understanding patterns; connecting dots

As I wandered along the beach a couple of days ago, a bloke with a metal detector traced a methodical path on the sand. As I passed he was digging deep with his sieve and the expression on his face was like our King Charles Cavalier Spaniel when she buries her nose into an interesting smell in the sand. Metal detecting is not an activity I am drawn to, but I did admire his searching determination. A couple of hours later I was on an aeroplane doing my own prospecting. Or maybe it wasn’t prospecting as much as awareness, but in any case, I struck gold in an unusual place. I was listening to a podcast recommended by my friend Nik. The deeply calming voice of Krista Tippett was in conversation with the late Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue. Coincidentally their topic was the Inner Landscape of Beauty, which was a wonderful and stretching dialogue, but I found myself mesmerised by the sounds of their voices. John almost sings his sentences which are strung out with slow poetic ext...

As Maria and I lingered over breakfast one morning this week I had one of those ‘aha moments’ that offers an instant and substantial paradigm shift. The context was me lamenting (weirdly and perhaps funnily) how favourable circumstances improve my mood. Why lamenting? Because I seek an inner disposition that sees beyond the circumstantial. I can’t remember when I first came across the sentiment apparently common in Sweden and Norway that in essence says, “There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” But when I did, it had a striking impact on me, and since then I have been frequently reminded by my wise daughter of a related idea, that “all weather has beauty”, and to describe weather as ‘beautiful’ conflates it with the experience of pleasantness, betraying our civilised and domesticated bias toward comfort and convenience. A significant expression of my commitment to re-wilding, is swimming in the ocean early every morning: whatever the conditions, same time, ...

The more I pursue my own integrity, the more frequently I feel alienated. The more I seek a life characterised by slow and simple, the more I am uncomfortable with recognition and power, and desire truth and humility, the less I feel at home in the world. I am discovering that my inner journey is actually less about acquiring attributes and more about shedding. Shedding the masks I have worn, but also divesting the mindsets and attitudes that have defined my lifestyle and that are unchallenged in mainstream media and public discourse. It seems like the tribe I feel most at home among is marginal and probably considered a bit weird. Am I sliding into misguided weirdness, or am I seeing the front edge of human consciousness? It’s little things that trigger these thoughts. People come back from travel and have ‘done’ Brazil rather than being humbled by her. I walk around our town house and feel burdened by cupboards and rooms filled with ‘stuff’ (good and useful stuff mind you!) when our ...