Beginnings

Service; that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. And being happy to serve.

Arrived at Schumacher College last night after four amazing days: the last of the NLP training.

It felt strange to bail out of the last day of the Practitioner Certification training; so much going on in my head and in my heart, so much learning about myself, and then to sit on a train for three hours. Finding a discarded newspaper reminded me why I’m doing this:

• Carpooling lanes are on their way to the UK and a big chunk of that article was about what it would mean for Slug Lines to be introduced to the UK.
• African families selling their children to westerners in the belief that the children will have a better life when in fact they are being sold into slavery.
• Richard Branson sending tourists into space on his Spaceship Two

I sat at dinner last night with Satish Kumar and was fascinated by the conversation, that happened at the table, about what sustainability is, why it is not simply about technological innovation (some of you have heard me say “sustainability is not about changing your light bulbs”) and why it entails the need for different ways of knowing.

And after dinner, and the opening circle that introduced eleven new students including myself to the college and to the Certificate in Education programme, we retired to the bar and I nattered with David who turns out to be the brother of my good friend and erstwhile dancing buddy Martin.

Now, this morning I set my alarm early and got up groggily for a shower in time to go to meditation lead by Satish. I missed it: arrived to find the door to the meditation room closed and a pile of shoes outside. I munched a bowl of cereal in silence trying not to beat myself up for starting the week in “failure” mode. I decided, to turn it into an an opportunity, to fetch my laptop from my room and write a blog entry; starting at least one thing the way I would like to continue.