On Darkness

Day 27 (Tuesday 27th December 2016)

27 - the number of studio albums released by David Bowie.

From 1967 to 2016 David Bowie was recognised as being at the 

vanguard of contemporary culture, not just for being an outstanding 

innovative musician but also as an artist, actor and designer. Bowie died 

on January 10 2016, after an 18 month battle with liver cancer. 

He released his last album, Black Star, on his 69th Birthday, 

it was released on 8 January 2016 ( 2 days before his death).

It is the extra Boxing Day holiday for many of us. I hope you are finding time to relax, recuperate and spend time with the people you love. I love the lady who has written today's post - Julie Drybrough. She is the founder and Managing Director of Fuchsia Blue Ltd. and is a woman of many talents - an organisational consultant, executive coach, facilitator, speaker, blogger (fuchsia blue blog) and dialogue guide - working with people and organisations to improve conversations, relationships and learning. She inspires people to follow her example and to do things with love.

I first met Julie via Twitter (her handle is @fuchsia_blue) and have subsequently grown to know her in real life. She is a feisty Scottish lass who has moved south to Manchester to live with the man she loves, although she can be found working both across the UK and around the globe. Another major love in her life is, Biba, the dog. She says it how she sees it, is creative, thoughtful, caring and great fun. She enjoys life to the full (be it literally climbing every mountain, photographing and sharing amazing vistas and unusual sights, partying with friends and trying what's available to expand her knowledge and experiences). Julie enhances the lives of many and it is a pleasure hosting her post today.

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On Darkness…..

2016?

What can I say?

In a year where all hell seems to have broken loose in the world, politically, socially, climatically and to be famous seemed to mean that Death had your name firmly in its sights, somehow personal reflections and seem inconsequential and unimportant.

And yet it is always at this time of year, in the darkest months at the point of solstice, that I most seem to need to stop, reflect, readjust, celebrate & consider. There can be peace in the gloom and the murk – a place to hide and be concealed and be… and it can be a scary place – darkness – a lonely place filled with terrors both imagined and real.

If I dwell on heart and heights and hopes – it is at this time of the year I seem to most acutely feel and acknowledge these.

I'm mostly irreligious... yet spiritual in my own way. If I err toward anything at this time of year is a sort of pseudo Pagany/Christiany sense of beginning and the need to appreciate that which is alive. I want to be moved by the tradition of carol singing. I want to feast and dance. I want to walk the dog in the bitter cold in barren woods near me and enjoy the green of holly against the brown sleeping ground. I want the warmth of the house to be welcoming after the cold outside. I want to understand my privilege at having a home, family, safety and not take that wholly for granted….

December in the northern hemisphere speaks to me of winter proper.

Things asleep yet to wake.

Long nights, which inevitably turn slowly toward the spring… turning points.

The dark banished with lights & fires as we strive to see and make beauty in the darkness.

The hope of light and the relief it brings.

Yule has its roots in the old-Nordic word ‘iul’ or the Anglo-Saxon ‘hweol’,
both meaning ‘wheel’, which points to the ever turning year
and natures cycle of life, death and rebirth.Add caption

The dark gap where loved ones, now gone, should be; the way those we love & care for lighten our lives.

I learned a few years ago how scared I was of the dark and how terrifying it is to be without a sense of light; the experience of profound loneliness and the way it hobbles and derails you… I tried, unsuccessfully, to run away from the dark, forcing positivity and trying to conjure light. But I was diminished and sad. I was afraid and alone. My capacity to create light for myself was tiny. 

Dale Grimshaw - street art, UK

My ability to fool myself was even smaller. It was only when I turned to others, asking for help to illuminate and when I began to face into the darkness - looked into my sadness and shame and fear, that things started to re-form.

So at this time of year – if you feel the melancholy or the loneliness or the sadness…. Just know that these are one part of the story – that even in the darkest moments there is the possibility of light. That you may need others to light your way, scary as that is… that it is only knowing the dark that allows us to appreciate the light.

I wish you and yours the very best for the season and for 2017 whether it be dark or light… and I pass on a gift that sticks with me at this time of year – David Whyte’s Sweet Darkness – in the hope you find some semblance of inspiration or understanding in the verse.

"SWEET DARKNESS"

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark 

where the night has eyes

to recognise its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home

tonight.The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

John Atkinson Grimshaw, oil painting UK, circa 1880

Survive and Thrive - Day 19

Day 19

19 is the atomic number of Potassium
Bananas are a good source of potassium (if you have an ailing rose bush
bury banana skins near its roots - they can be a great way of restoring health)
Potassium is radioactive - a truckload of bananas is capable of causing a false alarm
when passed through a Radiation Portal Monitor at ports or airports.

Julie Drybrough, better known to many as @fuchsia_blue on Twitter, is the author of today's post. It is raw, honest and moving - Julie has had a tough year. She lives in Edinburgh and is an organisation and individual development specialist. She is a great facilitator, coach and an engaging blogger - read her words and learn more about her work here. Julie works with clients around the UK and across Europe and so we are able to meet up occasionally in London. She is independent, values-driven, passionate, happy to speak her mind and makes me laugh (excellent traits in a friend).

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How can it be December? How? How is that possible?

I’m not sure I'm ready to look back over 2014.

December has arrived, somehow faster than possible, and I find I’m not ready to reflect, review, rejoice. I will make it to the end of this year, but I'm ragged and tested, sore and battered in many ways.  Bone weary.  Soul-tired, afraid….

I’m also hopeful and determined, curious and discovering, anticipating….

Light ahead (picture of solar cycle path)

This is my second attempt at the Advent Blog. The first was sent to Kate in early December – my words were not forthcoming and I was struggling to articulate anything much that would be coherent & publishable about my year, my paths, my perceptions.  Eventually I wrote something at 3am – sending it to her that morning….

Good rule of thumb – be cautious about Gerry McGuire moments. What seems true at 3am rarely survives the onset of daylight and morning tea.

3am Perception

At 3am on a wintery December morning my perception was this:

Long year. Divorcing. Reconfiguration of home, identity, relationships, rhythm. Sadness with that, along with an acceptance that this is as it is.

fuchsiablue – What am I to do with you? – much loved business, created over years, but what substance does it have without me?

I wrote:

“fuchsiablue and I eye each other suspiciously. In a market saturated with freelancers, consultants and rapidly changing tech, where do it & I belong?

fuchsia blue. A riot of colour. Pink and fluffy meets blue and practical. I never really meant to set up a business - Happy Accident, Opportunistic Move, Active Experiment. Now I listen to my start-up clients and hear purpose, minimal value and ambition and I wonder.... where will my pathway lie, going forward - where can I contribute well to the current conversations about organisations, work and the future of work? “

and then and then.... heartrendingly life alteringly there is death. In the aftermath of the passing of Bill Drybrough, my beloved Dad, in September our family crossed a Rubicon. Yet more reconfiguration. A irreplaceable loss. Here I find myself untethered and unsure of action. 

Dad
photo credit: Irish Rain Photography

What shocked me most was the physical toll of grief. My ability to think fast, move fast, respond wisely has gone. My tolerance for bullshit is significantly lowered (in a way which is, at times, kind of making me giggle). My love of others, of life itself and all that it brings, is heightened. 

My 3am writing:

I am a stranger to myself

I can't read for any length of time. I'm sluggish, running on half speed, with cloudy vision and sudden weariness. I ache all over at times. I can't seem to run or swim or cycle anywhere - I walk. A lot.  I try to tend to my poor, shocked, saddened body. I work to keep perspective that I am not the only one who has gone through this... and yet his absence is profound. An intolerable truth that must be tolerated.

The temptation to wail, to gnash my teeth and curl up sobbing and spent under a carapace is counter-balanced by a deep and primal urge to live, to survive and then to thrive.

And then daylight….

There is another 2014. A year filled with joy. A Graduation from Ashridge, surrounded by dear classmates, wise tutors and beloved family. Climbing my first Munro, followed by another 2 on the same glorious, blisteringly hot day (Thank you Mike – I just loved it). The inaugural L&D Unconference ran in Edinburgh, followed by a second in Glasgow – the deep, humbling delight at watching folk gather, talk, learn, share. First ever Conference speaking event. Uncontrollable giggles on a YouTube video with David Goddin and Sukh Pabial when Sukh’s daughter photobombed our google hangout. A year in which I really build my coaching portfolio.  My ongoing passion for change work – pushing clients to be clear, honest, authentic to make positive differences, even when tough. A year I had killer Vesper martinis in Dukes hotel, Champagne in The Ice Bar and Aberlour from a plastic cup round a campfire at Happy Start Up Camp.  A year I dressed as Minion, a Witch, and an extra from Frozen for various niece/ nephew/ god-kids' requirements. My 15 year old God-daughter and I at the Larmer Tree festival, singing and dancing to Tom Jones and Tom Odell at, frankly, very different ends of the Tom Scale. Visitors to my home in Marchmont & how much I love that. Great conversations with DDS, with Sarah Boyd, that have left me hungry for What Next. My beloved friend leaving a job that took so much from her, we barely recognised who she was.. the relief watching her blossom in a new role. My treasured Posse, Dialogue Practitioners, their unerring strength and beauty, my gratitude for their presence in my life. My brothers, my big dappy, soppy sentimental love for them both that extends to their partners, their kids…

Both perceptions are, at the point of seeing, true for me. Parallel paths that intertwine and co exist.

Twisted parallels
(Inner structure of a coaxial cable)

What I recognise, here, at this point on the path, is a need to go more slowly for a time. Right now I just need to survive.  Loss has rendered me less able to live life to the full – I have wounds and bruises that I would be wise to let heal a little – my way to heal is not to withdraw from the world and rest, zen-like and isolated, but to choose where to be and who to be with and to draw strength from the world I occupy.

With a Little Help From My Friends - the Beatles

My mantra over the past months has been “no sudden moves” – the temptation to cut my hair short or dye it dark, to diet, buy a new wardrobe, move house, move South, move country, get a job, train as a midwife, be a journalist…  all of these things have been my responses – I’m sad and I’d rather not be – it’s not who I see myself as being (though I’ll take “Intense” as it was offered to me). But I’m going slowly. Not rushing to renew myself or change things too rapidly – in the long run, this is change as I espouse it – small experiments, what feels right? What is bringing the good stuff?

Slow and gentle change

for now, I will survive 2014.

Beyond that, it may be time to thrive.

Harebells thriving beside a path in Scotland

"Every little thing gonna be all right" (Bob Marley)