Sounds cheeky, doesn't it?
Arnold Mindell uses 'flirt' to mean some hint, some impulse, some piece of knowing beneath (or pervading) what he so usefully calls 'consensual reality'. Sometimes he refers to what 'bugs' us. Annoying thoughts or feelings or impulses that zig zag around on the periphery and won't sit politely like logic does.
Here's a little example of the power of the Mindell-ian flirt:
'Innerwork Tip 3: Don’t Throw Out Your Problem… Yet! A man who tried to get rid of a mouse, threw it in a little fire outside the house. The mouse caught on fire, but ran back into the house and burned it down.
The moral of the story (for us) is; find out what bugs you. But don’t throw it out! Use its nature in some useful way for yourself and others.'
He has a process to turn a symptom into a resource. You know how, if you have a neck ache, all you want is for it to stop - the impulse to suppress or escape. The symptom is nudging you and if you stop and listen and explore there can be a whole new approach, new insights and increased energy released to you. Mindell calls this being ecological and I like it. He encourages people to explore their 'edges' or their current 'edge'. To find potential in the inconsequential and the rejected. You can read some of his refreshingly oblique processes here.
Yesterday I missed an opportunity. And I choose not to let the little flirt go to waste. I do my best to harvest in the impulse in a different modality:
small red sketched skull
there I was on the up
escalator
on the move, hurrying on
to meet my obligation
to keep on the move
to get out of the tube
and onto the train when
I felt an urge
but my hand did not obey
I felt an urge
but my hand did not obey
and then saw
a little skull on a sticky label
a little red skull
with a bared teeth grin
stuck to the light
like a fairground lantern
at the level of my knee
little gnasher
trying to say to me
remember insurrection
each moment there is no escape
the hand that picked up the pen
put this here
to make you recalculate
what lateness
is really all about
Arnold Mindell uses 'flirt' to mean some hint, some impulse, some piece of knowing beneath (or pervading) what he so usefully calls 'consensual reality'. Sometimes he refers to what 'bugs' us. Annoying thoughts or feelings or impulses that zig zag around on the periphery and won't sit politely like logic does.
Here's a little example of the power of the Mindell-ian flirt:
'Innerwork Tip 3: Don’t Throw Out Your Problem… Yet! A man who tried to get rid of a mouse, threw it in a little fire outside the house. The mouse caught on fire, but ran back into the house and burned it down.
The moral of the story (for us) is; find out what bugs you. But don’t throw it out! Use its nature in some useful way for yourself and others.'
He has a process to turn a symptom into a resource. You know how, if you have a neck ache, all you want is for it to stop - the impulse to suppress or escape. The symptom is nudging you and if you stop and listen and explore there can be a whole new approach, new insights and increased energy released to you. Mindell calls this being ecological and I like it. He encourages people to explore their 'edges' or their current 'edge'. To find potential in the inconsequential and the rejected. You can read some of his refreshingly oblique processes here.
Yesterday I missed an opportunity. And I choose not to let the little flirt go to waste. I do my best to harvest in the impulse in a different modality:
small red sketched skull
there I was on the up
escalator
on the move, hurrying on
to meet my obligation
to keep on the move
to get out of the tube
and onto the train when
I felt an urge
but my hand did not obey
I felt an urge
but my hand did not obey
and then saw
a little skull on a sticky label
a little red skull
with a bared teeth grin
stuck to the light
like a fairground lantern
at the level of my knee
little gnasher
trying to say to me
remember insurrection
each moment there is no escape
the hand that picked up the pen
put this here
to make you recalculate
what lateness
is really all about
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