“To be anything other than Fully Incarnate is a cop-out.”
The words a close friend (a Christian priest) said to me (on my Taoist spiritual path) when I was chairing a big inner city community association. We were discussing our frustrations about how difficult it was to persuade anyone to voluntarily get up and physically move their bodies to a place where they could come together with others to DO things. In community spaces, in person, hands on, to commit to work together to catalyse changes.
—-//
“You won’t change anything from the outside, you must get up and get yourself elected to the inside”
The words a UK MP said to me when I was part of protest groups trying to make some tall and loud waves both locally and nationally. He was right and I did it for some years but everyone’s Politics got in the way. Except in cross party sub-committees and working groups where we all met in person, looked each other in the eye, saw exactly the same passion for doing and being catalysts and worked together.
——-
“Watch, perceive, listen, feel … find empty space, now flow in to it”
The words of a tai chi master with limited English, physically teaching me an aspect of a martial application I was struggling with.
———-
“We all need some martial spirit in life”
Words said by my beloved
———-
So yes, yes and yes again to all you have said here Caroline!
You touched so many things here. I'm resisting the pull to say something clever. I just want to say thank you for reminding these weary eyes it's ok that they grow moist sometimes.
“Social justice language calls this ‘privilege’. My fingers instead typed ‘un-earned-blessing’, surprising me. I prefer it.”
Mostly I like this because it reminds me how many, many life enriching blessings and wisdom I have received by learning to live frugally, by deliberately choosing to earn less and yet DO more. “Un-earned blessings” is a lovely term because for me it doesn’t just mean ‘privilege’ in the conventional social justice language. I feel privileged in so many ways.
I seem to have been doing plenty of ‘non-earning’ hours each week for decades now and yet I receive such plentiful un-earned blessings. It is a privilege to have stepped outside of the machine, the treadmill of economic expectations. Still always doing paid work to earn just a little more than ‘enough’ to really enjoy life. I’ve been lucky with timings and opportunities. OK I’m white, middle class with a 70s grammar school education and my parents only ever owned a little modern terraced house. That in itself was a huge privilege! So I have that side too. Just Enough choice is the real blessing.
The blessings of choosing to earn less come with time expanding, to embrace more experiences, volunteering, moving from inner city to rural life, gardening, caring in the home for years for parents and in laws with Alzheimer’s and terminal illness, bringing up a child, now an adult with similar values, studying, practising for decades then teaching tai chi, qigong and Taoist meditation. It feels very normal of course, but I keep being reminded that it’s not and that it’s such a blessing!
Many resonances here, for me. I've always felt that if we're fortunate enough to be born in a physical body on this beautiful planet, we should embrace our physicality in all its earthy richness. As for Nasruddin, I first met him in Idries Shah's wonderful books when in my teens and have loved these parables ever since. Although I do feel sorry for his donkey, who seems to have an unusually eventful existence.
“To be anything other than Fully Incarnate is a cop-out.”
The words a close friend (a Christian priest) said to me (on my Taoist spiritual path) when I was chairing a big inner city community association. We were discussing our frustrations about how difficult it was to persuade anyone to voluntarily get up and physically move their bodies to a place where they could come together with others to DO things. In community spaces, in person, hands on, to commit to work together to catalyse changes.
—-//
“You won’t change anything from the outside, you must get up and get yourself elected to the inside”
The words a UK MP said to me when I was part of protest groups trying to make some tall and loud waves both locally and nationally. He was right and I did it for some years but everyone’s Politics got in the way. Except in cross party sub-committees and working groups where we all met in person, looked each other in the eye, saw exactly the same passion for doing and being catalysts and worked together.
——-
“Watch, perceive, listen, feel … find empty space, now flow in to it”
The words of a tai chi master with limited English, physically teaching me an aspect of a martial application I was struggling with.
———-
“We all need some martial spirit in life”
Words said by my beloved
———-
So yes, yes and yes again to all you have said here Caroline!
Wonderful, I enjoyed this very much and look forward to more.
Thank you. Let's hope there's a break in the hide-tanning this week so that I can get a chance to type up the next one!
You touched so many things here. I'm resisting the pull to say something clever. I just want to say thank you for reminding these weary eyes it's ok that they grow moist sometimes.
It is ok!
Loved this post. It resonates, as do your music offerings. Much gratitude, Caroline.
Glad you have enjoyed the music too. It's a rich time of discovery for me with new music, at the moment.
I love the way your words shift perceptions…
“Social justice language calls this ‘privilege’. My fingers instead typed ‘un-earned-blessing’, surprising me. I prefer it.”
Mostly I like this because it reminds me how many, many life enriching blessings and wisdom I have received by learning to live frugally, by deliberately choosing to earn less and yet DO more. “Un-earned blessings” is a lovely term because for me it doesn’t just mean ‘privilege’ in the conventional social justice language. I feel privileged in so many ways.
I seem to have been doing plenty of ‘non-earning’ hours each week for decades now and yet I receive such plentiful un-earned blessings. It is a privilege to have stepped outside of the machine, the treadmill of economic expectations. Still always doing paid work to earn just a little more than ‘enough’ to really enjoy life. I’ve been lucky with timings and opportunities. OK I’m white, middle class with a 70s grammar school education and my parents only ever owned a little modern terraced house. That in itself was a huge privilege! So I have that side too. Just Enough choice is the real blessing.
The blessings of choosing to earn less come with time expanding, to embrace more experiences, volunteering, moving from inner city to rural life, gardening, caring in the home for years for parents and in laws with Alzheimer’s and terminal illness, bringing up a child, now an adult with similar values, studying, practising for decades then teaching tai chi, qigong and Taoist meditation. It feels very normal of course, but I keep being reminded that it’s not and that it’s such a blessing!
Yes, sometimes it can feel normal, on the edges of things. Thanks for sharing these insights.
Many resonances here, for me. I've always felt that if we're fortunate enough to be born in a physical body on this beautiful planet, we should embrace our physicality in all its earthy richness. As for Nasruddin, I first met him in Idries Shah's wonderful books when in my teens and have loved these parables ever since. Although I do feel sorry for his donkey, who seems to have an unusually eventful existence.