Australia-bound, Israel, the meaning of No and ...all of it

A bunch of links, recommendations and mindsets for the moment

There’s a lot of stuff circling. Today I’m going to do some tidying of ideas and links and recommendations. Which is a substitute for what I need to be doing with my desktop and “desk floor”.

I’m heading “home” for three months

I’ve been in Paris since June (if you missed Friday’s podcast episode - a new format - I explain why I moved here, there). But I’m back in Australia December-February to see my family and close friends, turn 50 (I will be celebrating!), pack up my bits and pieces and to be in some dirt with my tent. I mention this because I will also be doing a few events etc and so I invite you to keep an eye out for these in the coming weeks. It would be great to hang out.

(Note: I will be living to this formula - one long-haul trip a year, or every two years. For now, always for now….because who friggen knows if anything is for sure anymore.)

A link from the archives

Some of you here are new and might like to catch up on this one. I went on a date with a pretty cool guy the other night and he mentioned his favourite poet was David Whyte and it saw me digging up this post from almost two years ago, and it made me aware of how this journey we’re on endures and grows.

My comment on the Voice referendum result

I’ve been asked for my response or reaction in a number of different forums. Since I’m now committed to responding to social feedback here in Substack only (where the vibe is immeasurably more measured), here it is:

I’m respecting the requests from First Nations people that a week of mourning be observed and not adding to the noise for a bit.

Interestingly, I’m observing how much sense it makes to just shut up after something big has gone down.

I’ve been finding it nice to just let my feelings swirl about and not feel the pull to have a hot (heated) take. I’m taking the time and space to witness my urge to blame something or someone. I can feel it around me - good folk disappointed with the overwhelming No result wanting to explain it away, and not allowing the result to possibly say something confronting about us as a nation. It was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s fault! It was because “people out there” didn’t have it explained to them enough! And so on. I think Betooda Advocate’s meme below, says quite a bit. I’ll leave it to you to reflect on what that “quite a bit” might be for you.

This brilliant First Dog on the Moon cartoon in the Guardian is also worth sitting with.

My comment on Israel and Palestine

Again, I’ve been asked in various corners to comment on all this and, again, I’m going to apply the First Nations peoples’ wisdom here and not try to give a tidy, cemented take particularly when the horrifying events are still playing out and it would seem we are not getting complete information (we might like to learn from President Biden’s failure here). Indeed, when it comes to the Israel/Palestine issue, there is never a complete dossier of information and there is also no tidy, cemented take to be had… ever… and if we try to force-fit one we are contributing to the original issue, which is the whole binary artifice.

I have an Israeli Jewish friend who said to me when I landed in the region a little over a year ago,

“If you leave more confused than when you arrived, Israel has done its job”.

I’m reflecting on this truism, and this notion of confusion and unsolvability being a space we have to be in right now, as uncomfortable as it is.

Here’s a worthwhile take, however:

The term “confusion” stems from the Latin for “pouring together” and conveys the idea of too many things mingling that we feel ought to be separate. The literal meaning of con-fusion is something like “with (discomforting) togetherness”. 

Some dude called Tom Peters (once famously) said,

"If you are not confused, you are not paying attention."

This, too, is probably a good thing to reflect on just now.

While I was on that same trip to the region I met a Palestinian Arab (through said Israeli Jewish friend), Aziz Abu Sarah, and yesterday he shared a tile on Instagram that I feel compelled to share here:

PS. Here’s the Wild chat I did with Aziz in which we discussed so many of the issues that are very much alive right now. Aziz is being called upon right now as a voice of calm and compassion in the region…you might like to hear how he phrases and frames things in our conversation.

I think the only fruitful conversations that can be had on all this, for now at least, have to be broad and wise and pivoting from a full desire for compassion and acceptance, as opposed to understanding per se.

I also read this perspective from

Daniel Pinchbeck

on his Substack on Monday that looks at this crisis through the lens of fanaticism.

What I find painful, right now — what I sit with every day — is this: The dysfunctions in the human mind, both our individual and collective psychology, seem to be driving us toward destruction and even our own extinction, via one path or another.  We no longer fight external enemies (like saber-toothed tigers or giant snakes) but internal enemies, far more dangerous and insidious. We lack the time or capacity to build defenses against them. 

Among our biggest and most immediate obstacles: We confront the psychopath problem and the problem of fanaticism.

He invites us to reflect on this….and I found it useful to do so.

All this said, I can probably issue one little simplified hack: You might want to very consciously revert to the “this… and” protocol just now when phrasing a response to, well, any and everything. This might be true and so might this. It’s a sure-fire antidote to the binary artifice, the both-side-ism and the secondary pain of navigating the increasing complexity of the world.

I went off IG for a week and Liana has been posting a few things…

Including a call out for names of Australian guests you’d like to see on Wild. A lot of great ones were put forward, including many I’ve interviewed before. I’ll list a few below so you can catch up on them now. (BTW Liana is a stunning woman who works with me booking Wild guests and attending to a whole heap of tedious stuff that my distracted brain fails to cope with.)

A few of you flagged you want to know more about (now) Senator David Pocock…consider it done. There are requests for more Indigenous voices…I’ve interviewed a bunch, including Thomas Mayo, Prof Megan Davis, Tyson Yunkaporta and my (now) friend Tara June Winch.

Beau Miles came up a number of times, too - I chatted to him here.

I did a podcast with Sawdays…

In which I hiked in the Chilterns and talked about… hiking. Alastair Sawday produces some of the world’s best hiking guides and Alastair himself once put me in touch with a great guy called Guy who workshopped the epic Sierra Nevada hike that I did in Southern Spain many years ago. Here’s the hike. And here’s the hiking podcast chat that just came out.

I’ve opened up more “coffee dates” for 2024

As you might know, I’m offering limited one-on-one, 45-minute mentoring and coaching sessions over Zoom. You can use the time as you see fit. Maybe you’re working on a creative project and you’d like feedback. You might want to talk through an existential quandary. Or get advice on quitting sugar, living with auto-immune disease, living thriving with bi-polar. I’m open to the challenge of whatever you put to me. I think there are a handful of slots left for this year.

A final quote I found about the place

“The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.” ~Frances E. Willard

There we go.

Big, wide, compassionate love to you all,

Sarah xx