Friday, March 27, 2015

Looking Up

What makes you look up? I like observing the world around me and when I'm commuting I notice that many people are absorbed in their mobile device screens, looking down the whole journey. But what makes us look up?

Over the last couple of years, I've accidentally read lots of books about birds. This has led to a change in my behaviour as 
wherever I now go I find myself looking up at birds in the sky and perched in trees. I'm not an expert bird watcher by any means, but I appreciate the birds I've read about - particularly the crow family, corvids, who are the intelligentsia of the bird world.
"What makes you look up?"
A tawny owl...
I also love birds of prey, and the most common type I see in our area are buzzards. Walking the field margins near our house I've become almost obsessed with spotting 'my' buzzards. Over the winter they've done less soaring as there have been less air thermals around, and I've seen them more in trees, on telegraph poles and on the ground. 

I spend most of my walks looking up, although I do need to occasionally look down so I don't trip. I've also seen kestrels near us, on the hover before diving to ground to strike their prey.

A few weeks ago we were walking with our kids and guide dog puppy Viking around some woods near us. We were walking slowly - toddler pace - as is often the case, and I was pointing interesting things out to my kids to keep them engaged. 

As we approached a particular tree I could see a small nest in one of the branches, and when I looked up at this it dawned on me that there was something more interesting sitting on the branch below. 
"A sleeping Tawny Owl, expertly camouflaged and sitting perfectly still.."
A sleeping Tawny Owl, expertly camouflaged and sitting perfectly still - not something you see every day. After we'd watched it for a few minutes (my kids were underwhelmed to be honest), it opened it's eyes, hunched it's shoulders and launched into a slow glide away from us in search of peace and quiet. It's amazing what you notice around you when you slow down and look up.

Clouds make me look up...
More recently I've been reading a book about clouds, which is giving me a new appreciation of the skies above too. I find myself looking out of our office window and saying to my colleagues 'that looks like a cumulus congestus to me' or some other obscure cloud type. 

Soon I might even be able to hold my own in a cloud conversation with my dad, who's quite an expert in the area from his background as a gliding instructor.

So what is it that you're looking up for? 

Looking up stops us from being self absorbed - not just on our mobile device but in our own dreams and plans and projects. It's a way of reorienting, of being inspired, being connected with those around us and the natural world we inhabit. 

"It's amazing what you notice around you when you slow down and look up."
Jim Rohn asserted that "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with". I wonder who you spend the most time with, and are they people that encourage you to look up, to dream big and be the best expression of who you're made to be? Are you spending time with people to look up to, people who stretch you, challenge you, inspire you? 

Songs of ascent
Perhaps a way of combining both these things is to spend time with others in the natural environment, or on a journey together. In the book of Psalms in the Bible, there are a fifteen psalms which are grouped together as "Songs of Ascent". 

It's thought that pilgrims would sing these psalms together as they shared their journey to Jerusalem, finding shared spiritual inspiration in the natural world on their way. 

In one of these Songs of Ascent, Psalm 121 the psalmist writes:

"I look up to the hills - does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!"

The most fulfilling journeys are shared ones where we take the time to look up and enjoy the scenery along the way. It might not be birds, or clouds, or a sleeping owl, but maybe this week it's time to look up again, look around, and find some fresh inspiration from the people and places around us.
"The most fulfilling journeys are shared ones where we take the time to look up and enjoy the scenery along the way. "
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Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on Looking Up! If you've enjoyed it why not share it with your friends on social media? Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

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Friday, March 20, 2015

The Day of Small Things

Red letter days are important...
Last weekend it was Mother's Day here in the UK. My kids diligently made cards and gave gifts to my wife to mark the day, and I even managed to get a card in the post to my own mum on time, which hasn't always happened if I'm honest. I had a conversation with my five year old daughter about it in the car a few days before, and she was asking when Daddy's Day was, and why wasn't there a kids day. Father's Day is usually in June, but I had to look up about kids day, and it turns out there are actually two internationally recognised days! One is 1st June and the other is the 20th November.

A look at most calendars and Almanacs illustrates that many days of the year mark something special or significant. Attending a Catholic school growing up, we used to have a special service on St Joseph's day (and mini mars bars at the primary school) since the order of priests who ran the school were Josephites. St Patrick's Day, marked this week, is also popular around the world. Other significant days include national holidays, historical events (like Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night on the 5th November), or anniversaries and birthdays. Even in my mid thirties my birthday feels like a special day, despite the fact that I'm usually at work (a sure sign of being a grown up).
"I think it's really important to celebrate the big and meaningful stuff in our lives..."
In the ancient world, through the middle ages and even in modern liturgical books, significant days were marked in red ink, hence the well known phrase "red letter days" to signify important occasions. I think it's really important to celebrate the big and meaningful stuff in our lives. It's great to have a day to lavish cards, chocolate and flowers to mothers on mothers day. Celebrating wedding anniversaries and major birthdays are milestones worthy of note. It's equally important to have rites of passage marking the transition from childhood to adulthood, although this seems to be something we've lost to a a degree in the West. I'm all for special days.

"Do not despise the day of small things"
One downside of big days is that the in-between days, the normal days can seem bland and colourless by comparison. We often are much less aware of the incremental changes that occur over a period of days. Like when you're growing up and you receive an occasional visit from a great-aunt, who pinches your cheek and remarks how much you've grown. I observe this reaction from wider family when they see my own kids after weeks or months - the change is less obvious to me as it's been a gradual unfolding before my eyes as they've grown.

Celebrating the ordinary is possibly more important than celebrating the extra-ordinary. Cultivating a sense of purpose, awareness and even enjoyment in the daily ordinariness is essential if we are to live fulfilling, rich lives.

Otherwise the danger is that we simply exist in between weekends, holidays and special occasions - instead we're called to truly live each day well.

Regular readers will know I'm a fan of fairly obscure Biblical quotes, and this week is no exception. In the book of Zechariah, the prophet is given a number of visions from God about the restoration of his people, who had been exiled to Babylon. In one vision, he is commanded "Do not despise the day of small things, men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel" (Zech 4:10).
"Celebrating the ordinary is possibly more important than celebrating the extra-ordinary..."
Ever since I was a teenager this phrase has stuck with me, and another translation calls it "the day of small beginnings". Sometimes we don't know what out landmark moments, our pivot points are - they just seem like small things, insignificant in the context of a normal day. But like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings and ultimately causing a hurricane, these small things have a habit of growing into bigger things - like a snowball rolling down a mountain, or a mustard seed, to quote the parable.

Who knows what butterfly effect may occur?
Maybe your week has been distinctly normal. Maybe you've just taken a small step towards or away from something. Maybe something's grown in you in a way you can't even notice. That's ok. 

If you're like me you might have huge dreams and high expectations of yourself, which can make things hard in the interim, when your skill or creativity doesn't match your desire. When you dream of being a tiger but you're just a kitten - or you have eagle sized ambition but distinctly buzzard sized wings. 

Whilst it's important that we dream big, it's ok for dreams to take time to grow, and to celebrate the days of little beginnings and small things in between the red letter occasions. Like tree planting ceremonies rather than grand ribbon-cutting building-opening moments.

What are you celebrating this week? Celebrate others, and cherish them, but celebrate those little things you've also brought to birth. Every day is full of little beginnings to be marked.
"Whilst it's important that we dream big, it's ok for dreams to take time to grow, and to celebrate the days of little beginnings and small things in between the red letter occasions"

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Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on the Day of Small Things! If you've enjoyed it why not share it with your friends on social media? Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon!

Friday, March 13, 2015

Leaving our mark

Cave art... not at Lascaux though
One family holiday when I was a child we went to the Dordogne region of France. I don't actually remember too much from our trip apart from getting a big tub of Playmobil from one of the French hypermarkets, but one part I do remember is visiting the Lascaux caves complex.

The Lascaux caves are home to a dramatic series of paleolithic paintings, considered to be some of the best preserved upper paleolithic paintings in the world. 

Among many things they show horses, cattle, bison and people as well as geometric and abstract images. The paintings are estimated to be over 17000 years old.

There is speculation over the purpose of the images, maybe they were star charts, maybe they were religious in nature. Maybe they were for story telling or even just for fun. Whatever they were for, it's amazing that the marks made by previous generations so long ago are still there for us to see.
"What we love about the pictures isn't their quality, although that's improving, but it's the process and expression behind it"

Not so far removed from cave painting are the drawings and paintings my kids make. In the last couple of weeks our three year old son has developed a passion for colouring-in, not something he'd been all that bothered about to this point. The walls of our house are strewn with our kids' artwork, although not the kitchen as we've learnt it's far too tempting there for our Guide Dog puppy Viking! 

Our kids' artwork on our walls
By most standards, the felt tip, crayon and water-based paint pictures around our house aren't world class. They're not something you'd go to an art gallery to see. The colouring is outside the lines, the figures and animals aren't in proportion, the colours are sometimes garish. What we love about the pictures isn't their quality, although that's improving, but it's the process and expression behind it. 

We want to give our kids as much space as possible to express themselves in all kinds of different ways. To practice the process in all kinds or areas. Something we're very conscious of is praising the process - so rather than saying 'you're a great artist', which can actually put pressure on them and can stifle creativity in the long run, we say things like 'look what you did when you worked hard' or something along those lines. 

Ironically when I was at primary school I remember our art teacher telling the class off for not working hard enough, then picking me out as a good example of someone who tried hard - although I remember feeling sad about this because the gist of what she'd said was that I wasn't very good but tried hard anyway! I gave up art at school a few years later. 

The question that occurred to me on this topic is: what's worse than doing a bad painting - making bad art? And the answer is making no art at all. And when I use the word art here I don't just mean cave paintings, or felt tip or crayon, but whatever is in your heart to express. Whatever you've been created to create. 
"The thing that makes you different may turn out to be the thing that gives you life."

The worst thing is not to express it, for whatever reason - rejection by others, comparison with other people's gifts and skills, modesty or fear. We're all a unique blend of our experiences, environments and talents and we all have something to contribute to those around us.

The fable of the tortoise and the ducks
Over tea the other afternoon I was reading my kids one of Aesop's fables. This one was a fable I'd not heard before, the tortoise and the ducks. I knew about the tortoise and the hare, but not about the ducks.

I won't duplicate it here, but the essence is that the tortoise spends most of the story comparing itself to other animals and focusing on what it doesn't have, when in the end the thing that makes it different, it's shell, turns out to be a lifesaver.

The moral at the end of the story is this: "Never disregard that which may prove to be the most valuable". The thing that makes you different may turn out to be the thing that gives you life. 

Although I don't need to do it so often these days, my signature is a meaningful mark. At work, when I put my signature to a report or a letter I am taking ownership and responsibility for the quality and content of that document. It's ok for draft documents to go out unsigned, but for the real thing I need to take responsibility and leave my mark. For a work of art, the absence of a great master's signature can be the difference between pricelessness and obscurity. 
"When do we begin to take ourselves so seriously that our creative well seems to dry up?"

What we often choose to forget when we're comparing our cave or crayon creations with the works of great masters is that even they had to refine and refine their process. My kids' artwork is playful and inquisitive, and long may that continue. When do we begin to take ourselves so seriously that our creative well seems to dry up? 

In my book Life Space I talk about the Japanese artist Hokusai, a master of the woodblock technique, although commentators consider his best work to have been done in his 80s. Picasso spent years painting in a realistic manner before experimenting with different forms of artistic expression such as cubism. So often we compare all our practice with other people's highlights. 
"Whether you feel your offering is stone age cave art or cubism, be confident to leave your mark"

John Henry Newman, writing in 1848 expressed our unique design this way:

"I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught."


Maybe you're hesitant to leave your mark. Maybe you're facing a blank canvas and don't know where to start. Wherever you are, whether you feel your offering is stone age cave art or cubism, be confident to leave your mark. Like the tortoise, you have something unique about you, and that's worth sharing - even if it might not be appreciated for over 17000 years like the Lascaux cave paintings!


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Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on leaving our mark! If you've enjoyed it why not share it with your friends on social media? Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon!

Friday, March 06, 2015

Making the connection

That "lightbulb" moment...
I love learning things, and sometimes that means taking things apart - although occasionally this can get me into trouble. When I was eleven or twelve I was curious about what was inside a plug, so I decided to unscrew the top and look inside.

The top came off easily enough, and I was having a good nose around when I touched the live wire and came into connection with 240V - I was taking apart a plug that was still connected to the mains, which isn't a great thing to do. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I recall involuntarily emitting a wobbly noise - not a scream but more of a "whooooooah". Fortunately I wasn't connected very long and I subsequently went downstairs a little shaky to confess what had just happened.

I learnt a lesson that day about the power of a connection to the electricity mains, and the power it takes to turn on a lightbulb.
"When I was eleven or twelve I was curious about what was inside a plug.."
Sometimes we need to push out into the current...
I don't know about you, but I've found that to really learn something I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I remembered this week about learning to row at school. Before we were allowed anywhere near a real rowing boat we visited a rowing "tank" at a nearby leisure centre.

This had real oars, real water, and real sliding seats, except that we were most definitely still on dry land. We could learn a little about handling the oars, keeping rhythm together as a crew and sliding up and down the seats during each stroke.

However for all that, after the experience, none of us had really learned to row - we'd only been going through the motions. And unlike the graceful unison of a top crew we were more like an epileptic spider, thrashing and flailing its limbs.

To properly learn we needed to sit in a real boat, be pushed off the landing stage and into the centre of the river and THEN start taking real strokes. It was only when out in the current that we could learn the balance and rhythm we needed to row properly.

Sometimes you've got to push out into the current to work through your wobbles and get your balance in a way that you can't when you're still firmly connected to the ground.
"Sometimes you've got to push out into the current to work through your wobbles."
After a few sessions in the boat, there was a moment when all the motions and balance suddenly came together, the lightbulb went on and I was able to row. The metaphor of a bulb lighting up when we finally "get it", when we have that eureka moment, harks back to Thomas Edison. Edison was a serial inventor, and when he turned his attention to coming up with a commercially practicable lightbulb, much of the time was initially spent working through different materials to see which one would give the right results and actually light up the bulb. In the end it was carbon filaments which proved the breakthrough. One of Edison's more famous quotes was "I have not failed, I've just found 10000 ways that don't work." I take heart from this,  since what we perceive as failures in our lives are often instead just ways that didn't work, material we're left with which just didn't make that particular connection at the time.

What makes your chain?
We live in a part of the UK's West Midlands called the Black Country, a region that was at the heart of the industrial revolution and so named for the air pollution from the proliferation of coal mines, iron foundries, and steel mills at that time. In the particular corner of the Black Country we live the cottage industry for many years was nailmaking, from the 1600s until the industrial revolution itself.

Sadly, the invention of machines to mass produce nails was a nail in the coffin to the individual nailmakers of the area, but what sprung up instead was chainmaking. Instead of breaking the billets of iron or steel down into nails, the former nailers joined the billets themselves up into chains - indeed the anchor chain of the Titanic was made within a couple of miles of our house. Sometimes, like the Black Country nailers, we can feel like our skills or resources are no longer needed, when in fact all we need to do is reshape our raw material into something else.

I'm a huge fan of re-purposing and upcycling raw or waste materials, and my daughter and I recently converted two old shelves into birdboxes for our garden - one of which is already gaining the attention of a pair of local bluetits - a much better purpose than remaining a piece of scrap wood.
"Sometimes... we can feel like our skills or resources are no longer needed, when in fact all we need to do is reshape our raw material into something else."

So what's the next link in your chain? Or what resources and experiences can you re-shape into something different?

It was as nail making reached it's peak that the process became obsolete through mechanisation, and a similar thing occurred with telecommunications in the twentieth century. In the book "The Idea Factory", Jon Gernter tells the story of Bell Labs and their innovations in telephony and electronics.

Just as they were perfecting the art of laying submarine telephone cable across the Atlantic to optimise transatlantic communication, some of their brightest minds were inventing the prototype telecommunications satellite. With the launch of Telstar 1 in 1962, the era of satellite communications began, swiftly rendering the network of submarine cables relatively obsolete.

Sometimes, the next link in our chain isn't to improve the process we've always done, but instead to undergo a radical shift. Moving from nails to chains, from cables to satellites.

Maybe the lightbulb moment you need right now is about recognising what new shape your raw materials can make.

Maybe you've been going through the motions on dry land and need to push out into the river current. Whatever it is, take heart and seek out the connection, the next link in your chain... just don't go taking apart plugs connected to the mains...

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Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on making the connection! If you've enjoyed it why not share it with your friends on social media? Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space and my BRAND NEW BOOK Sight Lines on Amazon!



My Random Musings