Follow Your Bliss....

I can't remember exactly how long ago it was that I first came across and read Joseph Campbell's books 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' and 'Pathways to Bliss', but it was years ago. And the idea of following one's bliss seemed instincitvely appealing....and also practically unlikely.

I've been re-visitng this idea recently. Having worked as a Lightning Process practitioner for 3 years, I started noticing that, for me, there was a degree of unease about my role delivering, essentially, someone else's versions of how we move forward with our lives, and what needs to be in place to do that. As I continued to tune into this feeling and the possibility that it might be time for me to move on, I began to consider what I truly wanted to do with my life. What, indeed, constituted my bliss...and was it practically possible for me to follow it?

What happened when I started flirting with the idea of doing something else was interesting. First of all a couple of opportunities arose for me to work in a more spiritual context, which seemed to be a lovely way of amalgamating two aspects of me. Then I started finding myself becoming more creative and productive. Excitement began to grow....

When the decision to move on was finally made, I had already begun a journey of creativity and possibility.  And this has continued and been blessed (yes, I use a spiritual word deliberately) by chance meetings with people, collaborative meetings, and what I might describe as an explosion of possibility.

The experience I wrote about in my last blog has been another milestone on the journey forwards, bringing an even greater awareness of love and compassion into the work I do and reminding me of the close links between mind, music and spirituality.

So, in some ways I am able to regard myself as an a experiment. What happens when we follow our bliss? At this stage in the experiment I can report that good  things happen.

I think Joseph Campbell would approve......

Towards Silence

I have had a rather extraordinary few hours.

Last night I went to a performance of John Tavener's latest work 'Towards Silence' in Truro Cathedral. Four quartets positioned at distant points around the cathedral to form a cross; a Tibetan prayer bowl in the gallery. Sounds emerging, converging, creating, moving, gaps, voices, mantras, chimes......the vibrations of the prayer bowl left hanging in the air...until they too were sucked back into time and space. We sat whilst everyone left in silence, the dying sounds of footsteps part of the sense of exit. Eventually we too left, but confronted with the chatter of everyday life, quickly returned to the cathedral space, not yet ready to emerge from the womb of enchantment.

And today the sense of having met with another world remains. At lunchtime the privelege of listening to Prof Paul Robertson, Dr Peter Fenwick, Prof Ray Tallis in company with Prof Tony Pinching, discussing in the Knowledge Spa, a place of academic and medical learning, the subject of spirituality, mind and music; to hear doctors and consultants talk about the importance and value of love in all they do; to make connections.with people who just seem to have been placed in one's path; to share a new vision with new people.

A sense of wonder; a sense of awe; a sense of being so very blessed.