Drawing is much more than GOOD OR BAD. IT IS A language FROM another part of you … Cartooning isn’t just a way of drawing, it is a way of seeing.*
Lynda Barry

Copying is how I learn, it’s a way to understand what’s really going on, and drawing is a way of slowing down long enough to really look at something.**
Austin Kleon.

Slow down,
Look and see,
Understand,
Find more of yourself.

Don’t let yourself
or anyone else, tell you that
you are no good at drawing;
All drawing is copying, whether
it is something in
front of you or in
your imagination, and if
in copying it becomes something else, well,
That’s part of the purpose and the fun –
That’s where the your originality begins.

Slow down,
Look and see,
Understand,
Find more of yourself.

*Lynda Barry’s Making Comics;
**Austin Kleon’s blog: Drawing to remember.

Doesn’t everything die at last and to soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life.*
Mary Oliver

My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.**
Oliver Sacks

Perhaps there is much
still to happen within and through us,
An unfolding, tendril-like, from
our deep gratitude and
residue of days,
Even for the joy of others.

*Kate Clanchy’s How To Grow Your Own Poem;
**Oliver Sacks’ Gratitude.

Wandering is a form of exploration that we often think to embrace only when travelling, but it has great value on a more daily basis … Sometimes we must choose to leave our maps behind.*
Rohit Bhargava

When you walk in peace, you are overwhelmed by the wonder of the universe and the beauty of life.**
Erwin McManus

Maps offer a narrow way of seeing the world, and
ourselves, and
others, and
god –
Openness is wandering,
Wandering is openness, is
the possibility of surprise and
the surprise of possibility … and
connection, unfolding into
beauty and peace.

*Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious 2019;
**Erwin McManus’ The Way of the Warrior.

The pause is everything.*
Ryan Holiday

When we embrace flexible, renewable, and diverse approaches, we create actual progress.**
Seth Godin

Before you react,
Or respond, you may want to

pause.

Is this really what you want to
say
do
think
feel?

In the pause, there’s at least a
confirmation that this is best, but,
More likely,
There’s a better
word
action
idea
emotion.

We get to choose,
That’s the point of the pause,
And we all have it, though
it must be used and trained^ to
become the power for life that
it can be.

*Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny;
*Seth Godin’s blog: Strength through resilience;
^We may explore practising silence, stillness, detachment, and noticing as immediate responses, stretching the space between stimulus and response.

Gratitude is how we acknowledge our humble place in the universe, our place in the big dance.*
gapingvoid

Stoic joy – the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. it’s a serious thing …**
Ryan Holiday

I am grateful to be here, the odds were
stacked against me (and I would have no idea had they won,
But they didn’t); even so ingratitude comes too easily –
I don’t want to be a moaning ninny – so
I work on my thankfulness, I admit my knowledge of
what I can see and hear and touch and smell and taste,
All that is other, all that is more than my casual glance might afford,
I see how I can increase my gratefulness through
purpose and mastery and responsibility, how
I may not only dwell thankfully now, but in my
past and future, too.

Gratitude works.  Gratitude scales.  Gratitude creates a positive cycle of more gratitude.  When in doubt, default to gratitude.^

*gapingvoid’s blog: Count Your Blessings;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^Seth Godin’s blog: If every day were Thanksgiving.

He who cannot howl, will not find his pack.*
Charles Simic

As the tamed horse
still hears the call of her wild brothers
and as the farmed goose flaps hopeful wings
as his sisters fly overhead,
so too, perhaps,
the wild ones amongst us
are our only hope in calling us back
to our true nature.**
Joel McKerrow

Why can’t we be more like the “good” children?
Why can’t we just learn like all the others?
Why all the questions?
Why can’t we fit in?
Why can’t we just do our job?
Why can’t we enjoy having a good time and being comfortable?
Why can’t we admit we’re just too old for that?
Why can’t we not be trouble to others?

howl
Howl
HOWL –
Inside,
Deep down, struggling
to keep it in –
Got to let it out.

I hear your howl,^
Can you hear mine?

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**The Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer: meditation for Day 29;
^A howl is my epithet for real possibility for our lives, not normally found on our civilised job lists.

Where do your own real thoughts come from? How can we access them? From what source does our true, authentic self speak?*
Steven Pressfield

How does your ruling reason manage itself? For in that is the key to every thing. Whatever else remains, be it in the power of your choice or not, it is but a corpse and smoke.**
Marcus Aurelius

We have so many thoughts running through our heads –
All the time, thoughts thoughts thoughts.

Take a moment to notice them –
They’re happening without any help from you or me.

There are other thoughts, though,
The ones that belong to this Noticer of thoughts.

Notice what feeds these thoughts, create habits for
exploring and expanding these sources.

When we write these important thoughts down, we separate them from
all the others, to play with them, towards the sentences we want to give life to.

Who knows what will then turn up in
our words and phrases and sentences.

Discovering your Self in language is always an epiphany, even if finding the worlds to describe your inner reality can be an agonising process.^

Revision isn’t only the act of composition.
Revision is thinking applied to language,
An opening and reopening of discovery,
A search for the sentence that says the thing you had
no idea you would say.^^

*Steve Pressfield’s Do the Work;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^Bessel Van de Kolk’s Your Body Keeps the Score;
^^Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing.

A life of obligation and no opportunity is crimped. A life of opportunity and no obligation is hollow. A life that fuses opportunity and obligation is true.**
Daniel Pink

Some people as they grow up become less … Other people as they grow up become more.^
Eugene Peterson

Opportunity creates obligation, and
obligation stimulates opportunity;^^
These we welcome so that we may continue
becoming more no matter our age.

*Number 66 – officially a pensioner;
**Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret;
^Eugene Peterson’s Run With the Horses;
^^These are two more guises for the dynamic and static goals we need in life, as Christian Schwartz identified them, and as identified by Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi as exploration and home.

The universe is not a closed system, It is open, participatory – unfolding in real time. It does not speak in words, but in patterns and presence. It reveals itself through relation.*
AleXander McManus

One of the simplest ways for us to see more of what we are not seeing is to engage with people who are positioned at other places in the system and are therefore seeing things from different perspectives.**
Adam Kahane

Time for
exploring
awe
gardening
walking
listening
being
opening
conversation
play
discovery
valuing
imagining
collaboration
making
more.

*AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
**Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems.

(Something strange happened with the post this morning, so I’m reposting.)

It is here where the synergistic interplay of courage, wisdom, and generosity make us most creative.*
Erwin McManus

The person who is at ease within finds every other space larger and more enjoyable.**
James Clear

May you be your higher self today,
At home with your talents, your
energies, your values, not
having to prove yourself, being selfless
rather than taking risks, generous
instead of vaunting resources, wise
rather than clever.

*Erwin McManus’ Uprising;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On enjoying your own company, what drives change, and editing your habits.