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Humanness (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 143)

Humanness

 




 

  

This morning the ground has been dampened by rain for the first time in ages and the air is all roses and rosemary.

 

Alt text says this week’s image is a colourful background with words. I say it is a page from a carousel created by Maxine Bell for The Association of Business Poets. I also say I love it.

 

Since becoming a founding member of The Association of Business Poets I have thoroughly enjoyed the thinking that has been involved. As a group we have been able to meet online and spend time working on our values. This is an area that is of huge interest to me. When I started my coaching qualification in 2023, I loved the sessions centred around thinking about personal values for life and work. I had not focused in on this with such intensity as an individual before and it taught me so much about me as a person, and about how I find balance and joy. For The Association of Business Poets, a facilitated session with our CEO, Kate Jenkinson, and founding members enabled us to reflect on our individual values and then on the values for this newly formed group. It brought back memories of productive coaching sessions where I discussed and rated my personal values with colleagues whilst working on my Level 7 Coaching Diploma. What also shone out was the importance of holding our own values separately from the values of a newly formed organisation. Of course some will feature in both these sets, but when you’re working as part of a group you are thinking about the entity of the group. There’s some great thinking right there in all of that. There is something particularly special about work around values and vision in an organisation for me because whenever you give something of yourself to this kind of work you are setting down something in the present that is also fully for people in the future. For me that’s a wonderful feeling of paving the way for others.

 

Humanness is one of the values that we have decided upon, and just look at the words that surround this value... I hope they make your heart sing as much as they do mine. I didn’t use this term as one of my values three years ago, but I am pretty sure it’s going in my personal top five now. Look how beautifully it goes with poetry and think how wonderful it is when it is also evident in the world of business. I can’t think of a better way of ensuring that the people you work with give the best of themselves and recognise their own value than by having humanness in the mix.

 

Descendant from my first poetry collection Magnifying Glass seems an apt choice for this week’s poem, and if you’re in a sharing mood I’d love to know what you are descended from or what values are most important to you.

 

DESCENDANT

 

I am descended from smugglers.

I hold the darkness of tunnels inside me;

hushed voices, past midnight, alert my ears.

I am descended from strong-armed men,

the readers of the sea.

 

I am descended from those who roam.

I hold the restlessness of wild words;

dawn hours tempt me with their with offers of peace.

I am descended from storied women,

the tellers of old tales.

 

I am descended from the unknown.

I hold onto sunsets, dark dreams

and forests.

Reckless whispers ride my thoughts

the essence of my being.

 

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