Metaphor | The Direction of Intention

Sit In The Most Comfortable Chair In The World

Posted on August 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Just off the pier jutting into Lake Winnisquam in southern New Hampshire, sitting in 3 feet of water, is the most comfortable chair in the world. I know because Drew told Lora about the chair’s status as she considered sitting in it. “Oh, you have to sit,” he said, “It’s the most comfortable chair in the world.” How can you let a thing like that go by? Lora sat in the chair, only her head remained above the water and she immediately giggled with pleasure.

The most comfortable chair in the world is white plastic with a leaf pattern meant to give it the appearance of wrought iron; it looks heavy but is very light so it bobs and moves with the motion of the water. When sitting in the most comfortable chair in the world, you move as the chair moves; you are taken with the delicate motion of the water, you sit into a gentle rhythmic water massage. Go with it and your troubles, stresses, aches and pains disappear. Resist it, try to control it and you tip over backwards and dunk yourself. The chair seems to know whether you are capable of giving into the comfort, capable of accepting it’s gift, or trying to control your experience. It will toss you if are not ready to accept what it brings.

As I listened to Drew explain the perils and pleasures of the chair, I knew I was witness to an especially relevant life metaphor (they are everywhere!). Chose to sit in it or not. If you do, relax into the experience and ride the wave; it will massage you if you let it. Fight it and you will lose your balance. The dunking you get is, after all, a result of resisting the natural motion. The most comfortable chair in the world demands presence. It is fluid and ever changing and paradoxically, giving into it – living into a process – will tickle your tension away. You just might find yourself giggling.

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Mind Your Metaphors

Posted on July 27, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Alan and I just facilitated a forum on transformational leadership coaching. We worked with the importance of language and metaphor and I was reminded why I believe all change begins with a change in language. To change your language is to change your story. To change your story is to change what you see and experience – it is to change your world.

Language is metaphoric. Language is always referential to experience; language is not the experience, it is the interpretation of the experience. How you story your experience – the language that you use to define yourself – gives meaning to your world. Language is much more powerful than we understand!

You create your world through the story you tell. Your metaphors reveal the story you tell.

Ask yourself what is the difference between “problem solving” and “working with potential?” Are you “fixing” yourself or “creating” the life you desire? Are you “blocked” or “empty” or “jazzed” or “on fire?” Are you “enough” or “authentic” or “present?” Have you “arrived?” Is your life “broken into compartments” or is there “flow?” Have you “fulfilled your potential,” “given away the farm,” or are you “seeking clarity?”

Are you still in doubt about who defines you? Who tells your story if not you?

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Fly Like Lucy

Posted on July 23, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

About 6 years ago I wrote and illustrated a children’s book entitled, Lucy & The Waterfox. It is about a fox with a natural capacity to fly. She keeps her flights of fancy secret because she knows her pack-mates will not understand. And she is right. When they discover her ability to fly they shame her; they convince her there is something wrong with her. She stops flying and starts withering. The rest of the story is about reclaiming her natural gifts. By the end of the book, Lucy soars without apology. She flies because she can.

Like us, Lucy has a desire to belong. As Catherine once told me, “Sometimes a talent can hold you hostage. It separates us from the pack. It conflicts with the necessity of belonging.” As creative tensions go, Catherine described the mother lode. I work with so many people who have squelched their natural gifts in exchange for acceptance. I’ve done it. And, like Lucy, it is the path of withering. Cut off your gifts, diminish your offer, and you will put a kink your life force.

Of course, Lucy’s story is universal. The tension between belonging and expressing your nature is a pull that every human being feels. W.B Yeats called this tension the right hand path and the left hand path. Do what society expects of you and you are walking the right hand path. Follow your nature, separate from the crowd and you are on the left hand path. The trick is always integration; finding the middle way. That is the grail path.

Catherine also recently sent me a reminder that the entire story depends upon where we place our focus. We can be surrounded by supporters and only see the critics. We can have one foot on the left hand path and only see the limitations. She reminded me to “Just fly! Be true to your range of gifts and abilities and just do it.” Good advice from my dear Catherine who, in this story, just became my Waterfox.

Filed under: Gratitude, Metaphor, Story, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Help Me. Please

Posted on July 9, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

487. 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 is the day after the 4th of July in the United States of America and a morning explosion roused my inner sociologist. He is not one for early rising so complained a bit when I told him this morning presented a superb opportunity to study human post-party behavior. “With a walk on the beach?!” he protested. “Where do you think all the human parties were last night?’ I replied. He harrumphed, adjusted his sweater, and reminded me that he wished I were taller so he wouldn’t have to stoop so much when doing field research. “I would wish for a taller host body,” he moaned.

We were rewarded almost immediately upon arriving at the beach. “By the piles of trash it looks like an army camped here!” he observed, reaching for his notebook. The public trashcans were jammed. Additionally, sacks and bags and empty six packs were stacked 3 feet high around every can forming a kind of garbage ring art installation. The birds were frenzied trying to tear open the garbage bags. A particularly loopy gull missed his landing and tumbled down a garbage cliff causing a trash avalanche. “Good heavens!” my inner sociologist exclaimed. “One does not see that everyday.”

The sea wall was literally lined with Roman candle remains, beer bottles tilted to just so to better launch rockets (for the red glare), and remnants of bombs bursting in air. There were hundred of those little red sticks, evidence of a sparkler orgy. I caught my inner sociologist just in time – he was moving to dig in the trash. “How can I truly understand human behavior if I leave so much evidence unexamined!” he complained. I pointed out that the only evidence he needed to note was the presence of the piles, “Look how much stuff people packed in and how un-interested they were at packing it out.” He slowly scanned to area and said, “Yes, too true,” narrowing his eyes, he lifted a single brow, and scribbled another note.

It was then that we spotted the real treasure, proof that there is still hope for humanity. Just across the street standing boldly in the middle of a grass strip was a bright red upright Hoover vacuum. “My, what’s this?” I had to remind him to look both ways before dashing crossing the street. “Unbelievable!” he cried, dropping his pencil. “Have you ever seen anything so remarkable?” It was a rhetorical question but I said, “No,” and stood back to admire the gesture. Taped to the front of the Hoover was a small crayon sign that said, “Help me. Please.”

“Isn’t a little humor refreshing?” he asked, looking for his lost pencil. “It gives me hope,” I replied. “Well,” he sighed, “People surprise me at every turn.”

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Truly Powerful People (469)

Posted on June 21, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

469.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

As I dust off and relearn the story of Parcival I have decided that it will be the spine of the work I do next week with teachers; we will follow the metaphors; we will open the story so the stories of our lives might open. As I work I am discovering that everything you need to know to be a great teacher is in this story! Parcival is a knight of the Round Table and, depending upon the version you read, he is the knight that finds the grail. Metaphor alert: the grail is not a thing to be possessed. It is what Maslow called self-actualization. It is a metaphor for finding your truth and fulfilling your purpose. What is the purpose of learning if not to seek and find your truth (do not be fooled, passing a test is far from the point of learning and will ultimately leave you empty and the test full)?

I love many aspects of this story and the section I reworked today made me smile. I giggled in the coffee house where I was rehearsing. The other patrons, afraid of the man in the corner talking and cackling to himself, gave me plenty of room to work (have I mentioned that I can’t talk without flailing my hands all over the place. If you ever want me to be quiet, simply bind my hands. I’ll make noises but words will be impossible). The story describes Parcival’s first entry into court. He grew up isolated, deep in the forest (not unlike Arthur, though Parcival did not have Merlin to school him) so he knew nothing of people or manners or custom. He thought dressing like a knight meant he was a knight. He approximated some armor, weaving a breastplate from reeds, a helmet from fronds, and he wielded a stick as a sword. He “borrowed” a mule and rode into Camelot. Arthur and his knights, thinking Parcival was a clown, laughed at him.

Growing up without instruction meant that he had the ideal upbringing for a trickster. He followed his nature without inhibition. Parcival had no inner-editor so the civilized world viewed him as a fool. He acted purely so he threatened custom. He spoke what others could not; he carried no conventions so he had no limits. He had no rules of conduct. Parcival would be the boy in the crowd to say, “This emperor has no clothes!” It would not occur to him to lie. When you are not doubting or protecting your purity you have no reason to deflect or manipulate or withhold. Lies are a byproduct of rules. He was powerful yet his power was raw, unrecognizable, so the world he wanted to enter could only laugh. And their laughter was his fuel. Their laughter propelled him into the world to learn. Arthur was capable of seeing his purity. And Arthur gave him hope. Arthur sent him into the world to prove himself, to learn the rules of society, and invited him to return to court once he’d learned the code and conduct of a knight.

The story is a story of desire; it is a story of following an inner imperative. It is a quest for fulfillment. It has laughter and despair, triumph and shame, obstacles that seem insurmountable; it is a story of perseverance and letting go. It is a story of 2 teachers: one provides the rules for conduct; the other helps Parcival shed the rules of conduct. Both are necessary if you want a shot at entering the grail castle.

If it were a poem it would read like this: Revel in your nature. Betray your nature. Rediscover you nature: grail.

Filed under: Education, Metaphor, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: desire, purpose | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (465)

Posted on June 17, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

465.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“Can I tell you a story,” Teresa asked. She is brilliant and helping me re-think and market my business. We’ve been working together for a few months. She is one of a choir of voices telling me that I am my business – it is not something I do. She is brilliant and gentle and clear and helping me work, as she says, from the inside out. I’m having some world-class revelations – and I am impatient. I want to force things into being.

“Two robins built a nest in the utility box just outside my window. My daughters and I watched them quickly assemble an amazing nest and soon there were four eggs. My nine year old was especially taken with the nest so each day we would watch for progress. An egg broke and my daughter’s heart broke with it. Later, another egg cracked and we had another heartbreak. Finally, the two remaining eggs hatched. We saw two little beaks poking up from the nest. My daughter named them Rascal and Lazy.

As we watched we saw the two hatchlings slowly open their eyes. Then we watched as they grew their feathers. They grew stronger and one weekend, the weekend that I knew they were going to fly, my daughter was going to be away from home with her father. Sure enough, the momma bird chirped from the fence, calling them out of the nest. The babies were terrified but the momma knew they could fly. And, finally, one of the babies jumped and flew. Soon the other followed. They didn’t know until they did it. How could they?

My daughter called and was sad to miss it and this is what I told her: If you only knew your nest, if your whole life was in the nest and one day you jumped and suddenly your life opened and you knew the whole backyard – and then one day you flew and came to know the whole sky, wouldn’t that be the best day of your life? Today was the best day in those little bird’s lives.”

Teresa told me her daughter got it. She was thrilled that the birds came to know the whole sky. And, I got her message loud and clear. Hatching comes before feathers. Feathers come before flying. No amount of pushing or forcing will expedite the process. In fact, if I try to skip steps, I will be as an un-feathered bird leaping from a nest. Cat food. Hearing my sigh Teresa added, “One day you will know the whole sky and that day will be the best day of your life.”

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Truly Powerful People (433)

Posted on May 16, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

433.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Today was lonely-odd-object-on-the-beach-and-beyond day. The morning was overcast and cool; the smell of rain was in the air. It was quiet. The tide was out and the Sound was unusually still.

As I walked my usual loop I saw, sitting all alone on a bench, a microwave oven. It’s long grey cord stretched behind it as if the oven had slowly crawled across the street and lifted itself up onto the bench to stare longingly at the sea. Since I recently fired my inner archeologist for excessive storytelling I was left to my own devices to understand how a microwave oven came to be sitting on the bench. I sat down next to the oven hoping to strike up a conversation but it was not in a talkative mood. After a while I felt oddly responsible for its melancholy so I moved on.

A hundred yards later I spied a bunch of balloons, blue and white, sitting at the water’s edge. Clearly the bunch had escaped a wedding or birthday party and had finally come to rest at the exact spot where water meets dry land. I suppose that might have been an accident but it seemed much too intentional (not to mention metaphoric) so I went to have a look. The balloons were clearly exhausted after a long flight; their once tight rubber skin was now wrinkling. The shine of festive blue and white was fading. Life, it seemed, for this tribe, had been about flight – running from a celebration that must have seemed false or like a prison. They flew rather than suffocate. I wondered if they individually or collectively had regrets but it didn’t feel appropriate to interrupt their meditation.

I arrived downtown and while walking from my studio to a meeting I passed the train station and came upon a huge statue of Anubis suspended from a crane. The jackal-headed Egyptian god weighs the hearts of the newly deceased; if your heart is lighter than a feather you may pass go and collect 200 afterlife dollars, if not, you are crocodile lunch. Anubis seemed embarrassed to be swinging from a crane. Exposed. It broke my heart to see such a powerful deity so ungrounded. I wondered what he thought about doing his heart-weighing at the portal of a modern train station. It was clearly the wrong time to ask so I walked away.

On the way back to my studio while crossing the street a man with a crazy red beard ran up to me and sang, “Do Your Life and Do It Out Loud!” A seer? A message? Personal? Random? By the time I recovered myself he had moved on. So many unanswered questions!

Filed under: Metaphor, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

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 »

Truly Powerful People (429)

Posted on May 12, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

429.
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 sometimes have to remind myself that everything isn’t a metaphor. The powerful headwinds that slowed our progress but afforded us the opportunity to go slow enough to see and be in our moment (instead of just passing through) might not have been a metaphor. Also, my renewed appreciation for the wind is probably not metaphoric of the unseen forces of my life. No way.

The fish I spied swimming too intently and accidently beached itself on a sandbar and then had to slowly and painfully wriggle it’s way back into water again was clearly not a metaphor for going too fast. My great-aunt Dorothy used to have a sign on her wall that read “the faster I go the behinder I get.” The fish had never read the sign.

The students covered in paint, loving school and their teacher (Melissa-the-inspiration-to-us-all) and their lives, believing anything and everything is possible – that probably wasn’t really a metaphor for the heart of possibilities or perhaps the essence of education. When Kimmie swept up the snow sculptures made from the torn bits of paper that once held the limiting stories of her students – that wasn’t a metaphor. And it really wasn’t a metaphor when she put the bits of paper in a gallon jar so her kids might remember the day they began telling a more loving story.

The sun on my face, the eagle that rode the thermals like a Ferris wheel in what I understood as an act of elation and metaphoric of my moment – was probably not really a metaphor either. But, then again, the world seemed extra alive this week. How else can I explain it?

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Truly Powerful People (407)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

407.
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 found a key today. It was on the sidewalk. It was a skeleton key, antique and mysterious. “Now here’s a story,” I said to myself. A lonely key is a beginning of a mystery tale.

Finding a key is different than finding a button or a toy. The story of a lost key points to treasure or secrets or diaries. A key is a guardian, a gatekeeper, so finding a key can be like finding a genie’s bottle. What requires locking implies value.

The flipside can also be true. Malidome Somé wrote that a society that needs locks on its doors is a sick society. When you cannot trust your family, neighbors, and community the society has disintegrated: the real value is lost when the society resorts to locks.

This key comes to me at a time when I am unlocking life patterns, seeing my life, past-present-future, through new eyes. My experiences of the past several months have worked like a key unlocking new chapters in the book of, “How did I get to this place again?” One question illuminated; many more beckon.

I hear Megan’s voice announcing, “metaphor alert!” Yes, indeed. Isn’t it the mystery that keeps us vital? Isn’t it the search for the keys to our true selves that drive the quest? Aren’t we looking for where we fit, to find our unique purpose, our one true soul mate?

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