Cross posted from my Bowen Island Journal, my long running blog about the place where I live: Another beautiful morning here: clear and still. In the dawn chorus, there are a pair of chickadees nesting across the road from us that are the champion singers. They are doing their little call which is a two note descending tweet-tweet. One chickadee does it and the other follows on with the same song, but sung a note lower. Their rhythm is steady, and when they get out of synch, they stop and start again. In the meantime, the crows and …
That is one of the principles of wayfinding, which is simply to say that if you don’t know what to do, start anywhere and follow it somewhere. Each step will reveal the next thing to do. For a beautiful, beautiful exercise in doing this, go here and play for a while with the ToneMatrix.
When I read this Neruda poem, I thought of my wife. Sonnet XVII I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers, and thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you simply, without …
To some it may seem that we are simply cast about like so much cosmic flotsam and jetsam – and on a day when the partner of the moment is dark chaos that is surely the experience. But partners change and the dance moves on – light creative order enters our experience. How wonderful it might be to hold that moment for ever. . . The ecstacy is not in the moment, But in its passage. To hold the moment is to destroy it – The ending of the dance. I think we are all dancers who live fully when …
Last week I was working with an interesting group of 60 Aboriginal folks who work within the Canadian Forces and the department of National Defense, providing advice and support on Aboriginal issues within the military and civilian systems. We ran two half days in Open Space to work on emerging issues and action plans. In an interesting side conversation, I spoke with a career soldier about fear. This man, one of the support staff for the gathering, had worked for a couple of decades as a corporal, mostly working as a mechanic on trucks. We got into …