Michaelmas and Continuous Improvement

Archangel Michael's gesture is recognized and attended to each year on September 29th. Michael carries the sword that points to, penetrates, and slays evil. The great works of art in sculpture and painting are always dramatic and active.

In the course of the Inner Year, now is the time to focus on evil. We want to find a clearer, more conscious relationship to evil. Most of us want to avoid this work. Many of us would rather enjoy the entertaining depictions of evil and trust the heroes of novels, movies, plays and TV shows to do the dragon slaying for us.

But, the Michaelic gesture does not demand dramatic deed. It is more often subtle, nuanced, small as a snowflake, raindrop, grain of sand or sunbeam.

And in the realm of time, it appears continuous and endless - think of how many continuous snowflakes it takes to make a blizzard, raindrops to make a monsoon, grains of sand to make a coastline, sunbeams to light the day.

Dragons, particularly the little ones living in our souls, have a way of only playing dead for a glorious moment, before rising up with new vigor.

So, what good is the sword of Michael? More important - how do we find the strength to wield the sword continuously?

To provide an answer I am going to send you to another blog. This post was in my inbox today and I read it before beginning my writing for the morning. The dragon of postponing my work caught me, seduced me, overcame my better self - or so I thought as I clicked on the email.

Presentation Zen is one of the most inspiring blogs I read on a regular basis. Garr Reynolds is a master of design, writes very well and knows what matters in many cases. He has lived and worked in Japan for most of his adult life and often shares the wisdom of Japanese culture as a source of good design. (Michael is constantly admonishing our souls to design a good life.)

Reading Garr's post today was not an avoidance of my task for the morning, but the inspiration for it. He writes about "kaizen" the art of continuous improvement - or, in my eyes, the subtle sword of Michael.

Read Garr's post here.

Garr offers 15 tips for continuous improvement in presentation design. Use your imagination to experience the tips as possibilities for continuous improvement in design your life as a Michaelic gesture, as ways to continuously find the dragons.

Please make comments below. Thanks.

I intend to write a few blog posts on evil over the month of October.