Author: Geoff Boyce

This World Service takes a bit of a turn away from personal wellbeing toward the post-COVID agenda – the kind of world we might want to build post-COVID.

Who would have thought of serenading a bull elephant by playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata? Beneath the obvious act of compassion, lies the story of an elephant and the trauma this magnificent creature has suffered.  – which you find out reading the pianist’s notes. Yes, we need more of this amazing communication with animals. It is so humanising.

The pianist, Paul Barton explains on his Facebook page:

Mongkol is a 61-year-old former logging elephant. His captive-held life was spent hauling trees in the Thai forest. He lost his right eye and tusk in this brutal practice. Mongkol was rescued and brought to Elephants World to spend the rest of his days relaxing peacefully in freedom by the River Kwai. I discovered Mongkol is an extremely gentle, sensitive elephant who enjoys music, which I play to him occasionally in the day and night.

I wonder if, like me, in such a privileged situation in South Australia, life seems to have returned pretty much to ‘normal’ over this last month. I’m sure that is not the case for everyone in our seeming Covid-free State, particularly those who have lost jobs. And not for some other parts of Australia. Who knows what ‘normal’ means for the many countries who have little chance of getting on top of this virus.

The danger for me as an Aussie is that I’m pretty good at managing the tangible, but not so good with the things I can’t see or touch. I think the cultural tendency is that if I can’t see it, it’s not there, it’s not real, and I see no reason to change my self-interested behaviour – unless I’m in danger of a fine!!

One of my hopes is that the spiritual intangibles of kindness, thoughtfulness and appreciation of others, having been so evident during the bushfires and at the beginning of the pandemic, will continue to influence us and grow stronger among us, shifting our values away from a dependency on self-interested consumerism. In one way, the virus has forced us in that direction, despite fights in supermarkets for toilet paper early on! But clearly, unless there is a change to the way we depend on ever-increasing growth to sustain our economy, unless we change the way we view what is important for a good life, in all likelihood, post COVID, the spiritual gains will be lost to the hegemony of competition and the dollar, winners and losers and the ills of social dislocation.

In this edition:
*a comic segment about gloomy individualism in public
*film chat about parental expectations
*10 strategies for surviving the lockdown
*more on understanding the meaning of compassion
*a foot-tapper with a message to hum along with

I hope you enjoy it. Follow me on this website if you want to keep in touch with new editions as they arise. They are not regular. I only share when I think there is something worthwhile for me to say (in my humble opinion!). And I always appreciate your feedback and suggestions.

Recently I received a post from my good friend Steven Koski.

I was so tired but not the tired that required more sleep. I traveled to Santa Sabina Retreat Center for a silent retreat. I scheduled spiritual direction with one of the nuns hoping to be given spiritual work that would rejuvenate my tired soul and reinvigorate my passion for my work. Sister Helen had super powers. Just looking into my eyes she could see I was trying to convince the world, and myself, of my competence and worth. Sister Helen looked at me with kind eyes that held no judgment and gently said, “Steven, I know you’ve come to accomplish and achieve spiritual renewal. My suggestion is for you to do absolutely nothing while you are here. Just BE. Walk the grounds. Eat nourishing meals. Drink tea slowly and reverently. Sit in silence until you are silenced. Be present to the Love from which you can never be separated. Know you are loved apart from any work you do. You are loved apart from anything you accomplish. Rest in Love.”
The well of my own resources was dry. I feared others would find out.
I took time to drink from the waters of Silence and it quenched my relentless thirst of continually needing to prove myself.
I am loved.
You are loved.
We are loved apart from any work that we do.
Here’s the spiritual paradox – The more important and transformative the work you do the more important it is to know you are loved with or without doing that work. There is no more important work today than being used in service for the healing and restoration of this deeply broken world.
We can’t afford to quit.
Rest.
Do what you can to refill the well.
Let your soul catch up with your body.
This moment needs the fullness and shining light of your beautiful soul.

Steven Koski 25 July 2020

What a beautiful story!

I am reminded of the Identity Life Triangle I shared back in World Service #5.
In this case, the External Other, Sister Helen, validates and affirms Steve’s WHO I AM and directs him away from his WHAT I DO to focus his attention on the person he is – one who is beloved. We catch a glimpse of the whole schema in action, from Steve’s presenting WHAT I NEED through to the External Other empowering him to revive his own vocation as the affirming, empowering External Other for others in their need.

Big hand to everyone fighting Covid 19 while trying to pivot to a fairer and just society.

In World Service #7:

A meditation that takes us to The Stirling Ranges in Western Australia.

More thoughts about the Drama Triangle and a short film of a person who transcends its negativity.

Steve Parker reviews a new film.

And we conclude with an old Cindy Lauper song that takes on new meaning during this pandemic.

As usual, we value your responses to the program and ideas and resources that may be shared with others.

So settle back, relax and enjoy what I hope will be for you a gentle, thoughtful, half-hour spiritual massage – what is inspiring us during, what for many, is a tough time.

We begin, as usual, by turning our thoughts to indigenous peoples.

As I go on this Covid 19 journey of discovery, reflecting on ideas and strategies that have helped me in my life, and sharing them, I find myself discovering more about who I really am.

Intuitively, I wanted to open the video with birds in flight. At the time, I was thinking about how such a strong commitment to ‘freedom’ in the USA, enshrined in their constitution, is creating a lawlessness and disregard for the safety of others in this unprecedented period of history. Everybody, particularly in the southern states wants to ‘fly’. They seem to be saying:’I have a right to fly!’

This ‘Land of the Free’ is having great difficulty in having to be ‘locked up’, as it were. The whole US society is, and will increasingly, suffer as a result of not understanding the spirit of its constitution, and particularly the context when it was drafted. The so-called ‘right to bear arms’ is another example of the trouble a country gets in with this thinking; and the President is not slow to tap into this consciousness to justify his own narcissistic agenda.

This morning as I was about to upload the video to YouTube, these thoughts crystallised into a little poem, which I have included. This is triggering a recovery of my love of battling to get the right words to assemble into the framework of poetry, to sharpen my thinking.

That idea in the poem – that we have more power to shape our circumstances than we may think, seemed to emerge, as I put together the mish-mash of what has been impressing me recently.

In the process a more magazine-like structure is emerging – what’s being written in music, what film-makers are saying, as well as short meditations, poetry, and the segment I share about self-empowerment and kindness to myself and to others.

In addition, Real Time Heart-based Community Projects has given me the opportunity to have a Zoom chat each week, that I have called ‘The Dance Within’. Click on the link by my photo at:
https://www.realtimecommunityprojects.com.au/rthb-community-projects-online/

Contact them if you want to offer something within the collective they have set up. And you might like to join in one of the activities.

Do keep in touch. I am always interested in what you think and are doing for yourself and others.

What I’ve Realised Project
During the month of July, email me a paragraph or two about ‘what I’ve realised about myself’ during the Covid 19 crisis. Your thoughts will contribute to future programs.

If you find the program helpful, ‘follow’ it and share with others.

Song Words

In this program, I continue to document what inspires and encourages me from what I see around me during this pandemic period, and to offer a thought or two about what has helped me in my own life. 

We begin, as always, with an acknowledge of our indigenous peoples, who continue to live with the pain of dispossession and marginalisation. I pay my respects to the Kaurna people on whose land I live, and to their elders, past, present and emerging. May we walk together in harmony.

Then a short reflection to remind us of the wonderful natural world that has been given to all humankind – a heritage that continues to teach and inspire us. 

I came across two poems from the lockdown that have maintained my hope and encouraged me. One is actually a submission to the UN, the other a beautiful response to a poem that has meant so much to her.

I continue to share my thoughts about one of the songs Alanis Morissette has written during this period. And, in response, I offer another life triangle that may be helpful for us to understand what may underlie the pain she shares. I have copied this part of the program into a separate document that may be downloaded. It’s at the bottom of this page below the video.

Thank you to Jo for introducing me to the wonderful talent of the Moffatt Brothers – we finish with them singing a Michael Jackson cover I think is so relevant if we are to maintain the momentum for a new ‘normal’ that is more fair and honest.

My apologies if you have already seen any of the videos I share in this edition, messages from our poets and musicians – and everyday people – reaching out to the world during the lockdown. I think it is worth continuing to ponder their thoughts, to continue to allow these voices from the heart to feed our own inner transformation, particularly at this time of Rage against injustice, linked inextricably to our history of dispossession by the more powerful – dispossession brought to sharp relief during this pandemic. 

I hope you enjoy and benefit from sharing this time with me.

If you would like to talk about any of these programs on Zoom, or contribute to them, the details are below.

Enjoy!

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanismorissette/reasonsidrink.html

Live Zoom chat every Sunday morning at 11, South Australian Time.
https://www.realtimecommunityprojects.com.au/events/

Sounds entirely selfish doesn’t it? But I wonder whether one of our most basic needs is to be able to share whatever we have to give for the benefit of others. Giving to others, whether it be through paid or volunteer work, creative ventures or our human relationships seems to me to be a basic need that brings with it a sense of satisfaction that I am valued.

Henri Nouwen once said, ‘We will never believe we have anything to give unless there is someone able to receive’.

I used this idea in my first book, An Improbable Feast, to stress the importance of listening. Listening enables the other to share what they may desperately want to tell. Listening is the antidote to closing in on one’s self. Listening is a preventative to the emergence of the emotionally damaging belief that ‘no-one cares’.

But it also works the other way. That for my own emotional good I need to express myself; and I do so with the intention of contributing to the project of human well-being and human flourishing. And that makes me feel good! Whether someone is prepared to listen is something else!

14 May 2020

In a previous program I mentioned the thoughts-actions-feelings triangle that I found so helpful when I was dealing with depression a few years ago – and still today! Depression dogs us with debilitating bad feelings and bad thoughts.

When the psychologist asked me to write down anything that makes me feel good, I found it difficult to come up with anything! So she stayed with me on this until I came up with one thing and asked me to practice it when I left.

She knew that if I could start with a simple achievable action, that would have the potential to positively affect the feeling part of the triangle; it would have a positive impact on the other two.

This program continues to explore how this triangle works.

It has been International Nurses Week. 

It falls on the 200^th anniversary of Florence Nightingale who might be called the patron saint of nursing. 

Her legacy of courage, professionalism and commitment to care, in the face of rampant disease, is rightfully celebrated, as the spotlight falls on those in the medical and caring sector who continue in her footsteps during this pandemic.

Secondly, a short video from Thailand.

Westerners like me may find it a little bit kitsch. But if you get past the Buddhist-Thai cultural surface, it illustrates the thoughts-actions-feelings triangle beautifully – an initial action leads to positive thoughts and ultimately to happy feelings – and so the cycle continues. 

There’s also more than a hint of that same contagious gratitude we feel for nurses and medico’s that is being expressed during the current pandemic. A gratitude that contains the seeds of hope for a better world that elevates these values. 

In Australian culture, any number of videos could be put together to illustrate the same dynamic: neighbours helping each other out in floods and fires, for example. The gratitude feeling lifts our thoughts and actions. We are lifted up by the wonderful self-giving actions of others and feel more connected across society.

And talking about connecting, we conclude with a video of musicians, originating in India, who are finding new ways to get together to express their aspirations of hope for a better post-Covid world. Their hope also springs from that same gratitude sparked by the selfless response of so many first responders.

It’s a swell I think we need to maintain – a grassroots movement of the people for a kinder world.

I hope you enjoy the program. Please contact me at geoff@geoffboyce.com with comments and possible ideas and resources for future programs.

As with all my work, I pay my respects to the Kaurna people, the Aboriginal custodians of the land where I live. May we walk together in harmony.

As the Covid 19 pandemic seems to have reached its peak in Australia, I think we are at the most challenging time. We’re all dying to get out and businesses are dying to restart to stop the personal, social, emotional and economic bleeding. The stress in the home, the financial stresses, the inequalities and the livelihood of our children, who may not understand why they have to be cooped up at home all day long with parents – parents who’d probably give an arm and a leg to have a good night’s sleep.

But we are being asked for just a bit more patience. To resist the tantalising temptation.

The brutally honest Alanis Morissette has just released a couple of new songs. We begin the program with one of them, ‘Smiling’. Taken together, her three new songs are a stunning personal revelation.

I have chosen ‘Smiling’ because it’s what I do, even though, like the illusory smooth gliding of the duck on the lake surface, underneath, the feet are going flat out.

To develop our own personal resilience, I suggest we have to get down below the smile to what our ‘duck’s feet’ are doing. That’s really the point of The World Service. Inspiration – YES! But resilience to maintain it, as well.

I have asked a good friend of mine to share three steps she takes to grow her inner resilience.  Then I have included a ‘Let Go’, chant to continue this mood of inner contemplation. I hope you find this helpful.

Finally, I have dug up a song by some dear friends of mine, who had a band called Eat the Menu in the 1990’s. But with a new recording contract, they changed their name to The Mercy Bell in 1996. This song, ‘Always’ was their first new single under the new label.

I’m sure they would all be horrified if they knew I had dug this up from a recording of one of those Saturday morning TV shows – that one hosted by the crazy Dylan – if you go back that far! But even though we don’t get the benefit of the beautiful lush strings on the CD and the official video, I think those who remember Mercy Bell’s stunning live performances will appreciate this live version. I think the message comes through. “It’s all going to be OK”. 

But first, as is our custom in Australia, I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I live. I pay my respect to elders of the Kaurna people, past, present and emerging. 
May we walk together in harmony.