When It’s All Said And Done [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

I discarded another post this morning. Aghast at the latest lies and childish memes I wrote yet another political rant. It was harsh. It was too much. It led us into a lengthy conversation about how we might live and write in this toxic environment and yet not let the toxins poison us. How do we remain healthy while not denying the reality – the horrors – of our democracy’s collapse at the hands of those who swore to protect it?

In truth, I have not been happy with my recent posts. So many years ago I began writing for a specific audience – and myself – to make the distinction between unhealthy control and generative power. The shorthand is this: Control over/Power with.

Control is wielded over others while power is created with others. Control is self-absorbed. Power is other-focused. Control is the product of duality: us/them, black/white, winner/loser…It is oppositional. It can only lead to discord.

Power is created in a dynamic triad. It is relational. It is complementary and reciprocal. It always gives rise to harmony.

I realized in our conversation this morning that I had myself slipped into a duality. My writing has become oppositional. As our nation grows more violent and ugly by the day, my impulse has been to push back, to sound an alarm. I want to scream, “I am not that! WE are not that!”

Ronald Reagan famously said that “Government is the problem.” He was wrong. Government is neither a problem nor is it a solution (a duality). Government is a service (a triad). It is made of elected representatives in service to their constituents relative to serving the greater needs of the whole. It is dynamic. When functional and fair, it is complementary. Symbiotic.

Government becomes dysfunctional when it tries to run like a business and pretends it is subject to a bottom line (profit or loss). It is death for any service organization that forgets its reason-for-being and attempts to be something that it is not: government is not a business. It’s a no-brainer: privatization of government services places the emphasis on the bottom line – not on serving the people. For instance, privatize prisons and the bottom line of profitability will require the creation of more and more prisoners. Businesses need to grow. The same levers are true when applied to healthcare (as we are seeing) or education.

I believe most of the people of this nation are well intended. I believe the endgame of this administration is control so it must necessarily define everything as Us-and-Them. Demagogues need to demonize vulnerable communities and blame them for the ills of the nation. Demagogues need enemies-from-within since pitting us against each other is the route to ultimate control over…Demagogues need a Them.

People who are not steeped in blaming others for their pain are more likely to take responsibility for their destiny – which means they seek opportunity – which means that they are more apt the reach out to help and for help. Opportunity is a triad. Blame is a duality.

You might rightly ask me, “How on earth could a prompt featuring Sesame Street characters lead to a post so toxic that you had to toss it?” The answer is simple: in a control strategy like the one raging across our nation, in a forced duality designed to appear as angels and devils, good guys and bad guys, the bad guys will always get the focus. That’s the point of a control game: to see bad guys everywhere. To become reactive, suspicious, and angry. To reduce an otherwise complex, diverse thriving nation into a simplistic monotone. We are angels. They are devils. Happy and sad, grouchy and glad.

As someone once said to me, “It’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

I drank the poison. I’m so glad that our conversation this morning opened my eyes and left me asking, “How do I not bury my head in the sand but deal with the reality and still remain healthy?”

Triads, baby. Focus on the dynamic relationships and set about creating some real power with others. When it’s all said and done isn’t that the point of a democracy?

read Kerri’s blogpost about SESAME STREET

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Work A Circle [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Kerri has gifted me with the practice of looking close-in. Because she notices and photographs detail, I have the great pleasure of seeing things I never would have noticed by myself. I walk through the world seeing connective tissue and pattern, the view from 30,000 feet. I am grateful to regularly have my mind pulled from the clouds to witness the miracle of the minute. In her photographs I see connective tissue and pattern. It’s all one amazing fractal.

This is the very first post I wrote on my new blog named The Direction of Intention. I wrote it in 2010 following a meaningful conversation in a DEI facilitation about the nature of power:

1. Truly powerful people are dedicated to inspiring true power in others.

It goes like this: empowered people empower others.

Think about it.

How powerful must you be to free yourself of the need to diminish others? No more reducing others to elevate your self. No more reducing yourself to fulfill the mistaken belief that, “you are not worthy.”

What if your worth was no longer in question? What if your value was no longer an issue? What would you do with all of that newfound time and energy that previously was dedicated to bullying your self or reducing others?

In later posts I wrote about the distinction between Control and Power. They are not the same thing, in fact, they are opposites. Control is an action taken by the fearful and, ultimately, weak. It is the path of the bully. It necessarily sucks the potency of others. Control is the action of a vampire. Taking.

Power, on the other hand, is the generative creation of many. Empowerment. Giving to a common center. We learn about power after natural disasters: people coming together to help other people.

Control is the preferred action of authoritarians. Empowerment is the ideal behind democracy. Together, we-the-people are capable of creating a more perfect union.

I’d forgotten this tiny detail, the reason why I started writing. I felt as if I had something to say about power and how it is often confused with control. I did not consider myself a writer. It was scary new territory in 2010.

I’ve now put in my ten thousand hours and I find in these past few weeks that I am once again writing about power. I recognize that my words about power sometimes sound like raging, Captain Dan tied to the mast screaming at the storm. This storm is called the abuse of power, an assault on the power of a free people by a malignant leadership enamored with control fantasies. Vampires, all. There is good reason to rage.

My first 498 posts began with this phrase: Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine. And so, I work a circle. I return to where I started, to this one tiny detail, the original thought: empowered people empower others. There has never been a time more vital to remember – and serve – this simple imperative.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BEAUTY

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A Different Criteria [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ~ John Muir

I once read that the word “wild” was only necessary to a people who’ve deluded themselves into thinking that they are somehow separate from or above nature, that wild is something that desperately needs to be tamed.

In a culture where many are predisposed to believe that one’s personal nature is fundamentally corrupt (sin-full) and, therefore, requires serious controlling, all of nature is destined to suffer the same fate. Rivers are dammed. Forests eradicated. Waterways and air polluted. It is inevitable. All of nature is reduced to the word “resource”. It is the ultimate expression of taming. A resource to be used and then discarded.

Human resources. We are not excluded from the reduction since we are the source and executors of the degradation. Is it no wonder that so many are so certain that their lives have little or no purpose, value, or meaning. Used and discarded. The magic and mystery of this enormous universe rendered inaccessible. Subdued. Tamed.

It’s never made sense to me.

There are other systems of belief on this earth that are not built upon separation-from-nature but upon relationship-with-nature. Wild and tame are not oppositional but part of the same whole.

In workshops – teaching what I most needed to learn – I used to tell people that “Nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed.” Start with a loving premise. And see what happens. It fosters a different view of the world. It fosters a foundational shift in the understanding of “self”.

Starting with appreciation-of-self leads naturally to appreciation-of-others. Inclusive.

People incessantly trying to fix themselves grow blind to others. It’s the path of self-absorption. Exclusive.

People who fundamentally love their nature…begin with love. In love, they are naturally connected to all of nature, through their nature. Interdependent. Unified. There is nothing to fix. There are expansive experiences. Rather than tame, there is caring for the health of the whole. From a grounding in love, there is an entirely different set of criteria for making choices.

In love, it is easy to see: what we do to nature, we do to ourselves. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NATURE

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Arrive Again [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Deadheading the day lilies, the afternoon sun pouring through the branches, I realized that I’ve walked a circle and arrived again at the starting point. After fourteen years, I’ve returned to the origin-thought of this blog.

I started writing the direction-of-intention after a conversation I co-facilitated. It was a day exploring and discussing diversity, equity, and inclusion. The group’s conversation veered into questions about power. That day I realized that I had an overabundance of thoughts and questions that I needed to study. My very first post was almost a thesis statement; it was an attempt to capture the essence of what I shared with the group: power-over others is not power at all. It is control. Power, real power, is something that is created with others. Control over. Power with.

I did not return to the beginning without help. The current political reality has drawn me like a moth to a flame back to the topic of power. Our two parties live on opposite sides of the line. The red hats are a case study in Control-Over. The Democrats operate on the principle of Power-With.

Control-Over is distinct in the necessity to blame. It is a victim’s game. It is an abdication of responsibility. It demands lock-step adherence and fears counter-point-perspectives. It evades giant swatches of its history. It pretends to hold all the answers and doesn’t tolerate questions.

Power-With is distinct in the necessity to choose. It seeks responsibility and participation. It thrives on counter-point-perspectives and demands collaboration and compromise. It needs to consider and reconcile with its full history, the good and the bad. It asks many questions and eschews the notion of a single answer.

Control-Over is essentially hierarchical. Caste. Fixed. Rule by one.

Power-With is essentially egalitarian. Relational. Fluid. Rule by the many.

It turns out there’s never been a better time to return to the root of my original inspiration. It is, I’ve learned the original root of our nation’s nearly 250 year conversation. The essence of the democratic ideal.

Today we stand squarely at the crossroads:

One choice continues to follow the complex path of power-with.

The other is a hard right onto the powerless path of control-over, not a step back in time as it pretends.

It’s our choice. It is our direction-of-intention.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUN THROUGH TREES

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Turtle-Slapped [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

A turtle appeared on the path at just the right moment. As I like to say, our “jammies were in a bunch” and we were about to go over the edge and fall into a dark abyss of circumstance-dissatisfaction. We rounded the bend as our discontent began spiraling out of control, and then we saw the turtle.

Everything changed in an instant.

She cooed, knelt, and stroked the turtle’s shell. Not expecting a tsunami of affection, the turtle retreated into its fortress. But after a moment, realizing that this assault was indeed loving, it peeked and then poked its head out into the light. It slowly pivoted so she might get a better angle for her photoshoot. The turtle was a patient model and didn’t seem to mind her multiple-broken-promises of “Only one more, I swear,” as she continued snapping photographs.

We admired the orange markings, outlined in black, set in the field of green. “Gorgeous,” she whispered, tracing the markings with her finger.

After an appropriate visit, we left it to return to the marsh, and continued on our way. “What were we talking about?” I asked.

“I can’t remember,” she said, her prior frustration having completely dissipated. Mine, too.

In truth, we both remembered but no longer needed to grouse about what we could not control. We probably didn’t need to spin frustration tales to begin with. Thankfully, we were turtle-slapped into the recognition that what we needed most in our dedicated-exasperation was to slow down and appreciate our walk.

The wisdom of distraction. A turtle suddenly appears on the path at just the right moment…

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TURTLE

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Learn Mu [David’s blog on KS Friday]

“The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” ~ MIlan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

It’s too easy to boil life’s weighty decisions down into two easy choices. Go left or go right. Say it or don’t say it. Stop or go. It’s to imagine a kind of clarity that doesn’t really exist. Sink or swim.

I’ve been rolling the Japanese word, Mu, around in my head these past several months. Mu is a useful third choice, an escape from the imagined duality. It means, “Nothing.” Make no choice. When I berate myself, demanding an absolute answer to the question, “What do I do now?” I know to whisper, “Mu.” Decide not to decide. Stand still. Mu is a third way. The constant nest.

In Mu I’ve learned that frustration is a choice. And anger. When fear takes me by the throat, rather than choose to wrestle with it or attempt to control it (that which I cannot control), I ask myself to make a choice other than fight or flight. “Mu,” I whisper. Choose anything else.

I’ve learned that the weight of the burden is only a small part of what keeps a person’s feet on the ground. The greater part is how the burden is held – rather – when it is held. Future fear or past regret? Ah, there it is – another too easy choice, both crushingly heavy.

Mu. There is lightness in standing still, in choosing nothing. In nothing there is presence with what might seem a heavy burden. Instead of fearing what will be or grinding against what was, I am learning Mu. There is lightness of being in the midst of swirling turmoil, not unbearable, Mu, with feet both firmly planted on the ground, holding in my hands only what is…

[this is one of my favorite of Kerri’s compositions]

The Way Home/This Part of the Journey © 1997/2000 Kerri Sherwood

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE NEST

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Stand Out [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Yesterday, in our basement reorganization shuffle, I moved my paintings. It is not a small task to move the remains of a life’s work. At this point, I’ve moved them hundreds of times: between studios, into and out of shows, within a studio space to make more space. Paintings take up a lot of space. Besides my clothes, my unsold paintings have been the extent of my possessions most of my adult life. During this latest painting-location-change I realized what an oddity I must sometimes seem. It sparked some random recall and minor revelation.

It’s not always easy to be a sore thumb, the one one that sticks out; the one doing life a bit differently than the expected norm. The lone tree in a vast field.

I read this quote this morning from Robert Pirsig‘s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade…Originality on the other hand could get you anything – from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.”

One of my favorite activities to do with teachers comes straight out of Augusto Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed. Each teacher “reenacts” for their peers the simple ritual of preparation they do each morning for the upcoming day. The revelation was always the same. “I’m preparing to control my students,” a wide-eyed teacher gasped when the penny dropped, “It’s the opposite of what I want to do.”

We live in the church of the individual yet the message we actually preach is conformity.

I had the opportunity to create a school-within-a-school and I followed the popcorn path suggested by Neil Postman. He wrote that “learning” in our system conditions students to suss-out what teacher wants and regurgitate it. It was possible to kickstart their original impulse toward curiosity but it would require a bloody battle of about six weeks. Hold the line. Don’t fill in the blank for them. And one day, in a fit of anger and defiance, one student would take the brave step and say, “This is what I want to learn!” Support the step of the defiant one and the rest of the students would follow. They would dare to speak their truth and follow their passion. Postman was right! The battle was bloody. It took exactly six weeks.

This is the ubiquitous misunderstanding about originality: it requires the removal of boundaries, the absence of control. A free-for-all. The opposite is true. The most disciplined people I’ve ever known are artists. Their discipline is internal, not imposed. It was the seed of the question I’d ask the teachers after their uncomfortable revelation: “What would it look like if each day you prepared to unleash the student’s curiosity? What, then, would you have to control?” It was an uncomfortable question. It would require them, probably in anger and defiance, to take a brave step. To stand out. To do something different. To expect their students, through the pursuit of their burning questions, to control themselves.

Everyone has a unique star to follow. Sometimes they simply need help to see it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LONE TREE

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Have Second Thoughts [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

A comment on how my brain works: I saw this photo and thought, “This is a record of a life path.” What? Where did that come from?

Note: I didn’t think “My life path.” My random reflection was in no way personal. Though, to be perfectly honest, I am only familiar with one life path and it is mine. This jumble of hose, running this way and that, lines running over and under, does vaguely resemble my movement in the world. Or a freeway interchange as seen from the air.

Note on the note: No life path is straight. Circumstance has a way of making lines into loops. Growth has a way of revealing side paths that surprisingly become main roads. Yes, I’m making the assertion that a straight life path indicates a boring-no-growth existence. It would be an excessively mean assertion except, to reiterate, no life path is straight. Loops and surprises. Forces beyond control, leading to the wild eye-and-heart-opening recognition that very little is under our control. Fantasies fall revealing a life that shimmers in its day-to-day-ness as it spirals uncontrollably through the universe.

My second thought: “This reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting.”

Another comment on how my brain works like most other brains: Second thoughts usually make more sense than first thoughts. That’s the key to sense-making: second thoughts respond (or recoil) from the nonsense of first thoughts.

A note on first and second thoughts: It’s best not to give voice to first thoughts. Wait for the second, more sensical thought for show-and-tell. Editors are involved. You’ll have more friends that way. Also, the authorities won’t need to lock you up. So, forget what I said about life paths and selectively remember my second thought about Jackson Pollock.

Remember: I warned you. This is how my brain works.

[I wish you could see Kerri’s eye-roll as I read to her this post:-) ]

read Kerri’s blog post about THE HOSE

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Clear Your Mind [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

There’s nothing like a walk in a garden to clear your mind. It was the end of the week – or was it the beginning? In any case, our brains were overloaded. We sought a garden.

So the story goes, Adam and Eve lost their spot in the garden. They ate from the tree of knowledge and started to think about things. They became self-aware, a by-product of apple-eating, they had to tell stories of where they’d come from. They had to tell aspirational stories of where they wanted to go. They made rules. Look back. Imagine forward. Neither direction is true in the absolute sense of the word. Memory and imagination are not fixed. They are fluid, changing, like a stream.

Listening to our stories it’s easy to conclude that this good earth couldn’t possibly manage without us. As global weirding progresses, it’s likely that we’ll learn the opposite of our control-story is the case: we can’t possibly manage without the good earth. We may have to adapt our narrative! We may have to consider that the garden and its many inhabitants didn’t really need names; we invented knowledge-management to suit our purposes. We might need to recognize that we invented all forms of management to suit our narrative.

We like to tell stories of being in control, of being at the top of the pyramid. We especially like narratives placing us at the center of the universe – and the micro level variety: being the chosen ones. Believing that it all spins around us is, well, comforting. Or hubris. Or both.

Of course, our story is pocked with kill-joys like Galileo. Though, to be fair, even though his telescope proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that humanity is NOT at the center, it’s had very little impact on our dedication to being all important. Above it all. We are a tenacious bunch when our story of primacy is threatened.

I was especially moved by the sign in the garden and wondered what it would take for us to turn the tables and imagine ourselves as part of the spinning universe rather than above-it-all. There are plenty of examples to draw from, humans in symbiotic relationship with their garden. Listening rather than instructing. Spinning with.

I think that is why, when our brains are overloaded, we head to the garden. A return to our senses. We breathe. We listen. We feel. We clear our minds and, even for a moment, re-enter a naturally healthy relationship.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

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Sail Toward It [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Gordon MacKenzie ends his wise little book with this: “You have a masterpiece inside of you, too, you know. One that is unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. And remember: If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.”

His analogy – his encouragement – is to let go of others’ expectations and paint your painting, not the paint-by-number painting that you think is required of you.

I wrote this note to myself over ten years ago: you do yourself a terrible disservice to doubt what you know.

I know the world is round. If I set off on an adventure to the unknown I will never touch the horizon. It will always call to me. And, if I sail toward it long enough I will arrive back where I started. Home.

If I believed the world was flat, I would delude myself into thinking that I could catch the horizon – and touch it – merely a moment before I sailed over the edge and into the dark abyss. I know this: no one holding a flat world belief will knowingly sail toward the horizon, the great unknown. That would be crazy! No one willingly sails into the abyss. Better stay safe in the harbor! Color within the lines!

Masterpieces are made by sailing into unknown territory. Releasing control and discovering what’s just over the horizon. And, what’s just over the horizon is more horizon! More questions. More experiences. More discoveries. More tastes. More textures. More sounds. And, to sail toward the horizon with abandon first requires an understanding that the world is round. It is all horizon.

Paint-by-expectation is the road of a flat-earther. Perfection is a false horizon. Try to touch it and the abyss is yours.

Young artists jump back and forth between the flat and the round earth philosophy. They have to. Vulnerability is a learned skill and comes easily when the quest to touch the horizon is abandoned. In other words, painting a masterpiece comes when the quest for a masterpiece is ditched. When making a mess takes precedence over “doing it right.” When following your bliss determines the rules you uphold.

It’s counterintuitive. There’s a place where control and freedom blend into one. You’ll find it when you aim at the unattainable horizon.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HORIZON

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