21.3.15: I am growing this site as a new aspect of my public sharing of my 'work'.
I am going to be weaving together threads that are important to me - some that have already been part of my life fabric for many years, some that are more recent, some that are totally new.
Here I'm hoping to reveal, revisit, renew, and surprise myself and you. It is a journey into the unknown as my intention is to follow an intuitive path, walking with trust even if I only see the next step.
For my Nonviolent Communication (NVC) workshops and publications please visit my other website: www.LifeResources.org.uk
Day 2 : Autumn equinox 2015
21.9.15: Today the earth neither leans towards the sun, nor away from it. I wanted to write that today everyone everywhere on earth has one experience in common - that their day and night are of equal length. But it turns out that although 'equinox' means 'equal night' this is not true. The exact date when there are equal hours of day and night varies across the latitudes, from early September to mid October. What we do all have in common today is that our dear planet earth, in its long annual whirl around the sun, for a few hours neither leans towards the sun, nor away from it. We have something in common. Everyone.
Today is also the annual International Day of Peace. I'd like to hope, even to believe, that everyone on earth would like to live in peace. But maybe this also is not accurate. An urban myth. A rural myth. Truer would be to say that everyone wants to have what they want. Preferably in the way they want it. And everyone finds it hard to give in, give way, or adjust to what others want.
But if everyone trusted that they could get what they want without harming others, I believe they would choose that. If we knew how to resolve conflicts without violence or giving in, that would be popular. If we could neither lean towards others (making their needs more important than ours) nor lean away (making our needs more important than theirs) perhaps we could feel our common humanity and begin to trust each other.
As Pirkei Avot says:
If I am not for me, then who is for
me?
If I am just for me, then who am I?
And if not now, then when?
This rare and creative balance would be a true equ-something. Equality. Equanimity.
Day 3 : Spring equinox 2016
21.3.16 “There is nothing to say. And I say it. And that is poetry.” John Cage.
I’m in love with that quote. It underlines and underlies so much that I recognise in life.
For example:
There is suffering. There is nothing I can do about it. And I do it. And that is loving action.
There is beauty. I cannot respond adequately to it. And I respond. And that is art.
Day 4 : Autumn equinox 2016
21.9.16
Walking towards the wind, the wind is behind me
Emptying the boat of water, the boat fills up with water
Seeking happiness, I am full of happiness
Seeking direction, I walk in step with life
Fearing chaos, chaos is everywhere
Fearing order, order is everywhere
What have I done, what have I done
All life is singing
Breathe in, breathe out
Breathe in, breathe out
The great mystery is in the air
Day 5 : Spring equinox 2017
The golden seed of intention shoots forth and, if we are lucky or prepared, lands in the fertile soil of the field of all possibilities. Zero degrees of Aries begins the 360 degrees of the zodiac by launching a pure new idea. This idea leads to so many choices, so much love, so much enthusiasm, so much patience, so much calmness, so much action….until the idea becomes a reality.
I’ve been riding in the awareness of the potency of intention, these last days. What is yours? For this week, this year, the next twenty years? Name it with words, or see it in pictures. See it happening, vivid, real in front of your eyes. Invest it with life. Then let it go. Trust Life to organise around your intention, probably creating a form you did not expect. Watch with curiosity and openness for the movements of Life that make the essence of your intention become manifest.
Day 6 : Autumn equinox 2017
Peace is not the absence of conflict. There will always be conflict. Conflict is quite natural.
Peace is the ability to resolve conflict without violence. Violence towards oneself, or violence towards others.
Violence is the inability to resolve conflict peacefully. Then only one of us can win. And it better be me. I can win by proving I am right and you are wrong, I am strong and you are weak. I can win by getting the outcome I want, and crushing the outcome you want. I can win by humiliating you, so you lose the self respect you need to feel strong enough to hold your ground. If you manage to fight back, I can win by having more access to resources than you (money, guns, food, connections) so I can pummel you into submission.
The ability to resolve conflict without violence. Ah. Imagine that ability being being widespread. What a world that would be.
Days 7 & 8 : After the equinoxes of 2018
Well, welcome. Well come. Welcome the coming winter months of 2018 and early 2019. The world tips once again, skidding around a corner on two wheels. Will it tip over disasterously or just by a miracle rebalance and regain ground for the next stretch?
Inside myself I also tip and veer. The beacon ahead, or is it inside, by which I try to steer my life, keeps pulsing. That's good. It’s reassuring. Like the beauty and warmth and generosity of today’s late October sunshine.
I pray to all who have the wisdom to receive this prayer. I pray for all our beacons to pulse and draw us towards safe harbours and beautiful coastlines where ocean meets land, where being meets doing, where spirit and matter come together, where people forget their enmity and listen to each other with reverence.
Day 9 : Spring equinox 2019
Sleepwalking towards death.
How nearly impossible to burst through
the daily-ness of daily life and touch reality.
Each day all of us one day nearer.
Each day each species one day nearer.
Each day our earth one day hotter.
Each day. Each hour.
Day 10 : Autumn equinox 2019
20.9.19 - Day of the 1st global climate strike, inspired and led by youth
That leaf
messaged me
as it fell
from the grand plane tree
in an
eye-catching flow
to
Whitehall below
it
proclaimed it did know
the People
who Cared
lying down
on the road
in the cold
and the wet
awaiting
arrest
were there
just for she
for she and
all trees
and all
creatures and lives
that might
not survive
the coming
of heat
of wind and
of flood
of cold and
of drought
by humans
brought
about.
Day 11 : Spring equinox 2020
21.3.20 - The pandemic of Covid-19 is sweeping through the world
Imagine. Imagine a world where a quarter of the entire world’s population is told by their governments to stay home, some under threat of fines or imprisonment if they do not obey. Imagine a world where almost all industry, businesses and social gatherings - worldwide - are not allowed to happen unless they can be done via something called ’the internet' from the new and often comfortable ‘prisons’ called home. Imagine controls on food shopping. Imagine all flights cancelled. Imagine global economic collapse on an unprecendented scale. Imagine some countries desperate for financial and practical support accepting new kinds of control from countries with totally different ideologies. You are imagining our world, as it is, now.
And why are we taken by surprise? We who have put vast resources into imagining and creating end-of-world movies. We who have flocked to see them - each viewer amplifying the imagined scenario. Few ever wondering whether putting the energy of our imagination on something makes it more likely to really happen. The house-proud magazine ‘Good Housekeeping’ has an article online, published on 17 March 2020: “20 Best End-of-the-World movies". The implication is, "Hey, let’s use even more of our precious time on this planet to imagine - in detail - for the full two hours of the movie - these horrific scenarios!” I find it painfully ironic that to survive horror we fill our imaginations with worse horror.
Let’s shake ourselves free of this strange and strong attraction towards doom. Let’s put our efforts into imagining the world we want to live in, in detail. Let’s pick up an old cultural habit, while we are in isolation, confined with the other members of our household, of telling each other stories in the evening, magical stories. Let’s tell stories of how we want the world to be. Let’s let the creation-power of our wildest imaginations loose and tell stories of an earth-respecting, all-creature-respecting, sorrow-and-joy respecting way of life.
Day 12 : Winter solstice 2020
The great conjuction between Jupiter and Saturn falls on zero degrees of Aquarius today
Could the new be emerging from the old? What is needed to bring it about? A shedding of skin, a burning of fire, the death of species, being in the grip of something much bigger than us.
'La grippe' means 'the flu' in French. Gripped. Not free. We are gripped by the Covid-19 virus, held back by our coattails as we long to party on, as if personal pleasures are the top priority in life. But each day our governments - how odd! - our actual governments! - are telling us NOT to do things we want to do. Simple things like children hugging their grannies. Like going to school. Like volunteering at the local charity shop. Like going to work. We are not to do these things.
The great time of NOT. The principle of Saturn which teaches us through limitation. Reducing. Paring down to essentials. Having LESS.
And in this NOT time - as in all environments - certain things can grow. Awareness can grow of how much we were doing that was not really fulfilling - perhaps a job, perhaps a habit of shopping, perhaps a level of manic socialising. Affection can grow for the small shrub in our garden that sturdily grows leaves in spring and sheds them in autumn. Many more fathers are going for runs with their sons. More families go all together for a walk. Many, many more Zoom calls and courses connect people from all around the planet. Jupiter expands our horizons and our minds - gives us MORE.
Is it possible that the richer human beings will learn to appreciate that ‘less is more’ and participate more equally in the consumption of goods and resources on our planet? Are the Covid circumstance, and the conjoining of the Jupiter and Saturn principles, essential stepping stones to the big shift in humanity’s consciousness that is needed to solve another scary looming crisis - climate change?
Day 13: Autumn equinox 2021
Control, obey, submit. Question, rebel, resist. Choose choose choose. Be willing to lose - friends, respect, health, life.
Rules are rules until there are new rules. Let’s make up rules and break rules; obey rules and submit to rules. Let’s resist because the rules are wrong. Or because no one knows if they are helpful in the long term. Or because even if the rules help some people, others suffer worse (and unreported) fates. Or because it is really, really scary to witness entire populations - even the entirety of humanity - being funneled into signing up to one narraitve. The consequences of which are an unpredictable substance in everyone’s bodies, and 100% surveillance.
Let’s obey the rules because it’s the best guess we have about how to participate in society, how to be considerate of others. Let’s obey because we are good citizens. Because we know the politicans are between a rock and a hard place, and well, we ‘elected’ them. They are who we’ve got. They are doing their best. It’s our job to follow their guidance. It’s the best we can do.
Let’s obey because we are darned scared, terrified for our lives. Let’s obey because we can’t stand collapse, disintegration, and definitely not change.
Let’s obey because ‘science’ is the modern religion. Let’s focus all our learning on the physical world, on science. Let’s ignore soul, Spirit, God, emotions, dignity, freedom, psychological harm. Let’s ignore the children who have taken their own lives during lockdowns.
Let’s ignore the possibility that Earth, Gaia, may be seeking to lessen our load on her back. Too many of us. Too much carbon in her atmosphere. Let’s chant with the politicians, “We’ve got to get Britain flying again!”. Let’s find it much much too hard to give up our enticingly over-consuming lives.
Let’s not let Covid make us make the changes we need to save our climate. Let’s miss the opportunity. Let’s let the fires burn.
A dream I had: Everywhere there is fire. Everywhere. Nothing but flames. High, hot, huge flames. Everywhere. I am holding a large white swan in my hands. I only see my hands, I don’t see ‘me’. I am tightly gripping the swan's strong, muscular wings, holding them closed against its chest. It takes some effort. I feel its powerful strength. Its urge to fly. And then I let go, and let it go. The swan flies off. It is seeking out water. Is there water anywhere? Is there hope? is there anything other than fire?
Day 14: Winter solstice 2021
Kindle your flame in my heart
where I sense you, oh mysterious being.
Kindle your flame and help me bring joy
and open the door to the mystery that is you.
* * * * *
Oh Ahura Mazda
great carrier of light
bring us to your heart
where we know we are together
and are one.
Day 15: Autumn equinox 2022
Quiet now, go quietly. Day 15. Days pass.
Quiet now, go quietly. Days pass. Nights pass.
Quiet now. Breathe in and out. Days pass. Nights pass. Breathe now, quiet now, in and out. Days pass. In and out, breathing now. Days pass. Months pass. In and out. Breathing deeply. In and out. All passes.
Day 16: 20 October 2023
One
word
WAR
we’ve seen it before
we see it again
when
will humanity see
it’s not
you or me
the new
word is
WE
Day 17: 21 March 2024
Spring light. Dark. bright.
Deep dive. Alive.
Earth sings, springs.
Earth sighs, dies.
When will we realise?
Day 18 : 5 Nov 2024
every little light that goes on
every little stone that is turned
every drop of love awakening
in the heart of a child
brings me peace, joy, hope