September | 2013 | The Direction of Intention

Meet At “We.”

Posted on September 8, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Many years ago I was watching Johnny direct a play. It was one of Shakespeare’s though I can’t remember which play. Suddenly, in the middle of the rehearsal, he was overcome with the recognition that he and his actors where carrying forward a tradition. They were engaged in an artistic tradition that stretches back centuries. They were carrying the torch in this lifetime so that they might pass the flame to the next generation. Johnny’s passion and recognition was infectious and his cast dawned to the reality that they were in service to something greater than their small parts in a singular production of the play. They became priests and priestesses enacting the ritual story for all ages.

They found deeper meaning to their work. It mattered. They found connection to both the past (the tradition) and the future (the legacy). Their work rippled in time and came alive in the present moment because they suddenly understood who they were relative to the past and the future. They located themselves. This play was theirs to do. Their service to the play and the tradition defined their purpose. Their art was their gift to the community and the community the served transcended time: it reached into the past and stretched into the future.

This is the purpose of the arts: to locate us in time relative to our traditions and our legacy. The arts orient us to the question, “Who are we?” The arts do not answer the question, there is no single answer, but they facilitate an ongoing conversation and exploration of what it is to be alive as a member of a community.

Artists are the keepers of the communal narrative. When the artists no longer occupy the center, the narrative dissipates and so does the society. Rules and laws can hold the pieces together for a while but disparity and self-interest are inevitable. They are harbingers of communal collapse. A common narrative is the beating heart of a healthy community.

No plant can live without it root and neither can a community. No person can prosper alone. The purpose is never the “I.” Purpose requires a target so it is by definition the “We.” Greater purpose extends to the past and the future, just as the roots of a plant reach deep into the earth while the branches and leaves reach to meet the sun. This reaching, this connection to past and future that meets and grows in the present moment defines us. It is the two directions of mattering that meets in the moment of “We.”

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

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, Identity, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: artistry, community | Leave a comment »

Honor The Crow

Posted on September 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

In my studio are two wood, wire, paper and found-object sculptures of crows I made a few years ago. I made them at the time that crows were plaguing me. For a few years crows were a potent and ever present force in my days, dive bombing me when I least expected it. Once, a murder of crows circled my studio for hours. There were two fledglings in the yard outside of the studio door and I suppose I was perceived as a threat. I perceived the crows as a threat.

I’d like to think that I was in my personal version of an Alfred Hitchcock movie – and sometimes it felt that way – but in truth I think the crows did me a favor. They woke me up. If it is possible for a subconscious to manifest itself then my subconscious came at me in the form of crows. It began one day on Alki beach when a crow went berserk on me and would not let me go home. I’m sure I was the talk of the sidewalk as I fled to the beach and found a stick so that I might defend myself. My animal instinct kicked in and I sought open ground and a weapon to use for a fair fight (crows have beaks). The crow left me alone if I walked away from my home but unleashed a full aerial assault if I tried to walk in the direction of home. Finally, I fled to a coffeehouse and hid until the crow flew away (the time it takes to drink two Americanos and eat a chocolate chip cookie).

Crows have facial recognition so I told myself that someone who looked like me had treated the crows poorly. More than once they picked me out of a crowd and hit me from behind. Crows are masters at surprise attacks. But deep down I knew differently. They weren’t attacking me. It wasn’t malice. It was a wake up call. They were helping me.

As is my custom, I searched the symbolism of Crow and this is what I found: “Crow is the guardian of ceremonial magic and healing. In any healing circle, Crow is present. Crow guides the magic of healing and the change in consciousness that will bring about a new reality and dispel “dis-ease” or illness…. Do not try to figure crow out. Crow represents the power of the unknown at work, and something special is about to happen.”

Something special did happen. Something special continues to happen.

For some reason today, I have been hyper aware of my crow sculptures. I’ve found myself staring at them and remembering the original impulse to make them. I wanted to exorcise the aggression, rid myself of their attacks. Now I see them differently. Given the vast changes in my life this year I see them as harbingers of change. From this vantage point I can see how the unknown was at work and, I believe, continues to work. This year I’ve not had a single crow incident.

I laughed out loud this morning when I realized that every shirt I own is black. I’ve internalized my crow medicine. The crows are to me as bees are to Beowulf. What was once my nemesis may someday become my greatest ally. I hope so. That would mark the closing of a circle and the beginning of a new adventure and I’ll be able to bring my crow medicine with me into the next unknown.

(Post 894. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.)

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Gratitude, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Give The Gift

Posted on September 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Amy and I meet for coffee every few months. We usually meet early in the morning, bleary eyed and mostly exhausted by the path we’ve chosen to walk in this life. That’s why we schedule the date: we are exhausted and seeking inspiration. By the time we part a few hours later we are on fire with possibility. It happens every time. We spark each other. We ignite the imagination and remind each other of the riches of art and creativity in a community that understands the creative through the lens of commodity. We leave behind our need to assign value to our work and simple revel in our reason why.

Early on in life, artists learn to either diminish or inflate their gift. In looking for their place in this tribe that knows value only in monetary terms – and art cannot really be understood in such an abstract value system – they default to judge their own work. In the absence of any meaningful valuation they create a shadow standard. They cannot find a place so they invent one and the invention usually comes in the form of a value box: good enough, not good enough, appreciated, underappreciated, understood, misunderstood. It becomes an inner debate, a reason to hide, a certainty of inauthenticity, a story of hidden genius, a disdain for an ignorant community. It is a story of separation or suffering, a story as disembodied as the commodity system that inspired it.

I shared with Amy that a major part of my learning this year has been to get out of the valuation game. I’ve surrendered my shadow standard and am no longer interested in placing my work in a value box. I’m out of the business of inflation or deflation. I have a gift and need not concern myself with its reception. Mine is to give it. Mine is to give it as boldly and joyfully as possible. The value debate sucks air from my offer.

I’ve learned that arts live at the center so I need not seek any other place. They are connective tissue and any form of separation (belief that I am special or less than useful) is anesthetic; it is the antithesis of art. Art joins. Art enlivens. It awakens. It unifies. It does not fit in boxes. It is ordinary, ubiquitous, a path available to every human being. Gifts are meant to be given without condition. Gifts are meant to be opened and celebrated..

Filed under: Art, Power, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Listen To Your Voice

Posted on September 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Today Soleil told me that she didn’t recognize my voice. We hadn’t spoken since last November and needless to say a lot has changed in my life since last November. She told me that I sounded alive and vibrant and last time she spoke with me I was a dead man walking (those are my words. She actually said I sounded sad and tired).

Her comment surprised and pleased me. I’m hearing myself from the inside so I’m not aware of how I sound to others. I feel more alive.

I have in one glorious year blown apart everything I knew, challenged everything I believe, doubted all of my first principles, tossed away all of my safety nets, and whittled away all of my worldly possessions, and a good portion of my body weight. I now own several paintings, a drafting table, an easel, and a rocking chair that needs a seat replacement. I’ve even eliminated most of the clothes I owned last November. I walk a small segment of Seattle each day, in fact, my life paths in Seattle fit within a few blocks. I live nowhere and am alive everywhere. My life is at the same time very small and infinite. Last year everything seemed so complicated and now my life is simple. I think, at last, that the world is my studio. I see art everywhere.

Last week while in Wisconsin, late at night, Kerri found a bat flying around the dining room of her house. She’s lived in the house for 24 years and has never had a bat in the house. We caught it in a mesh trashcan with an improvised lid and released it outside. Later I googled “bat medicine” because I like to know what an encounter with an animal symbolizes, especially when my encounters are unusual. Bats represent rebirth. They mark the passage from old forms into the new. They are symbols of initiation and require the conscious creation of new patterns. I laughed when I read it.

I laugh a lot these days. I laughed when Soleil told me that my voice sounded different. “Tell me what you hear?” I asked. She said, “I don’t know, it’s like you are a wholly different person. I’m having trouble reconciling your voice with the person I once knew. You are so alive!”

Before my call with Soleil I had a conversation with a chiropractor about the difference between choosing a path and defaulting to a path that by being chosen. Both are valid but for me there is an important difference. I started coming back to life when I started choosing. I believe what Soleil hears in my voice is someone who no longer defaults by being chosen. If I don’t want to play on a team I’ve learned to sit down. If I’m not sure which road to take I take a break. I’m learning to listen. I’m going nowhere and that is precisely the door to living. I’ve learned that life is vibrant now; if not now, then never, because I’ve given this moment away and I only have so many moments.

Filed under: Awakening, Power, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Wake Up To A New World

Posted on September 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

891. 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 isn’t explanations that carry us forward, it’s our desire to go on.” Paolo Coello, Brida

I had a very late night. Combined with a very early flight I had no choice but to sleep my way across the country. Not only did I wake up in a different city, a different time zone, a different climate, I also felt as if I woke up into a different lifetime. I was away for a very long time. In that time I traveled by car across seven states in less than 24 hours. I stood in the pouring rain. I heard thunder roll without ceasing for over 15 minutes. I drank too much wine, ran from a skunk, loaded a truck with furniture and boxes, played poorly a ukulele, laughed until I had to sit down, cleaned a pond of leaves and debris, put my feet in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, fell asleep on the sugar white sands of the beach, danced like it was the last day of my life, ate when I was hungry, walked at midnight almost every night, sang a James Taylor song over and over, and took a load of treasured shoes to the salvation army. In that time, Tom died and I was inundated with calls from people who wanted me to know. Friends long lost reached out to me to wrap me in their warmth and condolences. I had conversations of grief and celebration while standing on a pier, sitting on a park bench, riding in a car, sitting in my bed, and walking through the leaves fallen too early. I took off my shoes so I could feel them crunch beneath my feet.

When I stepped off the plane I entered into a familiar airport but it seemed as if it was familiar from another lifetime. I knew the place but was no longer the person who knew the place. I stood in SeaTac for a few moments and wondered if I was dreaming. People raced passed me. They had flights to catch and family to meet. I was in the way so I stepped to the side. I kept waiting for the scene to change. I kept waiting to wake up but I didn’t so I wandered through the airport, I taught a tourist how to buy a light rail ticket, I bought one for myself and rode the train into downtown.

Once, many years ago, I visited my elementary school and although everything was as it had been when I was a boy, it all seemed so small. As I walked from the train station to my studio I had the same impression. This place has become small. Or I have grown and what once seemed boundless now feels tight and confining. Standing in my studio, I opened the windows to let in the air, I remembered Carol saying, “I’ve broken up with the world. I want a whole new relationship with it so I’ve let the old relationship go.” That’s it, I think. I have broken up with the world. I’m not going to wake up from this dream because I woke up into this dream. While I was gone I let the old world go. I can’t explain it. I have new eyes. I’ve awakened to an opportunity for a whole new relationship with the world.

Filed under: Perspective, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Flip It!

Posted on September 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

890. 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 has been a summer of flips. Things that seemed so difficult a few months ago are now easy. Things that seemed so easy a few months ago are difficult. My paradigm is flipping. For instance this morning I had a difficult conversation that ultimately became about the necessity of giving voice to the hard-to-say stuff. What seems confrontational often goes unspoken because it doesn’t feel safe. I’ve often withheld what needs to be said so that I might remain safe. Here’s the flip: hiding (not speaking) is an acknowledgement that you do not feel safe. It might feel safe to withhold your voice but it’s not. What goes unspoken festers and grows. It becomes a monster that gobbles you up. In truth, what goes unspoken is fundamentally unsafe. Giving voice to the most difficult stuff is the safest thing you can do. Giving voice in the difficult moments is like shining a light into a dark corner. There may or may not be a monster lurking in the corner but you’ll never know until you shine the light on it. I’ve lost many a precious relationship by withholding my voice, by not saying what needed to be said.

It’s not lost on me that during this time of flipping that I am partner in a business start up, appropriately (and coincidentally) named Flipped Start-up. The original purpose of the company was to flip the perspective of new start-ups. They generally focus on the wrong stuff and step into some obvious potholes because of it. However, there was a false premise lurking under our original intention. I’ve known and taught ad infinitum that you can never control what another person thinks, feels, or sees so to create a company based upon the premise that we could change what people see was…clumsy. It seems that the purpose of Flipped Start Up was to flip me.

People do not change. They grow. They learn. They look into dark corners. They learn to speak. They see that the monsters that they imagined are, indeed, imaginary, self-made monsters. And the primary thing we learn to do when we become powerful is to illuminate, to reveal, to give voice. To show up, not as we think we should be, but as we truly are.

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