The best way to achieve freedom is to take responsibility for the actions you’re taking. And the best way to be clear that you’re taking responsibility is to highlight the externalities and own them.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s blog: Embracing externalities.

Perhaps most awe-inspiring of all, our brain allows us to imagine.*
Jonah Paquette

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck.

rules only make sense in the service of love*
Brian McLaren

*Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt.

I don’t wait for inspiration. I’m not, in fact, quite sure of what inspiration is, but I’m sure that if it’s going to turn up, my having started work is a precondition of its arrival.*
Quentin Blake

Successful people figure out how too trade their time and their effort for the change they seek to make in the world.**
Seth Godin

Turning up is always a good strategy towards
something happening – investing time and effort is productive – but when we do this smarter,
Filling the space with multiple (re)sources, are humble and open, practice divergence
and delay convergence, then
something wanting to emerge may appear –
It feels almost magical, but we know it isn’t.

Just begin the work. The rest follows.^

*Quentin Blake’s Words and Pictures;
**Seth Godin’s This is Strategy;
^Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

Far more frequently … the life-enhancing route is to think of decisions not as things that come along, but as things to go hunting for.*
Oliver Burkeman

What happens because of what happens next?**
Alex McManus

Not all decisions are equal –
Some carry a five exclamation-mark (!!!!!)
risk score whilst
others hardly register one.

What are some of your best decisions? –
I’m guessing these are !!!!!:
your life-partner?, the work you do? –
And when you look more closely,
are they actually multiple decisions within a strategy? –
To find someone to share life with and work at it?,
To create work you love that makes a difference despite resistance?

Decisions are great for getting us
moving, but it’s unlikely that one decision will
get us to where we want to be, so
better to conceive of a series of decisions.

Are you in? –
Careful how you answer.

Good process leads to good outcomes.^

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals;
**Alex McManus’ Makers of Fire;
^Seth Godin’s The Practice.

In terms of character traits … studies have found that awe is correlated to traits like gratefulness, a love of learning, creativity, and appreciation of beauty.*
Jonah Paquette

Ecoutez le murmure
De la lune et soleil
A l’aube, ils chantent
‘Accueil, accueil’ 

Listen to the whisper
of the moon and sun
At dawn, they sing
‘Welcome, welcome’**
Lemn Sissay

To the non-human
the world is full of signals,
To the human, it’s
full of signs, feeding
curiosity, questions,
Imagination, inventiveness.

Does awe grow gratitude, learning, creativity, and beauty?,
Or is it the other way around?:
Yes, yes –
We are awe-extenders.

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
**Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in.

Now, from business to education to psychology, we are remembering that failure has always been part of every human story of success. … failure and vulnerability are the very elements of spiritual growth and personal wisdom.*
Krista Tippett

We have to embrace vulnerability because creating a story, and then trusting that it will work, exposes not only to the possibility of failure but also to the possibility that our story might expose things about us, which is even scarier.**
Lisa Cron

Risk, vulnerability, and failure,
These things we need in order to grow and develop and
live wisely.

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**Lisa Cron’s Story or Die.

It always comes back to silence for me.  Taking myself to silence.  Inviting others to silence.  Frequently.  Quiet our busy minds.  Set aside our relentless chatter. Just be quiet.  And then do something.  And then get quiet again.*
Bob Stilger

We know our discourse is meaningful not by what we have said but by what has yet to be said. Soul draws our speech forward in the direction of the unspeakable. Only thus can it remain speech.**
James Carse

silence leans us towards
openness
awe
curiosity
discovery
humility
repleteness
wholeness
integration
activeness
becoming

*Brandy Agerbeck’s (ed) Drawn Together Through Visual Practice;
**James Carse’s Breakfast At the Victory.

A myth is essentially a guide; it tells us what we must do in order to live more richly.*
Karen Armstrong

Learning to make meaning from our life stories maybe the most indispensable but least understood skills of our time.**
Bruce Feiler

There are plenty of spirited stories, but myths are enriched
with soul;
That they are not specifically true does not matter,
Their enrichment is in metaphor, symbol, and ritual;
Your myth will not work for me, nor mine for you –
Though we may borrow from each other and add to our own;
A myth does not only include yesterday, but also
opens up tomorrow;
Most of all it makes it possible to interface with
our talents, energies, and values.^

*Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth;
**Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions;
^These are the explorations of my dreamwhispering work with those wanting to form their myths.

The old one, The One Who Knows, is within us. She thrives in the deepest soul-psyche of women, the ancient and vital wild Self.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.**
Rainer Maria Rilke

Thousands of years of evolution flowing through us:
Journeying,
Being curious,
Crossing thresholds,
Being in awe,
Forming communitas,
Inventing,
Shaping stories,
Seeking beauty,
Treasuring love.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**The Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.