#43: Quote - Time

Time is our greatest gift, and using it well, our greatest offering in return.

~ Wayne Visser, 2005

#42: Poem - Far Away

FAR AWAY
By Wayne Visser

While we’re apart – each night and day –
Just close your eyes and softly say:
“There’s no such place as far away”

(2005)

#41: Painting - Goddess

The Goddess

By Wayne Visser

Acrylic, 2007

#40: Poem - Bridges

BRIDGES
By Wayne Visser

A bridge across time
Through music and rhyme
Crossing the wires
With flickered desires

A bridge across oceans
To mix magic potions
Seeing new sights
With sensual flights

A bridge across space
Where fantasies chase
Living our dreams
With nocturnal streams

A bridge across rivers
Where memory quivers
Recalling romance
And whirling rain dance

A bridge across forever
Held up by a feather
Joining our fates
As friends and soulmates

(2005)

#39: Quote - Beliefs

My creed is simple: I believe in the potential of everything and everyone, for good and evil.

~ Wayne Visser 1988

#38: Prose - On Business

Business is the lifeblood coursing through the veins of society, pulsing with creative spirit, transforming the earth’s raw gifts into food to sustain our needs, energy to power our imaginations, blocks to build our dreams.

The heart of business is service, flexing with tireless reciprocity, pumping multifarious products of enterprise through lubricant trade arteries to the farthest reaches of the global body-civic.

When the heart is strong, and the arteries are clear, and the blood is clean, the constitution of civilization is likely to be healthy;
But when service is sacrificed for greed, and trade is inequitably distributed, and business is corrupt of values, the integrity of the community is likely to be diseased.

When the circulation of benefits is poor, numbness follows and rot eventually sets in;
When wealth congeals in the hands of too few, it is only a matter of time before the clot causes a brain haemorrhage;
When unethical behaviour builds up in the commercial system like viscous cholesterol, a cardiac arrest is the inevitable conclusion.

Business serves its purpose best when it flows freely and widely, unbound by the constrictions of petty bureaucrats and their obsessive need to tie tourniquets of red-tape;
Free from the interference of fickle politicians and their compulsive habit of pulling strings and trading favours;
Free from the drain of financial vampires and their unquenchable thirst for higher growth and profits and packages at all costs.

Business nourishes society when it is the conduit for sharing knowledge and passion and wisdom;
When it is the stimulus for nurturing growth and development and integrity;
When it is the means for meeting the needs of those most vulnerable, living on the desperate margins of the world.

Business bleeds society when it thoughtlessly injures the planet or harms its people;
When it incarcerates the human spirit or enslaves creative minds;
When it becomes infected with the cancer of acquisitive means to selfish ends.

Responsibility for business, be it good or ill, is always collective.

Even to speak of business as a separate, engagable entity, is a fallacy, created for the convenience of theoreticians, philosophers and others who wish to stand aside and commentate on life, rather than experience it first hand.

Business is not, can never be, separate from society, neither from the people who animate its communities, or the natural environment which sustains its continued existence.

Where would one begin and the other end?
We are all economic agents – customers, employees, shareholders, employers, managers – inextricably linked, permeable, interdependent – a grand synergy.

In the final analysis, we – each, individually, and together, collectively –
are business and business is us.

It is the same life-giving blood that courses through all our veins.

Wayne Visser, 2005

#37: Quote - Touch

Only when touched do we truly come to our senses.

~ Wayne Visser, 2005

#36: Poem - Winter Song

WINTER SONG
By Wayne Visser

Crunching boots like music beat
Globs of light on misty street
Puffs of breath like smoky lace
Dripping nose on frozen face

Frosted leaves like festive cake
Shards of ice on glassy lake
Silver sun like shining moon
Twilight stars come out too soon

Cosy rooms like thermal hugs
Steaming soup in favourite mugs
Calls to shop like ringing gong
Hum along to winter song

(2005)

#35: Painting - Paint by Numbers

Colour Ink and Acrylic, 2008

#34: Poem - I Hear You

I HEAR YOU
By Wayne Visser

I hear you in the silence
When all the world's asleep
I hear you tap the window
With pitter-patter feet

I hear you in the whisper
Of trees that gently sway
I hear you in the wave song
Of horse-mane ocean spray

I hear you in the country
In forests and in glens
I hear you in the river
And on the boggy fens

I hear you in the city
Amidst the traffic noise
I hear you on the playground
With laughing girls and boys

I hear you in the spaces
Your visits left behind
I hear you in my heartbeat
And in the poets' rhyme

(2007)

#33: Quote - Beginnings

Every new beginning is just a first step away.

~ Wayne Visser, 2005

#32: Prose - Books

BOOKS
By Wayne Visser, 2005

Books are the ongoing conversation of the ages

Do you have a soft spot for books, a weakness for their charms?
Do you think of books with fondness, regard them with affection?
Perhaps you would even go so far as to say that you have a love affair with books?

Books are such sweet seduction.
Who can resist the coy enticement of an enigmatic title, the alluring perfume of virginal pages, or the beckoning gesture of a back cover synopsis?
Dressed in shining leather, laced with gold trim, trailing a teasing ribbon, who can fail to be bewitched?
Or are you beguiled by the more rugged, travel-savvy type, whose rough looks hint at adventures barely survived?

Whatever your preference, books have a way of grabbing our attention, revealing just enough to pique our interest and then string us along, toying with our emotions, keeping us guessing.
With each successive chapter, another button is undone, another layer shed, another feature unveiled.

Some books are a sun-kissed afternoon spent in pleasant idle chatter.
Others are a romantic-laden dinner full of suggestive glances.
And still others are a pace-quickening ride ending in a breathless climax.

What are your favourite books?
Can you remember the first book that made a real impact on you?

When we learn to read, we forge a magical key to a vault of unimaginable hoarded wealth.
When we enter in, the vast cavern is stacked from floor to ceiling with treasure chests, just waiting for us to open them and find out what is inside.

Every book is a mystery trapped between two covers.
And we are the only ones who can release the riddle from bondage.
We are the only ones who can undertake the fairytale quest to discover its secrets.

When we start reading a book, we are blind to the journey we are about to undertake, of the magical places we will visit and the mortal dangers we will encounter.
We have no idea how the story will end, not least the tale of our own transformation.
For every book is a philosopher’s stone, a rite of alchemy which changes us.

Books are a meeting place – between author and reader, between expressed intent and receptive imagination, between past and present.

Whoever said that time travel has yet to be invented has never read a book.
Books transport us back in history, to exotic places and strange times.
For all books are a child of their time.
We see old worlds through new eyes, and new worlds through old eyes.
There are no limits to where the enchanted time-machine we call books can take us.

And yet, no matter how far we travel, in time and space, in creativity and imagination, we end up back at the same place we started – the place where people connect.
Books are always about relationships, about the interaction between characters.

Books are the dialogue which never ends, the eternal human conversation.
We can choose how much of the dialogue to listen to, how much of the conversation to participate in.
We can voice our agreement or register our dissent.
And every word will add to the evolving story of humankind.

Books are power in our hands and wisdom in our heads.
Books are passion in our hearts and levity in our souls.
They are all these things and more.

Yet their ready accessibility keeps books out of the reach of many.
Their common appearance disguises their unbelievable worth.
Do not let yourself be fooled.
Claim your prize today.
Set off on a journey into the unknown.
Allow yourself to be seduced.

What book will you choose?
And more tellingly, what book will choose you?

#31: Quote - Transcendence

Life is all about transcending our limitations - seeking out boundaries of our potential, and then stepping beyond them.

Creative Commons 1992

#30: Poem - Gentle Storm

Upon a clear and frosty autumn morn
I found myself caught in a gentle storm
No lightening flashed across the azure sky
No thunder rolled and all the ground was dry
No rain or snow, no whisper of a breeze
And yet a shower fell beneath the trees

Swooping and swirling
Drifting and diving
Wafting and weaving
Floating and flirting

And while the leaf-drops all around me fell
I stood entranced by nature’s silent spell
Kaleidoscopic colours filled the air
And mesmerised all I could do was stare
A light-and-motion dance that left me high
A tempest raging quiet as a sigh

Creative Commons 2005

#29: Painting - Africa

Acrylic

Creative Commons 2008

#28: Poem - Born to Fly

Threads of words across the miles
Dyed with tears and strung with smiles
Ropes of friendship woven tight
Bridge the gulf of day and night

Splashes of smiles upon the page
Brushed with youth and coloured with age
Canvass of memories and imagination
Reveal the art of co-creation

Glitter of laughter sparkling bright
Eases the dark and catches the light
Circus of clowns who entertain
Shine joy to lift the clouds of rain

Feathers of touch against the skin
Caress without and tickle within
Flutter of wings across the sky
Reminds us that we’re born to fly

Creative Commons 2005

#27: Quote - Attitude

Our attitude is the only thing over which we can have complete control

Creative Commons 2005

#26: Poem - Ideas of Winter

Clouds drift
In billowing embrace
Reassuringly grey
Unexpectedly white
Wrapping me up
And tucking me in
Safe under duvet skies
Content on verdant pillows
Happily watching
Short days
Curl in on themselves
Longing for rest
In search of dreaming
While puce clouds
Weigh the option
Of dropping their ballast
To water
Ideas of winter

Creative Commons 2007

#25: Prose - Beginnings

Do you have hopes, dreams and wishes for the future?
Or even just something you have been meaning to do, or longing to achieve?
Why not make a start today towards making it happen?

Nothing grand, nothing onerous, just take one small action to set you on your way.
Cathedrals are built one stone at a time, and although they may take generations to complete, they would not exist at all if someone hadn’t been bold enough to lay the first cornerstone.
Lao Tzu was right:
The journey of a thousand miles does begin with the first step.

But why is that first step often so difficult to take?
Perhaps it is because we are intimidated by the size of the task before us, the length of the journey ahead?
But remember the old question of how to eat an elephant.
Answer: one bite at a time.
An inspiring vision is important, but it helps to focus on down-to-earth practicalities to get started.

Another reason we hesitate to begin afresh is because we have tried and failed before.
Cynicism is the root of all inertia.
If you are dismissive or scornful of New Year’s resolutions, it is probably because you’ve been burned before;
You’ve had your own or others’ hopes dashed as idealistic goals fizzle like damp squibs in the cold light of daily pressures.
Sound familiar?

One way to cure cynicism is to change the way we think about beginnings.
Every big ending is the result of countless small beginnings.
We should not expect to achieve our goals the first time we try.
You are saved from failure not by being born again, but by being born again and again and again, as many times as it takes to succeed.

The only thing more difficult than beginning is beginning again.
And yet beginning again is the easiest way, indeed the only way, to succeed.
The willingness to pick ourselves up when we fall and to try again is what makes the difference between success and failure, between moving forwards and standing still, or going backwards.

Or maybe it is not failure that you fear, but success itself.
What would happen if your wildest dream, your most cherished hope, your secret wish, really did come true?
You would have to change.
You would have to take responsibility for all those things you said would be possible “if only”.
So sometimes we shy away from new beginnings because we are afraid of where they might take us.
But unless we set our foot upon the path, we will never really know where it leads.

It is true that not all beginnings are bright and cheery.
Starting an unpleasant chore, or beginning a life without a loved one is hardly cause for celebration.
Yet even these tough beginnings will bring their share of rewards for effort and reprieves from suffering.

Indeed, in dark times, it is often the chance to begin again which helps us to make it through.
We take each day, each step, each breath, one at a time, in order to survive.
Remembering that each new beginning holds the potential to change things for the better:
To lighten the darkness;
To ease the load
To heal the wound
To forgive and love again.

We can take our cues from nature – each sunrise, the new moon, spring time.
Or we can invent our own reminders – morning prayers, the start of a week, the first of the month, or celebrating a new year.
Or perhaps our beginnings will be inspired by the Resurrection, Ramadan, Passover, or Diwali.

We are constantly on the cusp of new beginnings, amidst the cycles of our lives.
And there is no better time to begin anew than now …
And now, and now and …

Creative Commons 2005

#24: Quote - Understanding

When we understand why and how people and things are they way they are, hatred and prejudice can no longer exist.

~ Creative Commons 2005 ~

#23: Poem - T*B*L*F

Truth is the bedrock on which to build
Beauty is the shape of artful stone
Love is the roof of shimmering gild
Freedom is the choice to make a home

Creative Commons 2005

#22: Painting - Daffodils

Acrylic

Creative Commons 2009

#21: Poem: I Wish

I wish ...

For lazy days in cluttered bookstores
For meandering walks in shaded parks
For swirling dances in the soaking rain

For intimate cuddles in the dark night
For whispered sighs of deep contentment
For echoed cries of passion unrestrained

For bubbling children never far away
For idle excursions to the shopping mall
For travel adventures in distant lands

For magical hours of poetry reading
For quenching delight in fresh writing
For lingering encounters with enigmatic art

For gentle floating on music's breeze
For reflected drama on theatre stages
For great movies with popcorn and coke

For butterfly kisses in unexpected places
For warm hugs for no reason whatsoever
For holding hands in silent understanding

For roaming talks without destinations
For playful experiments with illusions
For soul journeys to unseen worlds

For growing old through the seasons
For slowing down as the years go by
For being happily in love for ever after

... with you

Creative Commons 2005

#20: Prose - The Art of Business

Business is, by its very nature, an adventure in creativity, an exercise in imagination, an enterprise in innovation.

If you think about it, commerce is all about creation – creation of markets, companies, products, brands and jobs – as well as finding inventive ways to target, design, position, package and sell these.
Even before ‘entrepreneurship’ entered the business lexicon, successful enterprise has always been the nexus where invention meets opportunity, innovation meets needs and resourcefulness meets markets.

So it is somewhat surprising to reflect on how little business has drawn on that paragon of creativity – the arts – to challenge, inspire, inform and project itself.
By contrast, the arts themselves have never shied away from using business as the inspiration for their creative endeavours.

So what happens when we open the Pandora’s Box of artistic perspectives on business?
Can we piece together a mosaic of creative visions on commerce?
Or join up the dots of imagination on trade?
By using the arts – including painting, film, theatre, literature, cartoons and poetry – we get to see business’s public persona reflected (including its shadow self).
We are able to illustrate, through the medium of the arts, how business is perceived in different parts of the world and at different times in history, including up to the present day.

So where might we start looking for images of business-in-the-looking-glass?
Would it be movies like Wall Street (“greed is good!”) or The Corporation (“the pathological pursuit of profit and power”)?
Or perhaps the poetry of former Fortune 500 executive James Autry (author of “Love & Profit”) or the literary genius of Shakespeare (“all that glitters is not gold”)?

Would we question why so many business leaders take inspiration from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” or Machiavelli’s “The Prince”?
And would we be amused or infuriated by the doctored logos of multinationals or spoof corporate websites that fall foul of anti-globalisation protesters?
Is there “many a truth in jest” to be found in the “fat-cat” businessman caricatures that go back centuries, or the cartoon vitriol of Enron’s jailed executives?

Do these artistic commentaries give us a window into the soul of business, or simply a superficial view of its popular mask?
Whichever way you see it, these highly visual, evocative and stimulating illustrations all have something to say about the role of business in society, especially its contribution to (or violation of) the public good.
All the current debates around environmental responsibility in the face of climate change and ecological destruction, or trade justice in the context of persistent poverty for the majority of the world’s population, are brought into sharp, colourful focus by the arts.
And the picture they conjure is not always negative.

The creativity of the arts has often been used in business to encourage innovation, motivation and responsibility, whether it is the use of industrial theatre for AIDS awareness in South Africa, or Haiku poetry in leadership workshops in the UK.
And after all, what can be more creative than the advertising industry itself?

The power of using the arts as a lens through which to view business is that we get an insight into the psyche of the modern corporation.
We tap into the mood of the public and their often unspoken fears and prejudices about business.
And we also begin to see business for what it really is – a deeply human enterprise, with all the foibles and potential which that implies.

Hence, the art of business is, if anything, the art of being human:
An eternal stage for playing out so many of our most familiar dilemmas –
The struggle between head and heart, between ambition and morality, ego and altruism, self-fulfilment and service to others.
And the art, as opposed to the science or economics, of business, is to find beauty, truth, and yes, even love, in the creative process that is enterprise.

#19: Quote - Answers

Searching for answers in life presumes that we even know the questions

Creative Commons 1992

#18: Poem: I Am An African

I am an African
Not because I was born there
But because my heart beats with Africa’s
I am an African
Not because my skin is black
But because my mind is engaged by Africa
I am an African
Not because I live on its soil
But because my soul is at home in Africa

When Africa weeps for her children
My cheeks are stained with tears
When Africa honours her elders
My head is bowed in respect
When Africa mourns for her victims
My hands are joined in prayer
When Africa celebrates her triumphs
My feet are alive with dancing

I am an African
For her blue skies take my breath away
And my hope for the future is bright
I am an African
For her people greet me as family
And teach me the meaning of community
I am an African
For her wildness quenches my spirit
And brings me closer to the source of life

When the music of Africa beats in the wind
My blood pulses to its rhythm
And I become the essence of sound
When the colours of Africa dazzle in the sun
My senses drink in its rainbow
And I become the palette of nature
When the stories of Africa echo round the fire
My feet walk in its pathways
And I become the footprints of history

I am an African
Because she is the cradle of our birth
And nurtures an ancient wisdom
I am an African
Because she lives in the world’s shadow
And bursts with a radiant luminosity
I am an African
Because she is the land of tomorrow
And I recognise her gifts as sacred

Creative Commons 2007

On Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uh0KVOaf3k

#17: Painting: Fairest Cape

Watercolour

Creative Commons 2007