So that was an interesting half-term break. We were instructed to self-isolate. “The NHS informed us, it is now your legal duty to self-isolate”. We all did so. I could share the details of this, but it’s exhausting and it would not be helpful. So…
Back to life, back to reality… however do you want me…
A month or so ago I went through an exercise to visualise some reasons for my being… What we came up with at that moment was something like this:
“I get up in the morning… to discover and experience commonality and connections so that I can interact with people and the wider world, to help us all feel different…” #workinprogress
As you may know I tend to share stuff I see. I very often find the vibrancy and intensity of the world around me so strong I have to stop and acknowledge it. What a wonderful world…
So after a few weeks of going without, here’s to more of the simple stuff around us!
Below is a random compilation of captures from my Instagram this year – minus the inevitable shots of pets, food & drink of course.
Enjoy…
If you need any imagery or artwork for print – give me a shout.
“Section Breaks, Section Breaks my kingdom for a Section Break…” (or a page break at least)
Perhaps the most underused formatting option in the realm of Microsoft Word*!
In my experience the Layout, Break, Page or Section Break is one of the simplest formatting options that people either don’t know about, or lazily underuse. I reminded a colleague recently and they exclaimed “Wow! It stops everything moving around!”
Two docs, one portrait, and another landscape… One doc is colour and the other needs to print on the back in mono.
Combining Documents…
Instead of keying return return return… to reach the end of a page, you can simply jump to the next page with a section break!
For one, this can solve the problem of ‘everything moving’ when you change an earlier paragraph.
Secondly, in the ‘new section/page’ you can then change your page orientation, margins etc… So we can insert a landscape page after the portrait page.
If you format your articles/chapters etc with Next Page Section Breaks it can all stay organised.
Another underused tip: If you click Show/Hide (Ctrl+Shift+8) you can see your hidden formatting symbols – which can be useful!
So we can add a landscape page (in a new section) after the portrait page.
‘Select All’ (Ctrl A), then copy (Crtl C) the content of our landscape document and paste (Crtl V) the content into the new one.
Colour and Mono in one document!
Often a black & white looking graphic is actually ‘a dark mix’ of colours, and should ideally be converting to proper grayscale!
Hidden colour £0.10p. Grayscale 1p
Hidden colour £0.10p. Grayscale 1p
Converting dirty images to greyscale will save you money – your printer will then charge it as mono and not as a colour page – these costs mount up when you’re printing a whole year group!
In Word, simply double or right click on an image that looks black and white and convert it to true grayscale.
Format Picture – Picture Colour – Grayscale.
(While you are at it you could compress all the pictures in your document and probably half the file size!… Double click and image and compress, selecting ‘all images’…)
*Formatting your documents is a good habit to get into. If you only use one new thing in your next Word doc, make it section breaks… it stops everything moving around!
Many of us have recently been forced to re-evaluate things. The pandemic has forced many to stop, pause, quarantine… find our home. Recently my wife, kids and I were forced to literally ‘go home’ – after one day on the other side of the country on holiday, we returned to the ‘shire and spent the rest of our holy-day at home. Self isolating for 14 days. (hence this crazy post)
A window in Whiteparish – before isolation.
‘if one could only suspend disbelief forever’.
Once again we break routines and re-evaluate things we take for granted, and find ourselves disbelieving the things we believe in. A few years ago, after seeing a play at Leicester’s Curve, I wrote ‘if one could only suspend disbelief forever’. We usually do this daily, we believe the stories that swirl around us. It’s when the competing stories begin to confuse our assumptions that things might start to wobble… but what are these beliefs, the everyday things we trust in?
I have written before how as a student of Art and Performance, we were taught to deconstruct. To help discover the links between the ‘object’, the ‘subject’, and its ‘meanings’. But deconstruction still leaves us with the deconstructed building blocks, the stories, the images, and assumptions.
JPR 1995
JPR Visual Art 1995
We are not these things!
I have always held on to the concept of I AM. Images, which breed assumptions, which create motives. We are these things, but today I had a sudden self-epiphany… In the meta-modern world yes, we are made up of these things, but at heart, at root, at our core, we are not these things!
In a novel recently, I read a passage describing individuals living before our culture took hold…
“It was the huge elemental forces – the open sky, one day azure blue, the next grey, lowering and savage, the ridges that swept endlessly to the horizon like a sea, the whistling breezes and the great silences – it was these things which both frightened him and comforted him as well…”
Sarum, Edward Rutherfurd
To truly deconstruct, perhaps we need to clear the ‘stuff’ off the table, wipe the slate clean and then re-embrace things. Isolation has caused many to go without the things we hold (or that seemed) important.
At our core (or heart) we are so much more than our IAM.
It’s easily said, but not so easily done. However, it can be easily done, and it’s not so easy to say!
While ‘doing’ some Yoga with Adriene today I realised that I AM ‘here’. All I AM is here. The fact that ‘we are here’ is a big deal! Isn’t it!?
Adriene’s yoga has many levels, but for me at the moment, it’s about an awareness of breath, posture, stance, etc – ‘personal presence’ before ego and assumptions cloud the mind. It requires constant attention to ‘notice’. In her Youtube series ‘Home’ ’30 days of yoga’, Adrienne Mishler has a clever casual personal way of repeating words and phrases around the essential principles involved in yoga asanas.
For example, today the simple Anjali Mudra (or prayer hands). It’s a posture of composure, of returning to one’s core/heart. As you bring your hands together at your center line, you can help activate a recognition of re-balance. It leads to a lot more than that, but it’s a good start.
Anjali Mudra
Many of our personal wobbles relate to physical, mental, emotional imbalance, dis-ease, di-stress, instability …
If we can deconstruct and free ourselves from the power of our culture’s images we might notice our presence, seek to rebalance ourselves, and accept the powerful simplicity of life’s energies… then compassionately rebuild.
Personally the theorising and deconstruction only goes so far, the real life changer is to stop, ‘show up’, and breathe…
Slow down… Breathe… Trust… Balance…
Take time for yourself… embrace the moment…
Breathe in through the nose – inhale gratitude, compassion…
Breathe in through the nose – inhale gratitude, compassion…
Exhale out through the mouth… gratitude, compassion…
Stretch, press, draw in the energy…
Head over heart…
Adriene says “Take good care of yourself so you can take good care of others”… Thanks Adriene.
Marcel Proust wrote “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Here’s to knowing ourselves better, so we might take care of others, and garden a few souls if we get the chance.
Jules P Richards 