(Winding path, Mount Usher)
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” – Steve Jobs
Listen, sometimes it’s very quiet…. Mairead.
perfect as you are
What’s your story?
(Mount Usher in Ashford, Co. Wicklow)
The story of our lives is not the story of what happened… It’s the story of what we are. The story that starts “I am….” The story we think we became because of our behaviour or our actions. The story that says this is the type of person I am. This story is probably built up from lots and lots of small experiences and things other people told us… From the moment we learned the story of us everything that happened after that had to fit into that particular story. It had to make sense in our story. If it didn’t then it got deleted… We become very attached to our story.
(Strong, beautiful tree even with all its flaws…)
Like a film maker producing a movie about a famous politician – only stories that agree with the filmmaker’s belief about the politician will be included…. if he believes the politician is a wonderful honest statesman then the stories from his life that show him as an honest and a wonderful statesman will be included. If the filmmaker believes that the politician is a dishonest scoundrel then the film maker will depict stories from the politician’s life where he is dishonest and a scoundrel. The filmmaker may be completely honest in his choices, i.e. he truly believes the politician is honest or he truly believes the politician is dishonest.
(At the boundary of Mount Usher there’s a fence. Beyond the fence there’s a field with very old trees. You can either see the fence or shift your focus a bit and see the trees…..)
Same with our choice of what fits into our story – the movie of us. If the story we truly believe about ourselves says we are flawed then we will only include the times we have been flawed into our movie. Even if we have been a good friend at some point in our life we will delete or distort that memory and remember instead the time we were a bad friend. This is in order that our flawed friend story remains intact. If the story of you says you are flawed then fortunately, you can start again with a new story.
Choose something in your story you don’t like and start to notice the opposite. Mairead.
Friday Quote – Shush!
“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” – Rumi
Listen to yourself, Mairead.
Leonard and Leonardo…….
(Botanic Gardens, succulents)
We were looking at a very good documentary about Leonard Cohen on Saturday night. It was called I’m your Man and had other people singing his songs from a concert tour, while he chatted to the interviewer (and to us.). One of the songs I hadn’t heard before was called The Traitor. While Leonard explained the song to us I was reminded of Leonardo da Vinci. (Yes, interestingly similar names….)
(Fly catcher)
Each week in Art History we get an assignment, this week it’s about the High Renaissance, we have to choose one of the artists of the time and write about them. There are (as far as I can tell) only three artists in that time – Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. I was wondering which one to go for when our lecturer told us a small detail about Leonardo….. he didn’t finish everything he started! Not really surprising when you think of all the things he did. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. Not really surprising and yet I was surprised, I thought finishing was really, really important and have felt guilty many times for the things I didn’t finish.
(Are they seeds?)
So getting back to Leonard Cohen who was explaining the song. He was saying that it was about a feeling that you had messed up some important mission, some important thing you were supposed to do. But you come to understand that the bigger mission was not to complete it. The real mission was whatever happened…. the deepest courage was to stand guiltless as “people called me traitor to my face“.
All is well, Mairead.
How are you today?
“People who say … they’re perfectly fine [are] more insane than the rest of us.” – Ruby Wax
We’re all crazy, Mairead.
Wake up Time.
(Agawa Canyon… picture by Doris or Grahame (forgot to ask!))
I’m rushing off to a course this morning (more later) so instead of a post here’s a story from the book Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh that explains what waking up from unconscious living means.
(A huge rainbow filled the sky one night as we left Staples (stationery shop) in Niagara, it was so big it couldn’t fit in my camera)
A little boy wakes in the morning and realises the whole family has slept in and the whole family will be late for school. He runs to his favourite sister’s room and very gently shakes her awake, “Wake up, wake up we will be late for school.” She awakes and is very angry with her older brother, so she shouts at him and kicks him. He is very upset, because he was gentle when he woke his sister and now she is angry with him. The he remembers that she was coughing in the night and probably didn’t get much sleep and may be very tired. With this realisation he understands his sister and he has woken up from upset. She is his favourite sister again and he is love.
(A rock in a lake on the way to Agawa Canyon. There’s beauty everywhere to help us wake up)
In an instant the boy could let go of the upset because he “woke-up”. We’re upset when people treat us badly, we’re upset when things don’t go our way, we’re upset when we can’t do what we want to do, we’re upset when we’re not as strong as we’d like to be, we’re upset when we’re not as wealthy as we planned, we’re upset when we’re sick, when we’re tired, when we’re sad. What if it was possible to let go of the upset and return to love? Being in our natural state of loving is much more comfortable than being in an unnatural state of upset.
We can wake up in an instant, Mairead.
Friday Quote. Something not quite perfect?
There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light get’s in. Leonard Cohen.
Nice and bright here today, Mairead.
The Walking Machine…. another gadget or a guru?
(Collage)
We have a walking machine, we’ve had it about six months now. Having one doesn’t contribute to good health but using one might… I’ve started using it. It has an added benefit of allowing my mind to drift away and have some interesting non-worrying thoughts. Yesterday I was walking along when something popped into my head about noticing the stuff I do that’s ok.
(Notice the pretty patterns… instead of the peeling paint)
Usually when the drift away thoughts come into my head they’re in the form of a big picture concept. Like a collage and it takes a little time to look at all the details in the big picture. After that it’s possible to unravel the concept in order to talk about it. I’m unravelling it this morning. In normal life we have the tendency to notice what’s wrong. With the weather, the newspaper article, the dinner, the artwork. Sometimes in our work it’s necessary to notice what’s not right, in order to fix it, make it right. So when we consider ourselves we use the same logic – notice what’s wrong in order to fix it.
(Notice something beautiful about this picture)
Other people help us in this work – they notice what’s wrong and they tell us! But I’m not so sure this works well… Mark Twain said If you always do what you always did, You’ll always get what you always got! So it might be useful to try something different. My big picture was… What if I began to notice what was right? What if I ignore (for a certain period of time) what’s wrong and notice what’s right?
What’s right with you? Mairead.
Friday’s Quote. You’re odd? That’s okay!
“Sometimes something can look beautiful just because it’s different in some way from the other things around it. One red petunia in a window box will look very beautiful if all the rest of them are white, and vice-versa.” – Andy Warhol.
Repeat, recognise your hero beauty, Mairead.
Travel stories 