“You’ve been quiet on the Internet recently. I miss your blog posts, which have provided me with a unique reality check and worthy directions to explore in my ongoing pursuit of personal betterment. I have been returning to some of your articles and videos online. Even though I’ve read or watched them before, I’m always finding new details and subtle perspectives. Often they are immediately relevant to my life. Will there be new blog posts soon?”
“I’m craving group events and conversations about subjects that I can’t find elsewhere… Will you be leading workshops or writing new blog posts in the future?”
Yes, it’s true that I’ve been taking some distance from my blog and other interactions with the public in general. There are a few reasons for that, and I’ll try to explain them here.
After writing and speaking however many words it’s been over five decades, I feel that I’ve basically made the tour of my perspectives on human potential and personal development. I’ve tried to make those writings perennial in the sense of their long-term resilience and relevance. I believe, for example, that the entirety of this blog provides a thorough gameplan for anyone seriously interested in personal, relational, and communal evolution, with clear steps for practical application. There are, as well, more than 120 links on this blog to other teachers, writers, artists, and guides whom I have faith in. So, I hope there’s plenty to explore and return to for years to come.
I have been doing my usual counseling, formally and informally, for some colleagues and friends, most of whom are on the frontlines of human development in one form or another. That type of work allows for in-depth, dynamic interaction that gives more creative freedom for what I do best, and, I think, produces better results. As I approach my seventies, it feels right to conduct my work more anonymously from offstage, where I can directly support those who are (and want to be) in the spotlight. Between that, my continuing research, and keeping up with my personal correspondence, that’s as much time and energy as I can afford to spend at the desk.
Nonetheless, I have in mind a few projects I intend to get to soon that I’ll add to this blog, including videos on themes and training techniques that I haven’t been able to find already out there, at least at the level of detail and precision I’d prefer. And I do respond to most comments and all questions that come my way via forums that I continue to participate in, including the comment section of this blog. So, I may be quieter than I have been, in some circles at least, but I’m still here. Concerning the possibility of future events, I remain open to those and keep a peripheral eye out for signs of interest and momentum, as well as an appropriate opportunity, in this increasingly tumultuous world we live in.
My appreciation to everyone who has helped bring inspiration to this blog over the years, especially those of you who have taken the time and care to inject substantial insights and questions into the conversation. My best to you for continuing to carry the flame and step forward into a grander, more effective and gracious life.
Darrell Calkins 
Thank you for letting us know where you are at with your process Darrell. I’m very much missing the music of our unique conversations too and the fun, creativity, discoveries and camaraderie that is so special in your events…I’m hoping very much for a gathering of some sort sooner than later and am happy to help in any way I can with this. In the mean time I have never stopped practising all the things that we have shared and that has allowed me to survive the more difficult times. To just pick one your blog during Covid 19 comes to mind and was a brilliant blueprint to cope with the pandemic and beyond…My gratitude goes deep for your care in precisely crafting those special offerings/ insights you have put out here.
The clear, warm question being asked is quite enjoyable. I relate to finding immediate, applicable relevance when rereading some articles here and to a wish for more in person interactions, or at least through other means such as this blog.
Having already received a wealth of information on many levels, I have hesitated to ask a similar question. But I see how the tone and determination in the question makes a difference and creates a worthy conversation.
I would also like to be part of group events. They have unmistakably fine-tuned my perception bringing more certainty in my responses to outside events. Not as a predetermined set of actions but in the sense of a moment to moment better noticing of how various stimuli affect my state. Allowing for more appropriate choices leading to easeful trust in relationships and in meaningful projects.
Yet the heightened sensitivity is gradually lost in my various pursuits, making the resources here the more valuable as they provide free opportunities to temporarily find my way back.
I would very much like to see the videos that you might add here. Thank you for remaining available, behind the scenes, watching for signs of interest and keeping an open door to a possible future event.
With these ongoing tragedies on the news, it’s hard to find my way into gratitude these days, but I want to express my sincere thanks (however imperfect) for your Personal Note and these thousands of hours you’ve put into this Blog over the years. The assemblage of your writings and hundreds of contextualized resources (videos, art, articles, poems) can be taken as a self-paced graduate course, I’ve often thought.
I find that each post offers layers of invitation–to introspection, consideration of larger human-oriented themes, personal exercises (writing, journaling, conversation, research, physical movement)–some that last minutes, others hours, months or actually years. Each post has stayed and worked on me, some profoundly so. What a gift–for free and accessible to anyone. Education (in its true sense) is the greatest long-term gift.
Some mention of events is good news. When I look out on our current global and local (for me, American) landscape, I see increasing polarization and conflict, and at the same time a decrease in people’s capacity to resolve problems or even listen to someone on a basic level (we can partly thank social media for that one)… One could say that your work is more needed than ever, although I can imagine your patience is worn out from wresting with these issues for 40+ years. Your work has always helped people gain the skills to decrease ignorance, understand other perspectives and where they originate, learn how to really communicate, and find reason to strive towards resolution with one’s self and others. And that is something I sorely miss but am grateful for the chance to have learned from in my life.
Julia
Darrell, I was wondering if you were becoming a caveman recluse in a cavern somewhere on the West Coast juggling with sticks and stones and painting your hand on the walls like those found from the neanderthals. Make sure you paint one hand with a middle finger lifted up among those hands for posterity. This will make future archeologists mesmerized. Thanks for your early legacy up there. It’s nice to have instructions to cope with life struggles and it helps to rebalance our misguidedness. These instructions are a foundation on which one can build inner sovereignty to peacefully flow with the outside world. …(aka Guy)
Thank you for your recent post. As you say, unquestionably, there’s enough on this blog to work with for years or decades to come. I’ve found that just scrolling down your titles and associated images already reinvokes guiding direction and a strong sense of rebalance.
I do have a couple of questions for you, if you can find the time.
1) There’s a critical tone in some of your recent posts, particularly concerning, as you put it, “the same superficial, materialistic, narcissistic values and methods it was originally trying to fix.” (‘Where to Start’) I appreciate your honest take on these issues. But isn’t personal development meant to aid in our pursuit of accomplishment, including our material and financial well-being?
2) Along the same lines, you mentioned somewhere that by the time we reach our forties there should be a turn toward “paint the painting” instead of constantly trying to get more of what we want. Could you explain what you mean by this?
Appreciation in advance for your attention and time.
Thank you, folks, for your appreciative comments and loyal presence here.
In response to your questions:
1) I’m not sure my tone has changed concerning the personal development/human potential industry since the late seventies when I began my work. I’ve always felt appalled by the increasingly upscale marketing for services that I believe should be universally available no matter what one’s financial status, as well as by the proliferating view that betterment and happiness equate to financial wealth and consumerism. I wrote a newsletter that’s related to this subject 19 years ago, which I stand by absolutely:
Click to access CobaltSaffron-05-us.pdf
Of course, we all have the freedom and right to pursue our material and financial interests according to whatever wits and wisdom we have to work with. I do believe, however, that the guiding voices out there have a responsibility to remind us of where meaningful accomplishment and fulfillment are more likely to be found, for ourselves and for those we care about.
2) Yes, I recall that comment I made. It was in response to Carl Jung’s emphasis on the fact that life changes for most of us in our forties. He mentioned that priorities shift and there’s often discouragement and malaise with what had, up to that point in time, worked well enough. “Paint the painting” is a rallying cry for clarifying and following through with our deeper inclinations, callings, and developed skills, which often reach maturity in our forties and fifties. Becoming a fully formed, conscious adult with the freedom and depth of vision to look and see more compelling interests beyond “What’s in it for me?”
I hope these little explanations help in understanding.
I recently read about a large barge or houseboat somewhere in London that has been turned into a floating library, where people can duck down into, escape from the city, and spend hours curled up in old armchairs, sofas, nooks and crannies, and cubby-holes, disappearing into books and other worlds, gently being rocked by the ebb and flow of the water beneath… Although I have been more of a quiet door-mouse here and less of an active participant, your blog has been and continues to be such a place for me. Often on a quiet evening I will venture in, and, like one might do with a favorite book, randomly open to a page by chance… Or sometimes, I will scroll until just the right particular piece jumps out at me and beckons me inside… Sometimes, one blog will lead me out of your site and down a whole rabbit hole of exploration of areas you have touched on, and I follow winding trails into more exploration into related worlds… And, most always, any visit here will send me down many memory lanes of particular moments in events, conversations, long walks, restaurants, emails, faxed letters, and the list goes on… And, I can only speak for myself, but I would venture to believe that some others might agree: your work and offerings have quite an indelible nature, and so many decades of experiences with you abide in my soul with a powerful vitality and impact still. Some perhaps gently faded like older tattoos, but in a way that actually merges even more deeply into the skin and becomes one with it… I have often felt that so many thousands of experiences with you have been like seeds planted carefully into the soul, or even seeds generously and wildly scattered there, perhaps never knowing which ones would be lifted up by the wind, and which would actually settle and germinate… Many of these seeds I have carefully watered and tended over the years.., but many I have not, and yet, even now I am discovering newly germinated roots of seeds planted or scattered many years ago, only now reaching a fresh new germination stage… or others, so unexpected, reaching a whole new level of understanding, experience, or maturity…
When I touch into these blog posts, it often functions as a tuning fork, vibrating into so many root systems or mycelium of so many worlds together. Effecting “spectrum and depth of virtue” in any one human being, never mind a larger group of such wayward creatures, is such a lengthy investment. The amount of devotion, patience, and even some sort of bizarre transcendent faith required to engage in such an undertaking is daunting. And one that does not always bare fruit where one might have hoped… And yet, when some sort of odd but exquisite fruit does emerge, often hidden under shrubbery and dirt, but somehow there, and growing and blooming all the same, where such a fruit would never have have existed before had it not been for the never-ending investments, one might never know who else this particular fruit might come to nourish, and whose seeds might be thus scattered further…
Scrolling though all of this floating library of magical posts, this exquisite gallery of finely crafted offerings, still vibrating and resonating so many intricate notes, twinkling here like hundreds of candles in a church, glowing and flickering, as long as there is enough oxygen from life forms passing though to keep the flames alive… I offer this small humble homage here to the tireless devotion to attempt to spark and alight some such yearning to explore and live in these deeper spectrums of life and virtue that do indeed still exist.. as evidenced by this rare and exquisite oasis.