Author: admin

Enough

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If you stop to think about, there is a lot of balance in the word ‘enough’.

Enough ultimately means adequate, an even score card, a balance between supply and demand.

Sure sometimes people shout ‘enough’ when they are worried there is going to be ‘too much’ ; an overload of information, emotion, or something material.

But I think enough can be invented as an exquisite balance.

Lets start to think about the challenges of our world.

How about starting an Enough economy, globally.

We could move from the concept of sustainability to one of ‘sufficiency’.

I’m borrowing ideas here heavily from a wonderful audio book I just read/listened to by Lynne Twist; Unleashing the Soul of Money.

Somehow she wonderfully blends ideas of abundance, sufficiency, purpose and freedom.

It had me stop in my tracks, and reflect gratefully (Great Full eeee) about how much I had enough all around me, in my natural world, in my material world.

Everything from eating enough, working enough, buying enough, enough time, it all comes into an outlook on life that can focus on enough, looking for it all around us, questioning when we think there is not enough.

So enough already, I hope you get the idea.

Flawed Holiness

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You know, I think as the 21st century starts to mature, human beings have developed a powerful tendancy to be extremely hard on themselves.

I am guilty of it myself and see it all around. We are so often obsessed with trying to get things right, without ever pausing to dwell on the ultimate perfection of ourselves and the world around us.

It dawned on me that we perhaps have become a bit intellectual about the way we view perfection. Perfect to many means without error, perhaps straight lines, and accuracy; black and white, right and wrong. Somehow I believe that we have lost in translation the realisation that perfection is actually full of flaws.

A tree to me is a great, well in fact, perfect example. Just down the road from my office is a beautiful specimen of the native New Zealand pohutukawa tree. Its branches, leaves, and in summer, crimson blossom fan out in this perfect round shape against a bright blue sky. It is utterly beautiful. It is perfect. But close up it is full of scars, deadwood, broken branches; a chaotic jumble of limbs, twigs, leaves, flowers; complete disorder going in all directions. But on the skyline and from here, it is absolutely perfect.

I wonder if we often forget the link between the words, whole, and holy. I believe that the reason the word holy is important in religion and spiritual practice is that it is to remind us that we are all whole, perceived flaws and all. And that spiritual faiths are telling us that from a place of love, we are all whole. We are integral, complete, just the way we are, and that flaws that we have as imperfections are like the tree, a story of our lives, twists turns, great times, bad times, survival; weathered.

Talk Torque

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Useful talk is about traction, gearing low to go the distance.
The real words, the guts of the story, will give the best traction.

Less is more.

Remove the need to convince others, through repetition of point, that only leads to grinding gears. In a gearbox, it is the small gears that get the most traction; less gives more. The same goes for effective traction from communication.

Grinding gears, sand, or a spanner in the works, friction, noise, equals a connection that is not clean and clear. The same goes for communication. Too much information and clutter leads to less traction, less recall, and beign forgotten or misunderstood.

Gears are simply amazing things. If you have an engineering bent at all, you’ll know what I mean.
If you’re not the engineering type, let me share something with you. Neither am I. When I was younger and repairing my own cars, I always had a pile of bolts left over at the end of a repair job. The car would still go, more or less. Skinned knuckles, nuts and bolts that wouldn’t budge had me view metal as very unforgiving.

But I do get the magic of gears. Maybe the idea came from nature. The use of gears, in everything from the plastic cogs in our computer’s mouse, to the massive gears in huge power stations that produce our electricity. Gears run the world.

One of the most clever things about gears is how they shift power, and use torque to do that. So that to me is a great metaphor for communication.

How do we gear it right to get power in our speaking?
And like the most effective gears, the more connection the better the gearing, the less friction, the more power.

Connection, power, reduced friction (tension) all add up to effective communication.

Well how in practical terms do we do that.

Just to push the gear idea a little further, the most common gears are spur gears, the little spurs on a cog is what engages with another cog or gear.

We need to identify our spurs, the high points in our communication.

It is so often our temptation to try and cram everything into a communication piece. The thigh bone connected to the knee bone. No one needs a comprehensive anatomy lesson. They need the guts of the story. Technology today lets people drill down themselves if they need details. You offer that opportunity, but you are focussing on the spurs. The high points that will engage.

We need to realise that we do know what the spurs and the high points are. Although overwhelmed with detail and information, more often than not, we do instinctively know how to navigate it. We just need to build that communications navigation muscle.

The answer to doing this lies in speaking and in conversation. Create an environment where you can wax lyrical, and record it. The informal asides are often the rich gems you need to get your message across. The throw away line, the explanation to a child, a neighbour, a parent.

There are 7 Key Steps Gain Torque from Your Talk.

Be Authentic, use language and ideas you are familiar with and care about.
Practice Speaking From a Blank Page. No notes. Record this.
Make Connections with Daily Life.
Use metaphors from nature.
Be Moved. Inject moments of your experience where you were present to something special that moved you.
Talk Transformation. Make Your speaking be a journey of contrasts.
Embrace Drama and Appeal to all senses; visual, aural, touch, taste and smell.

Great talk equals great talk.

Gear up how you speak and communicate. Treasure and revere the spoken word, give it power, energy, and love. The results will speak for themselves.

The Best of Both Worlds

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What are the ‘both’worlds ?

When ever we say someone has the best of both worlds we would say that with awe, admiration, desire, envy, o some such.

What does it mean? Is it being clever, being lucky, being courageous?

Is it like having a bob each way, having your cake and eating it too.

In my generation, we grew up being told we could NOT have our cake and eat it too.

But having the best of both worlds was getting more than one ‘bargained’for, in Judeo-Christian traditions, one should not ask or expect too much and be humble . Again, look at the scarcity in the word, bargained. It intimates deciding we could only have so much and then got more.

Having the best of both worlds is about abundance and freeing ourselves of limiting what we think we can have.

We unconsciously limit ourselves every day. I gave up dreaming of a beach side house years ago deciding it was too expensive. So if I think of a place to live out of the city, I don’t think about the coast anymore. But I would love to live by the coast. I’ve limited a dream, having arrogantly predicted the future as it isn’t going to happen.
Now I could and now do still dream of having a place by the coast. Maybe it is in a place I’ve never thought of, maybe even a country I’ve never even thought of. Maybe I don’t really need to own it. Maybe someone might give it to me. But one thing is for sure, if I have given up on the dream, it certainly isn’t going to happen.

The best of both worlds can be about the real world what ever we have that mean, and the ideas world. Living our dreams but living our lives, work all in one. The best of both worlds is about giving up that our life, desires, inspiration, work, is either this, or that, but not both.

The limiting of ourselves, saying we can have this and not that is becoming an old 20th century paradigm, in a time of scarcity. That has not served the world. We have not dealt to world poverty, violence, inequity by acting from a place of scarcity. The limits of the western world’s economic system are manmade, and not real. But as it affects most of the globe’s wellbeing through controlling access to money, and therefore food. shelter and our basic needs, it occurs as all powerful, limited and a struggle to master. It also occurs as benefiting a few at the expense of many.

If we have what is called a social consciousness, we bitch about the rich getting richer, and the inequity of the system.

If we feel powerless we bitch about the government taking taxes and controlling our lives, even delving into conspiracy theories.

If we are aspiring to climb the ladder to wealth, we see the world as about hard work and striving, but bitch and moan about how unattainable it is.

Most of us operate from one of the above.

And does it serve us?

I would say no, resoundingly. We end up blaming, not taking any responsibility for our state of being. It is someone else’s fault, it will always be the same, and we are powerless to do anything about it.

Well this is an invented reality, and the irony is; it is an idea of the world that we have made up.

This morning I sat in my kitchen contemplating my day, looking out at my scruffy back yard, with kikuyu overgrowing everything, lawn unkempt, a chaotic mess. But I saw our old lemon tree and it triggered a whole different set of thoughts. This lemon tree is one tough survivor. It has rotted to a stump at least twice, and grown back to a tree, budding and producing beautiful tangy lemons. Its current trunk, straight as an arrow, was a shoot from a rotting stump. 18 months ago a tornado whipped around our house and snapped the lemon tree half way down its trunk. It looked pitiful for a month or two and not for the first time I was sure it would die. But now as summer fades, it is covered in branches, leaves, buds and lemons. It fruits and always has all year round so there is always one or two lemons on it. The lemons have made hot drinks for us when we are sick, wedges for tequila shots, wedges for gin and tonics, zest for icing, salads, salad dressings marinades, a versatile fruit.

So? I have it that this lemon tree, without an uttered thought, a brain, a soul has made the best of all worlds and we have benefited from it. And will continue to do so. And then one day, it will die as all things do, and we will all move on. I like limes too.

Revere

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Judging and comparing is a big part of our lives.
It is automatic. This day is better than that, this movie was better or worse that the last one we saw. This steak tastes fantastic compared to the last one. This car I’ve got is a dog. My last one was really great. The same goes for people. My teacher this year is horrible. I really liked the one I had last year. My girlfriend, well we are great friends, and get on really well, but the girl I went out with two years ago was really the one.
We do it all day and every day; judge, assess and compare. And that’s in our nature.
On one level, there is nothing wrong with that. The contrast, we often believe, is what makes us happy. We can size up our lives, be happy about the good times, because we can compare them to the bad ones. But here there is a flaw. This way is based on life going ‘up and down’, good times and bad times, assessed, fluctuating.

I wonder, really wonder,what it would be like if we were to spend less time judging and assessing the world we live in; what is right and wrong with it, comparing it to the past, and constantly sizing up now, against the past or the future, what it would be like.

I wonder what it would be like to revere life, revere people, revere nature, revere our being and experience each day. I wonder. In awe. With reverence.

You know too, in recent times the word awesome has become popular. We have a hunger, a thirst for life to be awesome. So what is it to be ‘in awe’ of something. It is to wonder, to revere, not to measure, to sink into the bottomless depths of love, connection, peace, and the moment.

Revere.

Even the sound of the word invites contemplation, reflection, awe.

Say it. Speak it. Breathe it. It is a word that spoken can bring you close to the infinite, to reverence, to wonder, to peace.

Recession Chic

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A table is a very basic piece of furniture. In many homes they are at the centre of activity.

We just got a new table in our kitchen and it has elicited so many comments from visitors. Interesting really, I thought a table was a fairly ordinary thing.

But people love this table. So why? It fits the room perfectly, and is just the right size for people to sit around for coffee, to talk, write, carry out the myriad of tasks that you do at a table. It has ‘leaves’ so it can be extended to become a longer table. It has four chairs; strong and comfortable. This table and chairs have transformed our kitchen.

The thing is this table cost just $100, second hand from a used furniture shop. The table looks to be mahogany, maybe 30+ years old. It and its chairs are ‘cool’ in a retro sort of a way.

I think if I had gone to the new furniture shop, I might have found a ‘retro’ 70s style table for $1000 plus.

It’s got me wondering about material things and how we are going to deal with the toughened economic times.

Perhaps we don’t have to throw out desire for material possessions, but we simply reframe them, and shift what we value.

We will all be redefining what we see as important, of quality and what is luxurious.

http://trendwatching.com/briefing/#luxyoury

Are the best products always new?

Can a table with a visible ‘patina’ with a few nicks and sratches add far more value to our house than a flash new dining suite, or a large plasma TV? Is it a centre piece where we can make and share our own food, rather than dining out? Can we sit there and make stuff, rather than buy it, create a new community and a new take on our family?

There’s a new trend called Rough Luxury, that might just fit the bill, celebrating the worn, defining what yoou consider to be luxurious.http://www.roughluxe.com/philosophy.php

May be these toughened times and consumerism blow out might have us look a bit differently at what we truly need and truly value in the way of possessions. And you know, I think it might just lead to greater happiness

The Mire

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Driving up north today I heard two news bulletins in a row that talked about the world economic crisis and our descent into the mire.
I couldn’t listen as it hit a depressive chord in me. But a few kilometres up the road, I started to think, what is a mire anyway.
It was a bit odd really. The sentence in the news used the term ‘the mire’ as if it it was something objective and scientific that we were all sinking into. The news is weird like that these days, one minute facts, figures and statements, the next some strangely juxtaposed word or phrase spoken as truth.
Descending into the mire.
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old Norse mȳrr; akin to Old English mōs marsh — more at moss
Date: 14th century
1 : wet spongy earth (as of a bog or marsh)
2 : heavy often deep mud or slush
3 : a troublesome or intractable situation
(source: Merriam Webster Dictionary Online)
So we’re in the muck, poo, sh**.
I might be at odds to most people, but I quite like a good swamp, bog or wetland.
They are full of life and opportunity. They are dangerous too, but thinking carefully, walking with care and though, observing what is around, they are great places full of stunning and beautiful plant and animal life.
In fact, many wetlands, bogs, swamps, mires are the source of life for our oceans, full of nutrients, stunning diversity, that feed us all.
And mire, comes from moss, a most useful form of plant life, from being the fuel for the smokey taste in single malt scotch whiskey to use as an ingredient for bread and also absorbant first aid dressings. Spaghnum Moss, sometimes called ‘the green gold ‘and used as a medium for growing in horticulture, can be worth a great deal of money (triple AAA grade upwards of $18 US a kilo).

So a descent into the mire could well be not a fall into muddy murky depths, but a tumble into a soft, beautiful life giving, economically rich place.

Sustaining Stories

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The word and the idea ‘sustainability’ is spreading around the western world like wild fire.

But more times than not, eyes glaze over at the term, as it is bandied around by politicians, academics or activists. Not to say that they are not well meaning, but to many people sustainability is conceptual at best, mumbo jumbo at worst.

The thing is sustainability is a brilliant concept, well the version that seeks to achieve a balance of economic, social and environmental sustainability, a triple bottom line approach.

The worry for me is that the whole idea of sustainability gets lost in translation. It often occurs as theoretical, or a ‘green’thing or often a throw away line without substance.

I’ve started writing this blog to encourage stories about sustainability to be created.

My two favourite sustainability stories of the moment, are the Playpump
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=playpump&search_type=
in South Africa and the Falkirk Wheel
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Falkirk+Wheel+&search_type= in Scotland.

So here’s an opportunity to get ‘sussed’as in wise and on to it, and able, as in practical and applying knowledge and ability, about sustainability.