S M A L L

 Nature teaches us that smallness and delicacy are intricate to the very fabric of creation. Through the filagree threads of veins and chlorophyll filled cells, life flows. Every healthy eco-system relies on the rightful place of those who take up their position. From the giants of the forest canopy to the microscopic mycelium, every element has a role to play. Wholeness is constituted in parts.Yet, like so many things out of balance, our social, political, and economic systems have been predicated on the idea of scale, infinite growth and power 'over' rather than power 'with'. One glance at the headlines will tell you how we are going with this. In short: not well.I think it is time to reclaim the power of small.Small means using less, buying local. It means looking for solutions in the margins. Small can squeeze into gaps, plug holes, turn quickly, change direction, pivot fast. Small is the handcrafted, the bespoke, the individually tailored, the limited edition. It's tending to a close network of intimate friends. It's deep connection. It's seeing the beauty in the detail. It's realising that the resources to keep producing in the way that we have been are not infinite. Small is acting on a knowing that we are stronger, together, then focusing our time and attention on where we can best make a difference.So, if you are feeling 'small' today, how might that be a good thing? How can you use it to your advantage? And what might you notice and catalyse from here?Remember: a small pebble can have a big ripple effect and the beginnings of a garden are in the seeds.

What is the measure of a life well lived?

From my look out spot, some reflections:What is the measure of a life well lived?So often we measure our success based on our productivity, output or some external indicator which society places on us. This usually arrives as a 'should'- 'I should have more money by now, or more opportunities, or more X. I should be here in my career. I should be doing more'.But 'more' is not an indicator of depth, value or lasting impact.Instead, what if the measure of a life well lived was the quality of questions we lived into:Am I learning? Am I contributing to something which feels larger than myself? Am I experiencing wonder? Am I finding myself drawn into conversations which help me see things differently? Does curiosity tap me on the shoulder and lead me down new paths? Am I growing? Does my heart break a little bit every day to crack me open to the real and raw? Can my being here be a balm to another, and a friend to all beings, now and for the generations to come?  The right questions can lead to the right quests.

On Wayfinding through Mud and Wetness

You can listen to this post here (5 mins)    There is a place I walk out to. A special place, which has a mix of solace and solidarity, out at the edge where wind meets the wild. I have been there many times. I go to write, to think, to sit, to be in conversation. It is a place beyond my definitions of beauty.But this gets me: each time I walk out, the path is different. It is never clear. It is full of thorns and brambles, and a thick, unforgiving sludge which is a mixture of mud and cow shit. I fell three times yesterday. I stabbed my hand on some barded wire. Milly turned the colour of sodden earth. My feet were so wet I could have rung them out. This is the path less trodden. Sometimes it is full of shit. Sometimes it is full of savour. Mostly it is both.As in life, so in life.I want to tell you this: there are times I think I should give up on this freelance life, this working way part-lived online, this walking on paths which are not paths at all. There are days which are shadowy, and days which are slippery. There are days in which I feel all the sludge. Somedays I feel lonely. Somedays I feel like I want to hurl expletives at the next person who claims to have a definitive solution to the complexity of life, or who offers a ten step guide to having your life sorted, as if life is this thing that can be boxed and bound.Then I remember the castle. Then I remember the path. Then I remember the choices. Then I remember the stories. Then I remember to sit in the mud and enjoy the silky coverings of sea-spray. Then I remember to phone a friend.We read poetry to each other. Rilke’s words:‘This is what the things can teach us:to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do thatbefore he can fly. We sit in silence for awhile afterwards. It feels close to truth. So close. By listening to each other we reaffirm the power of flight. The listening is a way of saying: ‘I believe in you. Keep going’. The listening is an act of stirring up resilience, in us both.I think this is so much of the real work; the work of accompaniment, this act of dedicated attention to cultivate hope in the spirit of endurance and the creativity of tenacity. For each other, over and over, it is needed when we stop seeing the truth of ourselves. It is so we have each other to mirror back our strength, to help us find the next turn of the path, to remind us of our castles.I don’t want to give up friends. I don’t want you to give up either. But sometimes we have to realise that we can’t do it all alone. That we need to phone a friend who can help us to trust in the weight of our convictions and remind us of the longer arc of patience needed to take us there. Maybe sometimes that is all we have: our vision, and each other.Later, I take a shower, washing the mud from my fingernails and unknotting my hair. I give Milly a wash too, returning her to white. As the full moon rises, I read more Rilke. One line shimmers.‘Through the empty branches the sky remains’Then I throw some more fuel on the fire and feel the heat rise. As the flames light up the room, an email arrives from another friend. It says: ‘let’s do this’. I respond, simply ‘Yes, let’s’...So this is a note to all of you today who may be thinking of giving up. But instead of giving up maybe it is time to phone a friend, or walk out to the equivalence of your castle, or take a different route for a while. Sometimes it is not the vision that’s the problem, but how we are approaching it. Sometimes we just need to take a detour for a while, or a pause, and notice how the moon always rises across the arc of open skies.Sending you love, for wherever you find yourself today,Clare. x 

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Coming up...An Online Writing Circle Write to Your Truth, the online version starts soon. On March 2nd. It's eight weeks. It is a way for your to build your writing skill and craft some stories. It needs about two hours commitment per week. There are six beautiful live circles/ sessions in which we will write together. Find out more and register online today Want to coming to Lisbon? How about a weekend of writing and connection, learning and exploring in Lisbon.Write to Your Truth is heading to Lisbon in May. Come join Emily Avila and I as we team up to create this nourishing, supportive creative salon. Find out more and book online here.  Creative Mentoring Have a creative project you want to grow? Need some support to clarify your vision, values, next steps and communications? My mentoring process is a blend of design thinking, intuition and inner work, and strategic planning- tailored to your needs. Find out more.   ....Want to stay in touch? Sign up to my mailing list here. 

Poetry Circle- A Radical Salon for our Time?

 You can listen to this post here too: The circle of the year is turning. As the leaves fall back home to the earth, and the evenings begin to turn in on themselves, there is a signalling to gather. Inwards.The fire is lit. The poetry books are scattered around a low coffee table. The invite had been sent a few weeks previously. The season of the poetry salon is upon us. Now, all there is left to do is light some candles, and wait. ‘Whoever comes are the right people’, ‘Whenever it starts is the right time’. I reiterate some gathering guidelines I learned through the Art of Hosting community. They remind me that once an intention is set, once the foundations have been laid with beauty, beauty can only be braided deeper, whatever form it takes. This is not about numbers, after all, but about the act of gathering, and listening, and leaning into the space between friends and strangers, with poetry as the gateway and the salon as the template.Lady Wilde, or ‘Speranza’ was a woman who lived up to her name, or so the accounts of the 1860s would have us believe. Oscar Wilde’s mother, a poet, Irish nationalist, folklorist and passionate women’s rights advocate, was a gatherer and host of one of the most notorious and flamboyant Dublin salons. Number One Merrion Square, grand and elegant, opened its doors to the literati, musicians, artists, social commentators, medics, law makers and perhaps law breakers, of the time. Under candlelight they gathered to discuss a gamut of affairs and culture. W.B Yeats, Ruskin and suffragist Millicent Fawcett, were all said to have crossed the door, with a young Oscar Wilde listening in from the alcoves. Lady Wilde’s salon was not in isolation. Across Europe, from Italy to France in the 17th and 18th centuries, salons were places for the circulation of ideas, knowledge and conversation. Often hosted by women, the salon was a ground for the development of an active civic and public life. We can assume these gathering places were not always sober, and not necessarily always civil, but they did create public places for the gathering of difference, for dialogue and debate outside the formal realms of either church or state. They brought together the intersections of disciplines and sectors, where the rules of one did not outweigh the rules of another. Put a woman in the centre of things, especially in those times, especially in Ireland, and here are the ingredients for ripe and radical activism. Here was a way to do things differently.We have Twitter now of course. And we have digital discussion rooms. But here we also have the digital infrastructure for polarisation and fraction to escalate. We have fear, and worse still, fear mongering. The institutions which one held the power and prestige are crumbling around us and in many cases, rightly so. But I question the spaces in which ‘conversations’ are happening. I watched the recent Presidential debates in Ireland for instance, and I wondered, ‘Where is the room for genuine listening? Where is the room for robust debate, unpinned with respect, and dare I say it, perhaps the most radical word of all, love. There was a poet in the midst too, running for re-election, now under attack for caring to too much about things that do not have a direct economic value. Things like poetry, and things like dignity. Would we, as a nation, dare to listen?You find the respect in pockets of course, and the digital world can amplify those pockets. I find it with writers, like the environmentalist Terry Tempest WilIiams and Robert McFarlane, with social commentators like Rebecca Solnit, and I find it in online watering holes like BrainPickings and On Being, the latter offering us guidelines for convening with their ‘Grounding Virtues’. I love how words like ’Generous Listening’, ‘Adventurous Civility’, and ‘Humility’, are now active and explicit participants in this online space, values which I know spill over and enliven their public events. Here too: a template.Right out at the edge of Europe on the west coast of Ireland, my little home goes by the name of ‘Wren Cottage’. It’s no Number One Merrion Square, but it’s cozy and if there are not enough chairs there are always cushions and floor space. Knock on the door by knock on the door, a little flock gathers. Some have come before, some are new. Tea is made, more logs on the fire, and we make our way naturally into a circle. I mention briefly the history of the salons, thinking of Lady Wilde, and I make reference to On Being’s ‘Grounding Virtues’. There is not much need for small talk and soon the poetry takes over. By way of tradition, Mary Oliver opens, then Rilke joins the chorus. There are sighs of awe, and sighs of not knowing what to say because the poem is just beyond words. The poems leave trails around the room. Another participant picks up a scent and offers fresh language into the circle.Then we laugh and marvel at Sharon Olds’ poem about breasts, and we delight in the spaciousness in the language of the Chinese poet Zhao Lihong, a poet new to most of us. Convulsions of laughter ripple outwards in thinking about Rumi on a modern dating site. The laughter builds a deeper bond. The circle tightens.As the salon continues, I am aware of a friend of mine, attending an environmental conference in the US on the same weekend. It is a place for bringing together activists and changemakers. But he speaks of the fear in the room, and an intense anger too. He speaks of the deep deep grief for these times we are in, and a sense of paralysed frenzy. It makes us wonder, ‘What room for joy amidst such times? What room for beauty? And definitely, what room for poetry?’ A while later he sends me some words from another role model in our midst, the scholar and activist, Joanna Macy, on this thing called ‘Active Hope’;‘Active Hope is not wishful thinking. Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued by some saviour. Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act.. a readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, our own authority, our love of life, the liveliness of our curiosity, the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead. None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk’. Around the circle the fire crackles and the flames spark. More tea is made. In my Celtic tradition, like so many indigenous traditions around the world, the circle was the primary shape of things. Stone circles. Fairy rings. In the shape of the circle is the container for the whole; fear and grief, joy and beauty. The circle holds both yin and yang, the masculine and the feminine, the light and the dark. It’s not a place for blind optimism, wishful thinking, nor deepest despair. Instead is a place to return those things back to their wholeness with a singular message: we are in this together.I am interested in the intersections of things: ‘Where do you end and I begin?; Where does fear become courage?; Where do the arts become activism?; Where does beauty simply beget beauty and joy beget joy? In dark and challenging times, I’m with Joanna Macy on this: there is a radicalism in insisting on beauty and joy, for the very amplification of those things. Yes: Active Hope.With that we get to ask questions like this: What if we didn’t need more platforms for opinions, but more platforms for presence and connection instead? What if our presidential candidates were seated in a circle, grounded in virtues and invited first to listen, then to speak. What if instead of defending a position, they were asked to defend their values? Then read a poem.Last week, the Irish nation took to the polls. The poet was re-elected. Our president speaks of the power of words, and values. ‘We are in a time of transformation and there is a momentum for empathy, compassion, inclusion and solidarity which must be recognised and celebrated’, Michael D Higgins said at this acceptance speech, ‘Words matter. Words can hurt. Words can heal. Words can empower. Words can divide’.The thing is this: people got up from their armchairs. They voted. They dared. Not all of us, not enough of us, but enough to #keepthepoet . Enough to insist on words mattering, and dignity too.Back around the fire our poems circled and circled. Towards the end of the evening, my friend Orlagh suggested we each write a question on a post-it note. Any question, any question at all. Then we’d gather those questions to see how they converge. A few minutes later there is a shriek at the back of the kitchen where Orlagh is curating the post-it’s as an archivist would, or an archeologist. Two of us have written the exact same question. ‘Where does poetry come from and where does it go to?’ And the other questions? Well this is what emerged; a poem, written by the whole, from our wren circle:

Where do poems live when the book is closed?Why does the light on the sea always stretch towards you,following, following?Why do the stars stare?Where does poetry come from and where does it go?If the news showed poems instead of the tragic, what would the world become?When is the Tao not the Tao?Only in the forgetting of love.Do I dare?

Around the circle, awe rolls out into the night with hints of laughter and impossible delight. I can feel Lady Wilde smiling from the great beyond, and Oscar Wilde listening in from the alcoves. This thing we are in together? We think it might be magic. If only we can get out of our way long enough to get out of our armchairs and hear the poetry of the world rising. I think the circle might just be our ears. And the salon? Well that’s up to you. Now you have a template. Go. 

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Active Hope and Stories of Renewal

 You can listen to a recording of this post here (6 mins)...There have been weeks of whirl. Switch the news on, and this thing called overwhelm has been hitting, hard. I see it everywhere. Walking through Dublin airport last week, I saw a mass of bodies swimming in a sea of overwhelm too. The stress of coming, and going. The stress of all this frantic doing. Then the news comes in from the Kavanaugh case, and the latest IPCC report on our global trajectory. I wanted to bury my face in the sand and just ignore it all for a while. But the thing is, the sand is suffocating too, and it’s no place for a head and a heart which gets broken open from the pain of all that it witnesses. For when the head is buried this thing called cynicism starts to creep in and calcify the openings. It blocks the flow of that which is vital to us: breath and life and connection to something which is deeper and wider and bigger than the pain. This I am realising; broken hearts are also open hearts, and open hearts hold the ingredients of our transformation. So, I read an essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer on the plane, about how her indigenous elders respected the annual return of Salmon to their waters, and the beauty of her words stirs me up. As I read I let my tears fall onto the open page, and a stranger across the aisle reaches over and passes me a tissue, in recognition. And I attend a conference called ‘Inner Peace’ in Amsterdam, and sit with hundreds of others, who are each questioning and questing to be part of the renewal of the world. Again the tears come, and another stranger reaches from his chair in front of me, turns around, and touches my arm gently for a moment, in an act of recognition. Then back in Dublin, waiting for a bus in the cold and drizzle, I read in one fell swoop Mary Robinson’s new book, ‘Climate Justice’, and some gentle raindrops falls on the pages in a kind of mutual recognition too. Inside me, I feel the need to dance.I am home. I turn the music to it’s loudest. Among the stacked, unwashed dishes in my kitchen, alongside all the ordinary, I let my rage and grief transform into something called movement. I dance. And dance some more. ‘Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly… you were only waiting for your moment to be free’. Gregory Porter’s version has all the energy of renewal in it. Then I call a friend in the US. Across the span of time zones and a big ocean between us, we speak of loss, and fear, and this need for connection and momentum. Then we read a poem, from Rilke,‘Quiet friend who has come so far,feel how your breathing makes more space around you.Let this darkness be a bell towerand you the bell. As you ring,what batters you becomes your strength.Move back and forth into the change.What is it like, such intensity of pain?If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine….. There is a moment of silence, and in the pause we recognise: in the space of the poem, and the space of the tears, and the space of listening for the openings, we are each trying to find a way to stay in the deeper conversation. It’s the one about love and trees, how the rivers move, and how we can build trust between those who are deemed strangers. No, I am not alone in am trying to find the ways to keep my heart above ground. I have never been alone. That was just a story. I flip back through the months I’ve just had. It would be easy to focus on the mistakes I have made, and the ways I have been unkind to others, and all that news, but now instead I see flashbacks of the passing of tissues, the dance, the deepening conversations, and all the stories in the books, and the poems too, each showing me that here, just above the surface, rising now and rising more, there is another story being written. It picks up the frayed threads of cynicism and insists that they need not define the map of our way forward. Instead, this story weaves hope right into it’s fabric. But it is not hope as a fleeting feeling. It is a hope defined as presence, showing up to all that is, all the pain and the grief, all the confusion and the fear, and still insisting on action, and in that act, is the thing called hope, offered to us again by Rilke in poetic recognition too;Let everything happen to you: beauty and terrorJust keep going. No feeling is final.Don’t let yourself lose me.Nearby is the country they called lifeYou will know it by it’s seriousnessGive me your hand. And so, today, on another ordinary Monday, I turn off the news, turn up the music, and do the work which calling to me. For right now, it’s what I have, it’s my dance, and it’s my offering. In it all, I am learning, that together we can go further, and we don’t have to do it alone. This is the story for our time. Write to Your Truth // Online CircleWrite to Your Truth starts this coming Saturday, 20th Oct. We will be writing, and listening, and sharing poems and stories, and learning some the craft of writing. We will be a small and intimate group. This is a time for you to dive into the story of your own life, find the golden thread, and weave new maps forward. I’d love for you to join.It's for 8 weeks and includes four live calls.Find out more here. If you have questions, drop me a line. If you have a friend who you think would love this, please pass on this the link. Thank you. ... 

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On Creating the Conditions for Growth

Meet Plant. My beautiful friend Yesim gave me Plant for my birthday at the end of March. Or rather she gave me a lovely pot, covered in moss, and told me that she had planted a bulb. She spoke of Plant’s potential but was hesitant to show me a picture of what plant should look like, in case it spoiled the experience for me. But I really wanted to see the packaging so I could have an image of what it is I have been ask to steward into care. Yesim obliged and showed me the picture of a full blooming Ismene Hymenocallis (Festalis). I was so excited about what was to come even though I had never even seen one of these before. The gift was intriguing.

I was in between homes for a little while, so for a few weeks Plant lived in my car as I moved from place to place. I was nervous I would damage Plant, but Plant had not sprouted yet and so seemed OK with all the transition. When I moved into my new home one of the first things I did was find a place for Plant, right by the back door, in shelter and in light, as per instructions.

Then nothing. Then nothing. Then nothing. I visited Plant regularly, checking to see any signs of life. Still nothing. I wondered if something was wrong. Had I killed Plant? Had I thwarted things by moving around so much? I kept waiting and wondering. A few weeks in, I went away for a weekend, and then boom, when I returned Plant had sprouted.  Not only that but was now about 1cm above the soil level. Plant was growing!! Since then I have been watching and checking on Plant, making sure it has the right conditions for growth. I don’t have to do much. Just keep checking the conditions.

One morning this week, after visiting Plant, I also had an aha moment- Plant is offering a metaphor for the work it takes to create the right conditions for growth, and also giving me a new way into understanding the work I do in the world. My whole body came alive with this realisation- which always tells me I am onto something.

‘Create the conditions for growth’. This is what I was learning.

I was in the shower at the time of the aha (often when the best ideas come!), so I hopped out, grabbed a towel, and raced to my journal to capture the ideas and insights. I find if I don’t do it immediately, the ideas move on and are harder to find again. I scribbled down a list of the conditions for growth which Plant was helping me to see and how it relates to leadership, creativity and wayfinding in our lives. These conditions are generative, in that they are life-giving and life affirming, and they can apply at an individual, organisational or systemic level. The conditions are foundational, working below the surface (inner life and values), and also with the invisible elements which are is not seen (field intelligence and spirit), but are also very practical and grounded.

More and more I am appreciating the time it takes to grow things. What we seed now may take a long time to come to the surface, but keeping open to the conditions of growth is the key. One, two, three years on, I get emails from clients saying change they made back then is reaping the rewards now- financially, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. I see this in my own life too. Seeds which I planted years ago are starting to come to life now. Others, it may take a while yet. The thing is- to keep planting. Not everything will flourish, but some things will. This insight and feedback in turns gives me a greater appreciation of the role of time and tending to the unseen, and helps me to actively nurture my own growth cycles.

This work of change and learning is not about quick fixes or easy answers. It’s not about growth hacking, or unnatural (and unsustainable) scaling. It is not about diets or denial. Instead it is about creating the ground from which we can evolve the eco-system into which our lives (as individuals, organisations and collectives) can thrive.

So, here goes: On creating the conditions of growth- a creative practice for you.

Think about what it takes to steward into life what it is that is seeking to grow. You can choose something from your personal or professional life.

Draw a picture of a plant, including a pot. Beside each element of the plant, take some time to journal responses to the questions.

The Container

The pot is essential. The pot is boundary or landscape or structure into which we plant our seeds- our ideas, our visions- the thing we want to grow. A beautiful pot helps, but is not essential- it is the boundary which is important. In our lives or projects a boundary can be agreements around what is involved in the project and what is not, who is involved at the current stage, and who is not. It can be a set of collaboration agreements between people involved, or a series of commitments to the project which will help protect and nurture it at the early stage of growth. By creating a container, or parameters, we get to set the stage for the growth.

What is the form of the container for your own ideas? What does the boundary look like? And how can that boundary be protected?

The Image= The Vision

That picture of Plant- or a similar Plant- was so important to the stewarding. Let’s equate this it the vision for the project, or our lives. Without out a picture of what it is we are seeking to create we have less investment with a pot which we have been told has life in it. Our vision helps to carry us through the dormant times, the rest time, the time where all this new life is germinating but we can not see it yet. The vision is our orientation to the future full potential. When Yesim offered me the image of the Plant, I was activated and excited. I gained an understanding of what it is I am stewarding and am appreciation of the time it will take for Plant to grow. The vision is the vehicle through which commitment and energy can flow.

How can you cultivate your own vision? How can you paint a picture of what it is you want to create? How can you share this vision with others who you want to engage in the stewarding process?

The Time 

Growth takes time, and not all time is equal. There is a long period of time in the dark when can doubt if things are actually moving. Then there are growth spurts. Then there are plateaus. We can accelerate growth by providing the right conditions and feeding what it is we want to bring to life, but deep change takes time, and patience, and often a lot of fumbling around in the dark.

How can you honour this cyclical and wave like nature of time? Are you giving yourself enough time? Or too much time? What still needs time under the surface? What is ready to bloom?

The Joy

I am so excited about watching Plant grow. Each day more and more so. I realise that it is not just about the end product that I am excited about, but seeing each stage of the growth cycle. The process is the joy. So often we get fixated about the end result, but in fact joy is available all through the process. If there is no joy in what it is you want to create, if it does not bring you alive, then something it off and it is time to change track. Joy is a signpost to your way.

How does your body respond when you speak about the thing it is you are doing. Does your body feel contracted, tight or constrained? Or does your body open up, feel lighter, and more energised? Your body will help to tell you if you are on the right path. Listen for the openings.

The Soil

The soil is the nourishment. It is separate to what is seeding it, but it is offering substrate into which Plant’s roots can grow and through these roots that it is drawing in life force. Maybe the nourishment is poetry, or deep enriching conversations, or actively seeking inspiration from others. Maybe it is taking time out, or reflection, or having a party.

What is the soil of our lives, or projects, our organisations? What is it that nourishes them, inspires their growth and feeds them?

The Roots

Below the surface, the roots of the plant are making their way deeper into the substrate, for stability and growth. These are like our value system. We don’t see them, but our values are like channels through which the life force can flow. When we are clear on our values we are clearer about the types of things we want to say ‘yes’ to , and the type of things we need to say ‘no’ to. (I have previously written a lot about values, and have developed another exercise to help you identify yours. You can view that here.

What are your core values? How do you think they shape how you show up in the world? How can you created a sense of shared values is your team, organisation or family?

The Space/ Place

Place is a powerful factor in supporting growth- what we surround ourselves with and who we surround ourselves with. The right physical space inspire us to take action.  Think of the difference in a light filled- airy office, and a dark room with stale air.  Space in nature, or co-working space, or a large blank page all have a role in play. Change the space and we can change our thinking. Orientate ourselves to the light and we change the way we grow. Light and space are the unseen factors which are often so overlooked.

Do we have enough physical space to grow? How is the place you are in informing what you are creating? Are you surrounding yourself with inspiration and beauty? How can you be oriented to the light? What does the ‘light’ represent to you’?

Field Intelligence/ Life intelligence

There is an intelligence to life which demands our trust. That life seeks life. That change is constant. That there is an animating life force which is universal. You can take both a scientific approach or a spiritual one, or both. Life, and growth, has an intelligence beyond our control. When we trust, and let go of some of our control, we can align with this larger field of intelligence. Then you start to notice: synchronicities, being in the right place at the right time, the right conversations happening naturally or that very thing you were searching for being under your nose all along- you just had not noticed before.

How can you honour this wider field of intelligence? 

Not all seeds will make it.

This too is life. Sometimes there is no real explanation about why one grows and one does not. I was lucky with Plant- it grew, but there was no guarantee. If I wanted to increase my chances, I would have needed to plant more bulbs. When it comes to thinking about our personal and professional life, this is where prototypes and experiments come into it. We try things out in different ways, we realise that not all ideas are ready to grow, we understand that some need to stay in the dark for longer, we realise that failure is just an intrinsic part of systemic growth dynamics. We take a risk, and when the thing blooms, we enjoy it all the more.

Are you experimenting enough to grow?

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No doubt my thinking on this will change over time. Right now I hope it will also give you food for thought and you can think about how Plant may inform and inspire your own life.

Thank you Plant.

(Plant takes a bow. Applause from the rest of the garden. Curtains close)

TBC  later in the summer, when, all going well, we’ll have a bloom. In the meantime, I’m going to make sure I enjoy each stage of growth!

Want some one to one support to help you steward your ideas and creations to life?

Find out more about my creative mentoring options.

Want to come to West Cork for a deep dive? Wild Edge retreats are open (and the weather is amazing down here at the moment. A good time to book and soak in the place and space this has to offer).

''Clare’s care for details, deep listening and ability to pull the right question created a safe space for me to meet and connect to myself. Not only mentally but emotionally, spiritually and physically. She helped me navigate strong emotions and confusion and come out clearer the other side. She’s a lighthouse for when we need to go on the brave journey to our deeper selves, a journey which lead to truly fulfilled life' - Naomi Fein, Think Visual CEO, May 2018.   

In the Question is the Quest

 The more I sit still, the more I can really listen to what life is presenting to me- the opportunities, the love, the joy, the next steps. It helps me get out of my own way and presents me with images/ intuitions/ signs/ symbols and words which help to guide the way. Over the years I have practiced listening and acting on these images. They present me with questions, and in the question, is the QUEST. The questions have why, what, and where in then, not how and when. The how and when comes later. The learning is to listen to what is calling you, why you are drawn to it, what values you are honouring, what in you opens when you listen (Does your body come alive or shut down? Do you have feelings of stress or feelings of joy?). The aliveness, the joy- it is there to show you the way forward.  When we start with the ‘how’ (how do I build the next thing, or make the transition or the leap), it’s ripe ground for fear to enter too. Does an artist sit at an easel and ask, ‘How do I paint that tree, or that thing of beauty in front of me?’, or does a poet ask, ‘How do I write a poem?’ No- they listen first, they look and observe, they create the space for the work to flow, and then they show up to the creative, generative process inviting spirit, insight, action and intention to join them. Through the process and prototype they figure out the how.So often we approach our lives like strategic plans or business reports measuring ‘success’ by metrics not of our own. We worry so much about the how without listening for the why and the what. We forget to invite creativity and our innate wisdom into the equation.But what if we were to approach our lives like creative acts- an unfolding poem or an art work in progress? The art is in the living. What we create (jobs, businesses, networks, relationships, organisations, collaborations, new life paths) are then infused with this artful way- a work in progress, flexible and creating beauty in the world which serves the greater whole.This is what I mean when I speak of creative leadership. This is the only way I know that works.…Want to listen in to your intention, purpose and vision and learn to create aligned action and prototypes? Taking bookings now for one to one mentoring, vision mapping sessions and Wild Edge retreats (here in amazing West Cork) in which I share some of the tools, skills and practices for leading and creating your own one wild life...SaveSave

On Resilience: Part Four

  This is the final part in a four part series on resilience. Missed the others? You can read part one, Part two, and Part threeBuilding our resilience muscle... Any bread makers out there? You’ll know that there is a critical stage in the baking process: the leavening. As the dough sits, the fermentation process commences letting all those lovely bubbles of CO2- the essential raising agent- to do their magical work. The leavening time is when you step away, put the dough in a warm and cozy place and let the yeast be yeast. The rest is part of the rise.In my favourite café in Dublin, the Fumbally, there is a large quote from Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote) written on the wall; ‘All sorrows are less with bread’. We can play with this a little and also say, ‘All sorrows are less if we act like bread’. Bread, you see, holds a valuable life lesson; that rest is integral to the whole.As humans we need our own form of leavening time, and yet, why do we resist? In the world of go go go, on on on, it can feel like total self-indulgence to rest. More and more frequently when I ask people how they are doing, ‘busy’ is the response. (Is busy now a euphemism for ‘I am wanted, I am useful, I am important?’). What if we were to step away from work, and let the air that holds us all together do it’s work. In other words; take some breathing space. When it comes to building our resilience, is rest part of our rise too? And when I say rise here, I am wondering if it’s not just about what we do in the world, but how we elevate our state of being in the world.RestThis is where the rest part gets beautifully nuanced: it turns out that there is not just one form of rest. Rest instead is on a spectrum from stillness, to awareness, all the way to flow.Let’s skip over to the poetic for some more clues. The poet David Whyte has written a delightful little book, ‘Consolations’, which is a series of mediative reflections on, as he puts it, ‘The solace, nourishment and underlying meaning of everyday words’- rest being one of them.Rest, he proposes;

‘is to give up on the already exhausted will as the prime motivator of endeavour, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner static bull’s eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange’

To feel rested, then, does not necessarily mean to stop everything; but instead to fall into rhythm with life’s daily occurrences, with the exchange of breath, and with our domesticated selves. As Whyte continues..

..we are rested when we let things alone and let ourselves alone, to do what we do best, breathe as the body intended us to breathe, to walk as we were meant to walk, to live with the rhythm of a house and a home, giving and taking through cooking and cleaning…. To rest is not self indulgent, to rest is to prepare to give the best of ourselves, and to perhaps, most importantly, arrive at a place where we are able to understand what we have already been given.

Rest and Design SprintsWhen it comes to entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, rest is a critical component to the creative process- both within the process, and at either end of it. That time to step back from a canvas and take in the big picture; that time in the writing process when you print out what you’ve done, and set it aside for a few days, only to return to it with fresh eyes; that time in music when there is space and quiet again so that we can really take in the crescendo. The silence, the space, the pause is part of the music too.In design and innovation circles, the idea of working in sprints has been taking off- a period of rapid thinking, prototyping, and launching, followed by periods of rest. These burst of creativity have their own momentum and give rise to new ways of seeing things without getting stuck in the typical creative traps of procrastination, overthinking or never getting started in the first place.David Hieatt, author of DO Purpose, founder of Hieatt Denim and co-founder of the wonderful Do Lectures, integrated sprints into his own working life, commenting:

A short sprint followed by a longer rest, can get way more done. But, we think of resting up as some badge of dishonour. As humans, we are built for short bursts. Our attention span is built for short bursts. Our creativity is built for short bursts. Yet mostly, we work like we are built for marathons. I think sprints are a practical way to make a lot of stuff happen quickly with limited resources.

In terms of building our inner resilience, it could serve us well also to think in sprints; focusing on short bursts of personal goals, short-term but intense creative experiments, using deadlines to build our momentum- and then valuing the break as an intrinsic part of the creative cycle.Stop, Look, Go: Gratitude as a way of livingIf we are looking for a cornerstone upon which to build our resilience as a way of living, then we would be well to go back to Whyte’s sense in Consolations: ‘To be able to understand what we are given’. This awareness, we will note, gives rise to gratitude, and this gratitude could even be the start of a revolution. I’ll let Whyte and the benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast elaborate further.‘Gratitude’, continues Whyte, ‘is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand, are present for and even equal to, the gifted nature of life.Brother Seindl-Rast also takes on this mantel in his work and research on the power of gratitude in our lives and the importance of this a-priori mode of being. ’It is gratefulness that makes us happy’, he eloquently offers in this TED talk, explaining that in order for us to lead a grateful life we must become consistently aware that every moment is a gift, and within each of those moments is the gift of opportunity. Moment by moment, he suggests, we are gifted with an opportunity to create our lives, to respond to the beauty which surrounds us and to simply enjoy the tastes, the sounds, the colour, the light, the texture or the world presenting itself to us. And if we fail? Well, the will of the world is a marvellous thing: we are gifted with another opportunity to pay attention.The practice of gratitude becomes powerful when it becomes exactly that- a practice. When we learn to orientate ourselves to pay consistent attention to the opportunity arising with each breath. Easier said than done- perhaps?Sensing the complexity in the simplicity, Brother Seindl-Rast gives us a little formula as a methodology for living gratefully:‘Stop. Look. Go’ (remember the safe cross code?)Stop= rest, look= pay attention, go= respond to the opportunity which life is presenting in this given moment.Building more ‘stop points’ in our lives is the key- moments when we actively take note of the gift of life in front of us. Brother Seindl-Rast recounts a little story of living in Africa for a while, when he had no running water or electricity. When he returned home, at first each time he turned on a tap or switched on a light, he stopped, in awe of the miracle of both. After a while though, he became accustomed to these things, and stopped paying attention. And so, as a reminder to stop, look, and be in awe, he put a little sticker on the light switch and the tap.When we learn to build more stop points in our lives, we develop our capacity to notice connections, patterns, creative solutions and new ways of showing up. If we are go go go, we simply miss out on this opportunity to reconfigure ourselves in response to the needs and moments which surround us. To Brother Seindl-Rast, living a grateful life, has the power not just to transform our own individual lives but also to revolutionise how we collectively respond to the ongoing opportunities. When we are grateful, we don’t act out of fear, which in turns leads to less violence. If we are grateful, we act not out of scarcity but with a sense of intrinsic abundance, which, he asserts, in turn leads to more sharing and therefore more connected and strengthened systems.So we really have cause not to stop and pause? It may in fact be the start a revolution.FlowBefore leaving the topic of resilience for the moment, there is one other core principle which is important to incorporate. It’s to do with baking again, or swimming, or painting, or juggling or any multiple of things which brings us into a state of flow. The writer - who I regularly introduce as, ‘you know that guy with the unpronounceable surname’- yes, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (see that I mean!), has written about the importance of flow state, describing is as;‘being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz’.Why do I write so much? Well, it’s one of my flow activities. I can loose track of time and become completely oblivious to any worries or concerns I was carrying before I started. And why do I paint? For exactly the same reason. I’ve a hurler friend who speaks of the same experience on the sports field, and a fiddler friend who speaks of the same flow when he looses himself in playing. And you? That thing that you loose yourself in? That’s a key to your resilience.Maureen Gaffney, the psychologist who I referenced in a previous article (remember the 5:1 ratio, and negativity bias), also writes about flow in her book Flourishing referring to flow also as ‘the art of vital engagement’;

‘the more a person reports experiences of flow in their average week, the more likely they are to describe themselves as strong, active, creative, concentrated, motivated and happy- the way most of us would like to describe ourselves… The capacity for being in flow is intimately connected to your ability to control your precious units of attention and to strengthen your executive self’

There are eight elements identified to flow, including taking on an activity that is challenging and requires skill. As Gaffney explains; ‘You are most likely to enter a flow experience when you take on something that stretches you, when both the level of challenge and the level of skill required are above average level’. This is the good stress, or stretch, which is about reaching for a goal and having a vision. And a critical ingredient to flow? Joy. For flow to happen, the activity must have meaning to you and is something you find enjoyable. I’m personally not going to find it in playing chess, for instance, but you might- and I won’t judge you for that, I promise! But I will find in the things I love- writing, art, photography, swimming and yoga.So, if you know what your flow activities are, but you are rarely doing them, can you increase them to once a week- you’ll find you are more confident and more resilient. And if you haven’t found out what brings flow into your life, then perhaps it’s time to experiment. A clue may be in what you enjoyed as a child. Maybe it’s art, or writing, or doing handstands, or playing chess- whatever it is, it has a little secret to your ongoing wellbeing.A word of caution though too: social media- that endless stream of distraction and noise, is the enemy of flow. To flow, we need learn to switch off the stream and be more discerning of how we use our attention. Our time is precious, and we must learn to use it wisely...So, we’ve covered a lot of territory in this resilience thinking. If anything even the experience of writing these articles has reminded me of the power of paying attention to the joy and beauty which surrounds me. I know I’ll likely get stressed and anxious again, I know I’ll face challenges, but I also know that there is an arsenal of tools and practices available, as immediate as my breath, to carry me onwards.To breath. To pause. To pay attention. To express gratitude. To remember our values. To think of the positive. To cultivate flow states. To rest. To start over. These are the building blocks to resilient living.And with that, I’m off to bake some bread. It’s been a while...Find this article useful? Please share.  ..Want to stay in touch with more resources and tools for leading your one wild life? Sign up to the newsletter to have them sent directly to your inbox...Find out about ways we can work together. Taking bookings now for The Clarity Sessions, Creative Mentoring, and Wild Edge Retreats.Contact me today to find out more. SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Working with the dark receptive...

 .It’s three weeks into January. Christmas holidays seem like a century ago (right?!) And right about now the slump can hit. Slump= procrastination/ doubt/ fear/ wanting to give up on whatever it is you set out in 2018 with and instead curl up in bed. Familiar?First up, curling up in bed in a wonderful thing, especially with a good book or a cuddly person beside you, or both! I’ve a new found appreciation for naps, for naps are dreamtime and dreamtime is our subconscious/ unconscious helping us to figure out the unknowns in our lives and reminding us of the mystery. So, yes to naps, especially when we are only still 3 weeks into January and (at least in the Northern Hemisphere, and very much in West Cork, it is wintery outside and the hailstones still insist on coming at us horizontally).And secondly the challenge is that default dominant cultural mode is to do. Get things done. Do things quickly. Like many of us, I’m a do-er. I get a buzz from starting projects and catalysing shifts. I love to see ideas made manifest in the world. So, I know it takes conscious effort for me to tap into the power of being. To be. We often associate being with ‘not doing’, which can, quite frankly, put the fear of God into all the default do’ers out there -and, yes, there are many of us!The other morning I got up and immediately jumped into my ‘to-do’ list. By 11am something was really off. I felt out of sorts, stressed, worried. Then it clicked- ah, my ‘to be list’. You’d think I would have learned by now. But learning is a cycle too.I am actively working with the celtic calendar at the moment and in these weeks before Imbolc (early Feb), we are in the dark receptive cycle. In this phase, ‘to be’ is to be receptive- to be open to receiving- to be growing with intent.I am realising that there are two layers to this receptivity- the inner and the outer.The inner layer is an inwards orientation to our own bodies. It asks us, what is it like to be receptive to our own presence, to the space of our bodies, and to our breath. What is it like to be open to feeling the textures we come in contact with on a moment by moment basis, and how does it feel to be aware of our intrinsic connection to all beings and all things, purely by virtue of our being-ness. To be is to be enough. That is baseline. This is the actual default of our lives, and yet we cover it up with busyness to safeguard ourselves from not feeling like we are enough.The outer later is the external ‘being-ness’: how we show up in the world around us. ‘To be’ in the dark receptive cycle is to be willing to give time to those parts of our life which are still in germination or gestation; to be engaged with the world as a receiver of knowledge, emotion, experience, grace and then to express this receptivity through a trust that life is forever unfolding, always, just as nature does.And so, with the remembrance, I return to my ‘to do’ list with a calmer breath. Suddenly the ‘to-do’ is put in perspective. I cross off some of the things which I realise are not urgent and return to the things which will help me to engage with the full presence of the day’s receptive unfolding.PRACTICESo, during these weeks, here is a really quick practice for you which could radically alter your day:As you start you day, begin with your ‘to-be’ list and only then write your ‘to-do list. This way you will be making room for what is essential and important, plus you’ll have a way of prioritising, especially when it comes to longer term goals. The urgent will suddenly seem less so. Try it for a few days in a row and notice how different your week is…JOURNAL PROMPTS:And here are a few journalling questions for you:What part of your life is in gestation - if could be an area of personal life or business? And how can you attend to it with the care and support, as if you are nurturing the very beginnings of a tender sampling? ..Learn More about Intentional Living and the Celtic CalendarIf you are interested in learning more about the celtic cycles and using the wisdom with in your own life and business, Living Seasonally, The Spring Edition, is open for registration. We start on Feb 3rd. We will be actively looking into how we refine our intentions and cultivate nurturing inner and outer habitats for our ideas, projects and lives to grow...COMING SOON! I’ll be sharing a beautiful Imbolc ritual with you all towards the end of this month- so watch this space. If you are not on my mailing list already, hop on over there, add your contact details and the ritual will be sent directly to you.… Want to work one-to-one with me? Clarity Sessions is one month of powerful attention, tools and support tailored just for you. Find out more here.

The Power Story // On Writing to the Truth of our Lives

‘We make our lives bigger or smaller, more expansive or more limited, according to the interpretation of life that is our story. - Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher. I have this strong feeling at the moment that tectonic plates are shifting. No, not those actual one, although we can all feel the earth shifting gear, but my own- the geography of identity and the geography of how I place myself in the world. What I thought were big solid chunks of me have been crumbling, like clay, and what remains feels raw and exposed.I’m not complaining; it’s about time, and on a scale of one to good, I’m definitely at the good end of that right now.Let me tell you a story.For the past five months or so I’ve been facing the blank page on a near daily basis, first in my journal and then to the book. The book is still very much a work in progress. I’m 95,000 words in now though and I’m about at the stage where I’ll be doing my first big edit. That’s five months of unearthing the tectonic plates which have formed me, 5 months of having whopper conversations with the layers of my identity, and 5 months of diving into the dark to bring up the pearls. It’s some dive.Already I can say this with 100% certainty that whatever happens next, if no one ever reads it, if I never write another word of it, the process of writing my story has fundamentally altered me- on a scale of one to good, I’d say remarkably so.I’d always known this about words and writing and the power of story, but I had never really really fully fully allowed the writing process to change me; like at a DNA level, like at a cellular one.This may all sound dramatic, for effect, but I kid you not, it’s not- I literally feel different in my bones.So, the story: Well, it’s about my own journey into womanhood, a story which criss-crosses religions, continents, professions, loves and longings. It goes back in time to my great-grandmother and forward to the future generations which are to inherit our collective legacies. It’s a story about the silences we carry and sometimes the shame which gets held somewhere in the marrow of us. It’s also a love letter to the sea. Books can do that you see, have magic potential to travel in space and time and to make meaning. I am finding this all out as I go.Telling my own story has been the biggest gift I have ever given to myself - by far.  It’s to do with my mother. The writing of the book has given me permission, in a way, to ask my mother questions I would not have asked otherwise. In doing so we are each getting to know each other better, and deeper, and so in a way the book has already given me the gift of my actual mother- not the mother of the stories I had made up in my head, but the mother who is filled with love and who has always been there. It’s beyond scale.  And I will be forever grateful for the book for this.But as tectonic plates shift, there is a natural churning and turning, and episodic outbreaks of turbulence. I’ve cried tears which I’ve held on to for years, I’ve released shame which was buried so deep I mistook it for my identity and I’ve shed layers and layers of stories which are no longer serving me. There is more to do, but by God, I knew writing was powerful but I did not realise just how powerful it can be, if we let it.So, yes, the tectonic plates are shifting. I’m entering into a new decade of my life next year, which seems significant. I know that how I am going to be showing up in the world will be different, and what I put out into the world will be different but it is not yet formed, and I can tell you this friends, that scares the tiddlywinks out of me, so much so that some days I don’t want to get out from under the covers and definitely not come out to play.For many of you who have been following my own journey for some time now, even as far back as the ‘One Wild Life’ book (*hello, and thank you), you’ll know that my path, particularly my career path, has shifted and changed route so many times it would make even a signpost dizzy, but I warn you, it is changing track again. I’ve a sense of it forming- likely to do with helping other people birth their books, and it is do with listening to the landscape (internal and external) for our own maps. I’m walking into that slowly… I have a big roll of white paper out tonight, scrawled with ideas, but the full story is just not their yet and (to drag the cliche out a bit longer), the next chapter is not quite ready to emerge. So yes, scary as scary, but trust is trust, and I am learning more and more to lean into that; so on a scale of scary to trust, I’m tipping the balance to trust right now, just.So, I suppose I wanted to share these words with you tonight to say that things will be changing around here, but I am not exactly sure in what ways yet, or when, but yes, changing.And I wanted to say, if you are thinking of writing your story- do it- because on a scale of one to certain I am beyond certain that it will change you.So, until soon,With love from the wild edge, on this Friday evening, beside a crackling fire, with Milly by my side as I am about to dive into a plate of roast vegetable and particularly the roast potatoes, so on a scale of one to bliss, it is definitely bliss.Clare. xx Want to stay in touch?Sign up to my newsletter for 'Notes on the Edge' and other creative leadership resources.