Walk Between The Hands

Posted on June 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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[continued from 811, 812]

Bali Journal Excerpt #3
Budhi told us that the split gate is like two hands praying. We stood before an ancient split gate and Gunung Kawi. He said, “One side of the gate might represent good while the other side represented evil. Or, perhaps one side was male and the other side female.” It’s a duality, I thought, assuming that I knew where Budhi was going with his description. We walked between the two gates into a courtyard. Once inside, he stopped and turned again to look at the gate. “Which side is good and which side is evil?” he asked. None of us ventured a guess. “It all depends upon your point of view,” Budhi offered. “Maybe on the outside evil is on the left and good is on the right. On this side, which gate is right? Which is left? Both sides represent each aspect. It all depends upon where you stand.” Budhi moved to the gate and pointed to the opposing faces of the gate. “Look,” he said, “these sides are smooth, like two palms praying.” He wanted us to understand that, not only was there no duality, but there was also a third aspect, the space between. This space between represented one-ness. “When you pass through the gates,” Budhi explained, “your mind should also become focused on the one-ness, on the space between. This is god.”

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Be In The Hallway

Posted on June 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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This morning Arnie made me laugh out loud. We hadn’t talked for some months and I was recounting the amazing pilgrimage I have been on throughout the winter. Doors have been closing, sometimes abruptly while other doors, previously locked, open easily. He reminded of a phrase his mother used to say: the universe doesn’t close doors without opening others – but it is hell waiting in the hallway!

Last August on the shores of a lake in New Hampshire, Donna emerged from the woods looking for me. She had some things that she needed to tell me. She knew that I was standing in the metaphoric hallway and that it was hell. All the doors were closed and I was feeling stuck. She told me to sit still. She reminded me that it does no good to pound on the doors when they are closed to you. It might feel good to rail against the doors but the effort is fruitless. Doors do not feel pain. The only shoulder I was breaking was my own. Donna is wise and told me great stories of the doors she’d pounded in her life and none of them ever opened again. Doors close for reasons that are never apparent at the closing. Doors close so you will look elsewhere. In time, a new door presents itself so, in Donna’s words, “You may as well enjoy the limbo.”

She offered me another notion that helped me sit still in the hallway. She said, “You are like me. In your life you have callings and there is always a space between the calls. You won’t hear the new call until you enter stillness.” So, I sat in the hallway. It was hell. And I was still. From this place, almost nine months after that day on the beach, I am now grateful that the old door closed because the new door is more amazing than anything I could have imagined. It is ripe with potential. I can’t believe I pounded on that old door for so long. I can’t imagine what life would be like now if that old door had not closed.

Sitting in the hallway is another way of saying, “Have faith.” Faith is not an abstraction when you are in the hallway. It is really easy to yammer on about faith when you are comfortable. Step into the hallway, sit in hell, and faith is a concrete experience – if you can get quiet. Enjoy the limbo and know that a door will open eventually. It always does when you stop pounding. As Donna implied, stop fighting for what no longer serves you. Let the door close and BE IN THE HALLWAY. There’s magic behind another door and it will open if you let it.

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Come Home

Posted on May 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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I generally tell stories about others and lately my pals have been asking me to turn the story mirror around and have a crack at myself. I am aloof. Tom once told me in frustration that I was the only person on the planet more aloof that he was. I wanted to deny it but couldn’t so my only recourse was to laugh and accept that I am often a balloon floating just out of reach. If you knew Tom this would be a profound statement because no one in the history of humanity was as aloof as Tom. That is, until me. I chose my mentor wisely. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about his accusation. I am not naturally aloof. No one is naturally aloof. We are pack animals. One of our strongest impulses is to belong. Perhaps “aloof” my way of belonging.

I sit comfortably at the edge of the village. I watch. I translate between worlds. I bridge without knowing it. I have deep diving conversations at the most casual dinner party. People I do not know betray their deepest secrets to me and wonder why. Balloons that hover just out of reach are safe. We balloons are conduits to the spirit world. We are transformers. Someone recently told me that I am a magnet to the island of misfit toys. And aren’t we – all of us – misfit toys?

During these past several months two words have repeatedly thundered down upon my head: 1) receive and 2) availability. These are big words especially when, like me, all established patterns come together in the word “aloof.” With so much thunder the message for me is clear: to grow, to fulfill this big voice, I must walk to the center of the village. I must sit and receive. I must open and become available to the community. This one-way communication is nice but two way communication is relationship and to thrive I must open the two way channel. I will always know how to do aloof. I will always be a transformer. Now I must learn to be accessible, too.

In Holland Chris guided us through a constellations exercise. The entire community gathered in a circle and I remained aloof. When I was beckoned and joined the circle, I quivered and quaked with conflicting desires: to belong and to run. To step in and step out. I have wandered my whole life. I am on a pilgrimage that, until recently, had no destination. And today, like a light turning on in my heart, I understand that “receive” and “availability” will be obtainable only after I finally arrive home. Home is the end of my pilgrimage. Home is a person. It is a place. It is a place inside me and outside me. I can see it from here. So, to my pals, I am soon to sit in the center of the village. Come join me there. I’m ready to come home. I have lots of stories to tell.

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Hear The Harp

Posted on April 22, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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A man played the harp on the ferry crossing today. He sat with his small harp on one of the long benches that run along the windows. He started playing and a crowd joined him on the bench. Some gathered on the neighboring benches. The usually noisy ferry quieted. People stared out the window, transported. Occasionally he paused and answered a question or two. We learned that the type of harp he played was in existence a thousand years ago. On this rainy day I imagined someone long ago playing a harp, ancestor to this man’s harp, the music weaving a spell while Avalon disappeared into the mists.

A boys’ baseball team stormed into the area and fell silent almost immediately. It was as if the music infused the air with a potion. Some of the boys sat. Others retreated to the other end of the ferry. I rested my head against the window and stared into the rainy Sound, grays and greens rushing by, the motion of the boat rocking us. The Sound has been here much longer than this type of harp but it took the harp for me to take notice. In the United States of America it is easy to forget that we tread on ancient ground. Our constructions are too new. We build things not to last. When everything is a resource time only runs into the future. For a moment I glimpsed the eternity in the ancient waters we crossed.

It is April. It is unseasonably cold and wet and gray. The harpist played a tune he had composed but it sounded medieval, something from the fairy folk. It was trance music. It was deep forest music. I was suddenly no longer in the 21st century but some other place, some other time, and this harpist was either calling me from the mists or wooing me into them. Or both. The metaphors were stacking, the passage of life a short ferry ride, living and dying and traditions and magic and music that binds us in the hearing.

Later, in my studio, I was listening to the radio and the interviewer asked this question: “Why should the government give money to something that can’t be measured?” It is a sure sign that we are lost when we come to believe that the most valuable things in this life are those things that can be measured. Metric madness is everywhere I look. There is no metric that can measure the true value of art just as there is no metric that can measure learning. Relationship cannot be measured. It can only be experienced. True value cannot be codified. How much does your life cost? What is the value of your limited time here? The insurance companies have an actuary table that reduce you to dollars and sense if it is a measurement that you need. We are lost. In that moment I wished that my harpist could play and call us forward from of the mist.

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What Circle Are You On?

Posted on April 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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There are lots of Venn diagrams showing up in my life. Today, Beth offered another that applies to education. The three circles of her diagram are Pattern, Metaphor, and Questions. Master these circles and you are a critical thinker. She brought to mind those other circles from my past, The Vicious and Virtuous Circles (I am now thinking of them as a Venn diagram – more on that in another post). I dug around and found these notes that I wrote almost seven years ago. Think about the notes as they might relate to education reform (or life change):

A Vicious Cycle has the following characteristics:
• There are winners and losers (a finite game)
• The direction of movement is “away from” something (a negative action)
• The actions are reactions.
• It is reductionary in every way (“tames” or over simplifies problems, reduces others, reduces self)
• Circumstance/Fear driven

The Virtuous Cycle has the following characteristics:
• The game is played for mastery (an infinite game)
• The direction of movement is “toward” something (a positive action)
• The actions are generative or creative.
• It is expansive in every way (allows for complex problems and identities)
• Values/Love driven

Both the Vicious and the Virtuous cycles are patterns. Just as water always follows the structure of the land, behavior always follows the underlying structural pattern. In other words, the pattern represents a way of being. The Vicious Cycle is a default pattern, an unconscious way of being. The Virtuous is an intentional pattern, a conscious and therefore, a creative way of being. The goal is to replace the default pattern with the intentional pattern.

To move from the Vicious to the Virtuous cycle, you first have to Identify & Clarify:
Identify your Vicious Cycle. Name it.

After you identify your Vicious Cycle, answer these questions:
Why move off the circle? What do you gain by staying in your default mode? In other words, what does the Vicious circle buy you (you only stay in dysfunction if you are getting something from it)?

Identify/Clarify your Intention
What do you want?
Identify/Clarify your Circumstance
What’s in the way? Name your obstacles.
Identify/Clarify your Values
What drives you? Name your yearning.

The required Movement/Action is to build a new pattern. Since the Vicious and Virtuous Cycles are patterns (structure of the land). Talk about the competencies in terms of building a new pattern. These are:

Pattern to catch your 1st thought, and then work on your second.
How: witness your thoughts; challenge your assumptions.
Pattern to suspend judgments
How: put down your need to be right, assume that you “don’t know”
Pattern to grant specificity.
How: Look beyond the superficial, own your fear,
Pattern to slow down
How: Breath, Be seen
Pattern to say yes and….
How: open your fist; entertain other perspectives
Pattern to step toward….
How: own your edges; make them horizons

Initially, the competencies may look too simplistic, however changing the behavioral structure of a human being begins with changing the patterning; also, systems never change through complexities, rather, they change through leveraging the local simplicity. It’s the pattern that reveals the local simplicity….

Thank you, Beth. Pattern. Metaphor. Question. What we do is really a matter of the direction of intention.

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Go Back To Basics

Posted on February 22, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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Yesterday in my post I wrote the word “aquifers” but at first badly mistyped it and wrote “aquafire.” Isn’t that a lovely word collision! It sounds like the name of a garage band! I did a quick Google search (is there any other kind?) and found that aquafire is the name of a restaurant in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It’s also the name of a water heater company in New Zealand! You’ll not be surprised to learn that it is also the name of a company that makes floating fire pits, a fire protection company specializing in sprinklers, a blog about fishing, and a sauna and steam bath company.

According to western classical thought there are 4 elements that combine to constitute all matter: earth, air, fire, and water. Aquafire, according to the classical way of thinking, might be steam or lava or acid or a good jalapeno salsa. Once, I was in the ocean and was clobbered by a wave and met the rocky coral bottom with some unintended force; I could consider that experience aquafire.

I like the notion of elements as applied to obstacles; I have been known to think, “It only looks like an enormous boulder in my path. Apply a little heat and then let’s see what you look like!” The boulder calls my bluff every time but the threat of combining elements always frees my imagination so I can see the many possibilities instead of the single impediment. Problems become possibilities almost immediately when you consider their elemental make-up: problems and possibilities are both ways of seeing; they are choices. So, a good question to ask is, “What is the basic element of choice?”

The Greeks (and others) added a 5th element or quintessence. The medieval scientists called it, “ether,” which was considered to be the element that filled the universe (above our atmosphere). To the Greeks, quintessence was the air breathed by the gods and was distinctly different than the air we mortals breathe. It was pure, essential. Essence. If there is a basic element to imagination, choice, possibility, memory, intuition, and inspiration, I’m certain it must be ether, a touch of quintessence, the breath of the gods made manifest here on earth in you and in me.

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Receive

Posted on February 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi

In the past several weeks I have traveled many places. I’ve spent some time in the house where I grew up. I walked the streets of my boyhood and revisited the sacred sites of my childhood. The houses in the neighborhood seem so small. I’ve had the opportunity to revisit memories, to stand in spots where life seemed to bring overwhelming experiences; these, like the houses, now seem so small. I’ve chuckled more than once at monsters that I used to tote and how, from this vantage point, they seem like stuffed animals, cuddly toys. That is the power of memory, our great capacity to re-member our lives with every visit to the past.

In my walk-about I am consciously pulling down the barriers. I am surrounded by people who love me and whom I love. I am astounded by a generosity of spirit that greets me everywhere I go. I am learning to receive and the curious thing about receiving is that you need do nothing but open or perhaps surrender. The only requirement to receive love is that you show up. Who knew!

During this period of wandering I’ve been working again with the Parcival story and thinking about the moment in the story when Parcival removes his armor. Armor protects but it also restricts. Armor is a great way to not be seen. In order to want to take off your armor you must first put down your sword; you must change your idea of the world and your place in it. Carrying a sword is a great way to keep love away. After dropping your sword, you must be lost for a while and break your rules. Parcival’s sword shatters and he weeps. He removes his armor and follows a hermit into the woods. He stops seeking, stops trying to prove, suspends the fight and starts living moment to moment. And, when he’s forgotten about roles and knights and proving, the Grail castle reappears. He steps inside unprotected and claims his inheritance. He becomes the Grail. Love finds him when he stops looking for love.

Sometimes we wear our past like armor. We hang onto injustice, we identify ourselves by the trauma, and we claim our limitations as if we were born to bear them. I’m learning that these are the barriers we erect against love. To drop the armor all that is required is to let go of the past and re-member. The love, like the Grail castle, is waiting for us. As the hermit says to Parcival when he turns and discovers the castle, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

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Hold The Image

Posted on January 30, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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I’ve shared this image with k.erle a day ago, and with my class this morning and it feels like some kind of message. I can’t shake the image because it is speaking to me. Some images are powerful that way. This image wants me to pay attention. It is the image of the Wayfinder.

I came across the image in Wade Davis’ book, The Wayfinder. The title refers to the navigator in a traditional Polynesian canoe, sitting in the bow, sensing and reading the waves, the air, the stars, the rings of the moon, but mostly, the navigator holds in her mind the image of the island that they are attempting to find. Wade Davis writes that, according to the Polynesian belief, the canoe is still in the water and the Island finds them. The power of the Wayfinders’ image calls the island to them. They must simply point their canoe in the proper direction while the Wayfinder holds the image.

I ask myself as I sit in the bow of my canoe, what image do I hold? What island do I draw to myself? In my urban ocean have I developed the sensitivity to read the currents, the subtleties of energy in the waves that help me point my craft in the direction of the island that rushes from the future to meet me? Or am I out to sea? This ocean is vast. I have an image for home, a smell, a taste, an undeniable energy that makes me shake when I allow myself to fully feel it, and in the midst of this vast ocean I am taking my cue from the Wayfinders to remain still and know that the power and potency of my image will soon call my island home to me.

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Sense Half A Breath

Posted on January 28, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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Last year Carol learned to sail. She went to the Center for Wooden Boats and took lessons from a man who’s been sailing all his life. He taught her that a sailor must learn to feel and see the elements just a moment ahead: he said she needed to sense what was a “half a breath ahead.” With the lead of “half a breath,” she could adjust, anticipate (not with her thinking mind, but with your knowing presence) what was coming. He taught her that it was folly to think that she could be any further ahead than half a breath, any further ahead and the conditions will have changed before she got there.

Today I stepped into my day believing I knew what I was going to do. The winds changed, the rains came, the sun broke through, the café closed, the phone rang, the rehearsal ended, the phone rang again, and finally I gave up and was surprised by Doctor Who. I stepped into the day invested in my folly fully believing that I could see beyond half a breath. I am still learning to sail and need to bring my sights much closer to my present moment. I close this day recognizing my folly and my lesson, sitting more easily in my boat, no further ahead than a single breath, knowing that although I am closer than I was this morning, I am still too long in my anticipation by half. And I hope that is always true.

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Find The Metaphor

Posted on January 24, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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Metaphor alert. They might be subtle but see how many you can find… I started the day in Denver. I’ve been hiding out there writing like a demon and today was the day I had to fly back to Seattle – and I didn’t want to go. I’ve been happy in my seclusion. It was like spring in Denver; warm days and brilliant blue skies. When I wasn’t writing I was walking. No schedule but the one I created for myself. In a few weeks of writing, the book is nearly two thirds written. I’m a slow writer so I’m certain that I’m not channeling Mark Twain or the book would be done given the hours I’ve spent tap tapping at the keys.

I scheduled a Super Shuttle share ride to the airport but instead of the familiar blue van a limo pulled into the driveway. The limo driver told me there was no one else to pick up so they sent the limo instead of a van. He was a very old (emphasis on “very”) and got lost on the way to the freeway so I had to tell him where to go. His GPS was working fine (I could see it from my leather perch 10 paces behind the driver. There were water glasses but I felt like slumming it so I drank straight from the chilled bottle. My very old limo driver decided I was enjoying my ride so he went very slow (emphasis on “very”) – even though I was trying to catch a plane and even though we were on a freeway. He said, “People are in such a hurry these days.” I said, “I know!”

He shook my hand and told me it was a pleasure giving me a ride to the airport. I had plenty of time because no one was at the Denver airport. It was just me and the TSA. Just lots of blue shirts and me. I had my own private security screening. You’ll be happy to know it went very well (yes, emphasis on “very” – it turns out the TSA folks are really friendly when you are the only person going through the screening). I wanted to ask if they would give me my bottle of Sumi Ink back; they took it from me 4 years ago in Washington DC because I forgot it was in my bag; but I decided there must be a statute of limitations on ink retrieval. Best not push my luck.

I grabbed a mocha (best mocha ever!), hopped a plane, landed in Seattle to, well yes, it was raining. Denver = sun. Seattle = rain. The light rail from the airport to downtown was delayed so I stood in the rain (wet) but I finally made it to my studio (I’m not really living anywhere at present so my studio is my temporary crash pad). I walked through the rain (more wet) to the front door of the building and found that it was padlocked shut. There was a note that said, “The front door is broken, use your key card to get in the side door.” I’ve been gone a month so I suppose there might have been mention of a key card but this was the first I’d heard of it. I didn’t have a key card. I was very sad (emphasis on “very”). I stowed my luggage in a bush (still more wet), went around back, climbed a 12 ft fence (wet, wet, wet) and found a door that still accepted keys. I got in (soaked). After I propped a door and retrieved my luggage I sloshed all the way up the stairs to the fourth floor (my shoes made that nasty squeaking sound of wet rubber on concrete floors. That noise gives me the chills so you could say that I gave myself the chills).

My inner sociologist, dry in his sweater and smoking his pipe like a true academic, took one look at me and said, “Are you aware of the choices that you are making?” He took out his notepad to record my response. I know his game so as water dripped off the end of my nose I said, “Please define the word ‘aware.’” He took a puff on his pipe, closed his book and said, “You can be very annoying – emphasis on ‘very.’”

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