Our social patterns such that the successful man is not supposed to be afraid or bored or lonely. He must find this world the best of all worlds; in order to have the best chance for promotion he must repress fear as well as doubt, depression, boredom, or hopefulness.* Erich Fromm
These perigrini, as they were also known, viewed their wanderings, or peregrinations, as a process of seeking their places of “resurrection” – they were searching for their path of new beginnings.** Philip Newell
Before the path of fresh beginnings will appear, we must admit this is not where we want to be.
True originality in storytelling is the meeting of form and content.* Robert McKee
Brigid challenges us to be people on our knees, that is, people midwifing new births for this moment in time. The good news is that we do not have to create the births. Our role, rather, is to midwife what is trying to come forth from deep within the human soul.** Philip Newell
We are each capable of birthing something new; If we follow our must this will be the way of it. But as well as having something worth sharing, we also require a way to share it, else the rest of us will miss out – And as this is a sacred thing, we want to avoid that. If you can’t find the right container for your contents, There’ll be someone who’ll help you find one, or they have a container and are looking for some contents.
What you love to do with grow in you, so long as you stay true to who you are and allow yourself to change and develop freely.* Hugh Macleod
Pay attention to the world, and train yourself to notice the details that others miss. Rohit Bhargava
I must continue on a path of openness and change. Some may argue that I will be an insubstantial man, Blown this way or that by the next idea I meet, that I will lack belief and conviction. Yet it is in this tension that I am who I am, That we are who we are: When we both remain the same and change: Self-knowledge might be the most difficult of life’s rewards – the hardest to earn and the hardest to bear. To know yourself is to know that you are not an unassailable fixity amid the entropic storm of the universe but a set of fragilities in constant flux. To know yourself is to know that you are not invulnerable.^
Far too often in this confused world we are faced with choices, all of which are wrong, and the only thing we can do, in fear and trembling, is to choose the least wrong,, without pretending to ourselves that it is right. Madeleine L’Engle
Our hope lies not primarily in human reason and scientific analysis but in the untamed regions of intuition and human imagination within us.** Philip Newell
What to focus on? What to let go of? Which way to go? Where to remain? Where to leave? Who to listen to? Who to ignore? To be clear – And we want to be clear – Is not easy. The lack of clarity in which we find ourselves has a certain current and speed to it, Carrying us along, but, We can haul ourselves out and, for a moment, Listen, Listen to the untamed life within, More song than compass, Or poem, Distilling clarity from confusion.
The nuances observed by specialised vocabularies are evaporating from common usage, burnt off by capital, apathy and urbanisation. The terrain beyond the city fringe has become progressively more understood in terms of large generic units (‘field,’ ‘hill,’ ‘valley,’ ‘wood’). It has become a blandscape.* Robert Macfarlane
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.**
The thousands of old words in Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks come from noticing, People noticing the variety and subtleties of their world and creating words for these, words for: weather, water, holes in the ground, rocks, trees, frosts … Gathered and listed by Macfarlane as lands – Flatlands, Uplands, Waterlands, Coastlands, Underlands, Northlands, Edgelands, Earthlands, Woodlands. Listing because we are forgetting, Forgetting because we are disconnecting; Forgetting our ancient mother, as the psalm proffers, and disconnecting from or forgetting ourselves as a result. Macfarlane is helping me to remember, as is Robin Wall Kimmerer, from her own experiences as a Native American, who shares with me today how the guidelines of the Honourable Harvest – Including ‘Never take the first, never take the last,’ Take only what you need,’ ‘Never take more than half’ – are not written down or even spoken often, but are reinforced in small acts of daily life.^ I cannot hope to be as knowledgeable as Macfarlane who walks back and forth through landscapes, or to be as traditioned and heritaged as Wall Kimmerer, But I will keep reading to learn, I will stop to notice a sunrise or sunset, I will look for the first flowers of Spring, and be alert to the scents of nature as the year warms up, I will notice the waves along a shore, walk transfixed by the majesty of trees, be deeply moved by the sway of a grass meadow, trying to remember in many small ways I am the earth and the earth is me.
We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world could be.^
Their purpose is to help you, to care about your art, and to reattach you to wildest instincts, and to illicit your original best. They guide the restoration of the intuitive life.* Clarissa Pinkola Estés
It is, in essence, the arc of acquiring greater psychological flexibility: facing difficult emotions and thoughts with greater openness; letting go of limiting self-stories; finding resources within that allow us to see ourselves and our situations in a new way; connecting with a deeper and more authentic sense of self; connecting with a chosen purpose and discovering the actions that help us to fulfil it; and finally committing to those actions with perseverance.** Steven Hayes
Wholehearted living, or living from deep within, is under constant threat in a faster ever-changing world – “I don’t have the luxury to think about such things.” Whilst writing about “wild mothers,” Clarissa Pinkola Estés provides us with a description of all who help us to rediscover our “deeps” and to rewrite our stories. Identifying our talents provides us with the tools to write, revise and arrange new sentences, and to kill old sentences. Shaping enriching environments provide the spaces for our stories to unfold and flourish. Naming our values lays down a direction to move in, a path with a heart.
For somehow all our lives are ultimately unsuccessful, to the extent that we understand success as only being external success: no external success, no effect, that is to say, no biological or sociological influence out there in the world, is guaranteed to outlive us or even to last forever. However inner success, the inner fulfilment of life’s meaning, is something that, its at all, has been achieved, ‘once and for always.’** Viktor Frankl
we humans can influence our evolution by the environments we construct and the choice we make; our evolution is not just a matter of choice^ Steven Hayes
The world is a smorgasbord of possibilities, Not all within our reach, But perhaps what we really want isn’t to be found there; We must look within to find what we really want and trust our instinct. It is our inner smorgasbord of talents, values and energies that matters most of all – the first myth; Identifying and developing these will be our greatest satisfaction and fulfilment, leading us into our life with others – the second myth, Of which we’ll know that we’re on the right track if, as the apostle Paul writes, we are able to Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.^^
*Myth, not as untrue but as guiding story; **Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life; ^Steven Hayes’ A Liberated Mind; ^^Romans 12:17.
The path forward is about curiosity, generosity and connection. These are the three foundations of [your] art.* Seth Godin
Genuine self-knowledge has to be the starting point for any attempt to improve ourselves.** Anna Katharina Schaffner
Forty seven years ago today, I started out on what turned out to not only be a path of self discovery but also the contribution I want to make for the sake of others. At least this is the hope that keeps me moving. Seth Godin’s three path characteristics are useful intertwining elements for reflection and action: Discover more, Make and contribute more, Find and collaborate with others along the way. Robin Wall Kimmerer tells the story of “three sisters”: Corn, bean and squash; Planted together, the corn grows fastest, reaching upwards, Providing the bean with support to grow vertically too, The squash grows last putting our her leaves horizontally, Retaining moisture in for all to grow.^ Just as organic are our three sisters of curiosity, generosity and deeper connection.
If we do not seek variation, we end up dead in life, shutting out those new experiences that keep our hearts and minds active. Our horizons shrink, our learning will stagnate, and we will become nothing but creatures of habit.* Anna Katharina Schaffner
A clear sense of self-directed meaning provides us with an essential inexhaustible supply of motivation.** Steven Hayes
We are more powerful than we know. We can endlessly alter ourselves, Regrowing from the bountiful resources we carry within, Season after season, following death with life. Of course, there are some who seem powerful, pushing or ordering others around, But they are powerless to change themselves.
The way to maintain one’s connection to the wild is to ask yourself what is it you want. … One of the most important discriminations we can make in this matter is the difference between things that beckon us and things that call from our souls.* Clarissa Pinkola Estés
I am emboldened by the fact that surprise is the only constant. We are never really running the show, never really in control, and nothing will go quite as we imagined.** Krista Tippet
A wild life is not some do-anything-you-want chaos – We are discovering just why we are attracted by beauty and goodness and compassion. Where civilisations separates, This wildness is oneness: to our mother earth, one another, ourselves, and, if we have a god, to god.
THIN|SILENCE 
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