Haecceity
Hi my name is Mark.
I live in Newcastle upon Tyne and love sharing my facilitation skills with those who find them useful.
My interests include psychology, environmentalism, Taoism and anything that grabs my attention as the day pans out.
I have always had a inquisitive mind and a taste for the more abstract, metaphysical fringes of life, art, music and ideas. This has driven my tendency to enquire and learn and has also got me into to trouble occasionally.
I trained as a hairdresser when I left school at 16 and moved from Manchester where I grew up, to London when I was 17 working as a stylist in the west end when it was still a great place to be a radical creative.
That was a real buzz for a curious, flamboyant and fashion obsessed young guy looking for excitement and others who shared my passion and hunger for a colourful life.
Having met a wonderful woman from Heaton, Newcastle, I moved here in the 70's and we raised four daughters together who are all now grown up and doing their own thing.
In 1993 I decided I wanted to develop my interest is environmental science so studied for a degree at Newcastle University. This led to research in soil science and found me working at the uni and in Bangladesh and Greece.
Following a period of lab based research work, I realised that the academic life was not for me and spent a couple of years working with friends helping them develop their ideas and business skills.
I then decided that I wanted to work in the third sector with charities, co-ops, independents and creative groups.
This took me in new directions and helped me learn new meaningful and creative ways to think and behave.
I have had so many valuable opportunities to work with a wide range of imaginative and caring people, both as mentors, colleagues and clients.
The consistent things in my life are my family, my faith in humans to grow and develop, my practice in the Tao which includes daily Tai Chi and meditation, my love of writing and sharing ideas with other curious and creative types.
My core belief that life is best when lived with awareness, filled with a love... of nature, ourselves and each other.
I am also a bloke in his sixties who goes through the shared human tendencies to learn and fail and learn again yet still enjoy the challenges and opportunities that life keeps delivering.
