Sir Ken Morrison, former chairman of the Morrison's supermarket chain and native of my adpted city Bradford.  He started with a market stall and ended his working life with anational supermarket chain.  He is now developing his interest in farming.

I found this little bit of advice in an article I found today.  I think it is worth keeping these thoughts in your head whatever you want to succeed in - from supermarkets to birth resource centres to any social enterprise or project.  It takes and heart and soul to achieve anything worht achieving.  Heart and soul.



Over to you Ken:

1. Have confidence in what you do

2. Do your research

3. Respect your competitors

4. Expect to work hard

5. Expect to work continuously

5. No one person has all the good ideas, there are still plenty of good ideas around

6. You can learn from others - seek them out

7. Look at other industries for tips that could help your business

8. There are no short cuts

9. Application, dedication and hard work – no substitutes

10. Success is hard won

A blessing on Midsummer night (21st June 2010)

And did the Great Mother pass my house this evening? Did her skirts not brush my cheek? And did I not catch her scent? Surely it was Her who touched my soul as I watered the garden in the dusk of the day, bringing me to a standstill, gazing into the copper heart of the buckthorn, wrapt, amazed. Awed by beauty, blessing, wholeness; being part of the whole yet having a unique place in it. For a few precious minutes of eternity I lived in paradise and the cares and fetters of my life did not bind or bother me; like paper streamers they fluttered weakly in the wind. I gazed upon my garden lit in the subdued hues of midsummer night, so new, so young, yet so vibrant with the birth of a dream, and I saw her hand scattering her seeds of life and love.  I gazed once more into the buckthorn and saw her smiling face. And I smiled.


And there I would have stayed for ever and become a tree myself, but the door opened and a voice of love called me back into my world (‘Aren’t you coming to bed?’). Could he not see her? I turned slowly and came in.


The great Mother passed my home tonight and her skirts brushed my face, and she turned and smiled upon me and I carry her blessing in my soul.


Thankyou.

Fragments of Soul

What has happened?  Where did April and May go?  They flashed past in a flurry of activity and chaos.  Our busiest Easter followed by our busiest Whitsun.  Every pool out.  Working flat out.  The birth resource centre planning and action dropped and lost in the overgrowth of the business.  Where do the days go?  Another day and I have not read stories to the children.  Another day and the consititution is unfinished, the funding bids unwritten, another day another week and the blog goes unwritten.  Yoga class missed, meditation missed, lunch with hubby missed.

And slowly slowly inexorably I am worn down, pared away until I wake up one morning and there is nothing left, nothing left to give, creativity dried up, sense of humour abandoned, fragmented unfocussed.

Time to pay attention.  Time to read the story of Elijah - and how to deal with burnt out activists.  Time to go into the garden, time to sit on the bed with the children, time, time there is no time.  And yet if there is no time for the soul - there really is no time for everything else.  Soul time spins the yarn of time, it is how you find time, time for what is important.

And we who are mothers at home, we who are mothers dividing ourselves between outside work and the home, we who live lives of interruption and fragmentation, we will not grasp the bigger picture, we will not stay focussed on what is our true visions, we will not keep our balence and perspective, unless we learn the art of soul time.

Soultime is time in the garden, reading a good story with a child, a cup of tea stood by the open back door, a 2 hour slot doing an art class or a yoga class or a singing class, breastfeeding, listening to muisc, meditating, lighting a candle, gazing into an open fire.  Soul time is what nurtures and heals the bumps and bruises of the day and that is what I need, you need, we need - or else we will spend our time without really Living - and that would be a tragedy.

Tonight, was Choices, where several women and men got together and shared our knowledge of birth, and our visiting Independent Midwife, for the first time talked and talked about birth, everything everything and we all left at ease with the gift we have been given, the gift to birth.  And I thought this is really living,, this is the soul of birth, this is why I do what I do, and this is why I need soul time - so that these soul things can happen.

The birth of a birth centre needs SOUL.