The only essential is this: the gift must always move.*
Lewis Hyde

If we receive all that we have
as a gift from others –
Whether that is how they intended it
or not –
If we have thankful minds, then
we have so much to give,
Though not necessarily in the
form in which we received these
gifts.

Bruce Feiler** offers seven tools
for navigating transitions that
I found myself reflecting on as means for
transitioning the gifts we receive into
gifts that we give –
I thought you may like to have
a play with these, too:
Accept the transition (the received as gift),
Ritualise it (habits of reflecting and reimagining)
Give up old mindsets (about the things we have),
Try new things (experiment in giving),
Seek wisdom from others(find out what others are doing),
Unveil a new self (expect the practice to be transformative),
Compose a new story (more dramatic and compelling).

*Lewis Hyde’s The Gift;
**Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions.

Beginning precedes us, creates us and constantly takes us to new levels and places and people.*
John O’Donohue

Grant me serenity
As day breaks from night
Grant my shadows grace
And a cradle of light**
Lemn Sissay

Some beginnings come from without,
Others from within;
The latter is a skill of thinking
that we can develop,
So whilst I’ve just
moved home, moved
country, moved
from work to
retirement,
You don’t have to do any of these
to begin,
Only imagine the smallest iteration
of what you want to begin and
do it .

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
**Lemn Sissay’s Let the light pour in.

My word is frustration …
At being put on hold for the umpteenth time
during the third attempt to transfer my BT account
to our new address;
Doodling certainly helped me keep
calm.

Humility is not a peculiar habit of self-effacement, rather like having an inaudible voice, it is self respect for reality and is one of the most difficult and central of all virtues.*
Iris Murdoch

*Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good.

Life is the ongoing process of self-making. It is that which continuously changes itself in order to continue being itself.*
David Rome

*David Rome’s Your Body Knows the Answer.

Always have the courage
To change, welcoming those voices
That call you beyond yourself.*
John O’Donohue

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: At the Threshold of Manhood.

A good question is an act of
imagination;
It does not know whether something
exists, and so has
no firm foundation on which to be
based.

Just when you think you know all the answers, the universe comes along and changes the questions.*
Jorge Francisco Pinto

*Albert Espinosa’s If You Tell Me To Come.

In practical terms. three rules of thumb are especially useful for harnessing the power of patience as a creative force: The first is to develop a taste for having problems. … The second principle is to embrace radical incrementalism … The final principle is that more often than not, originality lies on the far side of unoriginality.*
Oliver Burkeman

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks.

The dream of convenience is premised on the nightmare of physical work.  But is physical work always a nightmare? … Perhaps our humanity is sometimes expressed in inconvenient actions and time-consuming pursuits.*

*Seth Godin’s The Carbon Almanac.