trust

From where I sit, the world is at my back. The circling, spinning, confused, anxious, incomplete thoughts that get distracted midway through expression, and fleetingly directed by the next untethered, unresolved "must-get-it-done-but-I-have-no-priorities" stream of consciousness that seems to be all too common over the holidays.

Is there a tactful, yet forceful, way to tell someone that no matter how fast they spin - they can't leave stuff behind?

Stuff... when we consider how to talk about our stuff, we select public icons, and they fit the times. The Material Girl (remember?) got overtaken in popular expression by the Spice Girls (although what spice they thought they were baffles the imagination); they in turn got replaced by general confusion about what ANYONE should feel about consumerism. The histrionics of Jade Goody seemed to somehow strike a major chord; the melee she stirred up post Big Brother (part one) then devoured her. The whirling dervish of media feeding consumed her just as surely as the dis-ease which she manifested and with which we all felt/feel/empathise(d). Happily, materialsim is not so easily bypassed: it can transform - and the Material Girl is still among us; moving to the mystical: wearing the Kabbalah and speaking such truths as she sees. Oddly - she is trying to be serious, while in the silliest of industries, and to the most mercurial of audiences. Her clothes and jewelry still get more airtime, despite masonic symbolism surrounding her. Her journey though, is just as valid as your father's, whatever it was that he thought he was/has been doing. Or mine. Or G.I Gurdjieffs' (he has the moustache of a titan).

Journey is what we do, whether travelling 10,000 miles or staying where we are (a la Harry Chapin). Even changing countries periodically is more about what the "I" finds curious than any intrinsic or extrinsic value about the life being lived. The destination is the same; the joy is the journey. No joy? It's the wrong path. Feel the force: There is no path to copy, there is no path to envy, there is no path to feel jealous about - there is only the path that feels/vibrates/resonates at a finer tune than yesterday.

Things in life will go well, and the things that don't make great stories. Nurse the stories, grow the stories, give life to the stories; let them gain maturity and bring them out in public whenever possible (let them order pudding). Let the stories evolve and give them independence; they may come back to teach you things.

A brilliant chain of stores in the former Soviet Union (remember?) still goes by the name "Consume." Nowt more straightforward. Go in, and be a consumer. (Or be consumed. Your choice.) They kept their "consumers" sane by limiting options, fairly dramatically. They sell /sold milk, among other things. Just milk. Unlike in the USA: there is .5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2%, 2.5%, 3%, and 4%, plus flavours (naturally sugared or aspartamed; your choice) for the children; - no, Consume just sold milk. Not much anxiety about dietary considerations when choosing milk (want to lose weight? Drink less milk). It's a lesson learned. I apply it to the world behind me. No mere figure of speech - it really is behind me - reflected in the window. In the day it's the back garden (yard). Now, it's a moving image (like a Hogwart's portrait) of a family in the kitchen. Enjoying themselves certainly, as laughter evidences. Earlier in that room, thoughts were not finished, anxieties erupted and the logistics of the coming visitation brought all the material requirements to light: a virtual volcano, as logistics lay atop mountains of disregarded feelings, avoided truths and unacknowledged wishes for time to roll back just a little bit to say goodbye properly. (How can stressful logistics not leak whatever they are displacing?)

Opportunities to trust each other: met after trusting ourselves. Trusting our journey is the one we want; trusting a feeling is ok; trusting a priority really ought to be a priority (ignoring the voice of your parent/sibling/ grandparent/partner projecting THEIR journey onto your roadmap); trusting your story really is YOURS, and you can let it go out to the cosmos at the time you (and only you) determine. Trusting. Trusting that you are as materially focused as you need to be and that you can let those around you be on their path, without your interference. Trusting that the issues that bug you can be released and good vibrations can take their place. Find the groove, be the change. Yoda was right.

just a feeling

Do thoughts run you in circles? leaving you panting, confused, wishing for an escape? look away, toward the telly, toward the flickering consciousness that will give you respite, give you peace, give you fleeting reassurance, but leave you, at the end of the evening/day/night spent, vaguely depressed, with images flickering across your closed eyelids. Are there too many thoughts, too much information, too many expectations and never the time to do it all and certainly never the chance to get credit for doing it all? What does it take to get all those holiday cards done? Is it a pleasure or a chore? Do you enjoy the holiday season, or resent someone, somewhere, for foisting some of this on you? Is it you or someone else who ensures the office is decked out in holly? Which one of you feels more guilty, the doer or the not-doer? What is it about all this information rushing at you through the screen, through the phone, in the daily post, in the daily paper (do you subscribe?) that never seems to get finished, in the ongoing conversations that tell you who is going to Tenerife and what colour shoes she was wearing, but never tells you if he is as happy as he seems to be? It's just too much. We are not human-doings.

Can you identify what you are feeling right now? Can you tell me what you are feeling, when you are feeling it? Can you read my face when I am masking my emotion; would you know if your dearest friend was desperately unhappy if he/she did not tell you directly? when the stranger comes to your door asking for a can of soup, what do you feel as you decide to go find one for her/ for him and would you give them two if there was a child with them?

Logic and rational thought are important - they let us follow the rules of society and be part of the civilised world. but we need more balance with feelings: we need to listen to what is going on when our brain is quiet. when it feels like we should turn left instead of right, do we do so, or not? when we break something, what were we thinking or feeling JUST before it happened? and after? if there is nothing else to life beyond the visible, how come everyone seems to see and feel things differently? If air is transparent, why do we sometimes see things just out of the corner of our eyes....and its not in our direct field of vision? what's the feeling when the senses are suddenly heightened?

There's more to the world than our own energy levels; there's too much to grasp to spend time playing bejeweled blitz or watching reruns, again. Or, do you fancy a Groundhog Day-type existence. (What, run the same life AGAIN?) What if your sister were waiting for you? Not your flesh and blood sister, but your soul sister. The one you knew so long ago, that all you can remember is her. Would you still want to turn on the telly and forget? What if your father were waiting for you? Not the fellow who raised you this time, but the kind soul who you recognise from his eyes; the one with whom you feel real kinship, but are not sure you can ever really say so, because it sounds so crazy. Instead of tuning out, maybe its worth using your time to discover (slow down) how to tune in. Maybe I am wrong about all this, but perhaps I am right; there is no such thing, as "just" a feeling.

let go

We have so much invested in our own decisions we seem unable to accept the decisions of others. I was trying to tell a colleague about my interest in Steiner/Waldorf schools for my children and there was a barrier. She kept stating that the local schools are very good. They are, in fact, good: for what they intend to do, and good at doing what the parents who send their children there expect them to do. If I wanted my children to follow the philosophy of state schools, I would likely be sending them to the nearest school and be glad for the quality. The trouble is, I like a different educational philosophy. I am not telling my colleague she made the wrong choice, but it seems that by telling her that I am on a different path - I become an obstacle in her view of the world. This links so quickly to others in my life, those who have had stronger need to tell me what it is they would wish for me. I want to say:  Do not be bothered by my path, for it is mine; no reflection on you. We are different people, at different places, seeing the same things in different ways and getting very different meanings which then re-affirm or question our worldviews. It is difficult to let go of the need to manage others, to be the critical or nurturing or anything else parent. for those of us who have wounds from childhood, and seek to dress those wounds, we need to let go of the need for others to serve as our children, and slve those wounds.  Let us be adults together, in a way that I can speak my mind and not fear that my experience of the world will cause you distress. Let it be that you can admit that you never liked x because it made you feel creepy, without fearing that you will be labelled a social degenerate.  By admitting biases, anxieties and needs, let it be that we might all just be simply showing where we are on the path of experience. Let go the need to keep all non-normed (as we learn it to be) feeling and thoughts tightly bound in a coil in the base of our spine, to be seen only in the darkest rooms during our midnight visits, or to burst forth in a blaze of self consuming destruction, captured by tabloids for all the world to gawk. Let go judgement, whether justified by biblical quotations or Dawkins-esque flagellations: why on earth do we spend so much time reinforcing the material prison we already live within?

The Soviet state was the best metaphor of modern times for what we do, almost every one of us, to our own spirits: we keep ourselves locked inside: the rules and laws of our society are nothing compared to the self-strangulation we exert on our own richness. The Soviet state said the restrictions were to protect their citizens from the contamination outside - but they fooled very few. Unlike us who were "always free" - on the other side of the walls looking in: we have all been in the same prison. We ought take responsibility for the walls of our own creation, and we resist. We even resist admitting there are walls. In the UK we have given up our freedoms more than many, and almost enjoy being on CCTV cameras whenever we leave our homes. We seem to think being under observation is for our own good. That might be true if we were filled with evil. But we are not. The tragedy is that we hold our normal thoughts and perceptions in the centre of our vision, and present them to others as if that is all there is: we pretend there is no peripheral vision, that there is no African elephant to accommodate. As if marriage/partnerships and the children in our lives and the parents we care for (whether alive or in memory) and the career and the interests and the diversions - are ALL socially acceptable and good and wholesome. That it is all of a piece and that piece is homespun. But we deny coincidence, and the hairs rising on the back of the neck, and the unnerving stare from a cat, and the pain in our hearts when we consider the despair of the cousin who comitted suicide. We deny that our roads all have big honking potholes that sometimes rip the axle off the car - and that is as it must be. It's what we signed up for when we incarnated. We forgot and we deny that we are uncomfortable about some people, for reasons we do not wish to say. We like who we like, and we don't want to let go of safe and familiar things - but to learn, to really learn from our time in this life and to bring back those experiences to whomever sent us here to gather them, we need to open up our battened down awareness to the possiblity that it is precisely our scariest admissions that give us the most room for growth. And to be non-judgemental about others means believing, really believing that different paths really only mean different paths - it does not secretly mean better or worse. I had a friend who mouthed those words for years, and then when i could not help him, the judgements in all their unmasked glory came pouring out. It may be especially hard for a post-colonial (maybe not even post) class-based society to manage, orperhaps it is harder for a post-colonised society to manage, it is certainly not easy for any group to manage, but without letting go of the need to judge others, there will ever be only one yellow brick road, and far from leading to a wonderful wizard, it will only bring us to a guy behind a curtain.

like i wasn't there

I was talking to a friend after a Friends Meeting, and she noted that at the church she had been trying to go to, she kept having conversations with people who didn't seem to see her. It was as if what she was saying didn't quite register; then she noticed that their eyes quite frequently weren't really on her, but kind of off to one shoulder, as if they weren't quite sure where her centre was. "Like we vibrated at different frequencies" she said. At that point a fellow came up to us. He was one of those people with whom I have always thought I should have a real connection; shared interests and all that. But he did the same thing to me! I made a couple comments that are of the type that usually get a really good theological or philosophical or even mystical conversation going - and he just stared at me as if there was something transparent going on. When I was young, that kind of thing really left me reeling and wondering why I was so weird. But into my 5th decade I just stop and wonder at the vagaries.

I think perhaps if I cared more about materialism, I might get along more with the material-focused world. Perhaps I would not break so many plates and nice wine glasses; perhaps my bicycle would not get so many flat tires; perhaps when people speak excitedly about their town's or their family's Christmas decorations I might join in; it might even be that I joined a table full of people for lunch, rather than sitting with 1-2 confidants. I feel quite optimistic and positive about the world and I enjoy myself in a million ways, but I'm sometimes on a different wavelength. It's fair to say that the band of waves I am on is a bit esoteric, but I have a keen eye to identify anyone who shares even a part of the band, and to discuss whatever odd part of the universe we have in common. Given the opportunity, I find that usually find that slice of shared reality, but its difficult to do in groups and for those who are enamored of the trappings of vanity, we probably won't get the opportunity. My friend at the meeting said she used to say "poor me" when she got overlooked; now, with a bit more self-awareness, she says "poor them" - for looking past her. The thing is, even though some people never realise who I am, or what I am about, I still try to make the space they are in just a bit more calm, a bit more attuned.

pollution

It's a tightrope walk down the day sometimes; avoiding the vampires. These are the ads, people, and misplaced desires that seem to suck out our life-force and leave a dull ache where the blood used to be. Conversations that are really two single lane roads, on a roughly parallel path, for limited time. Rationales for spending money that wasn't really there to spend, but to return the item takes far too much further energy. People who stare at you for those extra seconds, before they realise that the topic has ended. Pet peeves that occur with such frequency that your response just sucks out your equilibrium and leaves it on the roadside, along with those damned still smoking cigarette ends. Wanting to rest but acquiescing, even colluding to that social expectation that one must be busy; so busy that sleep comes without reflection, just a sharp drop into the depths of the pillow. This is pollution. It is easy to be wise on the top of a mountain, but to really make the difference, keep the balance while sucking in the smog. Set your social spam filter high and be willing to be mystical. Darn your socks, take out the compost and stop feathering your nest - its big enough. Read a book, talk with a child about an emotion; be present for the next person who asks you a question. Pollution is distraction; distraction is distressing; distress is exhausting. We are human beings, not human doings - rise above the pollution, close your eyes and look back towards the sun.

people are scared

We seem to have forgotten, as a species, where we are from; a grand consciousness for which this material existence is an experiment. We have myths, analogies, metaphors, similes and a plethora of tools for persuading ourselves that our anxieties and lonelinesses (?) are really just expressions of matter creating tricks of the mind. We neglect the possibility that mind came first, and matter has evolved to what we have today.

We study and discuss other cultures, going so far as to accept as sane the perspective that other cultures have alternative values, and that while toleration is a minimal (and largely insufficient) standard, acceptance and celebration is sometimes a too tall order. The slippery slope of relativism (would you bind your daughter's feet to adhere to the culturally appropriate norm?) is the bugbear to ward off anyone going a bit too deep into acceptance of the truly different. We forget that the bugbear is a straw man (if he only had a brain), and one that is a symbol in himself of trying to become something more than he is (hoping to move from the vegetative to the animal). The bugbear-straw man is more than either a distraction or the symbol of progression of early humanity (vegetative - animal - human); the bugbear-straw man warning that is relativism distracts us from seeing/hearing/feeling/sensing that the differences between us are nowt; the colour of my skin, my sexual identity, my age and my age-inspired disabilities, among other distinctions, are mere tertiary distractions from the consciousness that I share with EVERY SINGLE PERSON, ANYWHERE.

Materialism as the great experiment has been the agenda for millenia now, and as we learn more and more about individualism and what it means to leave the collective experience behind us, materialism presents us with more and more possibilities to celebrate our SELFs. The thing is, we have forgotten that there is more to being alive than experiencing material/individualistic, bacchanalian and fleeting pleasures. The age of the celebrity has arrived and for the new souls, never before has there been such opportunity to revel in the celebratory limelight, where everything feeds the infantilised ego. Never never land is here and there is no need to grow up, no need to take responsibility for one's actions. It's a never ending intoxication.

Only, most souls realise, its not. There is something missing, and its so deeply buried, so deeply missed and so devastatingly disturbing, that when soulmates meet or when a glimpse into the midnight pit of despair is briefly illumed, it's such a foreign experience to share that even those who might recognise shared depths of experience - well - even they can't quite believe it is safe to acknowledge it to each other. The conversation does not start back up, excuses are given, anxieties about sanity flare up, and Saturn, that great dark (necessary) force has once again blocked out the Sun. Pray for the Moon to come to the rescue, with just a bit of guiding light, to give all our poor scared, isolated, souls the opportunity to reconnect. Pray for the light of a kindred soul to whisper in our ear that being scared is ok, but that its better to take that step forward and reach out our hand to grasp a little bit of shared consciousness. We know, all of us, in our depths, why dogs howl at the moon. With a few steps towards each other when we actually meet, and a bit of faith, perhaps our grand experiment might continue a bit less painfully, while remembering it was we who asked for it.

what does it mean?

Those information videos that review the world and our seeming exponential change are proliferating. Find your favourite provider, sit back and prepare to be amazed at all the information blowing past you, like Laurie Anderson's storm (..."blowing the angel, backwards, into the future...). But here's one to consider. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQFTUJK9TkI

What does it mean? How much is real, what do we do with it, and does it really matter? No. It's brain candy for the clever. It's brain candy for those who like to think they are more cutting edge than a tabloid reader. But it is still like refined suger, designed to give you a buzz. It lasts just long enough to trigger the "more" neuron, and before you know it, 35 minutes have passed and all you can remember is that you have a vague uneasiness about China and India. Welcome to the world of "gotcha". It's not so bad really - its better than saccharin, MSG and aspartame - not much accusation of cancer or tumours levied at "simple" refined suger. Likewise the claws of the Murdochs are hardly being flexed in this arena, as yet, so the dangers of being influenced to suddenly switch to the artificial sweetness of Fox News ("Obama is an enemy of humanity") or of finding Rush Limbaugh on world radio, and enjoying his other perspective ("Obama is just an angry black man") - is not high. No, these whirling dervish vids are still Pleasantville, but with that slighly uneasy socially acceptable prejudice you might find at a conservative fundraising dinner. The danger in enjoying this kind of reality as truth, is that we lose track of inner knowledge; that part of us that isn't technical expertise or organisational confidence; that part of us that can change jobs, locations or even sets of friends in a Big Move, and still wake up in the morning knowing what we are about. These vids are distractions, just as much as tabloids, and they are designed to destabilise. Inner knowledge is from quiet, silence, reflection and observation. With that we get a sence of where our talents and beingness fits into the world around us.

In the words of Chapin, waiting for his Corey: reality is only just word. But its our word and our reality - when we let others possess us at hyper speed, we give them control, and the inner core, who we are; gets smaller and smaller until we might as well keep working past retirement because we don't know what else to do. Does Lucifer control the high speed vids? Probably not. That would seem a bit pedestrian really. I'm sure there are bigger things to do. But it's not the angels either.

in my hair

What is it about mystical matters that is unacceptable? People glaze over, roll their eyes, give knowing looks, beat a hasty retreat, even make snide remarks. And yet...is it the last bastion of polite discrimination? Is it just the preserve of the loony, the wacky, the imbalanced, the weak of mind? Some milennia of mystery schools, secret societies, esoteric knowledge, and seriously famous (often infamous) adherents would attest to there being more to it than the lore of the intellectually lost.

At lunch today, in the midst of a police canteen, we had a discussion about past-life regression, reincarnation and angels. True there was much pausing, looks over the shoulder and going quiet as people entered and left the sacred space, but the discussion did evolve between us three, and a fourth joined in, at least open to possibilities. There was disconcerted, repeated need for affirmation from the one who had gone furthest down the path; but our audience was enthusiastic and encouraging. Commenting about the age of souls, led to the query: who are the new souls? I have never given this much thought, but assumed it was simply those who are most enraptured with materialism. I was not far off - the newest souls are the celebrities: image and public atention being an all-consuming vocation. Upon reflection, it makes sense to me, and explains why when some folks speak of shopping expeditions, brand names, and plan for beach wear back in February - I feel so distant in time and space that I am left speechless. Not that I am enlightened; just not mindful of bling, rings or things.

Could it be, that those who do have interests in the unseeable, the ancient mysteries, the metaphorical and the guiding hand of angels and spirits ought to be a bit bolder about these beliefs. Ought we not to recognise that it is those with longer vision who ought to be leading society, instead of trying to join newbies in prioritising  the search for the x-factor. Ought we be able to start to turn this gross material paradigm on its head, and proclaim that we do have answers, and they are wondrous.

I finished the day by visiting some healers who contribute their channelled energy almost for free. As my favorite such spirit sent electricity through my hair, I thought, "watch out for the angels, that's where they sit when they whisper to me...."

Re-invention

Innovation and creativity are decent buzz words. There is an impressive industry that capitalizes on them, and enables growth accordingly. But in 1899, Charles H. Duell, the Director of the US patent office, said "Everything that can been invented, has been invented." Was he making one of the greatest foolish utterances of modern history, or was he alluding to deeper channels? Whatever he was seeing when he made that statement, there is a deeper truth to be considered. "The more things change, the more they stay the same" ("plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"): Whatever we think we need in life and however we think we need to get it, the basics remain the same across cultures and through time. However much we innovate, however creative we are, we are a product of our time, and the models we use are time bound. Thus, this is an adaptive era as opposed to a mechanistic era, and we often specialise in finding ways to help people to adapt more quickly. That is great - but it is not all there is.

To do more, we must consider the structure: the way we know what we know, the way we learn what we learn. We also need to consider the implications for the way we know what we know and the ways we learn what we learn. For that we must be willing to re-invent: to re-invent ourselves, re-invent our professional lives, re-invent the way we perceive the world, and to encourage our customers to re-invent themselves as needed. At only that point do we see with new eyes, feel afresh and gain actual new perceptions - not just recycled or repackaged old ones. Innovation and creativity are great, but they can mask small changes (re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic).

Are you a reformer or a revolutionary? If you want your ship to enjoy new ports, you may need to be sure your innovation, creativity and indeed re-invention are addressing big enough issues.

adaptive people

I like this:
"The focus of the world of work will move from lifetime employment to lifetime fulfillment" - Kustantinos Apostolatos; Management Centre Europe

Looking down the road a bit, and considering some current trends, it is easy to agree with the following:
1. The concept of the employee will be outdated as people work within an enterprise's ecosystem rather than in structural units.
2. People work on three things: entrepreneurship, autonomy and accountabilities
3. People seek challenges based on: capabilities and intelligence; fun and fulfillment; work and life balance
4. Lifetime generative learning will mean a portfolio of re-inventible competencies, regularly reconfigured to adapt to changing enterprise ecosystems

Is it so simple? Of course not. As William Gibson is widely quoted: "The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet." Meaning, to me: while the Apostolatos quote has tremendous resonance, some of the wildly enthusiatic harbingers of the future ("80% of a workforce will be outsourced. 20% will be core employees; those who will carry on corporate memory and be counted on to resist change".... and so on) seem to forget that we social creatures can only change so much during one lifetime. The vast majority (the great unwashed) "plateau" at a certain point of change and struggle with the next incline. My grandmother plateaued with audio cassettes, my parents have got as far as Facebook. I am committed to a range of 2.0, and eagerly anticipate 3.0, but will certainly plateau before my children do. The great tipping point of personal fulfillment is unlikely to emerge in a cataclysmic burst of energy, but over a longer term. Not that Apostolatos is wrong, but his vision will not be evenly distributed. And then there is hoping of course that, in the meantime, the melting of the glaciars and the eruption of sunspots does not manifest the end of the world as told by the fabled Mayan calendar ;-)

anger

Came across Eliot Cutler, a fellow who is running as an independent for the governorship of the US state of Maine. He seems to have practical ideas, and moreover is not hitting the platitudes of the usual aspiring politician. But - you look at some comments on his website, and its not ideas that are being addressed, its judgement on his "Maine credentials" and how much of an outsider or insider he is; all expressed with snideness, disparagement and anger.

Now Maine has an enviable history of independent governors. It also has an enviable history of being practical and letting people govern their own lives. It even has congressional representation that sometimes crosses party lines. There's a lot of solid foundation there, so how is it these folks feel empowered to launch emotional outbursts that destabilise intelligent conversation? Mr. Cutler is putting his money where his mouth is, and if he is rejecting standard party politics as the best course of action, its worth engaging with him to find out more.

Why "where's the box?"

"Thinking outside the box" has become trite, but its still found commonly enough in certain places. I have never been quite sure which box is being referred to, nor do my contributions fit "that box" anyway. I divide the world into two types of people - those who get quite distressed at my questions, commments and ideas, and those who see where they fit (usually beyond the theme). There is no box. or....if thinking outside the box is so important, maye there is something wrong with the box...

For the former - this is not a blog about shopping, fashion, budgeting, club cards or whether Uncle Vernon's hernia recovery makes him a hard man or a wimp. Please go away now.

For the latter: this world is filled with Freemasons, Angels, multicultural happenings, blue skies, dead leaves and grand vibrations, and I intend to comment on such things. Stick around.