Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

Could we live inside definitions of 'success' and 'intelligence' that are wildly more life-giving, generous, and generative than the ones we've been handed? And what if we found a way to cultivate ourselves so that we become the ones who stand - in our lives, in our ways of observing life, and in our practices - who choose to cultivate virtues that have us, and the people around us, step into the fullness of our lives? In this conversation, in the week of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, we find ourselves reflecting on what it is to step into our own self-sovereignty and to bring ourselves as gifts to one another. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: Beauty, Obligation, Wildness The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it. What can educators do to foster real intelligence? We can attempt to teach the things that one might imagine the earth would teach us: silence, humility, holiness, connectedness, courtesy, beauty, celebration, giving, restoration, obligation, and wildness. David W. Orr Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

It can be hard to return to ourselves and one another when we find ourselves caught 'in a thing' that's not life-giving - a tightness, stubbornness, grumpiness, an anger or rage or sourness or grudge, or indeed any way we're holding on to a feeling or idea long beyond its usefulness or appropriateness. The return is often hard because returning means facing ourselves and all the parts of us that might shame us as we come back. And it's often hard because returning can mean facing others with their expectations and longings, and perhaps their judgement too. So how can we learn to be the ones that graciously and generously welcome ourselves and welcome others in those moments when we become unstuck from something that's been gripping us? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: Soft again  I am determined not to let these bold, feathery  trees, With their Fancy Display of greens  And wind blowing gently through their branches,  Pull me back from all the swirling thoughts in my head.  And this sunshine will not thaw the brittleness of my heart in this moment.  I am determined not to let its warmth slip  through my defences and into my bones.  I’m in a grumpy, ungenerous, grey-coloured mood and I’m going to stay that way.  The relentless push and liveliness of the river flowing past me will not gently pick up my worries and carry them downstream.  I am determined, you see, to hold onto my position. To maintain this stuckness. To keep myself rooted right here.  The clouds drifting above my head, combined with the blue of the wide sky will not, I repeat, will not take any of my breath away.  I am going to sit here, in this nearly-comfortable camping chair - and hold on tight. I am not going to be moved or softened.  I have every right to work with all my might against these bright forces that are trying to melt me, to reach me, to remind me and bring me home.  Like the rock that stands still at the bend of the river, I will not be moved.  But - oh dear - now my children are jumping off a rock into the silky water of the river. They are full of courage and delight and they are letting out whoops of Yes towards the water below them as they push themselves forwards through the air.  And my plan begins to crumble.  With every whoop, my determination is less rock like and more like the small branch that is being swept away downstream and around the next corner, beyond which I cannot see.  They’ve won again, all of them conspiring against me. The trees, the water, the clouds, the sun, and now the babies I gave birth to, who sit at the centre of my life as brilliant and undimmable lights.  I breathe in the river air deeply (is there any air as fresh I wonder?) and start all over again for the millionth time and turn my face towards the sun.  I am made soft again. Hollie Holden www.instagram.com/hollieholdenlove Photo by Lizzie Winn

In a culture that values 'keeping it all together', it is no small thing to trust ourselves - to welcome the parts of ourselves that are scared, or confused, or unravelling. When we remember that there's always something of ourselves that we can trust, perhaps we can turn towards those parts of us - that we might otherwise try to push away - and hold them in just the ways in which they long to be held. And when we do this for each other, we strengthen the bonds of trust in one another that support us as we voice our differences, our lostness, our gifts and and our grief. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: Above the Paradox Valley /after Ocean Vuong, “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”/ You do not need to know what comes next. There is always another storm, and you cannot hang the tent out to dry before it has gotten wet. You cannot shovel snow that has yet to fall. Put down the shovel. Breathe into the dark spaces of your back, feel how they open like cave doors to let in the light. Let your face soften. Let the creases fall out of your brow. The mind, no matter how clear, will never become a crystal ball. The wisest part of your body knows to run when it hears the first crashes of rock fall. It does not pause then to consider metamorphic or igneous, nor does it hesitate to wonder what might have pushed them down. It is no small thing to trust yourself. It’s okay to cry. It is right that love should shake your body, that you should find yourself trembling in the rubble and dust after all your certainties come down. Your breath has not left you. Here is the morning rain. It opens the scent of the leaves, of the air. All around you the world is changing. What are you waiting for? Here is the cup of mint tea growing stronger in itself. Here on this cliff of uncertainty there is a stillness in you so spirited, so alive the wisest part of your body is dancing. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer https://ahundredfallingveils.com/ Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash

Whenever we speak, there's a something from which speech arises which is not itself yet, quite, words. And when we make art, there's a something from which the art arises that is itself not yet, quite, art. And it's in this vast unspoken background of before and between, of body and world and story and imagination, that so much of who we are and who we can be is found. Can we learn to see and hear each other as the unfolding, budding, opening works of art and worlds of possibility that we are? And might not this be a greatly powerful act of dignity and care, countering the narratives of fear and separation of our times? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: We’re always rationally explaining and articulating things. But we’re at our most intelligent in the moment just before we start to explain or articulate.  Great art occurs - or doesn’t - in that instant.  What we turn to art for is precisely this moment, when we ‘know’ something (we feel it) but can’t articulate it because it’s too complex and multiple.  But the ‘knowing’ at such moments, though happening without language, is real. I’d say this is what art is for: to remind us that this other sort of knowing is not only real, it’s superior to our usual (conceptual, reductive) way. George Saunders From A Swim in the Pond in the Rain Photo by Inge Maria on Unsplash

We've often internalised a particularly destructive story about what it is to be human - that we're inherently selfish, grasping, and inevitably violent to one another. And that because of that we ought to live very warily indeed. But, as the writer David Graeber reminds us, the 'common-sense' story of what it is to be human is just one story out of many. And we are filled with many different kinds of qualities and capacities, some of which we choose to prioritise over others - and some of which we've practiced more than others. But which qualities we bring to the world is a choice - the unique gift of being sentient, choosing humans. And the real question is which qualities we choose take as the foundation of our humanity, and therefore, make the basis of our civilisation. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: “Freuchen tells how one day, after coming home hungry from an unsuccessful walrus-hunting expedition, he found one of the successful hunters dropping off several hundred pounds of meat. He thanked him profusely. The man objected indignantly: ‘Up in our country we are human!’ said the hunter. ‘And since we are human we help each other. We don’t like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs.’ … The refusal to calculate credits and debits can be found throughout the anthropological literature on egalitarian hunting societies. Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began “comparing power with power, measuring, calculating” and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt. It’s not that he, like untold millions of similar egalitarian spirits throughout history, was unaware that humans have a propensity to calculate. If he wasn’t aware of it, he could not have said what he did. Of course we have a propensity to calculate. We have all sorts of propensities. In any real-life situation, we have propensities that drive us in several different contradictory directions simultaneously. No one is more real than any other. The real question is which we take as the foundation of our humanity, and therefore, make the basis of our civilization.” ― David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years Photo by Darrell Chaddock on Unsplash

In the choices about what to pay attention to, the wider culture many of us inhabit tells us - be afraid, be in a hurry, get things done, be productive, panic about the future, distrust your own senses, distract yourself. So much of the media that comes our way reinforces all of those messages. But what if we turned towards the beauty and wonder that is, alongside all there is for us to worry about, always here? And what if our attention to the beauty, wonder, mystery and relationship could spur us to take care - of ourselves, of those around us, of the wider world - with eyes and hearts of a deeper love and courage than any fear and any panic could ever generate in us? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: IN THE MEANTIME Tom Hirons Meanwhile, flowers still bloom. The moon rises, and the sun. Babies smile and somewhere, Against all the odds, Two people are falling in love. Strangers share cigarettes and jokes. Light plays on the surface of water. Grace occurs on unlikely streets And we hold each other fast against entropy And the struggles of our time. Life leans towards living And, while death claims all things at the end, There were such precious times between, In which everything was radiant And we loved, again, this world. IG: @bearspeakstothestars Photo by Daniel Thomas on Unsplash

So many of us have been taught to flatten our imaginations, and in the space that is left we so easily feel as if we somehow have to magnify our experiences of life, always striving for something more intense or more meaningful or more vibrant. And, while there are times for that, we wonder what would happen if we allowed ourselves to kindle our radical amazement (itself an imaginative act) with what or who is right here with us in this moment. What new wonder could we then find gazing into the eyes of a friend, lover or child; or mopping the kitchen floor; or allowing ourselves to be playful in the midst of the ordinary every-day? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: MAGNIFIES AN OBJECT TEN TIMES is what it clearly said on the handle of the magnifying glass my father received on his fifth birthday. He took it as a warning; the birthday gift would only work its magic ten times and no more, becoming, after that, just a small round window with no miracle, toy giant’s monocle, a circle of simple glass. And so he went about his days with curious thrift, weighing how much he needed to see any part of the world up close, observing as best he could with his own eyes first, thinking, Do I need to see that dead bug big? That dandelion, that blade of grass, that wriggling moth in the spider’s web? I can imagine most of nature’s gifts and crimes. Best not to waste one of my ten precious times. He lost count of how many miracles he’d left, and for weeks after half-expected the magic of the glass to simply stop. And I have asked him to tell me of the thrilling moment he realized, or was told, “ten times” in this context simply meant tenfold and not ten instances, but he cannot remember. Likewise the joy that must have come with such a limitless epiphany. But what he does recall and says most he misses still is the way the magic made him see the world the rest of the time, not through the glass, but all the time he thought that magic would not last. Taylor Mali Photo by Stephen Kraakmo on Unsplash

There are moments when we suddenly find out that we're not separate from one another or from life... and in those moments we discover that what we're here to do is to love. Isn't that a possibility we all long for, and sometimes find so difficult to entertain - the opportunity to give love, to receive love, to have love flow through us into our work, into our relationships, into our friendships, into the street? Perhaps if we quieten down our striving and inner chatter enough, we'll find deep rivers of love waiting to be expressed. Or maybe we could put ourselves in situations where - because of what we're practicing, or opening to, or how we're softening - we might be reached by the grace of the moment and discover all of this from what and who is around us. Whichever way, it's our contention that to love and to trust in the capacity to love this heartbreaking and beautiful world, with all its tragedies and all its possibilities, is a necessary act of great faithfulness in life. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: Grace  It was Grace Stunned by the last light of the sun We were swimming in a green sea, as deep as a drum There are things I must record, must praise There are things I have to say about the fullness and the blaze Of this beautiful life The beloved watched the world on its knees with an infinite degree of separation That was something to see And my friend told me death is like taking off a tight shoe And when I stopped looking for me I was able to find you Right there where everything is transcendent I can feel myself opening up, getting closer No hope is enough I've stopped hoping, I'm learning to trust I came to under that red moon I was completely crushed Please use me Please move through me Please unscrew me Please loosen me up Make music with me Make everything stop Make noise and make silence with me Make love Let me be love Let me be loving Let me give love, receive love and be nothing but love In love and for love and with love In love and for love and with love Surrender, I do surrender Move through me and feel me get out of the way And tune into something more deep and reflective than what's to be achieved Or perceived Or affected What's my problem? I'm always drawn back to that wrestling match Ten thoughts in the ring of my mind playing catch I can't live for the noise in my head I just want to dig a big ditch in the soil of my breath and bury my brain there But love said "If you bring forth what is within you What you bring forth will save you But if you do not bring forth what is within you What you do not bring forth will destroy you” It was Grace Stunned by the last light of the sun Swimming in a green sea as deep as a drum There are things I must record, must praise There are things I have to say about the fullness and the blaze Of this beautiful life, of this beautiful life Kae Tempest www.kaetempest.co.uk Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

We can change - that much is certain. But change doesn't come by magic, and rarely does it come alone from a moment of inspiration, but instead by the steady, faithful application of practice - the walking of a path, step by step. The magic is that even practices that turn us by just a degree or two can, when held with dedication and consistency, make a huge difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us. And the second magic is that changing ourselves is best done with others - in a spirit of 'it's never too late, and we are not alone'. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: Holding the Angle Things change slowly, over time, through incremental shifts. Human beings are complex, living systems where a small change can have far-reaching effects. I liken the process (…) to turning a cargo ship at sea. A large vessel with that much momentum can’t make sharp turns. However, a one- or two-degree course correction of the rudder, if held steady, will take that ship in a very different direction over time. This process of change often occurs in two stages. First, we gain an insight or new understanding into some aspect of ourselves or our world. This is the initial spark that sets the cycle of transformation going. Insight turns the angle of the ship’s rudder. Insight can feel great. Clarity dawns, and a weight has been lifted. Seeing things in a new light often comes with a rush of inspiration, a sense of freedom or spaciousness. (…) Many practitioners make the mistake of stopping there. Insight is the beginning of transformation, not the end. It opens us to a new possibility, but as quickly as we change the angle of the rudder, the currents of our life come rushing in. The tyranny of habit exerts its force, pushing us back toward our old ways. This is the second stage: holding the angle. It’s what turns a moment of insight into lasting change. We work in a patient and steady way, applying effort to integrate this insight. Each day, we recollect the new perspective and practice this new way of being. Inevitably, we lose our grip and the rudder slips back into its old position. We course correct, readjust, and work to hold the angle. The second stage of change isn’t glamorous or exciting, yet it’s where real transformation takes place. It takes dedication, patience, and genuine interest to sustain. It’s the meditator showing up at their mat each morning, come what may; the artisan diligently throwing another pot on the wheel. Over time, the steadiness of that effort takes root, and a new way is forged. (…) The transition often occurs so slowly that we only notice it in retrospect. One day we turn around and realize something is different. Oren Jay Sofer Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash

What we long for, what we most need, is the simple kindness of others. But the world teaches us otherwise - that what we need most is away from one another. What a tragedy unfolds for all of us when we live in forgetfulness of our deepest longing. We think the world can be different - and this conversation is about just that. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Here's a link to the details of the new Thirdspace Coaching For Development programme for people who work in organisations, which we talked about a couple of episodes ago. Here's our source for this week: Shoulders A man crosses the street in rain, stepping gently, looking two times north and south, because his son is asleep on his shoulder. No car must splash him. No car drive too near to his shadow. This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo but he's not marked. Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE. His ear fills up with breathing. He hears the hum of a boy's dream deep inside him. We're not going to be able to live in this world if we're not willing to do what he's doing with one another. The road will only be wide. The rain will never stop falling. Naomi Shihab Nye Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash