See Our Way Forward

At certain times in our lives it is difficult to see our way forward.

Finding the way of controlling the stories we tell ourselves and which ones we choose to believe can be daunting.

The place of our power, the process of our power is watching the thoughts that we think, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, understanding that even though we didn't put those stories there, we have the power to change them.

Telling new stories is the key to recovery - we can disrupt negative thoughts.  We never have to go back to that negative space once we have a framework for understanding where to go with our suffering, how to transform it into something useful.

When we face our fears or at least define our fears, we can come up with an action plan to combat them.

There is a wisdom that comes from the experience of working through our fears.

Wisdom is always the by-product of facing our fears.

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays


This sculpture by Kiochi Ishino and is called "In The Grey of Daybreak" - taken at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney, Australia in November 2019. 
The statement says "This sculpture depicts the dawning era of a new beginning in Japanese culture, the Reiwa era. 

Writing Can Be Pervasive

I'm a firm believer in the power of the written word.  It’s a form of “putting it out there” to the Universe.

“The pen is mightier than the sword”.........at least so says English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839.  But this is the twenty-first century – not the nineteenth, and times have radically changed. Today most people’s writing involves emails, text messages, Facebook, Twitter and the like; lots of touching base but little true writing.

So in these days we might ask afresh, Is the pen still mightier than the sword?  Should the written word still be considered a powerful weapon in the modern culture in which we live?

The effort of putting pen to paper (metaphorically speaking) is considerable.  Every article we write may not have a powerful result, but it could!

It can be pervasive.

It can permeates lives, penetrating where spoken words would be shut out.
One of the reasons for this is that there is an implied acceptance when we choose to pick up something to read.  In essence, we have given it the right to speak into our lives.

Because of this, an article can often penetrate a resistant heart, for just the action of choosing to read it opens the door to the truth it contains.

The pervasive power of writing also comes from the fact that, since written words easily endure, they often make it to places we would never dream.

So let the writing begin!
 
“A drop of ink may make a million think.”

~~George Gordon Byron  

New Zealand chairs in the wilderness at Seal Cove on the South Island.
What a beautiful spot to read a book or do some writing!

Pen and Paper

To sit at a computer-free desk with a pen,

to pull out a sheet of your hand-printed headed notepaper,

to write those first two words "Dear Friend",

and then to pause a while before letting the ink flow onto the page with tales of your doings and your worries,

to fold up the paper,

slip it into an envelope,

write the address out,

stick on the stamp,

drop it into the letter-box,

and then imagine the pleasure that your letter will bring,

the physical pleasure of opening it and reading it at the other end.

- ah, is this not happiness?

"To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart."
~~ Phyllis Theroux



An old Sculpture by the Sea photo from 2007 taken at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia.

Life Is Better When Unrushed

The world most of us live in is hectic, fast-paced, fractured, hurried.
What’s more, most of us are conditioned to think this is the way life should be.

Life should be lived at break-neck speed, we believe. We risk our lives in cars and we break the speed limit, rushing from one place to another. We do one thing after another, multi-tasking and switching between tasks as fast as we can blink.

All in the name of productivity, of having more, of appearing busy, to ourselves and to others.

But life doesn't have to be this way. In fact, I’d argue that it’s counterproductive.

If our goal is to create, to produce amazing things, to go for quality over quantity, then rushing is not the most effective way to work. Slowing down and focusing is always more effective.

Rushing produces errors. It’s distracting to flit from one thing to the next, with our attention never on one thing long enough to give it any thought or create anything of worth.

Hurrying produces too much noise to be able to find the quiet the mind needs for true creativity and profound thinking.

So yes, moving quickly will get more done. But it won’t get the right things done.

The most important step is a realization that life is better when you move at a slower, more relaxed pace, instead of hurrying and rushing and trying to cram too much into every day. Instead, get the most out of every moment.

Is a book better if you speed read it, or if you take your time and get lost in it?

Is a song better if you skim through it, or if you take the time to really listen?

Is food better if you cram it down your throat, or if you savour every bite and really appreciate the flavour?

“Nature never rushes, yet everything gets done.”
~~ Donald L. Hicks

Just outside Christchurch, New Zealand in February 2019 we encountered this large flock of sheep.  We patiently waited at the side of the road for them to pass.

 

Forgotten Pleasure

It's a forgotten pleasure in our rushed days, to leaf through a slim volume of verse, perhaps while sitting in a train or when resting by a tree in the city park.

Everyone should keep a book of poetry about their person.

Even to read four lines of Keats while waiting for a friend will enrich your day.

Here is Keats, for example, on the pleasures of red wine:

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long ago in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

What a phrasemaker he was!

Words well chosen can fill your heart with joy.

So reject the empty clatter of the penny dreadfuls and keep a book of poetry on your person at all times.

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."
~~ Robert Frost

I visited Christchurch, New Zealand in February 2019 and my friend Marja and I ventured to Lyttelton for a lovely walk around the bay.

Live in the Present

People give us advice all day long - parents, lifestyle coaches, magazines, self-help gurus.  What a pity most of it is wrong!

Here is some food for thought:
Live in the present - This piece of advice is so often cited it has become a reason for NOT living in the present, since so much of the "present" now consists of people lecturing us about how we should live in it.

Actually the recollected past and the anticipated future are both quite nourishing places.  The present nearly always involves a soup of distractions; it contains the thing that's important, plus lots of things that get in the way.

Recollecting the moment you stood in front of a favourite painting/sculpture, for example, is often better than the moment itself, in recollection you can strip out all the things that were unimportant: your sore feet, the couple talking loudly behind you, the queue for admission.  Memory pares down the moment to its essence.

The same is true of the birth of a child, a kiss, a bushwalk.  In memory, the experience is at its most intense and pure.  After remembering these things in blissful reverie, we can then anticipate similar, or better, experiences in the future, the hoped-for experience fizzing in our mind in a way that is pure and unencumbered.

I'm not attacking the present.  It's highly useful in prompting both recollection and anticipation - the real things in life.

"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start."
~~ Nido Qubein

Here is a picture of Joseph, 10 years ago (July 2009).  Love that boy!

Delightful Spell Broken

After a busy day I sometimes find myself lying on the couch drifting off into a hypnagogic state in front of a monotonously TV screen.

My brain is just awake enough to inform me that at this point I should really get up, brush my teeth, wash my face, get undressed and lollop into bed.

However, if I do get up, brush my teeth, wash my face and get undressed then by the time I am ready to lollop into bed, I'll be wide awake again and the delightful spell will be broken.

So instead I revel freely in the moment that sleep threatens to envelop me.

The enchantment in nodding off and then nodding awake a few minutes later is like a gentle rollercoaster that goes slowly enough to be thrilling while managing to avoid the unpleasantness of any theme park sensations.

Next time this happens to you my friends, remain motionless, allow your mind to wander off and enjoy the thrill of sleeping in your clothes.

Leave the TV warbling to itself and luxuriate in the sensation of stalking slumber.

When you wake in the small hours with a slight chill, you can sleepwalk to your bedroom before your duvet greedily swallows you whole.

"Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night"
~~ Dave Barry

Taken in Norway in July 2010 - boat in fog

Ethics or Religion

To say religion is better than ethics or visa versa is pointless.

Both classes offer children choice and some guiding principles that will hopefully encourage kids to be thoughtful, critical thinkers for the future.

Neither classes "own" morality which is ultimately something they see enacted around them not forced on them to gratify any adults view of the world.

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."
~~ Mary Oliver

This quote is in memory of the late Mary Oliver who died 17 January 2019. Thank you beloved poet and bard of the natural world, you will be missed.

Kurobe Gorge Railway, Toyama, Japan, October 2018

Making Memories

The evening closes in on a warm summer's day and also another year.

The wine is coursing through me and through my friends but not down into the tributary of political discourse that can end up in an almighty row, but down the waterfalls of laughing memory.

Long forgotten stories and cackles emerge of times past while grand plans are made for the future still to be lived.

Sharing bread, barbeques, wine and those generous anecdotes - the simple gentleness of caring for the people we love.

Here's hoping 2019 is an awesome year for all of us. May everyone experience calm, peace, excellent health and success.

And may it be filled with good food, good friends and good memories......oh yes and good wine!

"Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right."
~~ Oprah Winfrey

Selfie taken at Christmas lunch 2018 - effects courtesy of Samsung.