is an earlobe for?
purpose
living life
Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.
Rumi
When we find a contribution, a toil, a role that aligns with why we were born into this world, then life becomes living.
the words within
Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth
Rumi
auto pilot takes me the wrong way
I’ve moved desk over the weekend. We have had an office re-organisation and one result is I now have a different desk position in the office.
Today I have been confused. I have entered through the wrong door, headed for the wrong part of the office, gone the wrong way for the toilet. Several times. I have been, and seemingly continue to be, befuddled.
I haven’t lost my ability to think. I still know where doors and facilities are. I can still see. Yet I keep going wrong. Ending up in the wrong place. Going the wrong way.
It serves to demonstrate how much we do on auto pilot. Without thinking; without conscious thought at least. We just set off. Our heads filled with other non geographic, navigational stuff. Thinking instead about what we will do when we arrive, or about something we mustn’t forget.
I’m sure I’ll re-calibrate. Might take a day or two. Eventually though, a new autopilot route will have been programmed. I will be free again to wander without thought, arriving at my destination with no need to engage brain or use up some of my thinking bandwidth.
Life can be like that. Something we take for granted changes and we are momentarily discombobulated. That which needed no thought, now requires some – for us to even function. These changes aren’t always physical; about our surroundings. They can be emotional too. A new emotion emerges. An unfamiliar one. Just like a new desk position, we need to adjust. Take note. Become familiar.
That way we stay flying.
Turn off autopilot and live with presence.
Live with attention.
Live with intention.
life’s guest house
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…
Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Rumi
Each thought, each feeling that arrives in your awareness, greet it, thank it for its wisdom, its desire to speak to you. Each is a messenger. Each a mentor.
Do not turn them away or shun them. Do not hasten to compost them. Be curious about their story. Enquire of their intent; how they seek to serve you. Each has a purpose, each a meaning. We’re usually just too busy to notice. Too dismissive of this errant thought, this unwelcome sensation in the body, this repeating voice.
They seek to help us grow.
how little we really know
For all we know about the world, its solar systems, its solids and gases and liquids, its states and orbits and atmospheres, its stars and planets and moons. For all we know about the Earth, its rivers and mountains and continents, its seas and oceans and lakes, its cities and people and landscapes, its cultures and societies and languages… we know nothing.
Everyone has their own world, their own reality, their own truth. Created from their own experience. Made up of patterns and meaning and connections. Motivated by values, purpose and beliefs. Driven by feelings, emotions and thoughts. Held in pictures and sounds and senses. Motivated by ego, desire and love.
Every world unique.
We struggle to understand our own personal world, let alone that of our neighbour, our colleague, our friend, our human cousin.
We know nothing.
neat living?
I need to cut the grass. It’s a routine during three seasons. Mostly a chore. Weekend job.
We cut a lot of things that grow.
Outside we not only cut grass, we prune roses, clip shrubs, pull up weeds, lop branches.
On our own bodies we clip nails, cut hair, exfoliate skin, pluck eyebrows, shave underarm hair, trim beards or shave them off all together; each day, often at prescribed times.
Most of this cutting seems to serve a tidiness purpose.
But our children grow their knowledge and we cut that too. Don’t do this, don’t say that, run away and play, not now, because I say so… Not tidy. Just timely. For us.
Our own knowledge grows wild, unkempt, organically. We prune that too. Discarding things which might be useful because they’re someone else’s opinion, experience, idea, viewpoint. Tossing our own experiences aside because we cannot find meaning or make sense of it. Often because we don’t have time to. Not tidy. Just timely.
Meanwhile, out of control, inexorably, experience washes over us. And we randomly accept knowledge and learning every day, through every interaction, every experience. Our brains filing it away with dutiful order and precision. Some to be recalled, some to be lost forever in the grey matter. There is no real plan, no real order, no tidy symmetry. Structured randomness.
Unkempt sense making, messy knowing, time restricted learning, disorderly growth.
Neat gardens, neat hair, neat nails, neat lawns, neat children.
Neat lives?
where is the burn?
Free from passion and desire, you have stripped the thorns from the stem.
Buddha
What is it that you hunger to do?
days are lost lamenting over lost days
Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days.
Are you in earnest?
Seize this very minute; whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it.
For boldness has magic, power and genius in it.
Begin it now.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Illustrator: Tim Lahan
change direction
Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
Coco Chanel
illuminated dandelion 