Bem-te-vi ... Four

It is four weeks today since I landed in São Paulo. I feel joyously alive, present and deeply grateful.

You may have noticed that I wrote three blog posts within a week and then went very quiet….this is not because the last three weeks have been without incident – rather the opposite! I have found myself paralysed by the complexity and immediacy of my experiences and unable to step back far enough to describe, narrate or analyse. So the job of this post is to push through that impasse and re-establish a rhythm of public reflective writing.

My days are very full. I  am working with groups – young people, teachers, managers – exploring leadership, creativity, singing, musicianship and various specific questions. I am meeting fascinating people and finding out about their visions, projects, challenges and questions. I am having touching social and personal experiences with old and new friends – singing, eating, talking,  hearing music, seeing beauty. And I  am being reminded that of course you take yourself with you wherever you go, and  that this can be both disturbing and inspiring in equal measure.

There are three narratives unfolding at once – professional, social and personal – and then there is a fourth  thread which stitches those three together. This fourth thread is an elusive, free-flowing inner voice that jumps and skips between the professional, social and personal journeys, connecting them with the occasional flash of insight so that in brief moments I have an  integrated understandng of what is going on; most of the time however my understanding is running to catch up with my experience. …..which is refreshing, enlivening and actually rather relaxing…

The main barrier to writing this blog which I intend to dismantle for myself with this post of course IS the need to understand. These four weeks have whirled and tumbled and spun along  and I´ve taken yards and yards of free-form notes….and now I begin to see some shapes emerging in the blur.

So, more anon…..