The Zen of Little Pickle - Day 16

Sunday 16th December 2018

16 is the age at which the Princess in the tale of Sleeping Beauty is predicted to prick
her finger on a spindle and fall into a deep sleep. The story is much older than the sanitised
Disney version that most of us are familiar with, and was much darker in earlier forms - often
including adultery, rape and planned murder/infanticide (after the princess produces
illegitimate twins that the wife of her lover demands to be killed and served to him as revenge, but
which are substituted for lambs by a swift-thinking court cook). Folklorists maintain that the
story is an allegory for the replacement of the lunar year of 13 months (13 fairies) with the solar year
(12 months and hence a fairy is forgotten). The princess represents nature (winter indicted by the wicked
fairy putting nature to sleep with pricks of frost, the spindle), the prince is spring and his sword is
a sunbeam and together they bring nature back to life.

Phew - that was a foul drive from Durham yesterday - snow, sleet, high winds,  flooding, freezing rain, you name it... Thank you Doris. It's good to be back home and able to relax in the warm with an Advent Blog.

Today's post is bound to make you smile. If you don't yet know its author -  Chris Nichols, Founding Partner of GameShift, a consultancy based in the UK that describes itself as providing "alchemy for business" through a collaborative hub of highly impressive professionals from diverse backgrounds - you should make contact as soon as you can. He is erudite, entertaining and inspirational. For 15 years he was a Director of the Ashridge Business School, having formerly worked as an investment banker, corporate financier and business strategist, most recently for PwC. He is a deep thinker, brimming with curiosity and encouraging energy, with an interest in sustainability, responsibility and innovation. As you can tell from his post below, he is passionate about people, seeing them grow and this is true in every aspect of his life. He describes himself as a poet and provocateur, but there is so much more to him... He is a loving and devoted family man. You can connect with him on Twitter and find out - his handle is @chrisnicholsT2i  

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Meet Little Pickle, granddaughter number two. She was meant to arrive on Christmas Day, but decided to pop in yesterday instead.  She hasn’t got a name yet, so I’m calling her Little Pickle for the moment.

She’s a really wonderful reminder of the Zen koan, “What is this?”.

What is this? A scrap of the cosmos, arranged in this way, that wasn’t independently in the world a few hours before, but is here now.

What is this? This tiny being coming to live on this fragile planet for a while, almost six decades younger than me. By the time she sees her grand-children born, she’ll be living in a world I can barely imagine.

What is this? This arrangement of energy that will unfold over months and years into whatever she will be. What will she be? What will be her unique voice? What will be the greatest gift she brings?

I have not one clue.

And that’s what makes Little Pickle such a great koan.

The point of a koan isn’t to get an answer. The point is to stop our busy brain in its tracks and insist that we notice what’s here.

Life is full of opportunities to live on autopilot. It is worth taking the time, at least every very now and then, to stop as ask “What is this?”.

After all, life is so utterly contingent.

These parents met. Then one egg, one sperm, these actual ones, not others, combine at that particular time. They produce this unique arrangement of life. Born in this time, this particular point in human history. Of all the possible arrangements of life, Little Pickle turns up as this particular human being, right now.

What is this?

One day, when Little Pickle is bigger, maybe I’ll get to stand with her on a clear Dartmoor night when we can see the star-filled sky. I hope I get the chance to tell her that we are both made of stardust and that there’s nothing else to be made up from. We’ve all been going around and around for 14 billion years, arranged as different forms of energy, time and time again.

Currently we’re turning up as Chris and Little Pickle. Later on, we’ll be something else.

Someone wise once said, just remember that when we look up in awe and wonder at the starlit heavens, we are the universe looking at itself. Let’s not forget, in our busyness and the dance of our familiar patterns, we are also the cosmos, in all its infinite and unfolding mystery.

If we take the time to stop and look, any day is a time of awe and wonder.

After all, “What is this”?

Walking with the Spirits - Day 44

Day 44 (13th January 2015)

44th President of the United States of America - Barack Obama
elected in 2009
Obama has 44 confirmed cousins in the US Senate

Chris Kane came into my world in 2014 through the link up between BIFM and the CIPD to determine what the workplaces of the future should be like. Chris is an engaging Irishman and a recognised global leader in Facilities design and management. He was head of Corporate Real Estate at the BBC, before becoming CEO of the BBC's Commercial Projects (a part time role that enables him to be a Non Executive Director for the NHS and director of a housing association). He lives in London but travels with regularity around the world, where his workplace knowledge and insightful advice is requested. He is active on social media - check out his YouTube pages or follow him on Twitter, his handle is @ChrisKane55 or read his internationally followed blog. He is engaging to meet and chat with in real life too...

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When Kate suggested I contribute to this series, my initial thought was that I would be way out of my depth: it felt like a major challenge. However, when you get positive encouragement, coupled with some inspiration,  it’s remarkable what one can overcome. For me, the inspiration was prompted by reflecting on recent events that included the death of a close friend and the end of a 17 year journey of uncertainty.

Life in 2014 (and now 2015) is fast-moving, complex and challenging; it affords little time for reflection and thought. For many of us the simple things and matters spiritual are just not on the agenda. I wonder why? Sitting down to write this post, I have taken a step back from the day-to-day buzz of things temporal to consider the path I have followed and what is really important.

Escaping The Turmoil, by Mel Brigg, acrylic on linen

Last week I learned that my childhood best friend - my next-door neighbour and my rugby playing buddy - had passed away. There is little I can do aside from comforting David’s family and reflecting on the good times and the paths we followed. Receiving such sad and shocking news can be numbing, but it also inevitably jolts one into thinking about what actually matters. It may be cliche to say, but such thoughts almost invariably lead to 'people'.

Having spent a lot of my professional life moving clients and organisations to new buildings, I learned at an early stage that is not just about bricks and mortar: as readers of my blog are probably all too aware, the human experience is central. So many of my peers focus on the real estate deal, the interior design, the operating costs, but fail to grasp the people dimension. Human beings have concerns, emotions, needs and agendas, all of which need to be considered.

This idea was thrown into sharp relief recently when dealing with the relocation of the home of London Irish Rugby football club to a new training ground. Back in 1997, when this long-standing rugby club entered the professional era, it embarked on a lengthy period of uncertainty.  The future of the club’s home The Avenue was up for grabs: the alternative use value for residential was a much better financial proposition than playing pitches.

London Irish's final game at The Avenue vs. Saracens

To cut a long story short, this 17 year journey or long drawn out Advent, which saw the club splitting and diverging (Amateur and Professional), has now come to a satisfactory conclusion. The old place is no more, and we have a new home down the road.

London Irish new training ground in Sunbury

The Avenue was very important to the lives of a great many people in the diaspora; the ashes of many club members have been scattered on its hallowed ground over 79 years. There was a strong feeling that this spiritual connection had to be honoured and that a traditional tape cutting ceremony would not suffice.

And so we gathered at The Avenue as churchmen spoke, rubbed earth on a rugby ball and watched 

Fr Patrick Devine blessing the ball

as 23 players aged from 5 to 55, both amateur and professional, carry this 'spirit' of the club to its new home. 

Ball relay to the new grounds - U6 player Lars Esse,
flanked by London Irish players, carries the rugby ball in to Hazelwood
(Photo: Malcolm McNally)

For the people whose relatives had chosen to have their remains there it was important to see that the club had not overlooked their loved ones in the move to a new place. 

Memorial bench

Some of us chose to walk with the spirits of former club mates in a small gesture of solidarity to pay our respects to the ones that are gone before us.  It served as an opportunity to reflect on and anticipate what life will be like in the new home, this 'rebirth' – an important aspect of Advent. We walked secure in the knowledge that, superficial things aside (moving the playing kit, the posts, the offices), the spirit both of the old world and the new had been honoured.

Samhain - celtic period from 1st November to 31st January
Traditionally starts with a day of honouring the spirits
before looking forward.

It was a powerful and timely reminder to this London Irish boy that place is so much more than what you can see or touch: it's a feeling - and if we want our spaces to really work, we can't ignore that.

To belong in a place is a feeling

Clearly happy to be together at the new place
Former london Irish players - John Gilligan, Chris Kane, Michael Connole and Peter Whiteside