Thank you to the farmer…
thank you to the shop…
thank you to the factory…
thank you to the crop…
thanks for what we’ve been given…
thanks for what we make…
thanks for the shining sun…
thanks for what we take…
It’s something we try and say regularly.
I recently hear the phrase “allusions which create illusion” with reference to Bach’s Suites for solo cello …
Ah the power of suggestion …
We went for a walk in Abbey Park Leicester today…
I also have recently pondered the pop acronym THINK…
T (is it True)
H (is it Helpful)
I (is it Inspiring)
N (is it Necessary)
K (is it Kind)
It’s a common pop acronym used to help people be more considerate in their action.
It’s a contemporary take on a bounty of communication filters that have floated about over the years. See further below*
However… as a contemplative creative, I am minded to wonder and wander…
Yes be mindful, but sometimes to burst-forth, to do, create, cry out in pain, frustration or ecstasy is … good.…
Rather than caution, ‘creation’ might be genuine if not obviously true, helpful, inspiring, necessary and kind
To abstract, to experiment, to stamp, mark, create, interact.
One of my favourite quotes, that I attribute to Wallace Stevens: “the interactivity between things is what makes things fecund.”
Yes excess abandonment can be is unhealthy but so might strict sobriety.
Confucius says (to Yen Hui) Zhuangzi, Chapter 4.
“When the words penetrate, sing your native note; when they fail to penetrate, desist.”
Yes caution and mindfulness is indeed wise.
Yes T.H.I.N.K., but also sing your native note, or desist, treat all abodes as one…
True, Good, Useful – Socrates
We understand that Socrates (ancient Greece) had what’s been called a Triple Filter Test:
One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”
“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“Well, no,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”
“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”
“Umm, no, on the contrary…”
“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really.”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?
The Three Sieves – Quaker
This quaker practice is illustrated in a children’s story in The Children’s Story Garden from the Quaker’s Philadelphia Yearly Meeting published in 1920.
THE THREE SIEVES
A little boy one day ran indoors from school and called out eagerly: “Oh, mother, what do you think of Tom Jones? I have just heard that ——”
“Wait a minute, my boy. Have you put what you have heard through the three sieves before you tell it to me?”
“Sieves, mother! What do you mean?”
“Well, the first sieve is called Truth. Is it true?”
“Well, I don’t really know, but Bob Brown said that Charlie told him that Tom ——”
“That’s very roundabout. What about the second sieve — Kindness. Is it kind?”
“Kind! No, I can’t say it is kind.”
“Now the third sieve — Necessity. Will it go through that? Must you tell this tale?”
“No, mother, I need not repeat it.”
“Well, then, my boy, if it is not necessary, not kind, and perhaps not true, let the story die.”
Eastern teachings
In easter teachings there are four (or five) guidelines for speech, which are that speech should be true, kind, helpful, conducive to harmony, and spoken at the right time.
“Monks, a statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?
“It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will.
“A statement endowed with these five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people.”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.198.than.html
“Monks, speech endowed with four characteristics is well-spoken, not poorly spoken — faultless & not to be faulted by the wise. Which four? There is the case where a monk says only what it well-spoken, not what is poorly spoken; only what is just, not what is unjust; only what is endearing, not what is unendearing; only what is true, not what is false. Speech endowed with these four characteristics is well-spoken, not poorly spoken — faultless & not to be faulted by the wise.”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.3.03.than.html
“Do I speak at the right time, or not? Do I speak of facts, or not? Do I speak gently or harshly? Do I speak profitable words or not? Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-vaca/index.html#admonish
“Before you speak, ask yourself: is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?” Sai Baba (1926 – 2011) – blended many traditional Muslim, Hindu and Sufi elements.
From Rumi (1207 – 1273) a persian mystic
“If you’re not completely naked, wrap your beautiful robe of words around you and sleep.” (Rumi, poem 314)
“There is a tall tower that Love builds Live there in Silence.” (Rumi, poem 824)
“Go up on the roof at night in the city of the Soul. Let everyone climb their roofs and sing their notes! Sing loud!“. (Rumi, poem 532)
Christian
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Philippians 4:8
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.
James 3:5
Warnings Against Folly
… haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Proverbs 6:17–19
Yes T.H.I.N.K., but also sing your native note, or desist, treat all abodes as one… 🙂
I am a creative person. That’s not to say I’m specifically skilled or a fine craftsman, it’s just that my mind likes to be creative and expressive.
We can all be creative, we can all be expressive.
Being creative, I like to ‘scamper’; substitute, combine, adapt, multiply, place, eliminate, rearrange, etc.
I like to swim in stories and narratives holding on to the occasional fact to keep me afloat.
We can use creativity, to resonate a novel or appropriate difference… and hopefully reframe the familiar.
We might create images, products, sounds, movements or actions that might enhance our world, your product, a service or indeed an individual’s outlook.
As we all do, I hope I see things…
For the last 15+ years, I have worked for Bookmark People. They service Public Libraries throughout the UK creating bespoke promotional bookmarks that reinforce libraries’ outreach and promotional campaigns.
#LoveLibraries is the watchword… see more here: Bookmark People
We are always highlingting the value of libraries to the community as well as indivuiduals. I recently came across a neat piece by the University of Virginia Library “What Happens After Opening A Book?“.
After the spate of “what happens after drinking a can of Coke”, “what happens after eating a Big Mac” type IGs, University of Virginia Library produced a clever infographic “detailing what happens to a person when you consume a book?”
And so …
What happens PDF feel free to share (with credit).
What happens one hour after you visit a library? (and onwards … )
First 10 minutes…
Sights, sounds and yes smells; an abundance of knowledge, a wealth of information, stories, and dreams and plans, captured memories and visions. Colours, creaks, warmth, and space. A maze of questions, where, what, who might you find?
You are looking for something, but you are drawn by the choice. You find more than you expected. You don’t find what you are looking for, but what is this you have found?
You may feel anxiety, as the choice is yours and there are many roads less travelled. The potential for growth is palpable but choice may not seem easy.
After 30 minutes…
You’ve discovered or perhaps passed by catalogued doors to new worlds, you’ve discovered or passed by more information than you might be able to absorb in one sitting. You brain has warmed and your mind is recoloured by encounter and exploration. You grasp items that promise answers and introductions to new hopes and plans. You can’t find what you wanted but have passed or picked up unknown treasures that may hold keys to answers and indeed more questions.
After 60 minutes…
You have or perhaps are consumed, you can’t hope for anymore. Time to flee and consider what you’ve found. The treasures you’ve borrowed are warm and promising. It may be one book. It may be a pile of books, DVDs, music, journals … You have a few weeks to dive in, deliberate and discover. You hope to be informed, entertained, and in the process education may happen.
You take your borrowed wealth away.
After days and weeks…
You’ve found new worlds. You’ve found new ideas. You’ve found more questions.
You may have returned to the library. You may have shared ideas with friends. Inspiration, wonderment, enthusiasm, excitement. Puzzlement, memories, hopes, expectations. All created from borrowed wisdom and creativity from generations of ideas and intelligence.
This place, your library, and the people you’ve met there are alive. The people who served you and passed you as you browsed – a living community of lifelong learners. The characters and ideas you encountered in your discoveries are also alive, born through your visits to this trove of learning.
After years…
The sights, sounds and yes smells linger. Knowledge, stories, memories and projections linger.
Your journeys, the people you met on the way, the people you shared your discoveries with all linger. And some of these discoveries have shaped your life. Shaped your outlook, coloured your enjoyment, and informed decisions that have brought you to where you are; which is possibly not far from another new book, an old song, or another unopened treasure.
© @JulesPRichards tweets on behalf of @BookmarkPeople – #LoveLibraries
This morning was a very normal morning. Overcast, mild, a normal ride in down very normal back streets with very normal people…
I have recently been reminded to be aware of people*.
This morning I breakfasted with my young family; a fraught affair with spillages, tantrums, laughter, worries, sharing and hopes.
(I have been remined every supper with them – even just a bowl of cornflakes – is precious beyond all telling. Check Frederick Buechner’s reflection.)
During breakfast I found myself smiling inexplicably at the dog, he was just causing me to smile involuntarily – those of you that know me will know that I don’t smile inexplicably, not inside at least.
Halfway through my 7 mile trip into work, riding down a normal Leicester backstreet, I passed by an elderly lady in Asian (Hindu) dress, sari & the like, she was outside her front door, holding a small brass or copper coloured pot** up to sky, from the pot she was pouring water steadily onto the pavement…
Tweet: #leicester normal back street, Asian lady pouring liquid from copper pot** holding up to the sky… Inexplicable laughter, smiles and tears.
All I can say is as I rode on, physically i felt utter joy, inner smile, warmth, brightness welling up inside me. I smiled, i audibly laughed and tears welled up as I continued.
The day was still grey and the bin lorry ahead was trailing musty decay but the bin men smiled and life or something inexplicable filled the air.
There had been no preliminary hysteria, psychological practice, no hypnotic stimuli, no music, no interaction, it came through a grey normal, regular, routine, moment.
Could I capture this thing that was passing? No. Google it***; but you won’t find it.
I toyed with the idea of returning and taking a picture of the lady… but it all passed… moments later I was in a different place, the world settled back to another street, cars, people, metal, stone, colours, smells, routine – normality … but stained with the taint of something bigger.
Have a good day.
*People who:
– who serve us in shops
– who make the things we use and enjoy
– who cook and serve when we go out for meals
– who clean the toilets at campsites, shops, restaurants, motorway services etc
– who grow, transport, prepare and sell the food we eat
– who build the roads and buildings we use.
– who teach our kids
– who look after us when we’re ill…
PS: I am reminded of Brian Draper’s unconscious simple steps; Stop, Relax, Breathe, Smile. Reach out to grasp {glimpse} eternal things…
** Kamarwiki/Lota
** Puja
Escaping; can you and I make a difference? Construct or constrict?
I was talking with someone recently about people’s vulnerabilities, accepting and opening up to ‘others’, and how perhaps space that might allow our essential selves to simply breath ‘with others’ is increasingly less available in our current culture.
We build mechanisms, we wear uniforms, we sedate and stimulate ourselves, we clothe ourselves; to fit in with cultural norms. Essential feeling and thought can be built on, weighed down, swamped, suffocated, buried or sealed in with synthetic habits and routines. Perhaps.
One could describe a ‘rat race’ is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit.
Perhaps similarly the 1970’s entertaining ‘Wacky Races’ stories see numerous characters racing against each other hoping to win the title of the “World’s Wackiest Racer.”
A recent spate of TV ‘entertainment’ programmes have focused on escaping to ‘the wild’ and nature.
Kevin McCloud in his ‘entertaining’ Escape to the Wild (Channel 4), talks about the “Crazy hamster wheel existence… there’s a bigger world out there…”
He suggests that at some level we all seek escape, beauty, paradise…
The program follows people ‘resilient’ and ‘prepared’ to pursue a pared down existence… in pastures new. It highlights various people quitting wacky/rat races, often for a much wilder, more natural existence… People moving towards a ‘wilderness’; the wilds, an uncultivated, uninhabited region?
While the human mind is significantly shaped by our culture, perhaps it must also be inspired by the wild natural world. One could argue; we cannot understand ourselves without including our relationship with a wider natural. As Emerson said, “The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.”
But what of the ‘civilisation’ that we try to escape from? The people that we love, the people we hate, the people that have helped provide our education, our nurture, our bread, water, our trophies and treasures. What of the meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly shadows we attempt to leave behind.
We are essentially breathing, when we stop, we die. Perhaps when we just forget about simply breathing we also die a little. Perhaps our natural breath is all around us, both in the sunshine and the shadow.
It seems to me we often focus on the natural to see outside of our (constructed) selves… We can be like Beckett’s Hamm and Clov and pine that “Nature has forgotten us… There’s no more nature…” or perhaps we have forgotten the natural and just need to find it once more?
I recently watched Maidentrip, Laura Dekker’s truly inspiring film about her decision to pursue her dreams and to sail alone around the world at the age of 14!! Intriguing – lots of questions! http://www.maidentrip.com/
A choice; construct or constrict? Only you and I make a difference.
Kevin McCloud and Escape to the Wild (Channel 4), can be seen here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevin-mcclouds-escape-to-the-wild
Ben Fogle and New Lives In The Wild (Channel 5), can be seen here:
http://www.channel5.com/shows/ben-fogle-new-lives-in-the-wild
Arthur Williams and Flying to the Ends of the Earth (Channel 5), can be seen here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/flying-to-the-ends-of-the-earth
Laura Dekker’s truly inspiring story Maiden Trip can be seen here: http://www.maidentrip.com/
I recently had a few days in France and shock horror there were…. people riding bikes! Not a bike event or anything special, not ‘cyclists’ fuelled by Aldi Specials and Nutri-bars etc, just people going about their daily lives riding bikes! Shock horror! UK take note!
A joy to see.
As I say above, I {often} know not what I do. But occasionally stuff resonates, things seem clearer and we might sense a simple beauty that seems right, clean and bright.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Who knows?
I recall as a child enjoying a book: ‘Why does the glow worm glow?’ by E R Laithwaite.
I also recall, at about age 20, one evening in The Wig and Pen pub in Truro in Cornwall, an emotional alcohol fueled exchange about ‘the paralysis of analysis’ (do you remember that CS?).
Recently, after a few weeks soaking up a je ne sais quoi in the Vendée region of France, stuff seems brighter.
It’s one thing to ‘be aware‘ and police one’s habits and routines, (and yes, instinct can be flawed) but beware of PofA, a dearth due to dissection.
Yes, ‘Wake up‘ by any means but don’t stop living in the hope that you might find life in all it’s fullness elsewhere. The birds don’t stop singing to find true life.
To catch the sun’s rays a plant needs to open up.
Marvelously, glow worms simply(?) glow, especially in the darkest moments.
Dare I say, in the words of the Queen of Arendelle “let it go“?
Or preferably in the words of Van Halen “Jump!”
The children beautifully sing… tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun’ll come out…
The faithful simply sing… one day at a time…
And he packs his lunch in a sunblest bag,
the children call him Bogie…
and never thinks to mutter…
All you need is love?
My children and wife often display a simple beautiful unconditional love to me and I am most proud of them.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Perhaps simply, because ‘she loved’ the other side?
Go in… Jump!
i do wonder do u …?
I recall, at about 7 years-of-age, from my bedroom in west Cornwall, looking up out of my window at the sky. I remember it as a significant moment where I perhaps first consciously pondered ‘stuff’. But as often is the case when in proper Cornwall, it was my perception of the ‘natural’ that I was in awe of.
I looked out again last night, 40 years on, at a similar sky, from our bedroom in north-east Leicestershire (“A cloud is a cathedral without belief”. Mark Strand). Again, nature enchants me both in its fruitfulness and its aimlessness.
Something eternally elusive about the immaterial mesmerism of life and a sense of biggerness.
It puzzles me that (it seems to me) the dominant forms of what is wonderful or beautiful is the ‘natural’ – Nature.
From traditional religion through modern-day spirituality and current mindful psychology, glory is found in our perception of the sunset, the bud, the delicate, and the magnificent, natural world.
Human efforts to build on nature’s tapestry can sparkle and excite but often they fade, or fail or are tainted with underlying pretension and oneupmanship.
Am I wrong? Generally, it seems ‘stuff’ (art & craft, song & dance) created to celebrate ‘goodness’, rarely involves human achievements and or activities?
If a spirit of go(o)d exists, empowering human goodness, why do we not more frequently see celebration of this?
It seems to me we often focus on nature and the natural to see outside of ourselves…
As Emerson said, “The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.”
Margaret Fuller writes of Thoreau “He says too constantly of Nature, ‘she is mine.’ She is not yours till you have been more hers.”
Beckett’s Hamm and Clov deliberate “Nature has forgotten us… There’s no more nature … “
I long to see more than nature but alas… “Is it not time for my pain-killer?”
**************************************************
A few days later I find a hint of the type of thing i am thinking of…
Jules P Richards 