Interior. Columbo, Sri Lanka, Christmas Day 2014
Over the Christmas period 2014/15, I went to Sri Lanka with some of my Ashridge Doctorate in Organisational Change (ADOC) cohort, one of whom, V, is Sri Lankan. The following blog posts are by way of post cards: small slices of a very large experience, which is still landing with me (this time last week I was still there). The poems were mainly written in Sri Lanka, the notes on the way back, and at Ashridge were I am now.
The opportunity arose at the last moment, due to the actions of some helpers. These posts are dedicated to them, they know who they are.
PS Ashridge, 14.01.15
Epigraph:
My Worst Habit
“My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
I become a torture to those I’m with.
If you’re not here, nothing grows.
I lack clarity. My words
tangle and knot up.
How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.
How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you.
When water gets caught in the habitual whirlpools,
dig a way out through the bottom
to the ocean. There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can’t hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.
Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
no matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back to you.”
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
Readings:
Kaplan A. Development practitioners and social process: Artists of the invisible. London: Pluto Press, 2002.
Rumi J. Selected poems. London: Penguin, 1995.
Peripheries: 