This Is What You Need.

A breezy, start to the day, full blue sky and the sense of suburban Sunday calm this campervan morning. A later start and the air is alive with the sounds of cars, a few lawnmowers, wood cutting and the extraneous noise of suburban Sunday busyness. A late summer feeling on the morning air. A couple of crows in conversation in the oak, and a few replies from far off suddenly draws a dozen or more of his colleagues, but still a bit of a scarcity on the bird front. A few house sparrows dart here and there, but it’s mainly crows. Cumulus and high up cirrus clouds skid through the sky quite quickly. Insects buzz and fly around branches and leaves. The sun plays across the scene, a dry bright and pleasant morning. The airports are busy once more and the sky echoes to the sound of arriving or departing planes. I came across a quote by Hemingway yesterday :

“ The first draft of anything is shit “.

Which appears to have developed an earnest discussion ( See what I did there ? ) within me. My shit being your great, your great being my shit. It’s all relative. I see it more as a clarion call to keep going, keep trying, keep writing, keep taking pictures, keep drawing. Don’t judge yourself on the first draft, we already carry enough critics with us. I have become a bit stuck at the moment, to the point that I did not post yesterday and nearly didn’t today. I don’t know if it’s a post trek thing, or just the natural cycle of creativity, but as Rick Rubin writes :

“ Adversity is part of the process “.

Bayles and Orland talk of :

“ Whatever you have is exactly what you need “.

We are good enough. As Michelle Cassou says

“ I didn’t need anything from outside me. It was all in me, just as it is in every human being ; the capacity, the ability, and the power to create. Nothing was missing.”

Everyone becomes stuck. So I am just sitting with that today and wondering what’s going on, but as Parker J Palmer says :

“ Life is a constant interplay between the powers within us, for which we are responsible, and the powers outside us, over which we have no control “

Lovely days people.

“ To become a better teacher, I must a sense of self that both does and does not depend on the responses of others “ Parker J Palmer.