September tends to be the start of the academic year. Schools, colleges, and universities often begin their year here. If you are about to undertake a new course of study, or are working your way towards a diploma or degree, then each September is likely to be a month of beginnings. You see the curriculum laid out before, the new schedule of learning and the dates for your examinations. This is a good time to plan this area of your life. But you don’t need to be a student to learn. We can all learn throughout our whole lives. What would you like to learn this year? Are there any courses you’d like to take? This is often the start time for extra-curricular or “adult education” classes. This is the month to think which classes you’d like to take this season and to begin acquiring new skills and new knowledge. Many more people are entering retirement in good health and have many years of growth ahead. September is a good time to consider what areas of life you’d like to develop in the year ahead, and, not just to consider them, but to actually get started!

August is the month of “Le Grand Depart” in France, the month when everyone sets off to have a holiday somewhere. In many countries, different regions have their traditional weeks of vacation in August. Having considered the need for adequate amounts of rest last month, this month can be the time to look at that other aspect of a holiday. Travel. To get to your holiday destination, you have to travel. Sadly, this can often be a bit arduous, with busy motorways, hours spent in airports and the apparently inevitable delays. So, here’s the first part of this month’s challenge. How can you enjoy the actual traveling? Is there a way to make getting to your destination fun or pleasurable too? Maybe thinking about how you experience different forms of travel might help you to decide not only where you want to take your holiday, but how you choose to get there. The second part of the challenge is the holiday itself. Is your holiday destination just a place to enjoy better weather than you would’ve had at home? Or what’s different about this holiday town, this different country and its culture? Exploring a culture very different from your own can completely change your perspective on your life back home. It’s certainly good to enjoy your home, but it’s also good to broaden your outlook by travelling and discovering other places.

July is the beginning of the second half of the year and for many, is the beginning of the holiday season. In the Creation story in Genesis, God rested on the seventh day. Well, this is the seventh month so why not make this is a month to consider your need for rest. We do all need to get a healthy balance of activity and rest in our lives. It certainly good to be active, but it’s also very necessary to have sufficient rest. What is rest? It can be different for different people, so a first step might be to try out different forms of rest. What kind of rest works best for you? Once you know that, you can begin to make sure that you make enough time for rest. The Italians have a great phrase about rest “Dolce fa niente” – doing sweet nothing! When was the last time you did sweet nothing? Start now. This is the month to find a time to pause, relax, and take it easy for a while.

June is the month of midsummer. The month with the longest day, and the month with the greatest number of hours of sunlight over all. Sunlight is so very important to us. Not only do we need sufficient amounts for our health, but it can lift our spirits too. Yet we take it for granted most of the time. Every morning when we rise, the sun rises too, and every evening it sets over the Western horizon. We certainly notice it when it cascades shades of red over the sky as it rises or as it sets, but once it is “up” we tend to forget about the light. Certainly, the Sun also produces a lot of heat and we notice it when it is high in the sky on a hot day, but more often than not it’s the heat which draws our attention to the Sun on such a day. This can be the month to celebrate the light, not just the celebrations of midsummer’s day, but every day this month. If you are going to celebrate the light, then you will have to notice it first. This month you could focus on raising your awareness of all kinds of light, both natural and artificial. Fill your June with light.

One of them, for me, is Casablanca. The movie which has provided us with SO many quotations. It’s the very last one in the movie which springs to my mind when I’m thinking about possibility -

“Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

As the whole tale spins out, we see Rick, first of all stereotypically, and bit by bit as we see his vulnerability and hurts revealed we slowly see the potential he has for great compassion and personal sacrifice. A man who appears to be determined to stand aloof from the politics of the war, is revealed as, no, becomes, a man who feels so connected to all that is greater than just him, that he channels his immense personal power to the greater good.

The last scene of Casablanca just bursts with possibilities revealing glimpses of what is absolutely best in human beings.

May is the month of the flowering buds. It’s a time when Nature reveals some of her potential. Seeds contain incredible potential. You couldn’t imagine what a plant might look like from a seed, unless you’ve seen that particular type of seed before. Even if you know what kind of plant produces this kind of seed, looking at the seed does not help you to know, in detail, what this particular plant will look like when it emerges. The time of budding begins to make everything a bit clearer. In the buds you can see more of the potential contained within this individual plant. Why not make this the month you think about your own life, and the lives of the others around you? What is beginning to emerge? What potential is beginning to be revealed?  Make May the time to wonder about what may come to pass.

The opening scenes are Bridget’s family’s New Year party and we hear her wrestling with that old problem of resolutions. How to make life better? Every year, we take some time at the beginning of January and start to think about how to improve our lives. What should we do this year that we didn’t do last year? And what should we stop doing?

New Year often feels like a threshold, as we look back and say farewell to the year which has just ended, and celebrate the one which is just beginning. Thresholds can feel like major junctions too though, and Bridget, like most of us, is wondering about her whole direction in life. Is it time not just to change some habits, but to think bigger…..to think about what kind of life we want to live, and what we might have to do to achieve that.

This movie can be watched as an uplifting love story, but we can use it too, to stop and think about our own lives. What was that last year like? How would I like this year to be different? And what might shall I do to try and bring that about?

My resolution this year was to be more aware of when I was in a negative frame of mind and expressing critical or cynical comments from that mental state, of when I was in a positive frame of mind and expressing praise and positivity from that mental state, and in as a consequence of paying attention to that, to change the balance between the two, favouring the positive as much as I possibly could.

How’s your year been? And how would you like this year to be different? What’s on the other side of the threshold, and are you ready to step through and begin your new journey. You’ve never been in this year before, and you won’t be passing through it again!

Yes, there’s a love story in it (Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp) but that’s a pretty minor strand in the over all narrative. What’s more interesting to explore, I think, is the aspect of love we’d call compassion.

Follow the story of Vianne, the central character. She shows great compassion and understanding throughout the whole movie. It’s through her compassion that everyone else in the village is released from their misery. Armande, Caroline’s mother, emerges from bitterness to flourish as a playful, passionate grandmother. Josephine finds her self-worth and the courage to break free from her abusive husband thanks to Vianne’s compassion and encouragement. Even the Count himself, is ultimately released from his self-denial and autocratic behaviour patterns by Vianne’s compassion when she finds him in her shop window. Notice how she parents her daughter too, at one point responding to her daughter’s “I hate you” with “you have every right to”, while firmly insisting on obedience.

There are many aspects of love to explore in Vianne’s story. The theme of the “clever North wind” calling her to move on is also interesting because we see she’s only released from being blown whichever way the wind blows when she finally lets go of her grief for her mother.

The main love theme which runs through this movie though, is tolerance and acceptance of others – especially others who are not like ourselves. There’s a great tendency to fear and to reject “incomers” and “travelers” not only in small towns, but even in large cities. How often are immigrants and those of “other” cultures rejected by the local populations?

The young priest, on Easter Sunday, makes the point of highlighting Jesus’ humanity, not his divinity. He’s referring to the human capacity for love and compassion.

So, push out your understanding of Valentine’s Day being for lovers, watch this movie, and see how you can extend your compassion way beyond the 14th of February.

Some photographers take reality… and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.
~ Ansel Adams

Each month, we would like to invite you to join in a photography project to capture and share images of that month’s specific theme.  This month’s theme is of TRANSCIENCE, so grab your camera, set off out into the world and start looking around you for subjects which you feel express impermanence in all its forms.

You may want to take a photograph of the blossom, spring flowers (northern hemisphere), changing autumn leaves (southern hemisphere), or anything which you see as a representation of the passage of time.  Once you’ve taken your photos, upload them to your Flickr account, join our new Flickr group, and then add your images to the group for everyone in the View From Sirius community to share in their beauty and meaning.