Oh, wow! Sometimes the light catches your eye, even just a sliver of white moonlight, and you stop, and you look, and you hold your breath, because it is just so astonishingly beautiful and wondrous.
And then I upload this photo from my camera and I see what looks like sun flares flickering on the edge of the unlit moon………and I run out of words…….
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No, there’s no question mark at the end of that title. I’m not asking a question. I’m thinking about all the little everyday experiences which make life special
In the summer this year, in a little bookshop in the heart of France, I stumbled across a beautiful, inspirational book called “Le Sel de la Vie”, by Françoise Héritier. Then a couple of weeks ago, in my favourite independent little bookshop in Scotland, The Watermill, I stumbled across an English translation of the same book. I had no idea it had been translated and its just as engaging and inspiring in translation as it was in the original French. One of the strange things about translation is that “le sel” is “salt”, so the literal translation of the title would be “The salt of life”. However, to grasp the true essence of the original text it’s been translated as “The Sweetness of Life”. How interesting! Salt or sweet? Both work for me, and when combined (like in my delicious starter above) it can be even more special.
This little book is like no other book I’ve ever read. The author wrote it in response to a colleague’s postcard from his holiday on the Isle of Skye. He described the holiday as “stolen” and that got her thinking about how we spend our time and how he was stealing his own life by failing to be in touch with all the daily little experiences which made life so special, so sweet……
Given my recent post on the one sentence, I was really struck by this part of her introduction
So what follows here is an enumeration, an ordinary list in one long sentence……
I can’t really quote you any of the book because whenever I start it, I can’t stop it! She writes, in one long flowing list, using a free association method, listing sensations, experiences, memories which she considered to be everyday special. Does “everyday special” strike you as odd? I think this is such a key element to living a great life – to be constantly in touch with the “everyday special”. Believe me, if you can’t find the special in the everyday, you’re not awake!
OK, difficult though it is to stop, here’s a wee sample
….phone calls made for no reason, handwritten letters, family meals (well, some of them), meals with friends, a beer at the bar, a glass of red or white wine, coffee in the sun, a siesta in the shade, eating oysters at the seaside or cherries straight off the tree…..
You get the idea?
I think if you dip into this little book and read a line or two before setting off into the day each morning, you’ll heighten your “everyday special” awareness. It’s almost like a different kind of meditation. But the other thing which this book inspires is to start your own list (in fact, the English language version has a few blank lined pages at the end to encourage you to do just that)
Go on, try it…..
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Mary Ruefle quotes Ernest Fenollosa saying
we each only really speak one sentence in our lifetime. That sentence begins with your first words, toddling around the kitchen, and ends with your last words . . . in a nursing home, the night-duty attendant vaguely on hand. Or, if you are blessed, they are heard by someone who knows you and loves you and will be sorry to hear the sentence end.
Well, that’s quite a thought…..the one sentence which meanders around, entwining itself amongst the events and moments of your life (just like this tree growing year by year amongst the temple lanterns).
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Here’s an interesting piece of research for this time of year….it’s one of several publications which show that buying stuff isn’t that good for you!
If you’re a materialistic individual and life suddenly takes a wrong turn, you’re going to have a tougher time recovering from that setback than someone who is less materialistic
It’s pretty easy to find research which shows you materialistic values are stronger in people with low self-esteem, and that what people who have these values do when they are stressed is find materialistic coping strategies……you’ll have heard of “retail therapy”. This particular piece of research looks at how this world view and coping mechanism affects recovery from stressful events.
In times of stress, people often seek solace through shopping,” he said. “The idea here is that we need some form of a cultural-based coping mechanism, because the research suggests that there is actually a short-term fix with retail therapy. Soon after purchasing something, there is a reduction of anxiety. But it doesn’t last very long. It’s fleeting. Materialists seek that as one of their coping mechanisms. And Black Friday and the holiday shopping season play into that
I think this issue relates to more complex, underlying factors but it does highlight the issue of how values and how we see the world influences our coping strategies and that not all coping strategies are equal.
I’ve read a number of other works which make it clear that experiences are more powerful than things when looking at their impact on happiness. In other words, spending a good time with someone contributes more to the happiness of the participants than spending in a shop. Retail therapy just isn’t that therapeutic!
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Draw a circle.
Inside that circle write down the names of every person who you spend some time with EVERY SINGLE DAY – not “most days”, but every day.
Draw a larger circle around the first circle.
Inside that larger circle write down the names of every person who you spend some time with EVERY SINGLE WEEK – not “most weeks”, but at least once every week ………….(if you like you can write the names of people you spend some time with most days of every week nearest the inner circle, and those you tend to spend some time with only once a week towards the outer part of the circle)
Now draw another larger circle around the second circle.
Inside this third circle write down the names of every person you spend some time with EVERY SINGLE MONTH – not “most months” , but at least once every month.
If you like, add yet another circle for those you spend some time with EVERY SINGLE YEAR.
When I say “spend some time with”, I mean mainly those you share some physical space with, not just those you speak to on a phone, those you text, or those you chat with online. However, that’s also an interesting exercise to do. In fact, one variation of this exercise is to use two separate coloured pens or pencils and to use one colour for those you actually spend some time with physically, and another for those you spend time in communication with, but not in the same physical shared physical space.
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Yesterday morning I noticed the moon above the Christmas lights in George Square in Glasgow.
This got me thinking about rhythms – the lunar cycle, which so few city dwellers are aware of, and the cultural cycle of the Christmas season. Actually as I wrote that sentence I realised that American readers will probably use the term “Holiday season” instead of “Christmas season” and that’s something else which is interesting….about our cultures, our language, our beliefs and traditions.
The people who I meet in the consulting room day by day have such diverse beliefs – from followers of Islam, to Jehovah’s Witnesses, to Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, New Age thinkers, agnostics, atheists, materialists…….and does that matter?
Of course it does.
How can I make any sense of what someone is experiencing if I don’t gain an understanding of what kind of world they live in? If I don’t take into consideration their values, beliefs, traditions, their ways of living, how can I understand their illness experience, and more than that…..how can I even conceive of what health might look like for this person?
Rhythms and cycles are such a fundamental characteristic of Life. Which ones are important to you and contribute to your perception of the world?
Which ones are you aware of today?
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David Suzuki, in ‘The Sacred Balance’, says
Many have believed in an animated, inhabited, sacred world surrounding them, the natural world that constitutes reality. These beliefs restore our sense of belonging, of being-with, which is threatened by our dividing, conquering brain;
Oh, this connects with so many other things I’ve read these last few months. That last phrase taking me back to ‘The Master and His Emissary‘ – “our dividing, conquering brain” – what a brilliant description of what our left hemisphere does! But it’s this sense of Life everywhere which really captures my imagination. Marc Halévy in ‘Ni hasard, ni nécessité’ writes about the concept of hylozoism….a term I had never encountered before. Look it up. I thought Halévy had invented it as a neologism – but he hadn’t. It’s a very, very old idea which, suddenly becomes very, very new and relevant now. It’s the idea that everything has life in it. He juxtaposes hylozoism to materialism and says
It reveals to us that all matter is alive, that all matter is an expression of life, that all matter is living. (my translation)
Without looking it up right now, I seem to recall Howard Bloom argues something similar in ‘The God Problem‘ too, where he makes the case that even neutrons demonstrate free will.
It seems that Life is everywhere, and that the Cosmos is where we belong, what we are part of, not apart from. Does it make you feel differently about our planet once you realise it isn’t a resource but a manifestation of a living universe
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Dr Peter Gøtzsche is the founder of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, a highly respected medical researcher who examines clinical trials. The Cochrane centres are widely accepted as the most reliable sources of unbiased information about the research evidence for medical interventions. He has written a thoroughly disturbing book comparing drug companies to organised crime. His messages are clear, rational and evidence based. Here’s a quote from his new book, Deadly Medicine and Organised Crime.
‘The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don’t sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs. This is what makes drugs so different from anything else in life… Virtually everything we know about drugs is what the companies have chosen to tell us and our doctors… the reason patients trust their medicine is that they extrapolate the trust they have in their doctors into the medicines they prescribe. The patients don’t realise that, although their doctors may know a lot about diseases and human physiology and psychology, they know very, very little about drugs that hasn’t been carefully concocted and dressed up by the drug industry… If you don’t think the system is out of control, then please email me and explain why drugs are the third leading cause of death… If such a hugely lethal epidemic had been caused by a new bacterium or a virus, or even one hundredth of it, we would have done everything we could to get it under control.’
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From the soaring, high flying jet, looking for all the world like a shooting star, to the dark depths of the glen.
Late in the afternoon this steep sided glen was plunged into darkness as the shadow of one hill covered all but the very top of the opposite one.
No surprise that nobody has built a house in this beautiful but stark valley where direct sunlight is the briefest of winter visitors.
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Marc Halévy describes three “incredible” leaps in the history of the universe –
The leap from light to matter
The leap from matter to Life
The leap from Life to thought
Reminds me of Thomas Berry and his “moments of grace” – from the forming of our solar system –
Such a moment occurred when the star out of which our solar system was born collapsed in enormous heat, scattering itself as fragments in the vast realms of space. In the center of this star the elements had been forming through a vast period of time until in the final heat of this explosion the hundred-some elements were present. Only then could the sun, our star, give shape to itself by gathering these fragments together with gravitational power and then leaving some nine spherical shapes sailing in elliptical paths around itself as planetary forms. At this moment Earth too could take shape; life could be evoked; intelligence in its human form became possible. This supernova event of a first or second generation star could be considered a cosmological moment of grace, a moment that determined the future possibilities of the solar system, Earth, and of every form of life that would ever appear on the Earth.
to the human moments –
when humans first were able to control fire; when spoken language was invented; when the first gardens were cultivated; when weaving and the shaping and firing of pottery were practiced; when writing and the alphabet were invented.
and right up to this present time –
So now, in this transition period into the 21st century, we are experiencing a moment of grace, but a moment that is different in its significance from any previous moment. For the first time the planet is being disturbed by humans in its geological structure and its biological functioning in a manner like the great cosmic forces that alter the geological and biological structures of the planet or like the glaciations. We are also altering the great classical civilizations as well as the indigenous tribal cultures that have dominated the spiritual and intellectual development of vast numbers of persons throughout these past 5,000 years. These civilizations and cultures have governed our sense of the sacred and established our basic norms of reality and value and designed the life disciplines of the peoples of Earth. We will never be able to function without these traditions. But these older traditions alone cannot fulfill the needs of the moment. Something new is happening. A new vision and a new energy are coming into being.
Does it feel like that to you? Does it feel like the old order is crumbling, and that we are about to take a new, “incredible” leap?
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