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

I suggest wisdom is precisely the wisdom to be present.**
(Richard Rohr)

Every day, I feel as though I am only beginning.

Today is my birthday.  I am 59 years old and still so much to be open to and discover, seeking to become more present, to others, to the world, to my God, and to my self.

Rohit Bhargava provides me with some help when it comes to moving into the life that is more and avoiding the life that is less.  In his latest iteration of Non Obvious he encourages me to practise the five habits of a trend curator: be curious, be observant, be fickle (i.e, not too be fixated on something), be thoughtful, be elegant.

These help me select and arrange and add value to the things of my life.  They are what I try to make available to others, so, as it’s my birthday, I would like to offer a gift: a dreamwhispering journey of discovery for someone.

All you have to do is email me at gb@geoffreybaines.com telling me why this is the right time for you to be open to more.

To be more or to be less – it’s a choice.

(*From Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses.)
(**From Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now.)

The capacity to be present to everything that is happening, without resistance, creates possibility.*
(Roz and Ben Zander)

There are no rules when it comes to developing our capacity to work – where our skills and knowledge being turned into greater artfulness.

We don’t have to “switch off” at 5pm, or at the end of the week and do what we really want to do.  There’s never been a time like this, when, armed with a smart phone, tablet, laptop or computer, we can open up greater areas of adjacent knowledge and connect with people who are as passionate as we are about something.

In this way, everyone is at least a skillful sub-contractor, bringing their ever-developing best to what they are doing.  You are not your job description, you have always been more

‘Let us allow our wild spirits to roam unfettered and unbound.  Let us roar and howl and voice our deepest yearnings without caring about what other will think about us.’**

(*From Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)
(**From Keri Smith’s The Wander Society.)

How far would we make it through today without relationships, without others helping us to find what we need or to do what we must do?

Or put it another way: how many relationships will we invest in today?

We know relationships are important – the bus driver who’ll help me get to work today, the co-worker who’ll work on the project.

To build relationships we need to pay attention, but attention needs some help:

‘To be its best, Attention, from inside itself it seems, summons Ease.  Ease emerges and dips and saunters, draping itself around Attention’s focus, allowing it dimensions greater than focus alone can produce.

[…]

We bought into an equation […].  Rushed = Important.  Tense = Focused.  Tight = Professional.  Pressured = Alive.  They are all the same thing.  And not one is true.’*

It’s counter intuitive but we are rediscovering that the more time we invest in relationships the more we produce:

‘Walking, I realised long ago in another desert, is how the body measures itself against the earth.’**

(*From Nancy Kline’s More Time to Think.)
(**From Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust.)

Take deep-dive journeys to the place of most potential.*
(Otto Scharmer)

She walked through the city of endless building works.

It can never leave things be, as if it has more questions than answers.

Never one to miss a metaphor, she realises, here is a picture of our lives.

She determines to keep walking, our of judgement, cynicism and fear.

(*From Otto Scharmer’s Theory U.)

I am from here.

I was born somewhere else but I am from here.

I have lived in many different places through the years but I am from here.

I face my challenges that disorientate but I am from here.

Being here, fully present, belonging, is more about finding the right Self than it is about finding the right place.

The sense of deep time brings a deep peace with it, a detachment from the timescale, the urgencies, of daily life.  Seeing these volcanic islands and coral atolls, and wandering, above all, through this cycad forest on Rota, has given me an intimate feeling of the antiquity of the earth, and the slow, continuous processes by which different forms of life evolve and come into being.  Standing here in the jungle, I feel part of a larger, calmer identity; I feel a profound sense of being at home, a sort of companionship with the earth.*
(Oliver Sacks)

The tree-lined reservoir was only a few miles from my home in the compacted mill town of Oldham and I was standing among its tall pines on a windy day, mesmerised by the swaying of their straightened trunks, creaking and moaning as they adapted and resisted the wind.  I don’t know how long I was there.  It felt as if it was a long time and it felt as if it was a short time, and even now, maybe fifteen years later, I am still deeply moved by the memory.

Winston Churchill had reflected on the adversarial layout of the House of Commons:

“we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us”.

The same must be true of our towns and cities.  They are human creations shaping our thinking and feeling and behaviour directly and indirectly.

Nature is another place all together.  I’m not saying one is wrong and one right, but they are very different.

Deep time for me means the deep past and the imaginable future being somehow present in the now, holding a sense of both my smallness and bigness.

For all my present home of Edinburgh represents many centuries of inhabitants and all their buildings, but it’s the cities volcanic hills that provide me with a sense of deeper time – some 350 million years, and outside the city, the hills and trees and skies take me into deeper possibilities.

‘Look at this Indian paintbrush,” he said.  “Have you ever seen this colour of magenta?”

[…]

A stunning boulder left behind by glaciers loomed large on a slope speckled with yellow and orange lichen.  Chanterelle mushrooms looked like the gold fringe of a fallen log.  It was a good stopping place for lunch.’**

(*From Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings: Oliver Sacks on Nature’s Beauty as a Gateway into Deep Time and a Lens on the Interconnectedness of the Universe.)
(**From Terry Tempest Williams The Hour of Land, quoting her father as they walked along the Teton Crest Trail in the Grand Teton National Park.)

When we disadvantage others to get ahead, we disadvantage ourselves.  Many will decry the notion that every person has some kind of art to bring into the world, but what do they offer instead, what’s their advantage in believing that?:

“Art isn’t only a painting.  Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal.  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.  Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.”*

(*Seth Godin, quoted in Ben Hardy’s blog: These 20 Pictures Will Teach You More Than Reading 100 Books.)

This is an amazing planet.

Yes, it produces nettles and hogweed but it also holds the possibilities of ice-cream and chocolate and espressos.  How does that happen?

We know we are very capable of taking the commodities from the planet and making many things from these.  More and more faster and faster is not the problem.  Adding value is:

‘Curation is about selecting and arranging to add value – defined in the broadest possible sense.’*

Just before writing these words about this critical element of curation in the 21st century, Michael Bhaskar points out that good curation will demand we move out of our comfort into the uncomfortable to bring things of value into being:

‘Now more than ever, we need to argue that good curation takes us beyond our comfort zones.’*

It’s not good enough to blame the system, to point at others and say it’s their fault; we all need to take responsibility as someone who sucks stuff in and churns stuff out.

If we are to do this, I think we will have to slow down to see what is possible:

‘Walking shares with making and working that crucial element of engagement of the body and mind with the world, of knowing the world through the body and body through the world.’**

The faster we move, the harder it is to change the trajectory we’re on.  Walking, going slow, provides us with the opportunity to see many new directions, to see a wonderful world and imagine its future.

(*From Michael Bhaskar’s Curation.)
(**From Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust.)

The challenge is to find the resolve to bring your work to someone who will benefit from it. To learn from what doesn’t work and then to do the work again.*
(Seth Godin)

Curation that doesn’t have the sense of taking care, preserving, nurturing is more likely to lead to negative outcomes.**
(Michael Bhaskar)

There are two important things to keep in mind and heart when it comes to a blessing.

One: You are the blessing so it’s important to have identified and developed what it is you want to bring to others: values x talents x energy and much more.

Two: It’s only a blessing to those who want to receive what you bring – if it’s not what they want or the right time then maybe ask what would be helpful before you move on?

(*From Seth Godin’s blog: Batting average is a trap.)
(**From Michael Bhaskar’s Curation.)

But sometimes life isn’t just about following your dreams.  Sometimes life is just about happily managing the here and now.’*
(Hugh Macleod)

Dreams are not so much about destinations, they’re about journeys.  If they don’t alter how we live today, being present in the small things as well as the big things then it’s probably not a dream worth having.

The question I find myself asking each day is: How can I live in some creativity, some generosity and some enjoyment today?

(*From gapingvoid’s blog: Enjoy just being alive.)