Heroes Not Zombies

In the A to Z of Becoming, O is for “open”.

One of the most beautiful sights in Nature is the opening up of a flower (just like these poppies I photographed yesterday). So, in what ways can we “open” this week?

Open your mind. Many, many years ago I noticed graffiti on a wall in San Francisco, which said “Minds are like parachutes, they work best when they are open”. The General Semanticists say that “judgement stops thought”. When we “make up our minds” we often close them. I’m not saying you shouldn’t decide anything but it might be a good experiment now and again to keep an open mind, instead of coming down with certainty one way or another. We can also open our minds by opening ourselves up to new opportunities, new sights, new music, new tastes….in other words why not try something different this week, and see what it opens up for you?

Open your hands. Don’t grasp. Don’t cling. Can you let go? Accept? Just try this little experiment – make a fist with your hand, scrunch it up tightly. What feelings come with that gesture? Now, relax your fingers, and turn your hand palm upwards. What feelings arise now?

Open your heart. Approach people this week with an open heart, prepared to be kind, to be loving and accepting. What flows when you open your heart? (Another take on opening your heart to someone is to express your true feelings to them)

Let me tell you a strange story. I’m having a short holiday in Pézenas in the South of France. As the weekend approached I started to think about my Sunday blog post, the one about the A to Z of Becoming. This week it was to be “O for open” so I got to wondering about opening minds, opening hands and opening hearts. I wandered into the bookshop in Pézenas and browsed. The bookshop here is mainly a newsagent and stationers. They don’t have a lot of books, but there was a pile on a table. One caught my eye “L’Âme du monde” by Frédéric Lenoir. I’d never seen or heard of this book before but the “soul of the world” title caught my fancy. I picked it up and flicked it open to a random place, which turned out to be the start of a chapter. The chapter title? “Ouvre ton coeur” – “open your heart”.

I don’t know. You explain it!

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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?

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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……

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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.

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