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Amongst the raw anguish and alarm, Spring is here.

It’s impossible to say anything that makes much sense of current events.
We hear again this week of friends that have passed away. We hear this week of friends in desperate fear. We hear of all kinds of injustice and raw dejection.  

But, away from the noise, do you not sense a faint almost tangible hope. 

“All shall be well… and all manner of things shall be well…”

How on earth can all things possibly be well?

Last year I read Simon Parke’s ‘The Secret Testament of Julian’. A 14th-century anchoress in Norwich, Julian lived in a cell for forty years, surrounded by plague, misogyny, inequality, violence, and bigotry. You may like to read it, Simon paints a vivid picture.  In her ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, Julian of Norwich struggled with a resonating idea that “All shall be well… and all manner of things shall be well…” In her writing she struggled for a dozen or so chapters; how on earth can all things possibly be well? Despite her petitions, she had a hope and confidence in something more. 

“It is well, with my soul”.

I occasionally find myself repeating the song line “It is well, with my soul”.

Though the traditions and rituals seem to have no part in contemporary culture, I was brought up with an idea that possibly there’s more to this world than our worldly bling. The song “It Is Well With My Soul” was written by Horatio Spafford in the 1870s after several traumatic events in his life. Spafford had lost his son in a fire, his business interests struggled, he then lost his four daughters when their ship sank crossing the Atlantic to Europe. I cannot grasp the reflections in the rest of the song but the haunting refrain ‘It is well, it is well, in my soul’ sticks with me.

Yes, all is really not well…
But, all manner of things shall be well.
It is well, it is well, with my soul. 

What I try to hold on to, what sometimes helps me through, is a simple complicated trust. Despite our arguments, despite our judgment and condemnation of many harsh realities of life, a trust in wellness, a hope in the largeness of less, a trusting recognition of what is immediately here with us now.
It’s not easy. 

Pause… breathe in, hold on to that breath and close your eyes, exhale slowly…. 

Pause… breathe in, hold on to that breath…       exhale slowly….

Hold on to that breath… 

It’s difficult… but if you can find a way past the noise… …relinquish the arguments and petitions, the needs and wants we grasp for, and… like the Spring try to just be.

It’s a complicated simple trust… open the grasped hand and we might, hopefully, receive Spring.

Facts are all well and good (except the poor and bad ones). Yes, understanding and concepts can help us navigate the wilderness. Despite a big lack of trust in the constructs around us, I do personally ‘hope’ there’s more… 

I wrote last week that it is down to us, to rise above the cold, hostile, meaningfullessness and grasp the sparkle. To see the fairy tales beyond the immobility of the dark teatime of the soul. To toy with grander narratives.

I mentioned how I was moved ‘emotionally’ by stuff, it colored my logic…  Stuff enchanted me. I added narrative, character, meaning, prospects to the stuff in front of me. 

An acquaintance recently pointed out Shakespeare’s verse  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  …there are always limits to our understanding, limits of language, limits of concepts. Yes, we have answers to many questions, but there are limits to which any ‘philosophy’ can address an idea. It is intellectually dishonest to try and deny this… (?)

After their usefullessness, the failure, corrosion or temporality of many constructions lead us ultimately back to ‘the drawing board’.

Thank god for the expression and application of human questioning, creativity, reconstruction, randomness, and imagination… as well as the facts, realities, and certainties we build our worlds on.

Breathe, and reach for the moon. If in fact, it’s still there. 😉

Pause… breathe in… breathe out… relax… 

Yes, sometimes this is easier said than done!

In the busyness, you don’t always get time to answer the question “How are you feeling right now?”  In fact, you probably rarely ask how are you feeling ‘right now’?

After the event, we can reflect on what happened, but at the time of the incident, right at the moment when the car cut you up, the competitive dig cut in, the computer said no, words riled you, or the heat of the moment got the better of us, it’s hard to pause, breathe in… and ‘take a moment’. Or is it?

Research shows, that we are all almost constantly engaged in some form of emotion regulation, controlling our emotional responses to stimuli.  

People rarely identify the spectrum of emotions we encounter daily. It’s been said, sometimes we move towards taking monotone photographs of the very colorful scenes that our lives experience.

If we can recognise that we are feeling/thinking emotionally, we can sometimes momentarily take a step back. By specifically naming an emotion, we can notice and put space between us and the experience.

In the words of  Dan Siegel “Name it to tame it.”  Being mindful of a specific emotional moment can give us a chance to notice and name the emotion. If we can see it, then we don’t have to be it. It can be more complex, an emotion that might seem like anger, might intact stem from embarrassment or guilt. However, with the initial step of recognition, we can hopefully disengage from the emotion a tad. We can choose to react more helpfully, rather than reacting “emotionally” to the neurochemical burn.

By Machine Elf 1735 Own work 

When you find yourself getting tense, or you lose sight of your breathing, perhaps you are slipping into monotone. 

If we can recognise the colour of this emotion, perhaps it might help us to pause, breathe in… breathe out… relax, and name the emotion

Yes, we all get swept away in emotional currents (and sometimes this is good!)  But noticing unhelpful emotions might be a life-changer.

…cold, malevolent, and fantastic as a fairy tale. 

Everyone’s so miserable today… said a colleague, and yes there was a milieu of grey in the air.

In part perhaps, due to the weather… and the media’s bounty of doomy uncertainty.

“It’s down to us…” I said in a rare moment of clarity. And it is down to us, to rise above the cold, malevolent prospects and grasp the sparkle, the fairy tale beyond the immobility of the dark teatime of the soul. A grander narrative.

This week I was lucky to hear Anatoly Lyadov’s – The Enchanted Lake, “A Fairy Tale Scene” thanks (again) to Petroc Trelawny and BBC Radio 3‘s Breakfast. Lyadov wrote to a friend about the piece “…how clear, the multitude of stars hovering over the mysteries of the deep. …no entreaties and no complaints; only nature –  cold, malevolent, and fantastic as a fairy tale.”

The piece grabed me. I love the idea of no proclamations, no fanfare, no brash bling. Only nature. Nature in its cold raw state… …the sparkle of hope can only be found when we add narrative to the nature, add character, meaning, prospects to the scene. Since early humans labeled the stars, and painted walls, and told stories of hope…  it is down to us, to rise above the cold grey doom and grasp the sparkle, the fairy tale, the bright breakfast of the soul. Celebrate a grander narrative tale if we can…

The first time this year, I took the dog out on the field this morning.

It was glorious. The sound of birds, the smell of thawing field, the warmth of the sunrise, the bright glistening frost, the hints of buds and capillary-like branches stretching with imminent hope of something… the sensational experience was more than I can describe here. More than most of us might capture with words, images, music or dance… though I love and applaud those who try! (Like Bill Withers)

Usually, my better-half takes the dog out, but on Saturday’s it’s my duty while E’s at work. As I say, it seems a duty, a ‘thing that needs to be done’, and like any chore it can be ‘seen’ as a chore. Googling an antonym for ‘chore’ we find happiness or peace !  Two sides of the same coin – flip the coin! Surely what makes a chore a chore is its relativity, its context, the way we perceive the task or situation. Many of us find ourselves doing routine things and tasks that ‘need to be done’. Yes it’s easily said, and I’m the worst at seeing above the clouds, but sometimes it really can take a small twist of perspective, a grounding of our perception to see something differently, to see something for what it truly is, to realise. Relax the clasped hand, and instead of a fist we have an open palm.  

I process stuff, we all do, but as an over-thinker, and a visual artist, I like to process stuff a tad more. This can be a problem, though being creative can make more of stuff, the process can perhaps take away and detract from the reality of life. We need a little unfiltered reality every now and then. Or we might say, to a generation swimming in hyperreality, we need a little unfiltered experience more regularly! 

As I say, I am the worst culprit. I, like many of us, find myself routinely consumed with pretty perfect polished pop cyberspace. Snap out of it. As a counselor once suggested to me, time for a ‘wet fish’ grounding. 

I took the dog out on the field this morning. It was more vibrant than any Instragram post, it was warmer than any edifying TED video, it was more exciting than a game of Mario, more rewarding than a win on BingoBingo… it was real.

Easily said I know… but, turn off the device. Take off the filters…
Breathe.

Go outside. 

(Added on Sunday) Frostier this morning…

My young daughter said to me, “Dad, I like the birds, sunsets, candles and smiling people too, but I don’t get overwhelmed by them, you’re way too emotional…”

We were with friends, sitting around flickering flames in the fireplace, with a spicey drink… and the room was gently warming… I am not a fan of the fuss and festivities, but the rituals and traditions of the end-of-year midwinter season help us reform structures and foundations in our lives. They help us define our past, and shape who we are. Seasonal traditions give us a sense of comfort and belonging and enable people to reconnect with others. Christmas themes help reinforce values such as freedom, faith, integrity, hope, personal responsibility, ethics, and values. If you try and take it all on board, and juggle festive with fact, or tradition with truth, it can become too much.

It will be no surprise to you that, yes, I get overwhelmed by it all – with all the stimulation, tradition, memories, energy, expectations, hopes and fears… to the point that I just hold up my hands, my thoughts, my curiosities, suspend disbelief and have to yield to the pleasures and the perils… breathe… centre… accept these things we do… #recognise

It’s these ‘things we do together’ these ‘interactions’ that make us what we are. It’s about people. The heart of the village is the people. Home us where the heart is. The tradition of warmth and a flame in the hearth… 

While the flames are still flickering, this year I hope we can remember the hearth. Where your treasure is, there is your heart(h) also. It needs regular cleansing, maintenance, fuel, space, care and attention. The heart needs to be true, especially if you’re someone who gets overwhelmed and “way too emotional…”

HNY.