Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘from the dark room’ Category

Putting things in perspective

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, photography on July 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Atlantic moon

Even the moon looks small over an Atlantic this big.

Read Full Post »

The A to Z of Becoming. Part 2. A for Amaze

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on July 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The A to Z of Becoming has been very popular over the last 26 Sundays (if you want to see any of the posts, search “a to z” using the search box on this blog homepage). A number of readers have asked me what will happen now that last Sunday was “z for zigzag”. The answer is Part 2 starts today.

Ready for another 26 verbs?

Well, let’s start again with A. This time, A is for Amaze.

The French concept of émerveillement is a core value for me in daily life, and one of the connotations of that word is amazement. So the verb for this week is “amaze”.

We can think of this from two different perspectives –

  1. what amazes you?
  2. what do you do to amaze someone else?

Here’s one of the many things which amazes me, and I hope it will amaze you too…..

pre-history

These are impressions left in the rocks by prehistoric people who were probably amongst the first inhabitants of Scotland. Look what happens when we flip this image up the other way

stand out

 

So, this amazes me in two ways.

First it I find these marks and indentations quite astonishing. To think how many thousands of years have passed since someone made them. And how did they make them? And why did they make them?

Second, I noticed that looking at these rain-filled indentations from one side of the rock made the water look concave, but from the other, they look convex. Luckily, I could capture that with my camera.

Isn’t that amazing?

It sure amazes me!

So, why not think about amazement this week and be prepared to both be amazed, and to amaze!

Read Full Post »

The wide open

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on July 5, 2014| 1 Comment »

wide open

That’s what the world is like…..wide open.

Read Full Post »

The month of July

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on July 1, 2014| 1 Comment »

july rest

In my twelve monthly themes, July has a theme of rest or of taking a pause.

Traditionally, these summer rest days, or rest weeks, are thought of as holidays. In Scotland there is a tradition of “Fair Fortnights” or “Trades Fortnights”, when all the businesses in a particular town would close for the same two weeks. In Glasgow, “The Glasgow Fair” is still a two week holiday period which starts with a Monday holiday. It’s a long time since all businesses shut down for the same two weeks, but a lot of Glasgow people will book an annual holiday for the two weeks of “The Fair”. In France, there is still a widespread tradition of taking a holiday in August, to the extent that the first day of the August holidays is known as “Le Grand Depart” (don’t think I have to translate that one for you, do I?)

If you do have a holiday coming up this month, what are you going to do during that time? Spend it alone, or with family, or friends? Stay at home, or go and live somewhere else for a few days (a tent, a caravan, a guest house or hotel)? Whatever your choices, I expect that your days will be quite different from your “usual” days, and I think that gives you a real opportunity.

Here’s your time to pause, to stand back, to see things from on high, to reflect. Yes, it’s a time for rest, or for exploration, or adventure, but it’s also something like what the Tibetan Buddhists call a “bardo“.

The term bardo can also be used metaphorically to describe times when our usual way of life becomes suspended….

 

The Med

Read Full Post »

The A to Z of Becoming. Z for Zigzag

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on June 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Red arrows Stirling

Well here we are at Z in the A to Z of Becoming, 26 verbs to help you make your life a better one. Z is for zigzag.

Zigzag?

Years and years ago I read Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, and one point she made in that book has stayed with me ever since. She described how an aircraft flying from A to B does NOT fly in a straight line, even though it looks like that, but in fact the pilot is continuously adjusting the direction of the plane turning now slightly to the right, now slightly to the left. Actually, I seem to recall, she said the plane is actually technically flying “off course” for more than 90% of the journey (if the “course” is a straight line from A to B).

I loved that insight.

This is what we do. We continuously adjust our direction of travel to stay on track. We travel in a kind of zigzag way because we are always checking to see where we are heading, and making adjustments to get where we want to go.

As with flying an aircraft, this is how we go through life. I think this example is a great counter to unrealistic perfectionism. Yes, we may be trying to achieve something, trying to get somewhere, and when we check we might discover that we have been blown a little (or a lot!) of course! But then we adjust and get back on track.

This example came to mind for me when I was taught how to practice TM – with the wonderful single piece of training which was “just gently return to the mantra” – I loved that way of teaching. When meditating, and you notice your mind has wandered off to remember something or to worry about something, just notice that’s what is happening, and “gently return to the mantra”.

That’s what the zigzag is about. Noticing, and gently returning.

Happy zigzagging!

Read Full Post »

Listening, understanding, supporting, advising and inspiring

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, photography on June 28, 2014| 1 Comment »

As I am about to enter my last week of 36 years of clinical practice, it’s probably inevitable that I find myself reflecting a bit.

Hilltop reflection

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is what good I might have done as a doctor, and, for me, I don’t think of that in terms of “outcomes”. What I’ve been thinking about instead is what did patients find valuable about their contact with me? The answer to that question has been made clear by the letters, cards and verbal feedback I’ve been receiving over these last few weeks.

There are certain themes which recur again and again amongst the thanks and good wishes people have expressed. Five of the main themes are in those verbs in the title of this post.

december gratitude

Listening. This is what is mentioned more than anything else. I’m not at all surprised by that. I just love listening to people’s stories. Endlessly fascinating and always unique. I don’t really see how any doctor can practice good medicine without being an attentive, non-judgmental, active listener.

Understanding. I think its important not just that I understand a patient, but that in the process of the consultation, they not only feel understood, but they come to understand themselves better. Making a diagnosis is a form of understanding. Diagnosing a particular disease process is a useful part of understanding…..but it’s only a start. As Osler said

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

Supporting. Many patients thank me for my support. That support isn’t just compassionate emotional support, but it involves supporting people in their choices and decisions, and supporting the natural capacity for self-healing which every human has.

Advising. I don’t think patients come to see doctors just to be listened to, understood and supported. They come for advice. Advice in the form of information, diagnosis, help in making choices, and in the form of therapies. All therapies are, in one sense, a form of advice. If I prescribe a treatment, that treatment takes some information and energy into the person’s body, and their adaptive system responds….it changes the inner state.

Inspiring. This is the word which pleases me most, and which is most repeated by patients, colleagues and students. I just love that people feel inspired by me, and I hope that, through my writing and photography that I inspire many more people in the years ahead.

A few years back I wrote a post listing the three verbs based on light which I thought were at the core of my values – lighten, brighten and enlighten………still relevant now.

Read Full Post »

A life for living

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology on June 25, 2014| 1 Comment »

A seat in the garden

I took this photo the other day in the garden at the Centre for Integrative Care. It provokes certain thoughts for me, because in this view I see an abundance, a flourishing, a diversity of green Life and I see a place to facilitate its full enjoyment, a place to pause, to slow down, to be present.

So, here’s what I’m thinking today……Life is for living, and that living has at least two important aspects – the full enjoyment of Life, and the creation of uniqueness.

Whatever other reasons we might find for being here, we all, moment by moment, have the opportunity to fully enjoy this Life – that captures for me the sense of émerveillement du quotidien which I often to refer to, that sense of wonder, of seeing and experiencing everything as if for the first time and for the last time. It captures the teaching about slowness, of mindfulness and of being present in the NOW.

If there is one quality of Life I’d focus on it’s change. Change is constant. Nothing, but nothing, stays the same. Life is a continuously unfolding, creative, emergent process. We are creative creatures. We create our perception of reality. We c0-create our daily experiences with others, and with the world in which we are alive.

So, when I look at this photo I see these two phenomena – a full enjoyment of the flourishing diversity of Life, and the creative expression of the Universe.

 

Read Full Post »

One wild and precious rose

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, narrative, personal growth, photography on June 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

Wild rose

This is a photo of a wild rose (or, in this case, I believe, the “dog rose”)……one of my most favourite flowers.

Traditionally this flower is a birth month flower for those born in June – that’s me. And symbolically the rose is a flower of love, ideal love, and passion. For the homeopaths amongst you, Jan Scholten places the Dog Rose at Stage 10 in the Rosaceae family.

The rose in this photo lives in the garden at the NHS Centre for Integrative Care, where I’ve worked for many years…..(only another few days now, last day at work there will be July 4th – “Independence Day”).

I like that there is a rose in the garden there which will always connect me to that place and all the people there who make it such a special place.

I love the story of the rose in “The Little Prince”…..

c39828f1cd0bd47793250773344d123e

“It’s the time you have spent with your rose which makes it so important.”

 

And I also like Saint Exupery’s insistence on the uniqueness of each rose…..

556fff4c58fd69cc9a642c2ffcb9c4b4

Let’s not forget the uniqueness of each and every flower, each and every person, each and every moment.

I also like that in this photo I have a “Wild Rose” which echoes so nicely with the Mary Oliver poem I read at our farewell retirement celebration last Friday – “Summer Day” – especially her closing lines……

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

 

Read Full Post »

Pleiades

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, narrative, perception, personal growth, photography, science on June 23, 2014| 1 Comment »

pleiades

Which of the constellations in the night sky do you recognise? I wonder if one of them is the seven sisters – “Pleiades”.

I read the following in Gary Lachman’s “A Secret History of Consciousness”

In a fascinating chapter of Cities of Dreams, Gooch sets forth the evidence that this undistinguished group, made up of fourth-magnitude stars—not particularly brilliant—was not only known to our ancient ancestors, but appears in the mythology of many disparate peoples, and in exactly or nearly exactly the same context. For example, for the ancient Greeks, the story went like this: Orion the hunter came upon six sisters and their mother one day in a wood. Burning with lust, he chased the sisters through the wood for five years, whereupon Zeus took pity on the girls and changed both them and Orion into stars, hence the constellations of Orion and the Seven Sisters. Strangely, a very similar myth exists among the Aborigines of Australia. Wurrunna the hunter was out in search of game, when he too came upon a group of seven girls. He grabbed two of them and took them as wives on the spot. However, the trees in the forest took pity on the girls and suddenly grew to a tremendous height; the five free sisters climbed to the sky, as did the other two, thus escaping Wurrunna……..The Pleiades are always known as the Seven Sisters, and they are always hunted. Likewise, they always escape, either through magical means or through the intervention of a god………The Pleiades also have the unchallenged distinction of being the only constellation noted and named by every culture on the planet, past or present.
What do you think of that?
The night sky has always fascinated me. I love the way we humans connect up the individual stars with invisible lines to create constellations, which we then don’t just name, but tell stories about…..stories which help us make sense of the Life and this World. But how did this happen? How did we end up with such similar clustering of stars and such similar stories attached to these clusters (or constellations)? I find that especially fascinating when there are these close similarities in the stories of such disparate and disconnected cultures.

Read Full Post »

The A to Z of Becoming. Y is for yearn

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, photography on June 22, 2014| 2 Comments »

In the A to Z of Becoming, Y stands for “yearn”.

Afternoon moon

I’m not sure this is a verb we use a lot, but it has such a deep, heart felt quality.

Thomas Moore, who wrote “The Care of the Soul”, and “The Care of the Soul in Medicine”, captures what the word “soul” means to us by reminding us how we use the word. We talk of “soul mates”, “soul food”, “soul music”. It’s a deep, embodied concept. I think this is where we yearn from. To yearn is to become aware of what our soul hungers for.

Yearning involves longing. It’s more than desire, more than getting in touch with a goal, it’s a deep, heart-felt connection which fills us with its presence. Such a particular kind of presence…….the kind of presence which contains an absence. There’s something missing, and in yearning there is often an element of sadness, maybe even of melancholy. We’ve lost touch with the value of a feeling like this, I think. The thing is, we might yearn for something we no longer have, for the presence of someone who is no longer with us. But we can also yearn with an eye to the future, and it’s this yearning in particular which I think is of value for us.

If we stop to think about what we actually yearn for in the future, then we are likely to become aware of what matters most to us. We are likely to be able to clarify just what is that bliss which Joseph Campbell said we should follow?

I don’t think yearning is about joy. I don’t think it is about hope. And it’s about more than wishes, but its a way of revealing what is really important to us, what lies deep within our souls. To yearn is feel a sap rising…..

 

Tall pines

To yearn is to feel something deep unfolding….

fern

What do yearn for?

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »