Phosphorescence by Julia Baird
What a beautiful book by a lovely Australian Chick who really has learnt the meaning of Health and Wellness, when we talk of physical, mental social and spiritual wellbeing.
We hope you love Julia’s book as much as we did.
Here are some of our favourite salient points:
Powerful lessons: 1. Pay attention. 2. Do not underestimate the soothing power or the ordinary. 3. Seek awe and nature daily. 4. Many things (you’ll have to read the book to find them out).
People who feel awe are more likely to be generous, helpful, altruistic, ethical and relaxed.
We have an intense desire to connect with nature, to see green and blue.
From Aboriginal Culture: “There is nothing more important than what we are attending to.”
“Dadirri: Let tiny drops of stillness fall gently through my day.”
On archives and recording our stories so that women are represented in history, vs our stories being untold or glossed over. Archives are how society seeks evidence of what cores values are and have been.
On activism: we should honour the fact that we tried, and tell the stories of setbacks as well as change. We should value the experiences.
On being in the moment: “If we accept flowering is by its nature a fleeting occurrence, then we are more likely to recognise each bud as a victory, each blossom as a triumph. And if we accept impermanence, we are far more likely to live in the present, to relish the beauty in front of us..”
On a partner: “The most important quality in a person is goodness.”
On truth: “Being able to speak your truth is a vital part of being human of walking with certainty and openness on the earth and refusing to be afraid.”
On our stories: “Telling stories is a fundamental part of being human. It’s how we understand the world around us, and how we convince others to work with us to change it.”
Mudita (From Buddism): A delight in another’s good fortune, or an unselfish joy.
Nachas (From Yiddish): Pride in someone else’s accomplishments.
Cofelicity: Pleasure in another’s happiness.
Freudenfreude: Generally rejoicing in another's success.
Nick Cave on community: “I feel very actuality that a sense of suffering was the connective tissue that held us all together..this feeling of collective love has saved my life. It is a transcendent circle that just seems to grow stronger.” He goes on to say that the key to living is to try to “actively reduce each other’s suffering.” And this is the “remedy to our own suffering, our own feelings of seperateness and disconnectedness. And it is the essential antidote for loneliness.”
Ert (a sense of purpose) and where we can find it. Ert is “that tiny sparks within us that reaches out of the mess of daily life towards what is good, and towards what we most crave to be, do and love. Sometimes it is simply a drive to survive.”
Stockdale on optimism and how it needs to be twinned with a tough-minded, open eyed sense. As in, don’t confuse faith (which you must have) with the discipline to confront the brutal facts of the current reality.
On the importance of doubt, and allowing it into our psyche, using it to clarify and explain: “There was no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe”, but these are “the process by which faith is deepened.”
