The Direction of Intention

What Would You Put In Your Box?

Posted on October 18, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tom is what first nation’s people would call a ‘Rememberer.’ Within him he carries all of the family stories, stories that stretch back centuries. He knows them in vivid detail and you can feel the presence of his ancestors in him when he tells their stories. He is a living monument to those that came before him. Over many long nights sipping wine he’s told me the stories and now parts of them live on in me. One story in particular has become mine to tell.

It is about a little boy that died 125 years ago. The little boys name was Johnny Quiggle and he died of typhoid fever. At the time, 1885, people believed the fever could be passed through the possessions of the inflicted so Johnny’s doctor mandated that his mother, Isabelle, burn her little boy’s possessions; he asked her to erase any evidence that Johnny had lived. She couldn’t do it. In secret she packed his belongings in a trunk, wrote stories of Johnny’s life, and plastered the trunk into a wall for some distant descendent to find. Tom found the trunk in 1985 when he was restoring the ranch house.

Over our long nights sipping wine Tom and I have talked about Isabelle and Johnny, and about monuments and memorials. Why do people need to memorialize their departed loved ones? Why do we need to leave marks on the earth that say, “I was here” or “This happened on this day in this place?” “Remember me.”

Isabelle’s impulse was innate. Isabelle wanted Johnny to live into the future; she wanted someone to find the trunk and share his story. She wanted people in the future to know that her boy, Johnny Quiggle, lived.

We paint on the walls of caves. We pose for portraits and we erect pyramids and statues. We create altars and celebrate The Day Of The Dead. We bury time capsules and plaster treasure chests into the walls of our homes. We seek to connect with our ancestors and our descendents, we research family trees to know the root of our existence and explain our oddities and behavior. We fret about our legacy.

I’ve spent many hours in old graveyards reading the faded headstones and wondering about the people whose full rich lives are told in a few spare details carved in stone: birth and death date and perhaps a phrase like, “Devoted Mother” or “Civil War Veteran.” I will join them someday. I wonder about my life, what it is about, what I have achieved, who I have become and am becoming. I wonder what might be carved on my stone – what single phrase can possibly describe the fullness of my life. What is the story I want my life to tell? Who will tell it when I’m gone?

Sipping wine, Tom asked, “What would you put in your box? Better yet, what would others put in your box?” Beyond your awards and other fake social-face stuff, what would you put into your box that truly revealed who you were?

It’s a great question.

Carl Jung believed the human psyche was spiritual by nature and so do I. My friend Joe Shirley has taught me that the universe tends towards wholeness. What could I put in a box that would communicate these beliefs?

I believe we seek identification with something greater than our selves: god, nature, and community, work that truly matters. What is a life well lived? When I look at the things Isabelle packed into Johnny’s box, the stories she told about his brief life, I think he lived a life that truly mattered – not because of the stuff but because of her ceremonial act.

Someone once told me that the saddest thing they could imagine was a 40-year-old production assistant (someone who hadn’t achieved outward success). I’ve met some amazing people who have lived rich full lives, traveled and experienced all of the messiness of life and they mop floors for a living. Some of the saddest human beings I have met have achieved all outward success and are miserable in their very-safe-lives. What might go in their boxes?

For me, these questions always go into the mythic. We forget that in the story of the Garden of Eden there are two important trees: the tree of knowledge (apparently an apple tree) and the tree of everlasting life. Eat the fruit from the first tree and your consciousness splits; you see through the eyes of duality (me/you, him/her, us/them, black/white,). One bite from the apple of knowledge and you are no longer in the garden, you become distinct, separate, and alone. This is a birth metaphor. After a bite of apple, the ultimate quest in life is for unity (a return to the garden); it is a quest for greater connectivity, wholeness, and belonging. How do we get back to the garden and eat the fruit of the second tree, the tree of everlasting life? The transcendence of time is the transcendence of separation. This is a death metaphor, the return to unity: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We live a life of cycles: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring…. Birth, life, death. Rebirth. Every culture has a birth (separation) story and a death (unity) story. We make sense of our experiences of separation and transcendence through story – what else? Separation and transcendence with all the happenings of life in between; this is the stuff of our lives and we make meaning of it through story. Memorials and monuments are forms of story. Isabelle was separated from her boy and she reached across 100 years to share the story of her boys’ life.

For many people their children represent their transcendence of time – they live on in their children’s children through memory and genetics. For others, their work is their legacy; Van Gogh’s paintings are his children.

Neither Tom nor I have children though Tom is deeply connected to his ancestors and in his old age he is concerned for his family’s legacy. His people have lived for generations in the Sacramento valley and on the same piece of land. The city of Sacramento will soon gobble up his property and so he will be the last of his line connected to his ancestral land. When he asks, “What am I going to do with Johnny’s trunk?” he is also asking, “what am I going to do when the land is paved over and the memory of my family is gone?”

Another great question.

Tom’s stories are more than histories. Through the telling his ancestors are transcending time and he is leaning toward them, leaning into belonging and wholeness: telling the stories of ancestors is the same as saying, “this is who I am.” I feel that I know these people personally because they are present in Tom. And now, even though they are not my ancestors, I carry Tom’s stories within me. This is who I am.

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Two Practices Useful For Stepping Off The Edge

Posted on October 9, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming (and yet to be titled) book in collaboration with Patti Digh

Photo by Paulo Brabo

Two Practices

There must be a moment when the butterfly, newly emerged from the cocoon, virgin wings gently flapping, untested and unknown, releases for the first time its hold on the branch; it cannot know what will happen because it has never experienced flight and yet it lets go. It steps into space. Can you imagine? The earthbound caterpillar following an internal imperative, an impulse devoid of sense-making, weaves a chamber around itself and falls into a deep sleep, fully protected, safe and warm. When it awakens it is profoundly changed. Does it wonder, “who am I?” Its once comfy cocoon is now a complete misfit for its body, a giant cramped in a kid’s bed it wrestles mightily to be free of this tight chamber. Once free of its wrapping it shakes and stretches its new body for the first time – and recognizes nothing about itself. Had it a mirror it would gape at its reflection looking for some remnant of its former self. Nothing in its experience has prepared it for a body with wings. Nothing in its experience has prepared it for that first big step into space. And, at the same time, every impulse in its body says, “Let go! See what happens!” The same imperative that drove the caterpillar into the cocoon fulfills itself in when the butterfly steps into space.

We do not underestimate how difficult it is to step out of the cocoon of the story you tell yourself about yourself though, if you are reading this book, you are probably like the newly minted butterfly still locked in the cocoon of an old story. You are following an inner imperative that makes no intellectual sense. If you are like the rest of us you daily ask yourself, “What am I doing?” Following an inner imperative necessarily comes with struggle because, like the butterfly, it requires you to leave the safety and comfort of everything you know and step into a new way of being that makes no sense from the old perspective. The struggle to be free of the cocoon is necessary – in fact it is vital to the growth and survival of the butterfly. In fact, if you help a butterfly out of its cocoon, if you try to eliminate the struggle, you will kill it. The inner imperative requires an obstacle and this is true in every process of transformation.

To help you begin the process of wrestling your way out of the old story we offer these two practices that are helpful in the struggle – these are the first of sixteen practices and form the foundation upon which all the others are built. And as is true of every practice we offer, you will only benefit from them if you practice them. They are practices; they are not inert concepts:

Have the experience first and then make meaning of the experience second. Much of what we ask you to do won’t make sense until the end of the series. Making meaning second is actually how things work naturally with your brain and yet we find most people invested in the idea that they need to make sense of something BEFORE they try it; that’s folly and will keep you in the cocoon forever. It’s the equivalent of the butterfly standing on the branch saying, “No Way! I’ve never done this before! I don’t care what the rest of you do but this caterpillar is keeping its belly safe on the ground!” Following an imperative rarely makes sense until after you step off the branch. So, we ask that you suspend your need to know, your need to control, your need to be right and open yourself to having experiences that may or may not make sense. We promise the meaning will emerge – it always does. Practice having the experience first and then make meaning of the experience second.

All significant learning happens at the edges of your comfort zone. Think about it: it is generally uncomfortable to “not know.” In fact, most people go to great lengths to create the illusion that they know because to “not know” is vulnerable. The first thing we do when we are uncomfortable is to judge ourselves and/or others, usually both. When you go into judgment you impede your capacity to learn. Self-judgment creates a thick blanket of fog around you; it’s one of the most dense stories you can generate and (obviously) obscures your capacity to see. Ironically, most of us have an inner superhero that tells a great story about what it does in the face of danger but has no idea of what it really does when uncomfortable. The second practice is to suspend your judgments and learn: witness what you actually do at the edges as opposed to what you think you do. Suspending your judgments allows you to see and honor your choices: running away is just as valid as jumping over the edge or standing very still – they are valuable because they are conscious choices available to you whey you give yourself the gift of not having to know. Suspending your judgment affords you the privilege of learning something new.

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The Invisible Silk Robe (Part 2)

Posted on July 21, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

The heroine or hero of a story, in order for the transformation to be possible, must take enormous risks – literally or metaphorically going to the place you’ve been warned never to go. This is the unknown place, filled with monsters or dangerous trials from which no one ever returns; in story (metaphoric) terms this means that if you do return from the adventure, you will be different – the person who went on the adventure is not the person who returns.

Stories are helpful – if you know how to read them – because they beg you to consider where in your life you are withholding your voice, not speaking your truth. How do you choose safety at the expense of your growth? What do you know in your gut that you need to do but are resisting? How bad does it have to get before you walk toward the place you are most afraid to go?

II. Speaking Truth

It was a special day. The King was to dine with their master that night. That’s why the cook let the young wife go without nicking to her face with the cleaver. All must be beautiful in the eyes of the king. As she polished the finest china and silver, the young wife knew she had to find a way out of this hell.

The king was a renowned dandy and was given to fashion and high style. His closets were vast and full. He was known to change his clothes several times each day. He kept his designers and tailors busy and hated to be behind the trends. As far as he was concerned, one of his main duties as king was to set the fashion standards. Had there been photographers in his day he’d have legislated that only his photograph could grace the cover of the gentlemen’s fashion quarterly magazine.

Dining at the homes of his advisors was one of his favorite ploys to “be seen.” He thought himself quite clever to make his subjects think that he was a ruler of the people by occasionally gracing their homes with his presence – when actually he was designing opportunities to peacock his latest get-up. So, the king arrived at the appointed time, sweeping out of his coach, the young wife’s master bowed deeply and gushed about the king’s appearance while hordes of onlookers peeped through the fence and from the rooftops.

All of the servants had been scrubbed and dressed and put on display for the royal welcome. As the king passed the house staff they bowed and averted their eyes after the appropriate gape at the king’s finery, of course. The stable staff followed suit and then, as the king swept passed the kitchen staff, all bowed except the young wife, who, for a moment stood looking in horror at the king. She gasped, “oh my,” and then attempted to bow like the others but could not help taking another look at the royal garments. The king, of course, stopped and glared at the young wife, who averted her eyes and blushed.

The king glowered at the young woman; clearly she was a foreigner. As the master of the house begged the king’s pardon and appealed to him to ignore the impertinent woman, the young wife stole another quick glance and visibly shuddered. The king was offended and demanded that the young woman step forward. She obeyed, keeping her eyes averted as the rest of the staff cowered at the royal disapproval. The king puffed himself up and in a wounded tone asked the young woman what on earth inspired her behave in such a manner. In a whisper, the young wife answered that, she wished to respond but did not wish to “embarrass my lord in front of the household.”

The king raised his eyebrows. Did she not know that he could have her killed? He swallowed hard and dismissed his attendants. The young wife asked that her master, also, leave them for a moment. Fuming, the master followed the servants into the house, leaving the young woman and the king all alone.

“Now,” hissed the king, “tell me why you shuddered at my appearance?”

The young wife replied, “My lord, I meant no disrespect. In my country I am considered a master weaver and have many times made beautiful clothes for the king. I have woven such beautiful clothes; my finest was a copper-colored silk robe for the king of my country. It was like the thin silk robes that must be worn in the divine world. In comparison to my king, my apologies, my lord but you look like one of his servants.”

The king was stunned into silence. The hot blood of rage rushed into his face.

(to be continued)

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Send Light Into The Human Heart

Posted on July 10, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.” George Sand

The first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is that all of life is suffering. In this context the predicament of the artist is no different than that of a plumber or a president though I’ve yet to find a plumber who considers suffering necessary to his or her vocation. With artists (in the US) suffering seems to be a prerequisite. Why do artists think they need to suffer or believe that suffering unlocks the door to their artistry?

As a nation we do not easily walk into our shadow and one of the roles of “artist” is to go where others choose not to go. A walk into the shadow may be uncomfortable but it is equally as liberating. An artist is supposed to see what others cannot and sometimes that is painful. An artist may act as a bridge between worlds of perception, living on the edge of the village, traveling into the netherworlds to retrieve a truth or a lost soul. This at times may be solitary or scary but it is always transforming. An artist rarely “fits” the social norms but always serves the health and growth of the pack.

The coaching work I do with artists (myself included) often requires a stroll into the misguided ideal or expectation of suffering. What are the underlying assumptions that make suffering or madness an erroneous precondition for artistry? This begins my ongoing series of mini-rants about suffering and the arts:

Rant #1.

Dear artist,

What if: you will never be understood. Consider: all great art lives beyond the rational, it transcends the linear sequential and reaches into places where words cannot go. You can’t measure it, quantify it, or contain it. You can engage with it. It seems to me the power of the arts is in NOT being understood; moving beyond understanding is the point, not the problem. Trying to be understood is really a mask covering the need to be liked or appreciated. As my mentor used to say, “You will know the power of your work by the size of the tide that rises against it.” Some people may appreciate you and your work, others will not. That is beyond your control. What is within your control is your capacity to do your work. You can cut your ears off investing in what others may or may not think about what you create or you can do your work and offer it to the world. Trying to be liked or understood will knock you off your artistic rails; you’ll lose sight of the essential and trade it for the superficial. It will make you timid. Stop trying to be understood and do your work. Stop trying to be liked and offer your work as if it might change someone’s life (because it might).

Rant #2.

Dear artist,

What if: you will never be valued (paid). Consider: We all want to be paid for what we do; it is how our culture demonstrates value. However, as an artist, the odds are against it regardless of the scope of your talent and dedication to your craft. Go to a casting call in NYC and you’ll see what I mean. It is the rare arts organization (or artist) that pays for itself through the sales of what it produces – in other words, ticket sales will never pay for cost of the play. Donations, grants, not-for-profit status and cheap payrolls make the arts viable in a free market economy. The artist is the last to be paid and is usually paid the least. We live and create in a culture that has managed to link morality to money, to make a commodity of it’s prophets and sacred days, and that has convinced itself that the greatest act of citizenship is to buy stuff. It is upside down and that is precisely why we need artists! Think about it, in this nation of immigrants we yammer on and on about things like family values as if those values were simple, absolute, articulated and expected from all people in every family, regardless of ethnicity, religious preference or sexual orientation. What we value as a culture is at best conflicted and complex, as artists we are meant to embody that conflict and complexity. So value your art and do your work. Stand in the conflict. Put your fingers around the complexity and begin to mold it. Launch your work out into the world because you value it – it’s your responsibility to maintain the balance between what you create and how it is offered. As Patti and I teach, focus on what you bring and not on what you get. The rest is out of your control and fretting about it takes energy that you could otherwise use to create.

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The Invisible Silk Robe (part 1)

Posted on July 3, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

photo by Tiikka

Stories are about change and change is never easy. Often in stories the tricksters (the outsiders) are truth tellers. They are the agents of change and are initially rejected or labeled as swindlers by the status quo. This is a story about people pretending to see, pretending not to see, or simply not being able to see because they are afraid of what they might see.

The Invisible Silk Robe

I. Invisibility

For months the young wife had been abused, pushed around and cursed. Through it all she’d managed to maintain her calm. But now, as the cook backed her into a corner, a cleaver just a few inches from her face, she resolved that she must do something. She must fight back or leave. The cook was demanding that she “keep in her place,” in other words, she had to disappear. She was desperate to keep this job, regardless of how unpleasant it became.

Every day she was called a liar or a thief. Every disaster in the kitchen would be blamed on her and she knew it. She was different, she was a foreigner. When the staff captain asked her to respond to the charges she always stood tall and looked directly into his eyes and quietly said that she was not a thief nor was she a liar. He believed her. He knew the fate of foreigners in the kitchens. Now, even he cautioned her to keep a low profile. “Not being seen” was the only solution anyone could offer her. Disappear and survive.

I don’t know why it is but when you are new to a country, even a country of prosperity and great riches, newcomers are rejected and treated poorly. They’re granted access only through the most menial forms of labor. And that was true of the young wife. Here, she was a foreigner. Her own country was suffering through a terrible war and she’d fled to the neighboring kingdom to save her life. She’d lost her husband and her child to the fighting; their land and all their possessions were confiscated to feed the endless hunger of the armies. She was a woman alone. In her country, at the end, she had to hide to survive and she knew that she would not survive long if she stayed there. Hiding was only a temporary solution. So, she fled looking for a better life.

She was well-educated. She was a master weaver, famous in her country, and assumed she would be able to find plenty of work in her adopted country but the natives ignored her or rejected her, sometimes physically. Local vendors would not sell her thread, at least not any thread that was useful. She didn’t know what was worse: being ignored by people pretending not to see her or being spat upon by people who didn’t want to see her.

She refused to become invisible even though she often found visibility to be as dangerous in her new country as it had been in her old one; she knew that the locals where adept at pretending not to see her, visibility was not always her choice, so she often had to remind herself that she was real, they were pretending not to see her.

Eventually, she found a job in the kitchens of a wealthy man, an advisor to the King. Her job was to scrub the pots and the dishes, to scrub the floors and to scrub the ovens; she worked her hands raw from before dawn until late at night. But, no matter how hard she worked, she could do no right in the eyes of the cooks; the counters were not clean enough, the pots were not clean enough, “these foreigners do not know what clean means!” they would rant. “They’re dirty people, they’re lazy, they’re stupid….” She knew her job was not about scrubbing but about taking blame. So, with each new accusation, she worked harder and harder, determined not to fulfill their expectations, determined not to disappear.

Because she worked harder and better than anyone in the kitchen, she was noticed by the staff captain and given a compliment, and that is what brought about her troubles this day. The cooks were incensed that she was noticed and they were not. The largest of the group, a thick woman with a vegetable face, waited for the captain to leave and then backed her into a corner with a cleaver. All the others watched and laughed as the young wife lowered her eyes and promised not to do so well in the future, preparing her self to receive the blow she knew would come, the blow meant to remind her to disappear.

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Sing To The Sun

Posted on June 27, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

Image by N. Charneco

I am sitting in Leigh’s townhouse. From here I can see downtown Oakland, the Bay Bridge and now I can see downtown San Francisco; the city is just emerging from the morning fog, a cold grey silhouette. I knew it was there. For the past hour I’ve been sitting at the window, sipping coffee, waiting for the city to reappear. I wanted to see the moment. I wanted to be present when the city returned like Avalon from the mists of time.

Lora tells me that her mother used to stop what she was doing and go outside to watch the sun disappear beneath the horizon. Every evening of her adult life, for a few moments, she would step outside, feel the last rays of the days’ sun on her face and watch until the last hint of light dipped beneath the horizon. In my imagination she stepped out of her “to-do list” and for a few moments stood as a silent witness, present in the world.

These rituals of appearance and disappearance are much on my mind. There are cultures that face east in the dark predawn hours and sing so that the sun will rise. It took me years to understand that their song was not so much about invoking the sun to rise (a result) as much as it was about reaffirming their connection to the cycles of life (a relationship). While going through college I drove a bread truck to support myself. My route took me east so I saw the sun rise every morning. After several weeks of watching the sunrise something changed in me. I no longer watched sunrise as an event or a marker of time. The sun rising had little to do with time. It had everything to do with renewal and affirmation. The sun invoked a song in me and I sang with a kind of abandon I have not known since. It was an imperative. I had to participate in the reappearance of the sun.

My friends surprise me sometimes because they see my time in the bread truck as a hardship or as something beneath me. They say, “I don’t know how you did that.” They do not understand; at that point in my life I had disappeared like San Francisco into the fog. I was in a liminal space, no longer what I was and not yet what I would become. I was like the body of the caterpillar gone to mush, unrecognizable with no hint of the butterfly yet apparent. I was lost and afraid. The bread truck was my cocoon. In the stillness of the predawn hours I regained the quiet of my mind. I lived simply. I delivered bread, I drank coffee, I ate hot baguettes, and each morning the sun raised from within me a song of renewal. In my bread truck I began to understand that my life would no longer be understood through results, lists, achievements, or outcomes. The meaning of my life would be defined by the quality of my relationships – and by that I mean my capacity to be present. Slowly, I appeared out of the fog.

Most of the people I coach are somewhere in the cycle of reappearing or disappearing. They are usually uncomfortable because they are still living under the expectation that their song must raise the sun (their focus is on the result). The things on their to-do list have overtaken the reason why they are doing them. We live in a society that has little awareness or appreciation of the cycles of life and sometimes I think my work is simply to give witness to the caterpillar as it reduces to mush. Disappearing is natural and necessary for the butterfly to emerge and the butterfly always emerges. The struggle is necessary. Resisting the change is like trying to keep the sun from going down.

Leigh is one of the world’s leading authorities on Rock Art (cave painting, petroglyphs, etc.) and his townhouse is a feast for someone like me. It is a treasure house of books and images from Rock Art sites – places where centuries ago humans scratched an image into rock or painted a picture on the wall of a cave. We don’t know why they made these images, we can only speculate about the figures and what they represent. I’m willing to bet that these people weren’t working for some effect or result. The images they created were less important than the relationships the image encouraged; the “doing” was in support of the “being” and happened in that space between disappearing and reappearing.

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Be Human

Posted on June 18, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

photo by Wonderlane

Judy and I were approaching the crosswalk on the far side of the Town and Country Market. We had coffee in hand and were heading to the park across the small avenue en route to the harbor to sit and talk. Judy is one of my favorite people, full of laughter and learning, and my opportunities to see her are rare and precious; I want to hoard every minute with her. A blue station wagon with a forgotten six pack of beer riding on the roof of the car, turned right out of the lot and the six pack, lacking fingers or suction cups, could not make the turn, took flight and exploded in a foamy mess, littering the crosswalk with shards of glass.

Like the many pedestrians and park-goers present for the explosion, I was thinking only of myself (after all, I was in hoard-my-time-with-Judy mode) so I pretended not to see the mess or the distressed station wagon driver that had pulled over after realizing that her beer never made it into her car. Judy was also thinking of herself but unlike the rest of us, her definition of herself includes being an active, responsible member of a community. “Can I help you?” Judy asked, handing me her coffee as she walked toward the station wagon. I was already across the street heading toward the harbor completely unaware that I now had two cups of coffee in my hands. The woman’s response to Judy stopped me in my tracks. She said, “Thank you for being so human.”

I turned around, set the coffee on the curb, and helped Judy and the woman pick up glass. Judy flagged down a city truck (she wanted a broom and, of course, the next vehicle to come along was a city parks truck with every tool known to human kind). Within a few minutes, the glass was swept up, the crosswalk was safe for crossing, and the woman, the park workers and I went our separate ways each feeling better about our selves and the world. More importantly, a playground full of children watched and I assume they, too, on some level, felt better about the world. All that was required for this bit of feel-good magic was for one person, Judy, to be human.

Her very small gesture comes with an enormous impact. Her ability to “be human” opens others to be human. Her capacity to engage generates engagement. This is why I love Judy: I become more myself when I am with her because I open to the relationships around me, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable, scary potential that comes from saying things to strangers like, “Can I help you?” Life becomes simple when engagement rather than denial or resistance is the rule. Time becomes less important than relationship (which guarantees that “time” will be meaningful).

Because her definition of herself includes being responsible to her community, Judy is incapable of pretending that the naked Emperor is wearing a new suit of clothes. She knows that her quality of life is directly related to the quality of life of all the members of her community. If there is something to be done, rather than ignoring it or expending copious amounts of energy blaming others or complaining about it, Judy acts on it. She lives in choice. She knows that community is not a fixed thing but a relationship and requires all the commitment, tolerance and dedication that powerful relationships deserve – it is messy and it’s hers to do.

We met at Antioch University many years ago. In those years I used to play a game with myself that went something like this: how long will I be on campus before I cross a pod of students raging about the lack of community in Seattle and the United States in general. Once, I went a full 18 minutes before I found the pod. They always made me sad, these students who were so lonely living in a metropolitan area of over a million people. Each pod looking for someone to blame or someone to fix their loneliness, ranting against the evils of the modern world. My friendship with Judy has helped me understand – helped me believe – that no major intervention is required, no legislation or new law is necessary for we, the occupants of red states and blue states to experience ourselves as a community. Ultimately it has very little to do with anything other than cultivating the capacity to step toward someone and ask, “can I help you?” And, like Judy, over time this practice of engagement might eventually lead to a definition of self that includes the health and well-being of the community; or, at the very least, more experiences of being human.

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See Like Celeste

Posted on June 11, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” James Barrie

Celeste died last week. Megan gave birth to her first child, a daughter. Stephen graduated from high school. Sally had a life changing epiphany. Dado brought the mail as he does each weekday; you can set your clock to Dado yet he always seems to have plenty of time to talk. Bruce came to visit after a seven-year absence. Tess had her teeth pulled and then had a birthday. Lora sold her first photograph in a gallery. And then her second and her third. Amy shared her poems and also shared a dream. Pete made a collage and had it printed; he’s making a portfolio, his first. Harald and I each drank a Stone and later split an Arrogant Bastard. And that was before dinner. Lisa took a vacation, a trip with her son. She will marry Harry in July. Don walked to the bank on the first sunny day of the season. Arnie returned from travels abroad and left a message on the machine. Dane had a conversation with his friend Brian, a mechanic. They have rules about what they can talk about: no politics, no religion, no talking about wives. Tania and Chan bought their first house. Kate sent a hilarious limerick. Lorilee shared photos of her green wall. Gwyn wept. Rosemary and Lona sent poems for the tribute Judy was assembling. Carol resurfaced. Scott asked for advice. Mark prepared his ship for Alaska (seriously) after he went to drawing class. Makaela wore a dress to the opening of the museum she helped create. Patti wrote an obituary, prepared a eulogy, and helped Nina live more comfortably – all in a single day. Joe walked by the tide pools and laughed with delight. Stephen (another Stephen) rolled his paintings out for us to see; he had fire in his eyes. Nicole brought chocolate and shared it! Ana went home and faced her demons. They were not as big as she remembered. Theresa knew what coffee to make before I even ordered it. Made brought popsicles and comfort. Class met and embodied a purpose. Sue offered her thoughts. Kendy asked for prayers for Max. Max had surgery on his heart. We bumped into Diane in the hospital, to our great delight as we’d lost touch with her. Kathleen is off-loading the stuff of her life. Her sister came to help. Liz has a new garden. Duncan drank really good coffee and watched his first episode of LOST. Joyce interviewed Alan and is looking for others to interview. John is designing and building furniture for a restaurant because he’s never done it before. Beau catered a meal for 300. Margaret got lost in her thoughts. Ken sent his congratulations.

I could go on and on and on. This list barely touches the marvels of this week.

Celeste died quite suddenly. She was 82. Because she was so alive her death at age 82 came as a shock. She taught me that James Barrie had it all wrong. I think she would have rewritten his quote this way:

“The life of every person is a diary in which we mean to write one story and write another. Our humblest hour is when we realize the story we meant to write is not nearly as interesting as the story we actually lived, if only we had the eyes to see it.”

Celeste had the eyes to see it; she savored it – each and every moment. If you had met her, you’d have found yourself savoring a bit of life, too. Her enthusiasm and present-focus was infectious. Like me you’d be making a list of all the little moments and the big that happen each week in your life, a practice to remind yourself that the value of your life is not in the Academy Award that you may never win, it is in the relationships that that you probably discount; it is in the present moment that you miss because you are flailing yourself for not being something or somewhere else.

In response to my question, “What do you bring?” this is how Celeste replied:

“I bring a willingness to be open to whatever excitement is waiting! I look into the eyes of each person I see, and have my arms ready if a hug is appropriate.”

Yes. That’s it.

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The Polar Bear King (Part 4)

Posted on June 10, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

Polar Bear Paw by ucumari

Stories come to a conclusion when balance is restored to the main character. Sometimes that means a return from a journey, sometimes it means that a significant choice is made, sometimes it is a reclamation of something lost; always it means the character learns something and will never be the same because of the new knowledge. And hopefully, it also means we, the listener of the story, will know what to do in our lives when we are off balance and staring Doubt in the face.

Here’s the final chapter of the Polar Bear King:

IV. THE RETURN

One day passed. Then two. The great bear paced back and forth, looking south, awaiting the return of his great coat. How could he defend his crown without it? He paced and he paced and the third day came. The hundred gulls still had not returned with his skin.

All of the polar bears gathered outside the king’s cave. The time for the match was at hand. Woof was with them. He stamped around and boasted, saying “The bird-bear’s feathers will fly fast enough when I get my claws on them! Come out of your cave, bird-bear!” All the other bears laughed and jeered. “Perhaps he is really a chicken-bear!” Woof shouted. The bears roared with laughter and snorted their delight.

Inside the cave the great king sat listening to their laughter, the gull queen perched by his side. “I don’t know what to do,” The king confessed.

The queen sighed and said, “It’s too bad that it is your skin that makes you a king. If your skin were here, we could ask it what to do! As for me, I am only a bird. Covered in feathers, like you.

The Polar bear king looked deeply into her black eyes.

“Well, what would the King of the Polar Bears do?” the gull queen grinned. The bear smiled, stood tall and ruffled his feathers, just like a bird would do, so that he appeared twice his normal size. “How do I look?” he asked the gull queen. “Like a king.” She smiled.

“Come out bird-bear!” Woof snorted. “Come out so I may pluck your plumes!”

The king of the polar bears walked slowly out of his cave, he was magnificent and proud, his white feathers glistened in the sun. Woof gulped. The king of the polar bears was enormous; he looked twice his normal size. Perhaps fighting this king was not going to be so easy after all. Perhaps fighting this king was silly! In fact, fighting this king was probably stupid! All the bears saw Woof shaking in fear – and then they started quaking because when he was done with Woof, he’d crush them all for sure!

The Polar Bear king gave an enormous growl and Woof’s little heart, for a moment, stopped beating. “Come, pluck my feathers if you dare!” the king snarled! Woof gulped. The king strode forward and raised his mighty paw, ready to strike Woof a deadly blow. Woof yelped and covered his eyes; he knew this breath would be his last. In his fear, poor Woof wet himself. Shivering, Woof cowered helpless in a bank of yellow snow.

The great king lowered his paw. He’d won without striking a single blow. And all the other bears, wanting to be back in the good graces of this most powerful king, laughed at poor Woof; they pointed and called him names like “Baby bear,” and “Pee-bear.” Woof hung his head low.

The great king roared and stopped them from laughing. He looked at them with piercing black eyes. Finally, shaking his head he said, “You shame yourselves by heaping shame on this bear. A moment ago this Woof was your champion. He was your friend. Why do you choose now to hurt him when he most needs your support?”

Just then, the sky grew dark as hundred gulls flew down from above carrying the king’s great fur skin. They laid it at his feet and formed a perfect circle around him. The gull queen smiled and circled from above.

And all the polar bears saw that they’d made a grave mistake; a bear’s courage is not in its fur. They bowed low to their great polar bear king as he gathered his great coat. He looked to the queen of the gulls, winked a “thank you” and smiled. And then, she saw him, ever so slightly, go (clap, clap, shimmy-shimmy shake) and as he went back into his cave, he said, “Oh, yeah!”

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Meet Beneath The Boardroom Table

Posted on June 4, 2010 by davidrobinsoncreative

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sam is an extraordinarily gifted facilitator and coach. His specialty is helping corporations have hard conversations. Let’s face it, people in organizations are no better than people in other forms of relationship at having difficult conversations. Like the rest of us they don’t want to feel uncomfortable so, when discomfort looms, they chatter, that is to say, they avoid, deny, pretend and ignore their distress. When their dis-ease swells to the point of silence, they call Sam.

One day Sam was working with an executive team at a multi-national corporation: people in power suits seated in high-back genuine leather chairs around a larger-than-life, acres-long, mahogany and oak boardroom table. And, although the coffee was served in china cups, the fruit plate was fresh and aesthetic, his clients paid no attention, employing every avoidance strategy in their arsenal: blackberries were clacking and cell phones were binging, assistants were beckoning; status toys are fantastic tools for avoidance. Sam tried everything in his arsenal to crack their citadel of “professionalism.” “Professionalism” is a favorite ruse of businesses to avoid meaningful contact: under the guise of “professionalism” business folk posture and pretend that they are not comprised of people in relationship; they will, if pushed, cop to being ‘people’ as long as the definition of ‘people’ includes 1) compartmentalizing themselves so that their feelings do not interfere with their powers of reason (thereby rendering themselves less than human), and 2) pretending that they believe #1 is actually plausible; you know, “business is business,” “nothing personal,” and so on. With relationship comes responsibility and responsibility is the last thing most businesses want (the legal department has cautioned against it). To have a meaningful conversation, especially a difficult one, even “professionals” must first entertain the possibility of entering into a relationship. Do you see Sam’s dilemma?

After a morning of extreme executive evasion, in exasperation, Sam did the unthinkable. While the team yammered on about anything other than what they needed to discuss, Sam ever so slowly slid out of his leather power chair until he disappeared from view beneath the table. In the shocked silence that followed, Sam watched all the executive legs fidget until finally one curious face peaked beneath the table. Sam waved and motioned for that person to join him. Then another face, looked. Sam and his new ally waved and motioned and that person slid under the table, too. One by one, all of the power suits slid under the table and joined Sam, leaving their status toys behind. When they were all “under the table,” Sam whispered, “Now that we’re under the table, can we finally begin talking about what’s really going on in this organization?” They laughed together and began a very difficult and honest conversation that addressed the real issues impeding their growth, a conversation that included their feelings. They left behind their individual stories of blame and victimization and began the process of creating a new narrative together, a narrative that included the possibility of feeling discomfort.

When Sam slid under the table, he cracked their masks of professionalism, neutralized all the roles being played, and removed for a while the status games being waged so that his clients, a group of people in relationship, could reach beyond their compartmentalization and grasp what was personal and relevant about their challenges and their lives. He made them aware of the destructive story they were playing and helped them imagine themselves playing a different story, one that included support and collaboration along with competition and success. I imagine the old story was lonely to play so the new story must have come as somewhat of a relief.

I think of Sam slowly sliding beneath the boardroom table every time my courage fails me and I think I “should do” something “because that’s what is expected” or “it’s the way things are done.” I think of Sam every time I cast a group I am about to engage in the role of “enemy” or convince myself that “they” will meet me with resistance. Any time I stereotype a person or diminish another’s point of view (or my own), I imagine myself sliding down my high-backed red leather chair, surrendering my status, and slipping into the unknown beneath the power table because that’s where the shoes can come off, the collars unbuttoned, and the humans – uncompartmentalized, vulnerable, and responsible to each other – can see beyond their dramas and find each other again.

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