Your house shall not be an anchor but a mast – Khalil Gibran

Most mornings I get up and draw around me the cloak of sacred living.

Most days, the cloak lies discarded on the ground minutes after the first irritation or distraction of the day. Later, I will grasp at it again and try to pull it around me, but the folds get caught on brambles and barbed wire.

Some days, the cloak hangs completely forgotten in the wardrobe and never reaches my shoulders.

And on a few blessed occasions, it warms me all day long. Sometimes those are the days I consciously pull it around me in an act of surrender, sometimes they are the days I can let go and forget I’m wearing it.

Of course any discussion of cloaks would be incomplete without an excursion into the glorious world of Harry Potter and his invisibility cloak. I suspect there are times when this cloak would be a blessing to us all. It would allow us to make mischief or to retreat from prying eyes.

But what if the invisibility cloak had another symbolism? What if it’s purpose was to wipe away everything that gets in the way of our selves and the truly sacred? What if it rendered invisible our ego, our false self, all our defences? What if this cloak didn’t hang in our wardrobes but was a garment we lived in all the time?

What a blessed and hugely challenging life that would be, don’t you think?

Image by Jody McNary

Elsewhere:

I’ve just read this excellent post about listening for answers from God by my online friend Norman at Jewish Contemplatives. I love this: “…the only Road to walk is the one which God unrolls like a narrow carpet before you, a few steps, or one step at a time.   It is only wide enough to take you alone.” And his description of how the answers may come is something I suspect most of us have experienced and sometimes ignore. Sometimes we cast the cloak aside when we don’t like the answers.

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Today I’m playing along with Magpie Girl’s *8 Things post. This week’s topic is Artists Who Inspire.

Well how on earth to come up with such a list, to whittle down an amazing pool of world-wide talent to eight? I’m going to use geography and restrict my list to English artists. Of course I’m interpreting “artist” in the widest sense, and although some of these names are famous, some are not.

Here goes:

1. Rima Staines, who made my clock. Her life reflects her art, and vice versa.
2. Through Rima, I found dark folk musicians Telling the Bees (she did their website). Quintessentially English, they’re just beginning to get the recognition they deserve.
3. The inimitable Mr Crisp, who made his life the canvas for his art and style, proving that  you can be an artist in any way you want. He also wrote some very witty books.
4. Film maker Sally Potter, whose work is a wondrous festival of independent experimental intelligence.  Her most recent film, Rage, is for sale here. And I love this clip from The Tango Lesson from 1996, which Potter appeared in as well as directed.
5. Looking at clothing as art, we Brits are pretty bloody good at that! Although she’s mainstream now, Vivienne Westwood has never lost her early anarchic edge, and while Alexander McQueen and the insanely talented John Galliano (who was brought up in the UK even though born in Gibralter) are huge names, there are amazing young English designers pouring out of Central St Martin’s each year – here’s a link to their 2009 BA (Honours) Fashion runway show. Warning: serious fashionistas only, it’s over an hour long. Heidi Klum, eat your dull suburban little heart out!
6. OK, you got three for one under number 5, so this is the last:  writer Sara Maitland. Her work is extraordinary: intelligent, compelling, completely unpretentious and sometimes very funny. Enjoy her collection of short stories On Becoming a Fairy Godmother, or her autobiographical A Book of Silence.

Well all that Englishness has given me a yen for a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit. Those are my eight inspirational artists. Who are yours?

Elsewhere:

Go check out other *8Things entries at Magpie Girl.

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A senior British politician has today launched a government review on issues around race, saying that class background is now a more important factor than race as an indicator of disadvantage and discrimination.

Perhaps he’s right, I don’t know, although the comments on the various news sites today demonstrate vividly and depressingly that there are still serious problems around race. What I found most interesting was how many white people wrote in to complain that they are feeling like the odd ones out because they are surrounded by “blacks and Asians”. One woman is disgusted that when she visits her doctor’s surgery, hers is the only white face there.

Well, folks, what a great chance to explore a different perspective. What does it feel like to be in a minority, what can we learn from it, what is really important in life?

In another different perspective, as we wake up in Britain to freezing snow and fog, people in Haiti are waking up to crushing devastation, or not waking up at all. If we were to look at satellite images of the Earth, our perspectives would spin between extremes.

We all bleed the same colour blood.

Image by al-Taqi

Elsewhere:

Hearts breaking for Haiti: Rebecca, Country Parson, Beyond Just Mom, Laurie, Anita, Facebook Folks, Ox Herding and many others. And yours, I know.

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I always know when I’m resisting or blocking something, because I get these amazing highs of contempt and rage.

Usually it’s around learning and growth, and I’ve been experiencing loads of resistance this week in getting started on Christine’s e-course Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist, which I signed up for a while back and which began last Monday.

As the start of the course drew near, and was then launched, I welcomed my dear friends contempt and rage back into my life. Not contempt at the course, you understand, at everything else, like fireworks shooting off in all directions.

And this is where we get to the caffeine analogy. I find contempt amazingly energising! I love it, it really makes me feel vibrant and alive and awake and focused. For a little shining moment… and then there’s the crash.

It’s invaluable as a signpost, because what we’re resisting is often where we find the most growth. And of course now I’ve actually started working with Christine’s course materials, I’m finding them wonderful, empowering, enriching. Like the slow release of energy from really nourishing food rather than that caffeine high.

What are your red flag signals that you’re resisting growth?

Image by Refracted Moments

Elsewhere:

Talking of the path of the artist, I love this stunning image by Alice Popkorn, one of my favourite photographic artists, and in another beautiful image, Kate shares with us the glow of ordinary things. I think there’s a lovely symmetry between these two photographs.

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It’s Wishcasting Wednesday at Jamie Ridler Studios, and Jamie asks “What dream do you wish to explore?”.

I want explore a dream I’ve had for a little while: building an online business. I want to make a living doing something I’m really fascinated by, that will let me live anywhere I want to, working the hours that suit me, connecting with interesting people (such as you, gentle reader).

I’m playing around with some specific ideas, so more on that in due course, but meanwhile that is my dream today. What’s yours?

Image by Marina

Elsewhere:

Steve had a dream about combining images and leadership, so he did it. Magpie Girl dreamed of having her own Flock, so she did it. (I have actually heard that the collective noun is a “murder” of Magpies, but that doesn’t have quite the same connotation…)

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