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Signposts point in unexpected directions

At Innovative Resources we are privileged to receive feedback about how our materials have changed people’s lives. But just how and when such change might occur remains a truly magical and mysterious process.

What follows are two very different ways for using Signposts. Who knows, maybe it will serve as a trigger for your own creativity in working with people.

There are two groups of leaders, about ten 18 to 25-year-olds, who meet fortnightly with me at Kew Baptist Church. We have used the Signposts cards on several occasions, putting them up in my lounge room all over the windows (you know, those little European windows?). We can fit the set of 48 in the lounge bay. We've used them to prompt discussion about the things that nurture us in our spiritual well-being. It's been lovely to hear young people affirming one another's gifts too.

We have also rearranged them according to what we would love to be better at! I left the cards up in our lounge for about a month and it prompted some interesting discussion with visitors. The enjoyment of lying on the couch looking at them myself was great too.

During our evening services on Sunday nights we have used a data projector to scroll slowly through a selection of Signposts images, accompanied by music, as a different way of doing congregational prayer. It has been really meaningful, allowing people to pray from where they are at. The hardest thing was choosing ten out of 48! It was relatively simple choosing 25 that would be good for us, but getting it down to ten that represented us in our diversity was excruciating! We've been grateful to use these with your permission.

Keren McClelland, Kew Baptist Church

I've been discovering some wonderful new uses for many of your cards in my work with students of Creative Arts Therapy at RMIT. My recent purchase of the Signposts cards has come in very handy. I have a workshop that is centered around challenging students to consider their assumptions and philosophies about ‘art’ in order to be reflective about how they utilise the arts in their therapeutic work with people. To facilitate this reflection, we engage in quite a kooky drama to explore the question, ‘Is art art because the gods love it, or do the gods love art because it is art?’ (a spoof on Plato).

We all dress up in costume as various strange god-like characters and then each character selects one of the Signposts cards, which becomes the value system through which they decide what art really is! Might sound confusing, but it works. We discuss, in character, what is important to us in regards to art, and then make a piece of art, all informed by the value system inspired by the Signposts card. This process opens students to new perspectives, creating (often hilarious) dialogue, ways of seeing, interpreting and valuing of diversity. And sometimes quite surprising characters emerge through the process, challenging students to consider roles within themselves that are maybe not so frequently expressed in their day to day life.

Carla van Laar, Artist / Therapist / Educator

Editor's note: Further encouraging feedback came from sources that wished to remain anonymous, but involved using Signposts as a grief and loss resource; a way of honouring the lives of those that have died.

Click here to go to the Signposts page on our site.

Three Signposts cards: Saying goodbye, Looking for Signposts, Wondering at the mystery.

A Review from our Shelf List

It’s okay to be sad

Michael Rosen is best known for his children’s picture book, We’re Going On a Bear Hunt, a perennial favourite recited verbatim by kids and trotted out regularly by parents at bedtime. ‘We're going on a bear hunt! We're gonna catch a big one!’ Know the one?

His latest work, Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, tells the story, in pictures and words, of Rosen’s grief at the sudden death of his eighteen-year-old son, Eddie, from viral meningitis. ‘This is me being sad,’ it opens, beneath an illustration of the grinning author. It goes on to explain how sad people sometimes feel the need to cover up their grief to make it acceptable to others. Rosen is candid about the anger he often feels towards his son. ‘How dare you go and die like that!’ he thinks. But then he can’t yell at him because he isn’t there any more. A series of drawings showing Eddie full of life and vigour ends with a blank space.

Much loved artist, Quentin Blake, combines his quirky style with deep pathos in what is an extraordinary example of an artist in tune with his author. Blake interprets but also adds to Rosen’s moving, often gut-wrenchingly honest text.

It would be wrong to call this a book about grief and loss, or to say that it’s about depression. It is, however, a book about being sad. So, why read a book about ‘sad’ to children? Because there are times when we are sad. When life is sad. When sad is so big it’s everywhere. Rosen stalks his sadness and pokes it from every direction. ‘Where is sad? Sad is anywhere. When is sad? Sad is any time. Who is sad? Sad is anyone.’

But this book is also about love and about family. Rosen loved his son and this book honours Eddie’s memory in a very special way. It's also a book about possibilities. All the things we can do when life seems bleak. The good things we can focus on – the precious memories, images of the future – the world keeps spinning.

Best of all, Michael Rosen’s book gives permission to be sad; permission to disappear in our sadness when we need to.

This is a book for anyone who has ever been sad – and that's all of us, right? But most brilliantly of all, it isn't a sad book. Confused? You won’t be.

John Holton

Michael Rosen's Sad Book

Illustrated by Quentin Blake

Walker Books

ISBN: 0 7445 9898 2

Cat No. 6093 AU $27.95

Click here to view this book online.

Sad is a place

that is deep and dark

like the space

under the bed

Sad is a place

that is high and light

like the sky

above my head

When it’s deep and dark

I don’t dare go there

When it’s high and light

I want to be thin air

from Michael Rosen’s Sad Book

Innovative Resources’ latest release, Storm in a Teacup, was welcomed into the world recently with three very different events. The first was at Siena College in Melbourne where the illustrator, Chris Sage-Marsh, teaches art. The thirty original oil paintings then travelled to Bendigo’s historic Dudley House for a unique exhibition and book launch. More than one hundred people gathered to hear Chris Townsend give an emotional reading of his poem surrounded by the paintings that were inspired by it.

The following week the paintings, along with their creator and the author, journeyed to The Sun Bookshop in Yarraville, Melbourne where it was launched by Olga Buttigieg, Head of Religious Studies at Siena College.

Afterwards, I had the chance to catch up with the author and ask him about his impressions of the book; of life, love, and the cycles of nature.

What is your wish for the book?

I have visualised the book for so long now and have seen it in many lights and images. The strongest of those images is of the book sitting on someone’s coffee table … a visitor walks in and sits down, passing the time by flicking through the book only to be unexpectedly moved as emotions stir. I suppose that is an expression of wishing to share a personal emotional experience with others.

What makes you laugh?

So many things – my wife, Annie, and I have our own ridiculous world of laughter going on that has evolved out of years of sharing a twisted perspective on situations and people we have come across in life. I love developing characters through which other worldly crazy stuff can be channelled.

What makes you cry?

In no particular order – homesickness, the absence of compassion, the loss of loved ones, watching other people lose loved ones, making mistakes in raising my kids, Australia’s treatment of refugees, unravelling myself when I realise I have depended too much on my expectations … do you want me to keep going?

How do you feel about getting older?

Somewhere along the way, as the invincibility of youth gives way to an acceptance of transience, you realise you have been walking a path and leaving footsteps. I like the idea that as you get older, if you look carefully, you can develop a type of ‘tracker’s’ knowledge to interpret the meanings in your own path.

What about love?

I had a conversation with a friend recently who argued that love is a construct. I disagree. I believe we socially construct arrangements around love, but the essence of love itself is as essential to a human life as DNA.

Difficulty

I am a believer in the philosophy that true contentment in life arises out of the process of putting ones inherent skills and gifts into practice to overcome challenge and difficulty. I always return to some advice given by the father of a school friend of mine many years ago when we were about to embark on an adventure. He said, ‘There is much to gain from taking the most difficult route in the easiest possible manner.’ I keep thinking how wonderful it is that he entrusted us to difficulty.

Cycles of nature

I seem to gravitate toward a life-style that allows me to feel and understand life through an appreciation of natural cycles. I’m not too competent in the mechanistic world of infinitesimal time management. I’m better at organising myself over the length of seasons and reflecting on changes that have and might be about to happen.

Children

What can I say? I have two. They bring you everything, yet they are a life force that you have brought about. Handing over the responsibility of that force to them is one of the great challenges of life.

Political correctness

When asked about political correctness in an interview a couple of years ago, my musical hero, Canadian singer/songwriter, Bruce Cockburn, responded: ‘Political correctness is at best about good manners and at worst about censorship … neither of these things are to do with our consciousness.

Click here to view Storm in a Teacup.

Humankind has not woven the web of life

We are but one thread within it

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves

All things are bound together

All things connect

Chief Seattle 1854

SOON book bargains

Readers of SOON can now take advantage of big discounts on selected items from Our Shelf List. In each edition of SOON you’ll find a selection of titles reduced by a whopping 25%. Stocks are limited, so be quick to make the most of these great book bargains. 

Fourth Estate, Softcover, 340 pages

Cat No. 8403 was $24.95 now $18.70

View online.

When Spike Milligan died in 2002, he left behind one of the most diverse legacies in British entertainment history. Milligan’s themes ranged from environmental issues to war, from nostalgia to mental illness, always combining lyricism with all-out lunacy. We miss you, Spike!

Small Wonder

By Barbara Kingsolver

Faber and Faber, Softcover, 270 pages

Cat No. 9020 was $24.95 now $18.70

View online.

Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, adolescence, TV-watching or civil rights, Kingsolver’s essays are grounded in the belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth’s remotest corners as well as our own backyards. Truly beautiful writing.

The Art of the Pen

By Lee Hendrix & Thea Vignau-Wilberg

Thames & Hudson, Hardcover, 64 pages

Cat No. 8189 was $25.00 now $18.75

View online.

A selection of recreations from the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, a combination of calligraphy and minature painting from the time of the Holy Roman Emperors. Artists and journallers will be inspired by the imagination and skill of its creators.

The Dons

By Archimede Fusillo

Penguin, Softcover, 190 pages

Cat No. 8690 was $16.95 now $12.70

View online.

From the author of Sparring With Shadows comes an irresistible, inspiring and brilliantly evocative story of family love, loyalty and wisdom.

Spirituality – The heart of nursing

Edited by Prof. Susan Ronaldson

Ausmed Publications, Softcover, 184 pages

Cat No. 8425 was $34.95 now $26.20

View online.

Nurses are with people in times of crisis – times when questions about the meaning of life arise. This book is a collection of personal essays written by experienced Australian nurses who share the wisdom and insights they have gained about the human spirit.

Smart Choices – A practical guide to making better decisions

By John S Hammond, Ralph L Keeney & Howard Raiffa

HBS Press, Hardcover, 245 pages

Cat No. 8545 was $54.95 now $41.20

View online.

This simplified guide to decision-making is a must for anyone faced with an important personal or professional decision. It provides tools to identify options you may never have considered.

Discrimination happens everywhere.

Dumbo's Job Interview

by Ken Barlow

Dumbo is at a job interview. He is seeking funds that may eventually allow him to pay for corrective surgery. His name is misleading. He has excelled at school and university, gaining a First in Hippopotamus Studies. Clearly, he is the best elephant for the job. Yet the interview panel of Indian elephants, ears small and pert, view him with barely concealed disdain. Nothing explicit is said, of course, there are laws against that sort of thing. Discrimination. As the interview ends, he is told that he will be informed of their decision in due course. But inside he knows the decision has been made, judgement passed. ‘Damn my cursed ears,’ he mutters. ‘Damn them!’