May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
Where your life is domesticated and safe,
Take you to the territories of true otherness
Where all that is awkward in you
Can fall into its own rhythm.**
John O’Donohue

Mindfulness is the process of waking up to see what’s right in front of us.^
Ryder Carroll

Our longing marks where the path forks;
We cannot see our new path only because as yet
it lies untrodden.

*Apologies for the title; I’ve never used the word “bifurcate” before, and thought it would be fun;
**John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: A Blessing of Angels;
^Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method.

Devote the backhalf of your life to serving others with your wisdom. Get old sharing the thing you believe are most important.*
Arthur Brooks

You have something that
will make a difference to at least
one other person.

This thing to give is your delight, but
you know it’s not for everyone,
And you’re alive to the moment when you meet the one.

*Arthur Brooks’ From Strength to Strength.

When you are young, you have raw smarts; when you are old, you have wisdom.  When you are young, you can generate lots of facts; when you are old, you know what they mean and how to use them.*
Arthur Brooks

After each episode of flow a person becomes more of a unique individual, less predictable, possessed of rarer skills.**
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

My Thin|Silence blog has emerged from a
slow journey in the same direction;
Approaching retirement, I now have
a better idea
of the contribution I want to make.

I hope that I am coming into
my wisdom,
The life that is borne of all
the experiences of failure and success (a lot of failure),
Of exploring and discovery.

“This is it” moments in life have only
opened more episodes, further
series of possibility,
Moving horizons in
an expanding universe.

It is never too late and
you are never too old,
And to spend time curating all that you have
gathered through your many years will
lead you into more.

*Arthur Brooks; From Strength to Strength;
**Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.

dilettante (/ˌdɪlɪˈtanti,ˌdɪlɪˈtanteɪ/)

mid 18th century: from Italian, ‘person loving the arts’, from dilettare ‘to delight’, from Latin delectare .

You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.*
Annie Dillard

What is your unwaning delight,
Your perpetual astonishment?

You must not let anything take these from you, or
become some obstacle to them.

Do not tell yourself,
Someday, I will find the time for them.

Now is the time, you are where they meet –
We’re here waiting for the magic.

*Rob Walker’s blog The Art of Noticing: Olfactory Work.

Wandering thoughts end up in unexpected places.

It remains the dream of every life to realise itself, to reach out and lift oneself to greater heights. A life that continues to remain on the safe side of its own habits and repetition never engages with the risk of its own possibility, remains an unlived life.*
John O’Donohue

It surprises us,
catches us unawares, how
the realised Self does appear out of living for self, but
in living for others –
Growing from independence to
interdependence, from the ego or little self
to the True Self,
Gifting our lives to others:
To the warrior,
greatness is not the product of ego but of
service.
If you live for your self, you can
settle for less.
If you live for others, it requires
all of who you are.**

I came upon six canons of the Eastern Artist
according to Joseph Campbell, and
I thought there could be some
fascinating transposing of these into the service of
the other – the most imaginative art we bring into the world;
I leave them for you to play with:
1 Before beginning, feel the rhythm of what is being drawn,
2 Find the form: the line produced must be a true, living line,
3 Be true to nature’s rhythm in what is being drawn,
4 Find the colour of energy and inertia, light and dark,
5 Find the right placement of the subject in the field,
6 Use a style appropriate to the subject.^

May you have the grace of encouragement
To awaken the gift in another’s heart,
Building in them the confidence
To follow the call of the gift.^^

*John O”Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us;
**Erwin McManus’ The Way of the Warrior;
^Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By;
^^John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For a New Position.

The thing is, feedback is a gift. Feedback transformed into generoous and useful criticism is priceless.*
Seth Godin

It is difficult, challenging, and yet extremely necessary at the time of wounding to revision our situation so that its larger story is revealed. This means, first of all, that we stop repeating to ourselves the data of the local events or personalities that have caused us pain. This is not to deny the facts but to move out of the easy seductions of tunnel vision into the broader landscape that reveals potent opportunities for growth. … tell the story again – not as a repetition of historical detail, but as a myth in which the wounding is only the middle of the story, the ending of which is the birth of a new grace.**
Jean Houston

This is not about writing a more
positive story using
your difficult and painful experiences;
It’s about what the story opens up for
you to do that
nothing else, so far, has
been able to, and this
for the sake of others.

But we are complex beings, and so are our challenges.
Simplistic solutions tend not to work for
the multilayered nature of our sorrows.
We must accept the complexity,
and the fact that untangling our inner knots will take
time and effort.^

*Seth Godin’s The Song of Significance;
**Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life;
^Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self Improvement.

What I’m really concerned about is reaching one person.*
Jorge Luis Borges

To wake the giant inside ourselves, we have to be faithful to our own eccentric nature, and bring it into conversation with the world.**
David Whyte

This is not for everyone,
But it may be for you;
You will know if
there is something more of you
waiting to emerge, to
be born.

It is to this
I awaken each morning.

*Austin Kleon’s Keep Going;
**David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.

Take a moment to enter the Doodle Zone … the the doodler’s breathing slows; her heart rate decreases; her mind relaxes; her focus sharpens. She find herself momentarily a picture of relaxed tranquility amid the hustle and bustle of daily life. She also find herself surprised at the insights that result from this seemingly insignificant endeavour.*
Sunni Brown

I didn’t mind the wait –
In fact, I hoped it would go on a little longer,
I became more aware of the people around me,
Their interactions;
Getting the drinks became more of an experience.

The Doodle Zone is everywhere;
All we need to carry is a plain paged notebook
and black pen, and, best of all,
Everyone can doodle.

*Sunni Brown’s The Doodle Revolution.

Resist chronology
It will always impose itself.
Break the flow of time once it begins.
Better yet, resist it from the start.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

To migrate away from the named places (territories whose topography was continuous with memory and community) to the coasts (unmapped islands, the anonymous forests) was to reach land that did not bear the marks of occupation. It was to act out a movement from history to eternity.**
Robert Macfarlane

To be peregrini, wanderers, is a matter of heart
and soul;
Otherwise we would have to cast our flimsy craft
upon the chopping waters, and wait to discover where
winds and tides have taken us.

There are timeless places to explore all around us,
In the eternities of reading, or
spending time with a fascinating other, or
working on some art or artisanship, or
wandering through sagely nature … .

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places.