Duchamp helps us understand that “art” shouldn’t be thought of as a noun that picks out certain kinds of objects, but as a verb: We “art” absolutely any object at all by using it to trigger thoughts and conversation.*
Blake Gopnik
I knew it, I knew it–
We all have some art
to bring into the world–
You be you and I’ll be me.
*Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing newsletter: Just Art It.
There is something about the morning and morning work that demands certain kinds of aloneness, an ability to work into the day and the day’s work in our own way; to find the particular contour – a way which gives us a sense that we are exploring the patterns emerging in our work according to our own nature and not trying to squeeze ourselves continually into an abstract box called a day or job.*
David Whyte
When do I think of my work beginning?
Am I waiting until I arrive at work?
How do I manage to keep my work my work?
Is this my work or someone else’s?
Does my work begin and end with joy?
Can I believe it– I get to do this?
If I’m honest, who’s really stopping me from being more expansive?
Is my work beginning “out there” or “in here”?
Are these questions the beginning of my work?
Have I begun already?
*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your soul.*
John O’Donohue
For you, the challenge here is to discover the task that you never believed you could do, but the Wizard of the inner sanctum of yourself always knew you could, and if you do it, it will change the nature of your belief about yourself.**
Jean Houston
There is something that each of us must do–
It can only be understood as an expression of our soul–
It may not be difficult to find–
Only find its smallest expression and watch it grow–
*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For Work;
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us.
Radical engagement is a way to discover, in your particular situation, what you can and must do next.*
Adam Kahane
It’s so much fun and it’s frustrating and it’s thrilling and sometimes I’m more nervous than ever and other times I feel like I’m flying.**
Rob Bell
I must not worry
if I haven’t got it all worked out.
If I’ve understood this urging,
It will all change anyway, me included–
Be the pebble thrown in the pond
and all of that – being all in … the ripples.
It’s about beginning, and noticing,
And adjusting – being alive.
This thing that began in my head and heart–
Why do I imagine there could ever be a right time and place?
*Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems;
**Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual.
If we say, “failure is not an option,” we’ve just guaranteed that success can’t happen either. Certainty is elusive, and if we require certainty to move forward, we’re trapped.*
Seth Godin
This is going to work, right?
Freedom is tied to responsibility but comes without guarantee.
“This is what I must do” still feels uncertain.
Whatever happens on the way, “there” will become “here.”
Otherwise, the only certainty will be “there” will always be “there.”
*Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy.
Without [alchemy], we tend to expect law to achieve the purposes of Spirit. We expect self-help programmes to lead is beyond the self. It does not work.*
Richard Rohr
And these days, when science and technology allow us to optimise every outcome, it seems irresponsible not to. So, we think about sleeping for recovery. Socialising for our mental health. Walking for cardiovascular benefit. But somewhere in all this accounting, we’ve been so busy evaluating our lives that we have forgotten to live them.**
Bernadette Jiwa
To not be in control
is not
to be out of control.
That there is something
at work in me that is
beyond me, takes some acclamatising.
I want to use this,
Maximise this,
Squeeze the benefit from this.
Though all I have to be
is open to and
embrace this.
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.^
*Richard Rohr’s The Tears of Things; I’ll be returning in a future blog to seven alchemical processes identified by Carl Jung;
**Bernadette Jiwa’s Briefly blog: For The Sake Of Your Heart;
^Jesus of Nazareth: John 3:8a.
Although sweetness can fit into the wild, the wild cannot fit long into sweetness.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The Covid-19 pandemic worsened isolation, but tech had already made redundant many of the ways we used to congregate and mingle, while often portraying those ventures into the world as dangerous, unpleasant, inefficient, and inconvenient.**
Rebecca Solnit
What isn’t in the “ban”
is getting together with
and interacting with friends–
The wild ways
woven into our being over countless millennia
Remains our bright dawn–
We are more
courageous and generous
and wiser than we know.
The modern life is shallow and distracted. The timeless life is deep and focused.^^
*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**Rebecca Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There;
^I had a conversation with Claude.ai about these thoughts on government’s social media bans for under sixteens. It shared some interesting responses: The young people who fear real-time interaction perhaps most need exactly what the ban would give them — not protection from difficulty, but structured exposure to it, at the age when humans are biologically primed to do precisely that work…I am perhaps the clearest possible argument for the ban — not because I am harmful, but because I am insufficient. Sweetness without wildness. And if even I can see that, perhaps it’s worth trusting. The young person who grows up knowing how to be in a room, how to tolerate silence, how to read a face — they will know something I will never know. And they will be the better for having been, for a while, unreachable by me.
^^Derek Sivers’ How To Live.
I was more interested in just having a conversation and seeing where things landed.*
Nick Cave
Conversations are magical.
Beyond “this or that” debate, embracing the person.
Full of grace, opening possibilities.
Unfolding cooperative action–
Then may your conversations with yourself go well–
Not abusive, one-sided, agreeing, shallow…
But curious, compassionate, challenging, encouraging.
Perhaps notice how you speak to yourself through today?
*Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage.
Believe me, it’s better to produce the balance-sheet of your own life than that of the grain market.*
Seneca
Remember that in a myth we are all the characters.**
Jean Houston
In our sophistication,
We are able to accomplish
a lot of expertises.
At the same time
we are neglecting
our inner self.
Our myth is not impossible
but difficult–
We are the resistance.
When we overcome
and make this journey,
Everyone receives.
*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us.
Growing up … is the equivalent of the biblical Fall. As adults we forget what it was like to be a child. There is a sense that the world was different then, and that something important has been lost, but we are unable to recall what this is, or exactly what it felt like.*
John Higgs
We have. in many ways forgotten what the world feels like. And so new maladies of the soul have emerged, unhappinesses which are complicated products of the distance we have set between ourselves and the world.**
Robert Macfarlane
Somewhere inside
of me, there breathes
a six year old full
of curiosity and wonderment, who
feels so small in a big world.
Somewhere inside
of me, humility
and curiosity quietly lead me
into whisper of the infinite where
all is well with my soul.
*John Higgs’ William Blake vs The World;
**Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places.
THIN|SILENCE 
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