Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on April 11, 2014| 1 Comment »
This restored door in Pézenas reminded me of the story the ship whose planks were gradually replaced one by one until none of the original planks were left. Was it still the same ship?
And what about our ever changing bodies with new cells replacing old ones every day so that very few cells remain after a few years…..yet we are still ourselves. Aren’t we?
This miracle of perpetual change which allows a sense of continuity and consistency.
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on April 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Relaxing in Pézenas for a few days. Tell me, look at this environment, don’t you think our physical environment, natural and built, influences the way we feel, the way we think, the way we are?
If you still aren’t sure, look at St-Guilhem-le-désert (one of the most beautiful villages in France).
Today I walked around these old streets, had lunch under the 150 year “King of the Platânes” in the main square, and felt, this is a sacred place, a place of beauty, of spirit, of wholeness.
I love the experience of “sacred places” – those places where you feel something extraordinary. Which places are sacred places for you?
Posted in from the dark room, photography on April 9, 2014| 1 Comment »
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on April 6, 2014| 2 Comments »
Nourish.
What about making this your verb of the week? What about asking yourself about your choices and your actions every day…..is this nourishing me? What, or who am I nourishing?
I imagine when you think of nourishing, first of all you think of food and feeding…..which makes me instantly think about two stories – the one from Native American tradition of the hungry wolves –
One evening an old Cherokee warrior told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’ The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’ The old Cherokee simply replied. The one you feed.’
and the one from Thich Nhat Hahn about watering seeds –
Your mind is like a piece of land planted with many different kinds of seeds: seeds of joy, peace, mindfulness, understanding, and love; seeds of craving, anger, fear, hate, and forgetfulness. These wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there, sleeping in the soil of your mind. The quality of your life depends on the seeds you water. If you plant tomato seeds in your gardens, tomatoes will grow. Just so, if you water a seed of peace in your mind, peace will grow. When the seeds of happiness in you are watered, you will become happy. When the seed of anger in you is watered, you will become angry. The seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong.
So, let’s think about nourishing the body, the mind and the spirit.
I’ve often been asked about dietary advice and my response is to say we are all different and what is good for one person at one time, might not be so good for another or at another time. I like Michael Pollan’s Food Rules – especially….”eat food”, “mainly plants”, “not too much”! But have a think when you eat this week, “is this nourishing for me?”
When if comes to the mind, are you aware of certain thoughts or feelings being more nourishing than others? When you worry, does that feeling nourishing? When you ruminate, does that feel nourishing? When you make goals, think positively, focus on the present, does that nourish you?
And when it comes to the spirit, I’d take a little while to explore what nourishes your soul – your soul as Thomas Moore describes it – think how we use the word “soul” – soul food, soul music, soul mate – what are those for you? What is your soul food, which music stirs your soul, who are your soul mates? Are there special places you can go to nourish your soul? How might you nourish your soul?
So, why not take a focus on nourishing this week? Nourish your body, nourish your mind, nourish your spirit, nourish those others who you encounter this week, nourish your world……
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on April 2, 2014| 3 Comments »
This is cherry blossom time and in Japan the coming of the cherry blossom is a cause for celebration and of great interest.
Follow through this link here and you’ll see a map showing when the blossom comes out in different parts of Japan (over March and April – we’re a bit later with our blossom here in Scotland)
Why is it such a celebration? Well, not just because it is beautiful (which it is) but because it makes us so much more aware of transience. The blossom comes, the blossom goes. It’s not here for long. Everything is like that. Our lives are like that. We are here with these bodies for a while, and then we are gone.
This is a transition time for me in my life. I’ll be retiring from medical practice this summer, which is a huge life change. So I’m acutely aware of the beauty and the power of transience right now. There is celebration of the life lived so far, of how much it has changed, and an intensity to the everyday experience which comes with the awareness of change.
This is a good month to notice the daffodils coming out, or the cherry blossom briefly flourishing on the trees. Nature is showing off the wonderful beauty of transience.
I know we have a human tendency to cling, to want to keep the status quo, holding onto not just what is good but what is familiar. But we also have this deep human capacity to know that we are mortal, to know that change is the inescapable reality of Life, and somehow, that makes today even more precious, even more important, even more beautiful.
Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on April 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Over the years patients and colleagues have given me little gifts which I’ve collected in this box which sits next to my chair in my consulting room. In some ways I’ve thought of it as my little “cabinet of curiosities“.
It’s often a talking point, but the recently one five year old girl came into my room, made a bee line for the box and squealed “Ooh! Treasure!”
I hadn’t thought of it as a treasure box until then, but that’s what it is.
Have you a treasure box? If not, why not start one? What would you put in it?
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, photography on March 30, 2014| 1 Comment »
Move, move and be moved.
Move your body. If you wanted to do just one thing to improve your health then I’d suggest you move. Recent research has shown that rather than focus on certain types of exercise, or certain numbers of minutes exercising, what makes the most difference is the amount of time you spend sitting down in a day.
If you’re 60 and older, every additional hour a day you spend sitting is linked to doubling the risk of being disabled — regardless of how much exercise you get, reports a new study.
and
If there are two 65-year-old women, one sedentary for 12 hours a day and another sedentary for 13 hours a day, the second one is 50 percent more likely to be disabled, the study found.
Move from here to somewhere else. Travel, go trips, have a journey. Try something new. Try the 30 minute discovery challenge.
Be moved. Go to the movies. Listen to some music. Read a poem. Spend some time with someone who touches your heart. Stir your positive emotions.
Movement is Life.
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on March 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »
As I drove down the A1 the other day, this view across the fields to the North Sea caught my eye.
How lovely – Earth, Water and Air.
OK, I know some of you will be asking what about the Fire? (The Sun perhaps, even though its not directly in this shot!), but let’s stick with three for now. Three is a very common, holistic number.
In Japan, this “mitsudomoe” symbol historically represents Man, Earth and Sky.
Body, Mind and Spirit is one of our common triads, and in Celtic symbolism, that is captured with a “triskele“.
We created a charity in Scotland at the end of 2012 – The Vital Force – we chose this version of that ancient symbol –
Do you have a favourite triad – either in words or in a symbol?
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, photography on March 27, 2014| 2 Comments »
Yesterday I stopped to photograph some of the new lambs in the field near my house. I spotted this one –
…so took a couple of shots in quick succession – I think it clocked me – and this is what he, or she, thought about it –
Posted in education, from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, life, neuroscience, perception, personal growth, science on March 26, 2014| 2 Comments »
When I learned neuroanatomy at Medical School I was taught that the two cerebral hemispheres were symmetrical. There was no mention at all that they were in any way different. But look at this image above. (This is referred to as Yakovlevian Torque)
Clearly, the two hemispheres are NOT identical. In particular the right one is bigger at the front, and sits just a bit in front of the left, and the left one is bigger at the back, and sits just a little further back than the right.
Why might that be? Why the larger frontal area on the right, and occipital (back) area on the left?
Iain McGilchrist nicely summarises it by pointing out that how the left hemisphere approaches the world is by trying to grasp it. We try to make sense of the world by literally getting a hold of it – we want to understand it, to measure it, to predict what it going to happen by matching the patterns we see to those we have already learned from our experience, and we try to manipulate or control it. This is what the left hemisphere is really great at doing. Interestingly, the areas at the back of the brain are primarily for processing the outside world (our visual and auditory areas are toward the back, and the cerebellum which helps us to know whether we are standing up or falling over by orientating where we are in 3D space, is also to the back). The right hemisphere majors in making connections and maps. It has a significant role to play in all the skills we need to act as social animals.
So, one nice summary of why there might be this asymmetry in the brain, is to enable us to both grasp the world and to be social creatures. Amongst all the creatures on this planet we are probably the most able to manipulate our environment and the most developed as social animals.
There’s a huge amount more to this left brain/right brain understanding but I do think this is a fabulous starting point. Oh, and by the way, look at this
Interesting, huh? And how come this has been pretty much completely ignored for so long?
Well, Iain McGilchrist’s theory, written up in full in The Master and His Emissary, or summarised in the Kindle Single, The Divided Mind, is that we have over developed the left hemisphere approach so much that we have developed the tendency to see only what we have already “learned” – so if we were taught that it was symmetrical, and we haven’t explored the differences between the two hemispheres, then we’ve become a bit blind. Time to start using our whole brains?
Heroes Not Zombies 