Sense Half A Breath

Posted on January 28, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

690. 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 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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Catch It On An Index Card

Posted on January 27, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

He was walking down the center of the street. He was wearing a backpack, heavy coat, a thick sweater cap, rubber boots, and was playing the violin. Actually, he wasn’t really playing; he was sawing. He was making sound pulling the bow across the strings – sometimes fast, sometimes slow; there was no discernable pattern. His face was as determined as his march down the center yellow lines, his rubber boots thunking on the wet asphalt. The cars moved over to avoid him as if he was on a bike or perhaps was a traffic cone. I heard an kid say to his friends, “This dude’s needs different boots – he’d keep better time with something less clunky.” I took out an index card and made a note. I live in a mad, mad, mad world that has no idea how mad it is and I like to capture some of the more absurd moments.

On the other side of the street a man in a suit glared at the parking meter. He hissed, “Come on!” and gave it a thwap atop its green dome. He looked at no one in particular and shouted in frustration, “I can get a happy meal at McDonalds faster than I can pay for parking!” I took another index card from my pocket and wrote the phrase; it was too good to let slip unrecorded. It reminded me of a phrase Tom uttered in frustration a few years ago: Sacramento County took over 5 years to approve a map of land Tom was trying to parcel and sell. One day at the county office, after yet another delay, he put his head against the wall and said, “We won World War Two in less time than it’s taking these people to approve a map!” I wrote that phrase on an index card, too.

I went into the Panama Hotel Tea and Coffee House to get an afternoon coffee and to write. There was a young couple posing for a photographer but also trying not to draw attention from the other coffeehouse patrons. It was the best split intention I’ve ever seen. The photographer was aware of the couple’s discomfort so was she was antagonizing them by making lots of noise and moving furniture around and giving them instructions in her big-girl outside voice. The couple shrank and tried to disappear before the camera. I’d give anything to see that proof sheet! After the photo-torture session was over, the barista asked the couple why they were having their photograph taken and they said meekly, “We’re getting married.” Everyone in the coffee house uttered a collective, “Ahhh!” The young couple blushed and disappeared. The photographer, packing up her camera said, “I wonder if they realize that people are going to look at them when they do the ‘I do’ thing. This might just be the worlds first invisible wedding.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out another index card.

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Meet The Beautiful

Posted on January 26, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

688. 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 one of those glorious clear nights in Seattle and the moon is round and bright and high in the sky. I was leaving the Samurai Noodle restaurant, one of those lovely tiny crannies turned into a food establishment. It’s the kind of place where you need to keep your elbows in tight or you’ll upset the table next to you and nobody cares because the chili noodles and genmaicha are to die for (the noodles are homemade, the tea is renowned, the food moans are genuine).

I stepped out into the cold night and was stopped in my tracks by the moon. I was not the only one who paused in my arc from here to there. Shoppers from the grocery store stopped, too. The moon called and we took a moment to listen. In a city where the lights blot out most of the stars and we the people are in a perpetual rush to be somewhere else, it requires a potent call to reach us, to make us look up from the ground, to bring us to a full stop for just one moment. And, in that moment, we touch that deepest of human places, the appreciation of beauty, a single breath given to the sublime.

Because the good people at the Samurai Noodle gave me a to-go cup and more hot water for my tea, I decided to sit for a while and watch people answer the call of the moon and touch the transcendent. My favorite part is the moment of recognition, the moment that the light of the moon stops the story, and for an instant, peoples’ faces relax and reflect the light back at the moon; just for an instant, a single breath, the beautiful meets the beautiful, time suspends, and there is not discerning which heavenly body is the source of the light.

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Sound Glorious

Posted on January 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

687. 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 as I walked north on 5th Avenue from the International District toward downtown, I went through a short tunnel or underpass. A young woman was standing in the center of the underpass, singing without inhibition. The acoustics were magnificent. Rather than singing a lyric, she was vocalizing, celebrating the range and depth of her voice. She saw me smile and stopped long enough to say, “Don’t I sound glorious!” She did.

One of the members of the coaching class I co-teach is a reverend. In class this week she offered us a biblical image for standing full and alive in personal truth: standing naked and unashamed before god. She asked, “What must it feel like to stand naked and unashamed before the world?” I thought of her question the moment I heard the young woman singing unashamed and fully exposed in the underpass.

Question: How do you know you are standing in your truth? Answer: you will find yourself singing your song at the top of your voice in a place that amplifies the sound and say with joy to a total stranger, “Don’t I sound glorious!”

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

Find The Metaphor

Posted on January 24, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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.’”

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

Join The Symphony

Posted on January 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

685. 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 exercise in class was a word cluster, a free association exploration about stepping into personal truth. Afterward, Winifred shared an image that surfaced during her cluster. She told the group that it was as if every living being on earth was a musical note in a song. When she stepped into a global perspective, she heard all the notes combine into a chorus. As she moved further out into a more universal perspective, the planets had songs and everything combined into a symphony of notes, high and low and everything in between.

According to her revelation, no note was insignificant; the symphony, to have full power, needed all the notes – so to diminish or minimize her self was to diminish the voice of the symphony. She said, “The world needs our notes.” And then, after a pause, she added, “…within every individual is a universe and each emotion is like a single musical note. In order for an individual to fulfill their universal note, they must feel the full spectrum of music within themselves.” She said, “Even suffering is a note, a note necessary to complete the symphony.”

Her message: Living your truth means to play without inhibition in the symphony of the universe. We need your note to complete the sound.

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A Snippet

Posted on January 22, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

684. 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’ve been working on the book all day and am toasty. So, rather than aim at coherence and miss (truly, I have not a single thought left in my head), I will share with you a short piece from the book. It’s a chat between a teacher and a student entrepreneur – though this section is only the voice of the teacher:

“Yes. The third recognition is, in fact, just that simple: you are telling yourself a story. It is probably too early but I will plant this seed now: great change is never viable in the big complicated interventions. It is always found in the simple, the small steps. The actions we need to take are rarely difficult; the story we wrap around the actions make them seem harder than they are. Look for the simplicity.”

“Before we move on it is important to put together the recognitions so far: 1) You don’t have a problem; you have a pattern. See the patterns in your life. One of the most important patterns you need to see is your word choice. 2) Your words matter because they are the building blocks of the story you tell. 3) You are telling yourself a story. Are you telling a story of “things happening to you,” or are you telling a story of, “I make things happen.” Entrepreneurs tell the latter story. The story you tell is always revealed through the patterns of your life. Do you see? It is a loop: pattern reveals story and story informs pattern.”

“You’ve already acknowledged that you don’t know the story that you tell yourself. Assume that you do not know and begin to hear the story. Begin by listening to the language you use when telling your story. What are the patterns of language you use? What do those patterns reveal about the story you tell?

“Entrepreneurs and artists have many things in common. Most significantly, they are telling themselves an entirely different story than most people tell so they see a world that is different than most people see. Seeing relationships and bigger contexts, seeing trends and patterns is sometimes called foresight. That would seem to be important skill for an entrepreneur, wouldn’t you agree?”

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Die To The Past

Posted on January 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

683. 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, Diane and I talked at length about dying to our pasts. She shared a potent meditation image – looking from her grave and in death no longer being invested in the limitations and attachments that previously confined her life. Her fears no longer mattered. She let go of her past and in so doing opened the way for growth and a new relationship with her future.

In story cycles, a character must leave behind all that they know in order to step into unknown territories. It is the movement away from the known, the comfortable, and the safe that is the metaphoric threshold to adventure and transformation. Leaving behind what you know is “story language” for dying to your past. Frodo will always return to the Shire but he will be a greatly changed. The Frodo that leaves on the adventure is not the same Frodo that returns. He knows too much about middle earth and himself to resume his former identity.

The caterpillar’s body does heroic battle resisting the cell replication that will eventually bring re-formation to a new way of being called butterfly. The caterpillar’s body reads the sweeping tide of change as cancer and fights back. This classic struggle within the caterpillar’s body of change meeting the conservative impulse ends when the resistance ends; the caterpillar can fight no more and surrenders the struggle. The imperative for change overwhelms the old identity; the caterpillar’s body releases the known and collapses into mush. Only then can the new form materialize and the new form is beyond the caterpillars capacity to imagine.

Diane’s meditation, Frodo’s journey, and the caterpillar’s process of transformation are the same metaphoric image. Each had to die to the past to step into the possible. The lesson over and over again, whether in story cycles, nature or human transformation, is that the new identity will always be greater than our wildest dreams. The only requirement is that we surrender the struggle, leave behind all that we know, experience the little death, and take a step.

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Be Home

Posted on January 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

My weeks of wandering have inadvertently thrown me into a meditation on “home.” In this gypsy time I have stayed in many dear friend’s homes and been treated as one of the family. I have been deeply touched at how many others have offered me places to stay, saying, “You are always welcome in my home. I’ve even camped in the house I grew up in, it’s sitting empty for the winter: a place that I used to call home but without my family is an odd place to visit. “Home” is the people, not the place.

Many years ago I looked for my “home” until I learned that, like happiness, “home” ensues. You don’t find it; you create it. If follows. Like all things valuable, “home” is a relationship. It is not a thing. I grew up in Denver and every time I return I am struck by how familiar are the air, the smells, the weather, the warm sun on a cold day – these are recognitions of a relationship with a place that I knew as a boy. They are like old friends that greet me. My body knows, “This was once home and will be waiting for you if you ever wish to return.”

I’ve lived places for many years and never felt at home; there was no significant relationship. And, I’ve walked into a room and immediately knew the place. I’ve met people that I felt I’d known all my life. The word to pay attention to is “felt.” My body knows home long before my mind knows. How many times in your life have you said, “I just knew….” Home is like that, too.

I am easier in the world now that I’ve stopped looking and started creating my home. I’m easier now that I recognize that I will feel it before I think it. Yes, it is a paradox: I create it and I feel it. In some ways I am home everywhere. I feel it. I now know without a doubt what it feels like to come home. I know what it feels like to be home.

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Grow Young

Posted on January 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

“A child-like man is not a man whose development had been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.”
Aldous Huxley

It’s not that I don’t want to grow up. It’s just that I don’t want to be like most grown ups that I know. I figure that I will have plenty of time for being deadened after I’m dead so why numb myself to experience now? It makes me wonder if hunter-gatherers became complacent? In the absence of a laz-y-boy and an entertainment center, what constitutes good living?

Twice in my life I put myself on a television moratorium. Both times within a week, after the initial detox period of wondering what to do with myself when not anesthetized, I stopped pacing and began to experiment. I created things. I went places. I stopped shouting at the television and started engaging with people who talked back. I read more books, thought more thoughts, went out into a cold winter night so that I could feel the cold, see the stars and shiver just enough to make a good cup of hot chocolate taste better. Also, there are few things more satisfying than wrapping cold fingers around a hot mug. Once, I smoked a cigar while sitting on a wall that overlooked the city just because I’d never done it before. In short, when not distracted, when not “muffling myself in the cocoon of middle-age habit” I came back to life. Breaking patterns is more important than you might realize.

What are the multiple ways that we check out or pad ourselves from new experience? What paradigm do we embrace that makes “just getting through it” a viable option? If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone count the years before they could retire I’d be hauling around a ton of nickels. While sitting in the Blue Moon a few days ago I heard this: “Six more years to retirement and I can finally start living.” The others at the table nodded as if to say, “Hold your breath; you’ll get there someday.” With such a premise, why would anyone want to grow up? A real friend would have stood up, slapped them and screamed, Wake Up!”

The Buddhists say that life is the joyful participation is the sorrows of the world. The key word is participation. Protect yourself from the sorrows and you blunt your capacity to participate. We aspire to “easy” and “easy” comes with a cost. Children count the minutes until class is over. Adults count the years until retirement. And in the mean time, the rich textures of life, the capacity for joyful participation, passes unnoticed.

There is no mystery to fulfilling your potential or releasing your inner artist. Get up, let go your current form of distraction, look around, step toward the thing that will take some effort and is worth doing. Get messy. Do something for no other reason than you have never done it before. Aspire to grow young.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

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