Heroes Not Zombies

Did you ever wonder why March is called March?

It’s named after Mars, the God of War….the idea of war which brings peace and stability. He was also an agricultural guardian. Wikipedia describes his essential nature as follows –

Virility as a kind of life force (vis) or virtue (virtus) is an essential characteristic of Mars. As an agricultural guardian, he directs his energies toward creating conditions that allow crops to grow, which may include warding off hostile forces of nature. As an embodiment of masculine aggression, he is the force that drives wars – but ideally, war that delivers a secure peace.

(also in that wikipedia entry is a surprisingly large list of different Celtic gods associated with Mars!)

In my 12 monthly themes, March is the month of strength and assertiveness. It’s interesting that March comes immediately after February, which is the month of Love. One of the key myths surrounding Mars is the story Mars and Venus……and interesting coupling of love and war!

Most of my life, I’ve lived in the presence of a castle (Apart from 4 years in Ayrshire, I’ve lived in either Stirling or Edinburgh), and these ancient castles embody for me the quality of Mars – there is something strong, constant, assertive and stable about them, especially as both Stirling and Edinburgh castles are built high on rocky outcrops.

I’m always keen to consider the positive aspects around me, and as I think of Mars, I think of strength and assertiveness. We need clear boundaries. We need to be able to say “no” when it is appropriate, and we need the strength which gives us both healthy defences and the resilience we need to stay well.

So, here’s my focus for this month. How do you build the strength of your vital force so you can be resilient, healthy and flourishing?

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I don’t know how this works. Seriously. I don’t. You could claim it’s about coincidence but when it happens it seems much more significant that a random juxtaposition of events.

Here’s what’s happened. First off, I’m writing a weekly series of blog posts entitled “The A to Z of Becoming” where I’m writing about one verb each Sunday. This week I reached “H” so wrote about HOPE.

Secondly, I’ve subscribed to a bimonthly magazine called “Resurgence” for many, many years, and the March/April issue arrived the day before yesterday. I popped it in my bag to read on the train on the way to work on Monday morning.

So, imagine my surprise when I opened “Resurgence” at a seemingly random place and saw the article “Seeing with New Eyes” by Chris Johnstone. Right in the middle of the page, in a large “pull quote” is

Active Hope is a practice, like t’ai chi or gardening.

“Active Hope”?

Johnstone says there are two meanings of hope (and I didn’t think of that when I wrote my post on Sunday) – the first referring to “hopefulness, where our preferred outcome seems reasonably likely”, and the second refers to desire. I like that. Makes sense to me. The first meaning precipitates us into hopelessness where our preferred outcome seems highly unlikely, but the second can set us off in pursuit of our goal.

Then, what about this for a heroes not zombies idea……..?

Passive hope involves waiting for external agencies to create the future we desire. Active Hope is about becoming active participants in the story of bringing about what we hope for.

Active Hope – the deliberate choice to move in the direction of how we want to change.

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This week, I’m reflecting on the place of hope in life.
This little Haiku by Edith Shiffert seemed very appropriate and seeing snowdrops bursting out all around at the moment brought these lines back to my mind.

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In the A to Z of Becoming, H is for Hope.

I don’t know how people live without hope.

Despair and hopelessness are killers. I think one of the worst things a doctor can do is tell a patient they have “x months” to live. Nobody can accurately predict the course of an illness, and nobody can accurately predict how long an individual lifetime will be. (I often think of Stephen Hawking and his “motor neurone disease” or “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”, a disease with an estimated life expectancy of 2 to 5 years, where his diagnosis was made over 40 years ago).

The truth is that with any diagnosis there are three possible future pathways – the patient gets better, they develop a fairly stable chronic illness, or they get worse. The proportions of a population with the same diagnosis experiencing each of these paths varies depending on a host of factors including the person’s prior health, and the severity of the pathology at time of diagnosis. But I think it’s a bit like this –

So, what I usually say to patients is something like “as nobody can tell you which of these directions your illness is likely to take, then what’s the benefit of assuming either of the poorer options?”

At each stage, every day, it seems to me, it’s worth while hoping for the better future.

On “PsychCentral” there’s an article which describes NINE different types of hopelessness, and begins to give hints about how to overcome them.

I know some people say “hope for the best and prepare for the worst” and I’m not sure what I make of that advice, but I can see some sense in it. What I dislike is how fear is used as a tool to control us. Whether it’s about diseases from influenza to cancer, or about terrorism or crime, or the financial future, again and again we are bombarded with messages to make us afraid and make the choices based on assuming that terrible outcomes are just around the corner.

I don’t want to live my life that way. And I won’t live my life that way.

I’m sticking with Nelson Mandela’s advice “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears”

What might you hope for this week? What might you hope for this month? And what choices will you make to reflect those hopes?

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In the A to Z of Becoming, G is for GIVE.

Do you think giving is a satisfying experience?

I do. In fact, I think giving enriches your life.

Some people say life is a game of give and take, and that there are givers and takers. I’m sure you’ve come across that idea, and you can probably also identify individuals in your own world who are givers, and those who are takers. Not many people would be happy to accept the label of “taker”, and being known as a “giver” feels like being appreciated.

I’m not sure how useful labels are however, so I’m not thinking this week about who are the givers and who are the takers. What I want to be aware of this week are my opportunities to give.

What can I give?

My time, my attention, my compassion, my love, my effort, my full engagement with this present moment, my acts of kindness……

None of these are things, but I might have opportunities this week to give things too. What I find interesting is that we tend to think of gift giving as being about things, and I think physical gifts can be important. But, here’s something to experiment with this week….give every day, and make a note of what you give (in fact, even better, write an entry in your journal about it…..describe the circumstances of your giving, what your giving involved and why you decided to give) and then reflect next weekend on your week of giving.

How does it feel to give?

Let me give you this photograph (you can click through on any of my photos and download them for yourself, if you wish)

I stumbled across this in Kyoto a while back. In fact, I saw it a few times because it was in a street near my hotel.

I love this. Here is a game of Go, with a tub of black stones, and a tub of white stones. Anyone is free to make a move. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in any other city. I wonder if the players know each other? It did strike me that every play was an act of giving, a gift of participation, a contributory gift, a gift of engagement.

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