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

As my thoughts on dropping the pretence of our ego-selves continue, Chris Garrett’s post today on being yourself came at a good time.

He’s talking about authenticity online and he makes some good points around anonymity – that even if someone uses a pseudonym, they can still speak from the honesty of their hearts and you will get to know the real person regardless of the name they choose.

Then he goes on to talk about how well using the web seems to suit introverts, and something occurred to me. I’m a borderline introvert and I suspect that for many of us, it’s easier to drop the mask in writing. Perhaps that seems a bit counter-intuitive, because after all, in writing you have more time and opportunity to dissemble, to embroider the facts, rearrange the words or simply to show yourself in a good light.

But sitting here at my desk, I can take the time to reflect on what I really mean.

Sometimes, in real life, I’m far too affected by the energies of other people to be as real as I’d like. I play to the audience, I’m a bit of a people pleaser. Although I’m articulate, I often over-compensate for my shyness by being loud and hearty. Shudder.

So yes, I think that my written expression of myself and my thoughts is often more truthful than some of my day-to-day verbal interactions, even though for my own peace of mind and the privacy of others I set boundaries on what I will talk about here.

What about you, are you conscious of what masks you wear?

Image by Chiara Marra

Elsewhere:

At Nerdy Renegade News, Lisa uses some beautiful photographs and analogies to explore sinking deeper into the truth of life. Stop reading and do it, she says. Amen.

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Well Kurt Cobain may know by now…

But seriously folks, after my last post about dropping the falseness of our egos, I’ve been thinking a lot about death. As you do.

I don’t think I’m afraid of death itself (although I’d be pretty pissed off if it happened anytime soon thank you very much, I hope I still have lots to do and be). What scares me, what none of us can envisage, is the whole thing around perpetual peace and harmony afterwards. I mean (whisper it) wouldn’t it get a bit, er, boring…?

Buddhists teach that we don’t have to wait until we’re dead to experience that state of perpetual tranquility, that Nirvana can be found during life, and entered into after death. It’s described as a state of bliss or peace.

The Christian words Heaven or Paradise are in some ways more human, the first often being used as a synonym for sky (ancient pagan sky gods, anyone?), and the second with its connotations of the Garden of Eden before naughty old Eve did her thing with the apple and got herself and poor blameless Adam chucked out. But again, the whole perfection thing of eternal life is a bit worrying. It’s completely alien to us.

It’s like the very first time you hear a piece of beautiful music. The music itself is just as magnificent the second, third and fourth times you listen to it, but to you it begins to become less awe-inspiring. You begin to take it for granted.

Our whole experience of life is of contrast. We know what is beautiful because we can compare it with what is ugly. We understand joy because we are also intimately acquainted with sorrow. What if there were no ugliness, no sorrow? How would we recognise life as perfect?

I think that’s partly why we find it so difficult to drop our ego selves and uncover the essence of who we are, even for short periods of time. It seems like such a risk, such a loss.

Image by Tony the Misfit
(gotta love a name like that)

Elsewhere:

Via a comment on Lucy’s blog, I recently discovered omfghardware, by Howard, who works in a hardware store. Each entry is like a tiny, perfect meditation.

And a funny end note: just before publishing this post, I used the search function on my blog to remind myself what I might have said before about death. (I don’t like to bore you by repeating myself, dear reader.)  The results came up under an enigmatic heading that made me smile: “You searched for Death”. Well no, not really…

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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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