Creative and Poetic Resources

This short collection of poems, quotations and songs is intended to encourage creative and reflective thinking, for clients and for mediators. Many of them were used or developed at our first Weekend of Mediation and the Arts in May 2005. 
This is a work in progress. I have acknowledged where I have been able and apologise for any omissions. Do email me with suggestions for inclusion.

In the beginning was the conversation

“Mediation is an imperfect process whereby an imperfect third party aims to help  imperfect people reach an imperfect solution in an imperfect world”3

These be brave spirits indeed.
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores4      
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past5

“History worships the fact but cannot remain neutral”6 

 “What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.”7

“Negotiations and Love Songs are often mistaken for one and the same”

“The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains”8

There is no case, however conflicted, which is not open to successful mediation, even if mediation has not been attempted or has failed during the trial process.”9

Your children-are not your children
They are the sons and the daughters of life’s longing for itself
They come through you but they are not from you
And though they are in you they belong not to you
You can give them your love but not your thoughts
They have their own thoughts
You can house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in a place of tomorrow
Which you cannot visit
Not even in your dreams
You can strive to be like them but you cannot make them just like you10 
(Kahlil Gibran; The Prophet”)

The Silence Museum

Outside it is always noisy.

But within these walls, a metre thick,
We hold, insulated, the history and
Lost examples of silence.
Visitors are ushered, whispering
Through padded cubicles, astounded.

Turn off your phones and music,
Speak only in whispers.
We Curators live in silence.
It is our vocation – chosen
From the quietest children
We were trained to listen.
It is like a religion.
Although we are protected,
Loud voices hurt our ears.
We can allow no shouting.

The first floor is devoted to
The silence before a sound
With perfect specimens of the pregnant pause:
The counted silence between the flash and thunder
That measures your distance from a storm,
The animal quiet of the dog that will be the first to bite,
The charged stillness of a held breath
Between the last tick and the explosion,
And, the prize of our collection,
The last natural recording of a pin about to drop.

Beautiful isn’t it?

On other floors we preserve
Examples of the silence after a sound –
The straining, listening silence after
The bump in the night,
The sullen tongue-holding of the instructed silence,
One minute’s silences filled with awkward sorrow,
And rare examples from ground zero
Those twin silences of shock and awe.

Our interactive exhibit invites you to consider:
The silence of the crowd at the call for volunteers,
The silence of a majority who oppose without speaking –
The silence that is mistaken for complicity,
The silence that is suffered in.

Listen for a moment ……….

Our researchers amass and list examples
That measure silence – its depth and width
From the silence of mutual understanding
Which needs no vocabulary
To the dumb silence of incomprehension,
From an argument seen through triple-glazed windows
To the last wilderness on a windless day.

Many silences are near extinction.
But we can manufacture them
Using the exact wavelengths and frequencies
That echo the weighty absence of sound in space,
And we are close to containing
That final silence
When your own music stops,
And your body ceases whispering
Its rhythmic commentary11

© Neil Robinson 2007

(1)John’s Gospel ch.1 v.1; translated by, amongst others, Erasmus in the 16th Century . The Greek word “logos” has been interpreted as communication, dialogue, but most usually as “word”. The idea, however, that all transformation derives not from “word” or “law” but from “conversation” with the other, whether God or a partner, is central to mediation.

(2) T.S. Eliot. Little Gidding

(3) Lenard Marlow American Mediator

(4) William Shakespeare, The Tempest

(5) T.S. Eliot – Burnt Norton

(6)from “Marriage” by R.S. Thomas

(7)Little Gidding; TS Eliot Four Quartets

(8) Both Paul Simon – “Train in the Distance” – from “Hearts and Bones”

(9)Thorpe LJ 2005

(10)Kahlil Gibran – “The Prophet”; memorably set to music by Sweet Honey in the Rock

(11)By Clare Kirwan. This poem was used by us at our Mediation and Arts weekend in May 2005. It’s published in “The Dead Good Poets Society – The Book” (Headlong Press); Clare can be contacted at clarekirwan@btinernet.com or www.clarekirwan.com.

Paintings from the 2005 Weekend of Mediation and the Arts

These paintings were by Year 5 students at the local school where our mediator Nicola Watson works. The children were asked to paint something on the subjects of family and/or conflict.

Some of the pictures have more detailed titles:
“The family”(1): This picture shows a happy boy and girl in a relationship
“The family”(2): This shows a family going for a walk
“Conflict” (2): My picture is about conflict. It is the Nazis vs the English and the Nazi soldier is trying to blow up the English.

All the war conflict pictures are by boys; the family conflict ones are all by girls!