It’s a miracle. The ability to invent beauty out of thin air.*
Gabe Anderson

You’re either the person who creates energy. Or you’re the one that destroys it.**
Seth Godin

Your talents,
Your energies,
Your values –
Just waiting to bring
something into being
that wasn’t there before:
An idea,
A connection,
A completed piece of work,
A galvanised team.

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: The Writing;
**Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method.

There are naïve questions, tedious questions, ill-placed questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every questions is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.*
Carl Sagan

Hard work can be done without consequence. Contribution, however, is hard work with others in mind.**
Gabe Anderson

The best answers always seem to provoke
more questions;
At least this is how it appears for me
in my dreamwhispering work:
Questions uncovering more of what is
hidden or unobserved in a person’s life –
And there’s always more to uncover.

Reach for the questions.

*Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
Gabe Anderson’s blog: Hand Work and Contribution.

A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. … At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope.*
John O’Donohue

Maybe your life will work. Most likely it won’t at first, but that will give you poetry.**
Yrsa Daley-Ward

On the surface of things,
It’s a thin line to cross;
Beneath the surface there’s a whole lot more
going on.

The line itself is unlikely to be the
source of resistance;
That’s mostly to be found inside ourselves.

My hope is for a world in which
all are invited to cross the line into their
something more;
That there’s a whole load of stuff
going on inside of us at this moment is
our opportunity for transcendence.

*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus;
**Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control.

Out of this sense of belonging, the world seems to call to us, to recognise us, and to speak to us directly, the voice itself an embodiment of our particular nature, and the way that nature finds a home in the world. At best. this conversation between ourselves and the world becomes our work.*
David Whyte

Happiness cannot be pursued, it can only ensue.
Viktor Frankl

When we belong to ourselves –
That is, when we are at home in our lives –
We also feel at home in the world and universe.

It’s not that the world behaves as David Whyte imagines it,
But it feels as if it recognises and speaks to us,
And this sense of belonging is more than enough for us to be
creative and to make our
contribution.

Here in our sense of belonging are found
the two questions I often refer to –
The personal and the social myths Joseph Campbell believes that
we each need:
Who is my True Self?
What is my Contribution?

There are many places we may feel
we do not belong,
But never here,
You always belong here.

*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
**Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method.

So. What if I asked you this same question: What are you longing for?
Susan Cain

Life is so subtle that sometimes you barely notice yourself walking through the doors you once prayed would open.**
Brianna Wiest

The tricycle kid is waiting for
something amazing to happen,
But maybe it already has.

Transcendence can be subtle like that –
Best to train ourselves in
noticing more –
And good to know that often,
This is all that’s required.

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
**Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method.

Ideas do not belong to people.  Ideas live in the world as we do.  We discover certain ideas at certain times.*
M. C. Richards

*M. C. Richards’ Centering.

Being of an reasonable sort appears to require limitation. Perhaps that is because Being requires Becoming, as well as mere static existence – and to become is to become something more, or at least something different.*
Jordan Peterson

*Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.

It’s more important, I think, that we listen deeply to our stories and then see where it leads. And that’s the piece. If we all do our part … Whatever our part is. Just do one thing. That’s all we have to do.
Simone Campbell

Your ikigai is at the intersection of what you are good at and what you love doing.**
Héctor Garcia

It is likely that
meeting the needs of others will be
the most meaningful thing that we do in our
lives.

One thing that dreamwhispering conversations
with hundreds of people has impressed upon me is how
everyone has competency and passion in something –
And that’s enough,
More than enough to begin.

It’s really about believing in what we discover about ourselves,
So that we can put the pieces together into
a story that brings us joy and serves
others –
Your meaningful
isn’t far away.

Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet
immensity of you own presence. …
Respond to the call of your gift and
the courage to follow its path.^

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
^John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For Presence.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.*
Robert Bresson

What the world asks of you is courage. Courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure as you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty. You alone have the tools to craft the vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.**
Robert McKee

Mainstream is in trouble,
Those at the centre of our major stories have
lost the plot,
We need your outsider story –
It has always been so:
Story is metaphor for life,
and life is conflict.
That is its nature.**

You see things differently –
Just examine your values – and when your seeing is
wrapped in your unique mix of talents
and goodness,
You have found your courage and
selflessness.

A good place to begin making this visible is to
write it down;
Another thing is to begin
dreamwhispering.

May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
In worth and self respect,
That you may live with the dignity
That presides in your soul.^

*Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
**Robert McKee‘s newsletter: Why Audiences Need Our Stories;
John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: A Blessing of Angels.

What do Drawing Singing Dancing MUSIC MAKING Handwriting Playing Storywriting Acting Remembering and even Dreaming all have in common? THEY COME ABOUT WHEN A CERTAIN PERSON in a CERTAIN PLACE in a CERTAIN TIME arranges CERTAIN UNCERTAINTIES INTO A CERTAIN FORM.*
Lynda Barry

In a significant organisation … each person is a vital component, adding human insight, care, and commitment to the work at hand. In this environment, there’s no room for someone who is simply compliant.**
Seth Godin

When it comes to doing the
heart and soul thing you must do,
There’s probably been a time when those observing
have believed this to be
the wrong thing in
the wrong place at
the wrong time, making you
the wrong person.

I happened to be reading a bible story^ about
a woman – whom some deemed to be a sinner – gatecrashing
a meal in honour of Jesus and enacting a host’s
footwashing ceremony by
using her own tears and perfumed ointment;
in the eyes of others,
There was nothing right about this, and yet
this woman and her story is remembered
two thousand years later.

Some of the most important contributions have come
from outsiders, for whom
there is no right time, but only
now for bringing their contribution.

We don’t need to begin as dramatically as the woman
in our story, but firstly find small ways of not complying
and build from there.

You already have permission because
you are here.

The fourth and most important function of myth, [Joseph] Campbell says, is to “foster the centring and unfolding of the individual in integrity” with the self (the microcosm); the culture (the mesocosm); the universe (the macrocosm) ; and the pan-cosmic unity, the ultimate creative Mystery, which is “both beyond and within himself and all things.”^^

*Lynda Barry’s What It Is;
**Seth Godin’s The Song of Significance;
^Luke7:36-39;
^^Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life.