Tag Archives: learning

Celebrating zero

I’m celebrating zero this week. I’ve just finished the process of publishing my first ebook (Trojan Moments: Experiences that Ambush). It has zero sales (sounds like a weird thing to celebrate, but I will explain) and zero costs (obvious win there). It’s a poetry collection, so there was never much expectation that it would be big, but celebrating zero? Come on, that’s pathetic.

Why I’m celebrating zero sales

Like a lot of people, I procrastinate, I get depressed, I work a day job. Life happens, and the months and years really roll by. Sometimes I doubt my creativity and I don’t always finish my projects. I’ve been wanting to get this book out in this format since 25 May 2006.

Yeah, you read right, more than ten years. It was first published that Thursday in paperback (a whole other story). In the decade since then I’ve fought a lot of demons and ghosts, but the desire to finish that job wouldn’t die. So yes, I’m embarrassed that it took twelve years, five months, and five days to put a tick in the box but here’s the thing, I did do it. You only get a sales dashboard when you have something to sell, something finished and listed, ready to download.

That’s what that big chunky zero means to me – success. A milestone that haunted and mocked me for over a decade is finally tamed. It sounds so easy, it is such a short sentence ‘publish an ebook’. Three little words, and I’d already written the book!

What it takes to get to zero

You might be curious about what it takes to fulfil that three-word task. Here are some of the tasks it involved:

Edit and revise the existing text
Create new content (reading group material and a quirky summary of the inspiration)
Reformat the revised text in MS Word and then in Scrivener and then in Word and then in Scrivener until I finally had it right
Redo the cover, make new covers, test out covers, get contradictory feedback, nearly toss the whole thing out because the cover issue was so painful, remembered this is a hobby and meant to be fun, went back to the original design and moved on with my life.
Research the current ebook market and decide on a marketing strategy for the book (quite a similar emotional process to that outlined for the cover)
With the strategy “nailed down” (ha!) I researched options for publishing, including evaluating the costs, time and services available and if it would be possible for me to DIY (and how long that might take me)
Because I decided to “go wide” (ie publish on more than Kindle Select) I chose an aggregator that would take a single file and publish it to multiple platforms on my behalf. They take a cut of my royalties for this.

*whew*

The file formatted, I went ahead and clicked on that little grey ‘submit’ button. And … nothing happened. Two days later I got an email saying the file was rejected. I fixed that one metadata field and reloaded, resubmit. This time, happy little green notifications started popping up within an hour and it was underway. It took a full week to appear on Amazon (and with the wrong price!) but finally, after years and a learning curve like The Wall, I was here, celebrating zero. Happy dance ensued.

A zero full of potential

Celebrating that zero makes perfect sense when you know a bit of the story to getting there. It is a private pleasure. To the rest of the world it is “so what?” but to any indie published author that first book is a stack of achievements and the zero symbolises accomplishment and a transition into the next level.

Just as with the zero card in tarot (usually The Fool) it heralds the inception of a new beginning. With this act of stepping off my known path and into the unknown future there is potential for the rest of my dreams to begin to come to life too. The nature of the moment is ephemeral. In another week or month that zero may begin to feel like a judgement. One hopes it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. All it will take to turn that zero into profit (the other key success measure in sales) is just one sale.

When zero turns to one

Everything changes when you can say “Yes I have made money selling my books.” I did that in 2006, hand-selling a poetry book (bless every one of you and thank you) and I will do it again this year.

Want to know my secret? Realistic expectations and zero costs.

Poetry is not hugely popular (unless you’re lovelorn on Instagram) and up until recently few people would admit to it at all. Honestly, you’d think it was the ninth deadly vice or something, but I digress. Realistically, I knew it would be hard to sell copies.

I knew that I couldn’t count on high (or possibly even double-digit) sales in the first three months. But I did want this publication to break even quickly so it could hold it’s head high on my (eventual) backlist. Knowing that made it easy for me to select an approach and services that would keep my costs down.

In the end it cost me nothing to publish the ebook internationally (Here are my costs – pdf ). I’ve listed it at $0.99 and at that price I need to make one sale to make a profit. One sale. Sure, the profit is as low as 29c but hey, the numbers don’t lie and that is cold hard digits into my PayPal account (90 days later). Boom.

Not everyone can love a zero

It takes an author to be excited at the prospect of making 29c but that’s how this game plays for little fish like me. There are shoals of sharks ready to tear thousands of dollars out of you if you don’t know how to navigate these waters. You may not believe it, but publishing is a ruthless industry. It isn’t all cups of tea, overdue library notices and polite book clubs. I hope you’ve enjoyed this foray into some of what it took to publish this book and can join me in celebrating zero.

Why not splash out and buy a copy? Trojan Moments is on sale at the celebratory price of 99c in your favourite ebook store during October 2018. But you know, totally cool if you’re not into it.

Slow reading, slow living

Life is better when there are chunks of time available for being slow. Not dumb or behind, but slow in a way that allows for a deep connection. A lot of the time my partner sees me making a deep connection with our couch, but I swear to you that there’s more going on than napping. A slow read lets my mind enjoy the other connections the line on the page inspires. It lets me pause to savour an unusual word, an image, a personal response.

It is tempting right now to draw a metaphor about value, to question the ideas of “efficiency” in comparison to what we know about the experience of slow, deep, contemplative periods, but actually you can already see where I’d go with that idea.

Instead, let’s touch on how the pantomime of busyness that is so popular, that escalates our misery and turns the idea of slow into a 1984-type thought crime. I’m talking about people who spend more time telling you about what they’re going to do than getting their head down and doing anything. And who then get promoted above you (hahaha, no really).

How did we get to a point where talking about how busy we are (and I know that we are busy, but you know in this way we’re referring to the self-aggrandising version. Imagine the scenario of the heroic narrative over the bbq salads that seeks to one-up your busy with their *epic* level busy. It’s a game many are willing to play and why not? Being busy is culturally rewarded it is celebrated, it is a visible thing in a world of invisible work.

To be slow, rather than fast, is to be a failure of a kind. In this age, to be slow is said as a curse, a negative judgement of diminished of capacity, of relevance. Those are powerful stigmas against being slow. It is a shame because this simple summary level idea of what slow might be, is putting people off deliberating or consulting before making a decision. It puts pressure on people to say yes to more activities or responsibilities. It makes it hard to justify reading for fun or watching a sunset or those delicious afternoon naps.

Did you just think “I wish I had time for a nap”? Maybe you also followed that with “I’m too busy for a nap”. Any example I give will be likely to trigger someone and that’s partly because of this weird culture we have right now.

Could you try it? Could a slow day here and there be for you? Binging on a bucket of books or afternoon naps, date night out of the house – could any of these ideas tempt you? Don’t wait for life to slow down for you. Don’t wait for an empty chunk of hours to fall in your lap.

I invite you to make some slow time for yourself this week. Get deeply involved in that time with whatever you like, reconnect or dream and imagine. Just do it nice and slowly.

Weird days ahead so BYO weird

“Don’t be absurd” I said, but then look what happened! That was a strange lesson in things getting a whole lot stranger than you thought possible. I’m alluding vaguely to politics and violence in the world sphere. The weather has been weird where we are – storms like tantrums that thrash and destroy and suddenly weep themselves out. I’m always looking for a sign in the world, it just seems to be that every single one says the same thing – weird days ahead.

Not the new normal

This isn’t a prediction about what might be the ‘new normal’ (sorry – no answers!) or how there’s some magical reset anywhere in sight to take away the weird and give us back our global sanity. Nope. The news is that being rational and reasonable is going to take more work. Each of us will have to make a choice each day on how to deal with what happens.

We won’t know what to expect. The increasing pace of random attacks, weird anti-truth-ness and agonising political hypocrisy are escalating. All we really have in our control is the decision on how we will act. How we might embody our values person by person. How can we be kind, tolerant, assertive, truthful?

When did the truth become an enemy?

I work in marketing, I’m no stranger to influencing audiences and the ‘massaging’ of facts by our cousins in advertising, but the truth used to be a bedrock, not a moving target.

In the past six months it has seemed as though the political mainstream in the western world has been gaslighting us all so that we get used to anyone asking for ‘honesty’ on issues is considered weird. That’s not helpful. That’s not working towards equality or freedom or happiness. Actually it is verging on taking absurdity and weird right on into the realm of madness.

This is not a great topic. I don’t like that it is going on, but I feel powerless to address it in any way except through personal action. I feel like I am teetering on the edge of madness, and depression. It has put me off writing and blogging, it has weighed on me when I make plans for my future and it drains my sense of value.

Weird inspiration

So what I’m thinking here is that the normal stuff – all the skills and expectations I have from the past few decades – are not that useful anymore. I need to engage with the new weird world on a new level. Isn’t it obvious – I must bring my own weird. That’s right, one sometimes must fight fire with fire. This is not the same as ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ that way is utter chaos in this instance. No. I will allow my weird free, I will bring whatever I can to our table to protect and defend the forces of good. If you want to join the rebellion in support of honesty and goodwill, please do. Tea and biscuits supplied, BYO weird.

Over scheduled and too busy to worry

Do you have the over-scheduled virus? It is a type of modern flu that has all the symptoms you’re sadly familiar with: fatigue, poor sleep, low level physical ailments (sniffles! That half cough!), a constant sense of not quite being ‘all there’ (because you’re keeping at least one eye on the clock to make sure you get to your next appointment on time), and perhaps worst of all is the gnawing doubt that a helluva lot of what is taking up all that time is not actually important. You know, proper important. Especially compared to the things you’re too tired for at the end of the day, like conversation.

I remember conversation, it is when you talk about something other than the logistics of the next day or who will do which chores. I’m sure I’m still capable of it, if only I had the time. Of course any spare time gets soaked up quickly by the ever-present “should do” list or sleep but presumably there’s a possible future in which I’m caught up on all those things and so is someone I know and we could have a conversation. Hahaha When did that become an almost outlandish fantasy?! Even people I know who are retired from work are busy busy busy. Strange days.

Why you stay over scheduled

But you know, there’s a payoff to this behaviour too, a hidden lining that creates comfort. You wouldn’t think so but there’s plenty worse your brain could be doing and keeping you busy today and tomorrow is really quite clever because when we slow down our habit is not to stay in the now. Oh no, we send our giant brains out into the days beyond and into what might happen. Dangerous ground indeed for this is the hunting grounds for anxiety. Dwell briefly in the future and make a decision about the suitable path and all is well, one can navigate through events and respond when challenges arise. Lingering in the permutations of what might be is necessary for great work but demands huge capacity to defend and define one’s limits and scope. Otherwise the clever early-mammal part of your brain is lured into a hamster wheel of what ifs and becomes trapped in the momentum of its own spinning. Anxiety feeds on you again. There’s a nascent part of our (perhaps higher) self working hard to explain these traps and warn us of the dangers. We tend not to listen.

The ego believes passionately that we’re above such silly situations. The compromise is our over-scheduling. It appeases the puff of the ego and perilously protects the vulnerable brain from too much anxiety. It would be funny if it wasn’t so personal! So the payoffs are always there in our behaviours. You could call it the comfort of complaining. These habits can be so hard to acknowledge without someone to talk things over with and that time in which to reflect on our own patterns or those of our friends (actually I’m a lot wiser when it comes to other people than I am about myself). I’m also lucky to have some very wise friends! So although I’m over-scheduled I’m cautious about just stopping and so making a gap. Even if I could completely stop work and all my commitments and responsibilities that comes with a different risk. We all know that nature abhors a vacuum and in the past it has been another extreme – anxiety – that filled it. I’d like to do it differently this time. I’d like to find a middle way.

Have you ever tried a self-development course and come across a facile question like “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Oh you’ve GOT to be kidding?! But I tried, I tried so hard to soar with eagles and do better and be better and unleash the giant within and all that stuff. But what I’ve learned is a hard lesson to share, and it is that pretending you can’t fail is unfalteringly useless and here’s why.

Making a friend of failure

Of course you could fail. Most of us actually live from a primary identity of failure. That’s a constant in our lives. From the moment we fell over learning to walk we have implicitly understood that failure is part of the human condition. Even as a mind game to expand our comfort zone it is really really the wrong question to be asking.

Here’s a question to try on. “What is so important to you that you will do it anyway, knowing that you will fail in part?” It is likely that you will fail to meet your fullest dreams, on the other hand there are amazing discoveries promised if unknown at the outset. How might you answer that question? Take a minute now if you like to roll it around and see what you come up with.

This choice, this engagement with your own private calling, does not ignore or diminish the idea of failure and instead embraces it. It is not some light optimism that evades the shadows or distorts the reality of challenge, but instead a serious call to us to face the source of meaning and value in our lives. It is a middle path that expects courage and offers a radical hope. I’m not quite proud of my failures yet, but I am ready to expand them. Are you? Share your proud failures or your middle path in the comments.

When love let me down

Where is the love?

When the terrorist attacks in Paris happened last year I realised that I did not really believe in love. If “love is all you need” then how can people possibly shoot each other as a political process? If love is the greatest power why do we yearn for retribution in our justice, or worse, for revenge? If love is the ultimate force, then why was I trapped inside fear? It was a dark realisation and humbling. I couldn’t find a way forward. Peace eluded me. Love let me down.

At that time it was easy to notice a retreat into established, shared stories. The escapist movies released after that time in the lead up to the end of the year did particularly well because people sought a retreat from a complicated world. In blockbuster movies bad guys are easy to hate and the violence of the good guys is excused because the ends justify it. When you’re fearful, even kindness feels like a vulnerability. No wonder we draw back from love, it is too much to give! We can barely find love in our hearts for ourselves, families, neighbours or work mates. Why should we give when everyone else is taking?

So love as an ideal was tarnished. Love had not been a possible answer to terrorism.

Love is all we have

But. And yet. Nothing else could answer the question. “What would make the world the best possible place?” Telling people, forcing people, arguing shrilly and judging – none of those things work at any level, in any place, to create a more peaceful and harmonious society.

Love is the only answer that makes sense. Most of the time we think about romantic love and that confuses us. Romantic love is tied to personal intimacy, lust, sex, privacy. Then there’s parental love and so on. None of those are quite right either.

Asking to be healed

I’ve been sick and depressed in life and it isn’t fun, it doesn’t make for a peaceful outlook. I wanted to be better, so be well, to be healed, to be happy. I learnt that the first principle of healing is to participate. That means to ask for it. Ask who? Start with yourself. One of the first healers I ever spoke to said one transformative sentence to me: “What are you willing to give up in order to be well?” Not ‘what would I give’ but ‘what would I release’? In many ways that one sentence lead to all the posts here on this blog, all the ways of reframing worry and debt and embracing choice and the freedom of self knowledge. As I asked to be well over the months and years I was shown my patterns, my behaviours, the choices I was making. It was a process that gave lots of opportunities for experimenting with different ways, with different approaches and experiencing radical changes. We’ve talked around those topics in the last two years in a general way/

In the posts to come I’ll share what I’ve learnt in those experiences from a different perspective in the hope that they help you in your journey. Love didn’t let me down after all, it was there waiting for me, as it is waiting even now for you. We’re going to look at life’s challenges together from inside love. I hope we’re all up to it.

Reiki introduction

There’s so much suffering in the world and it felt like time to find a way to contribute to the healing of that rather than continue to feel helpless and overwhelmed. As in all things, one must start with oneself, so last weekend, I did a Reiki introduction course with Patricia Newtown. Primarily I wanted to find a way forward in dealing with my colitis and depression. I was hoping for something that would complement my philosophical and intellectual explorations and perhaps help address the patterns of my behaviour that I have not been able to resolve on my own. I decided to ask for help.

First reiki impressions

Reiki is something that has given me a lot of support and help over the past 12 months through occasional short treatments. It is simple to receive, non-invasive, and people who give it always seem to be happy. I like the look of being happy, it is like holidays, but it doesn’t come to an end. Pat’s reiki introduction course looked appealing because she looked happy in her picture, and it would be near where I live. That’s a simple enough decision making process isn’t it? Well it worked. Learning is always fun, but reiki is not just an intellectual pursuit, there is of course lots of attention given to one’s body (in every sense). The welcoming space and happy faces were nice, but the real connection came as soon as we started by checking in on our individual energy levels, and then immediately raising them. That first technique, learnt in the first ten minutes of the day, has been working hard in the days since and will continue to be a touchstone to sanity. Did you know there’s a vibrational frequency to happiness? Of course you do, that’s why everybody loves music. That’s why you feel better after a long walk in nature. That’s why we have the phrase “out of synch” for when we’re down.

Reiki revealed

As in so many courses, much of the learning comes from the interaction with the other people as well as the course leaders. Something like this is incredibly supportive and inspiring as there’s a deliberate choice to be authentic and present in participation. I was also in the pleasant situation of being the least experienced member of the group and so everything the others said seemed to spark another revelation in me, another informational connection, another moment of personal insight. There were also some moments of divine simplicity. Have you ever used that phrase for a friend in distress “I’m sending you love”? That’s what reiki is, sending love. That’s the big reveal. Love. No need to over-think it. What was transformational in my experience was becoming a receiver for that energy and realising how to pass it along. There was an enormous amount of unexpected emotional release of old baggage that happened from the process of being “brought up to speed”.

Now for the housework

As is always the case after a peak experience, there’s a wobbly period afterwards. Lots of emotional clearing, intense personal experiences, heavy downloads of information all need time to settle in and become part of who you are. If indeed you decide to keep them. reiki practitioners around the world encourage the use of a “21 day cycle” which is a protocol for integration based around three full cycles through the seven energy centres in the body. What that means is that much as I was high as a kite last Sunday (when the photo of Pat and I was taken) it was taken for granted that there’s be a ‘coming to ground’ on Monday, and verily that did come to pass and that’s ok too. For healing (and learning) to be meaningful, it has to occur within our everyday lives. That’s what the 21 day cycle is for. Integration moves something from being an idea to wisdom. I’m diligently doing my homework, forgiving my slips and falls, not expecting miracles. This is the time for finding the right place for these skills in the toolbox of my life.

Was it amazing? Yes. Was it worth doing? Yes. Will I go back and learn more? Yes. Has it made a difference to my health? Only time will truly tell, but it has already made a positive difference to my ability to ‘pick myself up’ each morning and face the day with a smile. Can I recommend Patricia Newton as a trainer and a healer? Yes! Absolutely!

What use is love?

So reiki is love. It is a pretty happy, blissful kind of thing. It is a useful thing to add to one’s repertoire of skills and to grow one’s wisdom. So before you ask “what use is reiki?” maybe ask if you want to be the person who is asking “What use is love?”

Belief without love will make you fanatical,
Duty without love will make you ill-humoured,
Order without love will make you pedantic,
Power without love will make you violent,
Justice without love will make you severe,
A life without love will make you ill.

(Excerpt from “Reiki: Universal free energy” by Baginski and Sharamon.)

Boldly go in your direction

We’ve talked about starting over and it is worth touching on that idea again, because the pressure is often to do Big Things. You know, Those Boldly go where no man has gone before expectations*. That’s fun for a while if you are an intergalactic adventurer, or a woman. (I mean I even got to make a pennyfarthing where no wo-man had gone before) but at a certain point, most of us just want some help with the basic “boldly go” part. Those first steps or stumble in a new (for us) journey are their own bold adventure. It could be asking for help to plan an overseas holiday when you’ve never left the city but everyone around you is infecting you with their itchy feet.

Taking action in alignment with your own values put you back into the driver seat of your own life. Freedom is in being bold on your own terms. Maybe committing to a slow shift in your eating habits, or starting to go for walks again or maybe a gym session or saving money. Whatever it is for you, where you’ve had a hint of fear, or worry about what other people are going to say, or if you’ll look silly, or fail, or or or … well, that’s an opportunity for some bold baby stepping.

Boldly go (but in bitty bubby steps)

We yearn for big wins and particularly successful people who are used to achievement forget that starting over is all about starting small. By small, we mean really small. Simple. Two minute tasks, being mindful, remembering to make a choice rather than react. These are the baby-what’s the next thing I could do that takes me towards what I want? Take a little action, bitty bubby ones but bold, feel bold. You’re courageous! You’re brave! You can totally do this!

Be bold baby!

By the way, it doesn’t even have to be about fulfilling your dreams, maybe just do the things that are bugging you and that let you simplify that endless to-do list.

Sometimes being bold is saying “no, thanks.”

No to more commitments, things that serve other people, or things that aren’t helping you get your own stuff sorted. Maybe being bold for you is asking for some help (maybe from all those people you’ve already been helping all this time?) or be bold and be brutally honest with yourself about what is really important to you.

So muddle onwards in your own direction and boldly be yourself. There honestly is no one better suited to it than you.

*Like discovering new galaxies or intelligent alien life. No pressure, right?

Frozen in fear

Have you ever done something so weird and against your own self-interests that your best friend says to you “That was self-sabotage.” And you can’t help but miserably nod your head and mumble “I don’t know what came over me.” It was fear that came over you.

Fear that was stealthy, sneaky, predatory. Fear knows how to trick you and catch you and then let you be the agent of your own downfall. If you’ve felt self-sabotage, it is a particularly horrible feeling. Sometimes, despite our rational intentions, we act like the natural prey of the thing we’re most afraid of – a rabbit covering under the screamingly fast approach of the eagle’s outstretched shadow. In that cramped crouch we are calling ruin upon us.

Snuggle down little bunnies and breathe deeply here in the safety of our burrow, we will learn a different relationship to fear. We currently have a curse on us, we turned away from something big one day and when we glanced back we’d lost sight of that strength and sense of personal power that gives us confidence in normal living. Perhaps you didn’t know how to stand up to a verbal bully, or you took a fall of some kind, it doesn’t matter you got left behind in something important. Fear has found your signal now and you’re the hunted.

The fear and danger of beginning

One of the richest hunting grounds for fear is in beginnings. Rabbits make a great symbol for beginnings – so fertile, so closely associated with spring. They’re good eating too and mostly without weapons or armour. So when we begin something new, there’s a tendency to dwell on all the ways we’re vulnerable and at risk. How do you approach being at risk? Lots of times it makes sense to do research on the risks and plan how to avoid or respond to them doesn’t it? A lot of times, too, our friends or mentors suggest that we “face fears head on!” Ah. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Sounds brave and tough and more likely to be successful than cowering. Well maybe that works for some people but if this doesn’t work for you here’s something else to try.

Not everything needs a fight with fear

Most of learning something new, or making a new beginning isn’t about fighting, it’s about accepting. A beginning means something is going to be different and any fear that shows up at that time is a great invitation to expand. If you’re busy fighting it, it can use the distraction to send a flanking movement around to sneak up on you, all that energy you’re putting out is going in the wrong direction. Perhaps instead you could invite it over for tea and cake and once it has settled in, let it tell you what’s going on for it. Your fear is, after all, the shadow of your dreams. Let fear join your team, let it have a place at the table to discuss strategies and ideas it has seen further than you have right now down the path you desire and if you’re not fighting you have a chance of growing together and becoming more than the sum of your parts.

Fear might be uncomfortable to have around regularly, but much better there in your lounge room where you can get hot under the collar together and work things through than behind you with a knife in your frozen back.

Image credit: “Rabbit medicine” by Angela C Werneke in ‘Medicine Cards’ by Sams and Carson (1988).

Beginning with the quincunx

There’s another way to look at the wheel of life and we’re going to try it on this week. Meet the quincunx. It’s a big-sounding word but a very simple tool.

That sounds like hard work!

There are so many big topics for us to talk about, it was hard to find a beginning. I thought it might be honesty, as that was a theme that came up in the issues people shared at the end of last year. Our relationship with honesty is so important to our wellbeing and it connects into the base of many other issues in the world.

Think of all the times that you’ve wanted to tell the real truth – you know when you be diplomatic instead of telling it how it is. Bosses acting like petulant children, when friends expect you to validate decisions or opinions you disagree with, when you’re volunteered for a task that no one can meet your eye over. Equally there are times when you’ll do any kind of contortion necessary to avoid telling even the vaguest of truths and I’m talking here about things like the real reasons I’m overweight, or not exercising enough, or in debt or lonely or frustrated (feel welcome to insert your demon here). There are other types or shades of honesty too, integrity, trustworthiness, self-respect and so on. There are also the socially acceptable elements of being untruthful that we all have to balance too. Imagine that politicians or advertisements only told the bare truth. Can you imagine a world without white lies? I can’t imagine even an hour at work without them.

But white lies that we use to paper-over the cracks in the social contract are an uncomfortable topic, as is honesty in ourselves. Nonetheless, we must talk about it, we must face it or our other efforts at introspection of self-knowledge are in vain. Why is this, because lies are the servants of our ego. Our ego is possibly the biggest barrier to us finding our centre and so finding lasting peace and perspective. We all have one, but like a pet dog, it isn’t a good idea to let them run the show. So how do we start talking about our world and our concerns without the ego getting in the way all the time? By putting it in place, giving it a job to do.

So that’s too big to start with, so let’s come at it sideways, nice and easy, via some sacred geometry and our friend here the quincunx.

In this picture (if you can’t see it, it is a square with a small circle in each corner and then a big circle in the middle)you see a simple representation of us in the world. For today, we’re just interested in the circles. Take a moment to look at it.

It is probably already familiar to you. Many cultures and religions have a take on this shape. It is used explicitly in temples, churches (here is a well-known Christian example) and architecture but for today we’re just going to look at the simple elements of the shape. It is pretty obvious that the circle in the middle is the biggest part and so probably the most important. You can draw this diagram without the sizing, and then it looks like the number 5 does on playing dice. The four little circles represent the four corners of the physical world or the four elements (etc).

Most of the time our consciousness is caught up wholly in these realms. These four anchor points (named according to the paradigm you’re currently thinking in) are what frame the space in which we really exist. The place from whence we look out and engage with the manifested world, that space in the middle is where our own divine manifests. This represents our spirit centre, our soul or the ‘fifth element’.

What’s important here in all this symbolism is the idea of the separation of your higher self (however you label that) from the physical world. Yes it exists and yes it is found in more than just the physical world. It might not seem like it at first pass, but this is a source of infinite freedom. There’s a lot more than unfolds from this idea, I hope you get a lot out of exploring it.

We are all in this together

There is a team of people who help make these essays happen and it is probably the same for you too, that what you make is not done in a vaccum. Hmmm. Team sounds very sportsy doesn’t it? Maybe even with someone blowing a whistle and pointing and someone else keeping score. Imagine instead people choosing to collaborate and play together sometimes with one purpose and sometimes with another. Perhaps like a Sunday afternoon gathering of friends – you come if you can and contribute how you’re able. There’s always food and conversation that is delicious, filling, and unique.

That’s a nice image – all sitting around sharing good times, making art and memories. Those moments we can treasure. Days like today it is worth remembering how many more people there are in your world who contribute to everything you have and do. Most of them you’ll never have a chance to meet or know or thank in person but in our globalised and specialised world they are legion.

Who are these mystery fans and assistants? They are the people who grow your food, who can it, bake it, transport it, sell it. They are the people designing and making your clothes, your phones and computers, your books and movies. They are the people who sweep the streets, collect the garbage, unblock drains and watch over us through the dark hours. They do their jobs and allow us a place to do ours. Of course we expect that all those people paid to perform their jobs, and mostly they did, but should that stop us from being grateful that they did it with care or at the cost of being with their loved ones? Just because we use an economic system where money is the means of exchange it doesn’t make the people inside that economy invisible or unimportant. Or rather it doesn’t as long as we each remember them and honour them for their contributions to our lives, comfort and convienience.

The world is full of strangers who are on your team – in unexpected ways.

Thank you for reading and being on the team.
There are plenty more conversations and meals for us to share. Everyone is welcome because we’re all in this together.

With thanks to my Editor, Riley.

Janine Prince

Author

Tag Archives: learning

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