Everyone should find the centre of his life in his work and be able to grow out from this point as far as possible.*
Rainer Maria Rilke

Glinda may also be seen as Dorothy herself – the girl’s entelechy – writ large on the stage of consciousness.**
Jean Houston

You are made to live from
the inside out –
Joseph Campbell spoke about how we must
follow our bliss,
What resonates deeply within us and
brings us to fulfilment;
This already resides within us –
though it may be covered by the flotsam
and jetsam of life, which we need to
let go of.

*Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life;
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us.

It’s easy to forget what we’ve accomplished. And when we do, we lose sight of the powerful fact that if we’ve done it before, we can do it again.*
Dorie Clark

Mind sculpting refers to the deliberate practice of shaping one’s thoughts, beliefs, and mental habits to align with personal goals and values.**
AleXander McManus

You may simply want to keep doing
the things you are good at, or, possibly,
You could organise the things that
set your heart alight,
To be able to manifest these
more innovatively, complexly, colourfully, meaningfully, generously.

Here are three starting points:
Humility, to embrace the truth of who you are,
Gratitude, to acknowledge all that you have,
Faithfulness, to explore a multiplicity of ways for
bringing who you are and what you have
into the lives of others.^

*Dorie Clark’s The Long Game;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU;
^Again, if I can help, let me know: geoffreybaines@gmail.com – my apologies if you’ve been trying to use geoffrey@thinsilence.org as the link appears broken.

Invented beings enlighten us, help us make precious sense of ourselves and those around us.*
Robert McKee

A book is a chance to have a conversation. The conversation is the product, the book is just the catalyst.**
Seth Godin

Books are a very recent vehicle for
something humans have engaged in for
tens of thousands of years,
Stories helping us to understand ourselves and
our place within the world –
The best stories, and
books for that matter, are not telling us things,
They are inviting us to engage in dialogue,
Within which we experience, as well as
contribute to, growth and transition.

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Five lessons from week one of This is Strategy.

The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown to us.*
George Hegel

Get the bucket size right and your life changes. This is probably the easiest, fastest and most productive way to improve our well being.**
Seth Godin

We think we know our world, each
other, ourselves –
We don’t.

We think we need
more to be fulfilled and satisfied but
we probably already have all we require.

Perhaps we should take a closer look?

*John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Bucket size.

Susan Sontag said somewhere something like any technology that slows us down in our writing rather than speeding us up is the one we ought to use.*
Ross Gay

As for writing, so for life.

It is reported that Parisian flaneurs would
walk a tortoise to slow them down to notice more.

Richard Rohr writes about learning to
live in our souls because we are smaller than
our souls – we are also faster, so
we slow down for our souls to catch up.

*Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights.

Women have always been and continue to accomplish heroic feats with the difference that their emphasis has tended to be on process rather than product – making things cohere, relate, develop, and grow … the inner experience being of equal value to the outer action.*
Jean Houston

Consistent, gradual and persistent are the unsung forces of cultural change.**
Seth Godin

Slow makes it possible to
develop some deeper abilities,
The kind that enable us to nurture oneness
and connection, blossoming into collaboration.

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The thing about pressure.

Women have always been and continue to accomplish heroic feats with the difference that their emphasis has tended to be on process rather than product – making things cohere, relate, develop, and grow … the inner experience being of equal value to the outer action.*
Jean Houston

Consistent, gradual and persistent are the unsung forces of cultural change.**
Seth Godin

What if the way we
respond to this challenge is
forming us into the person
able to meet the next one?

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The thing about pressure.

Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality.**
Steven Pressfield

“I am going.” These are the best words ever. Say them. Then go.^
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Yes, there may be resistance to your hope,
But there will also be assistance.

This is not about ignoring reality, but
aligning your imagination with what is true.

So you set out, unsure of what lies before you,
Trusting that things will happen along the way.

*Coddiwompling is to set out in a purposeful way towards a vague or unknown destination;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.

saeculum (n): a period of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a human being

Migration is more than a fact of existence – it’s our essence … We are all part of this great migration, even if we don’t recognise it. Some of us cross physical borders, others invisible ones: fear to courage, despair to faith, stasis to movement. The question is not whether will will move, but when and where.*
AleXander McManus

What kinds of movement have taken place
across your personal saeculum?

Which movements still lie
before us?^

Speed is not the issue,
That you and I keep moving is.

A saeculum equates to around eighty five years,
And the most important measure of this is today.

*will.i.am’s I like to move it, move it for accompanying the blog;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU;
^Not only what we do but also who we become.

What are you singing?
We want to hear it.

(You are welcome to print off and colour in the doodle while you’re “singing.”)