Author: annekscott


My Freckled Egg

Photo by blackieshoot on Unsplash

Going to the supermarket is one of the highlights of my week here in rural Corfu. I love the novelty of a foreign country, local produce, cultural foibles, different brands and branding, packaging in a foreign language and this week, especially experiencing the Greek version of Christmas. Spoiler alert – it includes chocolate Santas, Christmas stockings, bauble and tinsel that looks the same in Ireland i.e. made in China and a little disconcertingly, though not surprisingly considering the history between Corfu and Italy – Panetonne. I went to all 3 of the supermarkets in Sidari – the luxury of a day off from working commitments. Twice I nearly bought eggs and twice got a flash of the local veggie shop with their basket of eggs on the counter; eggs I have assumed are the result of a co-operative local endeavour supporting hens to live free laying eggs in rustic idyll.  I may be completely wrong but the romantic notions won out.

Giant Christmas poinsettias jostled for space in the Veggie shop foyer with sacks of potatoes and onions. Dates and figs appear more prominent and token trappings of Christmas dot their sparkle around the store. It is chill and dim as seems to befit veggies. The eggs are there on the counter – I find a little cardboard egg container and unconsciously pick out 3; then I notice my 4th, tucked away at the bottom of the bowl, a freckled wink captures my attention. A snapshot of a second illuminated and slowed in my memory.

I pile everything up in a cardboard box, it is shallow but well packed it all manages to fit though the light bundles of mountain tea, slide around the top. The shop assistant tells me to be careful, she will close the door for me. I bristle. The door slams, another car pulls up, everything feels precarious and I am now thinking how to open the boot of the car with my arms full. A shout of warning and a bundle of mountain tea flimsies to the ground. I get to the car, rest the box but it tilts, the cucumbers topple out followed by a gay abandon of strawberries and that egg, that one speckled egg, lovingly and carefully selected, delicately plucked from the cosy bottom of the bowl, that egg on its way to a baking dish or a frying pan. Did I curtail it’s purpose with my carelessness, did I push it over the edge or did it defy it’s inevitable demise leaping to a concrete death?

That clumsiness is not new. Carrying too much, overloading myself, stuffing in just one more thing; whether that be into a bag or into time, it is familiar. It is something I do. I have dropped things, broken zips, snapped fastenings, missed flights. For the most part I live with it, it is dysfunctional and awareness helps me curb the worst of it. I certainly wasn’t expecting an ‘oeuf’ to be the straw to break the camel’s back.

It broke me breaking that egg, the cucumber and the strawberries were easily dusted off and put aside for consumption but that egg. It chose me and I chose it. It was supposed to be a breakfast egg, fried or scrambled, eaten with avocado, freshly squeezed orange juice and LaVazza coffee. I didn’t know what to do about it, the yolk wide eyed me shocked and knowing the finality of this moment. I got into the car reversed to get into position and then drove forward to finish the job, I missed, I reversed and tried again, and again. I failed and I left. The broken egg bothered me for the rest of the day, this tiny little fragment of life splintering my consciousness, festered until it became obvious that I had to write an obituary, this obituary and I needed a photo. A race against time as the light drained from the ombre of the violet sky. The shop was open, there were evening customers and cars parked outside. The scene of my crime was lit by a lone street light standing guard. Where I had failed someone else had succeeded. My freckled egg was no longer egg shaped or hermetically whole in any way, shattered shell, faded and pale against the concrete, a yolk-yellow stain a modernist attempt to deconstruct life distorted by the light, fuzzy and unworthy of posting. The strangest, weirdest end to a day and an unexpected eulogy to an egg.

Exhale The Old, Inhale The New

Maiella National Park, Abruzzo, Italy

2020 has been an extraordinary year. A collective shakeup, things are topsy turvey and I am not sure anymore what is good or bad – I am heartened by the words of Hamlet ‘there is nothing that is good or bad only thinking makes it so’

I am not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions – of that process of taking account of achievements, successes, failures & lapses to gird my loins against the fray and strap myself into the yoke of ‘must do better next time’.

My life is too short for that. I want to enfold all of who I am, what I am experiencing, what I have created and who I am becoming into the embrace of a life fully lived so…

As the year comes to a close
Darkness sighs submission
The sun gently stretches the days
And brightens the horizon

The playful zephyr of the future
Gently coaxes the past from my grasp
And it floats feather light and free
Into memory and remembrance

A winking luminosity of creations, lessons, learnings
A pocketful of preciousness
Without which there would be missing colours
On the tapestry of my life

I exhale
A long slow breath of reverence and honouring
A surrender
A release, a letting go and a letting be

I inhale
The fresh, earthy fragrance of new beginnings
A blank canvas
Ready for the paintbrush of my soul

Poem by: A K Scott

Stuck in Poetic Mode

I have a cold and I am not sleeping well. When I woke, I woke late, heavy, unrested and lethargic. The voice that spoke was by comparison brisk and business like

‘I know how you feel, I know how bad, ugly, rotten to the core you are’. The truth cut deep, a slash of self pity and the start of the slow bleeding slide into another day of dull depression. Sweet relief just a sandman’s whisper away but my soul is stuck in poetic mode.

‘I know how you feel, I know how bad, ugly, rotten to the core you are’.
 
And again
 
‘I know how you feel, I know how bad, ugly, rotten to the core you are’.
 
A chipper little voice, this Jimney Cricket of a character wasn’t going to let me put my head under the pillow today. THIS was a soul baby knocking at my door. There was nothing to do but write. And so:
 
I know how you feel
I know how bad, ugly, rotten to the core you are
How you want to rip yourself away from the flesh that is you
Raging, roaring, kicking, punching against the fibre of your being
I know how you drown, smothered, gagged, suffocated, suffocating
Writhing, clawing, tearing at the walls that are who you are
 
I know how you feel
I know the rage, spitting, livid, firey ire
Burning runways of smouldering fury through your soul
Destroying, exploding, killing love, kindness, compassion
Those mealy mouthed mother fuckers
I know how you are consumed
Inside the cage of your humanness
A twitching, flickering, putrid mass of toxic oozing pus
 
I know how you love to hate
I know how you despair
I am the evil bitch, the bully boy
Who wants to punish and obliterate all sign of milk and honey
Who wields a whip of righteousness and snuffs out unbecoming joy
I know the realness of this place
A landscape of the mind
Where goodness is a rag to the raging bull and destruction holds its sway
 
I know how real it feels
When those demons come to roost
Hideous heads and flickering tongues, devouring my flesh alive
I don’t know if I have been here before or if I never left
I don’t know if this is how it is supposed to be or if I am an aberration bereft
I don’t know if this is real, a dream, a play, a game or nought
I don’t know if I will survive, if love will save the day
I only know these words have come to grace the page and say….
 
I know

Paradigm Shifting, Paradigm Twisting, Discombobulating Times.

Uncertainty is bumfuzzling, it brings up fear, it shakes the cage of our knowing and shows it to be an illusion. Goals and dreams that we have been so confident about shimmer and dissolve like a mirage and instead we find ourselves coddiwompling through life, to a destination disappeared.

And there is immense liberation. Things are not how we think they are. ‘How it is’ shatters and its shards and fragments are flung into infinity. I am just a dust mote floating in limitlessness horrified at being blown to smithereens and then through a clink just wide enough I glimpse the wonder. The wonder of what else is possible, the elasticity and power of our connectedness, the mobilisation of ideas, the leveraging of technology. Brain freezing, heart expanding times. Truly exciting times.

Leaning into the exhilaration of expansion is what is calling me now. I itch to be in that sandbox. My best contribution is creative service. I am offering 5 free no strings attached, discovery sessions* to explore an idea waiting to be born.

*45-50 mins available until 31 March.

#crossingfrontiers #theimaginationtechnologist #openforbusiness #letsgetcreative #liberation

Photo of the day on Unsplash.com Subtle Cinematics

Imagination is in our DNA

Ancient Technology That Powers Creativity – A talk on the People’s Stage, Wisdom 2.0, San Francisco February 2018.

Dont be confused by my accent. Born of Irish parents I lived in the UK until I was 10yrs old. I moved with my family to Ireland until my late 20s. Since then I have lived in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. My accent is chameleon.

The theme of my talk is that Imagination is ancient and it is a gift that comes ‘bundled’ in our DNA. The premise is that how you use your imagination determines your reality. My end result for the talk is to open up minds to the real possibilities of imagination and to pique curiosity to explore the magic of it.

We think imagination is child’s play – about playing make believe. But it is not. It is the key to FREEDOM when we know how to use it because with our imaginations we can make things up – we can make our dreams real and create what matters to us. We are fundamentally imaginative beings but there are two aspects to ourselves that vie to harness the power of our imaginations.

One aspect is wild, free, unfettered and focused on creativity – let’s call it SPIRIT.

The second is careful, cautious, rational and focused on past experience – let’s call it STORY.

Kodak is a great example of a company that was innovative in its time – founded in 1888 and up until 1976 had 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the US. But then came Fuji followed by digital photography and Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012. Kodak developed a digital camera in 1975, the first of its kind, but dropped it because of the fear that it would impact its film business.

On the other hand Apple is an obvious example of a company that has a history of being innovative launching products that we didnt know we needed while Netflix and Amazon have revolutionised their market sectors in the way they approached business.

On a personal note I am a dreamer and a procrastinator. In the lead up to the talk I conjured up all sorts of inessential activity including a road trip from Seattle to San Francisco. For those of you not from the USA that is ALOT of driving! I got to hang with some of my very favourite friends BUT it did put the squeeze on my preparation time for this talk.

These two aspects of SPIRIT and STORY co-exist in me so having the ability to shift the focus of my imagination is the difference between creating a reality of my choosing or getting side tracked and loosing sight of what matters to me. As I am trained in using my imagination creatively I daily put my focus imaginatively into the Vision of being on stage sharing my passion.

The talk takes you through using your imagination to shift your attention in relation to a problem you have from your STORY to your SPIRIT. I use a problem I have in the demonstration taking myself through some questions that reveal to me where my focus is and use my imagination to shift my focus.

Pick a problem you currently have. It could be about work, a relationship, about something that you would love to create but you have not got around to it – the book, that sabbatical, a weekend of hiking or a weekend of doing nothing…..It doesnt have to be a big problem – it could be that they had run out of your favourite muffin this morning at the store!

Our STORY communicates to us through our thoughts and feelings. My problem is about the book I am not writing.

The first question I want to know the answer to is ‘What am I thinking?’

What are your thoughts?

The second question I want to know the answer to is ‘What am I feeling?’

What are your feelings?

Our thoughts and feelings reveal the STORY and our imaginations create our reality. How would you summarise your STORY? And what is the reality you have created for yourself?

My STORY is “who wants to read what I have to write that and I cannot afford he time”…..this STORY is POWERING my imagination and basically I am spinning wheels going nowhere. No book. Similarly your story is powering your imagination to create your reality.

It was Einstein who said we cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that we used to create it.

So lets switch from the consciousness of our STORY to the consciousness of SPIRIT. We do  this by connecting directly to our imaginations. Our SPIRIT does not communicate to us through our thoughts and feelings. SPIRIT talks to us directly through our imagination. The language of imagination is symbolic – that may be visual, sensory, auditory or just direct knowledge or awareness. As we are unique our language of imagination is unique.

Developing a creative relationship with imagination is about developing your ability to interpret and translate what you receive. You may already have a working relationship with your imagination or today may be Imagination 101 for you. Whichever it doesnt matter. As it is your language you can choose to learn it as you go.

Take a moment to be aware of your breath, it is helpful to close your eyes. There is no need to control or manage your breath, just allow it to oxygenate your body. To do what it does naturally and automatically. Now choose to be of SERVICE to yourself. Your heart is your highest level of intelligence and your highest good is its number one priority.

Breathe

Notice any thoughts, any feelings, notice your STORY. Whatever is going on in this moment doesnt matter. Imagine that you are somewhere that makes your heart sing – it may be outdoors in nature, or somewhere cosy with a good book. Your happy place. Wherever that is imagine you are there.

Breathe

Experience that place right now. Feel it. Hear it. See it. Taste it. Breathe it in.

Now imagine a golden circle. A clear clean space in this realm that you are in. Imagine this circle represents what really matters to you. You don’t need to know what that is just that the circle is a representation of that. Now imagine stepping into that circle.

Observe the first thing you get – it may be a feeling, an image, a sensation, a symbol. It can be anything but it is the first thing you get. You don’t have to know what it means but ask yourself:

what could it mean about you?

What could it mean about what matters to you?

What is the emotional quality of this space?

What does that emotion make you feel like doing?

When you are ready open your eyes and return to normal consciousness. Capture what you got on paper if you want to. It may make sense to you but dont worry if it doesn’t. Connect with the experience of it, the emotion of it.

What did you experience?

What did you learn?

Feel free to share in the comments below.

This is just a taster using this ancient technology. Innovative creators are renowned for their ability to bring together disparate ideas in new and unique combinations. Powered by SPIRIT imagination connects us to everything past, present and future in a non linear quantum reality. It is powerful, innovative, rule-breaking and life changing. It is radical. It is not for wimps. Innovation is not a function of DNA but rather a function of the ability to be able to determine the focus of your imagination.

I am not special BUT I have developed a living relationship with my imagination. I am using this technology to create an alternative STORY which I call my MYTH. A MYTH which is real, tangible and rich with meaning and magic. Some of my imagination creations:

  • Wiz-Biz a Business Mentoring program to inject magic into business – for wizard-business creators. A get together to serve each member imaginatively – this ensures that our businesses have heart, joy and real value for us rather than what we think the world wants from us.
  • CO:LLAB –  roving co-living, co-working project for like minded creators in beautiful parts of the world by the ocean.
  • Halcyon Days – a collaboration with Thea Allison, 5 day retreats in Greece to restore you to the richness of life. Diving deep into what matters to you and starting the process of making it real in your world.

Phil Knight founder of NIKE writes in his memoir ‘Shoe Dog’ of a moment long before his multi- million dollar business was a reality

‘I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know, short as a morning run, and I wanted mine to be meaningful, and purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all….different’

Phil was a runner before jogging was invented. He loved running but being a athlete wasn’t all that he wanted. So he wondered ‘What if there were a way without being an athlete, to feel what athlete’s feel? To play all the time, instead of working? Or else to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing’. Phil’s words speak to me.

I love working with the technology of imagination, infinitely curious about what it reveals to me and my clients about what is important and to the crazy, beautiful, possibilities it inspires us to step up to. It is play, glorious play and it is heart warming to liberate people’s minds and open their hearts.

We sell ourselves short when we argue that unique creativity is only available to the chosen few e.g. Mozart, Picasso, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. Imagination is neutral. We all have it. Being uniquely creative, being an innovator is a choice about how we use our imagination. Before I learnt that I could focus my imagination I was using it to power my STORY. Now I use it to power my creativity.

I am reminded of Don Juan in the writings of Carlos Castenada as he muses

‘Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t.’

Why wouldn’t you choose the path of your heart? My invitation to you is to connect with your SPIRIT and feel the freedom of your IMAGINATION to focus your energy and your gifts on creating and innovating rather than resolving the problems in your life.

If you want to road test that process again you can access a FREE DOWNLOAD here

Our Home Is On Fire

‘Markets that deal in human futures are inherently pernicious’ Shoshana Zuboff – very interesting and considered observations on a new type of capitalism emerging as our experience becomes a commodity.

I, for one feel threatened by this scrutiny of my experience but Shoshana’s message is that it isn’t personal and we don’t have to be powerless when we understand that we are in ‘a moment of discontinuity’. Rather than thinking ‘our house is on fire’ understand that the very essence of who we are has now been commoditised and turned into data, data used to predict behaviour and shepherd our experience. We can be afraid because we do not know how to deal with this or be present to the bigger landscape turning our attention to deeper questions of awareness, responsibility and our collective vision for the future.

Let’s not be tinkering with the deck chairs on the Titanic rather consider a new paradigm of the future together.

I was prompted to write this post after listening to Shoshana’s webinar on Surveillance Capitalism as part of the Presencing Institute’s webinar series on Dialogues on Transforming Society & Self, (DoTS). Her book is available on Amazon.

My peer group On A Mission will be hosting a Pura Vida, a Creative Summit in Costa Rica in September 2020 to consider exactly that; new possibilities and paradigms to foster collaborative synergy based on consciousness, evolution & celebration. Watch this space for more information or email [email protected] if you want to know more.

And It Is A Happy New Year From Me

I am exhausted, an existential exhaustion. It hits me every year, this last two weeks of December is like walking through treacle. I sleep and I sleep and when I am not sleeping I am feeling sleepy.
 
The bright lights of Christmas cheer wane and fade leaving a charcoal smudge on my memory making way for a cacophony of completing, resolving, resetting, rebooting. There is an I in me that rebels, resists, defies the collective ceremony of the end of the year. Every cell in my body cries out to hibernate, to sleep, to dissolve, to disappear – a gravitational force that has the power to suck me off this merry go round of life. It is a familiar shadow particularly amplified at this time of year. Aha old friend. We can rub up companionably on the sidelines, observers & watchers of celebratory shenigans, out of the glare of effusive joy and optimism – by ourselves but not alone.
 
And then as the watery winter sun rises on a new year, on a new decade that shadow will fade; slowly at first but fade it always does and my energy will return; in fits and starts but splutter into life it will.
 
So as I energetically ebb into this New Year’s Eve I share the Rumi quote that lifts my heavy heart like feather weight across the Julian rubicon of endings and beginnings. May it lift yours too if lifting is required.

True Collaboration Calls For Carbon Offsetting

Photo by Cristina Cerda on Unsplash

I experience an increasing tension about the impact of my convenient lifestyle. Over 25 years I became accustomed to the fast pace of growth driven business at the heart of the disposable consumerism of big city London.

In the past 3 years I have come to question the primary drivers of business that gobble up our time, our joy, our spirit and our planet. I let go of living in London and of sacrificing my wellbeing and talents to a vision that didn’t belong to me.

I have found living directly connected to the elements of nature e.g. by the sea or in the mountains grounds me in a different rhythm, I think about light switches, own a bag for life and a reusable coffee cup, I choose zero air miles vegetables over world traveller imposters, cringe at plastic packaging, have nightmares about water bottles and the decimation of our oceans, walk more, spend less and sleep better.

I choose to live in the creative orientation, beyond the normal constraints of survival e.g. 9-5 job, regular income, a fixed abode. It is a wild ride at the extremes of existence that few people purposefully choose to do. I actually and metaphorically choose to voyage in unknown domains.

I choose to tread lightly on this earth; the call to be a hermit is seductive. I am passionate to leverage the genius of our collective creativity but I cant be bothered with kudos, conferences or the whitewash of feel-good collectives. I embrace the achievements of science, technology and innovation but don’t know where to begin to use them to transmute and transfigure life on earth.

I believe that we are better together, contributing the best of who we are to receive the fullness of who we can be. I believe that every human being has the potential to be part of the global synergy.

From the bottom of my heart I believe true collaboration is simple and it is the biggest challenge we are being invited to face at this time.

There is maverick community of early adopters out there, those with their toes in the water. I am called to join them and thanks to technology I can find and connect to them on line but is no avoiding the truth that the substance of collaboration is love and love calls for intimacy and vulnerability, for physical as well as ideological closeness, for kinship, sharing, eye to eye connection and the ability to be with and hang out in the messy entanglement of humanness.

I would happily stay at home – as I said earlier the call to be a hermit is seductive – especially when flying and many forms travel have such a polluting impact on our environment. Fortunately I have a friend who has a mate who has founded a company that helps those of us who caught in the carbon/climate predicament https://www.clevel.co.uk/flight-carbon-calculator/

An Oldie But A Goodie

#TheImaginationTechnologist #BeTheChangeInBusiness #CrossingFrontiers