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1: I and Thou
Summary Austrian-born philospher Martin Buber wrote that there are two modes of engaging with others. The predominant mode places I over the objectified other (It). This is the mode that modern...
read article2: The Body of I and Thou
Summary The structural habits of our body filter our experience of the world around us and reduce the incoming data that contributes to our thought and behavioural patterns. If we want to try...
read article3: An interlude: walking into walls
Stand in front of a wall, at least two metres away from it. Close your eyes. Walk forwards until you touch the wall. Repeat Sometimes the best exercises are those that seem to have absolutely no...
read article4: Lift me up
Summary Breathe a long, slow inhale up the length of your back, feeling it encourage your head higher Once you can feel your verticality being moved by your breath, begin to attend to it while...
read article5: Don't bring me down
Summary Breathe a long, slow inhale up the length of your back, feeling it encourage your head higher. Allow a long, slow exhale to stroke down your front, releasing your ribcage, and encouraging a...
read article6: Aloha!
This fascinating exercise comes my study at Frankie Briers' Wise Fool School. Each week of the course, he invited us to take on a practice and see what emerged from it. This particular week's exercise...
read article7: Aloha revisited
Enter the room, aloha. Leave the room, aloha. I usually have a quiet hour each day before anyone else gets up, if you ignore the fogginess of getting out of bed that walks with me as I fumble my way...
read article8: Welcome the world
Summary Breathe a long, slow inhale up the length of your back, feeling it encourage your head higher. Allow a long, slow exhale to stroke down your front, releasing your ribcage, and encouraging a...
read article9: Gather yourself
Summary Breathe a long, slow inhale up the length of your back, feeling it encourage your head higher. Allow a long, slow exhale to stroke down your front, releasing your ribcage, and encouraging a...
read article10: Standing in the polarity of Yes and No
This is another Wise Fool School production by Frankie Briers. He invited us to stand in the polarity of Yes and No. This has a very particular practice as a standing meditation. He explains: The...
read article11: Thank you
Dear body I have so much to be grateful for that this letter is unlikely to capture all the years. This morning you walked me along the beach, sang to me the hissing of the waves, hummed to me the...
read article12: Encountering real magic
I'm trying to find a way back to Buber, not because I've left him behind, but because I haven't made the connection explicit for a while. My intention is to cultivate the conditions that make an...
read article13: It's all in the anticipation
Breathe a long, slow inhale up the length of your back, feeling it encourage your head higher. Allow a long, slow exhale to stroke down your front, releasing your ribcage, and encouraging a soft...
read article14: Taking my own medicine
There's a wee power struggle going on at the moment. Our youngest daughter, who is a brilliant story-teller, has been given the task of writing a short story. She doesn't do short. We've been trying...
read article15: The first conversation
We had recently moved out of London in order to bring up very young children. I still had a two-hour commute to work each day. I was constantly at the behest of the clock and permanently exhausted. My...
read article16: Fancy a cuppa?
Before you read this, make yourself a cup of tea (or coffee). Seriously. Now, pick it up and then put it down again. Listen carefully. Pick it up. D'you hear it? A slight sound as you lift it? Put it...
read article17: Look at your hands
Look at your hands awhile. Turn them over and study them, their curves and lines, maybe stretch the fingers open a few times as if receiving a gift and then release them. Look now at one hand, thumb...
read article18: The quality of your desire
Summary We do or we don't want things (actual things, or relationships, or ideas). We desire them, or we avoid them or we fear them. Any which way, we are in a relationship with the thing as we see...
read article19: The ideas room
I'm tired. My list of writing ideas has been emptied out. So I sit at my desk, awaiting inspiration. It's an interesting process – it feels as if possibilities are getting edited out just before they...
read article20: Different voices of head, heart & hara
Summary The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Even so, it helps to locate and listen to the different voices within. Our different parts are intelligent in different ways and, by listening...
read article21: In the beginning was the Word ...
Summary Learn to speak from the whole of you by talking to each part in turn. Take one word Play along. Take a single word – yes or no . Go stand in front of a wall, say it out loud. In order to feel...
read article22: Writing the three centres ...
Summary Another way into hearing your whole self speak is to write from each part in turn. I wanted to write about writing from your whole self today, but something's come up. My eldest daughter has...
read article23: Practising to show up
The first step in speaking your truth is just showing up. And that - when dealing with swirling thoughts in your head - can be a whole challenge of its own. I’ve lost count of the number of times that...
read article24: Spinning the ropes
I've a new hobby, though it's strange to call it that. It's just something I do most days. I spin a rope. It's about the thickness of my thumb, with a couple of knots I've tied at the ends as handles,...
read article25: Writing as transmission
If you stop to think about it, writing is a torturous path for passing on knowledge. I have an experience. I reduce it down to a few distinct thoughts about that experience. I write it down,...
read article26: Grokking the world
There's a universe between what you can see and you can't see; there's a multitude of noises between what you can hear and can't hear. What's just out of sight? What's just beyond your...
read article27: The nature of meaning
That turns out to be a better title than I had intended - meaning is something we humans create to connect things not obviously connected, therefore it is a human construct. But I'm interested in...
read article28: Silencing
Last week, a meteorite smashed down on a driveway in rural England. The homeowner thought that someone had thrown a lump of coal on their tarmac. Thankfully, the news that day was full of scientists...
read article29: A new start
When I was 15, I was part of our school's Combined Cadet Force (CCF). It was that kind of boys' school – play rugby and other team sports, study Latin and Ancient History, and prepare yourself to join...
read article30: I don't exist
I am formed and brought to life by relationship with others (incuding non-animate and non-human others). Philosopher Martin Buber wrote that there are two ways of being in the world. The most common...
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