Winter Blessing

The solstice is fast approaching. For some this represents the true year end, rather than the 31 December which most of us celebrate. As we become more attuned to the cyclical patterns of the seasons and the sun and the moon the celtic year end grows in meaning.

On Saturday we attended a concert by Nigel Shaw and Carolyn Hillyer. At the end they share a Winter Blessing, which I will share here:

A bare-armed tree above my head
The cold black earth beneath me
A northern wind to kiss my skin
A cloak of ice to sheath me
A promise from the deepest night
To hold me close and safely
A blessing to this winter light
That quietly burns within me

As the nights draw in and the temperatures drop it is natural to go within. Into our dream lodges. Into our bear caves. Let the seeds that hold the potential for the year to come take cover under the deep dark soil to slowly germinate and start to grow out of sight.

It's a time for giving more than receiving.
It's a time to appreciate and be grateful
It's a time to be generous and share
It's a time to gather and celebrate

 

Wild

 

To be fully human is to be wild. 

Wild is the strange pull and whispering wisdom. 

It’s the gentle nudge and the forceful ache. 

It is your truth, passed down from the ancients, 

and the very stream of life in your blood. 

Wild is the soul where passion and creativity reside, 

and the quickening of your heart. 

Wild is what is real, and wild is your home.
 

- Victoria Erickson -

Rumi

An intellectual is all 
the time showing off.
Lovers dissolve and 
become bewildered.
Intellectuals try not 
to drown,
while the whole purpose 
of love is to drown.

Jelaluddin Rumi

Music

To quote Madonna, and to be fair it's not often I get to do just that, 'Music makes the people come together. Music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel - Hey, Mr DJ put a record on I wanna dance with my baby' - quite!

Music lifts and shifts a mood quicker than an escaped tiger empty's the streets.

This morning whilst doing my normal walkabout of the interwebs I alight upon some might morsels of musical delicacy, such that I felt the need to share.

If only to possibly raise a wry smile or two ...



A contemporary remix of a 90's classic ...



#Peace and Love

Feats Beyond Words

Check this video out of mountain biker Danny Macaskill cycling The Ridge on Skye. How is this possible? Never mind being on the edge of my seat, I couldn't ever sit still long enough to stay on the edge while watching this incredible challenge. Set amidst the breath taking beauty of Skype a guy and his bike achieve incredible feats. The ending is something else. I've only ever done that by accident and it didn't end so well!!! Now I want to go out on my bike ...

Brand New Ancients

A rising star in the world of poets ... Kate Tempest. Here she is reciting part of her epic poem Brand New Ancients. One word - Incredible!
 
 

Linguistic Tree

I love maps. Today I came across this image by Minna Sundberg. She has drawn the antidote to the boring linguistic tree diagram. It is interesting to see how far away the Gaelic and Welsh languages are from English. Fascinating stuff.

Beauty

I am mesmerised by the beauty of this creatures incredible eye lashes ...

Another 5 minute poem

He paid the bills

he paid the bills
and counted his money
running down the stairs declaring - nearly a million!
who cares? we'd reply
when you die
we're going to give it away

it didn't seem to bother him
money meant something different in his world
something good
something to attain
something to be proud of

to him money was love
a very mixed up
fucked up kind of love

he loved me
although he never said those words
and I loved him
although it breaks my heart

love in different languages is very confusing
and sometimes hurtful

when did love become money?

and, how can we learn to speak each others languages
without hurling arrows at one another?

Not for beginners

Whilst watching a biographical film about the US poet Elisabeth Bishop I heard this famous quote by the musician Tom Joabim, 'Brasil is not for beginners'. In five words it summed up my experience. Brasil is an amazing country full of the most incredible, sometimes unfathomable, extremes. It can be quite uncomfortable sitting in opulence looking out on scenes of abject poverty. And yet this is a common occurrence. Not necessarily to be accepted, but to be somehow internalised and lived with. I for one have my struggles and discomforts with the inequality, with the corruption, with the lack of infrastructure and the list could go on.

To stay too long in this place of confusion would be to miss the beauty and the joy that is also a central quality to the country and the people. Reconciling the differences is what makes Brasil a complex country and one that as Tom Joabim says quite accurately is not for beginners. To not only survive Brasil, to appreciate and enjoy the people, climate, landscape, culture and natural abundance one needs to be open to the present, to the possibility for change and to the endless riches.

As Elisabeth Bishop observed in her time - the country and it's people cried tears of sadness when JFK was assassinated and yet when the military took control of power in Brasil - nothing - daily life continued, people played football on the beach just like any other day. These differing responses to major political events is hard to reconcile. When discussing this with a Portuguese friend he described the different ways countries stereotypically respond to significant events. For example, if there was an announcement that the world was to end tomorrow - Germans would turn to their spreedsheets to analyses the implications, Portuguese would run to the banks to withdraw their money and the Brasilian's would simply order another beer, smile and carry on like nothing happened. Not because they are blase, it's more akin to a sense of why get stressed out when there is nothing you can do, enjoy life while you can. From that standpoint the Brasilian response has much to offer.


 

Family and Fruit

Day one in Brasil and it's been all about family and fruit. In someways these two words are interchangeable. families fruit and fruits come in families.

Families are constantly changing, flowing like a dynamic river and my family in Brasil keeps on growing too. A new edition since my last trip is little Lucinhas. We went to visit him at home during the afternoon. He was understandably cautious when we first arrived in the apartment. After a few minutes he was more comfortable around us and began to play. At just one year old he is already walking about and exploring the world unfolding before him. Being the youngest he gets lots of attention from all those around him including his older sister Juju. Yesterday evening when we met up with everyone for pizza he was perfecting his raspberry blowing technique with the help of his Grandma.

 

I have tried many fruits whilst in Brasil. One of my favourite drinks is fresh water melon juice - melancia. Yesterday whilst out shopping in a local super market we saw many new unrecognisable fruits. Among them was this one called Fruta do Conde or Fruta Pinha here in Brasil.

In English it is known as a sugar-apple or the custard apple. It grows on the Annona Squamosa plant - that is one cool name for a plant.

A google search told me this fruit is high in energy, an excellent source of vitamin C and manganese, a good source of thiamine and vitamin B₆, and provides vitamin B₂, B₃ B₅, B₉, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium in fair quantities.

Inside it has a creamy white flesh that tastes a little like custard. Held with in the flesh are black seeds the size of kidney beans. From the picture you can see it's not the prettiest fruit. If we weren't encouraged to try it the look might have been enough to put me off.
 

In the supermarket I was being a classical tourist !!! taking pictures of the aisles of unusual looking items before me. I got to the fruta do conde and pointed at this strange 'to me' looking green bobble shape. The guy stacking the shelves picked one up and with a quick twist of the hand he'd broken the fruit in half. Kindly he passed it to us for a taste and boy what a sweet soft and delicious fruit this is. Quite sticky and slimy with a soft very sweet flesh that almost dissolves in the mouth.

I don't know what I was expecting it to look like on the inside or what it might taste like, but what I experienced was nothing like I'd imagined. Maybe I thought it would be less sweet more like an avocado or artichoke.

I am now on the look out for more exotic fruits to sample. Watch this space.

I can always recommend a trip to the local market to see what you can find to tantalise and educate the taste buds. In a UK supermarket we tend to find one type of bananas or orange. It's good to know there is more to fruit than I this small range. One of my favourite snacks is the tiny finger sized bananas. They get even smaller than the ones I'm holding in the picture below.

The path to the beginning

The path to the beginning is
Greatness
Crow feathers soften your cheeks
As
Black beetle lifts its eyes upon you.

You ride the back of the blue
Whale
Plunging deep below the known
Depths you go
There are no caves to hide in now

Your heart shines like an uncut
Diamond
Out from the green valley you
Emerge
Resplendent like a story yet to be told

Start pushing your own myth to a better world

I'm drawn to the story of Sisyphus pushing a rock up the hill. I feel this myth needs refreshing and renewing for our times.

Ukrainian street dup Intererni Kazki created this modern interpretation of Sisyphus on the side of a building in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
 
It has been suggested that the image connects the myth of Sisyphus to consumerism, highlighting the emptiness and futility of accumulating more and more things. It raises the questions: Does being trapped in consumerism feel like a punishment from the gods? Or, do we have the power to escape from this sentence?"

Or we could re-imagine our myths? We could stand back a little from this close up scene and take in the bigger picture. Maybe Sisyphus is averting some great danger by preventing the consumer goods with all there waste and polluting possibilities from ending up in a landfill. Instead he is taking the difficult path of moving these redundant objects to the upcycling, re-purposing, re-use depot over the hill. Now it does not seem like such a ridiculous and futile task. Sometimes we have to make hard and difficult choices. Sometimes we have to do things which to others may appear stupid. Sometimes changing behaviour takes vision, discipline and hardwork - and yet it's worth it.

Be more like Sisyphus and take the lead to a better future you know is just over the hill.
 
 

Where will you find me?

I could be sitting at the cross-roads, or on the edge of the village, around the fire, or down next to the babbling brook, or in the glade of the forest - wherever you find me come and sit next to me for a while, rest your bones and tell me your story.

In the same way as the people of Europe discovered from Copernicus in the 16th century that the earth was neither flat nor the centre of everything, that the earth revolved around our sun – we the same people with the Western or European questioning mind are now learning the difficult news that we the human species are not at the top of the ladder of evolution or existence for that matter. We are not at the centre of life. We are learning that life is a community, an ecosystem in which all forms of life carry a novel and essential gift to be passed from one to another. We need each other. We are inseparably one and whole and therefore immutably connected.

This boundary crossing point of realisation is what Martin Shaw would call a Trickster moment, what Goethe might describe as inter-subjectivity or Thich Nhat Hanh suggests is interbeing and what Thomas Berry names as the Great Work. The western, dominant cultural story is changing. We are in a period of transition, shifting sands below, moving clouds above, consciousness rising. The constellations are reconfiguring our perception of the inner and outer landscapes and images we navigate by.

Charles Eisenstein puts it like this – the new story is the old story. I would declare it’s more than new wine in old bottles. Perennial wisdom has been carried and cared for by first nation’s people down the millennia. They have kept the flame burning during some extraordinary arduous tough times and yet the new old story is more than harking back to the past. The western curious mind is on a journey, as dark and violent as it has been like all quests the detritus possesses gifts to be revealed and to be shared among us. Let us honour the lotus flower, praise the baby to be born in this creative moment. To overlook them, worst still, to not even expect or seek the jewel would be a tragedy.

What is different now?

We no longer need gurus or lone wolfs as we have – we do not need to perpetuate the culture of individualism. That time has gone.

The task we are grappling with can’t be done without one another, shoulder to shoulder. Nor can we do this unless each one of us reflects within and takes responsibility for ourselves and does our own shadow work – shit shoveling if you will. Unity, wholeness, healing comes at the cross-roads at the meeting point of paradox. In this uncomfortable place change can happen. To do this we need to carve out our practices, whatever they maybe – singing, music, arts, movement, prayer, writing, silence, pilgrimage, incantation ...

The old story can slip from our eyes and we can see a new. We need to be initiated by one another. We need to be heard, to be listened to and for others to bear witness to all our stories. We need to meet in circle. More than that we need to participate together in this process. This is not a time for passivity, for observers, for hangers-on. We all need to step up and be seen in our uniqueness and in our unity.

This is not only a human experience. Now is the time for interspecies recognition and communication.  There may be a human family, joyous as this is – there is a far bigger life family ... a consciousness coming into being – each of us has a role to play and a gift to offer in service to the planetary cosmic consciousness we are. 

It’s a time to wake up and be awakened with no judgement, no shame.

I think Joanna Macy’s 'Work That Reconnets', the Be The Change symposium and other eco-workshops are designed to awaken people. It’s like the hero’s journey described by Joseph Campbell; or the first half of life described by Richard Rohr; or the first half of Parsifal’s quest to heal the Fisher King. Finding and falling in love is not the end of the story; persisting in love is the key that needs turning now. The Hollywood ending of romantic love is where many people are stuck believing this is it – as good as it gets! This is not it, it's not enough, nor is it the end of the road and yet still it is where many of us find ourselves today, perpetually going round the falling in love wheel – hence the fixation on youth and newness.

What we need is the post-heroic quest. We need to heal the Fisher King, find our holy grail and return to the village with our gift in service to our community - human and other than human. And this in part is why we need to sit together and listen to each others stories – to witness people’s arrival back into the village - The Return - This is why we are so sadly missing our elders. They are needed now to welcome the creative genius of youth as it ventures back from the desert, forest or wasteland into the village. For this to be done as it should it needs ritual space and a reverence for the sacred in life. 

I am a story carrier. Please come and tell me your story.

Pants!

Global warming - no further proof needed, really. There's scientific evidenced based research and then there's underwear size research. I think the pants argument wins. Fact - as some might say. Only downside to this is I've learnt my sartorial styling may be stuck somewhere between 1900's and 1950's. What does this mean, I ask myself? I'm behind the times, a late bloomer even.

Sisters ...

The perfect one and the wild goat riding one.
I tip my hat to Tatterhood.

A Bonded Pair

The wooden spoon was waving helicopter like round her head.

Meat ! Meat ! Feed me Meat !

I was yanked out into the world head gripped between forceps.

What the fuck are you doing to me people !

Riding a wild goat she rode off on her own path

No care for the thoughts or consideration of others

I was wrapped up as tightly as you can imagine, cocooned in wool

Stoically I sweltered under the burgeoning summer sun

Let’s go on an adventure she said to her sister

Into the deepest darkest woods we can find

I love you so much, little sis I’ll even share my smarties with you

Let’s run around all summer long in our little red wellies

Oldest sister marries first, you should know that

Now who is going to marry me?

Oldest and youngster sister swop rank and responsibilities

Thank the Lord she followed convention, it’s not for me.

Like chalk and cheese they both were - and yet,

Those sisters born of the same mother remain a bonded pair.

How come so such difference to the eye

Are born and surmounted by ties of blood and kinship?  

Arts ...

Work ...

Healing ...

 Marius Brossa

"We have been taught to think of 'healing' as the removal of symptoms, the calming of disruption, the numbing of chaos and the return to 'normality'. But sometimes we no longer have any interest in returning to 'normal'. 'Normality' was the prison, not the solution.

Sometimes powerful energies just need to rage in us. Sometimes our hearts need to break wide open, to make room for more love. Sometimes dreams need to die, plans need to crumble, confusion and doubts need to burn, the status quo needs to fall apart. Sometimes all our precious ideas about life, spirituality and even 'enlightenment' need to shatter. 

Sometimes we even need to let go of our time-bound longing to heal.

When we get out of the way, when we stop trying to fix ourselves or get fixed by others, perhaps true healing can really begin - the rediscovery of wholeness, exactly where we stand."

Jeff Foster

Stories ...

“Stories are compasses and architecture, we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice.”

― Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

When Totnes Gets Too Much

It happens ... there are times when Totnes can become a little too much to take. It's a small town after all! Privacy, what's that? Intensity, maxed out! There's only so many crystal healing wheat grass juice cleanses to be had in a day. When a Totnesian is having one of those moments where the world goes wwwwoooooaaaaahhhhhhhh - this is what happens ... (all I am saying is - I now know what twin towns are for).

Bags packed, coat on and heading for the wardrobe. Time to take a break from one reality and to step into a new dimension - yes to that!

A Good Book

A couple of days ago a new book landed on my doorstep. One of life's pleasures is the anticipation of a good book, why? Well I think this image sums it up ...

and the book in question on this day ... let me share with you a brilliant writer and a portal definitely worth stepping through ...

 

... this is a book for those who have dreamed of stepping into one of the oldest stories originating from Europe, told around countless firesides and passed on from one generation to the next since memory began. Here's your opportunity to delve deeply into the mystery and the magic with Martin Shaw.

The Taoist Maybe Story

"There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.

One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.

 "Maybe," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.

"Maybe," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. 

"Maybe," answered the farmer. 

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. 

"Maybe," said the farmer."

Sunday Morning Last Week

What happens when gratitude is stuck inside?

Blocked like a constipated goose
Eyes bulging
   Skin tighter than an unplayed drum
 Senses prickling and sensitive
     Alert to the brooding expectation and glare of damnation

And still no gracious movement
 No head bow
  No softening of the heart

Fires of rage rise up
  For what?
    For what?
      For what you may ask?

 To guard the edges of existence
   To keep a sense of experience
To stop the march of the unthinking

THAT IS WHY!
  That is why the gratitude is unannounced
    not unfelt, simply silent and within.

Beltane

It's May
It's Beltane
Get wild
Light fires and leap them
Walkout in bare feet and feel the morning dew
Gather wild flowers; primrose, garlic, bluebells
Marigold, gorse, hazel and cowslips to name a few
Dance naked in the woods
Roll about, get covered in mud
Be wild, be free
Run towards the roar
It's May
It's Beltane

Oh hawthorn tree

Oh hawthorn tree
 Oh hawthorn tree

Bringer of protection
Sounding bell of May

Proud guardian of the moors
Signifier of edges to the other world
Host to ancient families of lichen

Your knowledge spikes the unwary
Your shining fruits give nourishment to the needy

Striking upwards Medusa like from the earth below
Your one-legged resilience offers its brilliance
Your skin maps the journeys yet to be taken
Green messenger of a thousand fertility rituals
Catcher and sender of full moon dreamings

Oh hawthorn tree
 How I love you so!

Somethings never change and yet the spinning gyrations of life can make us dizzy beyond belief

Remember your focus is YOU
Your brilliance and beauty shines on.
To do anything less would be a loss to the world
Be lifted by the jewels that hang in the sky at night
Be held by the out reached arms of the crab apple tree
Be comforted by the gentle eyes of a new born moor pony
who looks into the depths of your soul and knows you
Nothing changes your belonging and place
in the family of all things.
This is your true love.
The light of which never diminishes.

Announcing your place in the family of things.

It's been a tough week.
One full of misunderstandings, hurt, anxiety.
The future seems less certain again.
Everything is different and nothing has changed.
Tonight is a grande full moon bringing all its beauty, glory and power.

In this week of tumult the words of Mary Oliver have found there way to me and provided solace. For that alone I am grateful. And for the wisdom I am humbled.

In Mary Oliver's own voice ... Wild Geese



And for those who like to read the words ...

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & 
New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.

The oneness ...

I came across this small youtube clip of Eckhart Tolle.

Feeling the one in the depth of yourself and recognising it all around, in everyone :)

To be in the present moment.

Yes!

Infotoxicification

I am not sure if INFOTOXIFICATION is a real word, new word or a made up word. Just now, when I googled it, I found results for INFOTOXIC and INFOTOXICITY; described as a consequence of modern lifestyles connecting to information and multimedia technologies with insufficient time spent in natural environments. Information is so readily available and there is plenty of it on any subject you can think of at the press of a button. It's quite seductive. And in away digital supplies of information can replace memory and thinking. And yet is too much of a good thing bad for you? What happens when we have an excess of information?

Alan Logan the co-author of Your Brain on Nature says, it's time to unplug ourselves from technology. "Even when individuals enter green space, they are often not really 'there' in the mindful sense -- texting, incoming messages, and eyes fixated upon smart phones take the brain elsewhere. In many ways we are drowning in a sea of 'infotoxicity' and entertainment media."

There are many evidence based health and wellbeing benefits for disconnecting ourselves from technology and reconnecting ourselves with nature, plants and animals. For example, it helps to support our positive mental health and outlook, it creates emotional strength, slows us down and brings us back into our bodies, it helps to remind us of our animal selves and serves to open us to a reverence for the natural world.

The other side of this technological picture is what happens when we spend too much time in front of a screen. I know for myself I lose concentration levels, I get mentally tired, my physical conditioning declines due to long periods of inactivity, my thought processes lack depth and flit about at an increasing rate of speed getting lost on the lanes and byways of the digital highway. I can begin a search with great intent and purpose and yet with in a short period of time have lost connection with my original inquiry and be pursuing some fascinating and yet mindless cul-de-sac of curiosity. All in all as much as I appreciate and don't want to live without my laptop or mobile phone I now would like to have extended periods without them. Is this possible? Would I experience withdrawal symptoms? Would this feel like a sort of info-detoxification for my mind and body?

I don't know the answer to these questions. I am curious to find out. Can I build in digital/IT free hours in my day and week? Watch this space.

Don't make me angry ...

This and other drawings of owls to describe different owl senarios makes me smile. I am such a huge fan of the wisdom owls bring into our lives. This image reminds me not to take myself, and sometime life for that matter, too seriously.

Pointing at the moon

Last Sunday I watched the moonrise over my town. It was a mighty full moon. Powerful. It shone its golden brilliance as it rose over the rooftops. Quite surprising as typically I'd expect to see a silvery sheen from the moon. On this night it was truly golden like the sun. A memorable and breathtakingly awesome sight.

Prior to the moon's appearance I'd been digging over the allotment preparing for spring and seedling planting to come. On a patch nearby two older guys had dug out a new seating area, shaped a willow arbor as a back-rest, built a small fire and smudged their new site with sage - they then sat down to drum in the new moon. Classical behaviours to be found in this part of the country. Nothing out of the ordinary, two very welcoming souls. Before heading home we visited bringing two heart shaped stones as gifts for their new seating shrine and sat a while talking about the land and the rising moon.

The full moon was super powerful this month. My sleep was fitful over the days of its arrival and passing. My dreams vivid and intense. I'd awake and glance out the darkened window until I caught a sight of the glistening moon hanging up high as it arced the night sky. It had a real magnetic pull. Drawing my attention and locking my gaze. I imagine if I didn't look away quickly I would easily become transfixed.

The moon is so often a strong icon and object of identification. We point up at the moon in all its splendour. Due to it's size and position there's no confusing this ball of atoms with other stars or planets orbiting above us. We write poems and stories about the moon. I have fond memories of walking my nephew round the garden in the dusk of evening and with enormous fun and excitement we'd point up at the sky shouting 'where's the man in the moon?' It's such a magical mesmerising symbol in the sky. The moon is the moon. There is no other. There are many planets and stars glistening in the night sky, yet we orbit only one sun and one moon orbits Earth.

I, like many of us, know the names to label such phenomenon in our lives. I can point at the moon to draw attention to it ... but my pointed finger is not to be confused with the actual moon. The word for moon is not to be confused with what the moon is. Would the moon exist if there wasn't a name for it or someone to see it?

Why am I getting all philosophical ... because it is too easy to place the importance on the message, the logos, the word rather than the phenomenon or the experience itself. Being a part of something, feeling connected, being in relationship is the link between the being and the doing. You can't have one without the other. To separate them is an artifice that serves to disconnect us from ourselves, one another and ultimately the whole. It is in the distraction of the finger pointing that we become wrapped up in labels, words and concepts forgetting that it's all an illusion. It may hold the appearance of reality and yet it should not be confused with the real deal - the life of living, loving and experiencing the oneness and inseparability of everything.

Back to the ordinary

I came across some fine words attributed to William Martin which celebrates the ordinary. It reminds me of an earlier post which made reference to John Shotter celebrating the amazingness of the ordinary. I feel like ordinary is being reclaimed as a term of affirmation and admiration. It is in our ordinariness that incredible feats happen.

Spring is knocking at the door

The first signs of spring are gathering along the hedgerows
Clusters of engaging snowdrops eye those passing by
Tantalisingly they call in the spring
Reminding us of the endings of winter
The biting cold and endless darkness is waning
And yet this is the darkest hour before
The dawns of change
These are tough times for many
The challenges and triggers are coming thick and fast
Like deadly hunters arrows seeking their prey
It's hard not to take it personally
Our egos tussle and wrestle their foe
The snowdrop stands so tiny and humble
Reminding us that great strength can come in the smallest
most hidden away forsaken places
Less we judge and more we flow with the ever turning wheel of life
Nothing stays the same
Nothing
All will pass
All will change
Hearts remain open

In the words of the Tao Te Ching

Carrying body and soul and embracing the one,
Can you avoid separation?
Attending fully and becoming supple,
Can you be as a newborn babe?
Washing and cleansing the primal vision,
Can you be without stain?
Loving all men and ruling the country,
Can you be without cleverness?
Opening and closing the gates of heaven,
Can you play the role of woman?
Understanding and being open to all things,
Are you able to do nothing?
Giving birth and nourishing,
Bearing but not possessing,
Working yet not taking credit,
Leading yet not dominating,
This is the Primal Virtue.

SING

Solid as a rock

    Solid as a rock

Rooted as a tree

    Rooted as a tree

I am here

    I am here

Standing strong

    Standing strong

In my rightful place

    In my rightful place

This recall song was shared by Sofia Campos (Board Chair of United We Dream).

Wintery darkness leads us to the mystery

Listening to Peter Senge speaking today at the Presencing Institute's Global Forum he spoke about the human drive to simplify; in order to understand, in order to control. Hence we have academics reducing their knowledge into models and theorems that can only ever really approximate the real world. And we find corporations seeking to create pattens and mono-cultures of products, goods and foods. At the heart of all this simplification is the mystery, a much deeper complexity. How we approach the multiverse of complexity is quite different to the world of simplicity, hierarchy and order which seeks to control and take dominion over that we are ultimately apart.

This led Peter to turn to an ancient sacred text that has been telling us this very same thing for thousands of years in a much more eloquent way.

The opening lines of the Tao te Ching say ...

The Tao that can be spoken of
Is not the Everlasting Tao
The name that can be named
Is not the Everlasting name
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth
The named is the mother of ten thousand things
Therefore, ever desireless
One can observe the hidden mystery;
Ever desiring
One can observe the manifestations.
These two issue from the same origin,
Though named differently.
Both are called the dark.
Dark and even darker,
The door to all hidden mysteries.


And this brings me to the teachings of a lesser known person Tchenka Sunderland, an astrologer amongst many things, who has been telling those who wish to listen that we are living in a time of too much light and that we should be less afraid of the dark. Winter is the time of year to become aquainted again with the dark, both in the season cycle outside and in our own embodied inner journey of the year. Only by returning to the dark can we renew, refresh and return again. If we don't allow for winter we literally burnout. Society burns out and individuals burn out. Hence we live in a world were the suicide death rate out ways any other form or cause of death in the world today. We are burning out through climate change and all the present consequences to life that come with that and we are burning out ourselves and all the psychological pain and suffering that comes with that to communities, families and friends.

When will we stop simplifying and controlling the complex and start to live gracefully in the mystery embracing the darkness?

Forgiveness

Towards the end of 2013 the word that appeared before me to frame my 2014 was forgiveness. And it was a word for a while now I have resisted. In the last few years the words that have come to me Dance ... Freedom... Spaciousness... have been easier to embrace. And yet when forgiveness came it felt qualitatively different.

I have been listening to a short promotional video for a book called Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth A Collection of Essays edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.



In this piece I heard the voice of Winona La Duke put into words the transformational and healing powers of forgiveness and why it is so necessary for me to go through this experience.

It is no longer okay to look away from the pain and suffering taking place around me, within me, by me, to me. Focusing attention on the positive exclusively is to avoid acknowledging the grief that is present and growing. This is not an indulgent, narcisistic solely inward looking retrospection. It is connected and inseperably joined to the whole.

There is a wail and cry to be heard if I listen deeply enough. And it has something to say, something to share and teach me. I would if I were more bold expand this beyond me to others, however, that is your journey and rightly your decision to make.

As Winona says, "The process of apology and redemption or forgiveness, is a mutual healing process."

 

H.A.P.P.Y

24hrs of Happy

A toe tapping tune

The soundtrack for the weekend

An epic video for an infectious song

Clap along if you feel like happy belongs to you

Posture

mermaid
openness
love
vulnerability
flow into encounter
dance and play
be open
curious
listen

tree
growing
upwards
feeling the wind
towards the sun
open blue
sky
be

be like a tree
be like a mermaid
be free

where do they come from?

i get scared sometimes
where do they come from?
the words i mean...
they are not mine
or yours truly told
and yet some trade on
ownership
what's mine is mine
and what's yours is mine too!

i look down on the page
and wonder
where did they come from?
the words i mean...
it surprises me everytime
to see the scratches and markings
gather and accrue in straight lines
standing to attention
creating a reaction.

Owen Jones's Agenda For Hope

Agenda for hope: 

Owen Jones’s nine-point manifesto

1) A statutory living wage, with immediate effect, for large businesses and the  public sector, and phased  in for small and medium  businesses over a five-year Parliament. This would save billions spent on social security each year by reducing subsidies to low-paying bosses, as well as stimulating the economy, creating jobs because of higher demand, stopping pay being undercut by cheap labour, and tackling the scandal of most of Britain’s poor being in work. An honest days’ pay for an honest days’ work would finally be enshrined in law.

2) Resolve the housing crisis by regulating private rents and lifting the cap on councils to let them build hundreds of thousands of houses and in doing so, create jobs, bring in rent revenues, stimulate the economy and reduce taxpayers’ subsidies to landlords.

3) A 50 per cent tax on all earnings above £100,000 – or the top 2 per cent of earners – to fund an emergency jobs and training programme for young unemployed people, including the creation of a national scheme to insulate homes and businesses across Britain, dragging millions of out of fuel poverty, reducing fuel bills, and helping to save the environment. All such jobs will be paid the living wage, supported with paid apprenticeships rather than unpaid “workfare” schemes.

4) An all-out campaign to recoup the £25bn worth of tax avoided by the wealthiest each year, clamping down on all possible loopholes with a General Anti-Tax Avoidance Bill, as well as booting out the accountancy firms from the Treasury who help draw up tax laws, then advise their clients on how to get around them.

5) Publicly run, accountable local banks. Transform the bailed-out banks into regional public investment banks, with elected taxpayers’ representatives sitting on boards to ensure they are accountable. Give the banks a specific mandate to help small businesses and encourage the green industries of the future in each region.

6) An industrial strategy to create the “green jobs” and renewable energy industries of the future. It would be focused on regions that have been damaged by deindustrialisation, creating secure, skilled, dignified jobs, and reducing unemployment and social security spending, based on an active state that intervenes in the economy, learning from the experiences of countries such as Germany.

7) Publicly owned rail and energy, democratically run by consumers and workers. As each rail franchise expires, bring them back into the public sector, with elected representatives of passengers and workers to sit on the new management boards, ending our fragmented, inefficient, expensive railway system. Build a publicly owned energy network by swapping shares in privately run companies for bonds, and again put elected consumers’ representatives on the boards. Democratic public ownership instead of privatisation could be a model for public services like the NHS, too.

8) A new charter of workers’ rights fit for the 21st century. End all zero-hour contracts, with new provisions for flexible working to help workers. Allow all unions access to workplaces so they can organise, levelling the playing field and giving them a chance to improve wages and living standards. Increase turnout and improve democratic legitimacy in union ballots by allowing workplace-based balloting and online voting.

9) A universal childcare system that would pay for itself as parents who are unable to work are able to do so, and which would take on the inequalities between richer and poorer children that begin from day one.

For more information about this article by Owen Jones click here

30 Day Plank Challenge

new year
new challenge
this and tabata
plus a game of badminton
thrown in on Sunday
for good measure
let the fitness programme
begin ...

Day 1 - 20 seconds 
Day 2 - 20 seconds 
Day 3 - 30 seconds 
Day 4 - 30 seconds 
Day 5 - 40 seconds 
Day 6 - REST 
Day 7 - 45 seconds 
Day 8 - 45 seconds 
Day 9 - 60 seconds 
Day 10 - 60 seconds 
Day 11 - 60 seconds 
Day 12 - 90 seconds 
Day 13 - REST 
Day 14 - 90 seconds 
Day 15 - 90 seconds 
Day 16 - 120 seconds 
Day 17 - 120 seconds 
Day 18 - 150 seconds 
Day 19 - REST 
Day 20 - 150 seconds 
Day 21 - 150 seconds 
Day 22 - 180 seconds 
Day 23 - 180 seconds 
Day 24 - 210 seconds 
Day 25 - 210 seconds 
Day 26 - REST 
Day 27 - 240 seconds 
Day 28 - 240 seconds 
Day 29 - 270 seconds 
Day 30 - PLANK FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!!

... expect a progress report
in 27 days time!

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