The moment we gave names to the deepest forces – good and evil, love and hate, life and death – we stepped into a different world. They are not simply labels. They are powers. And to speak them aloud is to awaken them. But naming is never neutral. Once we name them, they name us.*
AleXander McManus

Love is like a plough that opens up hard ground and allows things to grow.**
David Brooks

Ever tried to imagine
what it must be like
to think like a dog or cat?

It is impossible
because we cannot remove the heavy
clay of human consciousness–

Here is our complexity–
Love and hate, good
and evil, life and death–

We may try not to hate,
not to do wrong, not
only to exist–

How quickly self-control empties–
Better to love, to do good,
To live fully while we have breath–

Choosing to be
more human–
Transcending, transforming–

*AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
**David Brooks’ The Road To Character.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

If we knew what people regret the most, we can reverse the image to reveal what they value the most.*
Daniel Pink

Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people.**
Epictetus

If only I had …
I wish that I hadn’t …

I must admit,
I do not like regret–

So what will happen
if I put my regret to work?–

If I do not ignore it
or wallow in it?–

If I allow myself to be awakened
to what regret is showing me–

Perhaps I will find attending to regret
is a compassionate thing?

*Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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Discovering the right medium is often a tidal moment in the creative life of an individual…creativity can be inhibited by the wrong medium.*
Ken Robinson

Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress.**
Emmeline Pankhurst

At any moment
things can become worse–
Even when the world
is getting better, suddenly–

Forth and back–
There is no easy progression–
No Shangri-La, no Star Federation,
Only our daily inhabiting.

For such a time as this
there will always be our playful work–
Perhaps we will bring
our deepest joy to meet some need–

*Ken Robinson’s Out Of Our Minds;
**Ryan Holiday’s Right Thing, Right Now.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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A traveller comes to a river and sees a local woman on the opposite bank. He yells across, “How do I get to the other side of the river?” She yells back, “You are on the other side of the river.*
Derek Sivers

For if there is one paradigm in which we are deeply immersed, it is our own lives.**
Matthew Syed

It’s troublesome, but
I am finding that
curiosity and listening
to the experiences of others
are always helpful ways
to proceed from
this smallness
into our larger world.

*Derek Sivers’ Useful Not True;
**Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who know how?)
With swift, slow. sweet, sour; dazzle, dim;
He fathers forth whose beauty is beyond change:
Praise him.**
Gerard Manley Hopkins

I’m stippled–
You’re dappled–
Thank god for everyone’s
singular beauty.

*Gerard Manley Hopkin’s Pied Beauty;
**James Reeves’ Selected Poems of G. M. Hopkins.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Poetry…is not to be confused with versification. It is about learning the rhythm of the earth.*
Philip Newell

To change our relationship to the physical world – to end an era of profligate consumption by the few that has consequences for the many – means changing how we think about pretty much everything: wealth, power, joy, time, space, nature, value, what constitutes a good life, what matters, how change itself happens.**
Rebecca Solnit

What if
Earth forgives us
for what we have done
and have not
understood?

In Earth’s forgiveness,
We do not have to hide
from each other
or from
ourselves–

Then what if
we might walk with Earth,
Learning the deepest rhythms
of a mystical sojourn
within our day-to-day?

*Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Rebecca Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

These days everyone has the tools…But the masters are often the ones who know exactly what to do with a few tools.*
Gabe Anderson

Analogue, digital–
So many tools
for anyone to use–

Perhaps focus on
the tool no one else has–
You.

How will you then
hone who you are
and what you do?

Unmistakable–
today
and tomorrow–

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Making The Quarters Last.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Art changes the creator and the viewer. Art requires participation. Art is a verb…No change, no art.*
Seth Godin

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.**
John Cage

Opening to new thoughts?
What will they make of you?
What will you make of them?
Who will you make this for?

Seth Godin’s blog: Art is a verb;
Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah Or No.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

If you think of your inner voice as an inner tormentor, then it’s natural to fantasise about permanently muting it. But losing your inner voice is, in fact, the last thing you would ever want if your aim is to live a functional life, much less a good one.*
Ethan Kross

I do not regret my journey of faith and doubt, because I do not regret who I have become. Faith and doubt together have made me who I am. I wouldn’t want to live without either.**
Brian McLaren

Are humans the most complex
expressions of the universe?
If so, we are the result of
these endless conversations in our heads
that, whilst we try
to escape them, we cannot,
And when we hope
we have arrived, we haven’t–
We are tiny miracles journeying
with alternate steps of faith and doubt.

*Ethan Kross’ Chatter;
**Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

If the standard picture is that we are pushing back the walls of ignorance, the mystical view is that the ignorance must be there first, else there is nothing to push. The mind does not come to life until it meets what it cannot comprehend.*
James Carse

Knowledge of the self is as important as knowledge of the external world.**
Ken Robinson

I can see
and listen
but my heart
is a concern–

Am I pushing against?
Or falling into
what I do not know–
Surrender?–

I know
what doesn’t work–
The blag, the walk away,
Resistance, or putting off–

“I don’t know”
is the beginning
of my discovery–
Openheartedness–

*James Carse’s Breakfast At The Victory;
**Ken Robinson’s Out Of Our Minds.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO