Tankespjärn with Helena Roth

Steve Emery’s an active member of the tankespjärn-community, a participant in many of the monthly calls. I can count on him to be open, curious and thoughtful, willing to listen and equally willing to share, so no wonder I found myself wanting to ask him to play with me in season two of the pod. Receiving his Yes had me jumping up and down in anticipation of getting to spend quality time with him recording our five meandering conversations.

Steve is yet another gift courtesy of Matthew, and I’ve been privy to witness Steve’s creativity in an online forum we’re all a part of. And oh, what an interesting and gifted creator/artist/painter he is! I’ve learned a lot about creativity and playing with various ways in to creative expressions and that’s what we dive straight into here as one of the questions he’s been asking for the past year or two is How do I let my body drive my creative work?

I’ve done a lot of work rekindling my conscious connection with my body, experiencing myself as a talking head for many many years (you know, a brain ensconced in a head, atop two feet that do an ok job of transporting said brain from one place to another) but have never done what Steve is doing. Which, from my perspective, is a way to come at creativity from the body, and not the intellect. It has him dancing in his studio before putting pen to paper or brush to canvas.

And that… got us going.

Dancing.

Breathing.

Taking cold showers/baths.

Hanging from a beam or door posts.

Walking barefoot or at least in barefoot shoes.

But we actually started with Steve talking about the two-week family retreat he just got back from, spent sans internet. Which certainly opens for connecting to other things than what you can connect to online. Which for him means painting. A lot. Daily. Towards the end of the conversation Steve fetched some of his drawing pads and started flicking through them. If you are listening to this, please check out Steve’s website at Color Sweet Tooth so you get to experience his creativity all on your own.

Oh.

Yeah, you just might find some tankespjärn here too.

Links:

Steve Emery is most easily found on Color Sweet Tooth

Going postal by Terry Pratchett

The Gift by Lewis Hyde

Six drawing lessons by William Kentridge

Steve-style Paper Maquettes

Alan Seale, PCC

The watercolor/wax-resist frog

Getting bears

Maria Vildhjärta, the artist preferring peeps under the age of ten

James Nestor on breath - find further links here

Wanna try mouth-breathing? Here’s an easy trick!

Matthew from episode 28 hooked me up with Izzy, and we had a Zoom together. She’s got an interesting background that she shared with me, so I asked if she was interested in continuing the conversation with me, as one of my conversation partners for season two. Indeed she was, and here’s our first meet-up.

When we got on Zoom I’d just gotten back from taking a barefoot walk, which turned into a somewhat surprising starting point which led us down a long meandering conversation that centers a lot on barefoot walking and -shoes, jujitsu and lindy hop, going to the gym and moving your body in ways that are beneficial, but also on mental health, burnout and how karma bites you in the ass…

Izzy shared with me that she’s going through a burnout, and when I asked about it she responded with a question. How do you feel when you're out of a burnout? It’s a valid question, and one I guess there’s as many answers to as there are people experiencing burnout.

I also find that doing activities like going to the gym, training, doing martial arts helps me to deal with things. Now when I was going through the burnout, jujitsu was the thing that helped me cope, like I somehow found a strength to deal with other things. ~Izzy

Listening to Izzy share how physical activity has been such a crucial part of how she’s processing her burnout, voiced as a realization that physical activities are necessary for mental health. I think they are too, even though the level of activity must be correlated to what each individual is capable of. And it doesn’t have to be physical activity that get’s you all sweaty to be good for you. Actually, I believe many people lack an awareness of just how beneficial is can be to take a slow walk, if only for a few minutes, outside. And if you can do it barefoot, all the better, as that will help ground yourself even more.

Tankespjärn? Yeah, I’m sure you’ll find a nugget or two!

Links:

Izzy can be found through Redcheeks

Or on Instagram

Walkfeeling Academy

Doing Gentle with an Edge (e- or audio-book)

Caspian found Andy for me. I’d asked him to find some Instagram-accounts that might be of interest for me to follow and interact with, but he gave me a few bonuses. One of them was Andy, where he wrote ’Not an IG acc either, but a well worth read and possible friend’ adding a link to a piece entitled Gentleness is strength.

I read it, loved it, and proceeded to find Andy on Twitter (he does have an IG-account too). Really enjoying what I saw and heard from him, I sent him a DM, and two months later we recorded a conversation for his pod, and we both knew that wasn’t the last conversation we’d be having.

When season two rolled around, I asked, he said yes, and here’s our first in this series of five meandering conversations. And we dive straight into the creativity of everyday life. Andy is bubbling as thirteen songs had just come to him.

That’s never ever happened to me (I’ve had a heck of a lot of blog posts come that way though), so I just cannot help myself. Having a genuine songwriter and musician in front of me (on Zoom), I get to ask all the questions I’ve always wanted to ask, about what writing songs really means, how it’s done (or, at least, how Andy does it), and it’s fascinating.

Lo and behold, no one will be surprised to hear that songwriting was just the first of a number of meanders that we engaged in, including coaching, relationships (or relating, with a nod to Reddy), personal development or expansion, even though I don’t think we ever used those words.

But there’s more.

Books. Rereading books, and why that is such a fascinating concept. You know. You read a book and love it, and come across it years later, rereading it… and perhaps think What on earth was I thinking? This is utter rubbish! or you go even deeper in understanding, loving it even more. Both of these reactions (and any other reaction possible) is a testament to growth. Development. Expansion. Shifting, as a human being, with other perspectives, insights, experiences. All of it impacts and/or influences how I meet the world (and myself!) and rereading books is such a fun mirror of this process.

Coaching, marketing, desire and wants leading us to whole body yeses and no’s… Yeah, you’ll be able to find some tankespjärn in this one for sure!

Links:

Andy Mort

Andy Mort's community

Tankespjärn (with Helena Roth) on The Gentle Rebel podcast

Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals on Tiny Desk

Diana Chapman on the Tim Ferriss Show

Find me as @helenaroth on Goodpods and start to engage please!

Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets by Todd McGowan

Deeper Dating by Ken Page

Reddy.

What a character.

And wise.

Our paths crossed on Twitter, which led him to ask if I wanted to do a Racket with him on tankespjärn. Sure, I said, as I am wont to do, finding a calendly-slot later that evening. We hooked up, had a blast talking and doing that Racket, so before ending out, I don’t know, in total 30 minute conversation, I’d asked him if he wanted one of the slots for season two of meandering conversations. He said Sure, as he is wont to do, and not even twenty-four hours after first contact, we were recording this conversation.

Reddy is a whirlwind, high energy, with a lively mind and lots of tankespjärn to share, and I cannot wait to speak to him again. However, first things first.

You could say we started a relationship on that Thursday when we first hooked up on Twitter. But Reddy would name it otherwise. He actually dislikes the word relationship, pointing to its transactional vibe:

”A ship is something that takes someone from point A to point B and that’s such a finite journey. Jump on here and jump off there. End of story.”

Relate on the other hand has him waxing lyrical:

”Relating is a verb, relate is like present continuous […]

When I say I'm relating, it's something I'm doing, I denote action. But the moment I use the word in my head, ’relationship’ feels like a noun, something that's just there. It's not something that requires my input. Because relate and relating are action-oriented words that require me to be doing something, to be connecting, to be relating. Where as a relationship just feels like I'm in it. I don't have to do anything. The ship’s going to take me when it's going to go. And I kind of use it as an excuse to relinquish responsibility.”

Words matter.

And… so does the body. Which is actually where we spend the better part of these two hours of relating. On pandiculation (don’t know what that is? Imagine a cat getting up from having taken a nap, slowly stretching their entire body? That’s pandiculation. When you wake in the morning, stretch your arms above your head and yawn? That’s pandiculation.), walking barefoot, backwards, on all fours… you name it, we go there!

I promise there’s plenty of tankespjärn for you in this one!

Links:

Reddy on Twitter (and me on Twitter)

Our first conversation, a 9-minute Racket

Pseudonymous economy

The Erotic Mind, Jack Morin, Ph.D

Matthew & Inma, meet them both in episode 28

Dain Heer, Embodiment

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled life

The Tankespjärn Patroon-community

Tankespjärn monthly Zoom-call on Gifting

When I started thinking of season two of meandering conversations I got the idea to shake it up a bit. What about having a conversation with not just one but two people?

That’s why, here, you will meet both Matthew Word Bain –dear friend and wise soul, lover of creativeexpressions, taking form in the world through words, prose and poetry alike, photographs, music, video, and a knowledge that he’s ever so generously sharing, with me and many others. If I had to use one word for him, I’d say Curious.– and Inma J. Lopez –equally dear friend and magician of sensations, tastes, textures, as a sommelier and foodie she invites and entices me to discovering dimensions to food and drink in ways I’ve never before experienced them. She uses the word Attention, and yes, attentive is definitely what I perceive Inma as– both of whom are members of the Creative Community born in August of 2020 after the end of first cohort of The Creative’s Workshop. Funnily enough neither Matthew nor Inma has taken that specific workshop, yet…

We’ve been having many conversations amongst the three of us for the past year, and it’s always energizing and bubbling, meandering wildly, and after one of those sessions in June I popped the question to them both, if they would consider being a part of the second podcast-season. As you can surmise, they both said Yes!

Networks, mycelium, fungi, community, play, exploration. Place and space. Development.

All of these (and more, many more) are words/concepts we’ve been circling round and round for the past year, and we dive straight into some of them in this the first recorded conversation of ours too.

How communities build, form, change, how they cultivate their very own and special culture fascinates us all, with The Creative Community as a very tangible entity all of its own. And how to enrich a community such as ours? How to connect to, and interact with, other communities? Where to find them? How to reach out? What to do together, how to play, explore, experiment, help nourish each other?

And what’s the place of the giants here? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and the likes. Do they help? Or hinder?

Looking at that, and taking the perspective of local - national - global informed us, and… well. Just listen. I promise there’s some tankespjärn for you here!

Links:

Matthew Word Bain on Medium and Instagram

Inma J Lopez, sommelier and write on Attention

Creative Gallery - illustrating some of what the Creative Community embodies

The Creative’s Workshop

AKIMBO workshops

Letterists

Situationists

Psychogeography

Clean Language

Buddhas by the roadside

The past season of ’Tankespjärn with Helena Roth’ is a series of five meandering conversations each with five people, a total of twenty-five episodes. No agenda, no time constraints, no purpose to fulfill as such, other than showing up and responding to what shows up.

It’s been magic, and I love the diversity of these conversations. We’ve roamed the world together. Both the external world, but also, especially, the world(s) within us.

When you get really naked, then your boundaries expand. ~ Gary

This is the second of two episodes (check out episode 26 if you haven’t already) where me and my pod-conversation partners –this time around with Alison Coates and Gary Breads– reflect together on the past season in the company of Caspian Almerud, acting as the moderator. It’s an attempt to tie it all together, but also a way for me to get ready for season two.

To get to meet all of you in this nakedness and rawness and the sometimes challenging conversations, it's been really, really nice. ~Caspian

It has been. Magical even.

And. I want people who listen to know that this type of conversation is haveable. Not just for me and my wonderful friends, but also for you.

Like Mayke said towards the end of episode 26, these conversations want to go and multiply themselves. That is where you come in. Ask yourself the same question Alison asked herself here:

If I was to choose five people to have [five] conversations with, who would they be?

[…a conversation] can't get to that level of intimacy in five minutes.

Or maybe you can, once you've done the groundwork. ~ Alison

What would it take for you to take a first step towards doing your own 5 x 5 conversations (and I don’t mean you have to record them and release them into the world as a pod, even though if you did, I’d love to listen in! So if you do, please let me know, ok?)?

Here’s some tankespjärn and a challenge for you:

Are you up for the challenge to initiate 5 x 5 conversations in your own life?

Links:

Spending magical spaces of time with people you love

Approaching the end of my 5 x 5 conversations for this season of ’Tankespjärn with Helena Roth’ I get the idea to do a joint conversation with everyone involved, as a way to share and reflect together on what this experience has been like. I invited Caspian Almerud to moderate, and for those who haven’t figured it out, without Caspian there would be no pod! I record conversations, check for snippets and write the episode descriptions, and he does everything else.

With seven people spread across the globe, finding one time that suited us all turned out to be impossible. So we divided it up, into a 3 + 2-set up, where this is the first, featuring me and Caspian in conversation with Mayke Vullings, Frank Ebbert and Beverly Delidow.

I'm so blessed to spend time with people who nourish me with the beauty of words, the beauty of phrases, the beauty of silence.

~Helena

I got teary-eyed more than once, or… who am I kidding?

Four, five times at least, having to snivel and dry my eyes, in awe of what I heard, felt, saw.

You have to trust the person you're interacting with. I do.

And then you have to trust yourself, which is sometimes the bigger question.

~Beverly

Creating space for the other to hear themselves.

~Mayke

Let the world be beautiful and me be within.

~Frank

During this conversation I receive an insight.

These conversations have played a bigger part of my life in the past six months, then I’ve previously been aware of. Sitting like this, reflecting and listening together, I realize I’ve been having five times the amount of conversations as the others. Five long meandering conversations with each of five most remarkable persons. That’s twenty-five conversations, none shorter than one hour twenty minutes, the longest two hours fifty, and then… going through each transcript, listening to the snippets from each, and writing an episode description. All adding to the time I’ve spent on this. I’ve immersed myself in this project for at least one hundred hours in the past six months. And that’s probably cutting it short. Say two hundred? Perhaps even more…

No wonder!

How could something so immersive not have an impact on me?

An impact that ripples out into all other areas of my life.

There has been magic in all of these conversations. That's sort of what ties them together.

~ Caspian

It sure is.

And what a lovely common thread, magic.

Now there’s some tankespjärn for you. Perhaps?

How can you invite more magic into your life?

Fifth and final meandering conversation with Gary, in this season. Not my last conversation with Gary, luckily enough. And… that’s actually part of what we speak about, sparked by a tweet I recently came across, saying finding an awesome circle of friends is pure luck.

It is so not luck that’s gotten me to a place where I have an amazing circle of friends, spanning the globe, friends I have the most rich and nourishing conversations, interactions and experiences with. That doesn’t just happen. And is definitely not something that occurs as a consequence of luck.

It takes effort (not efforting!), energy, work (or play, for that matter!), discernment. It requires that I am interested in others, open and vulnerable, willing to extend an invitation that might or might not be accepted by the awesome people I'm drawn to.

An amazing circle of friends is something that you create and curate.

Consciously.

And as we wrap this conversation up, and I ask Gary what his reflection on having partaken in this experiment of meandering conversations, he says I’m living my life in a deeper way than I've ever been able to.

I listen to him say this, and I feel it. I feel him.

And again, I extend my gratefulness for having people like Gary in my life. For having curated my life in such a way that I do. And it’s available, for you too.

Like I said, it's not luck. I'm not here through luck. If it's possible for me to do this, it is possible for you. You can find people that pique your interest, but you have to tend the soil, water and nourish, weed and harvest, prepare, cook and set the table. If you do, there will be an amazing circle of friends in you life too. You will make it happen, by carefully and intentionally utilizing the Law of Attraction and the Law of Action (for whatever reason, the latter law is the lesser known cousin, but without it, it won’t happen. Whatever it is. And yes. You can read that as a promise.)

Now there’s some tankespjärn for you.

Links:

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain

I should to have a plan, and I don’t, she said, Alison, two thirds of the way through her Scottish Adventure, when we hooked up for this fifth and final pod-conversation.

Alison have sent me photos from her travels, photos of the most amazing vistas with rapidly shifting weather conditions, awakening my one true remaining travel-longings… to do Scotland alone. Much in the way Alison is doing it, without a set agenda, with nowhere to go, nowhere to be, except… wherever inclination, opportunity and chance invites me. Some day. I am in no rush.

Alison is, in her own words, doing a sort of reconnaissance mission, getting an overview of Scotland, letting her nose guide her. With two weeks to go before having to be back in England, a limitation is making itself known, opening up for a meandering conversation around the need to make a plan.

Because that’s where we took off. (At no surprise to either of us.)

She had/has a plan, in my view, as she’s very obviously in Scotland. But what Alison meant was a more detailed plan… deciding now what to do, where to go, for the next two weeks, maximizing her expirations before returning to England…

And just saying this has her burst out that it fills me with horror, which I think is probably an interesting microcosm of the macrocosm of my life… so why would she?

”I don't want to miss any sort of opportunity in the moment. I want the freedom for spontaneity, but I don't know. I'm really curious about where that stops because it's been my life for three years that I refuse to be committed to something external.”

Listening to her, I wonder if she isn’t making the ultimate commitment, to herself, by not committing to external things (house, job, etc)? By allowing life to enfold, rather than plan for it to happen a specific way, at a given time, isn’t this how life on earth takes place? Planning, on the other hand, seems to be a modern invention.

And don’t get me wrong. Plans can be very useful and life-saving even, and yet, I’ve come across a lot of people who are afraid to even take a first step, because they don’t know the full plan, and thus, get stuck. Not daring to take the first step, because they don’t know what might lie ten, fifty, three hundred steps ahead…

What might happen if, instead, I ask what my basic needs are, now, today?

What is it that I want now?

What encounters might happen without the restriction of time?

Now there’s some lovely tankespjärn for you, courtesy of the gloriously gorgeous Scottish Highlands!

Links:

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Inner work.

Do you do it?

If so, who, within you, is the one who does it?

Say whuuuut, you might ask, but bear with me a moment.

When I realized I had an Inner Dictator, or rather, that the internal voice most prevalent in my inner dialogue was this Dictator… I also learned that I didn’t have to take these words as truth. That was when I started on the journey of learning how to do gentle with myself.

Because of that, I stopped being afraid of myself, stopped shying away from looking too deep within, for fear of what I might find, and started to meet people, truly meet them, as I was more curious about what might happen within me as a result of the connection, rather than be fearful of it.

I’ve recently understood how fortunate I was that these two insights hooked up, when I saw what might have happened had I not stopped being so harsh with myself, if I’d stayed there, instead of gone down the path to doing gentle (with an edge).

I think this is why this made such an impact when I read it:

”The decisive heart-searching is the beginning of the way in man's life; it is, again & again, the beginning of a human way. But heart-searching is decisive only if it leads to the way. For there is a sterile kind of heart-searching, which leads to nothing but self-torture, despair & still deeper enmeshment.”

It’s a paragraph from The Way of Man by Martin Buber, a book I’d just read when me and Mayke had our fifth pod-conversation. It turned into the center point of our conversation, as I was reminded of this over and over again as we spoke, to the extent that in the end I ran to fetch it, to read this passage aloud.

Both me and Mayke are very fond of doing The Work, inspired by Byron Katie’s terminology, and in no way do I want to muddy the waters for anyone. Doing my inner work has gotten me to a place, a space, where I absolutely love living life as me. If I hadn’t done the work, I doubt I’d say that. But it’s equally true that if I’d kept at The Work without learning how to do gentle with myself, I can guarantee I’d not be here, loving living life as we, not even close.

So, when doing inner work, ask yourself who, within me, is doing the work? Through who's eye-balls am I seeing this?

It matters. A lot.

Asking yourself these questions provides an interesting starting point for continues inner work, because different aspects of me will see different things, some of which might serve me more than others.

Now, there’s some tankespjärn for you!

Links:

The Way of Man by Martin Buber

A day at the park