Go gently or go gloriously, but do go…

by Lian Brook-Tyler

Go gently or go gloriously, but do go…

I listened to the headmaster going into reveries about the sports field and this science lab and that technology department, all of them state of the art in his glossy newly built school.

He was so quintessentially the headmaster of an all-boys school I could almost see Roald Dahl scribbling notes at the back of the hall.

After a while, I lost sight of why I was there and allowed my writer’s mind to be submerged in stereotypes, counting the clichés, delighting in the material it provided.

The presentation ended and my daughter and I were carried out of the hall by the snaking rows of zombie parents.

Then it occurred to me that the head hadn’t mentioned any of the subjects that my daughter was interested in. We were there for sixth form open evening, the all-boys school opening to girls at that juncture but still cleaving proudly to the STEM and sports that the school excelled in.

Still, we ventured off to find the history, English, and psychology that we were there for, hunting out the classrooms hidden away on the top floor.

We arrived in the far away land of humanities, and my daughter sought out an English literature teacher, asking a question about the books that they’d study. The teacher’s passion for her subject was gratifyingly clear, and so I decided to tell her about our experience of the headmaster’s presentation, curious about her response to whether humanities were indeed pushed away, out of sight, out of mind, metaphorically and literally in the attic of the building.

She said that their department was well supported and well funded, and that they made sure they had a voice in the school (with her compelling presence, I could believe it). She was also honest. She said yes, that STEM seems to be the focus not just of the school but of the age. She referenced something that had been said recently (maybe in the news or government, I didn’t catch that) about how important the focus on STEM is.

And then she said something that caught my attention. She said, “The way we’re all going headlong into maths, technology and AI, maybe we need literature more than ever because we need things that move us to think and feel for ourselves.” And maybe because we were standing in our fluorescent light-lit classroom, she didn’t add “…those things that stir our soul,” but I heard that anyway.

The next morning I was hanging clothes in the wardrobe whilst listening to Richard Rudd speaking about Gene Key 48, the path of going from the Shadow of Inadequacy to the Siddhi of Wisdom.

As is so often the case when I re-listen to him speak, I hear something new in words I’ve heard before. This time, as if for the first time, I heard him describe Gene Key 48, which comes from the root of the I Ching hexagram 48, The Well (my Life’s Work), as “all woman.”

I kept listening as I moved, hanging one dress after another (there were many, I only wear dresses), his voice weaving through words like curves, suckle, and gentleness.

Later that morning I was telling Jonathan about what I had heard, and we began a spontaneous mutual contemplation of the word gentleness. He was struck by the connection to “gentleman”, and I was entranced by the etymology “to give birth”.

As I spent the day journeying with gentleness, noting it arise as a client spoke about stroking the purring circle of her erstwhile cat, or the guest on this week’s podcast, a man talking about his deep wound (big T trauma) of being trained as a child to kill, but how his numbness equally came from a culture (little t trauma) that told him it wasn’t the done thing for a man to be gentle.

I thought back to the English teacher, how she was so impassioned by literature, and how words can move us to think and feel for ourselves.

She’s right. But then I thought too of the rough and tough headmaster, and how moved he is by glory on the rugby pitch.

I thought of my client and her cat.

I thought of Dahl, tall as a giant, weaving sense from nonsense, writing with dripping peach juice brilliance.

I thought of the rose, bravely budding in the face of the incipient frost, and the moon, full and bright through the mist, and how they’ve moved me in this past week.

Maybe in this digital age, what we need is absolutely anything that moves us to think and feel for ourselves… literary words for some, cats for others, maybe rugby for you, and the rose for me… because then, in a world that seems designed to mire us in mindlessness and sedate us into small-heartedness, we get a glimpse of what’s most true and precious: our own soul.

I’m not certain of much (*not* knowing is very 48th Gene Key of me, given it’s the prerequisite soil for Wisdom to root), but the one thing I’m “take this to the Gringotts” sure of is that union with our own soul is the treasure that we all, knowingly or not, seek.

Soul is both the North Star that guides us on our rightful path and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of our lives.

So go, gently or otherwise, into whatever allows you to find your feet and open your eyes to the glory that is you.

All my love and blessings.

♥️

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