Arts for All

Jennie Lee

Wednesday 25th February marked 50 years since Jennie Lee's white paper: A Policy for the Arts - First Steps. Lee was the arts minister in the 1964 Labour government of Harold Wilson, and it was the first (and is so far the only!) white paper that had been written on the arts. In it, she argues that the arts must occupy a central place in British life and be part of everyday life for children and adults, be embedded in our education system, recognised as an important industry, widely accessible, properly funded, and valued by society.

 

So, 50 years have passed. How far have we come? Mid February saw the publication of Warwick Commission's report on The Future of Cultural Value, which - although demonstrating that the arts are a significant contributor to the economy - also shows that arts and culture are being 'systematically removed from the UK education system'. Under our current government, the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, has said that 'Arts subjects limit career choices'; we've watched  Arts subjects being devalued, undermined and squeezed out of the curriculum, and at the same time provision outside of formal education reduced and dismantled due to funding cuts (from a regime of austerity which consistently harms the younger generation). As Paul Collard, Chief Executive at Creative Culture and Education, recently said:

'What is clear now is that young people, especially those in the less affluent areas, are not getting any opportunities at all, because arts... access for young people has been swept away. And it will only get worse.'

Cheerful reading. So, what shall we do? Make some noise! Make some art! DO SOMETHING! That was the call of Devoted and Disgruntled, spear-headed by Stella Duffy. With a twitter handle #ArtsPolicy50 ready to go viral (which, YAY, on 25/02/15 it DID!), the mission was clear: mark the anniversary; let people know why you think it's important; make a fuss.

I think it's important, so I celebrated, discussed and responded with two groups I was working with that week: a group of adults in recovery from various forms of addiction, who I do Creative Writing with at The Living Room, and a group of young migrant/refugee teenagers in South London, who I do Drama with for Attic Theatre Company. 

With my group at The Living Room, I decided to challenge both them and myself, and worked with them to write a group villanelle. A villanelle is a poetic form that is supposed to be one of the very hardest to write, and I thought this would not only give my group a lift, knowing how capable and talented they are, once we had written one, but would also be a nice way of demonstrating that a community group, gathered together for the purpose of recovery (rather than because they had chosen to attend an arts-based class) could be damn creative, that the arts could be of value to ANY community. And they did bloody well, so I'm going to let their work provide all the evidence I need....

Arts for All

We feel as if we're up against the wall,

This generation is under duress.

Art is for everyone. Art is for us all.

So we shall answer our heart's secret call

With a tight grip or with a sweet caress.

We feel as if we're up against the wall.

We know we're got the gumption and the gall

The talent, deep inside us, to impress.

Art is for everyone. Art is for us all.

It's not as if the order's very tall,

We're tired of giving more and getting less.

We feel as if we're up against the wall

From Cornish coast up to remote Rockall

We will push for proper, fair access.

Art is for everyone. Art is for us all.

Inside our schools and every village hall.

Fifty year's since Jennie Lee's address,

We feel as if we're up against the wall.

Art is for everyone. Art is for us all.

Before they left, many of them said they had felt 'lifted' by the experience, that they were 'proud' of what they'd achieved, that they felt 'lighter', 'invigorated', that they'd had 'fun'. Arts for all. It does matter.

Then on the day itself, I ran our Drama group with my colleague, Rob Lehmann, at SCOLA, with the young migrants. Many of the students have very little English, and come from all across the globe. Some have come from war-torn countries, some have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, most are in foster care. All agreed the arts are a fundamental part of their lives. We we had some fun, took some photos, and celebrated the importance of the arts in all of their lives. 

Men: Sit down for your rights

One of the many hats I wear (figuratively in this instance, though I am lucky enough to rock a good hat) is as a reviewer for the wonderful Female Arts, a website 'promoting women in the arts and business'.

I wrote this article back in March about Grayson Perry's lecture for the wonderful Women of the World Festival. Thought I would share it on here too, as it had such an impact on me. 

Grayson Perry Lecture: Southbank Centre - WoW Festival - Review

Submitted by Kate Massey-Chase on March 16, 2014 - 20:18

Men: Sit down for your rights

It’s a Sunday evening in March at the Southbank Centre and the last event of their Women of the World (WOW) festival, celebrating International Women’s Day. Over two thousand men and women have gathered in the Royal Festival Hall to listen to the musings on masculinity of a Northern transvestite potter: the one and only Grayson Perry. A great pull to the festival, a quick show of hands confirmed that many people had joined the celebrations just to see the ‘national treasure’ himself, alongside many who had bought day passes or been celebrating the festival all week.

Introduced by Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, although for most of the audience he needed little introduction, we were listed the many accolades afforded to Perry over the years, from winning the Turner Prize in 2003, giving last year’s Reiths Lectures, to his recent visit to the palace to be award a CBE in the Queen’s new year’s honours. Kelly gave her usual poise, confidence and excellent timing to her introduction, and explained Perry’s lecture in the context of the WOW festival, asserting: ‘There’s no such thing as a world made equal by just one side’. Perry had previously given this lecture earlier in the year for the Southbank’s first ‘Being a Man’ festival (this is the fourth time WOW which has hit London’s Thames-side cultural hub), but, as the lecture would go on to explicate: the rights of men and women are inextricably entwined.

Perry’s lecture was titled ‘Men: Sit down for your rights’, with a subtitle in parenthesis: ‘but please don’t whine’. There was no whining, but plenty of whopping on Perry’s entrance, as he did not disappoint in a little girl dress with, what he later described as ‘crack cocaine frills’. Although his attire speaks panto-dame-meets-Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-dolly-meets-Meadham-Kirchoff, Perry’s manner is never grating, flouncy or camp. Indeed I think he might be the most insightful, witty and honest person I’ve ever heard speak.

Regarding his title, he explained that there are losers as well as winners in any power imbalance, and – for example – gaining equal gender representation in parliament necessitates some male MPs stepping aside. Men need to ‘Stop getting up on one’, and his talk called for a softer form of masculinity, not just for the benefit of women, but for men as well. The current conception of masculinity and the standard of the Modern Man is not succeeding in its current form. Three times as many men commit suicide as women; in US fertility clinic where you can choose the gender of your child, 75% of parents choose a girl. Sometimes ‘it’s unhealthy being a man’. Of course this comes from Grayson Perry, who has ‘in some deep psychological way...difficulty with the symbols of being a man’. Hence the frilly dresses and bows. But the facts and stats remain the same, and increasing attention to crises of hypermasculinity and the role anxiety/ambiguity many men face today highlights the need for discussions such as this.

From birth, we are gendered and this role is rigidly policed. With brilliantly drawn and wittily annotated illustrations projected behind, Perry took us on a multi-layered journey through the history of this process, the complexity of the male brain, and the socio-historic context of changing conceptions of gender roles. A recurring theme was the problem of the ‘Tower of Power’ from which everything else is Other: the White Middle-Class Heterosexual Male Gaze. Hidden in plain sight, this is the ‘voice of society that’s ringing in our heads, whether we like it or not’. And as the least challenged group, they are also the least self-aware. Other issues and conflicts Perry explored were men’s sexual drives (they are ‘shackled to this incredible, powerful imperative to fuck everything’), adrenaline as the ‘great unspoken addiction of our age’, and MAMILs (Middle Aged Men In Lycra). He also expounded his excellent theories on the rise of the beard, how we are probably already past ‘peak beard’, and his diagram of ‘Bike knowledge to beard ratio’ (essentially the longer the beard, the greater the knowledge, until you reach Gandalf-style where he’d noted ‘probably a wizard, no need for bikes’). This incisive break-down of modern trends – with illustrative cartoons – is emblematic of Perry’s greatest gift, bring together the amusing, the current and the context in a way that is accessible, enlightening and entertaining all at the same time (did you know that there was a rise in beards in the nineteenth century, as the male role became threatened by mechanisation? I do now). Indeed he said so many excellent and erudite things, that it’s hard not to relay the whole lecture. He also taught us the term ‘skeuomorph’, which is an excellent word. The crux of his message was that men need to learn to be more vulnerable, flexible and move away from the symbolic, cosmetisized and ultimately redundant version of masculinity that has become pervasive in the West. His brilliant, male-friendly analogy to explain the purpose and importance of a softer masculinity was through the image of the contact patch of a tyre against the road: softer tyres are stickier and safer; you get better traction.

Perry is really just after a ‘Cheesy Happy Everyone’ and a rainbow-coloured, diverse Tower of Power. To get there, here is his Bill of Rights for Men:

We men ask ourselves and others for the following:

1. The right to be vulnerable

2. The right to be weak

3. The right to be wrong

4. The right to be intuitive

5. The right not to know

6. The right to be uncertain

7. The right to be flexible

8. The right not to be ashamed of any of these things.

Perry noted: ‘I’m not a spokesman for all men here, as we can see’ (note love of frilly dresses), but it is this lack of generalising, the open hypothesizing, and the integrity with which he exerts his ‘right’ to be wrong’, that makes Grayson Perry such an important voice for our time.

(C) Kate Massey-Chase 2014.

---

Author's Review: 5 stars

Grayson Perry's Lecture

Men: Sit Down For Your Rights

Southbank Centre

WoW Festival

9th March 2014

Web: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/grayson-perry-82530

Twitter: @southbankcentre @WOWtweetUK #WOWLDN

Tell Me on a Monday

I've just started running a project, organised by St Albans Arts, at The Living Room (addiction recovery) and at Mind, and just had some super lovely feedback. Thought I'd be very un-British (talking about things we're proud of rather than the weather, urgh!) and share it with you:

'I wanted to say thank you for the impact you’ve had on the group at TLR, Kate. D-- (counsellor) is full of the great work you are doing with the group when I come in on Wednesdays, S-- tells me that it is a joy listening to the animated stuff going on and how you are engaging zest and enthusiasm (there has been little in many of their lives) but most of all I heard from the group themselves this morning. I asked a simple question – how did it go with Kate yesterday? The people who were at the workshop yesterday spoke about the work they had done for 15 mins – I heard about love and candles with flickering flames and grandfathers carrying children on their shoulders and ….. it was also said in a respectful and appreciative way that is even more significant than the actual words.  You really have made a big impact and I’m only sorry I cannot sit in on Tuesdays myself...'

Welling up.

Say it in song

In case they've not crossed your cyber-path, here are two songs you should listen to. They make the points themselves, so I won't say too much, just take a look/listen - why write an essay when you can say it in a song?! Socio-poitical comment with sexy beats.

The only context you need for the first is the original song by Robin Thicke. Watch that, feel your soul swiftly destroyed, then watch this version and feel your heart lift again with its fucking brilliance.

Next up Amanda Palmer sings a letter to the Daily Mail, after their article about her 'wardrobe malfunction' at Glastonbury. What a legend.

(skip to 2.28 if you're time-limited and want to jump straight to the song)

Enjoy!!!!

EQUILIBRIUM - Summer Issue

If you haven't checked out Equilibrium: Magazine for Wellbeing's latest issue (Summer Issue 49), why not?

GET ON IT.

Volunteering with Diversity Role Models

With the next issue of Equilibrium about to come out, here's another one of my articles for it, to whet your appetite!

Volunteering with Diversity Role Models

I first discovered how volunteering could warm your soul in 2007 when I spent a good portion of my week at the Oxfam Bookshop in Winchester, whilst trying to sort my life, health and head out a bit. And it genuinely made a massive impact on me; I felt honoured to be giving my time for free there. It wasn’t completely selfless; in that little bookshop on the aptly named Parchment Street, I made friends, found a sense of purpose, and co-invented our Sunday game: Shop Cricket (and got ‘caught out by Proust’ for the first time).

Now I’m living in London, freelancing my arse off to pay my rent (doing a job I love, though, so can’t complain too loudly) and working for free is something I hoped was consigned to my student days. But volunteering and working for free are two different things: one a social problem of glass ceilings and a devalued sector, and the other an act of giving to a society you want to be an active part of. So when I heard about Diversity Role Models, I knew I wanted to volunteer as a Role Model (hard to say without following the term with some kind of witty, self-deprecating remark, but I’ll resist).    

Set up in 2011, Diversity Role Models is a charity that helps schools to eradicate homophobic bullying and provide an inclusive and safe environment for their LGBT students and families. Through high-quality, interactive workshops involving role models and discussions that allow young people to explore their views and understand difference, DRM hopes to tackle the prejudice that leads to homophobic bullying. ‘I firmly believe that by providing role models for LGBT young people, we can have a positive effect on the negative statistics’, says Suran Dickson, CEO and founder of the organisation, who was prompted to start the charity after witnessing the impact homophobic bullying had in the schools she worked in. And the statistics are shocking: LGBT youth are six times more likely to commit suicide and two thirds of them suffer bullying at school. Furthermore, as they say on their website:

            …it's not just LGBT young people. Straight students are terrified of being called 'gay'.   Girls drop out of sport and boys hide artistic talent to conform to gender roles and avoid being labelled gay or lesbian.

Anyone who’s been into a school recently will know that this is an issue that affects the wellbeing of all young people, whether implicitly or explicitly.

Since its conception, DRM has delivered their workshops to over 5,000 pupils and the results speak for themselves. Over 90% of young people indicated that they would treat LGBT people better and use the word ‘gay’ as a derogatory term less in the future. Teachers and pupils that have attended the workshops have seen a significant shift in attitudes and behaviour in their schools and would urge other schools to seek their help. ‘Fabulous - should be part of the national curriculum! This workshop should be offered to all year groups', enthused one teacher who attended a recent workshop. I know I agree. I am proud to be a Diversity Role Model. The biggest payment is knowing that you’re making a difference. 

The next academic year will see DRM delivering workshops across the country, as well as continuing to work across the capital. For more information on the workshops and to enquire about booking, contact info@diversityrolemodels.org

The Politics and Power of Words

Tuesday 16th was the launch of the poetry anthology I compiled for CoolTan Arts, Diagnosis: Hysteria? Prescription: Hysteria! - the final product of the women's poetry group I ran there last year. The event had the dual purpose of launching both our poetry book and also celebrating CoolTan's new venue. They're still on the Walworth Rd, but have just moved to the other side of the road, and have - drum roll, please - an INDOOR TOILET (luxury!) and other lovely things like windows and a view. 

I'll miss their old warehouse in some ways - it certainly had character - but think I can get over that in the face of not having to use a portaloo. Though I will miss the cat from the warehouse next door, who used to flirt with me whenever it was sunny. Meow. 

It was a great event, with fantastic artwork exhibited, and fancy guests, like the local GP/sexy TV doctor, Jonty Heaversedge. We also had readings from some of the women who contributed to the book. The Forward explains the title a bit (buy the book, buy the book!), but you can also check out CoolTan's newly launched online magazine, CoolFruit, where you can read an article by one of their members which takes a closer look at hysteria through the ages. Oh yeah, or buy the book.

In honour of the occasion, rather than reading one of my own poems from the anthology, as planned (I also read some of my students' poems, who couldn't make it), I instead read a poem I wrote on the tube on the way there, inspired by/in honour of the event. I feel quite strongly about some of the issues that surround our work and the lives of the country's most vulnerable - you'd never have guessed - such as the impact of political policies and the state of the mental health services - check out my article about how funding cuts, etc, are effecting places like CoolTan (after you've read my poem, obvs!).

Let me know what you think....

The Politics and Power of Words

Your 'skivers not strivers' rhetoric

Don't give a shit about our mental health

Disadvantaged for not having a dick

And not being born into wealth

I'm not hiding behind closed shutters

Don't believe what it says in the Mail

I'm doing my best, we're doing our best

Though it feels like you're helping us fail

We know the meaning of work

Have you pulled yourself up from the brink?

Have you hit rock bottom and started again?

Have you actually stopped to think

What your language is doing?

'Cos I'm not a 'hard-working family'

But that doesn't mean I'm not contributing

To this world, with love and integrity

So, I'll write emails like nobody's watching

Read the papers like I've never been hurt

Speak 'til people start listening

And believe in the power of words

Photos of the event by Amy Bradshaw

Compassion

In anticipation of our Summer Issue of Equilibrium coming out in the next week or so, here's a sneaky peak at my little article on a lecture on compassion. Enjoy (and if you don't, be compassionate and put yourself in my shoes before you comment)...

Compassionate Living, with Karen Armstrong

Sitting in the marvelous Conway Hall on 18^th April 2013, I attended my second Action for Happiness lecture of the year (see the Spring issue of Equilibrium for my write-up of my evening with Jon Kabat-Zinn), this time to see the magnificent Karen Armstrong. Introduced by Mark Williamson and Lord Richard Layard, Armstrong’s lecture provided a historical, theological, scientific and cultural exploration of compassion and its fundamental importance to our world.

Armstrong explained how liberty and the pursuit of happiness are a modern ideal, and how happiness often gets confused with emotions like tiredness, hunger, and hormones. In an oxymoronic world of  'must-have accessories' and post-modern pressures, happiness has become something actively sought, yet still elusive; it is a mirage on the horizon.

Armstrong contextualized her ideas on compassion with a scientific breakdown of the human brain’s different parts: the reptilian brain (the deepest and oldest), the mammalian brain, and the neo-cortex. Now, you’ll have to excuse my schoolgirl knowledge of science (blame me not Karen Armstrong if this isn’t right!), but she essentially explained how the reptilian brain is the one that is egocentric: all about me; it is only concerned with the four ‘F’s – fighting, fleeing, feeding and…reproduction(!), and was not designed for an age of plenty. Next we have the mammal bit of the brain, which came next and developed in line with their new needs. So, whereas reptiles laid eggs, which they could then abandon, mammals give birth and care for their young, and they started to learn that they were stronger as a group. Thus we can see the need for compassion starting to creep into the evolutionary process. The last brain-section (I have no idea what to call it!) in Armstrong’s codification of the brain is the neo-cortex, the newest part, wherein we find the ability for rational thinking, where we can stand back from our instinctive drives. She also posited a very sobering idea that, historically, the worst human atrocities – such as Auschwitz and 9/11 – happen when the first and third brains (base instinct and objective thought: what do we want and how can we do it most effectively) are used without the second: compassion for another’s suffering.  

Armstrong suggested that we need to think globally if we want to be happy, that the trick is ‘to live with suffering’, kindly, creatively and peacefully. If we are caught up in the endless prism/prison of the self, preoccupied with our own thoughts, feelings and small lives we can never be happy. Happiness, with the essential component of compassion, comes from 'dethroning yourself from the centre of your world and putting another there'. Author of A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Armstrong also brought theology into the debate, reminding the audience that the ‘Golden Rule’ of all religions and ethical traditions is to treat others as you would like to be treated.

In her new book, 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life, she suggests that we exercise compassion through remembering our own pain and refusing to inflict it on others, that we use our own feelings as a guide. This doesn’t mean that we literally treat others as we would like them to respond to us, as it is far more nuanced than that; we need to use our knowledge of that person as well, and not assume that their desires and responses would mirror ours. For example, the sentence, ‘Well, I would have wanted to know’ encapsulates this, as it does not encompass the crucial question: but would they want to? It takes a constant effort of imagination to put yourself in other people's shoes, but is all part of compassionate living (and why I think Drama – active empathy! – should be recognised as an important part of the National Curriculum – but I’ll save that article for another time).

Her allusion to the ‘12 Steps’, commonly associated with recovery from addiction, is no coincidence, as Armstrong suggested that we are addicted to our likes and dislikes, to our need to compare, to bitch even, and to say things like 'the trouble with her is...' – trying to ‘sum up the mystery of a person in a single phrase’. It makes us small, narrows our horizons, and does nothing to aid our own happiness. We need to let go of our opinions and take responsibility for the world's pain. The pain ‘needs to break our heart, so we reach out into the world in compassion’. This sat slightly uncomfortably with me, as I just feel that there is simply too much pain in the world for me to take on – how could I even process it and, if I did, how would my heart ever recover? But I can do my best, and I will sign up to her Charter for Compassion as I do believe we need to make compassion 'a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world’. Will you do the same? 

MARVELLOUS!

Having been told by Miss Fox that I do too many jobs where I use the phrase 'victims of multi-perpetrator rape and sexual violence' and not enough jobs where I bring home free goodies, I spent last weekend (and shall most likely spend the next two weekends in May) working up and down the country as a Bearded Kitten. Which is not a euphemism for anything remotely dodgy, but actually a jolly company offering 'Interactive Entertainment for Events and Marketing'. Meow.

So, off to Blenheim Palace I skittered to work at the Joyville funfair, to advertise two of the new Marvellous Creations chocolate bars. I won't give away my best lines, but most of them use the word 'marvellous'. Marvellous. Although I kept forgetting myself and trying to move into some kind of social theatre or philosophical commentary about joy, reciprocity and wellbeing. Or trying to expand young children's vocabulary by making them list synonyms for marvellous whilst they queued. Then I remembered where I was and just carried on jumping up and down in an exceptionally frivolous way and giving out chocolate. 

The Fox was very pleased, as not only did I bring home with me an obscene amount of chocolate, she also got to laugh at my stylish purple attire...

Like I said:" Meow!

Equilibrium - Spring Issue!

Here's the latest issue of Equilibirum, the magazine on wellbeing I produce with mental health service users in Haringey.

Check it out for a range of articles, including Alyssa's tale of her ridiculously long bike ride and the importance of taking risks, some great reviews, a bit of science, thoughts on Anti-psychiatry and the Hearing Voices Network, and some gorgeous spring photos.

Here's my article on Mindfulness to whet your appetite, or for those too lazy to click the link....

Mindfulness

On 28th March, I joined a staggering 1000 other people at the Friend’s House on the Euston Road for An evening with John Kabat-Zinn. Famed for bringing Mindfulness to the West, 35 years ago, the evening was a celebration and further investigation into this practice: ‘an adventure into the art of conscious living’. The event was run by Action for Happiness, and introduced by their chair, Mark Williamson, an organisation whose prime concern is to take action to try and create a happier world. They do this by looking both outside – calling on political leaders and those with the power to change policy – and inside at the self, in an endeavour to maximise human wellbeing.

JKZ (as I shall call him, for ease) was welcomed to the stage by Lord Richard Layard, the economist – and Labour peer – who made the economic case for IAPT (Improving Access for Psychological Therapy) to the Labour government in 2006. I was thrilled to hear Layard had not only been involved in JKZ’s mindfulness course for parliamentarians (I wish they’d make it compulsory in Whitehall!), but will also be involved in a pilot study to reform PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education) in schools, including adding mindfulness to the curriculum. But, rather than going off on a tangential rant about the need for cohesive, consistent and relevant emotional and social education in our schools (a matter close to my heart), I shall try and stick to JKZ and mindfulness for the moment – and mindfulness is all about the moment!

Mindfulness – a practice rather than a technique, as it is something you cannot simply learn and store away somewhere, but more a way of living in the world, ideally a way of living that is practised and observed daily – is drawn from the principles of Buddhist meditation, and is essentially the act of being with our experience as it is unfolding, moment by moment. JKZ described it as ‘the awareness that arises intentionally, in the present moment, non-judgementally’. Or something like that – it was quite hard to be in the moment, listen, and frantically scribble notes all at the same time! But breaking it down into its necessary components, it is:

Awareness

This is not ‘doing nothing’, but ‘non-doing’: waking up to the world around us; being present without an agenda

Intentional 

Interestingly, he described it as ‘a radical act to wake up early and take your seat every morning’, particularly in a world where distractions seem everywhere; intentionally being in the moment, rather than the past or future

Present 

Right now, this very moment

Non-judgemental 

He talked about the importance of cultivating an ‘affectionate attention’; ‘putting the welcome mat out for things as they are’

Mindfulness is essentially being fully mindful, physically, emotionally, mentally of the now; my favourite thing he said was ‘Now is the now. Check your watch – it’s now again’. As a group of over 1000 individuals we all came together in a moment of formal meditation, quite early on in the evening, which JKZ instigated by rolling his sleeves up and saying, ‘Let’s arrive’. Mindfulness is complex in its simplicity and very hard to explain in a few paragraphs or pages, and thus actually doing it was important to the discussion. I found myself repeatedly trying to explain it in my head throughout the evening, knowing my partner would ask when I go home what it had been about. And, pre-emptive of her questioning, trying to answer: But what purpose does it serve? And, as I was trying to be mindful, my thoughts were going: Yes, it’s all very nice to have some quiet time, to reflect, but… although, hang on, we’re in the now, aren’t we? So, we’re not reflecting, we’re….what are we doing again? Oh yes, trying not to think. Eek, I’ve ruined it: I’m thinking. And now I’m worrying about thinking. Which is even worse! Arghhh, I’m really bad at this! So goes the mind chatter.

JKZ says: ‘We need to get out of our own way, to the silence underneath and between every sound’. But, as a relative novice, it’s hard not to want to shout: ‘How?!!’ Yet – and as an educationalist, this is something I hold true for many things – he says we should covet a beginner’s mind, the place where we see things newly, freshly, and non-judgmentally. He also repeatedly reinforced that you can’t develop muscles without resistance, so the fact that trying to be a human being, rather than a human doing, is hard is part of the process. And part of why this is a practice, rather than a technique. He used the analogy of thoughts as weather patterns in the mind, drifting across, which is a metaphor I find really helpful, and will certainly use to calm my chattering mind.

I worried that it could be seen as ego-centric and self-absorbed to dedicate that much time to yourself (which is indicative of both my own hang ups regarding guilt over self-compassion, and that I find any talk of ‘cultivating the garden of the heart’ flips my sceptical switch on). But – and really there doesn’t need to be a ‘but’ to justify it, but I’ll slip one in for other sceptics out there – mindfulness looks out as well as in, and is also about ‘being in wise relationship with the suffering and happiness around us’, learning self-compassion and compassion for others. JKZ also highlighted the urgency of it: destruction is woven into our human nature, and we need to take action – radical, sitting down in silence action it may be – to transform the world we live it. And although he told us, ‘You’re fine the way you are’, none of us would be worse for being mindful of the world in which we live, at this moment, exactly as it is and we are. Interestingly, in all Asian languages the word for heart and mind is the same thing; mindfulness is also heartfulness.

If you need more convincing to take a quiet seat every morning and attune yourself to the cosmos, there is also some amazing sciencey stuff to do with epi-genetics, biochemistry, enzymes and things, which I’m probably not clever enough to explain, so you might want to google. Although the crux of it was that daily practice of mindfulness leads to greater emotional balance, caused by more left than right brain activation in the pre-frontal cortex, and greater anti-body production.

If mindfulness is therefore an ‘act of love, sanity and self-compassion’, which has a positive impact on not just my emotional but also my physical wellbeing, and which also builds compassion for others, then I’m sold. And you can do it sitting down – brilliant!