Clear The Static

'John's Secret' by David Robinson

‘John’s Secret’ by David Robinson. I’ve used this image before but this painting came to mind while writing so I’m using it again.

So many of my conversations with the stained glass window have to do with returns. For instance, the first conversation was about the return to silence. Over the year, we’ve had lengthy chats about the return to the sacred, a return to light, gratitude, alignment, unity, presence and love. Today our conversation was about the return to voice.

When people talk about voice they generally associate the verb “to give.” Give voice to your thoughts. Give voice to your ideas. Giving voice implies that you have something inside that is unexpressed. It implies that your inner editor has run amok and has a choke hold on your communication. Release the grip and give rein to your voice.

Free expression is all well and good but giving voice also comes with a caveat. Someone I once knew told a great story of a woman who grew tired of hearing her associates complain about not having a voice. This woman, in a fit of frustration, asked, “If you had a voice, what would you say?” It is a potent caveat: it is not enough to have a voice. In addition to the capacity to give voice you also need something meaningful to say. The 24-hour news cycle is rife with great examples of voice sans content.

My conversation with the window had nothing to do with giving voice to the unexpressed or to the necessity of useful content. The window surprised me. The window reminded me of a favorite quote by Vincent Van Gogh: If you hear a voice within you say, “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. Oddly, my discussion with the window about the return to voice had to do more with with silence than with sound. It had to do with the quieting the static. In other words, full expression is available when the inner radio station is properly tuned. Clear the noise and the channel opens. Clear the noise and act: paint the paintings, write the next book, create the Be-A-Ray performances, give life to my play, The Lost Boy. The return to voice is a path that leads through quiet. It is a paradox and to my great delight it is a paradox that loops back to my very first conversation with the window. Silence and voice, voice and silence: they are dynamic and intimately connected.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Be Chosen

photo-3A few months ago Kerri and I went to look at guitars. The salesman reiterated what she’d already told me: you’ll know it when you see it. It’s personal and not rational. It will choose you. I played several guitars that day and a few more since and have yet to be chosen.

So it was with great wonderment and mirth that yesterday I watched Kerri be chosen. One of the first things I learned about her was that she has a deep river yearning to play the cello. We’ve often talked about it as something that may happen in the distant future, almost as if it was a fantasy or out of reach. In our travels we’ve seen a few cellos for sale that have served to pluck her yearning but nothing more.

Yesterday we went into the local music store to pick up a loaner trumpet for an Easter service. To the left of the register was a cello. It was as if the store and everyone in it disappeared. Dale was unpacking the trumpet to show her when she caught sight of the cello. It was like the sun and she was pulled into its orbit. Dale was in mid sentence when she walked away, touched the cello as if it was her long lost child, and caught her breath. Dale said, “Kerri? Kerri? Do you want to see this?” She was gone, beyond the land of Easter trumpets and caring for the day-to-day. We watched her pluck the strings, listen to tones, and whisper things like, “Ohhhh” and “Ahhhh.”

Dale raised his eyebrows and looked at me. I said, “Wow.”

He closed the trumpet case saying, “This can wait.” We both knew what was happening.

When she returned to earth and the land of Easter trumpets, Kerri peppered Dale with questions about the make of the cello, how it compared to other cellos, what he thought about this particular cello, and if he thought she was crazy to want to play the cello. He kept a remarkably straight face and answered all of her questions. She left the store to think about it but called and asked them not to sell it for 24 hours.

Many years ago I met Arnie for dinner. He’d just been asked to apply for a superintendent’s position and I spent the dinner listening to him tell me all the reasons why he shouldn’t throw his hat into the ring. “It’s a thankless job!” he insisted. “Why would I put myself into such a miserable position!” he thumped the table indignant with himself for even considering the option. We both knew he would do it. We both knew it was his destiny. We both knew he would be offered the job. When he’d exhausted his resistance we laughed and acknowledged what we both knew. He got the job and transformed the district. In transforming the district, he transformed himself.

When Kerri left the music store I felt as if I was having dinner with Arnie all over again. She told me all of the reasons why she shouldn’t get it. She listed the thousand and one reasons why it made no sense. She told me all of the things that she could do with the time and money that it would take to own and learn the cello. And when she’d exhausted her resistance, we laughed and acknowledged what we both knew. She had been chosen. This was her cello and it would give her life and light her creative fire.

Later, after bringing the cello home, we talked about how the important moments in life rarely make sense. Sense making is the province of the known; sense making is backward looking. The transformational moments are transformative precisely because they make no sense, precisely because they require a step away from what is known. From the point of view of sense, transformation seems ludicrous.

This is why art never makes sense. To be vital it is not supposed to make sense. Art is meant to pull you into the unknown where a cello can call your name.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies.

Give Yourself Some Advice (3)

A younger version of myself rehearsing for The Creatures of Prometheus. The tats are fake!

A younger version of me rehearsing for The Creatures of Prometheus with The Portland Chamber Orchestra. The tattoos are fake!

[continued from GIVE YOURSELF SOME ADVICE (2)]

Here’s the third and final section of Horatio’s Advice To Myself. He sent it to me in an email last week. Horatio is one of my dear companions in art and artistry and I was so moved by his words that I asked him if I might post his thoughts. Were I still teaching young artists, this would be required reading:

Do not make work that attempts to control others. That is only advertising or propaganda and sustains no one. Make work that connects to others. That is sustaining. 

Do not make work that exalts yourself alone. That separates you from others.

Walking is good for you. Eating and sleeping are good for you. Loving is good for you. All those things sustain and heal you. Make your work like those other things. That kind of work is good for you, and for everyone.

Bragging is not good for you, or for anyone.

Never work in order to be famous or get rich. Never confuse your work with either one of those false goals, even though either or both may come your way.

Fame and riches are burdens and require a whole set of tools and abilities not at all related to the work that may have brought you fame and riches. No one but a very small minority of the rich and famous and a few visionary souls who are not rich or famous understand this. It may be the greatest false idol of human self-fulfillment of all time.

Time is the only asset that really matters. Value and prioritize it. You also need enough food and shelter, which usually means money. But enough is enough. That’s all that matters.

Having enough money for food and shelter is a necessity of doing good work. You have no choice but to figure something out. There are many paths. 

You will make bad choices. Learn from them. Forgive yourself so you can make other choices. Keep pursuing the real work.

You will waste effort and time. You will do work you don’t like. Everyone does. Try again.

All good work contains a discovery, something necessary for human life, even if it’s only that you need to drink water. 

All good work shows how we are all human, both you and your audience, that you connect, that you are the same.

All good work shows that it matters that we are all the same.

[to learn more about Horatio’s films or to read the complete Advice, visit www.Fidalgofilms.com]

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies.

 

Give Yourself Some Advice (2)

Finishing a painting is really about having a conversation with yourself. This one is talking!

Finishing a painting is really about having a conversation with yourself. This one is talking!

[continued from Give Yourself Some Advice]

Here’s the next bit of an email Horatio sent to me with his Advice To Myself. He wrote it following a question from a reporter about advice he’d give to emerging filmmakers. I am particularly fond of this section as many of my teachers, mentors, and guides are now passing away and I am revisiting what is mine to add to this “ancient conversation.” Here is the next section of Horatio’s advice to himself (for the full text, visit his blog at www.fidalgofilms.com):

Respect the boundaries of others; do not seek to control anyone else. You can only control your own choices.

Learn and honor with absolute integrity your own boundaries so that others may not try to control you or your work. Unfortunately, this is usually only learned through a certain amount of trial and error. 

Learning to trust is an art, and absolutely necessary. Learn to trust yourself first. Learn to trust others.

Always respect the tradition of your work, its ancient human conversation.

Connect to tradition, to all your teachers and your teachers’ teachers. Give yourself to it so that it can give to you and to your work. Honor it with rigor and doubt, with hours and hours of study and practice.

Then let your teachers go, follow the path that you understand as truth. You will know it when you see it. It will be your part of the ancient conversation. Likely, you will find that parts of one or two of your teachers have become part of you.

If you do not let your teachers go, your part of the ancient conversation will not be yours, but rather what you think other people want you to add to the conversation. That is not from you and only clogs up the conversation.

[to be continued]

Horatio asks great questions: What is the tradition that you carry forward? I follow the line of Tom and Marcia McKenzie, who learned from DeMarcus Brown, who learned from Eva Le Gallienne, who learned from…. What teachers/teaching do you need to let go?

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies (Amazon)

 

Give Yourself Some Advice

Horatio as a young man

Horatio as a young man

A few days ago I received an email from Horatio. He is an amazing filmmaker and gifted visual artist. We’ve wiled hours and days away talking about art and acting. He’s a treasure. His email was advice that he wrote to himself, the artist (what a great idea!) and with his permission, over the next three days, I will share it in segments. If you are impatient and want to read ahead, visit his blog or take a gander at his work at www.fidalgofilms.com. Here’s his email with the first portion of his Advice To Myself:

The evening after screening The Bath at Taos Shortz Film Festival in March, 2014, a very adept interviewer with the wonderful name Tamara Stackpoole (straight from Downton Abbey or Jane Austen?) asked if I had any advice to emerging filmmakers. My answer, as I recall:

“Let your teachers go. Just tell your own truth. Learn the craft – setup and payoff, three-act structure, and so on – and learn it well. But then let it go and tell your own truth, your vision. You’ll know it when you see it.”

When I woke the next morning, I realized that I had a lot more to say, and that it amounted to advice to myself. It follows:

You only can control yourself, which means your choices. You cannot control anything else.

Choose ethically, you will regret anything else.

The foundation of ethics is to respect others. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Be humble. Pride is the foundation of all the deadly sins, according to Dante and his mentor Virgil.

Your work is the essential ingredient of your life, an expression of your choices, your ethics. 

Connection to others is the essential mechanism of ethics.

A reciprocal connection of human to human (parent/child, student/teacher, artist/audience, friend/friend, or lover/lover) is the basic means to give yourself to others and to receive from them, to further yourself and others.

You will always be learning and practicing that kind of connection. You will never be finished. 

[to be continued]

Prompted by Horatio’s inspiration, I’ve started writing my version of Advice To Myself. It’s a great exercise and amounts to yanking the blankets on what matters to you. It begs the question: what will be your legacy? What might you write to yourself?

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies.

Bang On Stuff

from Lucy & The Waterfox by David Robinson

from Lucy & The Waterfox by David Robinson

John said, “The real challenge is how to help people across the ‘I can’t’ line.” What a great phrase! I imagined myself drawing a line in the sand while my imaginary inner-voice shouted, “Don’t step over this line!”

“Everyone has an “I can’t” line.” John added, “The challenge is never the external stuff. It’s the stuff in our heads that stop us.” Too true!

John is a terrific drummer and extraordinary teacher. He told me that many people come to the drums from the place of, “I can’t” and his job is to hold their hand as they cross the threshold. “Of course they can,” he said, “they just need to know it.”

“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you help them know it?”

“I have them bang on stuff and I bang on stuff with them.” He smiled.

In other words, gets them to experiment and play. When experimenting, there is no line between can or can’t. It’s a unified space called, “Let’s see!” In play, there is no need for achievement or expertise; there is only play. Bang on stuff and see what happens: it is a great definition for artistry. It is beginner’s mind.

In Austin Kleon’s latest book, Show Your Work, he suggests that we be intentional amateurs. He writes, “Amateurs are not afraid to make mistakes or look ridiculous in public. They’re in love, so they don’t hesitate to do work that others think of as silly or just plain stupid.”

If you desire to step across the “I can’t” line, embrace your inner amateur. Work for the love of your work and not the need to impress or “do it right.” Bang on stuff. Make messes. As Skip says, “Put a stake in the ground and then test it.” Pull on the chain. Walk through the door. Ask questions. Try a new technique. Invent a new technique.

In a bizarre and beautiful chapter in my life I was given a full ride scholarship for a masters degree in costuming. I’d never touched a sewing machine and was a danger to myself and others when trying to cut things with adult scissors. “Why not!” I said to myself and I went for a year. After turning in my first assignment in costume construction, the professor hugged my muslin mess to her breast and laughed, saying, “In the history of garments there have only been 7 possibilities (shirt, pants, skirt, etc.) and you have just created the 8th!” I didn’t know what I could or could not do so I did anything. It was fun. I had no “I can’t line.

John reminded me that the world’s first drum was (and is) a heart. “Everyone’s a drummer,” he said. “The day you can’t drum is the day you are dead.”

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies.

 

Embrace The Paradox

Mark Seely's gift to me: A Wordle of my blog

Mark Seely’s gift to me: A Wordle of my blog!

This is a landmark post: number 1000. When I started blogging I told Horatio that I feared I only had enough thought for 10 posts. He said, “If you can write 10, you can write 1000.” I wrinkled my brow in disbelief but it turns out that Horatio was right. With every step comes a new perspective. Kerri has a phrase I love: take down one tree at a time. In other words, if you can’t see where you are going, take the step that you can see; many single steps translate into miles of walking just as one post at a time can become 3 years of small thought-shares all in a row. What is a lifetime but a long series of days?

I’m writing this from a dining room table. All around me, covering the walls, are long strips of newsprint with a gathering storm of many colored post-it notes. The notes contain phrases, actions, like “Burn Your Trash,” or “Both Feet In, “ or “ Leave the Yuck Behind,” or, as you’ve already guessed, “Take Down One Tree At A Time.” They are story prompts. They are insight and idea prompts. Each prompt is associated with one of Kerri’s music compositions (she has 15 albums to date, with material enough for 3 more). They are building blocks for concert/storytelling evenings or keynote speech/performances. From the more than 60 post-it note prompts (and growing) we can combine any 9 to configure an audience-specific performance. The possibilities are endless. The viable themes are both unique and universal. Our umbrella title is Back To Center. We have a series of workshops to compliment the performances. The workshops illuminate the extraordinary moments and liberate the boundless capabilities of we mortals, we ordinary human beings. The big box is appropriately a prompt: Be A Ray!

Kerri and I are bringing our work together in a new form: Be A Ray!

Kerri and I are bringing our work together in a new form: Be A Ray!

As it turns out, I am a man of my time after all. The notion of a series of discreet component thoughts assembled to create a universal conception is taking over all of my processes – writing, painting, coaching, facilitating. It is the “many small steps making one large journey” philosophy of creation. It has taken over our world. It is contemporary: note the thought behind an App store or an Army of One. It is natural; cells do it. In the blog world it goes by the name of a “plug-in.” Build your own burger: design your car from the available components. It is the illusion of individuality in the midst of a constraint of choices. There is no arrival, just continuing process of expansive and interchanging capability. It is the Kahn Academy. Work at the pace that is appropriate to you. It is yoga: begin where you are, not where others are. It is what the old world of government process (ridiculously obscure tax codes), health care, education…the usual bureaucratic suspects and old school businesses do not understand. The world of rolling process has ascended; products and outcomes are obsolete before they hit the shelves. Story is more accurate than data (data is, after all, a type of story).

Nimble thinking requires nimble processes. Expansive living requires expansive thinking. Cathedrals are built one block at a time but the secret story of a cathedral is that it is never finished. It is always under construction, always changing, updating, repairing and modernizing. That’s the point of a sacred path. Stability, your sacred home, in this modern age is now found in motion, in a pure engagement with a moment. This is what we mean when we say, Be A Ray! Get into motion and focus your intention. Safety is never found in stasis.

Yesterday I wrote that a good life is marked by the capacity to stand solidly in the constancy of discovery. It is a paradox. Another prompt on the wall, one of my favorites, reads, “Embrace The Paradox.” Yes.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies.

 

 

Sizzle!

an illustration from a book I never published: A Dragon's Tale

an illustration from a book I never published: A Dragon’s Tale

I’m breaking my book down into component actions almost as if I was dissecting a play script. It’s an interesting exercise because I’m experiencing a measure of creator’s blowback: I’m having the distinct impression that someone else wrote this book knowing that I’d read it someday. The author formerly known as “me” knew that I’d need to know what it contains. It is often true that we teach what we most need to know.

I started my component part breakdown because I’ll soon be throwing people into an exploration of the book’s 9 Recognitions. I wanted to chart the actions of the story and the learning embedded within the narrative. I say, “throw people into an exploration,” because I eschew the word “teaching.” My life has taught me that good teaching is about creating a container for exploration. Good teaching involves no teaching. Good teaching is watching and waiting for the right moment to ask a single simple question: what did you discover? The response will always be personal and relevant to the learner. No amount of control or planning can match the power of relevant personal discovery.

A side note: good teaching and a good life share a common center: the capacity to stand solidly in the constancy of discovery.

The primary thought-river that carries the raft of my book is “to have the experience first and make meaning second.” Making meaning second is what we do even when we think we know where we are going. Life is mundane only when “mundane” is the meaning we assign to it. Life goes bland and gray when we make meaning prior to having experiences.

The word “presence” is shorthand for having experiences before assigning meaning to the experience. If you strive to be more present simply cease thinking that you know what’s coming. You don’t.

And so, this is what my component part breakdown/book blowback looks like:

“Throw them into an exploration.” This is a remarkably different action than, “teach them.” (Another Recognition from my book: the language we use to assign meaning matters more than we know).

“Ask a single simple question” This is also a remarkably different action than, “teach them.” Live in the question and not the need for an answer.

When I was an aspiring actor deep in my acting school studies I learned that the verbs that I choose matter. The actions that I assign to my pursuit can ignite me up or block my path. The same is true on my discovery path: when I am making meaning, use really good verbs. There’s no need to minimize the sizzle of this extraordinary life.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies (Amazon)

Dream It!

a blast from the past. A self portrait of yearning from long ago.

a blast from the past. A self portrait of yearning from long ago.

[continued from Step Into The Dot]

Standing with both feet in your life means you get rid of Plan B – or at least to put Plan A and Plan B in the right sequence. It has been a source of wonder for me why people (including myself at times) pour their energy into the back-up plan before they jump head first into their dream. Dreams rarely seem practical. Plan B always seems practical. In fact, that is the role of Plan B: lower the bar so it is easily cleared.

I’ve mentioned before how often in coaching relationships I hear the story of people diligently building their art studio but never entering it. Or, if they allow themselves to enter the creative space, they sit, frozen, unable to pick up the brush or the camera. It is dangerous to entertain the freedom that comes with dreaming. It’s as if we allow ourselves to pull back the covers, peek at the dream, to get close enough to feel the heat of it, but not close enough to ignite it into possibility. It is a special kind of pain to delay a dream. It satisfies the desire to want it but not pursue it. It affords the soothing notion of, “ I tried,” or the devastating notion of, “It wasn’t realistic.”

Kerri and I are bringing our work together in a new form: Be A Ray!

Kerri and I are bringing our work together in a new form: Be A Ray!

This is why Kerri and I are combining our performance, teaching and storytelling gifts in a palate of offers we’re calling Be A Ray! Dreams deferred cause energetic eddies; they make people swirl, putting time and energy into actions that feel good (like building a studio) but do not move the intention forward. To stop the spin is to see the pattern of deferment. It is to see the story beneath a lifetime of actions that lead everywhere but in the direction of the dream. In our vernacular, to “Ray Up!” is to stop the spin, to look squarely at the dream, and to seize the second chances. It is to claim the dream and pursue it.

Dreams need not be realized. They only need to be pursued. In fact, a proper dream pursuit is never realized just as an artist is never finished. Like every good art process, the dream changes with the pursuit. It grows and morphs until the pursuer and the dream unite. There is never an outcome, only a joining, a blending of dream and dreamer. And, this blending is the reason most people go with Plan B. Dreams can’t be controlled and neither can dreamers once unleashed. In other words, the first step in Raying Up! is to relinquish control. Pick up the brush and throw paint; let go of outcome and live in vital process. Let go of what anyone else thinks of your dream and dream it.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies.

Honor The Split

after hurricane Katrina I was invited to write an illustrate a children's book. There is only one copy: the original went to a child displaced by the storm. This is the first plate. The book is called 'Peri Winkle Rabbit Was Lost.'

After hurricane Katrina I was invited to write and illustrate a children’s book. There is only one copy: the original went to a child displaced by the storm. This is the first plate. The book is called ‘Peri Winkle Rabbit Was Lost.’

Another of the revelations that tumbled through my mind yesterday concerned “splits.” I’ve written often about split intentions, a concept that the fabulous Viv McWaters encapsulated for me when she offered the Chinese proverb: Chase two rabbits and both will get away. Much of my organizational, educational and creative coaching life has been in service to clients who come to me when they have split their intention and are watching both their rabbits escape. I helped them unify their intention and, therefore, clarify their pursuit.

The dark side of the moon that I rarely talk about (and that came clear to me yesterday) is the necessity of a split intention at certain points in a process that make growth possible. The best example is the split that happens within a caterpillar’s body once it cocoons. The encoding for “butterfly” activates, the caterpillar’s body reads it as a cancer, and a battle ensues. A split occurs: to remain a caterpillar or to become a butterfly. Old systems do not easily let go so the caterpillar’s body fights and nearly defeats the inner butterfly intention. However, the resistance makes the butterfly code grow stronger and it fights back. This back-and-forth inner debate progresses until finally the caterpillar’s body collapses into mush (in story cycles, this “mush phase” is the step into the unknown). The mush slowly takes on a new shape and a new identity emerges. The final necessary battle is the newly formed butterfly’s struggle to exit the cocoon. Help a butterfly out of the cocoon and you will kill it; the final struggle is necessary for the wings to grow strong.

This necessary split plays out in humans, too. All change (all stories) begin when the main character (you) are knocked off balance by an event or an inner imperative. This is the moment of a necessary split intention: do I stay or do I go. After being knocked off balance we do the same thing that the caterpillar’s body does: we run to safety and grab onto what we know. We fight off the necessity of change, denying the imperative, grasping for the feeling of security we no longer possess. This is a necessary phase! This debate, running to the safety of home and hiding – and then walking to the edge of our known world and staring at the horizon – and running back home again, creates heat. It gets energy moving. This back and forth, this inner split intention is necessary. It makes the imperative grow impossible to ignore. It is the process necessary for the main character (you) to understand that what was once secure is now suffocating. The discomfort of the unknown becomes more attractive than the safety of the known because of this inner split, this tug-of-war. When, like the caterpillars body, everything goes to mush and there is no way to go back, the only way forward is to step into the present moment without form or identity. Letting go of the known, stepping into the unknown, is the beginning of reunifying the split. Stepping into the unknown is a commitment to a single rabbit to chase.

The split creates the heat necessary for change. At the right moment in every life story, just as in the caterpillar’s transformation, a split intention is essential. To rush through this phase is just as devastating as trying to help the butterfly out of the cocoon. Trying to eliminate the discomfort too soon is a sure way to stay split and ultimately kill the transformation.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies (Amazon)