Making connections - Day 20

Thursday 20th December 2018

20 is known as a "score' not for sporting reasons (although a dart board has 20 sectors),
but because in the past when livestock, such as sheep, were being counted it was usual
to score a notch in a piece of wood to record twenty animals before counting the next 20
in the flock or herd. The first citation was in 1100.

It is our company's Christmas Party this evening - it is going to be a great event with an amazing live band brought together by one of our talented employees (who knocked the Beatles off number 1 in the charts back in the 60's). It will be a great evening at which to celebrate all we have achieved over this past year. I am so grateful to so many both in and outside work. Thank you!

Today's post is a charming and uplifting poem by Helen Amery. Helen is a coach who likes to work with leaders unleashing their true potential through their Clarity, Contentment and Connection. She is married and has two much loved children. She (and her business) are based in Leicester in the East Midlands. After obtaining a degree in Chemistry from Edinburgh, Helen commenced training as an accountant with PwC but then realised that she was better suited to HR. She then took a postgraduate diploma in Personnel Management at Nottingham, before joining Boots (initially within employee relations).  Helen succumbed to her entrepreneurial spirit and runs her own successful business Wild Fig Solutions. You can follow Helen on Twitter (her handle is @WildFigSolns) and read her people-centred blogs on her business site.

*********

Heartache it hurts
But it need not be feared
We are all OK
No matter what we feel

Hope is the light
The chinks in the dark
That leads to a rising
Of energy sparks

High fives connect
They remind we are one
Today, tomorrow, always
With ev'ry rising sun

Hollows hopes and high fives - Day 9

(Sunday 9th December 2018)

nine-tailed fox (九尾狐), is a mythical fox entity originating from Chinese
mythology, that is a common motif in East Asian mythology with specific names in
Japan, Korea and Vietnam. These mischievous foxes could shape shift (usually into
the form of a beautiful woman). Nine-tailed fox (illustration comes from the
British Museum and is a Chinese woodblock depicting a nine-tailed fox and a court lady,
made circa 1849). The nine-tailed fox is depicted as a character in both
League of Legends and Pokemon e-games.

I am humbled by the various ways in which people respond to the Advent Blog's call to write on a theme and to have their words shared for the enjoyment and benefit of others. Each year I am amazed at the variety of was in which people respond. Today's post, by Maggie Marriott is a poem. It has a subtle message about self-care and awareness and yet is based around an activity that each of us does, often without thinking.

Maggie is a devoted mother and a generous friend. She runs her own business based in Gloucestershire, England, an organisational change consultancy ENKI that provides "balanced business wisdom". She specialises in supporting individuals and groups through desired transformation and is an effective coach - she has been the coach of choice for members of the civil service supporting the UK Government, helping effect transformation, especially in the areas of cyber security and assurance, and also for the National Crime Agency. She also works as a coach for Ambition School Leadership, providing support to the leaders of the future within Education, and for the Relational Change Organisation.

Maggie is a qualified Gestalt practitioner (she won the British Gestalt Journal Essay Prize for 2015) and she believes in enabling humane change via the approaches she devises. Maggie is deeply empathetic and caring and is also highly analytical and systematic - she commenced her career as an IT programmer and worked for many years in the Public sector moving from a technical team leader to a business change specialist. It may come as a surprise that someone with such a background could write the beautiful and thought-provoking poem below that she has submitted for this year's Advent blog.  However, those who know her will not be as astounded. She is a deep thinker (as well as a deep breather!) and believes in authenticity. Maggie is a warm and active voice on social media - you can connect with her on Twitter, her handle is @maggiermarriott.

***********************************

Each life begins and ends with a breath and so does each living moment. Becoming aware of the quality of each breath gives us clues about how I and those around me are feeling. Is the breath being held or released? Is the breath shallow or deep? Is the breath fast of slow?  And from this awareness, choices appear. And from choice anything is possible. And so my blog this year is a poem in celebration of the breath of life and hope.

Every breath I take - Hollows, hopes and high fives.

Breathing out

A hollowing

Releasing

Settling

Reflecting

Feeling

The pause

Holding

Waiting

For air again

Breathing in

A heightening

Learning

Connecting

Reaching

Moving

The pause

Holding

Waiting

For rest again

Every breath a moment of hope

Every pause a moment of choice

23,400 breaths a day

8,409,600 breaths a year

From the hollows and hopes of each breath I’m alive!

To my oft forgotten body I give a joyous high-five

 Pink Floyd, Breathe

Life in Chiaroscuro - Day 52

Day 52 (Sunday 21st January 2018)

52 - the age at which Harry Houdini died - by this time he had amazed and baffled people
in much of Europe, Russia and the U.S.A. On 21st January 1903 he escaped Halvemaansteeg
police station in Amsterdam. 1903 was the year when Houdini really became an icon - he was
already known for being good at escaping handcuffs but he now began to make a name
for breaking out of jails. he also managed to break into a safe for a Moscow locksmith
(who had been trying to do so for 14 years) revealing a treasure trove of jewels and
earning Houdini $750 for 9 hours work (a significant sum at the time).

Today is my husband's birthday and we are going out for a family lunch. His mother is coming to celebrate with us. She is finding life without her husband very hard. Death is, in so many ways, so painful for those of us left behind.

The post you read today is by Jacqueline Davies. It is open, honest and at times a painful read (as well as being the second post in a row with a wonderful poem  written by the contributor). Jacqueline says much about herself below, so I will only say a few words... Some of you may remember Jacqueline's Call To Arms in the final post of last year's series. At the time of writing last year she was the Master of the Guild of Human Resource Professionals (@GuildHRprofs) and the first openly lesbian Master of any City of London Guild. She was also the HR Director for the FCA (the regulatory body for much of the Financial Services industry) - a huge and demanding role. In her post she made a statement of the role of HR that has resonated with me this year, we need to be:

"standard bearers for the best of what it means to be human. To hold ourselves and others to account and to be provocative when we see integrity or conduct threatened."

I genuinely believe that HR as a profession is in the best position I have ever known it to be in. Increasingly leaders, colleagues, clients and the communities in which we work are becoming aware of the importance of culture and conduct. That does not mean we should be complacent or smug - someone in HR clearly turned a blind eye to inappropriate behaviour in Miramax when Harvey Weinstein was at his most predatory. We need HR to be the moral compass (it is no coincidence that a compass is the symbol of the HR Guild here in the UK) and to ask the difficult questions. Since leaving the FCA Jacqueline has teamed up with Tania in their own business consultancy and I think you can tell from its name that she will not be shrinking from facing things head-on - Audacity Associates. In addition, she is an advisor to the Henley Business School, a Governor of Middlesex University and Chair of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services. You can connect with her on social media - her Twitter handle is @JacquelineLD.

The beautiful Chiaroscuro paintings and photographs used to illustrate this piece have all been selected by Jacqueline.

******************

The Italian’s use the term Chiaroscuro to describe scenes painted in ‘light-dark’, how tonal contrasts are created to provide shape, show character and tell stories.

Life in Chiaroscuro

Seven years ago my mother died. More precisely, I gave my consent for her life support to be switched off, then she died. This decision has weighed heavily with me, replaying while I wait for sleep and returning at dawn before I can crowd it out with plans for the day. This isn’t a post about grief, it’s a post about how we can re-mix the colours on our palette to make sense of living with both darkness and dawn. How I’ve learned that a ‘Chiaroscuro filter’ can distinguish the things that matter from the beautiful, daily distractions that fill our life’s canvas.

You see I lost my Mum some thirty years earlier. She disappeared inside a black cloak of depression. Up-to this point, she loved us unconditionally and taught us how to love back. As we progressed though high school, quite suddenly everything changed. She was unable to go out, unable to get up and when she did was so heavily medicated that when we looked into her eyes we couldn’t find her. This would mean returning from school never knowing if she would be in the kitchen or in bed or if the paracetamol packets would be empty. My father, a steelworker worked around the clock. My younger sister and I found coping strategies. I had wanted to be a painter, but being the oldest, I took charge and I followed my father’s lead; I dropped Art, working relentlessly until I could flee to university. I didn’t stop; travelling like a train through a tunnel, on and on while decades flashed by through the half-light.

The Young Singer by Georges de La Tour

Then, just before I turned 40, the same age Mum was when she became ill, I sat in the hospital, holding her hand and let her go. Just a year before, I had become a Mum and the wonder of holding a new life while letting another go, meant that even the most brilliant moments were outlined by loss.

I took a year out from paid work but I didn’t stop. We moved house, I also took on the Chair of a national charity and wrote a book. I then returned to work and ploughed on. Alongside this, becoming ‘THE BEST MUM I CAN POSSIBLY BE’ became my chief preoccupation. As any new parent will tell you, our radiant daughter brought a new type of light into our lives. It was initially, searing, so bright, I had to blink through the first year learning to adjust to the profound joy and then to the greying fear that arrived. Fear of loss, fear of repeated patterns, fear of not knowing what to do next. Learning how to live with this felt like picking glass splinters from my heart.

Madonna and Child with St Anne by Caravaggio (c1605-6)

Some seven years later, I sat still in a hospital bed watching the sun rise and fall through an oxygen mask. Pneumonia had pressed the pause button on my life. A close friend, shared a conversation with her husband that stopped me in my tracks; ‘your on the top of our list to go first because you’re living faster than anyone else’. In the year that has followed this I’ve stopped permanent work and started painting again. I’m learning to slow down, middle age is helping. I’m learning to look, to see darkness and dawn as an artist might. Noticing the line and shadow in the everyday and being able to distinguish what really matters and to teach this art to my daughter.

Photograph of an apple by Jimmy Wen

I wrote this poem to make sense of things.

Three Daughters

After you left us I waited,

Holding your hand until the silence

Holding my breath until

       the sun came up again and I could escape outside

Gulping the new morning air

And watching the circling gulls

       shrieking their songs of loss and longing, high above the hospital car park

I mostly remember your hands

How they put plasters on my grazes

Turned pages at bedtime

       stirred pots, brimming with love

These are my hands now

Life hardened palms

Stretching out to reach my daughter

       to teach her how to hold time

       and when to watch the sky.

Detail from "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" by Caravaggio (c1586)

The Mother Song, written and performed by Andrea Menard

Look Into My Hollowed Eyes

Day 44 (Friday 13th January 2017)

44 titles (with a further two for doubles championship wins)

demonstrate why Andy Murray is currently ranked Number 1 in the world for tennis
and was awarded a knighthood. Congratulations Sir Andrew Barron Murray, OBE.

I am not superstitious and hence have no fear of today being Friday the 13th - indeed to me it seems a great day, given the impact and importance of today's excellent post. It has been written by Keith Gulliver. After many years within a well-known technology business, and a period as an independent, Keith is now working in the Corporate HR team at West Sussex Council on Pay and Reward projects. He is based in Chichester, and walks past Chichester Cathedral every day on his way to and from work - it was in January 2016 that Keith took the photographs that illustrate his piece.

I first got to know Keith on Twitter (his handle is @KeithGulliver). He is a very sporadic blogger - you can read his words on his blog "Through the Talent Twittens". He lives in Havant in Hampshire and is an avid fan of Portsmouth Football Club (in his capacity as a fan and supporter he tweets as @PompeyChicken; and he has Liberal political leanings, resulting in his tweeting  as well under @ThisLiberalAge. 

Given the importance of his subject in the post, I will explain write a brief further explanation at the end of the piece.

*****************************

Look Into My Hollowed Eyes

Please don't pass me by.

Look into my hollowed eyes, I will not haunt you. 

Desperate, I fled.

Please don't pass me by. 

Hold my hands, I will not harm you.

Fatigued, I trudge.

Please don't pass me by. 

Tend my bruised body, my weathered face should not scare you.

Exhausted, I stop. 

Please don't pass me by. 

Soothe my troubled mind, hear my murmurings.

Desperate, I am drawn. 

Helpless, I drown.

Look into my hollowed eyes, I will haunt you.

You passed me by.

Some Background Notes

The pictures Keith sent me and I have used are of a statue in Chichester Cathedral titled 'The Refugee', it's by Diana Brandenburger. It's described as 'haunting' and I agree with Keith that that is in part down to the hollowed eyes, and hence there's the connection to this year's theme of heights, hearts and hollows. The statue was given to the Cathedral in 2008, to tie in with the celebration of its 900th year. 

In 2016 over 5,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to cross to Europe.