About plants, books and communication

The succulents at my office were doing fine even though they were 2 weeks without water - they're lovely plants to keep! I'm not very good at keeping flowers or plants, but plants with waxy leaves seems to be very grateful plants, as they survive in my care.

I got the succulent in the upper picture about 1,5 years ago - it was about a size of a tea cup, round and sweet. It started to grow in height this summer, and has also made another little plant / branch ... I wonder if I dare to separate the little plant from the bigger and put it into a separate pot?

The plant below is all ready 15 years old - it has survived longer periods of time without water, so it is a fighter - I like it and hope that it will keep growing. The stem of this older plant is getting thicker, starting to look like a real tree.

I'm fond of the little statue in front of the plant. I got it from a good friend of mine, when I graduated. The way the persons relate to one another is very symbolic - it might represent a mother and a child, an adult and a child, and older and younger person ... What stands out for me in the statue is the connectedness between the persons... a relationship with closeness and intimacy.

I've chosen to keep this statue in my office, reminding me of the importance of being related and connected - as oftentimes, the process of being  (re)connected - to oneself, to an ability, to another person, to a wish or a dream, to a group or another system, is one of the areas in focus.

I look forward of starting to read these books in the weekend. They're about interpersonal communication ... I'm reading to refresh the old things and to learn new things - to a project at work, that we're planning together with a colleague. I'm waiting for a few books from the library ... and ordered two books from the Amazon this afternoon ... the feeling of being motivated and captured by the process almost tickles in my stomach (in a good way :)

If you come to think about a a good book or article you've come across, and if you like to share it with me, please write a comment on this post or to the mail on the right sidebar.

Communicating - finding the right word to form your thoughts with - is sometimes a challenge itself. Another thing is, how are the words, you form, being received? How does the other person(s) understand the message, you're trying to get across?

I like how S.T. Elliot is describing the process of finding the right words:

Trying to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which

One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture

Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate

With shabby equipment always deteriorating

In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,

Undisciplined squads of emotion.

S.T. Elliot from ”The Four Quarters”

Another quote from Mikhail Bakhtins thoughts about language, 

words and utterances as voices, creating anew:

“An utterance 

is never just a reflection or an expression 

of something already existing and outside it 

that is given and final. 

It always creates something 

that never existed before, 

something absolutely new and unrepeatable, 

and, moreover, 

it always has some relation to value 

(the true, the good, the beautiful, and so forth). 

But something created is always created out of something given 

(language, 

an observed phenomenon of reality, 

an experienced feeling, 

the speaking subject himself, 

something finalized in his world view, 

and so forth). 

What is given 

is completely transformed in 

what is created” 

Bakhtin (1986)

... So this weekend I'll be reading and taking notes - and drinking many cups of tea!

The view below is from this morning. It was raining a bit as I was driving to work, and all of a sudden the clouds broke and the sun appeared. I stopped the car and stepped out to take a picture. I enjoyed the  moment, taking deep breaths of the fresh air, letting my eyes rest on the trees and fields ...

... With these thoughts & images 

I'm wishing you 

a great weekend!

Nina