End And Begin

Posted on September 3, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sand SpiralSome fragments of thought on common story phrases (and life):

Once upon a time. It started. The Big Bang! Movement from a single point, a center. Adventure requires a movement from center, a venture away from the known to the question. Moving from center implies imbalance and opens the possibility for a more expansive center. Here’s the paradox of moving from center: balance is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Every person is the center of their unique story. That will always be true: who else could star in your personal movie? Yet stories, in order to move, require imbalance. You know who you are, you lose who you are, you find who you are. Cells divide and divide again. The division is necessary for new forms to take shape. The encoding is already in there somewhere. The same is true of stories.

This is like that. Comparison. Simile. Metaphor. Analogy. It is why stories work. We compare ourselves to the protagonist. We are like him or her. Why do we tell the same stories again and again? Because we recognize ourselves in the story. Stories are like glue that binds a community. It’s why marketing works. To be more complete, you must buy this or wear that. Be like…. It’s all a story and in that way it is all made up, every category, every interpretation (see Once Upon a Time, The Big Bang, etc.).

And so the story goes. Chaos to order, order to chaos, generation to generation, winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring,…. This morning on our walk we watched parents take photos of their children as they returned to school. Backpacks, new clothes, and packed lunches; it’s the first day back. “Do you remember doing that for your kids?” I asked Kerri. She said, “It seems like yesterday.” It seems like yesterday when I was wearing new clothes and walking to school.

The End? An End? “The End” is definitive, singular. The Big Bang was a beginning but was it also an end? The end of one form is usually the beginning of another. Endings always lead to Once Upon A Time, don’t they? It depends upon where you stand or who’s telling the story or how you define yourself.

title_pageGo here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

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Eve, by David Robinson

Eve, by David Robinson

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Greet The Day

Posted on September 2, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

photo-1Behind Beaky’s house is a retention pond. There is an alligator that occasionally breaks the surface and when it does I say, “Looking for poodles…” Kerri punches my arm and smiles.

The house is nearly empty; Beaky moved into assisted living almost 2 years ago and slowly her possessions have been packed or passed on to family members. It has been a quiet attrition, a gradual acknowledgment of the step into the next phase of life.

We stay in the house when we visit. We sip our coffee, sit in camping chairs, and watch the waters of the pond change with the progress of the morning sun. A cormorant comes each morning. It stands at the pond’s edge, spreads it’s wings, and drinks the sun. “It’s as if it is opening its heart to greet the new day,” Kerri says.

She tells me that the cormorant comes to the exact spot where, a year ago, her family gathered to spread her father’s ashes. A single cormorant came that day, too. In the middle of the rite, the bird landed, stepped into the setting sun, and spread it’s wings. Her father loved the pond. It was as if the spirit of her father came as the cormorant. It opened its heart. It greeted the sunset.

The news with Beaky is not good. I watched Beaky’s face as Kerri wheeled her from the doctor’s office. Beaky is no longer living, as she says, “indefinitely.” Her path is now definite (as I suppose all of our paths are truly definite even though we rarely consider it so). She looked relieved. She looked easy and quiet. Beaky said, “I’ve lived a good life! I’m ready.”

Now, as is true with abundant life, there is metaphor upon metaphor. There is the house. There is the alligator breaking the surface. There is the cormorant spreading its wings. There are cycles of life, passing moments, possessions never really possessed. There are stories made and stories lost. There is a family with an open heart, watching the progress of the sun, ready to greet the day.

title_pageGo here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

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I call this painting, "Canopy"

I call this painting, “Canopy”

 

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Reach Out. Peer In.

Posted on August 15, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
I've yet to title this painting but it seemed right for this post.

I’ve yet to title this painting but it seemed right for this post.

It’s a mid August morning with a hint of fall in the air. The breeze carries that “something” that is indescribable, more of a feeling than a chill or the changing of leaves. Never-the-less it is present. It is the signal and my body knows even as my mind debates. It is too soon for this – but even as I think the thought, I wonder what that means. Too soon based on what? Compared to what? This is my first summer in my new home. Last year I was an occasional visitor. I had glimpses into the cycle of the season so I have little with which to compare.

It has been a surprising summer all the way around. We’ve been traveling almost constantly since early June. The first few weeks of travel was planned, the rest was not. I’m not sure what the summer was like here because I was not present for it. The neighbors tell me it was a wet and cool summer. “Summer never came,” is a phrase I’ve heard more than once. After this summer of travel I will move into autumn with mere glimpses of the season.

I just had a call with Skip. He inspires me and makes me think things I would not ordinarily think. We’ve not talked for many months and our call was about catching up. Since I am writing about glimpses I was aware during our call that the best we can do is offer small windows into our lives. I said, “These past few years have been extraordinary in the changes and transformation I’ve experienced.” I was fundamentally incapable of articulating how profound my experiences have been. “It’s been like peeling off layers,” I said. A simile is the best I can do. Like or as. Glimpses. Events. Metaphor. No one can ever know the full scope of my walk just as I can never know the fullness of another person’s life.

During our call Skip told a story of walking through the woods with his wife when his cell phone rang. It was his daughter and infant granddaughter calling on Facetime. Skip’s granddaughter was taking her first steps. He and his wife peered into their phone and watched the miracle of first steps as their granddaughter, taking her first steps, looked into her mother’s phone at the excited faces of her grandma and grandpa. Glimpses into spaces.

We peer for a moment into a space. We stand in a space for just a moment. We try to share what we see. We try to share the fullness of our experience but can only approximate. Reaching out and peering in. Standing on the deck feeling that indescribable something that my body knows. My mind debates. This is life. Reaching out and peering in. What else?

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Let Owl Guide You

Posted on April 8, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
With the guidance of an elder, I made this medicine shield years ago.

With the guidance of an elder, I made this medicine shield years ago.

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. . . . Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung

For a few disconcerting moments, I thought the crows had followed me across the country. You will remember that while living in Seattle, I was plagued by crows. They swooped me on a daily basis, picking me out of crowds for a sneak attack. I came to the conclusion that they were trying to wake me up. According to Crow Medicine, crows are an omen of change. When crows are around, something special is about to happen, consciousness is about to change and dis-ease will be dispelled. Since we can only connect the dots backward I can now say with great confidence that I took the medicine and it worked. They hammered me on the head for months before I stepped into the void and allowed new forms to emerge. Needless to say, I have a love-hate relationship with crows.

Yesterday afternoon our backyard was a festival of crows frantically barking. It brought back visceral memories and I went on high alert. As it turns out, the crows were focused on our owl and not me. I haven’t heard the owl since autumn and had forgotten that we have an owl in the backyard. I was happy that the owl was back. The crows were not happy as owls are great nest robbers and also, if hassled excessively, will make a dinner of an adult crow.

A detail from my shield. Owls have been with me for a long time. The owl is the top symbol.

A detail from my shield. Owls have been with me for a long time. The owl is the top symbol.

Last fall I googled Owl Medicine when the owl hooted above my head almost every night. I learned that, as a totem, Owls have great intuition. They follow their instincts. They see clearly (meaning they cannot be deceived). Owls see what others cannot. For instance, Owls see into the inner life of others; generally, they know more about a person’s inner life than that person knows about him or her self. This is why people do not sit next to me at parties! Also, owls are fierce warriors if something dear to it is threatened.

What a fantastic collision of bird archetypes for the crows and the owl to return to my world at the same moment. The owl was mostly indifferent to the incessant crow barking and attacks. There was no contest. In the evening the owl flew away to hunt and I wondered if there might be one less crow barking in the morning.

Both owl and crow are harbingers of change. They both speak to a comfortable relationship with the unknown and an attraction to the mysteries of life. I laughed when I re-read the symbols as I’ve lately been preaching through my book, The Seer (owls and crows are both seers) to cultivate “not knowing” as a necessary step on the path to health and creative vibrancy. In the practice of “not knowing,” one learns to see.

Later in the night, while driving back from Chicago, Kerri and I were talking about the extraordinary and meteoric changes in our lives this past year. She encapsulated my crow and owl commentary when she said, “We make plans according to what we know. It’s what we don’t know that changes us.” Her thought reminded me of another Carl Jung quote. He famously wrote that, “Religion is a defense against a religious experience.” Just so, a life plan is often a defense against a vital life. Adventure and discovery are never in the direction of the known. When you pay attention to the symbolic crow hitting you on the head you can also rest assured that when you step into the void there will always be an owl waiting to guide you.

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What Circle Are You On?

Posted on April 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

There are lots of Venn diagrams showing up in my life. Today, Beth offered another that applies to education. The three circles of her diagram are Pattern, Metaphor, and Questions. Master these circles and you are a critical thinker. She brought to mind those other circles from my past, The Vicious and Virtuous Circles (I am now thinking of them as a Venn diagram – more on that in another post). I dug around and found these notes that I wrote almost seven years ago. Think about the notes as they might relate to education reform (or life change):

A Vicious Cycle has the following characteristics:
• There are winners and losers (a finite game)
• The direction of movement is “away from” something (a negative action)
• The actions are reactions.
• It is reductionary in every way (“tames” or over simplifies problems, reduces others, reduces self)
• Circumstance/Fear driven

The Virtuous Cycle has the following characteristics:
• The game is played for mastery (an infinite game)
• The direction of movement is “toward” something (a positive action)
• The actions are generative or creative.
• It is expansive in every way (allows for complex problems and identities)
• Values/Love driven

Both the Vicious and the Virtuous cycles are patterns. Just as water always follows the structure of the land, behavior always follows the underlying structural pattern. In other words, the pattern represents a way of being. The Vicious Cycle is a default pattern, an unconscious way of being. The Virtuous is an intentional pattern, a conscious and therefore, a creative way of being. The goal is to replace the default pattern with the intentional pattern.

To move from the Vicious to the Virtuous cycle, you first have to Identify & Clarify:
Identify your Vicious Cycle. Name it.

After you identify your Vicious Cycle, answer these questions:
Why move off the circle? What do you gain by staying in your default mode? In other words, what does the Vicious circle buy you (you only stay in dysfunction if you are getting something from it)?

Identify/Clarify your Intention
What do you want?
Identify/Clarify your Circumstance
What’s in the way? Name your obstacles.
Identify/Clarify your Values
What drives you? Name your yearning.

The required Movement/Action is to build a new pattern. Since the Vicious and Virtuous Cycles are patterns (structure of the land). Talk about the competencies in terms of building a new pattern. These are:

Pattern to catch your 1st thought, and then work on your second.
How: witness your thoughts; challenge your assumptions.
Pattern to suspend judgments
How: put down your need to be right, assume that you “don’t know”
Pattern to grant specificity.
How: Look beyond the superficial, own your fear,
Pattern to slow down
How: Breath, Be seen
Pattern to say yes and….
How: open your fist; entertain other perspectives
Pattern to step toward….
How: own your edges; make them horizons

Initially, the competencies may look too simplistic, however changing the behavioral structure of a human being begins with changing the patterning; also, systems never change through complexities, rather, they change through leveraging the local simplicity. It’s the pattern that reveals the local simplicity….

Thank you, Beth. Pattern. Metaphor. Question. What we do is really a matter of the direction of intention.

Filed under: Education, Metaphor, Perspective, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

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