I love this Veronica. We have similarities in I too couldn’t wait to grow old enough to leave home and grow up. I have said when I began life on my own I wasn’t on an even level with most. I was far in the red like minus 100. I was so unprepared for life. I focused on being better than myself at that current stage. I wanted a better vocabulary, math skills, grammar skills. I wanted to learn everything and thought only had limited time. I have always practiced using my left hand because I’m right handed and often closed my eyes and spent a day as if I was blind to develop more skills. I had to do everything as my best self, wrapping gifts, cleaning, cooking, ironing and so many things that didn’t actually matter except to me.
I have always believed we don’t have to be old only long lived. I’m 74 and most days I don’t feel old but of course I am in an old body but I still do most anything I want. I exercise while I clean and use my left hand often and still close my eyes and practice functioning blind. I study everyday and not easy things. I’ve tackled quantum and still working hard on that. I was an OR nurse and 2020 motivated me to catch up and exceed medical knowledge which is finally changing behind the scenes. I spent many hours daily attending online classes in everything health related.
I have learned to embrace each stage of life. Just as a toddler develops into a school age person and then into a teen then adult, we keep growing in reasonable cycles. I firmly believe in the 7 year cycles where our body gets a bit of a reset, that never ends as long as you have your mind. Awareness and consciousness allow us to continue to understand more and more. I like old age much better than 12-40 age. It’s too bad more people don’t realize we never stop Growing up. I wish more understood how fabulous it is to begin to understand more about the world, universe and how things really work, why we’re here and how to be more helpful to the collective. I have always believed anything conceivable is possible if you have the determination and willingness to use all that we are. Our imagination is a powerful tool to become more than a physical being. We have much more to learn and I won’t stop until I’m gone from here. Where ever I go from here I’m sure I’ll always be The Same energetic being I am here. It’s my blueprint.
Thanks for your beautiful writing and words that inspire me to comment and realize how amazing life is. You’re special.
Thank you Sammie, for this beautiful, heart warming acknowledgment of my writing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and story, which sounds pretty amazing to me!
I agree, old(er) age is much easier and in many ways better than the 12-40 age-span (if we can compare such a thing). Some things get harder because ignorance is bliss, and knowing more means knowing how much we don't know, but on the whole, yes! I am enjoying the older stage of life far more than when I was in the throes of figuring it all out.
Curiosity and the desire for learning are beautiful gifts (which we both share)
Keep following your energetic lovely blueprint, wherever it may take you.
I do believe that more people now have a deeper understanding of the world and themselves than we did when we were that age. This is how it should be because it's a collective awakening. But we have that plus the life experience and knowledge that comes from living through other eras. It's all good.
I was earlier... early enough to be born in an air raid... but somehow, I landed in yet another country... under a different moon, a different spell. Here was different direction, a golden age beckoned from a long past. But with modern upbringing although we do not start that way, we are inevitably going to meet Janus. I guess he is very old. I made a head-on choice; ‘science’, I had to go there, even if I truly did not forget who and where I was. Even then I glimpsed this seeming ‘choice’ is much more profound than ‘arts / sciences’ or ‘religious / atheist’ etc dualities.
Of course, trouble and troubled memory were also on-board for the ride.
Much later via friendship I met the 'New Age, a bid for an alternative future, and as a result was fortunate one singular memorable day to find me already across 'The Vale of Forgetting', as it was exasperatedly called by the man “…we would have consciously crossed if we were doing a proper pilgrimage", as we sat in the hollow cairn eating our sandwiches. Astonished, I realised I had crossed over minutes before. I won't go into details, remarkably co-incidental though they were, but I was to realise that although memory is retained, it can change its relationship if, to quote the man again, "it is not needed on the pilgrimage". (In extreme cases if I have learned aright, I would advise some memories are best left at the graveside). I guess that while this ‘crossing’ can go two or more ways, for me the benign 'older’ sensibilities that had been my inheritance were able to live better... grow more like grass and soil. I was never New Age even though my weakness for books had me chasing the shelves for a while, but I remember I had friends. They have mostly gone on now. 😊
»one singular memorable day to find me already across 'The Vale of Forgetting', as it was exasperatedly called by the man “…we would have consciously crossed if we were doing a proper pilgrimage", as we sat in the hollow cairn eating our sandwiches....« intriguing.
Thank you so much for this Veronika! Jenkinson is a great speaker. He’s had a huge influence over here in Canada. From learning to die wise to the meaning of being an elder. What is growth? We all understand physical growth. Getting bigger. The whole tumour metaphor. Is spiritual growth more about getting clearer? Likely it comes from subtraction of all those things that got put onto us. That we put on to ourselves. Layers. Spiritual growth might be more about getting undressed. Naked. Maybe I’m speaking more of wisdom? Lessons unlearned. Or presence? The alchemy of presence. The clarity of wisdom. Being aware of being. I look forward to the next one! 🙏❤️
Jenkinson is a great speaker and a good writer, and has a powerful presence. I have the two books you refer to. And that he associates growth with tumour is understandable, given that he has accompanied cancer patients on their final journeys...
What I have learned from writing about growth (and growing) that it is a far more complex a word than we give it credit in casual everyday use. Cancerous 'growth' shouldn't be called this at all... (but I don't want to go into here what's coming in the next two parts)
What I found most extraordinary in writing about this word was how it revealed its identity through growing (literally!) from one planned part into three...
Spiritual growth has been used so much, it seems to have lost its meaning (which makes Jenkinson's reaction understandable even more).
I wouldn't say physical growth is just 'getting bigger'. It's a continuous cycle of degenerating and regenerating feeding into each other, metamorphing. Alchemy sounds like good word!
Love this! I think every cell in our body is changed after seven years. Metamorphosis indeed. I love where you are going here. Change. Resilience. Death. Life. Growth. Keep writing. We need you 🙏❤️
I want to read this again and again to soak in the nuances plus all the comments! My bookshelf from the 80s>> would look a lot like yours. Now that I’m in publishing I notice how the category “personal growth” has replaced Self Help” in popularity but there isn’t yet a category that accurately reflects the newer “conversations.” I’m leaning toward self care but that doesn’t encompass the concurrent need for care of others, earth, etc. Wholeness??
A few wordcasts ago you hinted at this Growth series. It popped up then and maybe parts 2/3 go there. The first two letters being “Gr”—do you speak to the roots or significance?
In the handwriting practice developed by Vimala Rodgers, she has an alphabet with mantras for each letter and also two-letter “ligatures.” I don’t recall gr being a ligature (of letters always formed without lifting your pen, no gaps). But get this: G is about gratitude “for everyone and everything in my life!” And R is the letter of applied creativity. Two attitudes that seem to pour water and light on all those gr words you mention. Magic!
I am looking forward to reading the next few wordcasts soon! Thank you!!
Thank you Shelly, I'm sure you are more uptodate with the current conversations in the selfhelp/ personal development/ growth world than I am. With my focus on Synchronosophy for the last 25 years, and on the Symbiocene over the past 3 or so, there are so many disciplines my attention has been drawn to, from ancient Vedic Science of Mind to quantum physics, chaos theory, soil science, ecology, symbiogenesis, syntropic farming and gardening... not to mention various schools of psychology and philosophy... while seeing everything reflected within our own inner landscape! Wholeness is a good word.
I am thinking along the lines of 'internal symbiogenesis', of integrating diversity within our own inner ecosystem, which by default contributes to promote integration and healing of our outer world and everyone who is part of that. Because we are ultimately not separate from our environment... . Care and compassion for self and others are an essential part of that.
So lovely that you pick up on the Gr words... no, I haven't gone deeper into the significance. It was more an intuitive thing. But it's so interesting what you are saying about G and R. Thank you for that 💚🙏
I can relate to this, "Adolescence came and went with the myth that growing up is a ticket to freedom. A school system perceived as a prison sentence with teenage angst to boot is high-octane fuel to speed up the stretch between minion and grownup independence."
And also the idea that growth has become this overused tumor-like word, but I never really thought about the connection of bees' wax and building and protection. So, thank you for that.
Growth as increasing your "shelter," physically and/or spiritually is an interesting thought to meditate on.
Thank you so much Lani! Yes, a bizarre thing happened while exploring this word... it kept growing. Literally. From 1 planned wordcast into 3 (and there was still more I could have written, some of which went into the chapter on 'Growing a Human Life'). I did the explorations of this word family in preparation for the new Synchronosophy season, but the publication of it got hijacked by the wordcast on Sophia (this stuff happens a lot to me in my writing practice ~ my creative daimon has a mind of her own).
Yes, the waxing and connection with bees was new to me as well! I found it because I took the (to me obvious) jump to the German word for grow (wachsen), which is also alive in English.
Would be interesting to know the words for growing and growth in Chinese and other Asian languages. They might open a whole new world of meanings too....
When I was learning Thai, it wasn't a word that came up in everyday language, believe it or not. Also, in Khmer, I haven't heard it used much either. Now, obviously, they have those words and use them, but I can't speak of any Sanskrit origins like you can with the Western words. I don't have that gift!
Thank you for examining this word from all sides! It made me think of the wood/liver energy in Classical Chinese medicine, pictures as a little green sprout pushing through the soil in spring. When this wood (growth) element is out of balance, a patient may experience anxiety, restlessness, racing heart. One of the treatments for this type of person is to help them bring more metal/lung into their life. (Metal chops wood). So Breath, big, relaxed, exhales, returning to the present. And of course earth feeds wood, so some good grounding/rooting treatments as well.
In other words, I think our western civilization needs a hefty dose of metal and earth. 🙂
“These subliminal messages sown into the minds of individuals, swept up in the collective global hunger, need, and greed, followed a matching exponential curve of economic and financial growth of wealthy countries, boldly sold as ‘progress’.”
Ha, how interesting. This makes so much sense. No wonder the economic and financial 'race to the bottom' leaves us breathless and produces a toxic environment, not just in our physical world (poisoning Mother Earth) but also in our inner mindscape (self-destructive attitudes towards ourselves). Thank you for these additional thoughts and your precious perspective 💗🙏
Berry does a fine job on the illogic of limitless growth. His is one of the best I have read that flags up the fossil-fuelled industrial roll out. And it was written in 2008. I wish I had read it that time. I wrote briefly at the Oil Drum about the same time.
The reason for my mentioning his essay is that Hadden Turner a young English writer has among other projects a Wendell Berry reading group. (Hadden is often mentioned by Ruth Gaskovski & Peco, 'School of the Unconformed'... I guess you know them?) Tomorrow Hadden's group is featuring 'The Faustian Bargain', hence the prompt for this shoutout. I hope to be there.
thank you for sharing these links, Philip! Yes, Wendell Berry has been tuned into this stuff for a while... his poetry comes from such deep understanding.
Hadden Turner, Ruth Gaskovski & Peco look interesting too. 🙏
Hi Veronika, l am only on my second read … so much to ponder, thank you 🙏. “Growth can be benign and malignant… a matter of life, and death”, resonates re the links between the physical and non physical. Growth remains a positive word for me too though l can relate to the assumptions, expectations and the links you make to perfectionism and self worth. It stirs the same unease in me as the word healing often does, for the same reasons - being the mainstream and spiritual cultural conditioning in and around their use that irks me. ‘Being driven’, was very much an aspect of my do-ing in my ‘previous’ life and of course l ceased to ‘be’, in the self imposed prison of expectations l had internalised, seeking to be perfect … an angst driven drive in the futility of an external search for self worth … the old childhood, raging adolescent wound. I like Jenkinson’s point, … “it draws heavily on your capacity to live. That’s what increase is.” Love how you finished this with the alchemy of bees. Grateful for what was, and what is … which takes me back to growth rings one and two. As always, thank you and look forward to the next instalment 😊🙏💜
Thank you dear Simone for your resonance and letting these thoughts echo through your own mindscape and experience. So much depends on how we interpret a word, what we associate with it from our own memory and witnessed incidents. Of course, when growing or healing become a relentless slave driver, they make us shrink and begin to dread their presence. When growth is a malignant tumour it becomes a damoclean sword over the head.
When I meet a word, I never know how it is going to reveal itself, what their true identity and hidden gems are. The wordfamily of growing has been a most extraordinary encounter for me in the sense that it revealed its identity by being itself and doing what it does best ››› it grew and unfolded and expanded, circling in an and out of itself, and as a result one planned wordcast became three(!) ~ all in preparation for the chapter on 'Growing a Human Life' (https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/p/growing-a-human-life). I am always amazed and humbled by how alive these words are and how much they can teach us, if we take the time and open our minds to listen. Thank you for being here and for your growing and healing journey 💚🙏 🌱 🌲
Hi Veronika, Yes, what we bring to words is steeped in our interactions with conceptualisations that we have built around them and sometimes those that have been prescribed, the 'damoclean sword', as you say. Thank you for the link back to 'Growing a Human Life', and the emphasis on exploration through being open to listening, a welcome world away from 'therapy' promoted by the pharmaceutical cheer squads. Thank you for all your work offers in the 'treasure hunt'. I look forward to continuing the journey in this community. 💚🙏 🌊
I like all these different ways of looking at growth, which maybe is a specific type of 'movement' - and non-growth being stuckness or stagnation. The word 'growth' seems often to carry the idea of linearity, and one way at that - we need an idea of growth that is more cyclical, and that can 'carry' the reality of death - and still be growth. Maybe growth as 'unfoldment'. I'm sure parts 2 & 3 will have exciting new ideas.
growth is very much a movement, or rather movement is part of growth, cyclical movement as you suggest...
Isn't it astonishing how words reveal their own identity? This was planned as a 'single wordcast' but in the process of writing it grew into 3 (and could easily have become more...)
Love this. I have read it twice now, and am still trying to grasp it all. Words like growth can be such a lightning rod. Thank you for breaking this down for us. I can't help but think they were wrong when they said, "Grow or Die". But in a sense, I understand the sentiment, and for my own well being, I love growing laterally, learning new things each day. Which is pretty easy when I read your newsletter! :-) Incidentally, the Prophet was my second self-help book, I think. The first was Gracian's Manual.
How interesting. I haven't heard of Gracian's Manual but will check it out.
My other self-help 'bibles' were The Little Prince (I know strange title on this list) and a little later Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach)
Listing them here I can see a pattern emerging. I think I preferred these 'life wisdoms' embedded in a story.
"Grow or Die"... like everything, it all depends how you read it. If used as a threat or coercion it doesn't work. But as a principle based on natural law, sure.
My father was a physician who loved to read and believed in the healing power of language. He had two books he would give away to patients: Gracians and one of the collected works by ee cummings. By the way, love that you quoted my favorite songwriter, John Prine. :-)
Just a quick note to share that I’ve heard “Grow or Die” applied as shorthand for the transition of Pluto in astrology/cosmology, as in this god of the underworld takes us on an inner journey and invites transformation “should you choose to accept the assignment/invitation.” I’m going in search of Gracian’s Manual (intriguing to see another gr word)! Thank you for your comments Tim and for this wordcast 1/3 Veronika. 🌱💙🐚
I love this Veronica. We have similarities in I too couldn’t wait to grow old enough to leave home and grow up. I have said when I began life on my own I wasn’t on an even level with most. I was far in the red like minus 100. I was so unprepared for life. I focused on being better than myself at that current stage. I wanted a better vocabulary, math skills, grammar skills. I wanted to learn everything and thought only had limited time. I have always practiced using my left hand because I’m right handed and often closed my eyes and spent a day as if I was blind to develop more skills. I had to do everything as my best self, wrapping gifts, cleaning, cooking, ironing and so many things that didn’t actually matter except to me.
I have always believed we don’t have to be old only long lived. I’m 74 and most days I don’t feel old but of course I am in an old body but I still do most anything I want. I exercise while I clean and use my left hand often and still close my eyes and practice functioning blind. I study everyday and not easy things. I’ve tackled quantum and still working hard on that. I was an OR nurse and 2020 motivated me to catch up and exceed medical knowledge which is finally changing behind the scenes. I spent many hours daily attending online classes in everything health related.
I have learned to embrace each stage of life. Just as a toddler develops into a school age person and then into a teen then adult, we keep growing in reasonable cycles. I firmly believe in the 7 year cycles where our body gets a bit of a reset, that never ends as long as you have your mind. Awareness and consciousness allow us to continue to understand more and more. I like old age much better than 12-40 age. It’s too bad more people don’t realize we never stop Growing up. I wish more understood how fabulous it is to begin to understand more about the world, universe and how things really work, why we’re here and how to be more helpful to the collective. I have always believed anything conceivable is possible if you have the determination and willingness to use all that we are. Our imagination is a powerful tool to become more than a physical being. We have much more to learn and I won’t stop until I’m gone from here. Where ever I go from here I’m sure I’ll always be The Same energetic being I am here. It’s my blueprint.
Thanks for your beautiful writing and words that inspire me to comment and realize how amazing life is. You’re special.
Thank you Sammie, for this beautiful, heart warming acknowledgment of my writing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and story, which sounds pretty amazing to me!
I agree, old(er) age is much easier and in many ways better than the 12-40 age-span (if we can compare such a thing). Some things get harder because ignorance is bliss, and knowing more means knowing how much we don't know, but on the whole, yes! I am enjoying the older stage of life far more than when I was in the throes of figuring it all out.
Curiosity and the desire for learning are beautiful gifts (which we both share)
Keep following your energetic lovely blueprint, wherever it may take you.
I do believe that more people now have a deeper understanding of the world and themselves than we did when we were that age. This is how it should be because it's a collective awakening. But we have that plus the life experience and knowledge that comes from living through other eras. It's all good.
Let's keep growing 💚🙏 🌱 🌲
Only Part One! Great! 😊👍Thanks everybody.
I was earlier... early enough to be born in an air raid... but somehow, I landed in yet another country... under a different moon, a different spell. Here was different direction, a golden age beckoned from a long past. But with modern upbringing although we do not start that way, we are inevitably going to meet Janus. I guess he is very old. I made a head-on choice; ‘science’, I had to go there, even if I truly did not forget who and where I was. Even then I glimpsed this seeming ‘choice’ is much more profound than ‘arts / sciences’ or ‘religious / atheist’ etc dualities.
Of course, trouble and troubled memory were also on-board for the ride.
Much later via friendship I met the 'New Age, a bid for an alternative future, and as a result was fortunate one singular memorable day to find me already across 'The Vale of Forgetting', as it was exasperatedly called by the man “…we would have consciously crossed if we were doing a proper pilgrimage", as we sat in the hollow cairn eating our sandwiches. Astonished, I realised I had crossed over minutes before. I won't go into details, remarkably co-incidental though they were, but I was to realise that although memory is retained, it can change its relationship if, to quote the man again, "it is not needed on the pilgrimage". (In extreme cases if I have learned aright, I would advise some memories are best left at the graveside). I guess that while this ‘crossing’ can go two or more ways, for me the benign 'older’ sensibilities that had been my inheritance were able to live better... grow more like grass and soil. I was never New Age even though my weakness for books had me chasing the shelves for a while, but I remember I had friends. They have mostly gone on now. 😊
»one singular memorable day to find me already across 'The Vale of Forgetting', as it was exasperatedly called by the man “…we would have consciously crossed if we were doing a proper pilgrimage", as we sat in the hollow cairn eating our sandwiches....« intriguing.
Thank you so much for this Veronika! Jenkinson is a great speaker. He’s had a huge influence over here in Canada. From learning to die wise to the meaning of being an elder. What is growth? We all understand physical growth. Getting bigger. The whole tumour metaphor. Is spiritual growth more about getting clearer? Likely it comes from subtraction of all those things that got put onto us. That we put on to ourselves. Layers. Spiritual growth might be more about getting undressed. Naked. Maybe I’m speaking more of wisdom? Lessons unlearned. Or presence? The alchemy of presence. The clarity of wisdom. Being aware of being. I look forward to the next one! 🙏❤️
Jenkinson is a great speaker and a good writer, and has a powerful presence. I have the two books you refer to. And that he associates growth with tumour is understandable, given that he has accompanied cancer patients on their final journeys...
What I have learned from writing about growth (and growing) that it is a far more complex a word than we give it credit in casual everyday use. Cancerous 'growth' shouldn't be called this at all... (but I don't want to go into here what's coming in the next two parts)
What I found most extraordinary in writing about this word was how it revealed its identity through growing (literally!) from one planned part into three...
Spiritual growth has been used so much, it seems to have lost its meaning (which makes Jenkinson's reaction understandable even more).
I wouldn't say physical growth is just 'getting bigger'. It's a continuous cycle of degenerating and regenerating feeding into each other, metamorphing. Alchemy sounds like good word!
Thank you Jamie, always 🙏 ❤️
Love this! I think every cell in our body is changed after seven years. Metamorphosis indeed. I love where you are going here. Change. Resilience. Death. Life. Growth. Keep writing. We need you 🙏❤️
Sky water, soil food,
and light from above, that’s it.
Green growth, flowers, fruit.
I want to read this again and again to soak in the nuances plus all the comments! My bookshelf from the 80s>> would look a lot like yours. Now that I’m in publishing I notice how the category “personal growth” has replaced Self Help” in popularity but there isn’t yet a category that accurately reflects the newer “conversations.” I’m leaning toward self care but that doesn’t encompass the concurrent need for care of others, earth, etc. Wholeness??
A few wordcasts ago you hinted at this Growth series. It popped up then and maybe parts 2/3 go there. The first two letters being “Gr”—do you speak to the roots or significance?
In the handwriting practice developed by Vimala Rodgers, she has an alphabet with mantras for each letter and also two-letter “ligatures.” I don’t recall gr being a ligature (of letters always formed without lifting your pen, no gaps). But get this: G is about gratitude “for everyone and everything in my life!” And R is the letter of applied creativity. Two attitudes that seem to pour water and light on all those gr words you mention. Magic!
I am looking forward to reading the next few wordcasts soon! Thank you!!
🤗🌱🐚🌻💕
Thank you Shelly, I'm sure you are more uptodate with the current conversations in the selfhelp/ personal development/ growth world than I am. With my focus on Synchronosophy for the last 25 years, and on the Symbiocene over the past 3 or so, there are so many disciplines my attention has been drawn to, from ancient Vedic Science of Mind to quantum physics, chaos theory, soil science, ecology, symbiogenesis, syntropic farming and gardening... not to mention various schools of psychology and philosophy... while seeing everything reflected within our own inner landscape! Wholeness is a good word.
I am thinking along the lines of 'internal symbiogenesis', of integrating diversity within our own inner ecosystem, which by default contributes to promote integration and healing of our outer world and everyone who is part of that. Because we are ultimately not separate from our environment... . Care and compassion for self and others are an essential part of that.
So lovely that you pick up on the Gr words... no, I haven't gone deeper into the significance. It was more an intuitive thing. But it's so interesting what you are saying about G and R. Thank you for that 💚🙏
To be continued?! I was just getting into it!
I can relate to this, "Adolescence came and went with the myth that growing up is a ticket to freedom. A school system perceived as a prison sentence with teenage angst to boot is high-octane fuel to speed up the stretch between minion and grownup independence."
And also the idea that growth has become this overused tumor-like word, but I never really thought about the connection of bees' wax and building and protection. So, thank you for that.
Growth as increasing your "shelter," physically and/or spiritually is an interesting thought to meditate on.
Thank you so much Lani! Yes, a bizarre thing happened while exploring this word... it kept growing. Literally. From 1 planned wordcast into 3 (and there was still more I could have written, some of which went into the chapter on 'Growing a Human Life'). I did the explorations of this word family in preparation for the new Synchronosophy season, but the publication of it got hijacked by the wordcast on Sophia (this stuff happens a lot to me in my writing practice ~ my creative daimon has a mind of her own).
Yes, the waxing and connection with bees was new to me as well! I found it because I took the (to me obvious) jump to the German word for grow (wachsen), which is also alive in English.
Would be interesting to know the words for growing and growth in Chinese and other Asian languages. They might open a whole new world of meanings too....
When I was learning Thai, it wasn't a word that came up in everyday language, believe it or not. Also, in Khmer, I haven't heard it used much either. Now, obviously, they have those words and use them, but I can't speak of any Sanskrit origins like you can with the Western words. I don't have that gift!
A quick search in the Sanskrit dictionary comes back with 97 entries of growth (!) https://www.learnsanskrit.cc/translate?search=growth&dir=au 🤔💭
No wonder it's hard to nail down a specific word as an etymological ancestor...
To me it reflects the profound understanding in ancient Sanskrit of the living phenomenon of growth. xxx
Thank you for examining this word from all sides! It made me think of the wood/liver energy in Classical Chinese medicine, pictures as a little green sprout pushing through the soil in spring. When this wood (growth) element is out of balance, a patient may experience anxiety, restlessness, racing heart. One of the treatments for this type of person is to help them bring more metal/lung into their life. (Metal chops wood). So Breath, big, relaxed, exhales, returning to the present. And of course earth feeds wood, so some good grounding/rooting treatments as well.
In other words, I think our western civilization needs a hefty dose of metal and earth. 🙂
“These subliminal messages sown into the minds of individuals, swept up in the collective global hunger, need, and greed, followed a matching exponential curve of economic and financial growth of wealthy countries, boldly sold as ‘progress’.”
Ha, how interesting. This makes so much sense. No wonder the economic and financial 'race to the bottom' leaves us breathless and produces a toxic environment, not just in our physical world (poisoning Mother Earth) but also in our inner mindscape (self-destructive attitudes towards ourselves). Thank you for these additional thoughts and your precious perspective 💗🙏
Good farming, good art, growing within limits engenders beauty, according to Wendell Berry. I find his percipient 2008 essay is available online https://harpers.org/archive/2008/05/faustian-economics/
Berry does a fine job on the illogic of limitless growth. His is one of the best I have read that flags up the fossil-fuelled industrial roll out. And it was written in 2008. I wish I had read it that time. I wrote briefly at the Oil Drum about the same time.
The reason for my mentioning his essay is that Hadden Turner a young English writer has among other projects a Wendell Berry reading group. (Hadden is often mentioned by Ruth Gaskovski & Peco, 'School of the Unconformed'... I guess you know them?) Tomorrow Hadden's group is featuring 'The Faustian Bargain', hence the prompt for this shoutout. I hope to be there.
Topic: Wendell Berry Reading Group
Time: Jan 17, 2025 07:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88026199600?pwd=b5bIOb617Ud0h9Ez90ulhuOONSEScu.1
thank you for sharing these links, Philip! Yes, Wendell Berry has been tuned into this stuff for a while... his poetry comes from such deep understanding.
Hadden Turner, Ruth Gaskovski & Peco look interesting too. 🙏
Hi Veronika, l am only on my second read … so much to ponder, thank you 🙏. “Growth can be benign and malignant… a matter of life, and death”, resonates re the links between the physical and non physical. Growth remains a positive word for me too though l can relate to the assumptions, expectations and the links you make to perfectionism and self worth. It stirs the same unease in me as the word healing often does, for the same reasons - being the mainstream and spiritual cultural conditioning in and around their use that irks me. ‘Being driven’, was very much an aspect of my do-ing in my ‘previous’ life and of course l ceased to ‘be’, in the self imposed prison of expectations l had internalised, seeking to be perfect … an angst driven drive in the futility of an external search for self worth … the old childhood, raging adolescent wound. I like Jenkinson’s point, … “it draws heavily on your capacity to live. That’s what increase is.” Love how you finished this with the alchemy of bees. Grateful for what was, and what is … which takes me back to growth rings one and two. As always, thank you and look forward to the next instalment 😊🙏💜
Thank you dear Simone for your resonance and letting these thoughts echo through your own mindscape and experience. So much depends on how we interpret a word, what we associate with it from our own memory and witnessed incidents. Of course, when growing or healing become a relentless slave driver, they make us shrink and begin to dread their presence. When growth is a malignant tumour it becomes a damoclean sword over the head.
When I meet a word, I never know how it is going to reveal itself, what their true identity and hidden gems are. The wordfamily of growing has been a most extraordinary encounter for me in the sense that it revealed its identity by being itself and doing what it does best ››› it grew and unfolded and expanded, circling in an and out of itself, and as a result one planned wordcast became three(!) ~ all in preparation for the chapter on 'Growing a Human Life' (https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/p/growing-a-human-life). I am always amazed and humbled by how alive these words are and how much they can teach us, if we take the time and open our minds to listen. Thank you for being here and for your growing and healing journey 💚🙏 🌱 🌲
Hi Veronika, Yes, what we bring to words is steeped in our interactions with conceptualisations that we have built around them and sometimes those that have been prescribed, the 'damoclean sword', as you say. Thank you for the link back to 'Growing a Human Life', and the emphasis on exploration through being open to listening, a welcome world away from 'therapy' promoted by the pharmaceutical cheer squads. Thank you for all your work offers in the 'treasure hunt'. I look forward to continuing the journey in this community. 💚🙏 🌊
I like all these different ways of looking at growth, which maybe is a specific type of 'movement' - and non-growth being stuckness or stagnation. The word 'growth' seems often to carry the idea of linearity, and one way at that - we need an idea of growth that is more cyclical, and that can 'carry' the reality of death - and still be growth. Maybe growth as 'unfoldment'. I'm sure parts 2 & 3 will have exciting new ideas.
growth is very much a movement, or rather movement is part of growth, cyclical movement as you suggest...
Isn't it astonishing how words reveal their own identity? This was planned as a 'single wordcast' but in the process of writing it grew into 3 (and could easily have become more...)
Love this. I have read it twice now, and am still trying to grasp it all. Words like growth can be such a lightning rod. Thank you for breaking this down for us. I can't help but think they were wrong when they said, "Grow or Die". But in a sense, I understand the sentiment, and for my own well being, I love growing laterally, learning new things each day. Which is pretty easy when I read your newsletter! :-) Incidentally, the Prophet was my second self-help book, I think. The first was Gracian's Manual.
How interesting. I haven't heard of Gracian's Manual but will check it out.
My other self-help 'bibles' were The Little Prince (I know strange title on this list) and a little later Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach)
Listing them here I can see a pattern emerging. I think I preferred these 'life wisdoms' embedded in a story.
"Grow or Die"... like everything, it all depends how you read it. If used as a threat or coercion it doesn't work. But as a principle based on natural law, sure.
Let's keep learning new things each day 💚🙏 🌱
My father was a physician who loved to read and believed in the healing power of language. He had two books he would give away to patients: Gracians and one of the collected works by ee cummings. By the way, love that you quoted my favorite songwriter, John Prine. :-)
Just a quick note to share that I’ve heard “Grow or Die” applied as shorthand for the transition of Pluto in astrology/cosmology, as in this god of the underworld takes us on an inner journey and invites transformation “should you choose to accept the assignment/invitation.” I’m going in search of Gracian’s Manual (intriguing to see another gr word)! Thank you for your comments Tim and for this wordcast 1/3 Veronika. 🌱💙🐚
yes. use'in' IT all for good. iamyouareweare. one. loveinfinitelove. i wuv you
Thank you Tim!
To your growing 💚🙏 🌱 🌲