Posts Tagged "personal growth"

Poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a means of expressing our inner thoughts and feelings, our inspirations, insights and intimate experiences.

Life is poetry – and poetry occurs all around us, in us and through us all the time.


Poetry can be harsh and demanding, soft, yielding, delicate and dreamlike – and filled with stark realism. It doesn’t have to rhyme, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone other than the poet, and it can blissfully, wilfully ignore the rules of grammar.

And – poetry can be prose, images, short, long, scribbled on the back of an envelope or inscribed in elaborate hand on expensive paper. In essence, poetry is essence, yours, mine, ours, and it is personal yet universal, even cosmic, at the same time.

These poems are an invitation to journey through the Secret Garden of a Soul, a soul in the process of re-membering its essence and reconnecting to its authentic, joyful self.

My intention is that in reading the poems, you will find a meaning unique to your life, and that you, too, may be led to a place of inner peace and joy, a private place where your soul can dwell unfettered by mundane concerns.

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The Importance of a Good Author Interview

The Importance of a Good Author Interview

I had great fun talking to my good friend author, poet and super creative Tom Evans, aka The Bookwright, last week.

The topic was his two latest books, Flavours of Thought and The Art & Science of Lightbulb Moments. Tom wanted to have quality video footage to help promote his books, and also to have the experience of being drawn out on his subjects. That’s something I love to do, and after so many years of having conversations with authors I’ve developed some expertise which gets really excellent results.

My vast experience of personal and business growth and development and the fact that I’ve interviewed hundreds of people have honed my abilities. One leading international multi-million seller employs me as his ‘primacy effect’ whenever he comes back from his lecturing and book promotion trips because it helps him centre and relocate after months away.

According to my interviewees, I’m an ‘agent provocateur’, a catalyst, a novel thinker and questioner who refreshingly reaches parts others do not – stimulating them into new areas of thought and ideas; it’s a brilliantly synergistic process that gets great results for all.  For a long time our authors have been asking me to offer them special expert interviews to promote their new books, courses and events, so I’ve decided to oblige.

You can find out more by emailing me on interviews@resourcemagazine.co.uk or Skype MChristineMiller for an ‘Expert Interview’ factsheet.

Read what Tom says:

“By far the best way an author can promote their work is through an interview …. but not any old interview. Both the questions asked and the manner in which they are asked and the interview is conducted is crucial to making you feel at ease and communicating your message.

I was doubly honoured last week not only to be interviewed by Christine Miller, Editor of ReSource Magazine, for both of my new books but also that, as a consummate professional, she had taken the time to read both my books so she could ask me just the right questions. I am thrilled too to hear she is now launching a service to interview authors in the Business Growth, Personal Development and Mind, Body, Spirit genres. Don’t take my word for how good it is – see the two interviews below …”

Words from just a few of our interviewees:

“I love what you did with my interview…. I’m happy to work with you any time.”
Jack Canfield, “America’s #1 Success Coach”, Founder & CEO, Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises

“I feel your interview of ALL I ever did (maybe in my life) really GOT IT–who I am and why. Since then when we had the interview (in a very magical way) we found a funder, a wonderful Swiss guy, a business genius.”
Dr Candace Pert, Neuroscientist, bestselling author of ‘Molecules of Emotion’, and ‘How to Feel Go(o)d’

‘It is the most beautiful thing anyone has written about me and I honor you forever for it. It will be a permanent part of my press kit.’
Dr Barbara de Angelis, author of fourteen best-selling books which have sold over eight million copies

“Your questions provoke many new thoughts and creative ideas, you are an ‘agent provocateur’, and in our interviews and conversations you are able to reach parts no-one else does.”
Tony Buzan, Multi-million bestselling author of over 90 books, speaker and inventor of Mind Maps

You can find out more by emailing Christine Miller at interviews@resourcemagazine.co.uk for an ‘Expert Interview’ factsheet.
Skype: MChristineMiller

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Video – Life Blessings for You

Come and meditate and relax for a while….

 

Nourishment for Your Soul

words, pictures and music

to inspire, soothe and delight

 

 

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Peace Amidst Turmoil – an Inner Innisfree

A new friend, Steve Earle, sent me a couple of his poems the other day, he’s a really interesting guy who I’m learning about and I appreciate his writing.

One of the poems, called ‘The Sea’ reminded me of a W.B. Yeats favourite ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’.  Steve’s poem is about a soulful returning to what he knows, to peace and a kind of innocence, a theme shared with ‘Innisfree’.

It’s one of Yeats’ earlier poems and as such, the critics don’t rate it as a work of real literary merit, yet it is beloved of the public and it is widely known and read, memorable, and taught in school. Yeats himself acknowledged that his style changed significantly as he matured and developed as  a poet, as you will see in the quote from his autobiography below.

I’ve cherished this poem since childhood and it often springs to mind – even sometimes the parodied versions we chanted  – things like:

“I must arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

I left my shoes and socks there, underneath a tree…”

I can feel Yeats’ turning in his grave right now…!!

What is represents is a retreat into peace and calm, from the hustle and bustle of city life – a return to simplicity and the opportunity for reflection. Finding an inner sanctum in which we can take refuge and rebuild our strength is something of great importance in these times of global chaos and concern, and I invite you to enjoy the poem and the pictures here, and find your own Inner Innisfree.

Then visit my events page here and decide to come along and find out how to Flourish in Challenging Times, so you’ll always have your place of peace to keep you calm and confident of your ability to thrive  – no matter what.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

buzzing bee

buzzing bee

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

Glimmering midnight water

Glimmering midnight water

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

The lake aglow

The lake aglow

William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

Nobel Prize winning Irish dramatist, author and poet

First published in ‘The National Observer’ 13th December 1890

Innisfree is in County Sligo in Ireland, and was a place where Yeats spent holidays with his family in his youth.

Yeats commented on “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” in a passage in his autobiography about his London days:

“I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill, and when walking through Fleet Street very homesick I heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop-window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water.

From the sudden remembrance came my poem “Innisfree,” my first lyric with anything in its rhythm of my own music. I had begun to loosen rhythm as an escape from rhetoric and from that emotion of the crowd that rhetoric brings, but I only understood vaguely and occasionally that I must for my special purpose use nothing but the common syntax. A couple of years later I could not have written that first line with its conventional archaism — “Arise and go” — nor the inversion of the last stanza.”

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Joys of Spring….

Words & pictures from the garden…

In conversation with my friend Tony Buzan who is currently in Singapore, it emerges that he is missing the English Spring with its flowers and freshness, which he loves, and the variety that our climate here in the UK offers.

Much as the tropical weather of Singapore is enticing, and the delights of the Far East are unquestioned,  we recalled times together when we had made a point of detouring for the sole purpose of  seeing the daffodils in London’s St James’ Park,  a somewhat ‘Wordsworthian’ experience… and he asked me if the bluebells were out now…..

Bluebells in April

Bluebells in April

That prompted me to take some photos of my garden whilst the said bluebells are indeed in bloom, along with Forget-me-Nots,  and various other delights which are looking very fresh and delicious at present.

It’s so easy to get immersed in the less beautiful aspects of life, especially when you live in the city,  to be overtaken by our daily activities and concerns, and forget to value and be grateful for the  simple pleasure that comes from appreciating our environment and the inspiring moments that nature can offer.

For my travelling absent friend – some refreshing moments in an English garden…..and thank you for re-minding me to acknowledge Nature’s blessings …

yellow-rose

‘Potentilla’ in full bloom

Above is one of my favourite corners of the garden….it used to be a ‘hide and seek’ game  hot spot when the kids were little…..now it’s providing the same function for squirrels and this year a family of blackbirds, plus the usual robins and great tits, and even a thrush.

Bluebells in spring 2009

This sheltered patch amongst the flowers is my cat’s favourite hideout for bird spotting – she’s given up on trying to catch them…

Tree peony 2009

The tree peony gives a brief but stunning splash of colour, and produces an abundance of  massive seed pods which not only feed the wildlife and but also offers a way for me to please friends who admire the plant with a gift of seedlings for their own gardens.

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