Crying is fullness and emptiness. The welling up of crying, the 'filling up' erupts within a closing down of the world - my world– Paul McGinley, 2008, p220. Today is my Dad’s birthday, and a very special one it would have been for him. I plan to spend the day as close to our memories …
Embracing sandcastles: rekindling Imagination
Picture: Vishal Shah: Castles in the Sky Imagination, the engine of my creativity Ian Van Dahl’s millennium classic ‘Castles in the Sky’ conjures strong memories of my youth. Interpreting the lyrics as dreams of visionary projects or the impossible, few can deny the deep neural connections between music and imagination (Kaufman, 2000; Fries, 2009) or …
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100th blog from Emergent Thinkers.com!
Type image: Cliff Johnson A milestone for Emergent Thinkers.com - one hundred pieces published. It feels both special and surprising today, as I succumb to brain strain and cabin fever in my nth lockdown. 'WFH whilst homeschooling' back in play, raising stress levels somewhat. Enforced isolation more akin to an ‘institutional lock-in’ with the loudest …
I spy with my little eye…something to do with ‘being’
Image: Sarah Trummer I'm used to falling down rabbit holes in my doctoral research, and do so quite deliberately, enjoying and valuing the adventure. The process satisfies 'wonder' through access to the new, the forgotten, the unnoticed or uncharted. Challenging thinking and cultivating insight, it can produce or trigger deliciously rich memorabilia [data] and new …
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Presence vs presents: Merry Christmas
2019 meant facing a full year without Dad. Experiencing grief, day by day has felt like layers of myself being stripped away. There have been times when I’ve been totally despondent over everything that death represents. Yet, it has been said, grief can lead to transformation; from darkness will come light. I believe this is …
My 12 ’emergent’ themes for yuletide
Beginning with the Winter Solstice celebration this Sunday, then enveloping Christmas, Yuletide starts with a celebration of the lengthening amount of light we experience in the day. This provides a welcome moment to reflect on the first four seasons of ‘Emergent Thinkers.com’. A chance to illuminate the themes that have emerged over the year. Rebellion …
WCOL2019: the power of voice and story unveiled [repost]
An abridged re-post from earlier in the summer when I marked one year to the day I last held my father’s [an Irish-man] hand. Reflections on loss that triggered a deeper reflexive insight, on being, life perspective, and identity, including that of a ‘researcher’. Feelings resurfaced, as I make an emotional return journey to Ireland. …
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Embracing sandcastles: rekindling Imagination
Picture: Vishal Shah: Castles in the Sky Imagination, the engine of my creativity Ian Van Dahl’s millennium classic ‘Castles in the Sky’ conjures strong memories of my youth. Interpreting the lyrics as dreams of visionary projects or the impossible, few can deny the deep neural connections between music and imagination (Kaufman, 2000; Fries, 2009) or …
Continue reading "Embracing sandcastles: rekindling Imagination"
In grief: the power of voice and story unveiled
Image by Dmitri Posudin from Pixabay 4th June. Today marks one year to the day I last held my father’s hand; the birth of an all-consuming grief that would transport me into a dual reality. Two states of mind. One, where life continues as normally as can be manufactured, for the sake of a young …
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The perils of a narrow view of relationship status
Historically, researchers simply asked if one were single or married. Over time this became confusing and/or offensive. Marital status presents as “less nebulous as questions about racial or sexual identity” but relationships remain deeply complicated.