Gathering round the fire

This year I’ve had the real pleasure of uniting some of my deepest interests – music, poetry and my humanist outlook on life – to write some songs for the British Humanist Association.

Here’s a song we’ve recorded recently – it’s now released on itunes and all proceeds go to the British Humanist Association, with some of the money going to support the BHA choir to record more music for humanist celebrations.

Flame and friendship, gifts and giving
Defying the winter’s ire
An instinct known to all the living
Gathering round the fire

May your fireside be warm and the people you hold dear be close at hand either in the real world or in this mad and wonderful online network!

Six months’ worth of writing, living and learning

To celebrate six months of blogging (over 200 posts and nearly 100 poems!), I thought I would share thirteen things I have learnt in that time, many of them directly from blogging:

 

1. Hearts can heal, and a thoroughly healed heart is stronger than one that has never been broken.

2. Creativity, particularly new creative projects, is a great way not just to recover from a broken heart, but to grow immeasurably from the experience.

3. Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary activity – and sharing drafts with an understanding audience is a great way to keep motivated.
4. Writing things in a public forum, even to a small audience of people whose faces I have never seen, is different from just writing them for yourself – and it can be much more healing.

5. Sometimes the things I don’t want to say are the ones I most need to say. Sometimes the things I don’t want to say are also what others are most interested in hearing

6. Free writing practices often produce some of my best writing… and paradoxically often my most structured writing too. And I’m increasingly realising that the ideas and experiences that go into my poems are strong enough to stand as free verse. I enjoy playing with different structures, but I can have more confidence in the interest of my own voice. 

7. It’s better to say too much than to be too vague to be understood – even if you have to clarify what you meant, or soothe someone’s agitation, you’re communicating. And being so tolerant of other people’s views and beliefs that we don’t express our own is almost always counterproductive – and leads to much less interesting discussions.

8. It’s far too easy to accept arguments and evidence that supports your conclusion, and not notice the obvious flaws. Reading and participating in the debates in the blogosphere has made me very aware of this, and hopefully made me a more honest debater!

9. There are some wonderful people out there in the blogosphere…. as well as a lot of people who can’t string a coherent sentence together. Many people out there have had lives incredibly more difficult and complicated than mine has been. I’ve been touched and moved and shocked by some of the things I’ve read. I don’t know whether bloggers are more likely to have trauma in their past, or whether it’s just that in the blogosphere, people tell stories that you would normally hear only from your closest friends. Either way, thank you all for increasing my awareness and understanding of what it is to be human.

10. Finding my own words to express myself is, right now, more important to me than singing the music and words written by others, however beautiful and powerful.

11. Always follow your dreams can be a good principle, but it can also be a trap that leaves us struggling and miserable, feeling like failures or forcing ourselves to do things that just aren’t right any more. So it’s important to leave room for both you and your dreams to change and grow.

12. This last year has been an intense time – difficult in many ways, but I don’t regret a moment of it. I have learnt so much and grown so much, that it’s a hundred times worth all the tears and the pain of heartbreak.

13. Writing means far less without readers – so thank you all!

If your blog is your home, show us around…

The door is always open, and visitors are welcome.

The picture in the hall that you see as you enter
is a flying pelican that I saw one bright day,
walking hot and happy along a pure white beach
in the Galapagos islands.
May you find the happiness and peace
that I felt on that day beside the pacific surf.
(But ssh… don’t tell the pelican that
thanks to photoshop he’s now
flying in the opposite direction!)

As you explore, you’ll find
That there are pictures everywhere.
Glimpses of the beautiful places
I have been privileged to see.

And some photos I have been happy to
borrow from the generous collections of others
– each carefully chosen
because it means something to me
and I hope it will mean something to you, too.

Come and riffle through the papers on my desk.
You’ll see the quill still shiny with fresh ink
freshly used to arrange words
in pleasing patterns around
the ideas and emotions
that mean most to me.

You won’t see my face,
But you’ll hear my story.
My heartbreak and recovery.
My silence and my self-expression.
My scepticism and my spirituality
Serious musings and cheerful humour.
Words to a lover who refused to hear them.
Words to a lover I have not yet met.

Oh, and sometimes you’ll hear
drifting down from upstairs
(sweet, but surprisingly loud)
the sound of my voice
singing songs to heal a broken heart.

(I have to admit, my favourite
of the many useful things in the corridor
is the map of the world, full of red drawing pins.
I love to look at it. For I feel full of wonder that
my words are being read
in Mongolia and Mauritius, Iceland and Iran, Alaska and Australia.)

So come in
Sit down. Kick off your shoes.
Be comfortable.

I hope you find this
a harmonious space.
One where you can come to feel renewed,
as well as entertained and philosophised-at.

A place where you can feel
that your pains are understood
but also believe they can be transformed.
That no tunnel is endless, however dark it seems.

A place of peace and gentleness
where I share the wisdom I have gleaned –
a modest but sincere offering.

And please, leave a comment
In the visitor’s book
Before you leave!

You’ll see, if you look
the inspiration and comments
of the wonderful visitors
who have enriched my writing, my blog and my life
through their generous sharing of words, images and thoughts.

So please, join the conversation.
For the door is always open, and visitors are welcome.

This responds to a prompt at Rockin’ Chair Writers to show readers around your blog as if it is your home. I saw it and immediately realised that this was just what I had been wanting to do!

Blog life-raft

Sometimes I really feel the strain of being alone in a foreign country, doing a difficult and unpopular job…. Right now it’s making me really tired and demoralised. There comes a time when you’re just too tired to do the things – like going out to tango classes – that cheer you up and bring you into contact with friendly human beings. I’m having one of those evenings now, and it’s not fun. One of the most difficult things is that there are long periods when I’ve done all I can and just need to wait for other people to do the things I’m waiting for – so I’m not only stressed but bored a lot of the time!

I know it won’t last – the weekend is nearly here, we’re making progress on the difficult issues that are wearing me down, so next week should be better, and in 10 days I’m going to be travelling to a neighbouring country – a change of scene and a bit of tourism will do me the world of good, I think!

In the meantime it feels like blogging, and reading other blogs, is the only thing that’s keeping me sane. I’m slightly worried I’m churning out too many posts and overwhelming my poor patient readers, but there’s always the delete button if it gets too much!

It does help hugely to be able to express what I’m going through, and, at the same time feel that I’m doing something productive and creative through writing poetry. And the friendly, supportive comments that people have been leaving are manna for a tired soul.

Tomorrow will be a better day…

Wordle-ing

Having fun with wordle…. here’s a cloud based on my post “100 posts and counting”

Celebration…

I feel that publishing post number 150 and passing 10,000 hits on the same day calls for a minor celebration.

And what a fantastic picture of a Birthday cake this is – thanks to Yehudit G for baking, photographing and uploading it!

I just wish I could give you all a slice of cake to take home with you as a token of my appreciation for reading and commenting and generally making blogging a worthwhile experience!

Talking about difficult issues

I need to have a difficult conversation with someone at work. I don’t want to have it, but if it were just up to me I would just get on and do it and get it over with. But there are a few things I need to sort out first, and I’m dependent on other people. So it’s dragging on, and I can’t make progress. Every day I go into the office hoping I’ll be able to resolve it, but there’s always something else needs to happen first. So at night I find myself going over the decision, and rehearsing the conversation, in my mind. It’s such a nuisance… I wish I could just get it done and out of the way!

In the meantime I find it’s difficult to  concentrate on other things that need to be done. Particularly things involving the same person. The whole situation is adding unnecessary tension to my working life, which is difficult enough anyway. So I find myself blogging at work (which I normally don’t do at all!) to distract myself from this problem I can’t yet resolve. It does help, particuarly blogging specifically about the problem as I’m doing now…. hopefully having got this off my chest I will be able to start doing something productive again. 

And with a bit of luck I’ll be able to resolve the problem this afternoon. And if not, there’s tango this evening, which is always an excellent distraction from all work-related problems!

Six word bio

I was tagged with a challenging meme from Mariacristina – to write a six word bio! After a bit of playing around, I came up with:

Voicing my search – love, hope, truth.

I think most of my blogroll contacts have already done this one, so I won’t tag anyone. If you’ve not done it yet, and feel like having a go, consider yourself tagged!

 

 

Maiden Voyage

Saturday saw the first voyage of the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards. Despite the name, they’re more inspiring than nasty, and while elitist, are elitist in a very inclusive way. They refuse to accept dumbing down, and proclaim the virtues of intelligence, curiosity and expertise in a most inspiring way.

Definitely worth checking out…

(Happy to say that I was a member of the crew – “Playing Small doesn’t help the world“.)

Playing small doesn’t serve the world

For me intelligence is one of the most beautiful things there is. To see that spark in someone’s eyes that shows they’re alive to the world, that they are dedicating themselves and whatever capacities they have to living life to the full. The delights of one of those conversations where two minds dance together in a world of ideas – serious or plain silly, it doesn’t matter – what matters is that living intelligence. The essence of humanity.

That light seems to shine brightest in young children, with their endless curiosity. I think it’s sad that, for some people, that light gets turned off as they grow up. They learn to feel stupid, or are told that certain interests are not for them. They are told not to ask certain questions, or give up asking questions because they never get answers.

Some types of elitism do have the effect of stifling that interest. But actually I think anti-elitism has a far more serious effect. In a society where knowledge and learning is valued but kept for the few, it is still there to be aspired to, and the excluded can fight for their just deserts. In a society where knowledge and learning is not valued, people learn to hide their intelligence in order to fit in. (I remember crying my eyes out on receiving the results of a school chemistry test – because I felt that everyone would hate me for getting full marks!). And this limits everyone. It strikes me as very patronising to dumb down for someone because it says implicitly or explicitly that their intelligence is insufficient to go any further.

Yes, some artforms or fields of study do require quite a bit of time and effort before you can really appreciate what is going on. But I do believe that often the difference between people who enjoy “elite” artforms and those who don’t is twofold – a feeling that it’s “not for people like them” and a lack of the experience needed to get into it. That’s not to say that they “ought to” enjoy these things… but I think it’s sad when people are cut off from things that they might enjoy for such limiting reasons.

I would like to live in a society filled with adults with the curious and unselfconscious fascination with the world that children have. A world where intellectual enquiry and pursuit of excellence is valued – not just because of the results, but because of the journey. Where everyone, regardless of their basic intellectual capacity, is inspired to become more, to bring their own special qualities to fruition.

For me this is expressed beautifully in the very famous Nelson Mandela quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure….

“It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?…

“Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you…

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This post was inspired by the various posts on En tequila es verdad and Cafe philos about the new Carnival of Elitist Bastards.

I encourage you to follow up the links above – I think Dana’s still looking for more contributions now and in the future. In the meantime I thought this quote from Dana rather neatly explains what the carnival’s about:

“…Elitist Bastards, who have no trouble simultaneously being common as muck and smart as all get-out. We’re not a pretentious elite, but a more populist one. We think intelligence is something to be celebrated, but I doubt any of us think it’s something reserved to a select few, and we certainly don’t think it has to make you a stuffy, proper, boring git. Calling ourselves bastards is a joyful way of announcing we’re out to have fun with our elitist tendencies.”

The beautiful photo was taken by Jose Maria Tan and uploaded to flickr.