What lies beyond  the mountain? Dear friend,   In many ways I am like a seven-year-old Joyful whenever I grow And eagerly looking at what's next   And the fairytales are still telling me That if I work really hard And follow my dreams I will meet my true love   And then We will live Happily Ever after   But what is this Happily ever after After all?   I wonder what lies beyond The fairytale of success   And I wonder who's telling The story   Because I remember a time When lif

Life growing and withering Dear friend,   Here at the threshold Of what's emerging I meet you   Early March Between Imbolc and Ostara   Life starts returning   I find my sense of smell Reminding   The fragrance Ever new Yet familiar   Nature showing me Cycles   Something Is Always Happening   The flowers Ever new Yet familiar   Nature shows me My cyclical nature And yours   The sky paints In slow colours Shifting   Like the moon Waxing and waning Yet its shape remaining   For

I Stand Here Looking Down at My Life Dear friend,   I'm standing In a place Where only I Can stand   Not because I am Better than  Anyone else   But simply Because This is My place     Sometimes that place Is where a decision must be made And no one else can make it     Giving myself permission Not to enter   The world stops And starts paying attention     When you dance I see your beauty For no one else Will ever dance like you     My love  Is an offering   And when I give i

What wouldn't I do to feel  more? Dear friend,   It is a time of great upheaval On a daily basis my feeds overflow With outrage, despair and disbelief   What is going on? Why is this happening? How can this be allowed to continue?   And then, A thought occurs. An explanation, perhaps:   We humans need to feel alive So deep is this need That we seem to be prepared to do almost anything   Just to feel     I am a human I need to breathe I need air   If you give me water I will d

The lake is still again Dear friend,   In not having I sometimes find A certain kind of freedom   What I cannot  choose to do Does not leave me wanting   And then, a choice comes Both doors open To 'yes' – and to 'no'   How can I let them stay open? A part of me just wants to go through one of them, slam the other and be done with it already!   And yet... in not  wanting I sometimes find My gratitude growing   In not choosing between the two A third option comes into view   A

A massive raft of mallards met my eyes as I was taking my daily walk. Never have I seen even close to this many in this location. Normally, there is perhaps a handful, but on this frigid day, there were myriads of them. Dear friend,   I wonder if the journey is ever speaking When I make time to listen   Between the in-breath and the out-breath, I sometimes notice a place   Ubiquitous Yet easy to miss   It sounds like silence, Yet there is something palpable, Like a pulse   At

Sometimes a year feels both like completion and frustration Dear friend,   Moving through life these days, I notice that I am not alone,   Moving through life these days, I notice that I am  alone.   Time passes, As perspectives shift   What have I done?What haven't I done?   Does any of this matter? What if it doesn't?   Waking up. Falling asleep.   Everything is the same. Everything changes.   Holding on. Letting go.   Some conversations Can only be held Discreetly       St

Being scared, even if uncomfortable, means that we care Dear friend,   Fear is often seen as something undesirable. Perhaps even as an indication that something is wrong. That's how I felt about fear for a very long time.   Merriam Webster defines fear as "an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger".   Cambridge defines it as "an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful

The birds work in close collaboration with nature – For they are nature – Like us – If we only choose to remember Dear friend,   Problem-solving is essentially a Linear activity. In its most basic form, it is about going from   Situation A – Problem   to   Situation B – Solution   A to B, like a Line: Linear.   What can the Way of Phi tell us about problem-solving?   How can we strengthen our Linear capacity through an understanding of The Way of Phi?   What is the Linear?  

The heart supports you always Dear friend,   The heart doesn't ask whether you are strong enough, It holds you when you feel that you're not   The heart doesn't boast about its accomplishments, It loves you unconditionally no matter what you do   The heart doesn't care if you're rich or poor, It supports you every moment of your life   For even though the beat of the heart might at first sound repetitive, Its value lies not in what can be measured, But in the space that canno

In the middle of the dark winter, the gift of light is abundantly bestowed upon us from above, one flake at a time Dear friend,   Nature provides As if to say Look...   Here in the darkness Here in the cold I meet you   For only in the hibernal season Can I give you this bounty Light and play   Like an echo From another plane...   Here in the emptiness Here in the void I meet you   For only in the season of despair Can I offer you relief Warmth and belonging   Like eternity R

Emotions, like the moon, reflect light Dear friend,   'The days between' or 'between the days' is the Swedish name for this time of the year; the days between Christmas and New Year.   These days the tempo is often slow.   The crescendo  leading up to the Yule celebrations has erupted in a final forte fortissimo  and then abated into a mild piano .   And so, at long last, there is  time for reflection. Sometimes even for stillness.   Not for all, of course. Some people never

The days don't get any shorter than right now. Where's your balance? Dear friend,   Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year here in the north. (If you are in the southern hemisphere, you will have to make some reinterpretations.)   As it is the shortest day, it's really vital to get out and let the sunlight kiss our faces, ideally around the middle of the day. That's a practical aspect of this.   On a more symbolic level, this is the time of the year w

How Slow Can You Go Without Losing Track of Your Destination? How Fast Can You Go while Maintaining Your Presence? Dear friend,   This time of the year lends itself very well to slowing down.   While many get stressed, it is really a great time to rest, reflect and turn inward. Taking care of oneself.   Reaching out, meeting others, yes, but then returning back in. Back home. With every breath. But why should we slow down?   Well, the point isn't actually to slow down, the po

Holding a grain of sand – Adding its uniqueness – The mollusc creates a pearl Dear friend,   Last week I presented Pearlosophy to the group at a Philosophical Café that I hosted locally in Lund, Sweden. This gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of how we always co-create, whether we are aware of it or not. For as the expression goes "no man is an island".   Then, the day after, I went to a seminar on the future of research, where a question was raised about how we

The ape cannot let go of the banana. What about you? Dear friend,   Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that man is a rope between beast and superman. I understand this metaphor as a bridge between an ape and a fully realised human. And that bridge I call Phi or Dynamic Balance. For sometimes we are more apelike and in other situations we are more elevated. Thus play our lives out.   One way to catch an ape (or perhaps a monkey) is supposedly to present them with a banana that is insid

Opening Up Space – Welcoming In Impulses – Allowing Creation to Happen Dear friend,   Last week I gave a philosophical concert at the legendary Café Ariman in Lund, as seen in the image above.   Ariman is one of the names of the god of disorder, contrasted with Ormuz, the god of order. And just across the street lies the cathedral, and on the other side of a grove is the university building, both of which could certainly be seen as representatives of order.   When I moved to

Surrendering the struggle – Giving way to acceptance – Relaxing into peacefulness – The void holds us – no matter what – if we let it   Dear friend,   A couple of weeks ago, I posted about going through the darkness again. If I consider my life from a certain perspective, there has been much more darkness than light.   And still, the light has been there all along. Even when I couldn't see it. Like stars shining in the night.   I can choose where to direct my attention.    I

The Servant & The Traveller – Can you be both humble and curious at the same time? Dear friend,   This is the last issue about archetypes, at least for the time being. If you are new to this newsletter and want to read up on the previous ones, here's a link .   Today we look at the Servant and the Traveller.   The Servant   Being a Servant is a very beautiful thing. However, in this hyper-individualised time and culture we live in, the Servant is often dismissed as a lowly fi

This time of years seems to exacerbate the darkness Dear friend,   I tend to experience the end of October until the beginning of November as an unusually challenging time of the year.   And now it's here again.   So, here I am, moving through the darkness. One step at at time. One breath at a time. From one moment to the next.   This time it's intense, so I will keep this newsletter short.   To learn more about how to navigate through darkness, see my book The Way of Phi, wh