Love | The Direction of Intention

Look To The Little Things

Posted on October 12, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Megan-the-Brilliant and I talked late one night about the little things in life; we both agreed that they are the most significant things, those little moments that we almost always miss. She told me of being stunned into silence by the yellow leaves falling in a perfect circle beneath a tree. No other tree in the park was shedding its leaves. This single tree was ringed by a brilliant yellow circle of it’s leaves and in the morning light, it was electric. The next morning, on our way to the airport, she took me to see it. I gave her an assignment: I asked her to go to the tree the following morning, take off her shoes, and walk in the circle of leaves. I am waiting for a full report.

Sometimes the small things surprise you: you discover the circle of leaves. Sometimes you create the small things: you drive to the circle in the early morning light, take off your shoes, and walk through the brilliant leaves. I am practicing moving though my life looking for the small surprises. It makes me move slower, to expect the surprises. I am never disappointed as each day, everywhere I look, I see the little miracles, the kindnesses, the generosities, the electric trees, the mesquite smell in the air.

I am also practicing creating the small memories. Last week I stepped into the river. I climbed a fallen eagle tree and peered into an abandoned nest. I threw bark in the water to make a splash. I ate slowly my chili and smelled a warm, freshly baked cinnamon roll. I splashed paint with a little blonde miracle. I sat before a fire late into the night, drank wine and talked of small things.

Filed under: Education, Emergence, Love, Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Dance A Circle

Posted on October 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

We drove up Mount Lemmon to have a picnic and to scatter Margaret’s ashes. She loved the mountains of Tucson and there is no better leaping place for Margaret’s soul than the top of Mount Lemmon. We found a perfect spot, a view for miles, a place of utter beauty and inspiration. She would have clapped her hands together and said, “Perfect!”

Mary Ann made our picnic from the leftovers of Margaret’s celebration of life party the night before and we feasted and laughed. We told more stories. We waited for the right moment. Lora and her brother climbed down the rock face and discovered the place where they wanted to establish Margaret’s alter; it was an almost perfect circle of soil nested in this world of rock; it held a single hardy, sturdy tree. Her grandchildren built a simple altar: wild flowers, stones, crystals, roses, and a photograph of Margaret in her prime. We spoke words and read poems. And then, we took turns spreading some of her ashes. It was too solemn and Dante, the youngest of the grandchildren, somehow knew…. She took the sack of ashes and descended further down the rock face. We stood above and watched as she very slowly, at first very carefully, began to release Margaret with the wind. Dante’s gestures were large and soon took over; I do not think she noticed when her gesture became a dance of giving Margaret back: Dante danced Margaret. Margaret danced Dante. The circle of life peaked from behind the curtain for those few gorgeous moments. Time stood still.

Dante finish her dance. The curtain fell closed again. Ordinary time returned. We climbed back to our picnic spot with the simple inner quiet and satisfaction of completion. Margaret was free. Dante had showed us the circle. Mary Ann asked, “Does anyone want a brownie?” Life, once again, began to flow toward the ocean and with chocolate and friends and family we left the mountain transformed.

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Choose Love

Posted on September 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In a recent coaching forum call, Alan said, “Choose love. No need to ask how or fret about it. Just choose it.” We were doing an imagination exercise, working with taking radical steps. The possibility of choosing love without a qualifier was revolutionary for many people on the call. No need to modify or justify your choice. Just choose it. Choosing love, as it turned out, was a radical step.

To many people on the call, choosing love as the organizing principle, as the baseline for all other action seemed so far out of reach as to be impossible. Choosing love was an abstraction, like walking on the moon is an abstraction, something that is imaginable but certainly not doable.

What is love? Is it an achievement? Like a moon shot, does it take complex mathematics and the latest technology? Is it something we find? Is it something we manufacture? There are entire industries built upon the search for love and the inevitable disappointment. Hearts are opened and hearts are broken so the choice of love must always come with strings attached, right? The strings are certainly untenable. Is this love?

Think about the implications in the lyric, “Looking for love in all the wrong places….” Yikes! Love cannot be something you choose if you believe it is something you seek. To choose it, you must already have it. How can it be that we imagine ourselves separate and distant from love?

As Ana-the-Wise tells me, “Love is neutral.” Making bargains is not love; trading pieces of yourself in exchange for attention or affection is not love. If you are giving a part of yourself away, suppressing yourself, editing yourself you are engaged in something but it is definitely not love.

Here’s my theory: to choose love is to choose yourself. This choice will move you to the top of the list. It will require you to be seen, to embrace your greatness, to stop minimizing yourself, and most importantly to drop the illusion that anyone can fill you up or tell you how it is to be done. You must love yourself to choose love and that choice has no back door; to love yourself means you give up all escape fantasies and must own your power. Can you imagine it?

Filed under: Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: choice | Leave a comment »

Learn From Margaret

Posted on August 25, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Margaret died today. She had an epic and courageous journey through Alzheimer’s and just before dinner she closed her eyes and passed. I met her 10 years ago, 5 years into her disease long after she was capable of living on her own. She was in the phase where she put magazines in the toaster and if left to her own devices might wander off into the Tucson desert. Even so, she still had a wicked sense of humor and was filled with mischief and this was true long after she was in the advanced stages. I loved her immediately because, even in her ravaged state, she had more life than most people have in their prime. When I met her she winked at me and with her eyes filled with mirth she told me to “leave the babe (her daughter).” She was a remarkable flirt.

I learned that everyday of her life, at sunset, she stopped what she was doing, went outside and watched the sun go down; a ritual of gratitude and appreciation of life.

Now that she has passed into memory I will keep her life burning in my remembering and these are just a few:

In the Arizona Wildlife museum she vigorously rubbed her breastbone trying to make herself purpose-burp. She’d done it earlier and I’d howled with laughter. She got such a rise out of me that she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get me to laugh again (I am an easy mark and her endless attempts were more precious than the initial burp. I laughed louder and louder at her misses – we created a lovely feedback loop).

Near the time when we could no longer take her out we cruised the streets of Tucson, Lora and Margaret in the front seat of our rental car singing; Margaret no longer had the lyrics but her commitment to sound was prodigious. Every time she saw a red car she’d stop her song and say, “Now, there’s a red car!”

I will always carry those few luscious gem moments when, as we watched her slowly slip farther and farther away, she would, just for a moment, came back, her eyes sparkling, and exclaim, “Really!” as if her simple joy of life called her from the depths because she simply could not contain her awe.

Filed under: Love, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

The Crux Of The Matter

Posted on August 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In my head today I am having the most interesting conversation. The crux of the matter is this: could I love myself, truly love myself, if I did nothing for the rest of my life? What if I sat on a park bench tomorrow, gave up all pursuits, let go of all ideas of service or gain, swore off all forms of productivity; could I still love myself?

I am the son of good puritan Iowa farm stock. More than once in my life I have heard people speak of my father as a good man because he was a hard worker. Both of my grandfather’s were blue collar, hard working business owners that “did well” in the world. One was a milkman; he owned a dairy in Monticello, Iowa. The other had a business fixing sewing machines. They belonged to service clubs and sometimes attended church; we don’t talk about those things when we talk about how good they were; we talk about what they did and how hard they worked. We talk about the virtue of their toil.

This is no flippant question. I work with too many people that hate themselves because they are not doing what they want to do or they think they need to do more to be valuable. I am hard on myself if I do not achieve everything on my list each day- as if I didn’t do enough to earn my love.

What if loving myself had no requirements; what if loving myself had no conditions? What if loving myself had no connection to my doing or not doing? What if I did not have to earn it? What if loving myself was the beginning point, the first assumption, the prerequisite,… the structure of the land so that all of my behavior and my actions, like water, followed this path of least resistance?

I do not think I would do less work. I am certain I would work differently. How can I possibly be fulfilled if my center point is anything other than love?

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

Filed under: Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: self-love | 10 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (472)

Posted on June 24, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

472.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Nicest moment of the week:

I wrote: I love you.
She wrote: I love you more.
I wrote: Oh yeah, I love you more than more.
She wrote: Really, well I let you win so it just proves that I love you more than you can possibly love me. So there! I love you more.

I surrendered. I waved my white flag and let myself be loved more. It’s a nice competition to lose. I recommend throwing the game the next time you find yourself locked in a vicious “I love you” match. Bet on yourself and then lose mightily. All the empty space in your coffers will soon fill up with something much better than gold. This little spontaneous “I love you more” competition left me smiling. All day. Later, when someone cut me off in traffic I said, “Oh yeah! I love you more!”

Language matters. I tried my new “I love you more” game on for size for the rest of the day and you’ll not be surprised to hear that I had an excellent day. It is nice to tell the world that you love it more than more, regardless of what comes your way. The real magic is what loving more does for you on the inside. It’s alchemy: the world may send you lead but you have the capacity to turn it into gold.

Oh yeah! Well, I love you more.

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Truly Powerful People (466)

Posted on June 18, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

466.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Megan’s daughter turned two. Angie is getting married. Jamie is expecting her third child. Teresa is ready to fly. Dado brought the mail as he does each weekday; you can set your clock to Dado yet he always seems to have plenty of time to talk. I lost Bruce somewhere. Two paintings and two photographs were late for the party but allowed entrance anyway. Arnie is preparing for travels. Soon he will have set foot on all the continents of the earth. Elana resurfaced and is in LA. Anne painted her first abstracts. The crows chased the eagle. The osprey dived, both of them, but came up empty. Columbus cleaned windows in anticipation of his kids coming home. Jeanne won at pickle ball and the loser was sore. JT lost his momma. David missed a phone call and opened a play. Horatio prepares his boat for Alaska and his script for filming – all in the same week! Lisa drank at lunch and made me laugh (we’ll not talk about the pesto I could see but not permitted to eat). Harry’s package finally made it to the mail. Grandpa’s arms are not strong enough and why should they be; he’s 103 years old. Bob bought a new car. Secret messages were passed successfully. Lips were bit in anticipation. Judy is preparing room for Grace. Ben and Patricia opened their studio. Simon the dog used his inside voice and got a cookie. Lora made a new submission. PaTan made a zebra collage from crayons. Tamara touched base because she knows when it is important. Angela sent Rilke. The IRS did not send their love much to my surprise. Patricia’s installments let me know she is on a big life adventure.

This list barely touches the marvels of this week. Reread the list and see the dreams and desires and yearning. Look for the life passages, the offers of love, the reaching and touching and trying. Sometimes the monumental is lost within the ordinary because the ordinary is monumental. There were lessons learned, love nearly lost but found, gratitude for simple things, pink umbrella’s, broken hearts, the smallest of messages arriving in the perfect moment: I love you. How many times do we almost miss it?

Today I know that life is short. Today I know I can focus on the troubles, the temporary gremlins or I can place my thought in the enduring. I know there is a choice but I wonder why I would ever throw away another day on the gremlin and miss holding the hand of the people I love.

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: monumental, ordinary | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (456)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

456.
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 hiding today. My heart is breaking for no particular reason. Some people call this, “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” I think they must experience heartache as anger. They skip the heart part and go straight to throwing punches. To let your heart break often requires tears. Pushing back is less vulnerable. Break something else and perhaps the heart will remain intact, or so the theory goes.

I was tempted to blame this heartbreak on the weather: June is having an identity crisis and pretending it is January. I opened my eyes from sleep and heard the cold rain. In the Pacific Northwest there is a unique color grey that shrouds the time of day: 7am could be noon or 5pm. Timelessness. But, in truth, the heartache was with me before I opened my eyes. I felt it as I swam to the surface from my dreaming.

Once in Bali as I swam to the surface from sleep I heard the doves cooing and it was so beautiful that my heart broke. I lay in my bed with the sun streaming through the open screens and knew I was in heaven (it is not some other place). I learned in my Bali time that being fully alive requires a willingness to feel the full range of life’s emotions. To protect myself from heartbreak is akin to cutting red out of the color wheel. Comfort is nice but not very useful if you desire being fully alive.

Recently I saw a powerpoint presentation on what’s coming down the road in technology. One of the slides in education technology said, “Full Body Learning.” When with my aching heart I got up on the side of the bed I always get up on, I thought, “Ah, a day for Full Body Learning. Hello heartbreak.”

Filed under: Body, Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: alive, feel, heart, heartbreak | 7 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (453)

Posted on June 5, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

453.
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 never knew Margaret before Alzheimer’s. She was well into the disease the first time I met her. Even then she had more life, more piss and vinegar (as my grandmother used to say) than almost anyone I knew. She was an outrageous flirt and we made eyes at each other from across the room. And then she’d laugh and put her fingers to her mouth and say, “Oh, my.”

Margaret was filled with fun. Play was the core of her apple, the seed of her being. One night we took her to dinner to tell her that we had to move her into an adult care foster home; she’d nearly burned the house down a few too many times and was no longer safe even with the live-in caregivers. Lora cried when she told Margaret we were going to move her from her home – and through the ravages of the disease I saw the power of a mother reach through Margaret as clarity came into her eyes and she took Lora’s hand and said, “Honey, I know you are doing what you think is best for me.” And then she disappeared again, back beneath the waters of confusion.

It seems to me that each year the disease eats a layer of her being, slowly stripping away her personality and 14 years into the disease, long after she no longer knows who we are or who she is, her core of playfulness remains. And, not surprising, the core is really a membrane of play wrapped around a heart of gratitude. She is a fragile little bird in body and a giant of gratitude in spirit. I love to visit her. I love to sit with her. She rarely responds to us but when she does, her face lights up, her blue eyes shine, her smile grows and she says, “Thank you,” and then she drifts away. I find myself so honored, so moved to know such pure gratitude that I touch my fingers to my lips and respond, “Oh, my.”

Filed under: Gratitude, Heroes, Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Alzhiemer's, spirit | 6 Comments »

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.

Filed under: Awakening, Love, Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | 6 Comments »

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