Day 100: Little Miss BlackberryIn the scheme of things today is a cycle of life from sunrise to sunset, what we define as a day.  In the world of innocence and wonder a unique coagulation of energy and atoms that only exist in the moment but in the world of order and definition this is the last day of June and the last day of my 100 Days Of Awe project.  I make up it has a poignancy to it, a bitter sweetness as pleasure slips into the past, that there has to be a culmination, a pinnacle, an apex, a crescendo.  What I am making up creates tension; the need to capture an extra special moment as a fitting finale for this little project, the mental orchestration of classifying my moments of awe on some sort of scale, I am caught in a trap, putting the squeeze on myself.  I observe that where I am is diametrically opposed to what this project is about.  The project is about awe and wonder, an exploration of the multi-dimensional prism of my innocence and about revelling in each hermetically sealed bubble of the elixir of Now.  It is not about capturing something that is better or worse or about going somewhere different or displaying some new knowledge.  It is just a beautiful excuse to be fully present in the moment, to flex the muscle of surrender to just be.

Today was a day like many of my days on this journey; hunkered down at home, whittling away at my creations, focusing on the gentle extrapolation of the path to my end results.  Like a hound sniffing a scent there is something about getting ‘a job’, about putting structures in place to support my heart, it is a tightrope walk between seeing myself beholden to some authority outside myself and choosing to work because service is embedded in my Nirvana.  I know I will know it when it comes along, but until then I have to just keep sniffing my way, calibrating the long list of Gumtree and jobsite offerings against an inner compass.*  It is a task that triggers my anxiety, so many jobs, too little time and my day can so easily leak away into the void of the internet sucking the heart right out of me.  Against that suction I choose to take myself away to that place that has been a font of aweness on this journey; Wormwood Scrubs – a hole in the fabric of this city that allows in the drafty breathe of the heavens.  Moment after awesome moment unfold, which one to choose?  In the end I am drawn into the upturned innocence of this spunky budding blackberry and my imaginary world of anthromorphisation that shakes me loose of the clay of shoulds and supposed tos.  A beautiful pink and green moment of magic and I have an album of shots as a beautiful encore to this blog project too.

* Just a few days later I am offered a door to door canvasing job to sell organic box subscriptions for Able &Cole.  I am apprehensive, it is 100% commission, it is alot of leg work, I normally do not have the heart for sales.  But I love organic food, I am excited about a company that has a Zen room for Mindfulness practise and hammocks in the garden – who have a garden for goodness sake.   I am on the tightrope; my heart sings while my ego frets about my capabilities.

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 or your business please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 97: Whistling ThistlesOh my goodness and begorrah I fell in love with this pink haired, bristle faced thistle of a fellow on Wormwood Scrubs.  I could swear I heard him whistle and leer with all the innocence of a furry faced Sesame Street monster.  I am loving my attention to nature on this journey of awe, I am more alert to and conscious of the rhythms of the seasons.  I think I must previously have operated with an underlying assumption that noticing something was an arbitary, random event that coincided with a moment of lucidity, this clarity of seeing for a moment accompanied with an incipient guilt that I had been elsewhere, zoned out, not paying attention.  Now I just know I am privy to the petals of nature’s unfolding and whether what I am seeing has been there for awhile or not is neither here nor there.  I just receive what I am seeing with childlike delight and out comes my phone for a snap. That distinction is an extraordinary realisation that completely changes my experience and pleasure of life.  Stepping away from that inner judge and critic I can feel the tapestry of the seasons taking shape in front of me, my curiosity filling in the finer details.  The choice to seek out awe for 100 days is changing my relationship to myself.  I could go back to my old relationship but why would I want that when joy, inspiration and poetry is there just waiting to be received.

Thistles – Ted Hughes (c)

Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.

Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up

From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.

Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
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 or your business please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 89: Nature’s Fabric It is hard to take a picture of Sweet Pea that does this flower justice.  It’s petals are artfully folded to look casual, flounced and pouting, it’s symmetry a multi-dimensional mystery.  The petals are ideal material for the dancing dresses of pixies and elves, soft veined and velvety, curved edging beautifully finished.  Picked last night on my walk on the scrubs a bright pink smile for the morning and a beckoning into a little bit of nature’s magic to balance of my day of down to it doing.

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.

Day 88: Big Sky Breather

Wormwood Scrubs

Phew, a relief to get out of the minutae of my life for a moment and dealing with the slow sluggishness of pushing and pulling data up and down the internet line.  What did I ever do before internet.  There is a plethora of stuff to surf; photos to photoshop, job sites to check out, job applications to formulate and stuff to research.  It sucks me in.  We have Summer but we don’t have sun, a warm mugginess that is plagued with drafty holes.  It is weird weather indeed.

I have been under a pall a little today digesting Cancer news from a lovely friend last night; not able to really comprehend that wormhole but feeling the teetering of it, for her, for me, for the future.  But all there is now for all of us and in this moment the choice to be alive to life.  It a soft feather of a place poised, balanced and then lightened up by one of those friendships that no matter how long they are put down for just slide into a groove of exchange and support whenever they are picked up.  In that place something else comes through, an energy, a joy and oozing of breathe.  Despite the evening closing in I am drawn up to Wormwood Scrubs, the wide open expansive of playing fields a table cloth under this illusion of big, big sky dotted by sea gulls and crows on their evening passegiata.  The green parakeets seem to be already tucked up for the night. and the usual westward bound aircraft traffic replaced with lift offs to exotic places.  Night night London Town.

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.

Day 85: After Monet

Lupins From Wormwood Scrubs

Every now and then I give myself permission to be awake and lazy on a Sunday morning which means I plugging in my telephone headset and listen to The Archers Omnibus on BBC Radio 4.  Aired for 15 mins daily, the Sunday edition is the weekly culmination –  75 minutes –  of English rural living unfolding as it has for over 60 years here on the wireless.  So imperceptibly that it is hard sometimes to believe that stories rise, arch and come to completion changing the landscape of this imaginary community as shockingly as electricity pylons or new motorways.  Although it is true that I can drop into the familarity of this show anytime it alway surprises me when I discover that people have died or have being scandalised and have flown the coup.

The Archers beautiful nestles up against Desest Island Discs a cosy insight into the life story and musical tastes of some inspirational, and oftimes little known, stalwarth of science, art, politics or education; someone who has earned their stripes in the proper British way, over time and despite, if not without, pomp and ceremony.  This week it was Palestinian author and human rights activist, Raja Shehadeh.  A lazy but worthy start to the day set me up for a gentle bobbing along.  I momentarily struggled for razor sharp close ups of my friend’s lupins picked up on Wormwood Scrubs but fell in love instead with the blurry edged petals and thumb splotchs of colour that reminded me of artistry and artists.

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.

Day 80: Yesterday Is So Far Away

Dog Rose, Wormwood Scrubs

There is a magic in sleep.  A reboot of the mind, a memory clear out, a releasing of resources back into the resource pool and a termination of background processes. I woke early and surprisingly bright, I could swear that I had Jimney Cricket tapping away excitedly at my should insisting that I get up to meet the day before it came and found me.  This started at 7am.  I managed to resist for 30 mins before I arose to stretch into the morning.  What a delight, a wonderful two hours of connecting with myself and connecting with my intuitive practise before strolling on the scrubs taking time for the dog roses and dawdling before forfeiting yoga for an afternoon at the Museum of London.

I had never heard of this museum despite working for a year or more withing striking distance of it on London Wall.  An event from Sparknow, the knowledge and communication consultancy, titled Stories In Action caught my attention in a recent newsletter.  I think of myself as a story teller both in the traditional sense of the word, loving the telling and sharing of ancedotes and vignettes, but also as an intuitive coach and practioner stories are the access point to truth.  I was curious to see how stories are being used in the corporate world and who these other story tellers were.  It was one of the most delightful of days, warm and welcoming and London unfolded to meet me.  The museum is walled away in the centre of a roundabout, a mini Universe dedicated to the story of London and it’s people.  Sparknow worked with the Museum to use story to elicit their content framework priorities and this case study was a core component of the event but not the only one.  There was rich layering of strands that we chose to participate in, engaging, clever and informative and shortly to be the subject of a separate blog.  It was a new audience for me, not only because I didn’t know anyone but also because the texture was unfamiliar – it was corporate, clued-in, stylish, creative, sauve and relaxed.  People stood tall and straight, were open and engaging.  I am aware that we receive what we reflect to the world and it did strike me that perhaps the change is in me not in the world around me.  Wine afterwards in the London Wall Bar & Kitchen was considered and generous.  Conversation ranged from the Appalachian Trail with the author of To The Woods, to a Jon Pawson barn conversion, memories of Crouch End, the John Deakin exhibition at The Photographer’s gallery, stories of the Inner Temple, mediation and a bit of business chatter.  Eclectic, curious and delightful indeed.  Yesterday is so far away.

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.

Day 57: The Dandelion Clocks Are Out

The dandelion clocks are out! The dandelion is a fascinating plant, edible, medicinal, noxious and a secretor of natural rubber of all things.  It’s name, a corruption of the French Dent-de-Lion refers to the jagged edges of its leaves which are also the source of the name that I was familar with growing up – piss-in-the-bed – derived from their strong diuretic properties.  The seed heads are full and ready in early Spring and legend has it that the number of breaths that it would take you to blow all the seeds off the head would tell you the time.  A tedious kind of timepiece to have today, not least because they are not available all year round.  They are reputed to have magical properties and to enhance psyche abilities.  I captured this little family on a late afternoon walk up on Wormwood Scrubs.  Their saturated folklore is reflecting the light in straight rainbow lines.  Not something I saw when I was taking the photo.  An espresso shot of magic to notch up another day on the trail of awe.

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 iPHone app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day Ten: Sentinels Of The Sky
Working from home on a dreary day on the dark side of the year it is easy to forget to go out before darkness closes in. Today is the first Monday of the light side of the year and the clock’s going forward on Sunday morning created a giant’s leap of light this evening opening a chink for me to step out into.
Wormwood Scrubs, the parkland not the prison, is my local stomping ground. It is raggy and wild, masquerading as some unkempt bit of country in London. The dark sky belies the warmth in the air, coaxing life into the trees; green shoots, catkins and blossom. The usual dog walkers and the not so usual gentleman practising his violin tucked away in the lee of the trees.
Wending my way home silent crows perched in the nakedness of the high branches. Sentinels of the sky.

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.

The Wishing Thorn

Moody, muddy day under foot
Scudding clouds trailing dark tendrils
Of dirty mist, moist and mournful
Over this February afternoon
Scraggy daws and silly seagulls
A cacophony of scavengers
Lording it over this fallow field
Sadly shredded plastic bags and crumpled cans
Forlorn and loitering, typical blackthorn winter
Its darkness heralding incipient Spring
Skittish skirts of delicate blossom
Mark out an aisle down Wormwood Scrubs
The bride to be nervously giggling in the wings
Watching slow motion awakening
Of early catkins in the wind
And fur soft budding on bare branches
One by one the guests appear
Patiently waiting nature’s unfolding
And the wedding of life and death.

This poem was inspired by a walk on Wormwood Scrubs on February 23rd where splashs of white flowering bushes remind me that Spring is not far away.  A little research seems to indicate that the blossom is that of the blackthorn bush or coll

The Wishing Thorn is a deciduous, thorny shrub native to Britian. It is the ancestor of the cultivated plum and it’s blue-black berries are the sloes of sloe-gin. Typically it flowers March – April but flowerings have been sighted since January this year according to the wonderful Nature’s Calendar website

The blackthorn stem was used to make traditional Irish shillelaghs – walking stick weapons, magical and divining wands.  Symbolically it is considered a sign of life and death together as the flowers appear when the stems are bare and there is an old superstion that to bring blackthorn into the home was a harbringer of death.  The spell of bad weather that often coincides with blackthorn flowering is known as a ‘blackthorn winter’

Be warned I am on my soapbox!  I am not normally one for good causes, I see the world as a place where good and bad are just opposite ends of the same spectrum, where change is constant weaving its magic at the same time as trailing its mucky paws across our familar realities.  So although I am going to invite you to sign a petition what I am really asking is for you to honour what is and be part of the vision of what will be.  That is what I am choosing for Wormwood Scrubs. The scrubs is a scraggy knobble of brush, grassland and woods in west London, England. Most people think it is the prison! It is not particularly pretty, not very well known or well frequented. That is pretty cool, 5 mins from home and I am out in the country; meadow pipits and parakeets, sparrowhawks (see photo) and model airplanes, there are playing fields for the kids and thickets of tangled briars that are rich with blackberries at the end of the Summer. It is one of those places that you can always find space for yourself, even in the Summer. In the winter it is a veritable paradise of mud and squelchy oozing earth – just like the country! When the temperatures drop is crunchy with frost and the air is icicled with magic.Boris Johnson dear man and Lord Mayor of London our latter day Dick Whittington, is being charged with stealing a large assed bit out of the north west corner (see photo) for the trendy HS2 (High Speed Rail Link 2) now I am not against development, in fact I love the new, the transformation of vision and action e.g. Westfield Shephersd’s Bush, the new Imperial College Gradpad and I even like the idea of Park Royal becoming des-res but taking this side swipe out of this unique habitat will alter its character and viability as sustainable slice of nature in London.  I cant see the sparrowhawks, or the meadow pipits hanging around, the wildlife will be squeezed out and this wild, raggy, underbelly of London will be tamed parkland for humans.  Now you may not care about my Scrubs but is there somewhere that you value that is slowly being eroded and changed, cleaned up and modified, somewher that perhaps could so easily slip from what is to you now to something conjured up by a development company?  Is that what you want or do you want a say?  I would love Wormwood Scrubs to be recognised as a vital and unique environment, I would love to see rangers running educational events, night time sleep outs under the stars, sustainable buildings and a gentle integration with the new development, how cool a community coffee shop and craft centre, more like Camley Street where I celebrated a 70th birthday wrapped up under dripping trees or Kennington Park Cafe where I attended a night time Singing Bowls ceremony.  I have signed the petition not so much because I want to Save Our Scrubs but because I want to .  I dont want it to stay the same I want to breathe new life into it for itself so that together we are all more.

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/london-mayor-s-office-save-our-scrubsThe computer generated image of the new development and its impact is from the Lord Mayor’s consultation document.

http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Old_Oak_Part_1_0.pdf