Story | The Direction of Intention

Where Are You Standing?

Posted on July 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

488. 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 First Thursday, the night that artists across Seattle open their studios. To pass the time as we await the crowd, PaTan, the artist across the hall, shared with me a Life magazine from 1994. It has four articles that, read together, have my head spinning.

The first is entitled, “Saving The Endangered 100;” it is a photographic list of 100 species of plants and animals in America that are, by now, most likely gone. The second article is about the young boy who was identified as the reincarnation of Ling Rinpoche, tutor of the Dalai Lama. This boy will be the teacher of the next Dalai Lama. The third is an overview of Ken Burn’s Baseball documentary series. The fourth is a photo essay called “Eyewitness to Rwanda.”

Genocide, baseball, extinction, and among highest forms of spiritual tradition – all wrapped in a glossy cover under the umbrella name, “Life.” The magazine reads like a spectrum of human capabilities; the greatest horror to the heights of poetry. It is shocking, inspiring, troubling, breathtaking, overwhelming,…. It is life. At least it is life as we report it; it is life as we story it.

I long ago stopped asking why we do what we do. Asking the “why” question almost always brought a fixation on the horrors and injustice so that I’d miss entirely the other end of the spectrum. Asking “why” assumed the existence of “an answer.” What possible answer can there be for mass murder? What possible explanation is worthy of the reincarnation of a great teacher? There are beliefs, assumptions and justifications. There are stories. We destroy and we create; depending upon where you stand sometimes my creation brings your destruction; Oppenheimer learned this all too clearly. Is it right? Is it wrong? I no longer believe anything is clean enough for such small absolutes. Life is messy.

There are better questions and they usually come in pairs. For instance, “Where are you standing?” is a great question. Locate yourself but don’t stop there! Before justifying your actions consider asking, “I wonder what might this look like if I stood over there with you?”

Filed under: Perspective, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Why | 2 Comments »

Tell A Better Story

Posted on July 7, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

485. 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 preparing my notes from Seek The Bear class and thought this might be useful to share:

We are hardwired for story. We can’t help it; it is what we do. We interpret, we judge, we speculate, we remember, we ponder, we investigate, we justify…we story. Meaning making and interpretation are processes of story. Even hard data is a form of story—when we story ourselves we locate: where are we now, where are we going? How we locate ourselves is a process of story.

The story you tell yourself about your self is often hard to see because you don’t see it as a story. It’s your life and you are so used to the inner-narrative that you stop recognizing your self as the narrator/interpreter of the events. You assume that your story is truth; you assume that your story is “normal.” Your thoughts are your story.

The language you use to tell your story determines the world you see or do not see.

Recognizing that you are the storyteller of your life is one of the most potent paths to transformation available. When you recognize that you narrate and interpret every experience, every moment, every day of your life – that your memories are not passive, your imaginings betray a specific narrative point of view; then you can begin the path of creating. What you believe is possible, what you see as a limitation is unique to you: it’s your story and you’re telling it through your thoughts and how they drive the actions of your life. When you recognize this you come to a simple truth – and this one is ancient: you can change your story and in doing so you can change your world.

People have for centuries understood that wholeness, power, and creativity are immediately available once they recognize that life is not happening to them, rather they are actively creating the story of their life. They told stories, not for entertainment, but as guides for the next generation: a map for powerful living; a map for navigating the unknown.

Ask yourself, “What is the story I tell?” And then ask, “Is this the story I want to tell?”

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: locate | 2 Comments »

Story Is A Verb

Posted on July 4, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

482. 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 have a different understanding of the word “story.” To me, story is not a thing. It is not a noun. Story is a verb. It is an action. It is dynamic. I believe we story ourselves. And, because we story ourselves, we can story ourselves toward what we desire to create or we can story ourselves as fast runners from what we don’t want; we can tell a story of resistance.

Last night I taught the first of four classes in a story cycle called Seek The Bear. I have worked with stories my entire life. I integrate my understanding of story in every workshop, every class, every facilitation, every coaching, every performance, and every painting that I paint. It is ironic to me that last night was the first time I taught a class specifically about story. In the class I am telling an ancient story and opening the metaphors so the participants in the class might see their lives as a story – and not just any story – but their version of the ancient story. I am teaching this class so the people in it might recognize that they are not as isolated as they think; that their lives are as universal as they are unique.

I went back to school because Joseph Campbell said in a lecture, “Our mythology is dead. If you want proof all you need to do is read the newspaper….” I needed to know what he meant by that. I learned that we have lost our stories; we have no central living narrative. We’ve legislated the life-blood from our stories, reduced them to rules, a confused morality, an empty ethic. The body of the story remains. The heart will beat again and the blood will begin to move if we remember that story is a living thing. A living mythology requires only this: every story is your story. What if you knew that you, too, have been thrust out of Eden with your insatiable desire to know? Curiosity is our greatest gift, is it not? This story is your story and my story. Each of us walk through a world of dualities driven by our insatiable desire to return to the garden (unity). We are, all of us, Pandora, Eve. The turn around point is a metaphor called the virgin birth – the birth of your heart. As Joseph Campbell said, this is not a story about a weird happening 21 centuries ago; this is your story and my story, it is a guide, a living, breathing, dynamic meant to open our hearts and illuminate our path up the mountain.

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

Truly Powerful People (473)

Posted on June 25, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

473.
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 class I said, “I feel like sailboat sitting in very calm seas. I’ve done everything I know to do and now I can do nothing but wait for the wind to come and fill my sails.”

Martha said, “Can I tell you a story?” I love it when people tell me stories. It is my preferred avenue to comprehension. Give me data and I will yawn. Throw numbers my way and I’ll say. “What’s the story behind the numbers?” Apparently, Martha has my number. “Please!” I said.

She asked, “You know the story of the Buddha sitting beneath the Bodhi tree for days and days awaiting his illumination?”

“Yes.”

“Waiting does not mean stuck. Waiting can be opening to life. Waiting can be the final step. When I feel like I am waiting for the wind to fill my sails, do you know what I do? I finish things!” And then she laughed and added, “I’m a great starter of things but not a great finisher. When I am sitting beneath my Bodhi tree, I take the opportunity to finish things!”

I looked around my office at the pile of unfinished projects, the stacks of notes of “good ideas, the half written stories, and the sketchbooks awaiting my attention. Maybe these calm seas are more of an opportunity than I realized. Rather than wait this just might be my opportunity to open, to clean my inner and outer space. I think I might begin by finishing a few things.

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

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.”

Filed under: Metaphor, Story, Truly Powerful People | 5 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (464)

Posted on June 16, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

464.
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 preparing to tell the story of Parcival. It is a story that I haven’t shared with a group in 5 years. I wanted to tell a new story to this group – to offer a metaphor for transformation and Parcival kept tapping me on the shoulder. “Tell me,” he said. “They need to hear my story.” I was determined to tell a new story but Parcival was persistent and I have learned to pay attention when a story comes calling. I acquiesced.

Sometimes a story stalks you. If I were from another culture my elders would have given me this story long before I understood it. I would not have been expected to understand it and would have known that it was following me, waiting for me to become ready to receive it. Not having elders or an understanding of story at the time, I was a surprised years ago to find this story following me around. I tried to trick it and throw it off my trail but it always seemed to see through my deception. Sometimes it was standing too close to me – like the person behind you in line at the grocery store. I’d take a step forward to get some space but Parcival would take a step, too.

When the day came that the source of my power was shattered and I, in disillusionment, finally took off my armor, Parcival was waiting. He knew that armor removal was his cue to step into me. His warm awakening rushed through my bruised and battered soul and I knew I would survive. I knew after a while I would come back to life and perhaps even prosper. I knew my grail was close at hand and I knew because Parcival was there; he told me so.

Parcival is again tapping my shoulder and there must be a second awareness for me – or someone in this group is about to have their magic sword shattered and they will need Parcival waiting for them when they, too, at last remove their armor and forget their quest. He will quietly step into them and they will know as I did that just beyond the wreckage they will find their grail castle and come home for the very first time.

Filed under: Awakening, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Grail, Parcival | 2 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (447)

Posted on May 30, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

447.
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 turns out that my new friend, the professor of Chinese history, is an historian whose reach far eclipses the annals of China. He can pull from is inner archive a complete history of the most obscure topic. He is a gifted storyteller so his history is more adventure than lesson, more tale than fact. I delight in the stories that bubble from the depths of his history pool. Had I met him when I was younger I might have taken another path.

On our drive to Olympia early this morning I learned that my coffee addiction is thanks to an Ethiopian goat herder of the 9th century. Apparently, according to legend, the goat herder noticed that his goats grew hyperactive – some accounts say the goats jumped – every time they ate the red berries (coffee beans) from a certain plant. The goat herder ate the berries and they made him want to jump, too. He picked the berries, took them to a cleric who deemed them evil and threw them in the fire. Ahhhh. The smell of roasted coffee beans filled the air. The smell was so tempting that the goat herder rescued the beans, ground them, and added hot water! Viola! 12 centuries later I am a coffee addict living in a city with a Starbucks on every corner. My life is richer for the keen eye and happy accident of a long gone goat herder whose heart beat faster when he dared sample a mystery bean. If my family had a coat-of-arms our sigil would be a jumping goat.

In the late 1980’s one of my favorite documentary series was James Burke’s Connections. In each episode he’d trace the ripples of a single innovation through time, how the stirrup started a chain of events that eventually led to the microwave oven (I made that up but you get the point). Jean Houston wrote that we are the burning point of the ancestral ship; we are the living spark of a torch that goes back before recorded time. When I am with my friend the history professor I am reminded how intimately connected I am to ripples in all directions that I can’t even comprehend. I am located in web of meaningful connections. I am a goat herder whose happy accident of a life might send a ripple 12 centuries into the future that could bring joy to the heart of someone I will never know. And, what I love most about that thought is there may be a 33rd century historian who might one day say, “You know where that comes from don’t you?”

Filed under: Gratitude, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: history, innovation | Leave a comment »

Truly Powerful People (439)

Posted on May 22, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

439.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Debra decided to be miserable. There was water damage in her apartment and the when the landlord identified the source he found the extent of the damage was much worse than he expected. The repair was nothing short of reconstruction. The work was scheduled to take 45 days. She told me, “I’m going to hate every moment of it. If I can’t control my space I go nuts. I’ll just hate it.” Assigning two “hates” to a single circumstance left no room for doubt: Debra was going to be miserable. Fifteen days into the repair I passed her in the hall and asked how the repair was coming along. Her answer, “I hate it. I hate every moment of it.” I was not surprised. She’d carried the two “hates” into her life just as she’d planned.

Ellen decided that there was nothing she could do. Like many educators she told me she “loathed” the standardization and testing madness that continue to drive the public schools into the dirt. She told me that her children were suffering, the teacher’s were suffering, and the community was suffering. And then she said, “There’s nothing I can do so I just go with it. What else can we do?” “Loathe” is a powerful word. So is “helpless.” Apparently, “helpless” is more powerful than “loathe.”

What is it to loathe and still choose to participate? What is it to decide that you are helpless? What is it to decide to “hate” your experience before you actually have it?

Once, while sitting in the passenger seat of a car spinning out of control on a freeway, time slowed and I closed my eyes because I’d decided that what ever was about to happen was surely going to hurt. I heard the tires squealing and the beating of my heart. And then, nothing; stillness. There was no crunching of metal, no breaking glass or screams of pain. I opened my eyes and saw my brother gripping the steering wheel. We were facing the wrong way and all the cars around us had stopped. We didn’t hit the concrete barriers, other cars, rails, or plunge into the river. We were still. My brother, with his eyes wide open said, “Do want to get a drink?” and then, “Welcome to Kansas City.”

We decided that we were fortunate. We decided that, although losing control of a car on an icy freeway bridge was thrilling, it was only necessary to do it once. We decided that there was a lot we would do differently if circumstance ever presented us with another icy bridge.

Filed under: Awakening, Perspective, Story, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Truly Powerful People (438)

Posted on May 21, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

438.
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’m editing and rewriting this book, pieces are jumping up and demanding my attention. This one won’t let go of me. It’s from a previous post (I think):

If there is one thing we’ve learned in the past century it is that change is the only constant. And, the subsidiary lesson that is perhaps more potent: the pace of change is escalating. When buying my latest computer I told the sales person my current computer was only three and a half years old and he said, “Only! That’s ancient.”

Whether we realize it our not we are always in a process of change. The Dream Society, a book published over a decade ago by the market futurist Copenhagen Institute, suggested that the dramatic escalation of the pace of change has thrust us beyond the age of information and into the age of story. Information and data can locate us in a moment, describe a point in time, but the point is of limited use. We are living so close to the event horizon that the point in time that the data describes is obsolete before we can translate it into meaningful action. The best we can do is create multiple scenarios and live our way into an unknown future. In this sense, it brings us around to something our ancestors understood with certainty: true stability is found in the story that we tell, not in the things we possess or the roles that we play. We recreate ourselves in the story we tell.

Of course, therein exists my favorite paradox: Our stories are both road maps for change and anchors of stability. We know who we are by the stories we tell. We know who we want to become through the stories we tell. We know what we want to create through the stories we entertain. It leaves me pondering wonder why this story of escalating pace and not enough time is so central to the story we create?

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

« Previous Page — Next Page »