Awakening | The Direction of Intention

Truly Powerful People (455)

Posted on June 7, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

455.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

(continued from 454)

Alan: The point of meditation is to be more fully present (life is a meditation).
Diane: Imagine yourself as sacred and watch all the separations disappear.
Judy: We are nature observing itself.

Ana-the-wise once told me that my goal should be to make all the world my studio. In other words, to drop the notion that there is a single place where I create or am most creative; that my artistry is my being and not in my doing. This is a more powerful thought than it might first appear. It is a thought with serious traction especially when you are ready to drop any notion of separation – when going to church on Sunday does not a worshipper make. In other words church/synagogue/mosque etc. is not a place to go – it is every place and how you are in it matters. I cannot leave my studio and believe I leave my creative impulse behind without a serious cleaving of my self from my self. If all the world is my studio, if I am always in a sacred place, then the relationship I have with myself must be primary; the story-I-tell-myself-about-myself and the world needs to be conscious and intentional.

Diane’s lesson of developing a better relationship with your self (entertain the realization that you are sacred – try it), ignited within me a chain reaction of thought: 1) If I truly pay attention to the relationship I have with myself and give it as much nurturing and attention as I give other relationships, I learn that 2) my thinking matters. My thinking is how I interpret my experiences. I learn that my thinking can continue swirling in the reactive whirlpool (science tells us that the vast majority of the thoughts we think everyday are the same thoughts from yesterday – don’t ask me how the good folks in the lab figured that out but they did) or I can 3) learn to direct my thought. I can place my thought on what I choose. I can choose my thought. This is a muscle to be exercised not a bit of magic from a hat. You’d be amazed how many times a day I catch myself spinning in a drama-loop and say to myself, “Is this where I want to place my thought?” The answer is always “No.” And, when I ask the question my preferred thought placement is always crystal clear and easily available. 4) Where I direct my thought matters because it determines the world I see and how I am in it. It is a creative act.

When I am in my studio I rarely “think.” I am in a quiet space, a still place, clear and alert and something “comes through.” Why would I limit that potent powerful way of being and confine it to the room I call my studio? Why would I not craft my life to be 100% in the studio?

Ana-the-wise is aptly named: All the world can be your studio. Diane knows it begins with the realization that you are sacred and should treat yourself as such. Alan understands that the point of this life (cradle to grave meditation) is to be fully present so you can do as Judy suggests: revel in nature observing itself.

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Truly Powerful People (454)

Posted on June 6, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

454.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Once, a few years ago, in the class that Alan and I co-facilitate, we had an important conversation about meditation. We’d begin each class with a group meditation and the class participants went deep. They went away. And as they slowly bobbed back to the surface we bumbled into a discussion about the ultimate point of meditation. Alan said, “The purpose of meditation is not to take you away, but to bring you more completely into presence. The purpose is to wake you up to this moment.” It seems obvious but the conversation was a revelation for me.

A few days ago, Judy-whom-I-revere and I took an arm and arm walk through downtown and she told me that she believes our reason for being is to give witness to this extraordinary planet. She said, “We are nature observing itself.” Isn’t that extraordinary!

I am taking a course from Diane and the foundation thought is what she calls “Divine Realization.” The realization is that you and I are sacred and for reasons too numerous to count we discount ourselves as less-than. She is teaching the practice of developing a better relationship with your self: know your self as sacred and you will see the sacred in the world. It’s a powerful practice. What if the relationship you have with yourself was primary? What if loving yourself was the most important thing you did all day – what if tending the inner garden was more important than the to-do list? I recommend it. You’ll be amazed how much better you become at bringing your best self to the world when you actually pay attention to your best self. Awareness alert: It will require you to let go of your Victim attachments so do not get on this bike until you are ready to ride.

The point of meditation is to be more fully present (life is a meditation). Imagine yourself as sacred and watch all the separations disappear. We are nature observing itself. How’s that for a feedback loop!

(to be continued)

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Truly Powerful People (450)

Posted on June 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

450.
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 years the question I have most dreaded is the cocktail party standard, “So, what do you do?” I’ve never had a simple answer. I’ve never had a single answer. And usually, my answer serves to complicate rather than simplify. Once I stopped feeling bad that I didn’t have a simple answer, once I recognized that I was never going to have a suitable answer, I decided to make the moment an opportunity for play: I used the untenable question to sort my encounters into “those people I want to know” and “those people that I do not.” I went on offense. Without hesitation I tell them whatever comes into my mind; the people that step toward the chaos go into the “people I want to know” bucket. Those that flee the chaos have self selected themselves from my future friend pool. Recently, my newest favorite friend took me to lunch and started our time together with, “Who the hell are you?” It’s worth noting that he also has no simple answer to the dreaded question.

Once, at a conference for doctors, I performed a piece that was written to seem autobiographical, but was fiction through and through. I played the role of a doctor. Off the stage, I was surprised and delighted when people called me doctor! They didn’t realize that I was an invention – and I did nothing to help correct their perception. It felt good fitting into an identifiable box. “Doctor Robinson,” they said, “Thank you for telling us your story.” I smiled and said, “Thank you for listening to my story.” All the while I was thinking, “Mom would be so proud!” For one glorious day through my invention I felt the simple joy of being identifiable to others. And, in that day, I realized with relish that it is all an invention. None of us is truly identifiable; no one is the role that they play. Double liberation!

There is an exercise I love doing with groups: pretend that your memory will be erased in 5 minutes; before your memory is gone, before 5 minutes elapse, write all that you want to remember, all that you think you value, all that you want to recall about yourself. People write about their families and relationships, they write phone numbers of important friends, they write of their dogs and their desires. I’ve done this exercise with groups hundreds of times and once, only once, at a retreat, a woman wrote that she loved herself beyond measure, that she was fulfilled and talented and caring. When I asked her about it she said, “If I have a clean slate and can only know myself through what I’ve written, why not tell myself a great story. Why not invent an amazing me.”

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Truly Powerful People (441)

Posted on May 24, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

441.
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 the world has me shaking. It’s cold in Seattle but these shivers have nothing to do with temperature. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by the beauty and immensity of living and feeling that I quake: too much energy through too small a wire.

I was walking and thinking about the people I love and those that love me (it’s a great practice – give it a try) when an eagle flew 3 feet above my head pursued by a murder of crows. The eagle seemed to be playing with them, a game of chase and for some reason I was included in the game! It was as if the eagle used me as a post or tree; a spot to circle around, change directions and confuse the crows. The eagle looped back to me several times, each time changing directions just above me. The frustrated crows slamming on the breaks, skidding through too-fast-direction changes, swerving chaos trying not to knock each other out of the sky. I have an antagonistic relationship with the crows so I appreciated the eagle’s game more than I ought: I imagined the crows as Keystone Cops chasing an eagle-Charlie Chaplin and roared with laughter.

I stood still to better play my part (plus, I was enrapt by the antics). Paradox alert: In my stillness the entire universe came into focus, which means everything lost its distinction. Clarity is indistinct. I was no longer a watcher or a participant. The eagles and the crows and the Sound moved as if in sync; it was a ballet; a dance of giving and receiving. It was one motion -or better – one being in motion. I was so stunned and overwhelmed that my body, my little piece of the infinite universe, started shaking.

I sat down and this thought slammed to the front of the line: Perhaps it is not too much energy through too small a wire. Perhaps the shaking has nothing to do with capacity. Perhaps it is an invitation to love and play: too much desire for life and too little practice embracing it. Perhaps the shaking is my little piece of the infinite universe opening to the dance.

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Truly Powerful People (439)

Posted on May 22, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

439.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Debra decided to be miserable. There was water damage in her apartment and the when the landlord identified the source he found the extent of the damage was much worse than he expected. The repair was nothing short of reconstruction. The work was scheduled to take 45 days. She told me, “I’m going to hate every moment of it. If I can’t control my space I go nuts. I’ll just hate it.” Assigning two “hates” to a single circumstance left no room for doubt: Debra was going to be miserable. Fifteen days into the repair I passed her in the hall and asked how the repair was coming along. Her answer, “I hate it. I hate every moment of it.” I was not surprised. She’d carried the two “hates” into her life just as she’d planned.

Ellen decided that there was nothing she could do. Like many educators she told me she “loathed” the standardization and testing madness that continue to drive the public schools into the dirt. She told me that her children were suffering, the teacher’s were suffering, and the community was suffering. And then she said, “There’s nothing I can do so I just go with it. What else can we do?” “Loathe” is a powerful word. So is “helpless.” Apparently, “helpless” is more powerful than “loathe.”

What is it to loathe and still choose to participate? What is it to decide that you are helpless? What is it to decide to “hate” your experience before you actually have it?

Once, while sitting in the passenger seat of a car spinning out of control on a freeway, time slowed and I closed my eyes because I’d decided that what ever was about to happen was surely going to hurt. I heard the tires squealing and the beating of my heart. And then, nothing; stillness. There was no crunching of metal, no breaking glass or screams of pain. I opened my eyes and saw my brother gripping the steering wheel. We were facing the wrong way and all the cars around us had stopped. We didn’t hit the concrete barriers, other cars, rails, or plunge into the river. We were still. My brother, with his eyes wide open said, “Do want to get a drink?” and then, “Welcome to Kansas City.”

We decided that we were fortunate. We decided that, although losing control of a car on an icy freeway bridge was thrilling, it was only necessary to do it once. We decided that there was a lot we would do differently if circumstance ever presented us with another icy bridge.

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Truly Powerful People (431)

Posted on May 14, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

431.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune – without the words
And never stops at all.
– Emily Dickinson

When I lived in Santa Maria I used to run early spring mornings between the strawberry fields. They were alive with birdsong. Sometimes I would stop my run, stand still, close my eyes, and listen. The song always quieted my mind and lightened my heart. It brought the life I yearned to create one step closer; all possibilities were within reach within the magic song of the birds.

This lazy afternoon, twenty years after the birds first taught me about incantation, I sit on the balcony with my eyes closed. My world is alive again with birdsong. It’s as if all the nation’s bird choirs have gathered in the field across the street for a hope-song competition and I have been selected as the sole adjudicator. I’m taking my time picking the winning team because I do not want this hope-fest to stop. If my heart were any lighter I might lift off the balcony and join the singing, disgracing adjudicator’s everywhere. It is moments like this that irresponsible decision-makers like myself award the blue ribbon to all the teams. They are glorious, singing their hearts out trying to distinguish themselves and help me with my soul decision.

I wonder if they know that they are magic? I wonder if they know the power of possibility that they stir in the human heart? I wonder if they know that they bring mighty love one step closer? Fingers outstretched and reaching to touch our heart’s desire; with their birdsong magic entire worlds shimmer, take shape, and perch within grasp.

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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 (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 (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 (411)

Posted on April 24, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

411.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

At the beginning of her one-woman show Amy sings an invocation from Homer. It is a song to the muses. She tells us that we cannot understand poetry in the same way that the Greek’s understood it. The poem, she reminds us, was calling forth the gods. The poem was literally re-creating the world through the telling. The story was living tissue that connected the community to its root, it’s ancestry, its descendants, its identity. The people present with the poet were the burning point, a link in a chain that stretched back beyond memory. Listening was recreating. Listening was embodying. The poets were the rememberers; they were the vessels that held the communal story and to tell it was sacred rejuvenation.

Amy’s play is beautiful in that it begins with a question many of us ask, “Who am I?” This is a question about meaning: how do I give context and meaning to this world and where do I fit into it? Her search takes her through memory and emergence and leads inevitably to the present moment. Past. Future. Present. She winds a path through great thinkers, re-members her intuition, and at last steps toward confusion and words of body and fire, words like ‘ecstasy?’ “Where are my ecstasies?” she asks. Not just one ecstasy, many. The Greeks were not Puritans.

Her question directs her to the sea. In a dream she stands in the surf, looks out and witnesses the old gods, the Titans, rising from the water and coming toward her. And then it hits her. “Now I understand,” she gasps. “We call the gods. They don’t call us.” The Titans arise because she needs them in her “forward moving feast of the self.” We call them with our infinite capacity to create, with the exercise and expansion of our creative spirits, with our appreciation of the beauty and debt to the natural world that sustains us. For a moment, a brief moment, Amy was the priestess/poet singing her song of invocation, her song reaching back to the Greeks and beyond, her song stretching forward to another woman in the distant future who realizes that the Titans are waiting for her call.

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