent:

In that special silence, you get a strong sense of something that wants to happen that you wouldn’t be aware of otherwise.**

*Ernest Shackleton, quoted in Maria Popova’s Figuring: the advert may not have existed;
**Joseph Jaworski from Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers’ Presence.

The future is not a destination. It’s a direction.*
Ed Catmull

Life is an expression of bliss.**
Joseph Campbell

In her book about learning from nature, Janine Benyus offers four steps for living in tune with and learning from nature which also provide a way of journeying towards the futures: quietening, listening, mimicking, stewarding.

Quietening is to come aside from the rush and noise of life, often alone.

Listening is to be open to the whisperings that come to us in our quietness: whether it be a walk or some reflective exercise, reading, journaling, doodling or other art.

Mimicking as in giving expression to what is presenting in whispers.

Stewards as both preserving and developing these expressions.

Forty five years after Joseph Campbell identified our need for myths if we are to live fully and meaningfully, and following a winter visit to the Artic Circle, Katherine May experiences this for herself, reflecting:

Few of us inherit the rich and complex mythologies that the Sami pass on – the sense of the world alive around us, and of ancestors keeping a gentle watch in the very rocks we stand one, the very wind that buffets us. Most of us have to make our own, if we think to do it at all.^

These mythologies, or stories, offer ways for containing our quietening, listening, mimicking and stewarding, Robert Bly offers a place to begin, picking a myth and seeking to live it out:

the student would choose one myth that attracted him and then spend time in college seeing how far he lived it and how the myth lived him.^^

Have fun.

*From Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.;
**From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey;
^From Katherine May’s Wintering;
^^Robert Bly, from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.

I listened while the land spoke, and then I tried to mimic what I heard.*
Janine Benyus

One of the problems with being separated from the seasons is we have lost sight of how all things can be made new. And we all need this newness, the possibility of starting over.

god believes in it: it’s we that have to be convinced.

[O]ne young lady came to me and said, “Oh, Mr Campbell, you just don’t know about the modern generation. We go straight from infancy to wisdom.” I said, “That’s great. All you’ve missed is life.””**

*From Janine Benyus’ Biomimicry;
**From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.

Here’s the doodle for colouring. I’ve mentioned that the final doodle I posted yesterday took me some four hours for the A4 sized original.

You can just colour it when you want to lose yourself and relax in colouring.

I doodled this card last year when we were in lockdown across the UK. I wanted to share it to say thank you for joining me here across the year.

However you celebrate and recuperate at this time of year, I hope it will be both meaningful and enjoyable.

Thin|Silence is a simple blog, seeking to share some encouragement each day towards exploring your wonderful uniqueness. I look forward to 2022 and the ninth year of Thin|SIlence every day.

Here’s a part of my Christmas card design for this year. I doodled it last Christmas Day when we weren’t able to meet with families and friends.

The completed design will be up tomorrow and I’m making the whole black and white design for you to colour in, if you would like to have some mindful colouring to do.

I hand-coloured the doodle this year and, I discovered, there’s a good four hours of relaxation included.

On balance, it’s where I prefer to be: somewhere in the middle. Certainty is a dead space, in which there’s no room to grow. Wavering is painful. I’m glad to be travelling between the two.*
Katherine May

We are the dawning of the universe upon itself.**
Rebecca Elson

Katherine May is describing her practice of getting up early and lighting a lamp but also a candle at her desk: one light steady, the other wavering.

She reminds me of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s identifying of two impulses: one of homing, the other of exploration. In her solitude May is identifying with these, so I thought to include John O’Donohue’s blessing for solitude and what it brings to us:

May your recognise in your life the presence,
Power and light of your soul.
…
May you have respect for your individuality and difference.^

There’s the light again, helping us to find our way, and I am reminded of three I hold close to: the light of humility, the light of gratitude, and the light of faithfulness.

Jonah Paquette teaches me that although awe can, on the one hand, arise from vastness, and be either perceptual – perhaps a sunset, or conceptual – perhaps an idea, on the other hand it can be something that transcends understanding and changes us.^^

In your solitude, may you find your guiding lights, and journeying between homing and exploration, be changed from your wonderful glory to more glory.

*From Katherine May’s Wintering;
**From Rebecca Elson’s A Responsibility to Awe;
^From John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For Solitude:
^^See Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck.

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

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.**

Shouldn’t we be suspicious of the desires in the hearts of some people? We suspect our own enough.

I wonder, though, whether deep down in every human heart there is a desire to for beauty.

I was arrested by the following story.

A desperate Michelle reaches out to Nick Cave:

Nick. Am Scottish. Am no very well with the alcohol. Rehab soon. 29/7. Please. Nick. I saw you in Prospect Park NY many years ago. Am so scared. I’m not well. Stagger Me! I think the world of you and The Seeds.^

Cave’s Red Hand Files blog is often a place of intimacy for the musician as he respond to messages people have written. I include his whole letter to Michelle:

Dear Michelle,

Time to give up the booze – you know it, you need to. It’s frightening now, I know, but I can only say this, life is better without it. Impossibly better. It’s difficult to understand right now, it’s frightening right now, I know, but without the drink life is better. Just remember that. You’ll see. You’ll be better. You’ll see. Life is good. You’ll see. Life is good. Life is good. Life is good. 

Prepare to be amazed. 

Love, Nick x^

Life is good.

Your life is good. My life is good.

Deep down there are the desires of our hearts to be awakened.

I include Joseph Campbell’s words because our stories are so important for being fully awake. We may think of stories as ways of trying to understand what we’re doing, but perhaps more true is that what we do is a way of trying to understand our stories.

Wherever we are, whatever we are facing, our stories are our home. They help us face our winter and already contain our expectant spring.

Writing out our stories, in some aspect or way, every day helps us to connect with what is most important when the noise and rush of a day can cover it over with activity without reflection.

*From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey;
**Psalm 37:4;
^From Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files: #160.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.*
Joseph Campbell

“Here, I made this.” … These four words carry with them generosity, intent, risk, and intimacy. The more we say them, and mean them, and deliver on them, the more art and connection we create. And we create change for a living.**
Seth Godin

We need ways of remembering every day just who we are and what we do: Joseph Campbell called it our bliss. Other words include, dream, purpose, meaning, calling, vocation, mission.

Remembering who we are and what we do may sound ridiculous, but it’s highly probable that a day will find ourselves pulled off course, feeling disconnected and going through the motions. The longer this goes on the more dangerous it becomes for us.

The solution isn’t magic but ritual, or practice or habit: unapologetically making the time to imaginatively reconnect every day heart, soul, mind and body with the you capable of endless growth and development, and then taking something of this out with you to give to someone, bringing change to them, but also to you.

Have fun.

*Joseph Campbell, quoted in Austin Kleon’s blog: The Bliss Station;
**From Seth Godin’s The Practice.

It turns out that acute angles, rough edges and the imperfect matches of diversity actually make things work better. Especially when we’re dealing with humans.*
Seth Godin

Against the claim of perfection we can assert our own individuality, which gives distinctive character to the work we do.**
Richard Sennett

Those who seek perfection know how difficult it is to let go of what they are working on.

The important thing is to shift attention from the outside to the inside, to pay attention to the endless possibility of improvement that is open to us as infinite persons. Getting stuck in a piece of external work can put the brakes on this: a lose-lose.

R. described how her life felt cobbled together, using the term in a negative way. I liked the phrase and suggested that she explore it in a positive way. R. noticed all there was to improve on her inside and it worked: she has been on some astonishing adventures since.

Keep going on the inside to keep going on the outside.

*From Seth Godin’s blog: Cobbled together;
**From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.