Raw Silk

Day 43 (Thursday 12th January 2017)

43 species have now been declared Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN

Each of these creatures can now only be found in zoos. Amongst the 43 are:

• Alagoas curassow (extinct in the wild since 1988)
• Black soft-shell turtle (extinct in the wild since 2002)
• Escarpment cycad (extinct in the wild since 2006)
• Guam rail (extinct in the wild since the 1980s)
• Hawaiian crow or ʻalalā (extinct in the wild since 2002)
• Scimitar oryx (extinct in the wild since 1998 - pictured above in Cincinnati Zoo)
• Socorro dove (extinct in the wild since 1972)
• Wyoming toad (extinct in the wild since 1991)

Today's author, Janine Baillie-Stewart, lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She wrote this post on New Year's Eve - it uses the symbolism of one of the gifts she received at Christmas to focus her thoughts and to provide a message for us, her readers. Janine is a highly capable senior HR professional, with over 24 years of Human Resources and OD experience gained in the Public Sector, Retail, FMCG, Pharmaceuticals and Manufacturing industries. She is one of the few I know who can rival me for experience in start ups, SMEs, established, global or local, public and privately owned organisations. She believes in authenticity and living a balanced life and she leads by example. 

Janine has worked at GSK for the past four years and is currently the Learning Business Partner for the Consumer Healthcare Supply Chain division for across Asia, the Middle East and Africa. She is a sporadic blogger, commenting on life and things that matter to her, on JanineBSBlog. As you will deduce from her writing, Janine has an eye for detail and is full of heart. Her academic roots are in Psychology and she is loving and caring, a devoted mother, with a genuine concern for the environment and our future. You can find her on Twitter, her handle is @JanineBS.

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Raw Silk

I received a truly beautiful Tree of Life wall hanging for my small garden this Christmas. Of all things symbolic, it is the one which truly resonates with me.

Now, with a small lull in the hive of holiday activity, I have some time to reflect.

The Tree of Life is symbolic in many cultures and religions. Universal symbolism.

Baobab Tree at Sunset, oil painting by Errol Norbury
In Africa the Baobab is known as the Tree of Life

The symbolic meanings come from all the aspects of the tree and how these interact with the earth's elements. The deep strong ground roots embracing the fertile soil of Mother Earth, the green open-faced leaves reaching to the glorious sun for much-needed sustenance, bringing healing. The solid towering trunk supporting, standing firm and at times bracing against the relentless wind. The fruits give back of themselves to Nature which has provided for their growth and abundance.

The tree provides life.

All the elements are in harmony with the tree. Everything is at one. As I watch the sun set on the last evening of 2016, I wonder how we would, as mankind, compare to the synchronicity of the Tree of Life?

Cartoon by Chris Madden

An old university friend of mine recently suggested I read "The Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu as translated by Stan Rosenthal in 1984. Reflecting on the year which has been, and looking to a new year, no.39 struck a chord with me.

"19. RETURNING TO NATURALNESS

It is better merely to live one's life,

realizing one's potential,

rather than wishing

for sanctification.

He who lives in filial piety and love

has no need of ethical teaching.

When cunning and profit are renounced,

stealing and fraud will disappear.

But ethics and kindness, and even wisdom

are insufficient in themselves.

Better by far to see the simplicity

of raw silk's beauty

and the uncarved block;

to be one with oneself,

and with one's brother.

It is better by far

to be one with the Tao,

developing selflessness,

tempering desire,

removing the wish,

but being compassionate"

In 2016 we have seen cunning and profit succeed, we have seen selfishness create a reign of fear where many are afraid of their brothers. We have seen hostility between men and nations. We have seen mothers and children dying with no other place to go.

So what to do differently in 2017?

We have so many examples of people performing selfless acts of kindness and courage. People working two to three jobs to support an extended family. People working within their communities to uplift the poverty-stricken. Stories are abound where families and individuals have made the decision to simplify their lives, to live more naturally and embrace the beauty of the raw silk and the un-carved block.

As more and more of us make these conscious choices with the small things in our lives, the choice to live with less, act with less malevolence, and to embrace the natural ebb and low of life, let go of our ego's, we can germinate seeds of change. We can return to a state of harmony like the Tree of Life.

Mulberry Tree seedling

The change starts within. 

Raw mulberry silk yarn

Dictionary of the Wind

Day 24 (Thursday 24th December 2015, Christmas Eve)

24 full-members is the maximum number of "Companions" permitted to belong
to the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the pinnacle of the British Honours system
(after the Victoria and George Crosses). It is the world's oldest order of knighthood in continuous
existence (it was founded in 1348). Selection and appointment to the Order can only be given
"by the Sovereign's pleasure" and is limited to recipients from the UK and Commonwealth realms.
Currently there is one Lady-Companion and one Knight-Companion is Australian,
all the others are British. At present there are 3 vacancies.

Twas the night before Christmas and all 'cross the web the people were stirring in festive cheer and good ebb. 

I am delighted to introduce you to a consistently popular contributor to the Advent series, Neil Usher; his often intriguing and always thought-provoking pieces have become part of the annual tradition. Neil is an accomplished wordsmith and this year's piece is no exception. He is employed as the Workplace Director at Sky. He is an experienced and globally recognised property expert who works on the cusp of workspace, facilities, HR, social business environments and approaches. I strongly recommend his blog at www.workessence.com and you can follow Neil on Twitter at @workessence. His evocative Advent post touches on what we lose if we are solely submerged in the coal-dust grime of our working lives. I love his imaginative use of self-created language to evoke his walk to work.

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I walk to work.  The place I work. To do the work I do.

I have been privileged to the changing of the seasons from the vantage of soft shoe and rucksack, traceless but for a crease in the breeze, the moment whispered in a language shared only with what I see. We all once understood, but have allowed ourselves to be overrun. We may never know this imperceptible extinction.

Beyond a short bruth of concrust from which springs a magnolia, buckled for all but a half-moon of exuberant indulgence, 

I turn past the cracked and fraying Manor that once earled the brickdusted steps and thrust its brittle fingers into tithed commons.

Ancient Strip Lynchets raking the hillside of Manor-owned land

The esklarch rips and stipples the shadows of its clopped-hooved memory, I hear barked, clipped insistence and obliging servitude, the rattle of kettle and reckle of an open hearth, the unquestioning solidification of caste. 

The brittle chill of stone and the damp leuge of heavy winter cloth stifle and suffocate.

As the chime distances, the whelf winds through shillow and copse, crassle underfoot and the wrappling and sackle of brush as I reassure myself of being alone. Minutes pass as my anxiety settles, the felt pad of my heart beating a rhythm to the corntide.

A solitary rheelip breaks the spell, like soft glass. While we feel calm in the ease of our escape, nothing ever settles.

Larshligt bursts at the yawn of the delsh, swayed and unbladed, straddled by the acrsweep of eaglebees and staccato sheffle of the swallow-wisps, nuzzling and peckling from elfswand, hacklemoss and pluise. My stride slows, slows, stops. I could root, stem, branch, I could twine and rupple. It may just be a breath-worth. It may be a lifetime.

The canal veins at the boundary, quarls slowly brushing the brittle banks. 

Hawkwellows whisk-eye the pulfweeds for threshle and lespe. 

Little moves, but moves enough.

As the road opens, my breathing stiffens, the canopy lifted. I return to the common language of normality in which we are all misunderstood.

Permanence & Meaning

Day 21 (Monday 21st December 2015)

21 shillings was the value of a guinea (after the amount was set instead of being a specified weight of gold).
Guineas derive their name from the area in Africa where the gold from which they were minted was mined.
Some things are still sold in Guineas - e.g. race horses, certain society Ball tickets and a few professional fees.
A guinea is deemed to be worth GBP £1.05. It was a convenient way of determining a fee, e.g. in the past
(before the existence of estate agents) when a house was sold for 4,000 guineas the vendor would
receive £4,000 and the solicitor would get 4,000 shillings (£200). Illustration: George III 1775 guinea coin 

I first got to know today's author on Twitter (his handle was @LizardVanilla, but he appears to have dropped out of the Twittersphere) and we cemented that relationship when he wrote for last year's Advent Blog series - FYI he wrote the most popular post of 2014/15. His name is Sandy Wilkie. He works as the Staff Engagement Lead at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, as well as being a highly creative writer and events organiser. Given the importance of the sun in many ancient sites, I am delighted that Sandy's post is appearing today, the day on the cusp of the Winter Equinox (and shortest day of the year). This was often a day when shadows and sunlight held a deep meaning amongst the stones of our Celtic forefathers. Usually the Solstice falls on the 21st December, but it can occur on any day between 20th and 23rd December. This year the Solstice will be celebrated at dawn on the 22nd (i.e. tomorrow), so you have time to witness sunlight on/between stone, if you are near an ancient stone circle. The word "Solstice" comes from the Latin "solstitium" meaning the sun standing still.

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On the 9th August this year, I stood in a truly magical place: Temple Wood stone circle in Kilmartin Glen, Argyll. Actually it's two circles, South East and North West, in a small clearing with birch trees around the edges. The whole Kilmartin area is filled with evidence of Neolithic and early Bronze Age occupation.

 

You see, my mother's ancestors came from Argyll. They are likely to have come originally from the shores of Loch Awe (north-east of Kilmartin) in the late 17th/early 18th Century, one of the ancestral lands of the McArthurs. By the 1780s, there is firm evidence that the shepherds had become surface miners down the peninsula at Campbeltown. The rudimentary mining helped power the whisky stills; my great, great, great grandfather McArthur would have had coal dust on his face.

But back in Kilmartin, and from the late Neolithic period, there are numerous examples of cup & ring markings carved into earthfast rocks and standing stones. There are various theories behind what they mean; symbols to indicate ceremonial worship, perhaps a map of the valley showing new settlers arriving on the western coast where to travel, or a depiction of the stars in the night sky. 

But suspend judgement for a moment. Imagine standing in Temple Wood on a winters evening in 3,500 BC. There is a sharp frost, deer from the woods are grazing nervously. The clear night sky provides a starry canopy from horizon to horizon. A dweller from the Glen looks up. She spots an amazing streak with a blue tail, then a white tail. She falls to the ground, fearing the worst, but the comet passes. The next morning she describes the sight to her fellow settlers. One of them starts carving ring marks and lines to represent the apparition as it travelled across the sky.

Pictish Symbol stone, Aberlemno, Angus, Scotland 

There is a feeling of permanence in a landscape like Kilmartin. Stones that have been set and carved by ancient hands, stand today as a legacy. 

Stand in Temple Wood, listen to the birds, see the sheep grazing nearby, see the leaves fluttering in the wind. History & pre-history sits firmly on your shoulder. 

Yet the world of the 21st Century has a distinct feeling of impermanence; concrete tower blocks demolished after less than 50 years, workplaces that come and go in corporate takeovers, transient social media. MySpace becomes nobody's place. Big data is a fad one year, gone the next. We produce reports about targets that matter only in the moment. We blog vacuously about what we have had for dinner, our own self-importance and how HR is like some bloody science fiction movie. Fucking hell, some of us have truly vanished down the rabbit hole. We have lost our connection with the landscape, the seasons, our roots; and at times our very soul & identity.

So what is the true legacy that we leave as workplace professionals? Do we leave a record of comets in the sky, an inspiring legacy to future professionals? Or do we leave nothing but transient coal dust from our grubby workings in the policy & procedure mines?

19th Century Scottish miners and pit pony

Let's actually change things for the better. Let's make our workplaces more humane by adopting a holistic approach to situations and applying multi-disciplinary perspectives to organisational issues. Let's be creative, let's be build. Let's build the future of workplaces around the concept of interactive communities where there is balance, care, reciprocity and friendship. Let's be altruistic and show compassion to our people. These are the twin tails of the comet, white & blue.

Comet Hale-Bopp's two tails 

Let's stand in Temple Wood and create some permanence & meaning.

Focus - Day 53

Day 53 (22nd January 2015)

53 villages alone, from across the UK, required no war 
memorial after World War One.
The First World War lasted 53 months, from June 28 with the attack
on Sarajero, until Austria proclaimed the republic 
and its return to Germany, November 11, 1918.

Today's post is by Jon Bartlett, who has been an important figure throughout the history of the Advent Blog series - it was his impactful post, Courage, about the experience of suffering poor mental health, which you can read via this link, that resulted in the creation of #HR4MH (HR for Mental Health). Jon works as a coach and mediator, specialising in resilience and conflict resolution. Increasingly over the past few years he has become recognised as one of the UK's foremost experts in raising awareness of mental health. Jon has an active body as well as an active mind - he walks, cycles, travels, reads, and is a valued friend. He and I met via Twitter (his handle @projectlibero is the same as his business site, Project Libero). As well as being an inspirational writer and thinker, Jon is a talented photographer - all the pictures in the below post, summarising his journey over 2014, were taken by him during the course of the year. It is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words", certainly, these pictures spoke to me. 

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When my mind fractures and betrays me I often take comfort in nature. Over the years it has been an escape, a sanctuary and an analgesic. In 2014 I decided to try to make nature my teacher by studying shamanic practice. Now before you rush to imagine naked dancing round the campfire, painted faces or ritual sacrifice I had better reassure you that my studies have been far more prosaic. What they have involved is a greater appreciation of the world around me and a good deal of quiet reflection on rhythm and harmony within nature. I've looked at the seasons and the behaviour of animals, drawing wisdom from their innate reactions and responses. If I tried to write down all I have learned then we would be here a long time, so instead I offer you a quote from the photographer Ansel Adams:

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”

Whilst not in the same league as Adams, I take comfort from photography, as a way to record and retrieve some of the insights that nature gives me. Here are some images of my path and perceptions from my year on the “Red Road”

“Trail”

This picture was just an instinctive snap but actually as I looked at it again I realised that being out on the ‘trail” often helps me make sense of the thoughts which “ail” me.

“Reaching”

I lay under this tree a long time. Although damaged by fire it continues to grow and thrive - much like I do.

“Siesta Lake Reflection"

This reminded that the very best of us is often reflected in what we do for others.

“Formation”

Pelicans working as a team to search and quarter the water - a theme for me professionally this year.

“Relaxing”

This sea otter taught me about being willing to relax in any environment.

“Fallen”

This picture of rose petals reminds me of recent friendships that have crumbled and fallen, people worn down beyond the limit of their patience by the slowness of my recovery or hurt by the outbursts of rage I have fired at them. Those people remain ever bright and colourful in my mind.

“Fragility”

At the most beautiful stage of its life this butterfly was fragile and vulnerable.

“Hiding in plain sight”

However I feel about myself, most people won’t have noticed any dysfunction.

“Ghosts”

Many of my darkest thoughts are like these jellyfish - they can give an uncomfortable sting but they are not deadly. It’s learning which thoughts are the most dangerous which takes time.

“Intricate”

The complex connections here inspired me when I was working on a creative project this year.

“The gathering storm”

Light is sometimes found at the darkest of times.

“France to the left, Italy to the right"

Stood high on the Mont Blanc massif, I realised that most of the boundaries and limitations in my mind are man made and artificial - much like the borders between countries.  

“Last Day”

Trying to focus on the perfect sunset led to an insight about focussing on the texture / quality of my life now, right in front of me, rather than worrying about the happy ending.

Whilst there are no humans in these images Adams always maintained that there were two people in every photograph. The photographer and the viewer. I’ve told you where I am, so I hope you find something of yourself in these pictures and that you’ve enjoyed walking with me on my path for a brief while.

Landscape With Couple Walking and Crescent Moon
Vincent van Gogh, 1890

Walking Man - sung by James Taylor, 1974