Take One Step

Posted on January 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

671. 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 watched the sun come up this morning. I was sitting in Alan’s sun room sipping coffee, marveling at the winter colors of the sky: salmon pinks, lavender, and ice blue. And then, beneath the tree line, in a specific spot, the branches began to shimmer. I expected Merlin to materialize. And then the shimmer warmed, became orange and round and instead of Merlin, the sun lifted above the horizon, streamed through the trees, and washed me with the warmth of a new day. Were I a plant my leaves would have opened and I would have taken a might drink of the light of the new day. As a human, I had coffee on the inside, sun on the outside – I was warmed through and through.

I do not know what this day brings. Alan and I will teach a class, that much I know. Then, I will dash to catch a plane and then if the timing is right I will catch a train. If not, there will be an entire day between the plane and the train. Planes and trains are sometimes on schedule and sometimes off schedule depending on Mother Nature and the nature of machines. Tonight I could be in one of 5 different cities. I recognized as the sun rose that I am in presence training. I am learning to trust. For the next several months there will be no daily pattern that repeats itself. I will be mostly on the move; my suitcase is my home. Sometimes I will be with loved ones, sometimes I will be in isolation, sometimes with new friends, sometimes in another country. I am throwing my work away, tossing the patterns of my life as I knew them and re-imagining things. I couldn’t be more alive and present to my moment. My inner gypsy stubbed out his cigarette and hissing smoke through his nose said, “It’s about time.”

It is about time. We count our days, our minutes, we measure our lives, check our lists, stay on our schedules. We count ourselves into desperation when we forget what we are counting. Each breath is life giving. Each breath is unique and never to happen again. I watched the sun rise again and it was no less a miracle today than it was yesterday. It was not the same. Another year just turned over (if you recognize the same calendar that I do) and I can look to the past and think, “This and this happened.” At least that is the story that I tell, none of it is true for anyone but me. I realized an amazing thing about personal edges and story this week. The scary edges are only visible if you are oriented to the past; anchored into and trying to maintain the known. Orient to the unknown, anchor into present and there are no edges, only experiences. I think that is what I mean by learning to trust – I am learning to orient according to what is with me right now as opposed to what has been, what should be, or what might have been. Those things are mental abstracts – as are scary edges….the edges certainly exist, the “scary” is a story I can tell. Here is presence school, I am taking one step at a time, something I have done since first learning to walk only now, as an experienced walker, I am paying attention to the steps as I take them.

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

Go Up!

Posted on January 8, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In airports, people are often racing to catch a plane. I have, more than once, sprinted through a concourse trying to catch my connecting flight before they closed the doors and captured me like a bug in the airport pickle jar: no way out. When I was in the Philadelphia airport, having more than enough time between flights, I found a nice perch and watched other less fortunate travellers race to their liberation. “That’s what I look like,” I thought as I spied a man wearing his too intense face, trying to reconcile his need to sprint through the crowd with his desire to not trample other people.

Coming from opposite directions, entering a knot of people, two wheelchair bound travelers, each late for a connection, spurred their airport attendee to go faster. It was like watching an old-time film clip of two trains roaring toward each other, unaware, an imminent head-on collision. They couldn’t see each other through the throng of people. The sea of travelers parted, the wheelchair riders caught sight of each other, eyeballs bulged, eyebrows raised, hands came to protect faces, and time – as it does in a spell or a moment of presence – came into a sharp, clear focus. At the last moment, in an impossible maneuver, the pushing attendees, as if choreographed, altered course. The chairs kissed, the spell was broken, and neither chair slowed down; grins of relief broke across the faces of all concerned. Mine, too. “That was well done!” one of the riders hooted to her wheelchair pusher as they sped off into the distance.

There are moments on the stage when an actor forgets their line and all pretenses fall. It’s called, “Going up.” Eyes bulge, eyebrows rise, their mind double clutches in panic, locks up, and for brief moment, without thought, they are intensely present, vitally alive. It feels like a mini-spell as time expands. And somehow, inexplicably, the words show up, moving the mouth without the assistance of the mind. The moment passes; the spell is broken, presence retreats behind the notion of control; waves of relief crash on the sandy shores of the actor. And yet, when the evening is over, the actor will tell you that moment was the most honest moment of the whole play. It was the most “alive” moment of their performance. It was the only moment that was not controlled, constrained, premeditated. It is what they attempt to master: presence on stage.

In watching the near wheelchair collision and remembering those brief moments of vitality on the stage, I couldn’t help but think that we (or I) have it backwards. The spell is not those moments of intense presence; the spell is a life that is rarely present. In those moments of near collision, when we lose control or are snapped into the immediate, the spell of the mundane is, for a moment broken, time no longer matters, nothing is measured or contained or controlled, and we enter life as we exit the predictable. I’m delighted that the wheelchairs did not collide and yet what a gift! Just like the rider I was left thinking, “For a moment, I was here and nowhere else. Well done.”

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

Flip it!

Posted on January 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I am in New England and it is winter. This morning as the sun rose, as the sky progressed through purple and orange to steel grey there was a very light snow falling. The world was so quiet that it inspired inner quiet. I think this is what is supposed to happen in winter: we are meant to slow down, get quiet, to go inside, reflect, keep warm, catch up on some sleep, and touch the eternal in ways that are only accessible when the days are short and the ground is frozen.

Yesterday, as Alan and I planned the summit that we will facilitate in Holland in March, we strayed from our task and talked about separation and connectivity. I am oriented into the world according to my cultural defaults: separate from all of nature (including my own), a dominator, steeped in the notion that I can control things and given to the hubris that one of the things I can control is nature. And yet, I am at odds with my orientation. I don’t believe any of it. My life’s work (for myself and others) is to flip it, to offer a different, healthier narrative.

Once, many years ago, when I was in Bali, I had a conversation that helped me clarify what would become the work of my life. I was explaining to a Balinese man what it was to be an artist in America and he was deeply perplexed by my premise. He said to me, “But, all people are artists; all people are creative.” To be alive is to be creative. It is a mark of the culture of separation to believe that you are or are not creative, to see creativity as a limited resource or a perhaps an endowment for the special. It is a characteristic of a culture of connectivity to understand that all of life is creative and to be alive is to be a participant in the vibrant, creative, ever changing flow of life – as a vibrant, creative, ever changing being.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Stop Pretending

Posted on January 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

666. 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 First Thursday in Seattle which means this is the night that artist’s all over town open their studios. My studio is on the fourth floor of a very large building so it is the hearty soul that troops to the top after so many floors of art. Tonight, I forgot that it was First Thursday (I’ve been traveling and am about to leave again so I’m disoriented) and was surprised when Andre showed up at my door to see art. At first I was confused but he explained that many more people were coming up the stairs so I might want to pretend that I knew they were coming. So I did. I opened my door and pretended that I knew what was coming.

While I was pretending that I knew-what-was-coming I started wondering how often in my daily life do I trick myself into thinking that I know what is coming. The answer: most of the time! Isn’t that the very thing that wraps a dull blanket around the magic of being alive? To pretend that we know when, in fact, we can never know what’s coming. To pretend that we know is to stop seeing. To expect the same-old-thing is to miss the extraordinary and new. As I sat in my chair waiting for the hordes to ascend the stairs I realized that I am not a fortuneteller nor am I a prophet, despite my consistent investment in pretending that I am. And, when I stopped pretending that I knew what was coming the most amazing thing happened: I was completely delighted and surprised by every person who made it to the top floor and stopped by to see my paintings. It’s so easy to drop the dull blanket and see what’s in front of me instead of what I pretend is there.

Filed under: Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Value Your Growth

Posted on December 9, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

When we were 12 years old my cousin Randal and I ran away from home. We’d had it with the parental suppression and too many rules! We wanted adventure and revolution. One morning in a fit of discontent we took a can opener and 6 dollars and started walking. We didn’t know where we were walking. We’d not identified a direction or made a plan. Along the way we stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought some candy and Coke to fuel our discontent. We walked from Arvada to Golden, approximately twenty miles before we got tired and called home for a ride. Dinner and a soft bed suddenly seemed more important than freedom and adventure. I have always felt fortunate that our very angry mothers were willing to come fetch us from our adventure. Our walkabout revealed the benefits that come with rules; it also made apparent to me how comfort is often the roadblock to rebellion. My only regret was that we never got to use our can opener.

Discontent fuels movement. I remember thinking as we walked that we were walking for the sake of walking. We were walking because we needed to do something, but the something we chose to do was not action – it was reaction. We were not walking toward anything; we were walking away from our problems. We didn’t know what else to do. It seemed important and necessary when we started and confusing and ridiculous by the time we stopped. We’d defined our actions according to what we didn’t want, not according to the creation of what we imagined. Discontent fuels movement but does not give it direction.

When we got to our respective homes that night, the people that loved us yelled at us, grounded us, fed us really good food, hugged us, made sure we were clean and without injury and tucked us in. It was a full spectrum of loving acts! I slept really well that night. The next day I awoke a different person. I knew that running away wasn’t immediately useful and yet, it created movement within me. It was assertive. It helped me run into more than a few boundaries. It initiated conversations that I needed to have. It helped me recognize that love has many faces and that this business of being a human is messy. It helped me distinguish between action and action with purpose. It helped me recognize that Coke and candy are not good fuel for walking long distances. And, it helped me recognize that if I wanted to make significant change in my life or in the world, I needed to value my growth over my comfort. In fact, growth is always through a path of discomfort.

Lora once told me a story of a Buddhist teacher who took cold showers everyday. I shivered and replied that I couldn’t do it. I like hot showers too much. She smiled and said, “That’s exactly what I told him and you know what he said? ‘I’d rather be fully alive than comfortable.”

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (456)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

456.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I am hiding today. My heart is breaking for no particular reason. Some people call this, “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” I think they must experience heartache as anger. They skip the heart part and go straight to throwing punches. To let your heart break often requires tears. Pushing back is less vulnerable. Break something else and perhaps the heart will remain intact, or so the theory goes.

I was tempted to blame this heartbreak on the weather: June is having an identity crisis and pretending it is January. I opened my eyes from sleep and heard the cold rain. In the Pacific Northwest there is a unique color grey that shrouds the time of day: 7am could be noon or 5pm. Timelessness. But, in truth, the heartache was with me before I opened my eyes. I felt it as I swam to the surface from my dreaming.

Once in Bali as I swam to the surface from sleep I heard the doves cooing and it was so beautiful that my heart broke. I lay in my bed with the sun streaming through the open screens and knew I was in heaven (it is not some other place). I learned in my Bali time that being fully alive requires a willingness to feel the full range of life’s emotions. To protect myself from heartbreak is akin to cutting red out of the color wheel. Comfort is nice but not very useful if you desire being fully alive.

Recently I saw a powerpoint presentation on what’s coming down the road in technology. One of the slides in education technology said, “Full Body Learning.” When with my aching heart I got up on the side of the bed I always get up on, I thought, “Ah, a day for Full Body Learning. Hello heartbreak.”

Filed under: Body, Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

« Previous Page
  • buy us a coffee :-) Thank you!

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com