May | 2012 | The Direction of Intention

Truly Powerful People (428)

Posted on May 11, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

428.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“Wherever you are is the entry point.” Kabir

John was my seatmate on the flight from Seattle to Minneapolis. He was in school in Hawaii and returning home to see his parents before he stepped off the edge of the world. He wore swimming shorts, an old (very old) tee shirt, and rope sandals. His blonde-blonde hair had not seen a comb in years (a man after my own heart!) and was more comfortable in the world than almost anyone I’ve ever met. Joyce would call him an old soul: he is at home everywhere.

He told me that during the last semester he felt compelled to travel. He said, “I can go to school anytime – it will always be there. But I’m not always going to be so footloose. I want to learn Spanish so I’m going to South America by way of Mexico.” He told me he consulted his advisor – apparently a wise woman because she cheered his choice and told him to go. “There’s plenty of time to settle,” she told him. “Life begins today.” I told him that I thought his advisor was enlightened.

He squinted at me and told me that I was “different.”

“I get that a lot,” I said squinting back at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Dude!” he laughed, “people in Hawaii are happy. They are choosing to be happy. You’re like that. I mean, look around this plane! Look at all the serious faces! No body’s talking. People going somewhere and never being anywhere. That’s different.”

We raised our paper coffee cups in a toast to good life, travel, and being different.

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Truly Powerful People (427)

Posted on May 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

427.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“Art happens – no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.” James McNeill Whistler
Years ago I attended a summer session of The California Arts Project (TCAP). The foundation thought beneath TCAP was that teacher’s could not teach the arts unless they recognized themselves as artists. The amazing educators driving TCAP understood that all people are artists and very few people recognize it. They existed to help teachers recognize (reclaim) their artist identity, activate it, and build community with all of the other newly re-found artists. The work was extraordinary, the revelations transcendent.

Ed was an angry young man. He looked like he’d rather punch you than talk with you. I loved him! He was a wonderful teacher because he’d been a misunderstood student. He had little tolerance for adults who abused their power over children. He was a champion for children; Ed was destined to be shamed, blunted, betrayed, and forced out of education. His administrator sent him to TCAP with the last-ditch hope that the arts would take the edge off of Ed (oh, silly administrator!).

When he came to TCAP he chose dance as his primary art form because he knew nothing about dance. Ed’s choices were usually rooted in resistance and rebellion and that extended to his personal choices. I imagine his inner monologue went something like this: “So you think you can be an artist! Well why don’t you just try dance, Mr. No-Rhythm-Multiple-Clubfoot!” Over the next two weeks at TCAP Ed went through the stages of death; denial and anger led to acceptance and then burst through to another stage: desire. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that desire burst through Ed. He decided to do a solo performance as his final demonstration. He disappeared for hours at a time to rehearse. He began to smile, his brow un-knit, his usual heavy aura sparkled; Ed had a secret and it tickled him.

Ed danced a lifetime of pain away before our eyes. To Seal’s Kiss From A Rose, he moved through darkness to liberation to celebration to elation. He bloomed. 200 teachers, shocked into silence, bore witness to the enormity of the human spirit and the power of the arts. Ed unwittingly called forth the muses and art happened. Pandora’s box was open and the art was out! Ed’s anger was transformed. He returned to his school with more than an edge: he now knew how to wield his power. There is nothing more potent than a teacher who has released their artist from the box.

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Truly Powerful People (426)

Posted on May 9, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

426.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lately I’ve been practicing a new form of gratitude. I trace everything I eat or drink back to the plant. So, for instance, the cup of coffee I am enjoying: someone cultivated, cared for and harvested the beans. Someone carried the beans to a market. Someone sold them. They were carried again: lifted, shipped, lifted again, and delivered. The beans were roasted and packaged by someone or many people. The roasted beans were ground. They were brewed for me. Count the people involved in the experience of a single cup of coffee and it will take your breath away. What will further knock your socks off is to not discount the plant. Practice this form of gratitude and everything can be traced back to the plant. We are here by the good graces of the plants. Their health is our health! Now, there is something worth our attention!

For another thrill, take a look at The Biology of Desire; it will pop open your eyes about how truly intimate is our relationship with plants – and how these extraordinary complex life forms change us as much or more than we imagine. We like to think we are in control but, like most forms of control, it is an illusion. We control at our peril. When we participate, everything flourishes.

Martín Prechtel writes that we can only know ourselves fully when we know the origin and story of the seed that feeds us. To know our story we must know the story of our people. To know the story of our people you must know the story of their sustenance. This is not an abstraction. It requires participation. Our identity is told in the story of the plants that feeds us. Without this story, we are untethered, alienated from our community, deluded into thinking we control nature, constantly searching for where we fit and wondering what it all means. If you’re looking, start with a seed.

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Truly Powerful People (425)

Posted on May 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

425.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

It’s that time of year again. The crows are barking at me. I thought I would pass the season unscathed but this morning the dive-bombing games returned. To be clear: the crows dive bomb me, I do not dive bomb the crows. I have no reason to aim my beak at their pates and swoop in unannounced.

The attacks often begin with a rowdy barrage of crow insults. At least, I thought they were insults. To the untrained ear it sounds as if they are mocking the shape of my head or saying crude things about my mother. Crows are not subtle.

Since this has been going on for years I thought it would be a good idea to know what they were actually saying! Perhaps my assumptions are wrong! Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for their barking and diving at me. It might explain why they pick me out of the crowd. So, after some searching I found and hired a crow translator (at the moment there is no app for crow translation).

At first, I thought my translator was crazy or somehow distracted. Her translations sounded suspiciously crow-centric. After a few translations I began to get the gist of things. It turns out that crows bark Haiku! They are especially fond of Basho, the great Haiku master because he penned so many poems about crows. This is what the crow barked just before aiming its beak at me (as translated by my translator):

The crow sits
on a dead branch –
evening of autumn

“Their seasons are all confused!” I protested. “Autumn? What’s this crow talking about and why do they attack me?” The translator smiled knowingly and said:

“This is not attack.
The crow desires your response
This fine spring morning.”

Great. The crows want a poem instead of my usual flailing arms and duck-n-cover maneuvers. All this time it was art that they craved.

Attack someone else,
My head is full of divots.
Nice shot. Hole in one.

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Truly Powerful People (424)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

424.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Colin was different. Dwight cast him in the play because he wanted Colin to be part of a community of support. Being different, Colin had rarely belonged. He was the outcast kid constantly trying to get into the group. Consistent shunning did nothing to dampen his desire. He wanted to belong. He kept trying. So, he auditioned for a play. Dwight cast Colin because Dwight understands the true nature of art.

One day, a few weeks into rehearsal, Dwight came into the theatre and heard the other cast members belittling Colin. Dwight was stunned. The power of his astonishment shocked the cast into silence. In a quiet voice, filled with love-rage, Dwight delivered a message worthy for the ears of all humanity. “This space is sacred. It is an art space where people come together. It is a space of generosity and courage. It is a place where people reach toward each other to have a common experience. It is a place capable of transforming hearts and lives. Colin’s need is to reach toward you. Can you imagine the courage it must take for him, day after day to show up and to reach toward you knowing that your response will be to push him away? Imagine it because this is what you are creating. And what you are creating is killing the art in you and in him. What do you possibly gain by pushing him away other than a false sense of superiority? You need to mock Colin so that you feel powerful. How does that power feel? What might you gain by opening your circle and letting him in? How powerful do you become when your power is not predicated upon the diminishment of others? Colin needs you but let me tell you something that you may not recognize: you need him far more than he will ever need you. He just might teach you how to be truly powerful and human.”

And then Dwight asked them to leave his theatre. He asked them not to come back until they were capable of respecting themselves, each other, and their play. He came into my office, sat down and wept. And then, he asked me a world-class question: “Why are people so devoted to diminishing themselves?”

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Education, Heroes, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (423)

Posted on May 6, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

423.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The state of Tennessee recently past a law making it a crime for young people to display affection. No hand holding allowed. Kiss the cheek of your sweet baboo in the movie theatre and you’ll be arrested. Hold his hand as you stroll across campus and you’re off to the klink. The reason: legislators believe the new law will significantly decrease teen pregnancy. And some people said Footloose was far fetched!

The state of Arizona is erasing its ethnic studies programs. They’ve de-funded the classes. They are “boxing” books by Hispanic authors. “Boxing” is a way of banning the books without using the word banning. The books are removed from the shelves and boxed; the books are still there, the students just can’t read them. The reason: ethnic studies has been deemed un-American. Apparently banning books by authors with brown skin is what defines us.

A major oil company is throwing its weight behind a campaign to raise the standards of science and math programs in America. We rank 17th and 25th in the world in math and science. At one time in the not-too-distant past, California had some of the best public schools in the world. The state gutted funding for education and their public schools soon ranked 47th in the 50 United States. The reason: Don’t get me started. It was a great strategy for the decades long impotent campaign to raise standards instead of addressing the challenge.

Legislating behavior is a great strategy for not dealing with the challenges. Why not address the social issues behind teen pregnancy? Oh, yeah. That means we’d also have to talk about sex. Or, we’d have to talk. We’d have to look at who we are instead of flinging propaganda bombs loaded with the illusion of who we say we are.

As Luis Urrea recently said in an interview with Bill Moyers, ethnic studies is a way into American culture, it is expansive and not a door out (education is expansive – that must be the problem that Arizona has identified). In a society comprised of many ancestral lines it might be useful to consider our origins. That would mean we’d have to talk about it so, of course, it makes sense to box the books (we wouldn’t want people to think we banned stuff!). Shhh. No talking.

And, of course the epic and endless conversation about raising standards in education without first addressing how we educate or why we educate guarantees that we’ll do almost anything rather than address the real challenges in education. We’ve managed to ignore 40 years of data and deny the most potent brain research in the history of human kind. Why start now. Shhhhhh.

When did we become afraid of our voices? When did we slide into this epic failure of imagination?

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Truly Powerful People (422)

Posted on May 5, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

422.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Let me begin by saying that I have always liked big porches. That will mean nothing to you until the end of this post.

Aloof (adj): remote in manner. Separate. The antonym if aloof is friendly – implying that to be aloof is to be unfriendly. Once, many years ago, Tom said that I was the only person on the planet that was more aloof than he was. Out of seven billion people on earth I won the blue ribbon for aloofness. Tom awarded himself the red ribbon assuming the number two spot in the aloof games. I laughed heartily at his scorecard and told him I would have given him the blue ribbon. I was certain that he out-aloofed me by a mile. He snickered at my deflection and I accused him of deflection and his snicker blossomed into a full guffaw. “I’m shy!” I exclaimed. “I’m an introvert!” I claimed a bit too emphatically. I was a victim of my own label-libel. Who might I be if I stopped arguing so adamantly for my reticence?

I’ve been working on being less aloof for a decade. I’d have made an excellent hermit though I know my shack would have had a porch since I like porches. So, I would have been a conflicted hermit. I’ve attended Aloof Anonymous and have learned to make causal conversation at parties. Sometimes I smile when I have my picture taken even though I fear I look like Baron Sardonicus.

Enter the present day. Teresa is helping me market myself. She is brilliant and our first phone call left me speechless: she helped me see that my business is me – so, her homework for me was to discover how I could become more of my self (try this. It is an excellent task certain to lead through madness before illumination. Note: I’m making up the part about illumination). During the second call she reduced my brains to pudding: she agreed with Tom, though she did not know it (and I will not tell either that they have an ally in my blue ribbon aloofness); she said, “Your door is open. You invite people onto the porch. Why don’t you them invite into the house?” When I stuttered she said, “You allow people to see your paintings and have their own response don’t you? You don’t try and tell them what the painting is about or control what they see do you?” “No.” I agreed. “Then be like your paintings. Let people see you. Invite them in!”

In my stunned silence she snickered (suspiciously like Tom!) and said, “You thought you were exempt from this stuff didn’t you.”

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Truly Powerful People (421)

Posted on May 4, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

421.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

This is an example of why Ana-the-wise is wise – and I am a David-the-slow-study. Our conversation this morning went something like this:

Ana: What are you trying to create with your work?

David: Success. I want to create success.

Ana: David! I’m confused. Aren’t you happy?

David: Yes. I’m very happy. Why are you confused?

Ana: Maybe it is not me that is confused.

David: (silence. I know Ana well enough to recognize the incoming dope slap). Uh……

Ana: Do you know what my teacher taught me about success?

David: (stepping lightly onto the thin ice) No…. What did he teach you?

Ana: My teacher taught me that the successful person was someone who knew how to be happy regardless of their circumstance. You seem like a happy person to me.

David: That’s true. I am a happy person.

Ana: You seem happy in all kinds of circumstances.

David: Yes, that’s true.

Ana: So you are already successful! Why do you set an intention for something you have already realized? You are teaching other people how to be successful, aren’t you?

David: I guess so.

Ana: No wonder you are confused!

(And so on. I might be confused about success but I am crystal clear about where to go for perspective, support, and wise-eyes).

The End (Or yet another beginning)

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Truly Powerful People (420)

Posted on May 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

420.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I spent the day in an organizational training designed to help people in office settings have difficult conversations. It is a formula, a training from a box, good for any context. It outlines specific communications steps to prevent emotion from overwhelming the conversation. An essential step is to distinguish between “fact” and “story.” The facilitator was excellent and guided us through exercises meant to help us separate our facts from our stories, our emotion from our intention. We practiced our skills in scripted role plays and wrestled with questions like, “I wonder how this would work in an actual crisis or when facing an angry co-worker?”

Our facilitator was very personable, relational, and taught through story and I wondered how I would experience the training with a less capable trainer. Although the information was useful in the abstract I couldn’t help but wonder if it was training from another time – something that had great application in an industrial world, a world where relationships are commodities, but might not be as useful in the age of story (information). It is predicated on a false premise: the processes are rational/sequential, grounded in acronyms and in a hot moment the rational mind leaves the building. It flees. It runs for the hills. The reptile brain is left to navigate the discomfort. The training is meant to make relationship efficient through application of formula (which negates relationship in the moment; the formula pulls focus from the person). It’s built on the premise of separation.

The previous day I had a lengthy discussion that, at least partially, was a pursuit of the intersection of art and science. I wondered when we separated these two disciplines. Leonardo would not have recognized the fence that we’ve erected between them. I suspect we tore them apart at the same time we separated head from heart, mind from spirit, and cast emotion and intuition into the closet.

At lunch Mark reminded me that EO Wilson has spent his life trying to bridge the gap between biology and the social sciences and both camps are firmly in resistance. I joked that the resistance comes from an obvious admission we’d have to make: that ant colonies are as complex as human colonies; no university-educated human wants to admit that an ant is his or her equal. After lunch I wondered if ants attended trainings to learn how to better work together in a hot situation but something tells me they have that one already figured out.

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Truly Powerful People (419)

Posted on May 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

419.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Wikipedia tells me that poiesis is derived from a Greek word meaning “to make.” It is the root of our word poetry and was initially understood as a verb: an action that transforms and continues the world. It implies a reconciliation of humans with the world in which we inhabit.

A word like poeisis can only come from a people less abstracted from nature than are we. Many indigenous people sing the sun to rise each morning; that is an action that transforms and continues the world. There is a different kind of relationship implied when a community believes their actions have the power to continue the world. It is a story of relationship and participation; reconciliation, not dominance. It’s a different kind of story.

Last night I watched a National Geographic special about what would happen to the earth if humans were somehow eliminated. The theme running beneath the disintegration of our cities, collapse of our dams, and disappearance of our roads was how long it would take the earth to recover. How many years would pass without humans before the air cleansed itself of carbon and acid. How many years were required before fish populations recovered, ecosystems transcended our attempt to control things are returned to balance. The message: we are transforming the world and working hard to discontinue our participation.

Earlier in the day I listened to an interview with an ecologist and nature photographer talking about their new book about the signs of collapse in the eco-systems that they’ve been studying and photographing for the past several years. Their message: there is still time, but not much.

This odd word poiesis rolled out of the archives and into my mind. What would we do if we believed that ours to-do was to transform and continue the world – if we chose our actions each day based on our capacity to transform and continue rather than consume and dominate? Poiesis is the root of our word poetry; a verb that implies a reconciliation of humans with the earth we inhabit. Poetry: how to express in language that which cannot be expressed in language. Denial: the refusal to acknowledge the existence of something; the refusal to face unpleasant facts.

What is it that we are attempting to make? What is the story that we are trying to tell?

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