management | The Direction of Intention

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

Posted on September 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

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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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, climate change, control, control fantasy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, feeling, galileo, garden, gardens, global warming, hubris, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge management, management, memory, naming, northwind perennial farm, primacy, self awareness, senses, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

React [on Two Artist’s Tuesday]

Posted on March 14, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The answer is herbicide. That blue coloring sprayed on stumps and shards of stumps along our path is meant to prevent the invasive species from sending up new shoots. Eliminating the invasive species so the native plants might someday make a comeback is the point. It only looks like total plant decimation with performance-art-blue dotting the eradicated forest. It is, in actuality, rejuvenation.

We met a couple walking the path. They were bird watchers and thrilled about the rejuvenation project. They explained how the work would allow the river to return to its natural course. The invasive plants were choking the waterway. With the removal of the invasive plants, the wildlife, like the plants, might have a renaissance. They assured us we’d see the difference when spring returned.

When I lived in the pacific northwest, there was deep concern about the salmon. Damming the rivers interrupted the natural cycle of the salmon’s return to spawn and the entire ecosystem was suffering because of it. Salmon are considered a “keystone” species; without the keystone, the ecosystem falls apart.

As we walked our loop I wondered how the invasive plants were introduced and how long had it taken for the invaders to choke the native plants? What prompted the preserve to act now?

Most likely, the invasive plants were introduced unknowingly by people. We cultivate land. We “utilize” nature as a resource. We study. We explore. We develop. We trade. We migrate. We are a force of nature. We walk well tended paths constructed for our ease and enjoyment. Sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious of our impact.

I had a great conversation with a forest ranger about the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone. The thought of “managing” nature has always struck me as paradoxical. We eradicated the wolves and then felt the impact. We re-introduced the wolves to try and correct the mistake before the ecosystem collapsed, and set off another chain reaction of unintended consequences that required further intervention. It’s like prescribing a drug to manage the side effects of a medication.

As we walked I wondered if the concept of natural balance is just too hard for us to grok. We generally don’t realize that interdependence applies to us, too. We believe we are nature’s managers rather than part of the chain. That prevents us from seeing ourselves as invasive, responsible, reactive.

We manage. And sometimes that looks like forest-performance-art-devastation with accents of green-shade-blue.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HERBICIDE

Filed under: Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, balance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ecosystem, herbicide, interconnected, interdependence, invasive plants, invasive species, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, keystone species, management, salmon, side effects, story, studio melange, the melange, Yellowstone wolves | 1 Comment »

Look The Other Way

Posted on January 18, 2017 by davidrobinsoncreative

I am working on a project that requires me to read through a passel of old emails. I find myself cringing every time I read my former email address. It was the name of my business. It made sense to me at the time I used it. Now it seems like a little chunk of hubris. david@trulypowerful.com. Yikes.

I came to the name honestly enough. One day while facilitating a workshop with a group in Chicago, we bumbled into a conversation about power. I was surprised to learn that I had a lot to say about power, both personal and communal power. My contention was that people most often confuse control with power. They feel powerful when they feel in control and, in fact, true power is the opposite of controlling. The investment of someone who is truly powerful is to empower, not to control. Think about the best teachers, managers, leaders, or friends that you know. Their commitment to you is to help you grow and learn, to become the most powerful person you can be. Unless you are trying to control them, your commitment is the same: to empower them. The same ideal is at the epicenter of any good relationship, work or otherwise.

Discerning between control and power – not always an easy task – was the guide star of my budding business. The study of power over others (controlling) versus true power (power created with others) – that’s how I arrived at the moniker Truly Powerful. I believed that, with awareness, change usually soon followed.

There is a growing list of words that once had potency for me but these words have been so overused, over-applied, or misused that they are now fairly meaningless: paradigm, paradigm shift, story, transformation, purposeful, presence…power, personal power. A few years ago my move from Seattle to Kenosha prompted a life inventory, a deep gander at my motives and motivations. Being a lover of words and believer in the power of words, I paid careful attention to the words I used to define my self and my work. They seemed a façade, a skin that needed shedding. I have called myself life-coach, facilitator, teacher, director-of-plays, performer, artist, and, no matter the word I applied, I felt I had no business assuming I knew or understood any other person’s route to power, personal or otherwise.

In workshops I often used to say, “You are not broken, nothing needs to be fixed,” and I wondered who I would be – and what I would call myself – if I actually believed that about myself and others. Nothing is broken. Nothing needs fixing. A remarkable thing happens when we assume wholeness instead of brokenness. Like a time-lapse camera focused on a busy urban street, the coordination and synchronization of individual movement becomes apparent. We are much more connected than we realize. Look for wholeness and you will see wholeness. Look for connectedness instead of individualization and all the power, fulfillment, purpose and transformation you desire will become available to you.

I also used to say (and still do), “No one creates alone.” No one walks this path alone. No one is powerful by themselves. Power and fulfillment are group sports. Whether we experience it or not, whether we see it or not, truly powerful is a given.