Active Hope - Day 26

26th December 2018 (Boxing Day)

26 miles is the approximate distance of a marathon. Originally, from 1896 to 1908,
the distance was 25 miles (the same as that run by the legendary Greek soldier Pheidippides
when he from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to deliver news of a Greek victory, after which
he collapsed and died). The marathon distance only became 26.2 miles during the 1908 London
Olympics. Queen Alexandra requested that the distance was adjusted so the royal household
could see the race from Windsor Castle.

I over indulged yesterday and was over indulged. however, it was wonderful to spend time with the family. Today I am planning to take things quietly and spend time appreciating the gifts I have been given. I have been very spoiled but I am very grateful. 

Siobhan Sheridan is the Civilian HR Director at the UK Ministry of Defence. When I first made her acquaintance she was the Director of People and OD at the UK charity the NSPCC. Siobhan's career started in a customer facing role within financial services; it was clear that she had a flair for understanding and developing rapport with people. On joining the consumer lending business Capital One, her talents were acknowledged and she moved into HR, initially via training and development (she headed up the UK-based Corporate University), before eventually becoming HR Director for the Cards business. Siobhán moved out of London earlier this year and now lives on the coast in a stunning house with the most beautiful views of the sea. She is a popular public speaker (renowned for her pragmatic attitude and passion for doing the right thing). She is also a valued contributor on Social Media - her Twitter handle is @SiobhanHRSheri. 

********

There have been two regular features of my Christmas these last few years. One of them is this series of Advent Blogs, the other is the time that I spend with thousands of others volunteering for Crisis at Christmas.

Arriving at Charing Cross Station in the mornings and walking along Whitehall towards the office I pass too many curled up bodies resting on crumpled cardboard, sheltering in doorways from the cold night air.  It breaks my heart to see the Big Issue seller with yet another set of new bruises and to hear the tale of the guy whose sleeping bag was set light the night before. 

As I pull my coat more closely around me I know that the chill I feel is not entirely about the temperature outside, but more from a sense of overwhelming despair about how some of the world's problems can ever be solved.

Joanna Macy says that

 ‘Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.’ 

And I guess that is what I see at Crisis every year. People caring enough to act. Just a one example of that is a woman I will call Karen who volunteered for the first time about three years ago.

The first evening in a Crisis centre is a whirlwind rush of so many things. Guests are welcomed to a centre where they can eat, shower, get their clothes mended, see doctors and dentists, access the internet, make a call to a loved one, find a bed for the night. Each centre is run by a group of volunteers whose day jobs probably ill-prepare them for what they find themselves doing. Spending time talking with the guests is something we encourage all our volunteers to do, because many of our guest spend their days being ignored, avoided, or worse. Talking to them is one of the most important things that we do.

During the rush of that first evening I passed Karen a few times, as she sat quietly knitting and chatting to guests. 

There was something deeply calming about her presence and her focus and I found that I slowed a little every time I passed her. Later that evening I saw her talking to a young couple by the front door who were sleeping on the streets and scared to come in. Over the course of an hour she patiently coaxed them into the centre to eat, and later I spied her persuading the woman towards the showers. She came back half an hour later clearly delighted to be clean for ‘my man.’ And I watched somewhat hopelessly as the woman and her partner went off again into the night, saying they felt safer together on the streets than they would in a shelter they didn’t know.

Returning the following evening Karen asked if I would mind if she went to see if she could find the woman again, she’d been told by another volunteer that the woman had been seen earlier in the centre very angry and upset. Karen wanted to find out why. When she found her the woman explained that she had been sleeping on the streets for so long that her long dark hair had become thickly matted from tying it in elastic bands and chronic lack of care. There was a huge ball of knotted, matted hair at the nape of her neck, so thick and tight that when she tried to lay down to sleep it hurt her head. As a result, even when she could get to sleep she was frequently woken by the pain. It was clear she was in a lot of distress. After her shower of the evening before she had started to feel hopeful that perhaps the hairdresser might be able to help her. She was angry because she had been told that all they could do was to shave her hair off. Having her head shaved she said would make her feel even more ashamed than she already did. She was inconsolable, her hopes completely dashed.

Every single one of us I think has a reason for volunteering. Something that caused us to make the decision to do so. In talking with Karen about what her reason was she shared with me that she had lost her adult son in a car accident a year or so before. A proud, strong, elegant woman, she spoke of her loss gently and with just the faintest glisten of a tear in her eye.  

Her heartache was very present but so too was her warmth, her openness and her compassion.  

Over the course of the next few days I watch Karen sit with the woman and her partner for hours. She talked with them about their plans for the New Year, helped them get advice,  laughed with them, ate with them. And throughout all of that she combed. For hours and hours she gently teased, combed, untangled and snipped the woman’s hair. For three afternoons and evenings Karen worked with the patience that perhaps only a parent who has lost their own child could summon. 

On the last evening, they walked hand in hand to the hair salon again, where the woman was treated to her first proper haircut in many years. Beautifully blow dried she turned to the Karen and I watched as first they high-fived, and then giggling like teenagers collapsed into a huge tangle of a hug.

As the woman left that last evening Karen and I both said good bye to her and her partner. We never say ‘see you next year’ because we hope, that we won’t. And I’ve never seen them again. Karen returns every year and continues to channel her amazing compassion and patience into heartbreak, hope and high fives.

So, as I contemplate the start of Crisis again this year I hope, somewhat strangely perhaps, that my heart will be broken every day. Because as the poet David Whyte says:

‘Heartbreak is our indication of sincerity…..it may be the very essence of being human, or being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.’

I am lucky enough to care deeply about the work that I do both in my day job and my volunteering and am blessed to be surrounded by many other colleagues who do too. They make me want to do better every day because they deserve the best that I can possibly be. Crisis acts as a special reminder to me though every year.Whilst it is about finding homes for others I always notice that it helps me to come home to myself too. To remember some of the qualities that I want to strive to bring into my life and work every day.

‘The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that loves gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to your self. When you learn to love and let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered.’

                                                                                                                              John O’Donohue

Crisis also leaves me constantly amazed by just what we can achieve as human beings when we set our mind to do so. And each year it leaves me with a heart full of hope that we have everything we need to deal with the many challenges that our world faces today. We just need to crack on, and act on that hope, regardless of what others might say.

So I’d like to leave you with some of Joanna Macys words about Active Hope and to wish you all adventures in the New Year.

‘Active Hope is not wishful thinking.

Active hope is not waiting to be rescued by some savior

Active hope is waking up to the beauty of life

On whose behalf we can act.

We belong to this world.

The web of life is calling us forward at this time.

We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.

With Active Hope we realise there are adventures in store,

Strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.

Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths

In ourselves and in others;

A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts

Our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose,

Our own authority, our love for life,

The liveliness of our curiosity

The unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence,

The keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.

None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.

                                                     

                                                                                          Joanna Macey, Active Hope

Active Hope from Sweet Darkness - Day 39

Day 39 (Monday 8th January 2018)

39 years ago today Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, was liberated from the 

Khmer Rouge militia by Vietnamese troops, marking the start of the retreat and fall 

of the cruel dictator Pol Pot and his guerilla forces. During the preceding four years Pol Pot 

had overseen the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people. Pol Pot resigned in 1985, 

was convicted of treason by a people's tribunal in 1997 and placed under house arrest. 

He died a year later. The picture is of Pol Pot leading Khmer Rouge troops. He was responsible 

for the worst genocides of the 20th century.

There's no doubt 2018 is now up and running. I hope you are getting back into the swing of things. I have a busy week ahead, but (as the above picture for today's piece makes clear) things could be much worse. It's easy in the hectic rush of modern life to forget how fortunate we are.

Today's post is part of our good fortune. It is written by Siobhán Sheridan, the well-known and highly respected HR and thought-leader. As from July last year she has been the Civilian HR Director at the UK's Ministry of Defence - responsible for 57,000 civil servants who support the military. For nearly four and a half the four years prior to joining she was the Director of People and Organisational Development for the UK-based charity the NSPCC (National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children). Siobhan's career started in a customer facing role within financial services, but it was clear that she had a flair for understanding and developing rapport with people. On joining the consumer lending business Capital One, her talents were acknowledged and she moved into HR, initially via training and development (she headed up the UK-based Corporate University) before eventually becoming the HR Director for the Cards business. Siobhán lives in London, near Tower Bridge. In addition to her work, she is a trustee of a charity supporting homeless people in South London and a committed volunteer with Crisis at Christmas. She is a popular public speaker (renowned for her pragmatic attitude and passion for doing the right thing). She is also a valued contributor on Social Media - her Twitter handle is @SiobhanHRSheri. 

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

‘When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.’ 

I started the year tired. Deep down tired. Putting it down to a busy Christmas volunteering with my colleagues at Crisis I threw myself into the start of the work year only to be rapidly confronted by a health worry. Visiting the doctor about something innocuous he found a lump that he was concerned about. My mind span out of control into loops of fear and anxiety at a level I did not recall having previously experienced. A short few weeks of diagnosis soon demonstrated that there was nothing to worry about but the residual darkness remained circling in the undercurrent of my mental chatter. Work was as demanding as ever, there was no space for worry or weakness.

My studies on the Masters program at Ashridge were continuing and I was delving deep into thinking that I had never done before. Was change really possible? Had my work thus far been ill considered and naive? In what ways was I colluding with situations I found concerning? What was happening to the environment? To our world? Questions that brought with them their own darkness.

We spent a week at Schumacher College in the spring with the ecologist Stephan Harding (author of Animate Earth) considering the ecology of the world and its development over the years and the current state of the planet. I found the enormity of it almost overwhelming. How on earth could I really think that anything I do makes any difference, to anything, ever?

‘When your Vision has gone no part of the world can find you.’

On the evening of the 3rd June we arrived home from a brief break in New York. I had not relaxed there, my sense of anxiety was increasing the more that I faced into some of the subject areas that I was considering and I found myself increasingly struggling with a sense of overwhelm. That evening we set out for our normal walk, heading up towards the River Thames, to turn left and walk along the Bridge past the station and Borough Market and then home. The sky was beautiful and I took a photograph of the Shard and posted it to Twitter noting that it was something like ‘Beautiful and Brooding.’ 

Reaching the River I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion and instead of turning left as we usually would we decided to turn home. Minutes later attackers in a van crashed into pedestrians on London Bridge and its occupants stabbed a number more who had been drinking in the bars and restaurants in the Market.

We spent the weekend at home, listening to the sirens for hours and hours and as the weekend progressed venturing out into the eerie stillness of an area normally bustling with life and energy. I felt exhausted. It felt as though the whole world was exhausted. And hopeless. I felt hopeless.

‘The Antidote to exhaustion is not rest, it is wholeheartedness.’ 

In the weeks that followed, when I still jumped at every siren I heard and felt uncomfortable in my own home I continued my studies. Whilst we were at Schumacher working with Stephan Harding (author of The Animate Earth) I had been struck by Stephan’s lightness and uplifting energy in spite of the clearly concerning state of the world that he faced into every day. I recalled that he had said at one point that the way to get people to take action was not to ram the anxiety down their throat but rather to encourage them to fall in love with nature and our world again. In spite of everything that he worked around and researched every day Stephan still had hope and worked wholeheartedly in the pursuit of what he cared about.

I wanted hope too. Hope for family, my profession, our work, our world. But how could I find hope amidst the overwhelming darkness of what was happening in the world?

A beautiful book by Joanna Macy (Active Hope) helped me find a way to think about it.

‘The word hope has two different meanings. The first involves hopefulness where our preferred outcome seems reasonably likely to happen. If we require this kind of hope before we commit ourselves to an action, our response gets blocked in areas where we don’t rate our chances too high......The second meaning is about desire. When Jane was asked what she’d like to have happen in our world without hesitation she described the future she hoped for, the kind of world she longed for so much it hurt. ....It is what we do with this hope that really makes a difference....

Active Hope is about becoming participants in bringing about what we hope for....Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless.’

Macy describes Active Hope as a practice, not about ignoring our pain for the world but about using that pain as a call to action, to adventure. So first we take a clear view of reality, one which acknowledges that pain and anguish. Then we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like to move in or the values we’d like to see expressed. And third we take steps to move ourselves in that direction.

My time studying at Ashridge these last two years has given me an opportunity to start to do just that. To truly have the space and time to think about what is important to me, what values I want to uphold in my work, to move away from situations in which those values are not upheld and to move in the direction of my intentions and my hope for the world. and my life and to move in that direction.

For the first time this year in many years I will take the opportunity of the Dawn of the New Year to set some intentions for the year ahead, for the direction that I want to move in and I’ll continue to be guided by Joanna’s definition of Active Hope and also by the constant challenge offered by the last stanza of David Whyte's beautiful poem Sweet Darkness.

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.

(All headings are writing by the poet David Whyte, many taken from his beautiful poem Sweet Darkness.)

Guardians of the Watchhouse

Day 40 ( Monday January 9th 2017)

40 years is the sentence given, on March 24th 2016, to
Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić after being found
guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity
committed during the Bosnian War 

Today is the start of the first full working week of January 2017 (well at least it is in the UK). 

Be warned - today's post, by Siobhan Sheridan, is quite long for a blog, but well worth reading. It might be one to savour in your lunch break or to read by the fire when you get home this evening. It is traditional to tell spooky tales around Christmas and the New year and it is a delight to have Siobhan maintaining the tradition whilst simultaneously drawing attention to a dire hollow that so many of us may be in via her cautionary tale.

When she is not writing short stories, Siobhan is the much-respected HR Director of People and OD of the UK-based charity, the NSPCC (founded in 1884 and originally called the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children). She became a contributor to the Advent Blogs series for the first time last year and wrote one of the most popular pieces. Siobhan commenced her career in a customer-facing role in retail banking and soon found herself responsible for training others. She transferred into HR via Learning & Development. She has an impressive track record, moving from Financial Services into the Public sector, where she was HR Director for both Defra and the Department for Work and Pensions, before becoming a much liked and respected leader within the Not For Profit arena. She has a strong moral core, a great sense of humour and, as her writing below demonstrates, a creative streak. Siobhan is active on social media. You can follow her on Twitter, her handle is @SiobhanHRSheri.

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

Guardians of the Watchhouse

Sally took another sip of her Earl Grey tea. It had been a long, hard day at work and she was rewarding herself with her favourite cuppa in the little café around the corner from her house. She was tired, it had been a long and demanding day. She gazed wearily around her.

The café was an unusual octagonal building. With seats for only half a dozen people. Originally built in the 19^th century it’s interior brick walls showed the signs of many whitewashings as it had latterly been a wash house for laundry.

 Her nostrils were tickled by the faint smell of wood burning in the little stove mingled with the sweet smell of the last few cakes being served to the rag tag bag of customers coming in late in the evening before close.

She looked out of the little window beside her and caught a glimpse of the moon rising over the church graveyard. There was a poster on the wall that explained the history of the place but she was always far too busy when she was in there to read it.

She began to reflect on the day’s work and found herself smiling. A good day all in all. The new organisational values program was being rolled out and everyone was learning about what the organisation expected from them. The leadership development training program was similarly explaining the new model of leadership and the redundancies that were needed to meet next year’s head count savings were also well in train. Sally reflected on how far she had come in her career and how lucky she was to now be in a position where she was entirely responsible for the HR function in her organisation. People said she was good at what she did, whilst she always shook her head politely when they said this, she secretly hoped that maybe they were right.

Savouring the last sips of the aromatic Earl Grey she took one last look out of the window. And then another… And another…

What on earth was going on out there?

In the faint glimmer of the moonlight she could see two figures. With a spade. 

And they were pulling vigorously at something on the ground. Sally looked around her at the few remaining customers to see whether any of them had noticed but they were all carrying on with their coffee, cake and Christmas conversation.

She wanted to ignore what she had seen but felt a rising mix in the pit of her stomach of something between curiosity and fear. She grabbed her coat and laptop and rushed out of the door. The festive lights in her house window sparkled invitingly just a few hundred yards down the street but instead she turned right and through the huge old iron gates that had been the guardians of the graveyard for many years. Or so she thought.

As the scene came more closely into view she found herself looking at two men, their age indeterminable through the grime on their pallid grey faces and their clothes somewhat ragged, torn, and strewn with mud.

Sally summoned up all the courage she could muster.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ she said in a voice slightly squeakier than that which she had been hoping for.

‘Whadd’ya mean what are we doing?’ Said the taller man. ‘Ain’t it obvious.’

“If it was obvious I wouldn’t be asking.’ She said, somewhat more sternly having regained control of her vocal chords.

‘Bodies’ He said. ‘We’re here for the bodies.’

‘You’re digging up bodies? From the graveyard? What on earth! In this day and age!’

The smaller man eyed her witheringly.

‘Look I don’t know what you’re getting all bent out of shape about. You’re clearly one of us.’

“One of you! I am most definitely not one of you!’

‘Well you’re not one of them. So you must be one of us.’ He said firmly.

Resurrection Men - displayed in the Museum of London

‘I really am losing the plot here.’ Sally said. ‘What do you mean I’m not one of them?‘

‘One of them, from the Watch Tower. We saw you came from there and at first I said to Fred here that you must be one of them lot that guard the graveyard at night looking for us body snatchers. But then Fred reminded me that them’s struggling to get in to work because of some train strike or other. So then we knew you must be one of us.’

‘Look I am not one of you and I am not one of them. I’m an HR Director for Gods sake!’

They eyed each other and nodded knowingly.

‘Look Missy Jean HR Director, everyone knows that the only people who can see a body snatcher is another body snatcher, and the Guardians obviously. We wish that they couldn’t as we’d earn a lot more money if they’d leave us alone but they can. So take your pick?’

‘Now if you’ll excuse us.’ Said Fred ‘We’ve done here and your yelping about God has put me right off my stride digging, so we’re off now. Got all the bits and bobs we need for this evening.’

Resurrection Men, by Thomas Rowlandson
From the Wellcome Library

And with that they set off dragging a heavy linen sack in the direction of Tower Bridge.

She was left with no option but to head for home. Back out the gate and past the café which was just beginning to close. She popped back inside briefly, the warmth of the fire sending shivers through her chilled bones. No one seemed to notice her, and there was certainly no indication that they had witnessed the scene outside. She took her glasses out of her bag and leaned in to read the poster on the wall.

‘Built in the 19^th century this building was a Watch House for guards to look out for the body snatchers who would use the dark cover of night to try and exhume recently buried corpses to steal away for medical research or other purposes.’

Putting her glasses back into her bag she headed home to wrestle with trying to sleep.

Finding it Hard to Sleep - by Karole Amooty, 2012

The next day at work she tried to get the previous evening's events out of her mind. Perhaps she had been working too hard, perhaps she needed a break. Yes, that was it, she would book a holiday or a weekend away to look forward to in the New Year.

“Sally’ her reverie was interrupted by Anthony…

‘We need to get the content of the Values added into the Performance Management system this week. Have you signed off the behavioural framework yet?

She had taken that home to do yesterday evening and the scene in the graveyard had distracted her.

‘I’ll look at them before I leave today Anthony. Important that we get them in place before year end so that people's year end performance ratings really depend on it.’

As the words formed on her lips they felt strange to her. Almost like a foreign language that didn’t quite feel real.

It was very late that evening when she returned towards home having stayed to the do the work that she had promised to Anthony. 

She walked slowly along the street, accompanied by a single urban fox out foraging through bin bags left out for the morning collection. 

As she approached the café she expected to find it in darkness as it was long past their closing time but through the window she glimpsed movement and a little glimmer, like candlelight flickering on the ancient glass. The door was slightly ajar. Burglars, she wondered? It seemed unlikely, not much in there to steal. She pushed the door just enough to peak her head around it. The fire was flickering invitingly in the wood burning stove and a wave of warmth tickled her skin.

“Hello lovely!’ he said cheerily ‘Everything alright? Come on in if you like.’ He was a smiley man with eyes that twinkled mischievously behind his dark rimmed glasses and seemed to light up his beautiful grey hair.

“I’m G’ he said ‘this is T.’ Looking down to the stone floor she glimpsed a shaggy little dog. ‘G&T” he laughed heartily at his own joke.

“What are you doing in here at this time of night? I thought they were closed.’

‘Well ‘they’ are, but our business has to go on doesn’t it! Fight the good fight and all of that!’ He laughed, a huge hearty laugh which seemed to pierce through her slightly dark mood. She found herself becoming curious about this man and his little companion.

‘When you say ‘our business’ what do you mean?’ she said.

‘Do sit down lovely, you look like your legs are going to buckle underneath you. 

Let me get you a cuppa and then we can chat. Earl Grey isn’t it?’

‘Perfect’ she said sinking wearily and gratefully onto the wooden bench.

‘Well, clearly you are one of us or you wouldn’t be able to see me.’ He eyed her over the top of his glasses, eyes bright and warm. She melted under the gentleness of his gaze and began to sob.

‘What’s up lovely? What’s up?’

‘I don’t know. I met them last night you see. And I could see them too. And now I can see you. And now I feel really scared and confused and…..’ her sobs were getting deeper, she was gulping for breath in between words and desperately trying to do something about the river of snot streaming from her nose.

He handed her a handful of napkins. “What are you scared about lovely?’

‘I’m scared that I’m one of them. That I’m a body snatcher.’ She wailed loudly as she pronounced the last words, pulled her legs up onto the bench and hugged them into her chest, rocking backwards and forwards slightly and sobbing.

‘There, there.’ He smiled gently. ‘Tell me all about it.’

And in between sobs, she tried to explain.

“Well I met them last night and one of the things that they said that they were taking peoples bodies to use for their own purposes and sometimes just bits of peoples bodies and discarding others bits.’

‘Yes, that’s what they do I’m afraid.’ His face was more serious now but still gentle.

‘Well when I was at work today I realised that’s what I have been doing all this time. It’s exactly the same. We take people who are perfectly lovely human beings and ask them to bring their bodies to work but only in the way that we want them to. To let us use bits of their bodies and their brains but not other bits. We bring them in, pay them a wage and tear out their heart and soul. We use the bits of them that we want, while we want to, and then discard them when they’ve served their purpose. I thought what I was doing was good and useful and important and it's not….it’s HORRID!!!!’ And with that she flung herself onto the cold stone floor, the sobs wracked her entire body now as she buried her head in her arms.

T looked at his master for permission and, seeing him nod encouragingly he padded over to her, wriggled his face under her arm and gently started to lick away her tears. G waited for T to work his magic and slowly Sally’s tears started to slow. 

G picked her up from the floor and led her back to sit on the wooden bench.

‘It really is ok’ he said. ‘You see, all of us who are Guardians in the Watch Tower were in your position once too.’

“Really?’ Sally couldn’t quite believe that this Magi-like being had ever been as screwed up as she was feeling right now.

‘Yes. Of course! HR folks, consultants, learning and development types, all Guardians now. It’s really important, if you are going to do the kind of work that we do, to have skirted on the edge of the deep hollow that is the Dark Side. Without understanding that you can’t really hope to understand how to help the living truly live. Body snatching is a tricky thing and it happens very subtly, in many ways and in many different parts of life. What you have experienced until now has equipped you very well to become a Guardian. In fact, I’d say you are already well on your way.’

Sally found herself feeling a little calmer.

‘So what do I need to do? I don’t want to be a body snatcher.’

‘Hmmm. Now let me have a good look at you.’ He sat for a long time and watched her. It didn’t feel uncomfortable like it usually would if someone was staring at you Sally thought. More as though he was really seeing her. Looking into her heart.

After a long pause he looked at her over the top of his glasses and smiled.

‘I know precisely what the next step in your Guardian training should be. I think you need an opportunity to reflect on all that you have experienced but it needs to be somewhere that will nurture you and take care of you. I sense that this has all come as rather of a shock. You will need to be ready for the next stage. These body snatchers are tricky beings and you need to be firing on all cylinders.’

Rare body snatching headstone, Stirling, 1823
Showing a person fighting back against them.

“OK, a rest sounds good. I had been thinking about taking a holiday’ said Sally.

‘I’m going to suggest that you go to spend some time with some of the Guardians at Berkhamstead Heights. You must be absolutely sure that you want to follow this path before you go there. You will never be able to go back to seeing things the way that you did before. So before you decide, are you absolutely sure you want things to be different?’

Sally looked away and thought. She remembered back two nights before and how happy she had been with the day’s work that she had done. She knew that the work that she was doing people valued her for. It was what had made her successful, taken her into fabulous jobs in amazing organisations. Her parents were proud of what she had achieved. She was surrounded by a network of other people who did the same things in the similar ways. And it was easy, she didn’t really have to think about it anymore, models and structures and processes fell off her tongue easily and were implemented with practiced ease. At this stage in her life she could easily continue with that for another few years and then shuffle off into the world of part time assignments or something. Or could she?

The little dog clambered onto her lap, turned himself around twice and curled up in a ball she reached down to stroke his beautiful soft curly fur. She could feel his breathing becoming slower and more regular and the warmth of his body warmed her legs. This little animal, so trusting, so loving, so totally and completely giving of himself. He was really quite phenomenal. Phenomenal. The word reminded her of a gift that she had been given once by a young man that she had coached. He had given her a copy of Maya Angelou’s book ‘Phenomenal Woman’. With a beautiful note inside about how she had helped him to reclaim who he was and to decide to leave the organisation that he was in and move on. It had touched her deeply. She remembered crying when she read it. Gradually other examples slipped into her mind of times that she felt that she had helped people to be able to bring the whole of themselves to work, in all of their beautiful glorious technicolour detail and her heart began to lift.

She turned back to G.

“I want to go.’

“Go?’

‘Yes. To Berkhamstead Heights. I’m ready.’

He smiled. They rose from their respective wooden benches and he gave her a gentle hug.

“Have a wonderful time.’ He said cheerily. ‘And perhaps come back to the Watch House to see T and me for another cuppa when you get back.’

The Watch House Cafe, Bermondsey Street, London