Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency … The outsized discoveries – the ‘non-linear’ ones – are highly likely to require wandering.*
Jeff Bezos

I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.**
Jeanette Winterson

It worked last time,
It’s all we have,
It’s what’s expected of us,
It worked in these other places,
What will others think if we don’t do it this way?
We haven’t got time to come up with anything else,
That’s not how we do things here,
We can’t be seen to fail,
Leave it to those in charge,
It’s not in the textbook,
It’s not in the instruction manual,
Someone else will know what to do,
We have to sit down and focus … really focus,
It’s still not working.

Time to bring the power of imagination to the
pressure of reality,^
The kind of imagination fuelled by wandering,
And the more involved, the better –
And, yes, there’s risk^

We use our imagination not to escape from reality but to join it, and this exhilarates us because of the distance between and an appreciation of the real.^^

*Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: The simple path to wealth, how time works, and things that hold talented people back;
^Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel;
^^Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good.

Jimmy Baldwin used to talk about us “achieving ourselves,” finding who we are, what we’re here for and making that possible for each other.*
Vincent Harding

The soul of an individual is the longing inside each person for a greater sense of belonging, for a new country. We go through most workdays forgetting that this great migratory force exists within us.**
David Whyte

Even in this modern world of ultra-individual-ism,^ we
are not alone – the original meaning of
“individual” means “indivisible,” and perhaps the end of
all our solo journeyings will be to find ourselves
with others, and, certainly,
To “achieve ourselves” will mean that we have had some help –
Yesterday afternoon I was in conversation with some of the people
who helped me in this way – my friend Alex sharing how he will not
speak of individuals but only of persons because of our
connectedness, and, in the evening, I was with a
small group of people exploring dreamwhispering for the first time
in a conversation that flowed this way and that as
everyone shared from their lives – experiencing something of how
we are indivisibles.

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
^”Isms” are always the problem.

VACILANDO (v) Travelling when the experience is more important than the destination.*
Ella Frances Sanders

When seeking guidance, don’t ever listen to the tiny-hearted. Be kind to them, heap them with blessings, cajole them, but do not follow their advice. If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you’re on the right track. Wild Woman is close by.**
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The hero’s journey is simply
the movement within a life in motion
from the self to the other^ through
selflessness and
generosity and
shared wisdom;
In keeping with an heroic quest, guides
appear, but we must choose carefully for
many today lead from the other to the self, from
the greater to the lesser, but the measure of our search is
always love and goodness and light.

*Ella Frances Sanders’ Lost in Translation – Spanish verb;
**Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
^By the other, I refer to other humans, and also other species and Earth.

Maybe we can at least begin to listen again to the world. Who knows into what secrets that will lead us.*
Kenneth White

Walking on earth is a miracle! We do not have to walk in space or on water to experience a miracle. The real miracle is to be awake in the present moment. Walking on the green earth, we can realise the wonder of being alive.**
Thich Nhat Hanh

Perhaps take a moment and
listen and
feel and
smell and
see and
taste and
notice the thought and
track the feeling, and
hold your miracle.

*Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Mary Ruth Broz and Barbara Flynn’s Midwives of An Unnamed Future.

Start by learning to recognise what interests you.
Most people have been taught that what they notice
doesn’t matter.
So they never learn how to notice,
Not even what interests them.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

We must reserve a back room, wholly our own and entirely free, wherein to settle our true liberty, our principal solitude and retreat.**
Michel de Montaigne

The person who notices and
reflects and
acts
is preparing for an enthralling life.

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind.

Don’t begin the day without
your story.

The revelation of plenitude calls for a revelation of mind.*
Lewis Hyde

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind.**
Marcus Aurelius

It is our character that transforms our thinking about
talents and abilities from being
ways of getting things to becoming
ways of giving things.

*Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

Every hero has an origin story.*
Todd Hermann

Dorothy has now found her inner strength and her voice … In the Hero’s Journey, this is known as Apotheosis, when the hero’s limited self dies and is transformed into a new being of light, divine knowledge, love, and compassion.**
Jean Houston

By the grace of God,
I am from error and
pain and
experiment and
failure and
awkwardness and
rejection and
ignorance and
foolishness and
quandary and
hope and
curiosity and
reading and
listening and
slowness and
loving and
passion and
joy.

Now ask me where
I am going.

*Todd Hermann’s The Alter Ego Effect;
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us.

Workshop mess. That’s one of the major highlights of the workshop. Come try things, make things, get dirty, give it a shot. It’s not a beauty contest, it’s not on display and it doesn’t have to work. It’s a workshop. It’s a mess. The mess isn’t a necessary evil…it’s a FEATURE.*
Gabe Anderson,

A journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you.**
James Baldwin

Workshops are great places for trying things out, whether
we call them studios, studies, offices, class rooms, laboratories, sheds, workspaces, factories …
They are already full of ideas, materials, tools, failed experiments to reuse;
We like them because we are walking workshops, creative-spaces on legs, crammed with
experiences, memories, successes, failures, dreams, ideas, talents, values, and energy –
When we see our lives and our spaces in this way,
We can never be stuck.

There’s a temptation to do nothing simply because there’s so much to do that one doesn’t know where to begin. Begin anywhere.^

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Workshop Mess;
**Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems.
^John Cage, from Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems.

The greater the tension, the greater is the potential.*
Carl Jung

My greatest challenge is balancing patience and impatience, because I’m 100 percent of both.**
Roseanne Haggerty

Impatience with what is,
Including ourselves, is important, is
aliveness, but this work is going to take a while,
Perhaps a lifetime or more, so we had
better figure out how to be impatient and
patient, persevering and
resting.

*Lisa Cron’s Story or Die;
**Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems.