The Direction of Intention

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!

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Truly Powerful People (432)

Posted on May 15, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

432.
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 walked slowly through downtown today. It was such a gorgeous day that I couldn’t help myself. It is not as easy as it sounds to walk slowly through downtown. I felt as if the world was moving in fast motion or like I was a little kid playing on the freeway; people move fast! Folks in business attire whizzed by, some careening into walls to avoid crushing me. I thought it was a courtesy to slam into a wall rather than mow down a slow walker. Some people slammed on their leather-shoe-brakes and danced behind me looking for a passing opportunity. One lady cussed; she was late for something and I was an impediment.

The community resource guides – nice folks in yellow shirts that ride bikes and ask people if they need help or directions – stopped to ask me if I needed help or perhaps directions. Walking slow in the city signaled that I must be a tourist; locals have things to do and places to be. I said “No thank you,” and they said, “We’re here to help if you need us.”

“Wouldn’t it be a great world,” I thought to myself, “if people extended to their fellow citizens the same courtesy they extend to visitors!” Can you imagine a city whose citizens were dedicated to helping anyone at anytime find their way through life? A society dedicated to helping all members get where they need to go – as personal acts of generosity?

Of this I am certain, members of this imaginary culture would never rush through downtown.

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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 (430)

Posted on May 13, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

430.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Sitting in my assigned seat (7B) I was taken by this phrase: Use bottom cushion for flotation device. I’ve flown several hundred times in the past decade and I’ve seen this phrase on every flight and took little notice. For some reason today it struck me as odd. The airline stenciled it in 3 places on the seat back directly in front of me; that makes 9 stencils for every row! There are only 3 exit signs on the plane. The emergency exit rows have some escape hatch instructions that are also written in the language of toy assembly: pull red handle to position “A,” lift hatch bottom until it detaches from slot “C.” Thrust hatch out and let go. These instructions are given only once. Why the flotation device repetition? Getting out of a sinking plane seems a higher priority than knowing that floating is an option. It’s all very corporate. Legal.

I suppose that’s the point. The phrase is there to satisfy a legal requirement and is reiterated 3 times so the airline will not be liable for my death by drowning. The irony of that possibility made me cackle and my seatmates grew nervous. I pointed to the phrase and lied, “I find this a statement of hope!” and my seatmates looked away. In the age of the underwear bomber, humor is suspect. They worked hard pretending I wasn’t there so I made them stretch beyond their limits pointing to the 3 identical stencils saying, “Three times must be a charm.”

That must be the explanation! If my plane went down in the water (unlikely on my flight from Lincoln to Denver) and I survived the impact (unlikely on a flight from Lincoln to Denver) I doubt that I would be thinking clearly. I have a list of the things I’d probably think – none of which I feel good about writing. I cackled again and my seatmates eyed the flight attendant button so I said, “It actually might take 3 repetitions for me to grab my bottom cushion en route to flotation and eventual water rescue.” Their panic was palpable so I said, “I guess you should be glad I’m not sitting by the door. We’d all drown.”

The image of me popping through an airplane hatch riding like a cowboy atop a seat cushion and bobbing to the surface of a mountain lake was too much. I laughed outright and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “I wonder where they keep the oars?”

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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 (428)

Posted on May 11, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

428.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“Wherever you are is the entry point.” Kabir

John was my seatmate on the flight from Seattle to Minneapolis. He was in school in Hawaii and returning home to see his parents before he stepped off the edge of the world. He wore swimming shorts, an old (very old) tee shirt, and rope sandals. His blonde-blonde hair had not seen a comb in years (a man after my own heart!) and was more comfortable in the world than almost anyone I’ve ever met. Joyce would call him an old soul: he is at home everywhere.

He told me that during the last semester he felt compelled to travel. He said, “I can go to school anytime – it will always be there. But I’m not always going to be so footloose. I want to learn Spanish so I’m going to South America by way of Mexico.” He told me he consulted his advisor – apparently a wise woman because she cheered his choice and told him to go. “There’s plenty of time to settle,” she told him. “Life begins today.” I told him that I thought his advisor was enlightened.

He squinted at me and told me that I was “different.”

“I get that a lot,” I said squinting back at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Dude!” he laughed, “people in Hawaii are happy. They are choosing to be happy. You’re like that. I mean, look around this plane! Look at all the serious faces! No body’s talking. People going somewhere and never being anywhere. That’s different.”

We raised our paper coffee cups in a toast to good life, travel, and being different.

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Truly Powerful People (427)

Posted on May 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

427.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“Art happens – no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.” James McNeill Whistler
Years ago I attended a summer session of The California Arts Project (TCAP). The foundation thought beneath TCAP was that teacher’s could not teach the arts unless they recognized themselves as artists. The amazing educators driving TCAP understood that all people are artists and very few people recognize it. They existed to help teachers recognize (reclaim) their artist identity, activate it, and build community with all of the other newly re-found artists. The work was extraordinary, the revelations transcendent.

Ed was an angry young man. He looked like he’d rather punch you than talk with you. I loved him! He was a wonderful teacher because he’d been a misunderstood student. He had little tolerance for adults who abused their power over children. He was a champion for children; Ed was destined to be shamed, blunted, betrayed, and forced out of education. His administrator sent him to TCAP with the last-ditch hope that the arts would take the edge off of Ed (oh, silly administrator!).

When he came to TCAP he chose dance as his primary art form because he knew nothing about dance. Ed’s choices were usually rooted in resistance and rebellion and that extended to his personal choices. I imagine his inner monologue went something like this: “So you think you can be an artist! Well why don’t you just try dance, Mr. No-Rhythm-Multiple-Clubfoot!” Over the next two weeks at TCAP Ed went through the stages of death; denial and anger led to acceptance and then burst through to another stage: desire. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that desire burst through Ed. He decided to do a solo performance as his final demonstration. He disappeared for hours at a time to rehearse. He began to smile, his brow un-knit, his usual heavy aura sparkled; Ed had a secret and it tickled him.

Ed danced a lifetime of pain away before our eyes. To Seal’s Kiss From A Rose, he moved through darkness to liberation to celebration to elation. He bloomed. 200 teachers, shocked into silence, bore witness to the enormity of the human spirit and the power of the arts. Ed unwittingly called forth the muses and art happened. Pandora’s box was open and the art was out! Ed’s anger was transformed. He returned to his school with more than an edge: he now knew how to wield his power. There is nothing more potent than a teacher who has released their artist from the box.

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Truly Powerful People (426)

Posted on May 9, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

426.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lately I’ve been practicing a new form of gratitude. I trace everything I eat or drink back to the plant. So, for instance, the cup of coffee I am enjoying: someone cultivated, cared for and harvested the beans. Someone carried the beans to a market. Someone sold them. They were carried again: lifted, shipped, lifted again, and delivered. The beans were roasted and packaged by someone or many people. The roasted beans were ground. They were brewed for me. Count the people involved in the experience of a single cup of coffee and it will take your breath away. What will further knock your socks off is to not discount the plant. Practice this form of gratitude and everything can be traced back to the plant. We are here by the good graces of the plants. Their health is our health! Now, there is something worth our attention!

For another thrill, take a look at The Biology of Desire; it will pop open your eyes about how truly intimate is our relationship with plants – and how these extraordinary complex life forms change us as much or more than we imagine. We like to think we are in control but, like most forms of control, it is an illusion. We control at our peril. When we participate, everything flourishes.

Martín Prechtel writes that we can only know ourselves fully when we know the origin and story of the seed that feeds us. To know our story we must know the story of our people. To know the story of our people you must know the story of their sustenance. This is not an abstraction. It requires participation. Our identity is told in the story of the plants that feeds us. Without this story, we are untethered, alienated from our community, deluded into thinking we control nature, constantly searching for where we fit and wondering what it all means. If you’re looking, start with a seed.

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Truly Powerful People (425)

Posted on May 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

425.
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’s that time of year again. The crows are barking at me. I thought I would pass the season unscathed but this morning the dive-bombing games returned. To be clear: the crows dive bomb me, I do not dive bomb the crows. I have no reason to aim my beak at their pates and swoop in unannounced.

The attacks often begin with a rowdy barrage of crow insults. At least, I thought they were insults. To the untrained ear it sounds as if they are mocking the shape of my head or saying crude things about my mother. Crows are not subtle.

Since this has been going on for years I thought it would be a good idea to know what they were actually saying! Perhaps my assumptions are wrong! Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for their barking and diving at me. It might explain why they pick me out of the crowd. So, after some searching I found and hired a crow translator (at the moment there is no app for crow translation).

At first, I thought my translator was crazy or somehow distracted. Her translations sounded suspiciously crow-centric. After a few translations I began to get the gist of things. It turns out that crows bark Haiku! They are especially fond of Basho, the great Haiku master because he penned so many poems about crows. This is what the crow barked just before aiming its beak at me (as translated by my translator):

The crow sits
on a dead branch –
evening of autumn

“Their seasons are all confused!” I protested. “Autumn? What’s this crow talking about and why do they attack me?” The translator smiled knowingly and said:

“This is not attack.
The crow desires your response
This fine spring morning.”

Great. The crows want a poem instead of my usual flailing arms and duck-n-cover maneuvers. All this time it was art that they craved.

Attack someone else,
My head is full of divots.
Nice shot. Hole in one.

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Truly Powerful People (424)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

424.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Colin was different. Dwight cast him in the play because he wanted Colin to be part of a community of support. Being different, Colin had rarely belonged. He was the outcast kid constantly trying to get into the group. Consistent shunning did nothing to dampen his desire. He wanted to belong. He kept trying. So, he auditioned for a play. Dwight cast Colin because Dwight understands the true nature of art.

One day, a few weeks into rehearsal, Dwight came into the theatre and heard the other cast members belittling Colin. Dwight was stunned. The power of his astonishment shocked the cast into silence. In a quiet voice, filled with love-rage, Dwight delivered a message worthy for the ears of all humanity. “This space is sacred. It is an art space where people come together. It is a space of generosity and courage. It is a place where people reach toward each other to have a common experience. It is a place capable of transforming hearts and lives. Colin’s need is to reach toward you. Can you imagine the courage it must take for him, day after day to show up and to reach toward you knowing that your response will be to push him away? Imagine it because this is what you are creating. And what you are creating is killing the art in you and in him. What do you possibly gain by pushing him away other than a false sense of superiority? You need to mock Colin so that you feel powerful. How does that power feel? What might you gain by opening your circle and letting him in? How powerful do you become when your power is not predicated upon the diminishment of others? Colin needs you but let me tell you something that you may not recognize: you need him far more than he will ever need you. He just might teach you how to be truly powerful and human.”

And then Dwight asked them to leave his theatre. He asked them not to come back until they were capable of respecting themselves, each other, and their play. He came into my office, sat down and wept. And then, he asked me a world-class question: “Why are people so devoted to diminishing themselves?”

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Education, Heroes, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

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