Today I discovered that well known UK author and spiritual teacher William Bloom has just announced a course in Holistic Spirituality starting in October in London.
According to his website "The purpose of this pioneering, experiential and practical course is to explore and integrate the core practices of a holistic approach to spirituality...
..it aims to meet the growing professional need for spiritually competent people, whose approach is holistic. This is explicitly required in healthcare, education, human resources, leadership, community-building and all fields that require the skills of pastoral care. The vocational purpose of this course is to facilitate the training of spiritually competent people to a level of excellence that can be recognised by others regardless of their religious or cultural background."
Visit http://www.williambloom.com/pages.php?id=44 for more information
It sounds like quite an exciting course which I may enrol on myself.
There's an open evening, which I hope to attend, where you can find out more about the course, which is on the 21st September 7pm at Room 2A, University of London Union, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY
29 August 2007
Courage, Conviction and Consciousness
Courage, to me, was like a big wide-brush stroke - Intimidating, an immense gesture, diifficult to commit to, larger than life...and of course something I associated only with failure and guilt.
Then I saw 'Hotel Rwanda' - the story of a man who does not know he is courageous. He follows one simple rule. He only does what he can live with and does not do what he cannot live with. His actions are not so much the result of lofty ideals but just his effort to remain true to himself. His effort is to stay human. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, without any more motive but to do what he feels will make it right, do whatever he can, with what he can, for whoever he can.
The film starts with a quote that goes something like this: 'When it is all over, you will not remember the harsh words of your enemies, but the silence of your freinds', (Martin Luther King Junior). It makes me wonder about the texture of courage and the double-edged power of acquiescence, the power of one silent voice, the self-knowledge that must be inspired by, the noise that drowns out quietness that it must come from, the courage to face that quiet.
Then I saw 'Hotel Rwanda' - the story of a man who does not know he is courageous. He follows one simple rule. He only does what he can live with and does not do what he cannot live with. His actions are not so much the result of lofty ideals but just his effort to remain true to himself. His effort is to stay human. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, without any more motive but to do what he feels will make it right, do whatever he can, with what he can, for whoever he can.
The film starts with a quote that goes something like this: 'When it is all over, you will not remember the harsh words of your enemies, but the silence of your freinds', (Martin Luther King Junior). It makes me wonder about the texture of courage and the double-edged power of acquiescence, the power of one silent voice, the self-knowledge that must be inspired by, the noise that drowns out quietness that it must come from, the courage to face that quiet.
The two signs of insanity:
The two signs of insanity:
- Doing the same thing to get a different result, because...
- If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got
28 August 2007
Carl's dietary preferences (part two)
It's a little hard to make out, but this lunchtime delight - the Skinnie Minnie - is another excellent example of how wonderfully things are changing: healthy AND delicious food that's easy to find and fits in with your schedule.I picked this healthy sarnie up in Boots, the High Street chemist no less. What's more, it's an award winner and rightly so...
At the last "Excellence in Food & Drink Awards", this sandwich, a delicious combination of tuna, olive oil, lemon juice, cumin seeds, houmous and crunchy fresh salad on wholemeal (all organic), was said by the judges to be "Fresh and delightful."
"Really tasty and the sort of sandwich you would only expect if you made it yourself. You can almost feel it doing you good as you eat it."
Hats off and mouths open for: http://www.freshnaturallyorganic.co.uk/
25 August 2007
Education: The Construction and Un-Doing of Wonder
For the last two days, I have been attending a workshop. It is being run by an organisation called Jodo Gyan (www.jodogyan.org) for one of the largest players in Education in India.
What Jodo Gyan does and what Shahji, one of the principal researchers have been doing is trying to find ways to make Mathematics a relevant experience for children in school.
Listening to him and the work of Jodo Gyan, has been an utterly beautiful experience. The joy of seeing an nimble mind in action, humbly but dexterously turning everything you 'know' (have assumed to be true) on its head, without condescending to 'teach' you but just to share an experience or to invite you to explore your own experience, makes for a fascinating learning experience.
I wanted to draw attention to the model of engagement that so many of us have become much more able to articulate but so few of us can pull it off with grace that only comes from compassion and absolute humility.
Schools need to become spaces where the mind, the spirit and life can come together to breathe as one. Teachers unfortunately have little or no experience of this themselves, and so facilitators like Shahji make more impact by example than they do by what they teach.
If the magic ingredient is being connected to one's own Self enough to find a reflection of the Self in everyone and everything around us (compassion), and thereby be respectful and humble, therefore be open to learning and actually listen to learners for what they know, so the boundaries of what not to teach expand, then the basic ingredient of sustainable, responsive education is spiritual in its core.
At the core of Conscious Living, is to my mind, mindfulness and an acceptance of the possibility that there is an unknown. Classrooms of the future need to be those that encourage this personal reflection and the comfort/awe of being part of an unknown whole.Then, there will be a chance that 'fun' will cease to be an artificial construction supported with transient tools that are produced and instead become reminiscent of childlike wonder. Then, there is a chance that the complex melts away to give way to the simple (what we give special status today and call 'profound').
Institutionalised education systems, the world-over systematically gun for the exact opposite, today with a much more confusing veneer of condescension for the curriculum I am sharing as well as a supposed shedding of the hard-nosed commercialised packaging that they were initially designed for. So now we have a chaotic middle path that brings with it little understanding of the immense vocabulary/jargon that is used to describe it, as well as total lack of skill or courage to actually inquire enough to change it.
For me, it has been worth wondering about:
What is worth teaching?
What is the natural trajectory of learning for children?
What is listening?
Who is worth listening to?
What need be accepted?
What Jodo Gyan does and what Shahji, one of the principal researchers have been doing is trying to find ways to make Mathematics a relevant experience for children in school.
Listening to him and the work of Jodo Gyan, has been an utterly beautiful experience. The joy of seeing an nimble mind in action, humbly but dexterously turning everything you 'know' (have assumed to be true) on its head, without condescending to 'teach' you but just to share an experience or to invite you to explore your own experience, makes for a fascinating learning experience.
I wanted to draw attention to the model of engagement that so many of us have become much more able to articulate but so few of us can pull it off with grace that only comes from compassion and absolute humility.
Schools need to become spaces where the mind, the spirit and life can come together to breathe as one. Teachers unfortunately have little or no experience of this themselves, and so facilitators like Shahji make more impact by example than they do by what they teach.
If the magic ingredient is being connected to one's own Self enough to find a reflection of the Self in everyone and everything around us (compassion), and thereby be respectful and humble, therefore be open to learning and actually listen to learners for what they know, so the boundaries of what not to teach expand, then the basic ingredient of sustainable, responsive education is spiritual in its core.
At the core of Conscious Living, is to my mind, mindfulness and an acceptance of the possibility that there is an unknown. Classrooms of the future need to be those that encourage this personal reflection and the comfort/awe of being part of an unknown whole.Then, there will be a chance that 'fun' will cease to be an artificial construction supported with transient tools that are produced and instead become reminiscent of childlike wonder. Then, there is a chance that the complex melts away to give way to the simple (what we give special status today and call 'profound').
Institutionalised education systems, the world-over systematically gun for the exact opposite, today with a much more confusing veneer of condescension for the curriculum I am sharing as well as a supposed shedding of the hard-nosed commercialised packaging that they were initially designed for. So now we have a chaotic middle path that brings with it little understanding of the immense vocabulary/jargon that is used to describe it, as well as total lack of skill or courage to actually inquire enough to change it.
For me, it has been worth wondering about:
What is worth teaching?
What is the natural trajectory of learning for children?
What is listening?
Who is worth listening to?
What need be accepted?
24 August 2007
Love those salad days
In the background, my garden; in the foreground, my dinner.Twice this week, in mainstream supermarkets, I've found punnets of "living salad" - and I reckon you can't get much fresher or more nutritious (well, it could - and probably will be - organic, one day) than that.
It's delicious and a sign of how things are changing so fast. In fact, I reckon things are changing at an exponential rate now as we appear to be nearing conscious critical mass.
For the official news release, go to: http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/index.asp?PageID=422&subsection=&Year=2005&NewsID=549
Wasn't passionate about politics
I've avoided political campaigning in recent years - I've found it so negative and dis-empowering.
But (and it's a big but) I stumbled across John Pilger's new film on mainstream TV last week and was blown away. My heart was warmed, my imagination fired up and my tear ducts exercised.
Totally brilliant and utterly inspiring. Many people in South America are re-inventing democracy in a way the West only dare play at.
Check it out at: www.warondemocracy.net
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