Having been in liminal space for the past 6weeks your questions are very poignant for me as well.
Having pondered and shifted focus many times I come back to being kind and soft as the best path forward. Holding this in the now is totally fulfilling and requires discipline.
Thanks for your beautiful post and all the lovely comments!🥰
Kind and soft - wonderful place to have landed. I can only imagine the edges you have visited recently and hope they are bringing you comfort in that strange way tough things do.
Oh that one about not maximizing/optimizing... that feels like a good one for me to tuck in my pocket. My kangaroo pocket (I'd love to see them someday, growing up as a Rew, the roos have always seemed like distant friends.)
I hope you can see them one day too and we could grab a cuppa together! Perhaps I should take more photos/video of them, we have so many of them sharing our farm that somedays I forget they are a wonder.
These questions are finding fertile ground in me here in liminal space in Perth for this week. 🙏 More than glimmers, great flashes of delight in being across the road from a waterhole thick with bird life - what a way to wake up!
Beautiful questions, Gillian! I love your liminal space. Last night I went to Benedictus Contemplative Church where Sarah Bachelard encouraged us all to stillness. With the prayer, ‘in the parched and fruitless places of our lives, where habits of thought are tired and futile, where sources of compassion are running dry, where hope struggles to well up through crusty ground, replenish our spirits, living God. Make of us like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. ‘
Times like these require stillness. Setting pools of silence in this thirsty land, in this hungry, greedy, world, seems like wisdom for our times. ❤️❤️
Thank Deb - I particularly like the part ”habits of thought are tired and futile” that resonates - so yes, sitting with the questions rather than the assumptions this week. Look forward to seeing you! xo
I’m so glad my glitch in the space time continuum was helpful! I was thinking that the questions were personal but if I shift my lens just a little many of them work for the world at large as well, thank you for helping me see that. xoxo
Fabulous questions to float with in a liminal space . I have a sense of what you mean Gillian having just returned from Morocco . Amazing, inspiring and also very challenging as a place and culture.
I adored Japan, it was my best 'holiday' ever because of the people, the culture and astounding beauty.
This is the question I am taking away to ponder on...
What would it look like if safety and care were built into the world around me, rather than constantly managed inside my body ?
My glimmers are my cup of the tea, reading this and knowing you.
So glad to be a glimmer! That question hits deep for me and was inspired by the way I could see physical spaces in Japan performing different roles than they do here - something about out individualist cultures is a double edge sword - perhaps more freedom but I suspect also more for our nervous systems to hold.
One of the aspect of Japanese culture I loved was the respect shown to each other in collective spaces. No loud conversations, your tube or music from phones on the underground . Children enjoying themselves with family but no screeching were a few examples of the many differences I noticed.
Gillian You are a glimmer that shines bright on the other side of the world. 💗
So interesting you said that - I noticed the same but I didn’t enjoy it as you did, it made me realise how much vicarious joy I get from watching the interactions of strangers - the quiet respect felt like a dampener to me - as such it was a lovely mirror to help me see myself!
It’s always interesting Gillian to hear of other perspectives on similar things . Like you I get a lot of vicarious joy from seeing others pleasure and interactions. Babies and children are especially generous in bringing joy.
I was just listening to a small boy chattering to an old lady (not me) on the train. Such a delight 🧡
Beautiful questions, Gillian. I love that you are allowing these questions time to surface and be recorded. If such in between times allow such beautiful questions to emerge, then I get a sense that it is sacred. Let us not rush out of it. There’s richness in that in between place.
Welcome back Gillian. I think I have been to 5 or 6 retreats in my life with titles like your questions 🙂. You may have also provided me 18 topics for my own Substack posts! 🙂 Thank you as always Gillian. I think Japan is a beautiful place with wonderfully rich cultural patterns. Of course some of the contradictions are challenging...but given some other places we are watching implode in the world, Japan seems like a sea of calm. My glimmer...the softness of the light right now as early evening moves in....along with a bunch of wallabies and lots of ducks.
Thank goodness for wallabies and ducks. I shall look forward to your 18 posts! The more of us answering these questions for ourselves the better! I should like to go to a retreat with the title - “how can I pause and drink more tea?” :)
Yay Ukulele! I went to my first practice (after Christmas) at my small local ukulele group yesterday morning and was presented with an envelope containing $15 - unbeknown to me the gig we played at the local Christmas Carols event was a paid gig - I guess I can now add professional ukulele player to my resume! Keep strumming you never know where it will lead you. Oh, but you do… JOY!!
Welcome home Gillian, its an exciting time returning from an overseas adventure, its a chance to rethink your relationship with the world. :)
Very much so! I’ve not travelled much in the last few decades - carbon footprint and all that so the impact has come as a welcome shock!
Having been in liminal space for the past 6weeks your questions are very poignant for me as well.
Having pondered and shifted focus many times I come back to being kind and soft as the best path forward. Holding this in the now is totally fulfilling and requires discipline.
Thanks for your beautiful post and all the lovely comments!🥰
Kind and soft - wonderful place to have landed. I can only imagine the edges you have visited recently and hope they are bringing you comfort in that strange way tough things do.
Oh that one about not maximizing/optimizing... that feels like a good one for me to tuck in my pocket. My kangaroo pocket (I'd love to see them someday, growing up as a Rew, the roos have always seemed like distant friends.)
I hope you can see them one day too and we could grab a cuppa together! Perhaps I should take more photos/video of them, we have so many of them sharing our farm that somedays I forget they are a wonder.
I love both of these ideas! 💜
These questions are finding fertile ground in me here in liminal space in Perth for this week. 🙏 More than glimmers, great flashes of delight in being across the road from a waterhole thick with bird life - what a way to wake up!
Wonderful! Give me a waterhole everyday!
Beautiful questions, Gillian! I love your liminal space. Last night I went to Benedictus Contemplative Church where Sarah Bachelard encouraged us all to stillness. With the prayer, ‘in the parched and fruitless places of our lives, where habits of thought are tired and futile, where sources of compassion are running dry, where hope struggles to well up through crusty ground, replenish our spirits, living God. Make of us like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. ‘
Times like these require stillness. Setting pools of silence in this thirsty land, in this hungry, greedy, world, seems like wisdom for our times. ❤️❤️
Thank Deb - I particularly like the part ”habits of thought are tired and futile” that resonates - so yes, sitting with the questions rather than the assumptions this week. Look forward to seeing you! xo
I didn’t realize my soul was also asking these questions until I read them and was given the language to liberate them. Thank you, Gillian ❤️
I’m so glad my glitch in the space time continuum was helpful! I was thinking that the questions were personal but if I shift my lens just a little many of them work for the world at large as well, thank you for helping me see that. xoxo
Fabulous questions to float with in a liminal space . I have a sense of what you mean Gillian having just returned from Morocco . Amazing, inspiring and also very challenging as a place and culture.
I adored Japan, it was my best 'holiday' ever because of the people, the culture and astounding beauty.
This is the question I am taking away to ponder on...
What would it look like if safety and care were built into the world around me, rather than constantly managed inside my body ?
My glimmers are my cup of the tea, reading this and knowing you.
So glad to be a glimmer! That question hits deep for me and was inspired by the way I could see physical spaces in Japan performing different roles than they do here - something about out individualist cultures is a double edge sword - perhaps more freedom but I suspect also more for our nervous systems to hold.
One of the aspect of Japanese culture I loved was the respect shown to each other in collective spaces. No loud conversations, your tube or music from phones on the underground . Children enjoying themselves with family but no screeching were a few examples of the many differences I noticed.
Gillian You are a glimmer that shines bright on the other side of the world. 💗
So interesting you said that - I noticed the same but I didn’t enjoy it as you did, it made me realise how much vicarious joy I get from watching the interactions of strangers - the quiet respect felt like a dampener to me - as such it was a lovely mirror to help me see myself!
It’s always interesting Gillian to hear of other perspectives on similar things . Like you I get a lot of vicarious joy from seeing others pleasure and interactions. Babies and children are especially generous in bringing joy.
I was just listening to a small boy chattering to an old lady (not me) on the train. Such a delight 🧡
Beautiful questions, Gillian. I love that you are allowing these questions time to surface and be recorded. If such in between times allow such beautiful questions to emerge, then I get a sense that it is sacred. Let us not rush out of it. There’s richness in that in between place.
Absolutely - the veil is drawn away and there is opportunity previously not available - you are right, the word sacred feels right, pausing here :)
Beautiful questions to sit with and not necessarily answer, as the answers emerge and change with time to breathe
Yes! No answers here - just pondering :)
Watching with interest where these questions will lead.
Lol, me too!
Welcome back Gillian. I think I have been to 5 or 6 retreats in my life with titles like your questions 🙂. You may have also provided me 18 topics for my own Substack posts! 🙂 Thank you as always Gillian. I think Japan is a beautiful place with wonderfully rich cultural patterns. Of course some of the contradictions are challenging...but given some other places we are watching implode in the world, Japan seems like a sea of calm. My glimmer...the softness of the light right now as early evening moves in....along with a bunch of wallabies and lots of ducks.
Thank goodness for wallabies and ducks. I shall look forward to your 18 posts! The more of us answering these questions for ourselves the better! I should like to go to a retreat with the title - “how can I pause and drink more tea?” :)
I think the retreat for me would be...."What questions can we ask now that we could not conceive of before"?
Yes I will come to that one too :)
Glimmers:
Playing a few ukulele chords; relearning;
Time with loved ones IRL and via video call;
Making progress to move.
Yay Ukulele! I went to my first practice (after Christmas) at my small local ukulele group yesterday morning and was presented with an envelope containing $15 - unbeknown to me the gig we played at the local Christmas Carols event was a paid gig - I guess I can now add professional ukulele player to my resume! Keep strumming you never know where it will lead you. Oh, but you do… JOY!!
Joy, indeed! 🙂
Great questions 💚
Thanks Kate, now I just need to wait for the answers :)