Truly Powerful People | The Direction of Intention

Honor The Crow

Posted on September 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

In my studio are two wood, wire, paper and found-object sculptures of crows I made a few years ago. I made them at the time that crows were plaguing me. For a few years crows were a potent and ever present force in my days, dive bombing me when I least expected it. Once, a murder of crows circled my studio for hours. There were two fledglings in the yard outside of the studio door and I suppose I was perceived as a threat. I perceived the crows as a threat.

I’d like to think that I was in my personal version of an Alfred Hitchcock movie – and sometimes it felt that way – but in truth I think the crows did me a favor. They woke me up. If it is possible for a subconscious to manifest itself then my subconscious came at me in the form of crows. It began one day on Alki beach when a crow went berserk on me and would not let me go home. I’m sure I was the talk of the sidewalk as I fled to the beach and found a stick so that I might defend myself. My animal instinct kicked in and I sought open ground and a weapon to use for a fair fight (crows have beaks). The crow left me alone if I walked away from my home but unleashed a full aerial assault if I tried to walk in the direction of home. Finally, I fled to a coffeehouse and hid until the crow flew away (the time it takes to drink two Americanos and eat a chocolate chip cookie).

Crows have facial recognition so I told myself that someone who looked like me had treated the crows poorly. More than once they picked me out of a crowd and hit me from behind. Crows are masters at surprise attacks. But deep down I knew differently. They weren’t attacking me. It wasn’t malice. It was a wake up call. They were helping me.

As is my custom, I searched the symbolism of Crow and this is what I found: “Crow is the guardian of ceremonial magic and healing. In any healing circle, Crow is present. Crow guides the magic of healing and the change in consciousness that will bring about a new reality and dispel “dis-ease” or illness…. Do not try to figure crow out. Crow represents the power of the unknown at work, and something special is about to happen.”

Something special did happen. Something special continues to happen.

For some reason today, I have been hyper aware of my crow sculptures. I’ve found myself staring at them and remembering the original impulse to make them. I wanted to exorcise the aggression, rid myself of their attacks. Now I see them differently. Given the vast changes in my life this year I see them as harbingers of change. From this vantage point I can see how the unknown was at work and, I believe, continues to work. This year I’ve not had a single crow incident.

I laughed out loud this morning when I realized that every shirt I own is black. I’ve internalized my crow medicine. The crows are to me as bees are to Beowulf. What was once my nemesis may someday become my greatest ally. I hope so. That would mark the closing of a circle and the beginning of a new adventure and I’ll be able to bring my crow medicine with me into the next unknown.

(Post 894. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.)

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Give The Gift

Posted on September 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Amy and I meet for coffee every few months. We usually meet early in the morning, bleary eyed and mostly exhausted by the path we’ve chosen to walk in this life. That’s why we schedule the date: we are exhausted and seeking inspiration. By the time we part a few hours later we are on fire with possibility. It happens every time. We spark each other. We ignite the imagination and remind each other of the riches of art and creativity in a community that understands the creative through the lens of commodity. We leave behind our need to assign value to our work and simple revel in our reason why.

Early on in life, artists learn to either diminish or inflate their gift. In looking for their place in this tribe that knows value only in monetary terms – and art cannot really be understood in such an abstract value system – they default to judge their own work. In the absence of any meaningful valuation they create a shadow standard. They cannot find a place so they invent one and the invention usually comes in the form of a value box: good enough, not good enough, appreciated, underappreciated, understood, misunderstood. It becomes an inner debate, a reason to hide, a certainty of inauthenticity, a story of hidden genius, a disdain for an ignorant community. It is a story of separation or suffering, a story as disembodied as the commodity system that inspired it.

I shared with Amy that a major part of my learning this year has been to get out of the valuation game. I’ve surrendered my shadow standard and am no longer interested in placing my work in a value box. I’m out of the business of inflation or deflation. I have a gift and need not concern myself with its reception. Mine is to give it. Mine is to give it as boldly and joyfully as possible. The value debate sucks air from my offer.

I’ve learned that arts live at the center so I need not seek any other place. They are connective tissue and any form of separation (belief that I am special or less than useful) is anesthetic; it is the antithesis of art. Art joins. Art enlivens. It awakens. It unifies. It does not fit in boxes. It is ordinary, ubiquitous, a path available to every human being. Gifts are meant to be given without condition. Gifts are meant to be opened and celebrated..

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Listen To Your Voice

Posted on September 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

892. 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 Soleil told me that she didn’t recognize my voice. We hadn’t spoken since last November and needless to say a lot has changed in my life since last November. She told me that I sounded alive and vibrant and last time she spoke with me I was a dead man walking (those are my words. She actually said I sounded sad and tired).

Her comment surprised and pleased me. I’m hearing myself from the inside so I’m not aware of how I sound to others. I feel more alive.

I have in one glorious year blown apart everything I knew, challenged everything I believe, doubted all of my first principles, tossed away all of my safety nets, and whittled away all of my worldly possessions, and a good portion of my body weight. I now own several paintings, a drafting table, an easel, and a rocking chair that needs a seat replacement. I’ve even eliminated most of the clothes I owned last November. I walk a small segment of Seattle each day, in fact, my life paths in Seattle fit within a few blocks. I live nowhere and am alive everywhere. My life is at the same time very small and infinite. Last year everything seemed so complicated and now my life is simple. I think, at last, that the world is my studio. I see art everywhere.

Last week while in Wisconsin, late at night, Kerri found a bat flying around the dining room of her house. She’s lived in the house for 24 years and has never had a bat in the house. We caught it in a mesh trashcan with an improvised lid and released it outside. Later I googled “bat medicine” because I like to know what an encounter with an animal symbolizes, especially when my encounters are unusual. Bats represent rebirth. They mark the passage from old forms into the new. They are symbols of initiation and require the conscious creation of new patterns. I laughed when I read it.

I laugh a lot these days. I laughed when Soleil told me that my voice sounded different. “Tell me what you hear?” I asked. She said, “I don’t know, it’s like you are a wholly different person. I’m having trouble reconciling your voice with the person I once knew. You are so alive!”

Before my call with Soleil I had a conversation with a chiropractor about the difference between choosing a path and defaulting to a path that by being chosen. Both are valid but for me there is an important difference. I started coming back to life when I started choosing. I believe what Soleil hears in my voice is someone who no longer defaults by being chosen. If I don’t want to play on a team I’ve learned to sit down. If I’m not sure which road to take I take a break. I’m learning to listen. I’m going nowhere and that is precisely the door to living. I’ve learned that life is vibrant now; if not now, then never, because I’ve given this moment away and I only have so many moments.

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Wake Up To A New World

Posted on September 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

891. 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 isn’t explanations that carry us forward, it’s our desire to go on.” Paolo Coello, Brida

I had a very late night. Combined with a very early flight I had no choice but to sleep my way across the country. Not only did I wake up in a different city, a different time zone, a different climate, I also felt as if I woke up into a different lifetime. I was away for a very long time. In that time I traveled by car across seven states in less than 24 hours. I stood in the pouring rain. I heard thunder roll without ceasing for over 15 minutes. I drank too much wine, ran from a skunk, loaded a truck with furniture and boxes, played poorly a ukulele, laughed until I had to sit down, cleaned a pond of leaves and debris, put my feet in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, fell asleep on the sugar white sands of the beach, danced like it was the last day of my life, ate when I was hungry, walked at midnight almost every night, sang a James Taylor song over and over, and took a load of treasured shoes to the salvation army. In that time, Tom died and I was inundated with calls from people who wanted me to know. Friends long lost reached out to me to wrap me in their warmth and condolences. I had conversations of grief and celebration while standing on a pier, sitting on a park bench, riding in a car, sitting in my bed, and walking through the leaves fallen too early. I took off my shoes so I could feel them crunch beneath my feet.

When I stepped off the plane I entered into a familiar airport but it seemed as if it was familiar from another lifetime. I knew the place but was no longer the person who knew the place. I stood in SeaTac for a few moments and wondered if I was dreaming. People raced passed me. They had flights to catch and family to meet. I was in the way so I stepped to the side. I kept waiting for the scene to change. I kept waiting to wake up but I didn’t so I wandered through the airport, I taught a tourist how to buy a light rail ticket, I bought one for myself and rode the train into downtown.

Once, many years ago, I visited my elementary school and although everything was as it had been when I was a boy, it all seemed so small. As I walked from the train station to my studio I had the same impression. This place has become small. Or I have grown and what once seemed boundless now feels tight and confining. Standing in my studio, I opened the windows to let in the air, I remembered Carol saying, “I’ve broken up with the world. I want a whole new relationship with it so I’ve let the old relationship go.” That’s it, I think. I have broken up with the world. I’m not going to wake up from this dream because I woke up into this dream. While I was gone I let the old world go. I can’t explain it. I have new eyes. I’ve awakened to an opportunity for a whole new relationship with the world.

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Flip It!

Posted on September 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

890. 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 has been a summer of flips. Things that seemed so difficult a few months ago are now easy. Things that seemed so easy a few months ago are difficult. My paradigm is flipping. For instance this morning I had a difficult conversation that ultimately became about the necessity of giving voice to the hard-to-say stuff. What seems confrontational often goes unspoken because it doesn’t feel safe. I’ve often withheld what needs to be said so that I might remain safe. Here’s the flip: hiding (not speaking) is an acknowledgement that you do not feel safe. It might feel safe to withhold your voice but it’s not. What goes unspoken festers and grows. It becomes a monster that gobbles you up. In truth, what goes unspoken is fundamentally unsafe. Giving voice to the most difficult stuff is the safest thing you can do. Giving voice in the difficult moments is like shining a light into a dark corner. There may or may not be a monster lurking in the corner but you’ll never know until you shine the light on it. I’ve lost many a precious relationship by withholding my voice, by not saying what needed to be said.

It’s not lost on me that during this time of flipping that I am partner in a business start up, appropriately (and coincidentally) named Flipped Start-up. The original purpose of the company was to flip the perspective of new start-ups. They generally focus on the wrong stuff and step into some obvious potholes because of it. However, there was a false premise lurking under our original intention. I’ve known and taught ad infinitum that you can never control what another person thinks, feels, or sees so to create a company based upon the premise that we could change what people see was…clumsy. It seems that the purpose of Flipped Start Up was to flip me.

People do not change. They grow. They learn. They look into dark corners. They learn to speak. They see that the monsters that they imagined are, indeed, imaginary, self-made monsters. And the primary thing we learn to do when we become powerful is to illuminate, to reveal, to give voice. To show up, not as we think we should be, but as we truly are.

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See Her Hands

Posted on August 31, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

889. 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 issued me a challenge today. He asked me, for a few weeks, to write about something other than the events of my day. Perhaps to write about ideas or dreams or imaginings or something that happened in the past. His challenge to me is about moving beyond the role of witness – a role I play well – and to actually inhabit the moments of my life. He asked me to intentionally be a participant more than an observer. It’s a great idea and a worthy challenge. And, I will start tomorrow. Today I have to write about Kerri’s hands.

Kerri is a musician, a composer with many albums to her credit. When she plays the piano she drops into a deep root, she grounds into her music, and a river of sound flows from her. Life flows through her. So much life flows through her that she cannot sit at the piano. She stands and life flows through her hands as sound and vibration and heart. It is her music.

The first time I met her I asked her to play something for me. I stood at the side of the piano and I watched her reach into the earth. I watched life pour through her hands. They knew just what to do. When she grounded and gave herself over to the music, her hands merged with the keys and I wasn’t sure if the hands were playing the keys or the keys were moving her fingers.

This morning while I was talking with Alan she began to play a new composition. I left the call and stood by the piano. The lid to the piano was open so I could see her hands and the hammers touch the strings as she touched the keys. I know this sounds obvious but the piano is an extension of her hands. The piano is a channel for her soul.

Later we stood on the front stoop as a storm blew through. The thunder rolled and rolled without ceasing. It was magic, something I’ve never heard before. The same power I saw in her hands I also saw in voice of the sky. I took her hand and felt the life, the thunder and the power. I felt the music. It was breathtaking.

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Play The Ukulele

Posted on August 30, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Last night I was at Ukulele practice in a garden on the shores of Lake Michigan. I am a rank beginner and learning to play the Ukulele with 47 other people. We were laughing our way through Over The Rainbow. I was playing air Ukulele pretending that I was expert at my chord progressions, when a sphinx butterfly circled us, flew into the garden right next to me, and began drinking from the flowers. It was close enough to touch. I’d never seen anything like it before. I was so captivated by the butterfly that I forgot to pretend that I was strumming.

A sphinx butterfly looks like an exotic hummingbird. It is shaped like a hummingbird, its wings beat like a hummingbird, it hovers like a hummingbird, and yet it is not a hummingbird. My section of the ukulele band completely dropped their chord progressions and joined me in gaping at the butterfly. We entered an intense debate about whether it was a hummingbird or indeed a sphinx butterfly. The people seated to the left of the garden voted for hummingbird. Those of us on the right were solidly in the butterfly camp. I had no idea so I went with those seated around me. Each camp had solid justifications and good reasons for their point of view. The butterfly paid us no attention. It was not concerned about our debate or our need to identify its species. It continued feeding regardless of the label we attached to it.

I can’t help it. In moments like this I step into the role of witness. I watched people enrapt by a butterfly. I watched their loving debate, their laughter, their awe. I watched this group of amazing people hold their treasured ukuleles of many colors – green, purple, midnight blue, orange, red, pink and sky blue, white and black – watching a butterfly of many colors – pink, orange, purple, salmon, white, blue and black – and I was in awe of their awe. They did not see how beautiful they were as they admired the beauty of the butterfly.

This is the role of the human being isn’t it? To see the beauty of the world. To appreciate and give a name to the awesome and unimaginable. To engage with the beauty and then to join in a simple way with the creation of beauty: this group who gathers each Wednesday night to play their ukulele’s together and laugh and drink wine and gape in utter amazement at a butterfly.

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Gratitude, Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: awe, beauty, witness | Leave a comment »

Stand In The Chaos

Posted on August 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Here’s the last one from the archives. I’ll be back live tomorrow. This was post 282:

This is my favorite revelation of the week. It comes from a friend who has for the past several years been doing big work on herself. Like all big shifts of perception it sounds so simple but is hard to embody. I’m beginning to understand that most revelations do not come with fireworks and a brass band; they are subtle. They are simple because they’ve been there all along and we just did not see them. They slip in with little fanfare, like removing your sunglasses.

This is how she said it: I’ve learned to be in the chaos without buying into the chaos. See, no fanfare. And, if you are truly underwhelmed, ask yourself when was the last time you resisted, defended, justified, needed to be right, fought for others to see what you see, needed approval, bought into the notion of perfection, or any of a thousand other ways you buy into the chaos. Are you anxious, afraid, motivated by what you fear or do not want, in survival mode, or certain that the universe is throwing obstacles in your way? Chaos, chaos, chaos.

Can you imagine what it might mean in your life to be able to stand solidly in the chaos without needing to control it, contain it, or deny it? Can you be present without needing to manipulate or force anything or anyone yet say without inhibition exactly what you need (it’s not the need that matters, it is how you fill it that defines you).

Reread the first part of her statement: I’ve learned to be. Her focus shifted. The earth did not shake, the clouds did not part, no ascension or angels or twenty-one gun salute. Her focus shifted, she realized choices are creative acts and instead of being caught in the whirlpool, it swirls around her.

What could you buy if you stopped investing in chaos?

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Dance With “What If…?”

Posted on August 28, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

886. 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’m on the road today and a new posts is impossible. So a repost. This was #555:

David just started his new job. He is now a professor of acting and directing at a university. He just finished his first week of classes after moving to a new city a few short weeks ago; he’ s the new member of an old faculty; everything is strange. He has no comfortable patterns yet, the grocery store is unknown, the walk to and from work is more a discovery than a ritual. Creating a new life is never easy precisely because of the unknowns. And, what I love about David is that he is the consummate teacher, a gifted artist that uses his experiences as fodder for class; he studies his life just and uses what he finds as material for his work.

Our conversation was about his students, about how dreadfully reinforced they are in the notion that they have “to know” before they commit to an action. He laughed and told me, “I was the same way! I had to work through this debilitating idea that I needed to know what I was doing before I made a choice. Consequently, I had a hard time making choices!”

I’ve yet to meet a dynamic, potent artist or businessperson who really knows what they are doing. Artists become potent when they stop thinking that they need to know. What they need do is try, experiment, offer, wreck, scribble, tear, sculpt; play. They need to make a strong choice and follow it. They dance in the fields of “what if…?” By the way, this is also known as good scientific method: state a hypothesis and test it.

As David and I discussed, needing to “know what you are doing” is a certain sign of feeling like a fraud. All of us have at one time or another ducked behind a mask of certainty to hide our belief that we were inauthentic – and we felt inauthentic because we invested in the tragic notion that we needed to know before we acted. Putting down your need to know is a passage ritual, it is the threshold to vitality and self-actualization.

Life is never found in the knowing. It is always found in the questioning. It is made vital by the freedom to experience without masking or hiding behind the castle wall of knowing. The sweet secret to bold artistry is the same sweet secret to vital living; whisper it to yourself as it seems to be a dirty little secret: nobody knows what they are doing regardless of what they pretend.

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Glow With Sun Fire

Posted on August 27, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

885. 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’m on the road for the next two days and new posts are impossible. So a repost. This was #554:

Sometimes in the early morning, before the sun rises over the ridge, the osprey will soar high, higher than the ridge, catching the sun light before we land dwellers can see it, and burst into orange fire. The markings of an osprey look Egyptian to me, a pharaoh’s bird, so when they catch fire with the sun, not only am I dumbstruck with their beauty but feel as though I am witness to the appearance of a god or goddess, Thoth maybe, or Isis. And then the osprey dips beneath the ridgeline and the glow extinguishes; they are once again gorgeous in their mortality, mere birds of prey. But, I caught a glimpse into their true identity, their godhood.

I feel that way about people everyday. We walk on this earth beneath the ridgeline, beautiful in our mortality and every so often we rise above ourselves, we show up even for a moment, and the fire reveals itself.

During intake sessions for new coaching clients I like to ask, “What is yours to do? What is the thing that drives you?” I’ve been asking this question for years, it has become an experiment of sorts. You might be surprised to know that 100% of the time my clients respond, “I want to help people.” The form of helping varies but the impulse to serve others is universal. People seek my services because they feel they have not fulfilled their potential and fulfilling their potential always means helping other people.

It’s a paradox unique to a society that celebrates individual achievement over communal health and wellbeing: we place our focus on personal achievement and feel vacant, unfulfilled if our work has no impact on others. We focus on the gold medals and miss the moments that truly matter. Artists who paint but do not show their work soon stop painting; there is no point without the other.

Dado delivers my mail everyday. Ron fixes things in my apartment when they break. What would I do without them? The good folks at Alki Auto fix my flat tires and don’t charge me. Jen checks me out of the Metropolitan Market; she knows my name and always asks where I’ve recently travelled. Someone I don’t even know stocks the shelves at the grocery store, someone I will never meet grew, nurtured and tended the peach that I just ate: it was so flavorful that it made me moan.

The osprey does not know when it flies above the ridgeline; it does not know it is glowing with sun fire. Perhaps we would recognize the godhood in each other and ourselves if we sought our fulfillment, not in an abstract outcome like “potential” and instead took stock of the little generosities and service that we offer each other every single day.

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