You have been formed of three parts – body, breath, and mind. Of these, the first two are yours insofar as they are only in your care. The third alone is truly yours.*
Marcus Aurelius

The narrative we run in our head is a choice. It might or might not be based on objective reality and verified history. Doesn’t matter, it’s still a choice…the key question is simple: Is it helping?…If it’s not helping, we can change it.**
Seth Godin

We roughly know how much time we have,
Though not specifically,
But what we do with this time –
How we imagine it –
Is up to us.

It’s strange how some very grounded stories
don’t help at all,
And then,
Some very imaginative ones do.

Perhaps it’s time to have another look
at our stories.

*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Voluntary stories.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

‘Finding your passion’ can often become a distraction from simply being passionate … And if you really think you’re not passionate … act like it anyway.  It beats the alternative.*
Gabe Anderson

Your passion isn’t out there,
It’s a response inside of you to all of that,
So best to look at what’s already there
inside you.

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: A Word About Passion.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

people don’t understand the components of drawing – the learnable components of drawing…they are not drawing skills at all, but seeing skills*
Carol Dweck

Blue moments are the brush of angel’s wings, sacred glimpses beyond the fabric of the named world. They are subjective experience that pull back the veil on something profoundly objective – something more real than the visible world itself.**
AleXander McManus

It is very likely that
nothing is as it seems –
There’s always more to
a person
an idea
an object
a moment
you.

Are we allowing ourselves
to see as skill and
mystery,
To touch the veil?

*Carol Dweck’s Mindset;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

To be made of God its to be made of sacred imagination. It is to have the capacity to dream our way into new beginnings, in our lives and in our world.*
Philip Newell

In the fairytales I chose, the protagonists are not powerful in any conventional way, but they are active participants in their fate, leaving the familiar, taking risks, changing their lives, finding people worth connecting to, reaching out to help others, who will help them in return.**
Rebecca Solnit

In the beginning
imagination.

One life, two narratives–
The everyday and
the hero’s journey.

Neither more real
nor a fantasm
than the other.

Two necessary ways
to see
your one life.

You write the every day
every day,
But what if you were to
pen this as quest?

For the eye altering alters all.^

*Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Rebecca Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There;
^William Blake from John Higgs’ William Blake vs The World.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Stories come from nothing else but other stories. A story becomes especially powerful when it displays the mystery of its own origin. At the deepest level of any memorable story is the haunting presence of another story or even many other stories. They echo in each other.*
James Carse

We are, after all, God’s own question seeking an answer.**
Jacqueline Freeman

You have never been without
a story.

You began in the stories of
your parents, your god, the universe.

Your story has evolved and changed
through the inspirations and aspirations of others.

Nevertheless, your story is unique and,
I dare say, more glorious than you know.

Plumb the deepness, explore the mysteries,
A story answering the question of life.

*James Carse’s Breakfast At the Victory;
**Jacqueline Freeman’s Song of Increase.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.*
Carl Jung

Narrative imagining – story – is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is out chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.**
Mark Turner

I do not like it,
But out there it
tortures at worst, and
taunts at best.

So I draw it close.

It appears surprised
by my openness and
inquiry, the offer of
an honest conversation.

The story is changing.

What was harassing
and hurtful at a distance,
Now pens a new plot with me–
lines of possibility.

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations For Mortals;
**Lisa Cron’s Story Or Die.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Silence is a great canvas for your thoughts. That vacuum helps turn all of your inputs to outputs. That lack of interruption helps you flow.*
Derek Sivers

I love to be alone. I have never found a companion that is so compatible as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we are among others then when we stay in our chambers.**
Henry David Thoreau

Solitude and silence
are traditionally disciplines
for the interior life.

There are two forms
of disciplines –
those for engagement
and those for withdrawal.

Solitude and silence
invite and welcome us
from a busy and
garrulous world.

They are not emptiness but
an overflowing accommodation for
curiosity, deep-diving
and playfulness.

*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah Or No;
**Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (adapted by Nicholas Bone).

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

Existential analysis aims at nothing more and nothing less than leading [people] to consciousness of their responsibility.*
Viktor Frankl

Brigid challenges us to be people on our knees, that is, people midwifing new births for this moment in time. The good news is that we don’t have to create the births. Our role, rather, is to midwife what is trying to come forth from deep within the human soul.**
Philip Newell

Viktor Frankl is one kind of midwife,
Philip Newell is another kind,
Then there’s you,
Not a copy but different again.

We have each found ourselves
in different contexts and situations,
Wonderfully diverse in
our mixes of talents, energies, and values.

I wrote out a sentence this morning
describing my midwifery–
Perhaps take this moment to
refocus on yours.

*Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
**Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

The loser has more in common with the winner than with the person sitting on the sidelines…Results tend to find the person who stays in the game.*
James Clear

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.**
The Apostle Paul

Goodness may lose many times
but this game is a long one–
It will take the rest of our lives.

I’m not giving up
on your goodness
or mine,
No matter this morning’s
radio news stories.^

*James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On winning and losing, making the most of accidents, and when waiting doesn’t work;
**Romans 12:21;
^What is the goodness you will not give up on bringing into the world?

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

People’s cognitive machinery is preprogrammed for regret.*
Marcel Zeelenberg and Rik Pieters

In fact, it may be the question that our lives pivot around or, indeed, the whole world revolves around. Can we be forgiven?
Nick Cave

You did something and you shouldn’t have,
You didn’t do something and you should have.

Regret is a gift if we’ll embrace it:
We choose not to make that mistake again.

Some say they have no regrets–
So why sing about it?

Regret can sting something rotten,
But not regretting hurts more, and others too.

Perhaps we’re afraid that we won’t be forgiven–
Perhaps life is all about forgiveness.

If we learn to forgive ourselves
and move on, what others think pales to us.

Healers in fairy tales generally represent a calm and unperturbed aspect of the psyche…Every woman’s psyche contains this “fixer.” It is part of the wild and natural psyche and we are born with it.^

*Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret;
**Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE