WORDS in ACTION

Churchill apparently wrote in bed.  I do too from time to time, mostly the Julia Cameron ‘morning pages’ although sometimes I have taken the laptop and the pot of tea back to bed and worked there.  This morning I ‘wrote’ in my sleep.  Well, must have been half asleep but it felt as though I was a long way down, a bit like a lucid dream.  I drifted for a bit but when I woke more fully, I could still remember the train of thought which had been forming, not as random snippets, but as sentences.   So after a quick muesli fix, I took myself to the PC, wrote down the first sentences and continued to write about 1200 words in about 45 minutes.  They may never see the light of day publication-wise but I’m following the process of generating stuff as uncritically as possible in order to have the material to work on.  ‘Don’t get it right, get it written!’

It also reminds me of how I work best.  It’s important to write even when it feels like squeezing the last bit out of the toothpaste tube.  But knowing how and when we connect best to the act of writing is a real find!

A new and very convincing distraction arrived on Tuesday in the form of an urgent request for a magazine article.  What more virtuous distraction can there be?  I took up the challenge and slaved happily over a hot PC until I had produced the required 1200 words.  I could have opted for 600 but as is well known, that’s harder to do.  Apparently it was Pascal who wrote  ‘I have made this (letter) longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter’.   I had remembered and attributed it differently.  Which goes to show that I talk through a hole in my hat.  On the other hand, just because it’s on a website, doesn’t make it true…

Back to the grind!

Well, you might know.  After weeks of ‘mixed’ weather (I’m competing for Euphemism of the Week) the sun is blazing down as I sit here at the PC attempting to focus on the oeuvre.  Blogging does get the juices running so this doesn’t count as a distraction.   I claim.
But what about the phone call I’ve  just taken?  I’ve moved the handset out of reach but I forgot that I was meant to be screening calls and got out of my seat to answer.

The friend who rang was urgently seeking the phone number of another friend.   It was  in a professional context.  We didn’t natter and when I hung up, I reflected that I was glad I’d been able to help.  (‘I’m too busy writing about my core values to listen to you’..I don’t think so.)   If I had a deadline, it would be different.  And not every caller would be brief.   I’ve set an auto email message.  I should really change the voicemail so that folk who really need to be in touch know that I’m here and others can try later.

I expect you’ll have heard this one:
A ‘I’m writing a novel’
B ‘Neither am I’
The same could be said about this blog but not any more!   I have dedicated a chunk of July to writing, starting with the WORDS in ACTION newsletter (you can sign up using the box below left) and the blog.

In the newsletter, I said a bit about my retreat time in Perthshire.   The place had been recommended to me but it took me about 2 years to organise myself to go.  It turned out to be just right for me.   Run by the society of the Sacred Heart,  it offers a space for the ‘holistic spiritual development of the individual’.   There are no traditionally religious symbols or pictures in the public spaces.  Instead the focus is on the natural beauty of the surroundings.  This makes for an inclusive space where most could feel welcome.   The self catering accommodation can be booked for time alone to study, rest or contemplate.   You don’t need to provide credentials!  You can just be there, being you!

I opted to meet with a spiritual director/companion for an hour each day.  I had an open mind about what we might talk about but I knew that I would make better use of the rest of the silent solitary time with that in place.

Their workshops and retreats are based on either the Ignatian exercises, ‘the interconnectedness of the spiritualities of East and West’ or on ‘finding God through the threshold of the body’.

Though grounded in the Christian tradition, I’ve found a lot of practical wisdom in what I know of the Buddhist tradition.   Educated in a very ‘head-based’ culture, I know that I need to keep learning to trust the knowledge of my body.  My guide began by advising me to do exactly what my body wanted.  ‘If it wants to sleep, stay in bed’ – that sounded good to me!  I slowed right down, and tried to attend only to one activity at a time.  Multi-tasking may be a skill but it can also be a taskmaster!

The kind of  ‘doing nothing’ that isn’t just vegging out can be quite scary.  What thoughts and feelings will arise in the quiet?  My time was  reassuring and affirming, listening for what I needed to learn about myself and to continue exploring what it might mean to speak of  ‘God’.

Up to now,  I haven’t blogged much about spiritual matters, keeping that side of my life separate from the business side.  We live in a pluralistic secular society where it can seem easier to compartmentalise the different facets of one’s life.   But my work is increasingly with or funded by charities and churches so I’m being nudged into ‘coming out’!  It’s a two-way thing.  Working in that context continues to challenge my own thinking.  It also resources me for the whole of my life when I take time out as I did last month.

Have been discouraged from web presence by poor broadband.  Now much better with the help of a wireless dongle.   iplayer here we come!  Oh, yes it’s meant to be for work too.  Expect the reappearance of the newsletter.

Called in at the swimming pool to check opening times for family visiting next week.  ‘The schools will be back’.  Here am I, just gearing up towards Easter and it’s all over for much of the population.  Except it’s not because then there will be that wedding and then the May holiday…I’m glad I’m no longer preparing young person for exams.  Only about 6 days schooling in April.  I’m all for holidays but this is something else.

Being self-employed, I often forget about bank holidays and wonder why nobody’s answering the phone.   Once I clock the fact, it’s a great day for doing some back office work undisturbed.

However, once I’ve got my head round this year’s arrangements, I intend to enjoy some of the spring weather we’re promised.   I know, the lilacs are out down south and the magnolias probably been and gone.   But it’s still daffodil time here.   So even if teachers and kids are back, it’s going to be fun time at Clark Towers.

I hope I’m spreading it sensibly.  I’ve just scheduled a newsletter to go out tomorrow which should be automatically tweeted.  It includes a special spring coaching deal which you’ll find on the home page of the website.
I’ve been glued to a hot PC trying to format the newsletter – meant to be easy but because I don’t do it often enough I forget how the wizard thingy works. Tea and coffee ran out because the water went off without warning.

About 1pm I’d passed a man sitting on a library stool on the pavement watching a torrent of water bubbling out of the ground.  ‘Should I go home and build an ark?’ I asked.  ‘Well at least fill a kettle’ he said, ‘because the whole lot’s going off.  The valves are all decayed.’
Several hours later I rang Scottish Water who had  (the nice man said) just received a notice saying that they were gradually building up pressure and there should be water again in 15 minutes.  It took about 30 but it returned. Lucky to have only such a minor inconvenience!

After a very crowded work schedule, I’ve managed a theatre visit and some great stuff on the box.  Sue Glover’s ‘Marilyn’ at the Citz was amazing. For those who didn’t get along, it focussed on a time when M and Arthur Miller were neighbours to Simone Signoret and Yves Montand.  Great cast of 3 women with Marilyn played by Frances Thorburn, perfect for the part physically and with the sort of singing voice which can’t be acquired – pure gift.  Glamorous, funny and sad.  I applaud the author’s courage in tackling an icon so often celebrated.  Moves to Edinburgh this coming week.

As for ra telly, I thought Melvyn Bragg’s hour last night on the King James Bible was fascinating.   Some detail was familiar, some new to me and interesting to see how personally engaged he was.   I’m not often a long term devotee of a programme but am completely hooked by the Danish thriller ‘The Killing’.  Much more than a crime drama.   All the stuff I’d say about it is neatly covered here.

I have been known to joke that I came to live by the sea (or estuary strictly speaking) to save me the bother of learning a meditation discipline. Just watching the waves does it.  So I was fascinated by a recent programme about them.  I’m not so serious minded that I normally take notes while watching a documentary but I found myself grabbing a pencil and madly jotting. Perhaps you all knew that waves aren’t made of water!  Surfers apparently understand all this – well they would – but needless to say I have never surfed except inadvertently when I once found myself returning to shore in a sort of washing machine effect.
David Malone set out to explore the science of waves and became quite philosophical when he began to see the life cycle of waves as having something in common with the life of human beings.  4 days left to view The Secret Life of Waves

I’ve had an interesting week, facilitating groups in Greenock and then in Edinburgh.   While there, I went to see  Scottish Ballet’s Cinderella.   We were, all four of us, completely caught up in this production which as well as being spectacularly costumed, romantic and witty, engaged with the dark heart of the old tale.   Apparently it can be traced back to ancient China.   I guess dysfunctional families are as old as families.

Prokofiev’s music and the detail of the production tapped into deeper emotions than one might usually expect at a festive season ballet.   The ashes in the hearth were not the only cinders.  At one point the stepsisters empty Cinderella’s dead mother’s ashes over her and toss away the urn!

I do wonder  what the party-frocked little girls in  the audience made of the ending.  The stepsisters pushed their mother across the stage in a wheelchair, all three with their eyes bandaged, having been pecked out by birds!  But then children are often less squeamish – and indeed more bloodthirsty – than adults.    Some pics!