Posts tagged with "change"

The solo journey: snow, sun and sheep on the hill…

The outward journey…

Snow, falling gently on frozen ground

lightens sky and track

in the distance wood smoke rises from a tipi

leaving wispy traces in the cold, clear air

Solo participants taking their places around the circle of stones

surrounding a fire which crackles and spits

offering some comfort from the cold, winter chill

a singing bowl rings out  heralding  daybreak and time to step over another threshold

Trekking uphill, boots crunching in snow

ice cracking beneath my feet,  freezing wind biting my face

clouds tinged with pink seeming to warm the early morning winter sky

and a grouse, startled, flies low across my path.

Sun rising now beyond the hill sets clouds ablaze

before reaching a crescendo and

bursting over the horizon

 heralding a new day bright with hope and possibilities

Sheep on distant slopes

wandering aimlessly  over frozen ground

baaing hungrily and incessantly

waiting to be fed and nourished

The return journey…

Snow… a stark reminder of November 2010

when usual habits were disrupted

when global became local

when we asked questions of climate change…

Sun… dipping low in a pale wintery sky

drawing the day to a close

marking the passing of time and

reminding me of the temporal nature of life…

Sheep…  familiar now on these frozen hills

form an orderly  line behind a farmer’s quad

an indication of changing landscapes, of our impact on the land

and make me think about the global food supply

a Solo participant… returning slowly along the path ahead

seems to offer  support and challenge

opening up possibilities for me to think which path will ‘we’ take now?

Who will walk with me, talk with me, care with me, change with me?

Finally… gathering clouds obscure the sun 

signalling the end of this solo experience

returning to the tipi, I cross the threshold once more

wondering what we will take forward from this …

Where did that come from?

I am lying under a tree beside a river in a survival bag  and all of a sudden I have the need to write; here is what came:

Change, change, change!

What is it all about?

How? What? Who? Nout!

Let it be natural.

Too busy doing  for it

Too busy looking for it

Too busy hiding from it

Let it be natural.

What if I don’t want it?

What if I don’t need it?

What if it is imposed?

Let it be natural.

Don’t always need it

Not always ready for it

Don’t try to hurry it

Let it be natural.

Make sure it is environmental

Make sure it is political

Ticked all the boxes – bollocks to that !

Let it be natural.

Let it be personal

Let it be local

Let it be global

Let it be natural.

So, let it be natural

Be clear of your role in it

Make sure it’ sustainable

Don’t be afraid of  it

Simply embrace it

Like birth, like death

Natural change.

Change…

A changing landscape unfolded around us as we climbed the hill beyond the hostel, the temperature plummeting and rain threatening… 

Changing scenery and weather provided a dramatic outdoor auditorium for participants’ reports and even ‘performances’ of social change .  Fascinating stories of resistance, revolution and movements explored for the workshop were shared in an attempt to establish cultural and historical context and identify catalysts which enable change.   

Change … scenery, weather, social, natural, personal and professional would form the backdrop of many discussions and activities throughout the week…

Full Catastrophe Change

For over 20 years Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn has been working with sufferers of pain, anxiety and stress using ‘mindfulness’ meditation at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre.  He defines mindfulness elegantly as, ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally.’

I was reading his classic text ‘Full Catastrophe Living’ when I discovered something that I felt resonated strongly with the approach we use in facilitating the Natural Change Project.

‘We are putting [patients] in a paradoxical situation. They have come to the clinic hopeful of having something positive happen, yet they are instructed to practice without trying to get anywhere. Instead, we encourage them to try to be fully where they already are, with acceptance. In addition, we suggest they suspend judgement for the eight weeks they are in the [mindfulness] course and decide only at the end whether it was worthwhile.’

‘Why do we take this approach? Creating this paradoxical situation invites people to explore non-striving and self-acceptance as ways of being. It gives them permission to start from scratch, to tap a new way of seeing and feeling without holding up standards of success and failure based on a habitual and limited way of seeing their problems and their expectations about what they should be feeling. We practice the meditation in this way because the effort to try to “get somewhere” is so often the wrong kind of effort for catalysing change or growth or healing, coming as it usually does from a rejection of present-moment reality without having a full awareness and understanding of that reality’. (p.90)

The day I saw real magic happen…

I still remember the first time I saw real magic. Not the Paul Daniels, rabbit out of the hat kind, but the real thing where something that wasn’t there before suddenly appeared in the world. The venue was a rather uninspiring room in a council building somewhere in the central belt. The stage set of bad coffee and poor lighting with an audience of distracted, stressed teachers didn’t inspire much hope either.

But then the ‘magician’ took to the stage, not in evening dress or sequins, but jeans and a fleece. The trick was very simple, all that happened was the the ‘magician’ (better known as the workshop facilitator) slowed time down. Well actually she made the participants slow down, she also made the distracting concerns of work disappear to the edges of the room.

With the magic fairy dust of time and focus, wonderful things began to happen. Participants rediscovered the big stuff; why they became teachers, what they wanted to achieve, their passion for enabling others to grow and thrive. Those magic ingredients worked their alchemy and suddenly wonderful things appeared in to room; enthusiasm, passion and amazing ideas that went on to change learners experiences of education forever.

Ever since that day I have believed that one of the very few things that can genuinely change the world is to give people the gift of time free from the constant distractions of every day and then challenge them to focus their knowledge, skills, experience and ideas on the ‘big stuff’. And that is how I came to the Natural Change Programme, a process that does exactly that.

So why is it that, despite believing that time to think and focus are the most important things, I don’t seem to have any? Since the Natural Change Programme launched nearly a month ago, I’ve hosted an international conference, attended meetings, spent hours on trains, worked weekends and best of all watched my brother marry the love of his life. In amongst all this I hardy given this Programme a second thought despite the fact it will be the one thing that takes up more of my time than anything else this year.

All of which is why I find myself dashing across Glasgow to meet the bus that will whisk us away in jeans still damp from last minute laundry, with nails still displaying the impractical effects of the pre-wedding manicure, under a cloud of guilt about the emails I should have sent already and the first blog post I haven’t written yet.

So here it is, a testament to the importance of achieving more by stepping out of the tornado, from a women that is doing a passable impression of Dorothy, but with much less glamorous shoes.