Category Archives: Lifestyle

We still have a lot to learn

For too long, and pushing harder each year, the schooling machine has been whipping our kids through an examination-driven system more like the Grand National than an academy of life, geared at expelling productive economic units more so than rounded or wise individuals poised to conduct lives that contribute to the health of humanity and the planet. Continue reading

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How we encourage empathy…and not just in women

In a world full of people that are, we are told, less empathic than ever, how do we encourage more empathy? Do women naturally have more empathy than men, as one study suggests, or do they develop this by reading more fiction, something which men are far less inclined to do? If so, how do we plug this gap in our boy’s emotional intelligence? An article (linked) that I read this week set me off on this line of thought and these are some additional thoughts I have to contribute… Continue reading

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A sweeter way to be

Discovering this incredible, natural food source ethically and sustainably harvested in the jungles of Africa by people whose practices are gentle and whose lives have been tranformed (a food which felt like it was transforming my health) prompted me to consider many layers of broader relevance. I considered how we look forward to the future and what practices we use, for instance how we marry the best of traditional and modern methods (not always bowing to the latter…), how we take the quality of life of those producing the product into account and how their personal attributes (especially where this involves handling living things) feeds into the quality and the vibration of that product. Above all, there is something to be learned about how the sweetest and most nutritious things tend to come out of practices that involve the least interference, and bully tactics, of man. This approach to “harvesting” anything feeds into its energetic imprint when it reaches our cells as we eat it; you can literally taste the difference. When we snatch and grab at what we think is ours, the food tells a very different story… Continue reading

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Out of this world

For those of us on a recovery path from a chronic health condition, “fitting-in” was probably one of the first things we threw off. Over time, we have probably honed a sort of environmentally controlled bubble in which we carefully … Continue reading

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When cracks start to appear…and light comes pouring in

This was one of the most powerfully apt metaphors that had ever presented itself to me. When this everyday domestic appliance upon which we “relied” for sustenance formed a crack and “broke down”, I realised the issues here weren’t so much the fridge or the deteriorating food, the corporations I was dealing with, the real people on the end of the phone or even in my household as the strings pulling them all and the beliefs about life holding them together, including fears around such heavy-old-pieces of life-furniture as lack and survival, made themselves suddenly very obvious. Once we see how active our beliefs are in this world…far more “solid”, in a way, than the three-dimensional objects that come to represent them…then we start to see how powerful and necessary it is to place ourselves as heart-guardians of that domain, choosing which belief-systems we actually want to maintain in order to manifest the solid realities we really want to experience “at ground level” as it were. Importantly, we learn not to leave it up to other people, with other priorities and agendas, to determine what those belief-systems look like.

We are all seeing that system breaking down before our very eyes, its long-preserved contents quickly purifying – again like my fridge – but as I’ve learned this week, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe we didn’t need such a “great big monster” to serve our basic needs. Maybe its time to get closer to what we really want. Perhaps the wonderful new silence where that huge machine used to hum and churn in my house is a timely reminder of how we hardly detect some of the base rhythms that provoke our disquietude until they are suddenly switched off! (Read more…) Continue reading

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Bless all the lambs

Their immense zest for life is the very thing that arrests me when I watch the lambs; the way these wooly youngsters engage with absolutely everything their idyllic green world has to offer, from the comedic pheasants walking by to the playful breeze that seem to whip them into jumping spirals of the most erratic motion, like leaves lifting off the ground. They race each other in playful gangs and they collaborate with audacious climbing partners, vying to get to the top. They suddenly leap up, bronking and bucking with bizarre spring-loadedness as though the ground has just tickled them. Then, when just as suddenly spent, they gravitate to their ever watchful mother’s side and succumb to warm grassy patches where, alone or in twin pairs, they meditate away all the gentle hours, eyes half closed and, yes, a kind of smile on their faces; apparently transported by an enviable ability to surrender themselves fully to the moment. Then again, suddenly up on those spring-loaded feet, they’re back to scrambling to that water’s edge, conquering the tree stump or forming pyramids on each other’s backs. If you have ever enjoyed the simple pleasure of watching a pack of dogs playing or even (for that matter) human children, these are really no different and their joie de vive is contagious as you watch. Continue reading

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When you lose something you find something

Talking about a day of two loses on a very different scale and yet all strangely synchronistic…joined together by a song lyric. And there’s nothing like the “loss” of a living artist (though their offerings live on and on) to bring their work and motivations sharply into focus as we are suddenly inundated with retrospectives of their life’s output via every cultural channel there is; its like everything they were about is suddenly distilled down into an extraordinarily potent brew that we all get to take a sip of (if we choose to). So, maybe saturation in the mentality of an artist who never feared his most obscure offerings being ridiculed or rejected is just what is called for right now in a culture where popularity is courted as a measure of artistic success; a timely reminder that our best output, most probably, lies in a dark room from which we create our own version of light in a state of oblivion as far as the opinions of others are concerned and with no sense of an audience peering in at us. Maybe true creative genius is only unleashed once we learn to please ourselves above all others… Continue reading

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In search of hygge

Going back to what innately draws us as the winter season plays out its pantomime of darkness and severity, we find ourselves recognising the light of ourselves shining back at us across the cosy darkness of our most intimate living spaces, delivered straight out of the eyes of others we hold dear as we embrace the darkness to forge times of warmer glow in communion with family and friends, even strangers that have spontaneously gathered upon these terms of hospitality, conviviality and generally good vibe. The ability to create, cultivate and and sustain the spirit of hygge through the darkest of times is a skill-set we could all use, regardless of our seasonal light-quota. So, what is hygge? Here’s what it is (and I think you’ll like it)… Continue reading

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Flashes of insight

Imagine being able to let go of everything that ever cluttered your entire energy-field and still know – just deeply know – that it will still be there for you exactly when you need it, that you can never lose it and can call it on demand. Imagine never having to hold onto it all, to hoard, to carry the perceived symbols and weight of everything that ever happened to you, or to keep reminding yourself so that you don’t make the same mistakes again, or to share it or make sense of it in a format you can immediately pass on as some sort of duty of care to others, or to lug it all around with you wherever you go… Continue reading

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Do I even want to take this detour?

We all know how to follow our own best path and this has nothing whatsoever to do with weighing up pros and cons with our minds; its an insider job and more to do with ‘gut’ than mind. We can easily tell when we are on track because excitement starts to fizz in the stomach, we notice how all those most lovely, relaxed, creative feelings start to flow unimpeded again and how our innate power starts to rise up like a warm dancing flame from the base of the spine. Life becomes a divinely-led dance of incredibly good feelings and jaw-dropping synchronicity as we start to show up in just the right places at exactly the right time for the perfectly unexpected to happen. This can only happen when we are listening closely to our own tune… Continue reading

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