Juiciness

There are many ways of getting the juice from an orange. Rather like there are many ways of getting the juice out of life in general or out of everyday of our lives in particular. In fact, although they may not be the only fruit, oranges and their liquid contents are a useful metaphor for the way we are being.

Take the way we make more, or make the most out of our days.

If we are in a good state or quality of mind then our days progress much more smoothly and pleasurably than if we are feeling in a low mood, or at a low ebb. How we are being “colours” our day, affects our entire perspective this particular day. We may have an illness, some pain or dis-ease, that becomes the centre of our attention rather than out on the periphery. We might wake up feeling rough, look out of the window and the weather adds to our “roughness”. We’ve got something dull or unpleasant coming up on today’s calendar.

These are all things Outside of us that we are judging and drawing in and affecting how things are going on Inside of us. We seem powerless to stop how this affecting is taking place. Our life is predicated on an Outside-In perspective. This is familiar. We have been told since we were young – and have experiential references to back that up – that this is the way it is. “Better get used to it – life can be tough. Start learning now – some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the tree. This is the way it is.”

However, there is a phrase I hear more and more these days – “It is what it is.”

So is this different from “This is the way it is”?

Maybe, just maybe, these two phrases are completely different!
The way it is seems to refer to Life, whereas It is what it is seems to refer to circumstances.
And here is the difference –

Circumstances are (IS) what they are (IS), and they happen.
Life, all lives in general AND our lives in particular, are most definitely not always this way.
They are ALWAYS only ever this way, however, when we are living an Outside-In perspective – when we choose, fall into, or follow through a lack of Understanding, an Outside-In perspective.

Be More Juicy – from the Inside-Out!

There is a certain amount of juice in every orange – yet there is also peel, pulp and pith. Now if I choose to press each half orange in a hard driven, aggressive way on my hand juicer, then I notice that the peel of the orange begins to collapse very quickly under the force I am applying.

If I press the orange in a more sympathetic way then I get more juice, oddly enough.

Similarly, if I drop the orange on the kitchen floor a few times, then the peel loses resilience and cannot seem to keep the firmness of its shape. If I then decide to get the juice out then cutting the orange in two becomes a lot harder, and pressing it onto the juicer is a much messier affair –resulting, again, in less juice.
And if I throw it on the floor a few times the peel will crack and the juice will end up more on the floor than eventually in the juicer.

So, although I may sound a bit cheesy (sorry) here - in order to get more juice from the inside of the orange out into the juicer I need to treat my orange with love, respect, TLC, be sympathetic towards it, and Understand what best needs to happen for me to get an optimal amount of juice!

And in metaphorical terms, This is the Way it IS with Life too. When we live our lives from an Understanding of the Inside-Out perspective, we find that regardless of the circumstances (the Orange), we will always get the most juice out of it if we take the sympathetic, loving, respectful pathway.

So, the responsibility we choose for our life is about the way WE go about extracting the juice. With an Understanding of that way our lives become much more enriched, fulfilled, healthy, and we flourish – we bloom, we flower. Constant striving and over-trying become far less prevalent things in our lives and we see downsides, disappointments and “failures” for what they really are ... opportunities.

“Ok, Pete,” you might say. “What is this Inside-Out that you talk about? Tell me more. Is it easy?”

“Well, I would say it is simple rather than easy. Easy implies doing precious little ourselves, and taking no responsibility. Whereas, simple means it is not complex – it is straightforward. It requires an open mind, which for us –as humans – is not always easy. We have an intellect, a conscious ego that wants to be in control and run “the show”, drive the car – be in charge of the Juicing, if you like! And it is this part of us that is ONLY ever familiar with Outside-In, so that when IT is in charge, our lives go off-kilter and we feel at the mercy of circumstances, we are at effect rather than being responsible and at cause.”

“Ok, so it is simple rather than easy, and I need an open mind. What else?”

“You need to begin to gain an Understanding of the Power of Thought, and your relationship with your thinking. Once you ‘get it’ that everything you experience is only a creation of your perceptive filtering, your thinking let’s say, then that relationship changes. Once you get it that no matter how REAL things might be, feel or seem to you, they are only really your perceptive interpretations, then you are gaining an understanding of Inside-Out.”

And then Life begins to get so much more JUICY!

The Spirit of Romance

Flashback

One day I was working with my coach on examining various areas of my life, my perspectives, my “worldview” if you like, when I was overtaken by a short-lived moment of absent-mindedness. And in the suspended silence of that nanosecond of cosmic time my aural perception had not heard it said what the next topic of personal context would be.

“So, Peter,” I was asked, “What about romance?”

I returned to the here and now with an abrupt landing – it felt as if I had been face-slapped out of some distant reverie – shaken and, most definitely, stirred! And, after an almost endless pause, instead of launching into eloquent discourse concerning my views on romance or even some harboured wishes, perhaps desires, all I was able to say was,

“Oh.”

I’d always been an incurable romantic, yet for me romance was interlaced and intertwined with a connection at what I now would describe as being on an intuitive or even a spiritual level. In my youth, in spite of dreadful shyness, I’d be regularly seduced by the perfectionist notion of “when eyes meet” or “when she walked in the room.”

I blame Hollywood, popular song writers, the lyrical poets and Shakespeare for this far-sighted view of teen and twenteen romance and love. My Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels really were fairy tales – illusions on a grand scale – and I came a cropper on a regular basis back then as I gave my heart away, time after time, to nothing more than a perfectionist’s dream of ideal romance.

And perhaps my single utterance, “Oh,” was all I could muster as I was carried, by those wings in Jeffrey Osborne’s song, all the way back from my coach’s question to the lazy, hazy, crazy days of the summer of my youth.

I can remember thinking, “Blimey, do I really want to go through all that again – for the sake of supposedly wanting to fill an empty part of my life?” And I can remember saying something completely different - like, “I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest,” which is, on the face of it, totally dishonest! I’m sure my body language gave me away in that fleeting, lying moment!

The Passage of Time

Of course Heraclitus reminds me that there is no chance of me “going through all THAT again” in his famous quote:

“No man ever steps into the same river twice – for he is not the same man, and it is not the same river.”

As someone else explains, other waters are ever flowing onto us. And it is true for me – from the days of my youth up to right now, a lot of waters have passed under my bridge. I’m not the person I was one, five, fifteen years ago – let alone in those days of callow youth.

So, what can I, as an incurable romantic, say about Romance ... as we are in February and the 14^th is upon us? Well, perhaps I was right all along about the whole notion of connecting with each other at a level beyond the everyday, the Temporal. Perhaps the Spiritual connection is the True Romance? The whole idea of always knowing someone on a non-corporeal level yet getting to know them in terms of their physical presence is a boundless joy – for each day is a new discovery about the other person. 

Perhaps, too, my romances are built on friendship – which means that my life in that area is not empty at all? Could be – Who knows? There’s something due any day, I will know right away, soon as it shows. It may even come cannon-balling down through the sky – and wake me up from yet another reverie!

This is a highly subjective world-view of course, based upon the connectivity of all humanity at the Spiritual level, the collective unconscious, the cosmic domain. You may scoff, laugh, chuckle, or even echo “bah humbug” if you wish – for we’re all different in our perspectives. And some of you – and some of me - may yet wonder if little old ME will ever again get to walk with someone, hand-in-hand on the beach after a Sunday lunch of roast beef and Yorkshires as our golden retriever bounds into the waves or across the sands after a ball.

This is romantic imagery, though, isn’t it?

Well, in my case Heraclitus knows best! There was a time when I actually did fulfil that very same romantic image I’ve just conjured up. But that was a different ME and a different RIVER. I now am united with my version of the Spirit of Romance. There are no illusions, no clouds, no fairy tales, and no perfectionist’s dreams.

Postscript

So, now I’ve been seduced into considering things Temporal, I cannot let the moment pass without examining that most romantic of gestures – The Kiss.

Here are some interesting quotes:-

“A kiss is a secret told to the mouth instead of the ear; kisses are the messengers of love and tenderness.” ~ Ingrid Bergman

“How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.” ~ Victor Hugo

“A kiss is a rosy dot over the ‘i’ of loving.” ~ Cyrano de Bergerac

And I’ll leave it there ... can’t have too much of a good thing!   💋💋

Keeping an Inner Watch

Keep watch over me, oh my Soul. As the night gathers around my Self, in that moonless, Stygian gloom, keep watch over me. When I feel misunderstood and abandoned by friends and loved ones, and the warmth of my Fire no longer gives me comfort or has any meaning; when my Self feels utterly helpless, keep watch over me, oh my Soul.

“Life’s too short,” I often say to myself – and of course it is, when measured against the vast eternity of the Cosmos. Yes, Life goes on, though not my life. When the good things I like in life seem pointless and serve no purpose or selfish enrichment – it is time to reach out to you, oh my Soul. When the pleasures of life and Life grow dim and there is nothing to divert me to the ordinaries and extra-ordinaries of my days, speak into that nothingness, oh my Soul. For then I will hear you above the clamour.

It is then, in those moments of quiet, or when I feel a growing sense of abandonment, that I need to Feel your presence, Hear your voice, See What IS through your eyes. In these moments, when my own Self is losing all will or is bent on destruction, there is only my eternal companion who is there with me – and that is you, oh my Soul. You are always there – if only my Self would know it.

With my Understanding you to be there, and Realisation of your presence, I am complete. There is nothing I cannot achieve, there is no joy kept from me; I can overcome all discomfort and disease and feel no pain; or be visited by any fear, misery or self loathing. I can even be at one with the day of my Passing.

Raise me, oh my Soul, to be with you – reach through my gloom and lift my Self into your light. Show me how simple it is to Understand what is happening to me, and the means by which I can return Home to be at One with you – as it was when I was born. Keep watch over me, oh my Soul.

A Passion for Pi and for Pie

Pi

"Maths Tutors Needed - Want to earn money sharing your passion for Maths?" says the banner ad from time to time on my FB page.

Yes, to be fair I'd love to. I'd love to have some extra dosh to procure some more abaci, or supplement another of my passions - learning.

There’s just one thing wrong, as I see it. My passion for Maths is old school. The way I learned it is outdated. Not the Maths itself, of course, but the way I learned it.
Now here’s the Thing - out of that way of learning came my passion.

Hacking Education

Now I’ve been privileged enough to work in schools for the last eleven years coaching another thing I’m passionate about – cricket.

And I’ve noticed this, as I share the domain and the environment of up and coming young people. Compared to my schooldays there are many things different now, in terms of the subjects taught as compulsory and optional, the facilities and equipment available, and the almost endless range of opportunities. Everywhere there is Knowledge – oodles of it. I am amazed and marvel at how much more Knowledge there is compared to 50 years ago.

Yet Knowledge is rather like money. It can be amassed and put in a bank.
“Look how much I’ve got! I’m rich, I’m clever, I know all these things.”
Now Knowledge we learn and amass in our vaults actually earns no interest at all – until we spend it. When we spend Knowledge we solve problems, arrive at solutions, gather more knowledge, we earn some interest, etc. We make Gains. And the biggest gain of all is ...

Now there are two crucial words missing from the last couple of paragraphs.

Passion

Understanding

No matter who we are, or how clever or intelligent we are, or, how many certificates we might have on our walls that bear witness to how much Knowledge we have in our bank  - none of it proves that we have any Understanding.

Understanding is Non-certificated – and the special ingredient, the catalyst if you like, that turns Knowledge into Understanding is Passion.

“Can’t buy me Love” goes the song – yet “Can’t buy me Passion,” needs to be acknowledged as being right up there too. And we certainly cannot “buy” passion.

What got all of us from our horizontal baby posture, to sitting up, crawling, walking, and running. Did we go to school and learn these things? Did we acquire the Knowledge from a book, or a manual? No – our loved ones showed us and encouraged us over and over again, with a passion. And we gained Understanding. If our parents had shown no interest in our learning how to walk, then we would have never encountered Passion. And we would have got to walk probably much slower and over a longer period of time; and without passion we’d have gained Knowledge but no Understanding.

I’ll just dwell on this idea of “Can’t buy me Passion” for a moment, too, for it comes into Coaching. In terms of performers and coaches and teachers, I know some exceptional and brilliant people – people who have allowed me to stand close enough to them in order for me to catch alight, come alive, as a result of their Passion for their subject, which is (for them) their Life. 

If I was to do a time-line map of my life and populate it with the stand-out, passionate people I have known, then there would be some in my schooldays, very few in my early 20’s to late 40’s and then hundreds upon hundreds in the last twenty odd years. And it is these people, in my latter years that have driven me on, kept me feeling alive, young, vibrant, motivated, and above all - passionate.

We don’t and we can’t learn about passion – it just RUBS OFF on us from others, and then it gets into us. And it got onto and then into them by the same process. I have been, and still am, exceptionally fortunate – not lucky, just fortunate – in associating myself with people who don’t just LOVE what they do, they are PASSIONATE about what they do.

Pie

Another of MY passions is music, as any of you who know me well will attest to. Now, long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had that chance that I could make those people dance and maybe they’d be happy for a while.

Of course there will be some of you, dear readers, who recognise those words as being more than a little familiar! And I’d like to finish on this particular note.

Whether it is about Pi or about Pie or anything in between, I would entreat you to bring passion into every part of your Life. Give yourself the chance to make others dance – even if only for a while. For when others see your passion setting alight everything that YOU do, they will want some of that – they will want to stand close enough to catch some of YOUR flame, let some of THAT rub off onto them. Passion is infectious!

And it stops the music – our music - from dying.