Beginning Again?

Robin Nest Photo © Linda Kloosterhof iStockPhoto® #208792

Does it feel as though you’re always starting over? I’m beginning new projects, new rounds of old projects, new teaching quarter. Therefore, clients and students are doing the same; some students have even taken the leap to begin or return to their higher education. Their stories and their dedication inspire me.

Beginnings take courage, so I offer this favorite passage from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: 

“Perhaps beginnings make us anxious because we did not begin ourselves. Others begat us. Being conceived and born, we eventually enter upon ourselves already begun, already there. Instinctively we grasp onto and continue within the continuity in which we find ourselves. Indeed, our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning. But these beginnings are out of our hands; they decide themselves. This is true of our breathing and our heartbeat. Beginning precedes us, creates us, and constantly takes us to new levels and places and people. There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning. More often than not it knows the journey ahead better than we ever could. Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over” (2).

He also warns, “There are journeys we have begun that have brought us great inner riches and refinements; but we had to travel through dark valleys of difficulty and suffering. Had we known at the beginning what the journey would demand of us, we might never have set out. Yet the rewards and gifts become vital to who we are. Through the innocence of beginning we are often seduced into growth” (3).

Isn’t it great we aren’t in it alone? We support each other in our beginnings and our risk-taking, and here we are! Before we know it, we’re completing something and beginning again. Wishing you “great inner riches and refinements.”

___________________________________

Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Photo © Linda Kloosterhof iStockPhoto®  #208792

Cultured Men Healthier and Happier

A Norwegian study has suggested that people who attend cultural events are healthier and happier, and that men may benefit most. Norwegian support for the arts already stands on the assumption that cultural events benefit health, so researchers sought evidence by surveying almost 60,000 Norwegians. Two studies had shown positive correlations between health and happiness and respondent’s cultural, sports, and religious activities–pretty much everyone who has a life–while this study focused on the cultural events, in both spectator and participant varieties.

This study concluded that “participation in receptive and creative cultural activities was significantly associated with good health, good satisfaction with life, low anxiety and depression scores in both genders. Especially in men, attending receptive, rather than creative, cultural activities was more strongly associated with all health-related outcomes.” (Abstract: Cuypers et. al. in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health) 

Even a minimum of about one event per month showed positive results. (Randy Dotinga at Healthfinder.gov)

Further studies are planned. As another observer pointed out, this study might also show that healthier, happier people get out of the house. (Dotinga quoting Shigehiro Oisha)

I also notice that researchers included both viewing and participating in sports as “cultural events.” Here in the United States, those categories are mutually exclusive. So before you get your hopes up, Cultured Women, it’s premature to claim that symphony nights produces healthier and happier men than football games–this study didn’t compare types of events–but any activity is a start. And you’re welcome to test my hypothesis that Cultured Men are fifteen times more attractive.

Related articles:

• Cultured Men Are Happier, Study Finds (livescience.com)
• Can indulging in the Arts improve your health? (bbc.co.uk)

___________________________________

Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Have you seen this woman?

Photographer Bruce Davidson took this photo of a teenaged girl holding a kitten 50 years ago. Now as he receives the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, he would like to find the subject. As he was interviewed, the line that made me smile was this first sentence of the life he imagined for her:

“Let’s hope she became a writer or an artist. Hopefully, she has a full life, and not a life on the street. She was carrying a sleeping bag with her when I met her. I don’t know. Maybe she has a daughter, or even granddaughter that looks just like her and is holding another cat. . . . “

Did anyone hope you would become a writer or artist? And was that person a successful artist proving it can be done? If not, enjoy his encouragement. Let’s hope you do grow up to be a writer or an artist.

___________________________________

Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.

More about it:

Lisa Mullins interviews Bruce Davidson at PRI’s The World PRI

Sean O’Hagan article in for Guardian

(Remember Steve McCurry’s photo of a green-eyed Afghan girl, a 1984 National Geographic cover? She was found again 17 years later.)
National Geographic Afghan Girl Found