The Direction of Intention

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

This morning Saul said, “The chi will go where your focus is.” I’ve heard variations on this theme: where you place your focus grows. Or, another: what you think is what you create. Mo was a world-class cyclist and she would say, “Don’t look at the pothole because you will go where you are looking.”

I’ve been thinking about my thinking – or more specifically, paying attention to my thoughts. This has been an unparalleled time of transition for me so all of the old thinking patterns are laid bare. They’re easy to see. Yesterday I wrote this sentence as commentary for my comic (www.flipcomic.net): Most significant limits to success are self-imposed so it follows that all paths to success are also self-imposed. I place the limits. I am the only one who can remove them.

I look at the limit or I look at the horizon. It is my choice. I want to go to the horizon and not into the pothole. I’ve spent significant time in potholes and would like to explore something else. This morning on the break, Craig told me of a blog he’d recently read. The blogger wrote about the two sides of practice. We think of a practice as a movement toward what we want to create but a practice can also be destructive, like discomfort avoidance. The inner monologue that says, “I can’t” is, in fact, a form of practice. The inner monologue that says, “I can” is also a practice. The difference is focus. And, as Saul taught me today, the chi will go where you place your focus. Practice “I can’t” and you surely can’t. Practice “Try and find out,” and you surely will.

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838. 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 poet and the engineer look at things through much different eyes,” said Saul-the-Chi-Lantern. “When you say, ‘One moves, all move’ the poet understands immediately. Not so with the engineer!” He laughed. “The engineer will challenge the statement and require proof beyond the visual. The engineer will hear the statement as literal. The poet will accept without question that all things move when one thing moves because the poet lives with metaphor. The engineer does not.”

“The engineer will see the body as a structure. The poet will see something divine. Stand still and take a breath and notice how much of your body moves with a simple inhalation. It all moves! It never stops moving. The engineer will see the breath as mechanism. The poet will see breath as inspiration.”

Saul returned to the beginning position of the tai chi form and prepared to lead us through a round. Another thought occurred to him so before beginning the form he turned back to us saying, “One is not better than the other. An engineer sees what is most interesting to her. A poet sees what is most interesting to him. Different lenses. Different purposes. Different passions. Both are responding according to their need.”

Many years ago in a movement class the professor asked us to stand very still and pay attention to the way our body maintains balance. What became immediately apparent is that balance is not an achievement. One is never balanced. One is always balancing. Balance is a constant adjustment and readjustment. Balance is a dynamic physical, mental and spiritual relationship with the movement of the planet, the pull of gravity, the workings of the inner ear, and the tug of the moon creating our inner tides. One moves, all move. Follow that ripple and you’ll get lost in space; every star cluster dances with you.

I thought of Saul’s words as I walked home after class. All are responding according to their need. All are responding according to their purpose. These are statements of individual necessity. One moves, all move is a statement of interconnectivity; individual necessity is a move that moves all and is moved by all. Both/and. Engineer mind perceives separation. Poet mind seeks unity. Neither is right or wrong; they dance.

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

Each day as I walk across the city I pass many, many homeless people. There are four that have caught my curiosity because I’ve come to believe that they are sentinels for the city. All four are otherworldly, calm and very still. Two are women and two are men. They keep watch. Each has a specific post; they are at their post no matter what time of day or night that I pass by. They are diligent in their guardianship.

To the east (facing west) is a woman. She sits very still beneath the marquee of the Cinerama. She sits upon her worldly possessions, arms wrapped around her knees, a slight smile that I read as contentment on her face. She wears sunglasses day and night. She watches. Occasionally, she rises to clean the sidewalk in front of her. She gathers food scraps and feeds the birds and then returns to her post.

In the south, on the far south side of the bricks of Pioneer Square, a man stands watch. He is directly beneath a tree, inconspicuous, texting. Each time I pass, regardless of the time of day, he is texting. His long graying beard parts in the middle flowing around his hands and phone. His communications are steady. He is not in a hurry. His eyes never rise from his phone. He stands his post sending records of his thought. I do not know what he sends into the world but I hope it is poetry inspired by the world that flows around him.

To the west is a man who sweeps the bridge to the ferry terminal. He sits on a crate next to a shopping cart filled with bags of his possessions. He holds vigil for commuters. I’ve passed him dozens of times and he’s never asked for change. He sits. He watches. When the walkway is littered, he stands, pulls his broom from the cart, and sweeps clean the walkway before returning to his crate. There is ease to his movement and clarity to his task. He holds vigil. He cleans.

To the north is the woman who lives in the covered bus stop. Her possessions occupy one half of the bench and she sits on the other half. She is plugged into music. She holds in both hands an old Walkman. I’ve never seen her without her ear buds in and her music playing. Sometimes she will rise and dance a slow dance of invocation. And then she returns to her bench and sits very still, watching and listening.

The east cares for the birds. The south scribes the flow of life. The west clears the way for the commuters. The north invokes the spirit. Each holds a special vigil unique and precious to the life of a city that considers them invisible. They are stillness in the mad rush of the city. Until I recognized them as sentinels I wanted more for them, whispering prayers of protection for them. Today I realized that they have what most of us lack: they are still. They are clear and carry no illusions about belonging. Their tasks are distinct and self-appointed. I suspect they whisper prayers of protection for us.

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