The tension is good. The tension might be the point. You can’t walk on a rope unless it’s tight.*
Seth Godin

Real life is not having all the puzzle pieces and probably not having the box with the picture on it either. That tension is what inspires us to make art that tells a complete story.**
Gabe Anderson

Not the ease, but the edge, the challenge, the difficulty
may be showing you that you’re on the right track.

All the important things in life,
The things that come from love and result in love
will likely include these.

It may be worth writing out what this is for you –
A list, a poem, some journaling, an illustration or doodle –
To see just what it is.

*Seth Godin’s The Song of Significance;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: Where’s That Last Piece.

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Saying no makes your yes more powerful**
Derek Sivers

There are two ways to grow: by adding or by shedding.^
James Clear

No—

There.

You’ve finally said it, and
now your
time, attention, and
energy are multiplied –
Before you lies
the thing you must do,
The necessary something that delights.

Now you have
alacrity
and
momentum…

*Jim showing us how to say “No” in The Vicar of Dibley;
**Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No;
^James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On obsessions, what you can control, and the power of decisive action.

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The Tin Man may represent the mechanisation of our reality of which the loss of heart is the worst to bear. It is easy enough to get oiled and get moving, but without heart there is no impetus to keep going.**
Jean Houston

These weren’t their three words –
Feeling lost, they HAD checked the app to see where they were;
Their three words – where they needed to be – awaited,
They only needed to follow their heart.

Which three words describe where you need to be, and/or to be doing?^

*What3words is an app that “grids” the world into 3×3 metre squares. As long as we have a connection, we’ll never be lost.
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
^The three words represent whole environments or worlds of activity.

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This means that we can be moved only by persons who are not who they are; we can be moved only when we are not who we are but what we cannot be … We can be moved only by our veils. We are touched through our veils.*
James Carse

The idea that we live in a mental model of reality, rather than reality itself, is fundamental to the philosophy of William Blake … although the world appears to be outside of you, what you experience as the world is created in your mind.**
John Higgs

Force believes the veil to be reality,
Touch allows that this may not be so,
Surprise is touch’s child,
A sign that something new may appear –
Perhaps we do not grow through certainty.

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games;
**John Higgs’ William Blake vs the World.

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I have trained my own reality to be very fluid, moving back and forth between ordinary and extraordinary realities, local and archetypal worlds, implicate and explicate worlds.*
Jean Houston

The challenge is to keep doing something different, something harder and scarier in every way than the thing you did before … to do something more difficult each time.**
Francine Prose

And before we know it,
We’ve stopped,
Stopped moving, and,
Being fixed, life
closes in around us when it ought to to be
opening up and astounding us.

I need only 4%
different, difficult, risky, scarier to avoid
a world becoming too familiar and reducing,
Or to unbelievable and large for me to contemplate –
Only 4% to be fluid and
Lost in wonder.

Your life is quantum,
You live here ordinarily and also
somewhere else, imaginally,
Your life in myth stretching,
Opening and unfurling this
local world.

*Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life;
**Austin Kleon’s blog: Stepping into the portal.

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Numerous fMRI studies have shown that when you’re lost in a story the same areas of your brain light up as would activate if you were doing what the protagonist is doing.*
Lisa Cron

*Lisa Cron’s Story or Die.

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It’s hard not to like someone once you know their story.
Mr Rogers

Lisa Cron’s Story or Die.

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Man begins to be human only where he has the freedom to oppose bondage to a type. For only there, in freedom, is his being – being responsible; only there “is” man authentically, or only there is man ‘authentic.’*
Viktor Frankl

You are not a type,
You do not have to receive the script, nor the others that will follow,
You can choose to say, No thank you.

Resistance is the beginning of your responsibility and the freedom to be
Your own kind of unrepeatable imperfection, which is always for something, for someone,
Some Yes please that must follow, Yes to life.

We might name this your dialogue
with the pressure of reality through the power of your imagination,
Shaping your place in the world.

You will know its weight, but
it is your sweet weight,
Your joyful burden.

How goes your imaginative conversation with reality?

*Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul.

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Notice the order – from solitude to community to ministry.*
Henri Nouwen

Our sense of self is not a discrete thing, it turns out. It is perhaps better thought of as a story. It is a story of who we are, what we are like and where we are going, and as such it grows out of our history, our relationships with others and our goals for the future.**
John Higgs

When in our flow, our bliss,
Our sense of self is lost to us,
And when we give ourselves to
nothing,
We reappear in
the past, present, and future of our stories;
Whilst we may rehearse these when we are
with others, it is only when I am alone that my pondering
is deepest.

Where do you disappear and why do you return?

*Henri Nouwen’s Spiritual Direction;
**John Higgs’ William Blake vs the World.

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The only ways we can avoid [creativity’s] insistent energy are to continuous;y mount barriers, or to allow it to be poisoned by destructive negativity and negligence.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Awe spurs us to be kinder and more compassionate. It makes us happier and less concerned with materialism. Experiences of awe spark curiosity within us and help orient us to what truly matters in our lives. In short, awe changes us in the most incredible ways.**
Dacher Keltner

Background,
Upbringing,
Limitations,
Openness,
Noticing,
Curiosity,
Interests,
Developed talents,
Beliefs,
Experiences,
Narratives –
All of these are happening all of the time in our lives,
And all of them provide an incubator for creativity.

Here’s another year, free of charge,
For letting it out,
Perhaps removing the barriers, or
overcoming the negativity;
A good place to begin is in being open to awe:
The universe, local nature, art, stories, people, inventions –
Witnessing the good things all around us, and
just having to join in.

In this sense, I wish you
Happy New Year!

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**Dacher Keltner’s Awe.

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