Emergence | The Direction of Intention

Eat Well

Posted on March 6, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Lovers,” a work in progress by David Robinson

[continued from LOOK BEYOND THE BOX]

I’m looping back to Craig’s questions concerning boxes and stages. I think the next question to wade into is about what I see from my stage and when did I know to create my stage.

This is the view from my stage. It may sound bleak at first but stay with me:

Yesterday I had the opportunity to travel into Chicago and work for a couple of hours with Skip’s class at the Illinois Institute of Technology. They are budding entrepreneurs. There’s lots of energy in the world today bubbling around this word, “entrepreneur.” Accelerators and incubators are popping up everywhere. We are now a society gorging on new technology; since we are modeled on the Rome of the Caesars we have little patience for digestion (it takes time) so we prefer to vomit what we just consumed to make room for the next course. We are living at the time of an idea feeding frenzy and mind blowing technological advances. Folks with resources but few ideas are hungry to link up with folks with ideas and no resources. Everyone is insatiably hungry. No amount of gorging will satisfy the hunger.

In our world of rabid consumption, nutrition isn’t necessarily a high priority. I mean that literally and metaphorically. For evidence, look at what the networks call “news.” Long ago we realized that entertainment is more profitable than reporting so reporting is now entertainment. It matters little if there is substance to the story so long as people consume it. More evidence: one of my favorite rants of the past decade came from Dane, a neighbor, who was sitting on his stoop eating a bag of potato chips. He called me over to look at the ingredients listed on the package. High on the list, in fact the second ingredient listed, was sugar. Dane screamed, “There’s more sugar than salt in my chips!” He fumed, “I’ve been reading the ingredient lists on everything and there’s sugar in everything. It’s more important to get us hooked than to feed us anything of substance!” Of course, the punch line to the story is that he ranted with his mouth full of chips. Another bit of evidence: I stopped counting the times I’ve heard a politician say, “We have to weigh our interests against our values.” You can find a variation of this statement in the news of the day everyday. You can find an example of it in your life each day, too. How do you weigh your interests against your values?

This consumption/nutrition question is the epicenter of confusion for lots of people. It is the reason many boxes and stages are constructed.

Most people that I work with are seeking greater meaning. They want a richer experience of life. They want to fulfill their potential. In the midst of their consumption of time, they feel consumed. They have little time to breathe. They have little capacity to develop deep, meaningful relationships. They are finding that their stuff doesn’t fill the void. They are finding that their achievements are hollow unless they serve the real needs of others. They always find that what they seek is something that they’ve had all along: relationships.

There is no magic to sustenance. Slow down and enjoy your meal: literally and metaphorically. Slow down and make the meal: literally and metaphorically. Slow down and make the meal from food that hasn’t been processed: literally and metaphorically. Care for the soil and you will grow healthy food: literally and metaphorically. This requires slowing down. All of these are about the relationship you have with your world. All rich relationships require lingering and the riches are always in the relationship. Always.

Substance is always about a relationship. Relationship can’t be consumed; it must be entered and/or engaged. Tend the relationships, especially the relationship you have with yourself. In this way, the box or stage you construct will be built from self love and self love is the wellspring of love for others.

I see riches in the relationships all around me and a species (homo sapiens) trying to remember what it means to eat from the tree of life.

[to be continued]

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

Go here to get a hard copy (it’s Amazon)

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, entrepreneur, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: life, relationship, seeing | 3 Comments »

Look Beyond The Box

Posted on March 4, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

one of my paintings (untitled) from the Yoga series

[continued from SEE THE BOX]

Craig’s question is bigger than a single post can accommodate. He’s both reflecting and asking several questions about the boxes people construct around themselves, about building personal “stages” and what becomes visible to us when we open ourselves to life without editor or inhibition. He’s asking deep river questions about the assumptions we make when we look at others through the lens of our own experience. He asked about what I see from my stage and when did I know to create my stage. And, here’s the kicker question, “When was the last time you stepped up and saw something you didn’t know was there?”

I want to start with the last question first because I believe it colors all of the other questions. At this point in my life, there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t see something surprising or new. I know that sounds like a superficial dodge until you consider that it wasn’t always the case. Like everyone else, I was schooled in a long series of mistaken notions: 1) that people need to know where they are going before they go there, 2) people need to know what they are doing before they do it, 3) knowing is something that happens in the head, and 4) that truth is singular and knowable; believers in right/wrong paradigms are especially fond of this point.

It took a few years (okay, decades) to realize that “knowing” is a process and not an arrival platform and, therefore, no body knows. People build boxes around themselves because they think they must know what is unknowable. People build boxes around themselves because they think they must look a certain way or think what others want them to think. People build boxes around themselves in an attempt to control what they can never control. No one really knows where they are going (well, everyone knows where they are going but dying is an existential question – a topic for another post). No one knows what tomorrow will bring. As Marshall McLuhan wrote, people step into the future with their eyes in the rearview mirror. We make sense of today through yesterday’s eyes so we can only “know” what happened, not what will happen. The day before September 11, 2001 people walked into airports to greet their friends and relatives at the gate. And then, the very next day, like millions of people, I sat in front of a television and watched a plane fly into the World Trade Center. That day I understood that what I thought I knew was basically useless.

Each of us has, at one time or another, had a personal September 11^th. People learn. They grow. They have experiences and then make meaning of their experiences. People change. Life is a moving target. At one point in my life I started my own school within a school. It was experiential and filled with filmmaking and theatre and performance art. At the beginning of that era of my life I thought I would run that school until I the day I died. Three years later, I was done with my exploration in education and I surrendered my cushy tenured position and ran for the air of uncertainty. People story themselves according to inner imperatives through lenses of past experiences. The idea that we are primarily rational and reasonable is…not rational or reasonable.

At some point, when you cease thinking you know stuff, your eyes open. You see beyond what you think. Everything is surprising beyond the dull-wit of thinking. Thinking (a language-based activity) will always be an abstraction. Put a word on something and you delude yourself into thinking that you “know” what it is. This is especially heinous when applied to other people. People build boxes around themselves because of the words placed on them or the words they place on themselves.

Mostly, people build stages for the exact same reason. Saying, “I’m not going to be influenced by others; I’m going to act independent of others” is also a delusion constructed from notions of “knowing” or trying to determine how others will see you. Most stages are constructed from the desire to control. Sometimes the biggest box looks like a stage.

When you no longer need to know anything, you see surprising things everywhere you look.

[to be continued]

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

Go here for hard copies (it’s Amazon, don’t be afraid;-)

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: expectations, experience, life, seeing, Self Growth, self knowledge, stages | Leave a comment »

Wake Up

Posted on January 12, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

The Elders by David Robinson

Many years ago I took a class called Art and Transformation. Over several months we studied the art of different culturals, specifically cultures that understand art as central to their health and wellbeing. It is not correct to say we studied: we made art. We drummed our way into trance and drew what came to us in the trance. We participated in a sweatlodge to find the symbols necessary to make medicine shields. We meditated and made sandpaintings. We sat still in nature, drew with our nondominant hand, gathered dream symbols, made mandalas and explored what it means to be connected through art to “something bigger.”

In the weeks following a class session, we painted work inspired by the class experience and then gathered to share our new work. It was amazing to see the change in my own work when I was rooted in the deeper rivers of life. When I was working from the actual experience of connectivity – and not a mental abstraction or a concept – my paintings startled me.

We worked for months – consciously – with transformation as the central impulse driving our visual forms. I learned through the class that “transformation” and “connection” were the same thing. Growing in consciousness is almost always a recognition of unity. As Joe said, “The universe tends toward wholeness.” Becoming more aware, opening the doors to greater consciousness, is how that tendency toward wholeness shows up. We see.

I also realized during the course that “story” was central to transformation. Art in its purest form is meant to be the keeper and transformer of the identity of a community. Identity is a story based on certain agreements a community makes about nature and time and god. Story needs context to make sense. I know this sounds like a loop and it is. Transformation is usually a movement toward wholeness (unity) and the movement is made visible through a change of story. I used to say, “Change your story, change your world,” but stopped because the phrase generally invoked wrinkled brows, protests and confusion. Most folks see their story as “reality” and will do anything to defend their reality. Initally a change of story can feel like an assault on reality.

I was once called on the carpet by a superintendent because a play I did with students challenged the reality of the teachers and parents. The superintendent shouted, “Art is supposed to entertain.” Well, yes. Art can entertain. Art is supposed to challenge, to shake the tree of assumptions, to help the community see itself. Art is supposed to help a community ask, “Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? Is this what we believe?” I sighed and asked the red-faced superintendent, “Why are you so upset?” Her response: “The play made me uncomfortable.” Yes. Powerful art will always make us uncomfortable. Growth is always in the direction of discomfort. When the universe within us tends toward wholeness we will inevitably walk into vast fields of discomfort. It is how we wake up and see.

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

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Peel The Onion

Posted on September 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

It is the eve of the big move. Tomorrow we fly to Seattle to pack up my possessions – mostly paintings, a rocking chair, and art supplies – and drive east. After months of wandering, paring down and letting go of all things familiar, I am creating a new home.

Many months ago, on December 31, the eve of 2013 with my life freshly exploded, a tarot reader told me that being by the water was essential for me and that I should at all cost stay by the water. I wouldn’t normally invest too much in the specifics of a card reading except that this particular reader has been frighteningly accurate. She told me with startling precision the details of what would happen to me (and for me) throughout the spring and summer. It’s as if I am living through the notes that I took from the session. I laughed when I knew in my guts that it was time to move and I realized that my move would take me from the Puget Sound to another powerful body of water.

I have felt for many months that the universe sent its border collie to herd me to a new pasture. I’ve been making choices but my choices seem guided or predetermined. It’s as if I am seeing a GPS map with a bright green line that shows me the path. The voice in my head is clear “In 300 feet, turn right…. Turn right.” And I do. A few instances early on I turned off the highlighted path, saying to myself, “This can’t be right! It can’t be this way!” And each time my metaphoric car broke down. I heard, “Recalculating,” and, when I listened, I was guided back on course.

In the past several years I have often used the word, “surrender” and keep thinking that I know what that word means – and I learn again and again that it has more layers than an onion and I am only beginning to grasp the depth of its meaning. To give over does not mean to live without intention. To let go does not mean to relinquish responsibility for choices. To surrender requires a destination in mind; it’s a paradox. It means to be a wayfinder, to listen to the ocean of life, read the fingerprint of the waves, hold the destination in mind, and call the island to you. It means that obstacles and deviations are necessary and never what they seem to be. Sometimes what looks like an obstacle is really a palette of choices or a regulator of time: you might get to the crossroads too soon and the universe needs to slow you down. It means to understand that life is a long-body of phases and not about fixes or arrivals or outcomes. In this sense, surrender, listening and presence are really the same thing.

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.

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Step Into Your Ordinary

Posted on September 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday I had a moment that was truly surprising. It will not sound like much but to me it was profound. I was raking leaves and deeply appreciative of the fall and thinking of my life a year ago. The fall is a reflective time for me and the repetition of raking facilitates great mind wandering. Last year at this time my metaphoric house was ablaze from a fire that I’d lit. I was intentionally burning down everything that I knew. It was the second time in my life that I’d put a match to my life. One year ago the fire was burning hot and rather than run from it like I did the first time so many years ago, this time I stood in the flames. I’ve learned that the conflagration is total and to run only prolongs the burn. The fire will always catch the firestarter. It is better to embrace the path rather than choose it and then deny that it was a choice. So I stood still and burned.

I’ve already written too much about my months of wandering. It is enough to say that I had no map and was in a new geography. I drank deep from the cup of lost. I had great teachers, met some dragons, acted poorly, fought bravely and was blessed with an extraordinary guide and master who could only go so far with me. As is true in all great stories, the last mile I had to do alone. That’s the point of most transformational ritual: the community and guides can carry you only so far. Dying to the old form is necessarily a solo act. In the course of a single lifetime there are several cycles of dying and rebirth. The dying happens alone yet it always leads to rebirth, renewal, and a return to the community. The transformation of the community happens through the transformation of the members of the community and vice versa. It’s a cycle of renewal just as is the cycle of the seasons.

And this brings me to raking leaves. I was content. I was nowhere else and wanted to be nowhere else. I didn’t need to achieve anything or change anybody or facilitate a revelation for anyone – not even myself. There was no gap between me and my artistry or my work. I am my artistry. I am my work. My moment of profundity: I realized that I’ve stepped into my ordinary. I feel no need to defend or justify or explain or lie or glorify. I no longer need to be anything other than the raker of leaves, the painter of paintings. Peace. I understand that raking leaves and telling stories and painting paintings and dancing in the front yard and making dinner are all celebrations of life.

[906. 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.

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Glow With Sun Fire

Posted on August 27, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

885. 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’m on the road for the next two days and new posts are impossible. So a repost. This was #554:

Sometimes in the early morning, before the sun rises over the ridge, the osprey will soar high, higher than the ridge, catching the sun light before we land dwellers can see it, and burst into orange fire. The markings of an osprey look Egyptian to me, a pharaoh’s bird, so when they catch fire with the sun, not only am I dumbstruck with their beauty but feel as though I am witness to the appearance of a god or goddess, Thoth maybe, or Isis. And then the osprey dips beneath the ridgeline and the glow extinguishes; they are once again gorgeous in their mortality, mere birds of prey. But, I caught a glimpse into their true identity, their godhood.

I feel that way about people everyday. We walk on this earth beneath the ridgeline, beautiful in our mortality and every so often we rise above ourselves, we show up even for a moment, and the fire reveals itself.

During intake sessions for new coaching clients I like to ask, “What is yours to do? What is the thing that drives you?” I’ve been asking this question for years, it has become an experiment of sorts. You might be surprised to know that 100% of the time my clients respond, “I want to help people.” The form of helping varies but the impulse to serve others is universal. People seek my services because they feel they have not fulfilled their potential and fulfilling their potential always means helping other people.

It’s a paradox unique to a society that celebrates individual achievement over communal health and wellbeing: we place our focus on personal achievement and feel vacant, unfulfilled if our work has no impact on others. We focus on the gold medals and miss the moments that truly matter. Artists who paint but do not show their work soon stop painting; there is no point without the other.

Dado delivers my mail everyday. Ron fixes things in my apartment when they break. What would I do without them? The good folks at Alki Auto fix my flat tires and don’t charge me. Jen checks me out of the Metropolitan Market; she knows my name and always asks where I’ve recently travelled. Someone I don’t even know stocks the shelves at the grocery store, someone I will never meet grew, nurtured and tended the peach that I just ate: it was so flavorful that it made me moan.

The osprey does not know when it flies above the ridgeline; it does not know it is glowing with sun fire. Perhaps we would recognize the godhood in each other and ourselves if we sought our fulfillment, not in an abstract outcome like “potential” and instead took stock of the little generosities and service that we offer each other every single day.

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See The Hope

Posted on August 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

880. 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 am deep in the woods in Indiana. It is night and the crickets and frogs are thunderous, pulsing. There are no city lights blotting out the stars so the night sky is vibrant and shimmering. Coyotes howl in the distance.

Bill and I have been talking all evening about hope. His focus is on health care and the movements that are circumventing the established systems. I have been talking about education and the power of access via the web to level the playing field for all people.

We sat on the porch until we were cold and then moved our conversation inside. We talked about how we are living in the greatest period of change in the history of humanity. We are living in the age when the line has blurred between science fiction and ordinary existence. In times of great change the old established systems grab on for dear life. They try to strangle the new. That is how systems change. The old fears the new. The old cannot recognize the power and potency of the new. The caterpillar can never truly see or understand the butterfly. And, since we are seeing so many white knuckles on the establishment, there is reason to celebrate. The butterfly is coming.

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Invite The New

Posted on August 14, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

875. 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 morning I caught my first whiff of fall in the air. It was subtle yet distinct. There was a chill in the breeze, the scent of falling leaves, harvest and melancholy. People are running to the beaches or into the parks “for the last time” this season. What seemed boundless just a few weeks ago is now limited. I’m counting the number of times I hear, “I only have a few more days!” It is the limit that makes life precious.

For me the fall is the time of renewal. It is a time of new beginnings just as a new school year represents a new beginning. For the past week or so I’ve been meditating on what I want to invite into this new beginning. What energy am I bringing into the world and what energy do I wish to allow into my life? Last year at this time I was pulling things apart, melting down the known, stepping off the edge; I was inviting in chaos. I was opening the door to fire and hot transformation, to forge and anvil.

I am quieter now. I have no room for crazy-makers or backward looking. I have no room for my self-inflicted crazy-making. Once in a workshop a woman asked, “Why did it happen?” I responded, “The question ‘Why?’ doesn’t matter. It happened. What will you do going forward?” Sometimes to ask “Why?” keeps alive the pain-loop – it’s a great strategy for not taking the next step. The question “Why?” can be a swamp. Who knows why?

I have lived too many years of my life with my eyes in the rearview mirror asking “why?” The last year of my life makes no sense and I have spent an inordinate amount of time either looking for sense or trying to make sense of it. I can explain it fifteen different ways and many of the explanations are contradictory. None are true. All are true. In the end it will have the sense that I give it. It will have the energy that I assign to it. It will carry the sense that I invite into my life. Sense making is energy creation. It is a lens. So, I ask myself, “What is the energy that I want to bring into the world and what is the energy that I want to invite into my world?” I’ve had enough of fire. Now it is the time for breathing. Now is the time for inviting new breath and clean air.

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Listen To The Dragonfly

Posted on July 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

859. 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 a note to the blue dragonfly that marked the path today. I am given to seeing metaphor and symbol in almost everything. Serendipity and synchronicity hold hands everyday in my life. Karma meets coincidence. All year I’ve told people, “There have been helping hands all along this path.” There have been harbingers and guardians. To me, a few of my friends look a lot like angels.

Dragonflies have been present throughout this time of wandering, too. One year ago I came to a leaping point in my life that was marked by a dragonfly. It was singly dedicated to staying by my side. I have come to think of that particular dragonfly as a threshold guardian. I was ready for the passage so it accompanied me as I stepped through the water (the deep memory) and into unknown lands. I literally passed through a watercourse with the dragonfly as my constant companion. He left when I made it to the far shore and leapt.

A week ago, I was visited by an orange and crimson dragonfly. I’d just emerged from the faery ring when it came calling. This was a visitor of another sort. It felt like reassurance. If it could have spoken it might have said, “Did you feel that? The faery ring signals a change. The cycle is shifting with this new moon: the centrifugal will become centripetal. The hard growth is nearly done. The fruit of your labor will ripen now. All is spiraling back to the center.” This dragonfly was a harbinger of the return. “You are almost home,” it whispered with its wings.

Today the dragonfly was blue. This, I believe, was Hermes. He is the messenger of the gods, walking freely between the world of mortals and the divine. He is also the protector of travelers and I think he came today to give comfort, protection and to deliver a message. The message read something like this: despite what you think, you do not walk this path alone. I am with you.

And so to the blue dragonfly, thank you. The message was clear. Keep stepping into the unknown. I know that there is no other direction. I know that my intellect and reason are of no use on this path. There is no sense to be made. Intuition is all.

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Wake Up

Posted on June 28, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

And then came a poem from Rumi came in my email.

After years of numbness and dulled existence it is not uncommon to stand suddenly and shout, “Enough!” The shout is a surprise and you find that you are, for the first time in years, awake. In that moment of self-possession a choice presents itself. Since you do not know who is the target of your shout and are surprised at the vehemence of the shout, you stand there, disoriented and angry at nothing in particular and everything in general. The next moment presents a choice. Go back to sleep – which is comfortable and known. Or you must continue shouting, shake yourself awake, and refuse to go back to sleep – which can be extraordinarily uncomfortable until the blood flows, curiosity takes over, and you orient to a life of full sensation. It takes a while to see and feel and appreciate after being so long asleep.

The poem:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”

-Rumi

It takes awhile to stop shouting and stand still to feel the breeze of dawn on your face and listen to the secrets it tells. It takes a while to know what you really want and learn to ask for it in a voice that knows the range between a whisper and a shout. It takes a while to step out through the door and ask yourself, “I wonder what’s out there?”

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