Day 82: A Better Class Of Day
Regents Park Liriodendron Tulipifera
A blank canvas of sleep held me steady and restful, while the flotsam and jetsam of yesterday floated away. A beautiful sunny day and Jimney Cricket is back at my shoulder. With the help of an early morning bizz on the buzzer from the postman I hit the day at 7.30am. The pleasure of time to land back in life lifted and carried me in plenty of time to the RIBA – that’s the R-I-B-A rather than riba which has the tinge of a passing reference to a multinational transport company or a Spanish call to arms. The Florence Hall, on the first floor is a stunning piece of art deco architecture, peaceful and magnificnet, was my suggestion for my meeting with Suzanne Gowler of The Great Generation.
Suzanne was delighted with the choice of location which was the ball that got us rolling on the possibilities as well as logistics of my contribution to the future of the organisation. Moving from a charity to a social enterprise the vision is to integrate experiential learning programmes that bring best of corporate brains to experience and serve in the creation of sustainable projects in developing economies. There are an abundance of demand on the ground in countries like Africa, India and Sri Lanka among others and the next challenge is establishing the corporate partnerships and customising the programmes. It ticks alot of my boxes. The next step is to get to Uganda to become orientated around the projects on the ground at the end of July.
With plenty of food for thought I moved on to lunch with Liam Cullinane, over from Galway to visit his NUCCA chiropractor. NUCCA is a unique chiropractic technique that involves aligning the top bone in the neck, the atlas, or C1, to allow the rest of the spine and nervous system to function at its optimal potential – literally ‘puts the head back on straight’. 21 years ago Liam was seriously disabled by meningitis. He is insistent on pushing his capabilities and sets the bar high for himself. He has just returned from a trip to the North Pole as an observer at the world’s coolest marathon and is getting ready to return to Atlanta to visit the Carrick Brain Centre an advanced centre for brain repair and rehabilitiation. Liam couldn’t speak highly enough of the work that is done there and the impact it has had on him. What I love about Liam is he believes, he has vision.
I was so glad that I had allowed an open afternoon for a casual open ended catch up with my friend Barbara. Barbara lives in Fitzrovia, just off Oxford Street. It seems so posh and upper crust but Barbara is wonderful, normal and down to earth. My neighbourhood park is Little Wormwood Scrubs her’s is a royal park The Regent’s Park – covering 410 hectares, with a rose garden of over 30,000 roses of 400 varieties, the largest grass sport’s area in London, an open air the London Zoo and carefully cultivated gardens, an open air theatre and a great range of exotic (to me) trees and shrubs. I got particularly excited about the tulip tree not just because of the wonderous flower but because I love the obviousness of it’s common name. A tree with tulips growing in it. All in all a better class of day.
100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect. I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort. I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.
Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business. She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me. I support clients all over the world.