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.

A refined soul is in general one with the gift of transforming the most limited task and the most petty object into something infinite by the way in which it is handled.*
Friedrich Schiller

being human is nothing more than being conscious and being responsible**
Viktor Frankl

Our touch –
Those talents, energies, values –
Makes all the difference in the world:
The task, the role, the person,
Creating an infinite game, seeing
an infinite person;
We don’t come into the world preprogrammed –
It is always our choice, the joyful
responsibility opened to us through consciousness.

*Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man;
**Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life.

Only people who don’t write think you know what you think before you write. You write to learn what you think.*
Marc Weidenbaum

Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey of which we do not know the final destination.**
Henri Nouwen

An idea –
I write it,
A problem –
I write it,
A struggle –
I write it
The criticism –
I write it,
That went well –
I write it,
My story –
I write it;
Writing is my interface between
the ordinary and extraordinary –
An everyday everyone superpower
To make it more powerful, just add
doodles and conversation.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: Stepping into the portal;
**Henri Nouwen’s Spiritual Direction.

‘How do you hold on,’ said night
‘To peace in the day?’
‘To keep what I have,’ said light
‘I have to give it away’**
Lemn Sissay

The evolutionary purpose of story is conflict resolution … The riveting conflict in any story … revolves around the internal struggle that the protagonist goes through in order to solve the external problem.^
Lisa Cron

We might imagine some idyllic story
for ourselves, yet, it is in the struggle that
we will know that we are alive:
A conflict without prompting a swedge within,
Another word for which is growth, and perhaps another,
Flourishing.

*Swedge (n) Scottish for brawl or fight; present participle: swedging;
**Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in;
^Lisa Cron’s Story or Die.

So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and this I regarded as my task of tasks.*
Carl Jung

A person who doesn’t know what the universe is, doesn’t know where they are. A person who doesn’t know their purpose in life doesn’t know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn’t know any of these things doesn’t know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of people who have no knowledge of where or who they are.**
Marcus Aurelius

Will we ever fully know who we are, that is,
Who we can grow to be? –
I doubt the world is made up of people who fully know themselves
or don’t,
More likely we find people moving towards their full selves
or not – and
which am I, and
which are you?^

Take me down to the spring of my life, and tell me my nature and my name.^^

*Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^A myth comprises four elements: And of what I regard as four major functions that mythology serves, the first one is the mystical function.  The second is the cosmological, re-relating to the cosmos.  The third is the sociological, and the fourth is the pedagogical, carrying the individual through the stages of his life. (Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey);
^^George Appleton, from the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.

A person begins to be human only where they have the freedom to oppose bondage to a type. For only there, in freedom, is their being – being responsible; only there “is” a person authentically, or only there is a person “authentic.”*
Viktor Frankl

*Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul – the words in italics indicate where I have been gender-inclusive.

“Does it work?” That’s the first question. The second question is, “how do we make it work better?”These two questions, patiently repeated, lead to incremental improvement and an understanding of reality. The opposite approach is, “because I said so.” Reality might not care what you want.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s blog: “Does it work?”