Heavy Metal Wild Flowers

It has been some time since I have posted, twelve years have passed since our trip to Liverpool and I approach my sixtieth birthday with eyes darting from past to present to future with a growing sense of unease and isolation. Of course, all of these feelings and thoughts are not new, nor are they particularly special but they present a daily challenge, of mastering the human mind and the attendant feelings both emotional and physical; a challenge that we are still wrestling with thousands of years after the Tao was written, Gautama, Jesus and the Hindu scribes sought to make sense of our presence and which now is my preoccupation. I seek solace and connection in the natural world, in music and company, though I find myself less drawn to human interaction... busyness seems to distract and pervade.At least the garden is ready for Spring, a glorious chaos with neat borders that I dabble with whilst life continues, heedless of my tidying.

In my Liverpool home...

Just returned from a wonderful weekend in Liverpool. In turns we have been scared by tribes of brightly dressed Amazons click clacking across shining cobbles cackling and hooting, revolted by dank, vomit slewed side streets and amused by local history PHDs driving taxis, delivering 5 minute lectures over their shoulders. The town centre is now a true reflection of Liverpool's civic pride, ambition, history and weaknesses. If London is a many volumed history book, sprawling, detailed and comprehensive, then Liverpool is a poem, life distilled, intense, passionate and chaotically rhythmic...

23/12/2010

The Birth of Hope

Tonight I watched the fourth and last episode of the BBC's version of the Nativity. Biblically inaccurate, unnecessarily back storied, but still the tears streamed down my face at the birth of a peasant boy in a small village in the middle east.

How can this be? Why does this story, imperfect and muddled, annoying and enchanting by turns still have the power to bring such strong emotions forth? Is it the connections we make to our own experiences? Is it the beginning of an amazing story, the shaping of a man who changed the world? Is it the orthodox view of the coming of the Messiah, the beginning of a religion that has shaped the values of the society and culture we live in whether we like it or not?

Or is it the essential truth that each birth is miraculous, a bundle of spiritual and physical potential, unsullied by disappointment and failure and betrayal, the triumphant cry of hope that rings eternally throughout the universe?

I don't know, but this Christmas is special because of this flawed but timeley reminder of what we can all be...miracle workers, world changers, sons of God

Rotunda the Snow-woman

22/12/2010 Procrastination ah huh huh...

About to complete my annual tax return; procrastination is a luxurious feeling, bathed in the glow of avoiding that which you know you should do, but finding many other wonderful things to do instead! Write to friends, update your iPhone, make another cup of tea, check your email, wrap a present, post that thing on Ebay you were going to sell in the Summer! It's amazing what you can get done when you procrastinate!

Note to self: stop with the exclamation marks, it makes you look like one of your Year 6 students.

Oh yeah? Whaddayouknow? At least I check my speling and use paragraphs!

There you go again!

Well you're doing it now!

Agh.. okay calm down and get back on track.

Which was...procrastinating!!!

Now flip the coin: The key to overcoming procrastination is to write a blog about it...no,no, no that's not right, erm aah yes! (sic) (what does sic mean?) the key to overcoming procrastination IS...copy someone who doesn't!

Hoorah!

Who?

Someone highly effective, how about Stephen Covey? In his work on "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Covey describes how you prioritise tasks using a simple table:

The key is to focus on the top right quadrant, after you have cleared your top lefts. This will take time and effort, but when you get the hang of it you end up doing less panicking and stressing in top left and more quality work in top right. I currently am right in there, working top right on my blog.

Now having shared, I will dabble in a little bottom right before returning to my top left! In other words I will sign off now, make another cup of tea and get on with my tax return.

I shall leave you with a moment of peace and reflection captured earlier this week.

God Bless You and keep learning.

First Thought 21/12/2010

Just finished reading John Peel's auto/biography and thought if he had blogged it would have been a much easier job for his wife to finish the book after he died. Also my personal excellence guru keeps urging me to write and I am concerned about approaching senility as I am halfway to 48 so it can't be long now.

So as a preamble I think I have justified this ego-shoulder rub and here goes!

Snow rests heavily on the rounded shoulders of Bourne End, the chill river like an icy scarf holding us in thrall. The song birds fight for survival in -5 with an irrepressible brightness whilst curmudgenly neighbours complain the impudent weather ought to clear off now it's had it's fun.

I luxuriate in school holiday fug, unwashed and fuddled, moving paper from one pile to another whilst "Bullet for my Valentine" cries in vain from my huffing eMac.

Wine has been ordered, utility providers chastised, e-mails scoured and personal accounts brought to book.

Wankel rotary engine! Embarassed? If so please sign up to Professor Karl Gruber's excellent course.

John Peel was in many ways a duffer, stumbling his way through a miasma of post-war confusion, trying all manner of routes to his purpose, fiercely refusing to conform in his gentle hippyish way. In music he found his calling, his connection to the rest of the human race, his raison d'etre, his own personal niche and resolutely stuck to his values; he was adored for it. From this vanatage point he was able to use his generosity, humour and love of music to touch millions and he is a shining example of how we can all be excellent as long as we pursue our purpose relentlessly.