Identity | The Direction of Intention

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Posted on September 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s been 24 hours of ritual passage.

Last night, far off the beaten path in an old barn swept clean and decorated simply, Kerri, Kirsten and I attended a wedding. Well, truth be told, we attended the reception. Kerri played for a wedding and then we jumped in a car and drove several hours into rural Wisconsin. There was feasting and toasting and dancing. Old friends reconnected. New friendships were established. I’ve always thought that a good wedding was like a barn raising: a community comes together in support of the creation of something new, special, and useful. This was a good wedding. The ritual was filled with laughter (so I’m told). The barn was raised. Two became united into one. The elements of earth, water, air and fire are part of this union, nestled in a cornfield, a bonfire roaring, wine flowing, and the dancers breathing deeply.

With a few hours of sleep we were back in a church for services that included a baptism. A water ritual, a blessing of transformation; I’ve not attended many baptisms so I paid attention. I was delighted to realize that this water ritual is meant to welcome the new spirit into the community. The pastor kissed the baby on the head and said, “We have your back.” The congregation laughed and nodded.

Later, the congregation celebrated communion. I watched this ritual, too. “This is my body, take this and eat. This is my blood, drink….” This, too, is a ritual of joining. The community eats the god, they take the god into their bodies and in so doing become the god. They unify. They transcend. The bread is earth like the body is earth. It returns to dust. When alive, the body is fire. It eats, consumes, burns calories, and is constantly transforming. The air moves through the lungs, oxygen is carried through the body in the blood. The blood and body are water and fire and air and earth. “This is my body, take this and eat. This is my blood, drink….” The Makah literally consume their god, the whale. They hunt and eat their god. Actually, the god, the whale, chooses the worthy hunter to enact the ritual. The god feeds the people. The people resurrect the god. The indigenous people of the plains ate the buffalo in an agreement of death and resurrection. The god will feed you and, in exchange, you must perform the appropriate rituals to bring it back to vital life. It is a beautiful cycle.

Marriage. Baptism. Communion. Thresholds all. They lead to joining, belonging, and transcendence of the small self to participation with something much greater. Life honors life.

[910. 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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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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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 »

Live The Metaphor

Posted on August 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It’s 3am and I am wide awake.

I have been goading Horatio for years to write a screenplay called 3am Man. It’s about a man who can’t sleep. He is troubled about the events of his life and his insomnia drives him to the streets and he makes a pass through the culture of the night. After months of walking through the underbelly of the world he finds peace and sleep. I think the story is Greek in scope. It’s Orpheus descending into the underworld. He’s torn to bits and resurrected (put back together again). It is Osiris, the same story from an earlier mythology. It’s a universal cycle of life.

Mythologies are not dusty old stories. They are metaphors of our personal stories, the stories of our lives. If you know how to read them they can be enormously helpful during times of being lost or alone. They can help orient you when life is spinning you around. In this lifetime we will all be torn to bits and put back together again, more aware, and usually with a new assignment. This is the story of the year past for me. I’m like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. I lost my stuffing. Now, having been torn to bits and in the process of reassembly, I can help Horatio write his screenplay because I understand.

I used to work at this time of night. I found it peaceful to paint while the world slept. It’s almost as if the frenetic psychic energy of the daylight hours scrambled me. I found peace, clarity and an open channel in the quiet. Tonight, in this quiet, I am sitting in a house that is being pulled apart, the possessions of a lifetime pulled apart, put into boxes and divided among relatives. If I understand my mythology correctly, even this process of a life torn to bits will ultimately lead to reassembly somewhere down the road. New life will come of it. Energy will take another form.

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Pass It On

Posted on August 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

The locus of my family has shifted from my generation to my nieces and nephews. They are now having children of their own and I delight in watching them assume the role of parents. They are the generation of becoming and are hungry to learn the family narrative. My brothers, sister and I are the story-bridge generation. We are now grandparents and grand uncles. We are the channel between the elders, my parents, and the youth.

As the channel I am more acutely aware that not all stories are created equal. There are the day-to-day stories. These pass through. Then there are stories that belong in the cabinet of curiosity. These are life event stories like the day my sister brought her future husband home to meet the family. We tortured poor J.T. on that first meeting and he laughs heartily at the retelling. The story is legend in my clan. The subject for debate is whether or not my dad carried a shotgun on that first meeting (he doesn’t own a gun and never has but he’s also remarkably resourceful when an opportunity for mischief presents itself)? I know the answer but won’t tell (I was there and wore a Little-Bo-Peep costume). I like the debate and the gales of laughter that it brings my sister’s children.

And then there are the campfire stories, the narratives that define us. These are foundational identity stories. Every family has them though in our modern era it is common for a family to not recognize them. These are the root stories and from these stories the family vine grows. The answers to the three great questions (who am I, where do I belong, what is mine to do) are blossoms of these tales. No one truly knows who he or she is separate from his or her foundation narrative. Vines cannot grow without a root. People cannot grow without a meaningful connection to their root story.

Stories form layers of personal and family identity. Stories serve as both root and nutrient. The next time my clan gathers in such numbers I will be the elder, my nieces and nephews will be the channel to their children who will have become parents. And the cycle continues. We recreate ourselves in the telling. We nurture the soil in the sharing. We make visible the web of our connection. Stories are so much more than recounting the past. Stories are how we re-member ourselves, affirm our belonging, and reach from the past through this day into the distant future.

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Who Really Knows?

Posted on July 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

My inner anthropologist rubbed his eyes and sat up as I walked across the city this morning. For some reason he took an interest in the phrases that people wear on their clothing or that adorn their bags. The phrase that woke him was, “I eat cake for breakfast.” It was stenciled prominently across a woman’s shoulder bag. He looked around his study for a pencil because he wanted to write the phrase in his notebook. He asked, “Does eating cake for breakfast signify that you are breaker of rules?” I didn’t respond so he continued, “Or does the fact that you have to announce it imply that you are a ruler follower and want to be seen as a breaker of rules?” She was clearly on her way to work in an office tower (we watched her enter the building) so I told him it was an excellent question but remained noncommittal. Who really knows?

He huffed at me but then immediately spied a man in a black shirt with the phrase “Turn That Sh*t Up!” emblazoned in bold green letters. The message was aggressive but the man was meek. He wore a matching hat and pressed shorts. He also wore white socks with black sandals – it is a common sight in Seattle in the winter but frowned upon in the summer. He was self conscious of his clothes. My inner anthropologist was thrilled with this find. It was a fashion contradiction, a betrayal of message and messenger. “Look at that!” chirped my inner anthropologist! Such a bold message scrawled on a less than bold messenger! Perhaps it is aspirational statement!” he posited as he scribbled in his notebook. “Why do people wear specific phrases on their clothes?” he asked. “Identity,” I offered, knowing that could mean anything. Each of us chooses our hairstyle, we pick our clothes, and design how we want to be seen. Clothes in any form and combination are a statement. We are essentially saying, “This is who I am.” Or more specifically, “This is who I want to be.”

“Yes, yes, I know all of that,” my inner anthropologist sneered in frustration. “Why the phrases?” Just then a man walked by with messages tattooed on his arms. “Better and better!” my inner anthropologist exclaimed. “Follow him!” he commanded. “See what message he’s tattooed on his body!” There was a symbol, a cross, covered by a circle-slash, and the words “anti-Christ” adjacent to the symbol. “Oh my!” my inner anthropologist said, setting down his pencil, “Well we know what he’s against. I wonder what he’s for?” I remained quiet. Who really knows?

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Why do people work so hard to tell the world how they want to be seen?” I thought of Quinn. Many years ago he told me that if someone told me that they were an expert, it was a sure sign that they weren’t. He said, “Someone who really knows what they are doing has no need to tell you. They don’t need you to know.” My inner anthropologist returned to his couch and lay down saying, “I wonder what phrase I would choose for my t-shirt if I wanted to claim an identity?” I remained quiet. Who really knows?

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Get Messy. Get Human.

Posted on June 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

823. 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 shocked me when she said it. “Roles are clean. People are messy.” On the surface it doesn’t sound very radical. However, spend a moment considering how many roles you play in your life, how often you pretend things aren’t messy, how often you sand the edges off of what you think (to the point of saying nothing) and you’ll find yourself standing in a large pile of radical revelations. Who are you separate from the roles you assume? And, how does that impact what is yours to do or yours to say?

Her follow-up question almost killed me: “What would it take for you to put down all those nice clean roles and just be a messy person?”

It is messy to say what you want to say. It is messy to say what you need to say. It is messy to say what you think. It is messy to disagree, to have an opinion, to defend an unpopular point of view. It is messy to say, “We can do better. This is not right.” Go against the grain. Break the chain of easy mindless action. Roles are constructed on the “should” principle. Roles are necessary to know where you belong in the herd. Stepping out of the role is scary because it reveals the person behind the curtain.

Recently I’ve been learning that innovation is the blossom of disruption. Steve Blank writes that entrepreneurs need to learn to navigate and thrive in a constant state of disruption. Disruption opens eyes, disturbs patterns, shakes the complacent awake. The vice president of sales will probably not cause disruption. The bank president will sustain the status quo. The teacher or principal are not likely to stir-the-pot as disruption will threaten their paychecks. Roles are clean.

Her third question dropped me to my knees: “Why are you so protected against being a person?”

“What is it,” she asked in conclusion, “what is it about the messiness of being real that makes you seek safety in your role?”

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Lean And Rest

Posted on June 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

820. 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 811, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19]

Bali Journal Excerpt #10
At lunch, Rai told me that he also had no religion and then he corrected himself. “My religion is goodness,” he said. “Dharma,” he added. “In my religion you only need do your action and god will determine the result.”

In Bali, it is common to see a woman making an offering in the middle of a busy intersection, motorbikes flying by her. Her offering is normal to them. Each morning a new flower appears in my room. I never see who places it there. In a crowded temple, a man I have never before seen leans on me to rest. It has been a long night and he is very tired. I am filled with warm gratitude for what he teaches me.

This is the final excerpt from the journals. It is the one that touched me the most almost 13 years after writing the words. I realized that I am still filled with warm gratitude. I realized that my religion to be goodness. I am learning to do my action and let go of trying to determine the result. This, especially, has been my lesson during this long winter of wandering.

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Do You Know M.A.N?

Posted on June 13, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

816. 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 811, 12, 13, 14, 15]

Bali Journal Excerpt #6
At the Preventing Child Sex Tourism in Denpasar, I sat to lunch with a man named Rai. He was very educated and had a passion for the worlds religions. He was familiar with the holy writings of most major religions. He asked me about my religion. I answered that I had no religion. I told him that I had a spiritual life but had no particular attachment to a system of belief. He smiled and nodded.

We talked of tourism and its impact on Balinese culture, both positive and negative. He told me that in his village of Kuta that the people believed that the many changes in Kuta over the past few years was the result of Black Magic. He also told me that this event was predicted. He used a word for the era in which we are living but I can’t recall it – but said the English equivalent was something like ‘apocalypse.’ “In this time,” he explained, “people forget Atma.”

“What is Atma?” I asked.

He responded, “Do you Know M.A.N?” I didn’t. “M stand for Maya. All that is transitory is Maya: money, friends, status, power, and the body are all Maya. When people focus on things that are Maya, things that are transitory, they can only be unhappy. This is what is happening in Kuta. ‘A’ stands for Atma. Atma is your soul, your god-nature. You are god.” he said, touching his heart chakra. “When your mind is Atma, you are happy. Atma is eternal. Do you know Mahatma,” he asked? “Like Mahatma Gandhi? Mahatma means Atma,” he laughed. “Mahatma is the one with gleaming thoughts. When you are Atma your mind is not attached to the transitory. Detachment from all things leads to Moksa. Moksa and Nirvana are the same thing. ‘N’ is for Nirvana. Moksa is a state of being. When you are attached to nothing, living as Atma, you are said to have Moksa. M.A.N.”

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Invite The Soul

Posted on June 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

815. 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 811, 12, 13, 14]

Bali Journal Excerpt #5
Madeleine asked me if I would go with her to see the Balian. She wanted me to scribe for her – to take notes of her session with Jero Manchu. I’d written off my previous experience at Jero Manchu’s compound. I didn’t listen to the inner voice. I ignored the imperative to, “Ask the Balian what was missing.” Now, I sat with Madeleine before the Balian. The Balian sang, breathed incense, and was quiet for a moment or two. Then, she turned and began speaking to me. I’d not asked a question. I was there in support of Madeleine.

Jero said (through a translator): “The one in you wants to be purified at the beach. One is pulling you there; one is pulling you in another direction. This is why you feel at a crossroads. I suggest you pray to the one not committed to you. Pray at the beach before the sun is rising. Invite the soul – he is still in the water – invite him into your body. Ask him to be happy in you.”

I was stunned.

It seems, thirteen years later, my work in the world is to invite the soul. I did my ritual on the beach (it is a journal entry coming soon) and my soul eventually came out of the water and into my body. He is very happy and getting happier each year.

The lesson or action is universal to people, organizations, communities,…the internal tug of war reveals the split gate, the investment in being right. It reveals the place where we divide and pull in opposite directions. Power over or control are usually the drivers of the split. There is nothing worse than having two experts come to dinner. There’s nothing better than having two masters come to share a meal.

Heal the split by stepping into the space between. This is to invite the soul into the body. Heal the split by shifting the focus from the points to the vectors, from the fixed to the fluid, from the staid to the movement, from the particle to the wave. Invite the soul. Ask him or her to be happy in you, as you.

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