Today’s title is prompted by WordPress (the host of my blogs) alerting me to new Followers.
Here’s a hearty welcome to Energy Cooking (nice avatar! Turquoise is one of my favourite Soul Colours) and and indeed to each and every one of you who are Following writingpresence, owner of ©writing our way whole © 2018-2021, or who are dropping by to play with BrainDumps, Golden Threadwork, Latin Lessons, Appreciation Practice (the “gratefuls”); and more besides.
Earlier I quickly scanned who, or what sites, I have been Following on various platforms, over the last seven years. That made me thrill to the truth that ‘no [hu]man is an island’ (John Donne, 1572-1631) . We are each connected by spiderwebs of delicate strength, of empathy (however faintly practised), of genetic consonance.*
- (According to one site, we share at least: 99.9% of our genome with other humans; 90% with cats; a surprising 70% with slugs; and around 50% with trees).
My ‘Leaders’ include – and are not restricted to – a retired clinician with diverse interests including phenomena, mapping and WW2 planes (I found him via a search for the ‘Biggles books’ that I read as an eight-year-old); a reptile breeder who tells me that for compost worms, banana peel is a guest-of-honour; a Canadian photographer whose poetry is whimsical and poignant; a long-distance walker who (like me) practises Reiki (she with more training & experience than I, and currently on a COP26 pilgrimage between Dunbar and Glasgow); psychotherapists who offer support for sufferers from “climate grief” in the Cambridgeshire area; the poetry collection of an author whose books for young teens focus on magical relationships with trees; an Award-winning Scottish publishing and design company (with labrador photos and ‘steek’ tutorials); several cookery editors (because when I randomly chose my original blog template it was based on a gastronomy site) …
If you recognise yourself in this list, please wave to me, perhaps to publicise your endeavours further. If you don’t, then maybe it’s time you reminded me of what gifts you offer to the world!
And thank you for being here.
BlogDump
In your ThoughtBook gather a random collection of blogs you follow on WordPress; businesses you have connected with over social media; educational organizations whose online courses you used during lockdown; entrepreneurs whose projects have benefited you; new Soul-Companions you have connected to online…
As the spirit moves you, make a list of these, or a SoulStorm, or a spider diagram (showing a sequence of inter-relating links) and feel free to move onto a bigger page, blackboard*, kitchen wall*, paving stone*, garden fence*; spare part-roll of wallpaper* … as desired.
(* only if it is your own)
Feel free to use colour, and even texture (threads of cotton? glue? collage?) as the exercise expands to fill the available time and space, or overflows both (you could allocate a time limit , say 20 minute, an hour … or use this exercise as part of a day workshop with friends … )
(Unless you have a particular need to work on-screen, you might try to avoid recording electronically for this exercise. You can always photograph your network diagram/list afterwards, to save it for future reference – having signed and dated it of course, to give it your authorial stamp.)
I offer this process to help you recall worthwhile ‘thinks’ from the current episode of your life story. Enjoy it!
You might share the resources with others, too, including we Followers of ©writing our way whole. Especially if such links – in the recent or long-ago past – have opened portals of creativity for yo
Now I’m offering some wider-ranging phrases involving ‘following’ and ‘leading’, with the expectation that at least one will prompt a memory (or a ‘telling’) to emerge as soon as you let the magic pencil lead, with your hand and heart following not far behind.
As ever, you can modify any of the following leads, or make up your own – on any theme – from scratch. Scratching a living from following your own way.
Go, write!
Golden ThreadWork
When I was promoted to writing the Leader articles in The Times …
Follow that car! …
They followed the star …
Lead kindly light …
Scratching a living from following his own way …
He lead them home that night …
Let Mummy be First Leader, you can be Second Leader, and Daddy will bring up the rear …
I am reluctant to take the lead because …
Follow me, follow /down to the hollow …
A thousand Followers on Facebook offers no guarantee to …
With a steady eye she followed the snail’s progress through the clover …
Goodbye for now – Samhain approaches – tempus fugit – must fly!
writingpresence 