Leave The Wasteland Behind

Posted on November 1, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

[continued from Enter The Castle]

In her book, Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach tells the story of a daughter holding vigil at her mother’s deathbed. The mother regained consciousness before dying and said, “You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me.” And then she shook her head as if to say, “What a waste.”

title_page

The full Parcival tale is woven through The Seer.

The metaphor of the moment is the Holy Grail and, more specifically, the search for it. The search for the Grail is a metaphor for a search for the self – not the roles that we think we play, the purposes that we think we serve, and not the jobs that we do. Grail seekers deal with their ‘being’ and not their ‘doing.’ When the roles are dropped, the purposes stripped away, when the jobs are left behind – beyond all the masks and definitions and importance and interpretations, labels, judgments, and pursuits of perfection, the Grail castle awaits us all. It’s a paradox: the Grail castle is found in the ordinary, the everyday.

We rarely come to the castle because of our wholehearted attachment to The Wasteland (the other great metaphor in the Parcival tale).

Parcival goes on his quest to find the Grail castle because as a young knight, purely by accident, he bumbled into it. He was invited in. He was given the opportunity to speak his truth and at the crucial moment, he denied himself. Instead of truth he spoke what he thought was socially acceptable. He did what he thought he was supposed to do and not what he wanted to do. He played his role and was polite. And his punishment for denying himself was banishment from the castle. And, worse, the whole kingdom fell into famine and he was to blame. He was personally responsible for The Wasteland. So he went on a quest to find the castle and redeem himself.

He believed himself broken and in need of fixing. The harder he tried to prove his worth and regain his wholeness, the worse the Wasteland became. In today’s world he would have purchased a shelf of self-help books. He would have attended seminars and exercised his positive thinking. He would have clarified his purpose and conquered his fear on a ropes course. He might have earned his PhD, bought a BMW, been named ‘Best-in-Show,’ and lined his wall with trophies.

The important point is this: Parcival had no idea why he failed as a young knight. He did what he was taught to do and found himself in The Wasteland. So he began a quest to fix what was broken (he identified himself as broken). He was fighting a battle to redeem himself but had no idea what he was attempting to redeem. He could only regain access to the castle by ceasing to think that he was broken. It was only when he stopped looking for perfection that he experienced himself as perfect just as he was. As the hermit said to Parcival the moment the castle reappeared, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

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Filed under: Metaphor, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Give As Love

Posted on July 1, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
The stack of paintings sitting in my basement waiting for me to show them.

The stack of paintings sitting in my basement waiting for me to show them.

Sitting in the choir loft this morning I was at first disappointed that the stained glass window was silent. I was so full of questions – and have lately been so full of questions – and have come to look forward to hanging out in the loft, conversing with the window, while Kerri plays a service.

When I bring my questions the window always has something to say. The window offers a better set of questions or a startling reflection or a slap of insight. The window’s responses always come in the form of a message of return (return to heart, return to forgiveness, etc.). If I get quiet and ask my question, out of the peace, a conversation always ensues. Today, from my quiet, I asked my question about artistry, about my artistry, and I was met with an unusual silence. I wrinkled my brow. I wondered if my conversation with the window had come to an end or if perhaps my question was out of the scope of topics for a stained glass window.

There was a visiting pastor, an elder who’d been preaching for over 50 years. I sat up and paid attention when he began his sermon this way:

“Artists have a special gift. They help others see in a new way….”

His message was about love. Love, he told us, takes many forms and the form that love takes depends upon the unique gifts of the lover: a symphony is a gift of love, a painting is a gift of love. A plumber fixing a broken water main late into the evening is a gift of love. “What is your gift?” he asked. “Do you recognize it as love?”

A few years ago, on New Year’s Eve, I visited a tarot woman at a bookstore in Denver. During our session she asked me a question that felt like a cold slap in the face. “You know god’s voice,” she said. “Why do you not use it?” I mumbled a lame excuse that dribbled into silence. “Why do you not use it?” she asked again.

Sitting across the table from the tarot woman, I knew without doubt that I have, my whole life, been a great servant to other people’s artistry but a lousy servant to my own. In my life I’ve been the midwife to many people’s gifts while mine have remained mostly unrealized.

The window whispered, “A painting is a gift of love. So is a play. So is a book. These are your forms of love. Your gift is a gift of love. Love is god’s voice and you know god’s voice.”

“I do know it,” I said, timid to admit it. “Don’t we all?” I asked the window.

“Access is open to all. Few actually listen,” the window replied. “Few know how to listen. Most fear their gift and plug their ears.”

To offer my gift without inhibition is how I best express love to the world? That was old and new for me at the same time. I asked the window, “How many artists need to hear that message? How many people need to hear that message?”

“You are deflecting. You deflect your gift by serving other people’s purposes before your own. These questions you ask are the wrong questions,” said the window. “Yes, of course, all people need to hear the message. But, is it your purpose to deliver the message or is it your purpose to fulfill your gift? Helping others hear their message is not yours to do. Yours is to fulfill your gift and, in that way, help others to see their gift in a new way. You need do nothing but give your gift. They will see or not without your intervention. Love by giving your gift. It is simple. Give your gift, give your love, without reservation or doubt.”

“Love can be how you listen to a friend in need,” the pastor said. “Love is not about the rules or the restrictions. Even when you try to alienate love, it will always find its way back to you. It will find its way back through you.”

“You know god’s voice,” the window continued. “And you know it. Return to the truth; return to your truth. The question, ‘Why do you not use it,’ no longer matters. It, too, is a deflection. Asking ‘why’ merely delays the giving. Use it. Give it. Give as love.”

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, Edges, Love, Possibility, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Love Yourself Better

Posted on April 5, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
this one is from the archives. I painted this 10 years ago.

this one is from the archives. I painted this 10 years ago.

He said, “The current goal is to love myself better.” And then he added, “Not so much a goal but something that needs teaching from our own mind.” His statement begs a great question, an ages old question: Can the mind teach itself? Really, the question is can the mind see itself clearly enough to teach itself?  Or, the question within the question: Can the mind teach itself to love itself? I scribbled the questions in my notebook and beneath them I wrote, “Is love teachable? Is love reachable through the mind, especially self-love?

We’d been chatting for a while and had covered a lot of territory, from Monte Blanc pens to typewriters to soap use around the world, clean water, the difference between good and bad scotch, the shapes of the 50 states and how they might influence personal identity and we’d somehow wandered into the epicenter: self-love.

His statement nailed the universal dilemma perfectly. It was a declaration of separation. The self watching and wanting more for the self. The separation is in the language: to love myself better. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t made this statement. Which part of the self will better love the other part of the self? Which part of the mind will teach the other to love?

It is where myth meets the everyday. Every human being who has walked the earth has wrangled with separation and the yearning for self-love (re-connection to self, unity). The human journey is a walk from separation (birth, if you want to take it literally) to reunification (death). The story lives in mythologies the world round. If we were still willing to read our mythologies (religions) metaphorically, we’d see it. For instance, being expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge is the story the ancients told of the experience of separation. The inevitable bite of apple from the tree of knowledge brought duality consciousness: male/female, us/them, mine/yours, haves/have-nots, me/you. Separation. The rest of the story, not often told, is how, through out the rest of our lives, we seek the Garden where there lives a second tree: the tree of everlasting life (unity). We journey from knowledge (separation) to everlasting life (reconnection). The death need not be literal. To die to the self is necessary to experience the SELF.

Here’s the great paradox: loving another person is an act of self-love. The path to self-love is found when we serve something bigger than our selves. Think about it: the movement is always from separation to joining, from isolation to connectivity. The obvious question is, “Connectivity to what?”

Self-love is not found when the mind teaches the mind but when the mind gets out of the way of the heart. The love is always there. Love is never missing. Self-love reveals itself when the definition of self grows beyond our own skin. According to our latest neurological science, we experience ourselves as separate because we dull ourselves to our fundamental connectedness to others. In other words, we cultivate a story of isolation and then set about the real work of our lives: to see beyond what we think.

And then he said, “You know what else I just realized?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I just landed myself in a blog post.”

Yep.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Filed under: Awakening, Body, Edges, Energy, Identity, Language, Love, Metaphor, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

See The Box

Posted on March 2, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

‘The Box’ by Kerri Sherwood from her album Blueprint for My Soul Craig sent me a link and a challenge. The link was to his recent blog post, Break Down The Box. It’s about how people build boxes around themselves. “Instead of building a box that may later require extra work to remove,” he writes, “I suggest building a stage.” What a great image! His challenge to me was to apply it to my writing. He texted, “It’s relevant to your general topics.”

My question back to Craig was about the word “apply.” Is he challenging me to write about boxes and stages? Is he challenging me to build a stage and stand on it? Both? His challenge came on a day that I said aloud to myself and the universe, “I’m feeling boxed!” His timing was impeccable.

Self Cut outWe’ve not finished our correspondence so I don’t yet know what he means by applying it to my writing. To stall I will write what I know about boxes:

1) Everyone has one. Don Miguel Ruiz writes that we come into this earth as free, uninhibited spirits and then the adults around us begin impressing rules and random philosophy upon us. They teach us constraint and we comply. We are a pack animal, after all, and must operate within the greater needs of the community. That’s why there are traffic lights and a proper fork to use when eating a salad. Our greatest need is to belong; The GAP, Old Navy, or Abercrombie & Fitch could not exist otherwise. The need to belong is the driver behind box building. It’s a paradox. Somewhere amidst all of the compliance we begin to assume that we are no good or start making comparisons to others or create standards of perfection that are impossible to inhabit. So, we build a box called, “should be”. The paradox is that, in order to belong, our action is to hide.

2) Growth comes from constraints. No box is built without the need to deconstruct it. That is the opportunity of the box. Joseph Campbell would call box deconstruction The Heroes Journey. In the great mythologies of the world there is a tension between The Right Hand path (what society expects you to do) and The Left Hand path (following your bliss). Both are necessary and, in the end, we all must find the middle way between the two paths. The middle way is known in mythological terms as The Holy Grail. Bliss always needs the participation of others. We are pack animals and need the pack to know where we fit.

3) Constraint is necessary for creative fulfillment. School boards around the nation have the misguided notion that art is the absence of rule and/or discipline. It must be a requirement of school board participation to attend the symphony without recognizing that the musicians on stage have given their lives to discipline and constraint. It might come as a surprise to most people but artists outstrip the military in rule adherence and rigid discipline. The disconcerting aspect for the school board is that the rules and discipline of the artist are self-imposed. They are inner imperatives. Artists do not need a drill sergeant. They need constraints to push against, boundaries to overcome, rules to challenge, and patterns to disrupt. Watch a kid on a skateboard try to learn a new skill (oh, yes – they are artists, too). They might break their arm in the process but the break will just fuel the need to improve.

4) No one sees clearly their box. To return to a Don Miguel Ruiz-ism, we are the stars of our own movie and can never know the movie of another person (and they can never know our movie). The paradox is, of course, as the star of your movie you never get to see your life from any meaningful perspective until lots of time affords you some distance. Even then, you’ll interpret your movie through the lens of having lived it. If you have an inner monologue, you are center stage of your movie and your movie is your box.  Here’s the beautiful thing about movies/boxes: they all come with flaws and the flaws are almost always the location of the opportunities. As I recently learned, the Amish intentionally place a small flaw in every quilt because they believe that the flaw is what lets the spirit in. The same might be said of boxes.

I’ve been privileged in my life to work with and direct a bevy of actors and most had to learn to stand on a stage. In fact, the stage frightens most of the really good ones. They understand the power of being seen, the responsibility that comes with visibility. It is simply this: be present without the need to control the thoughts or emotions of another. Be present with them. Offer them a story without the self-protection of trying to control what they see. All stories are maps out of boxes. Or, more to the point, stories are maps out of one layer of box to a lesser layer of box. So:

5) Boxes are like onions. A stage is merely a layer.

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Listen To Fuji

Posted on April 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Over the next few days I’ll be hanging out with Judy’s cat, Fuji. Fuji is a wise old soul and her needs are simple. She wants attention when she wants it and not a moment before. She is unequivocal when she wants space. She requires food and water and has specific preferences for her food. Fuji is not a goat. Fuji is very clear about what she wants and expects. Fuji has very clear boundaries.

This morning was my first morning alone with Fuji. I’ve never had a cat. I am a dog person. I assumed that I would have trouble understanding Fuji’s needs without a cultural informant but in a relatively short amount of time Fuji taught me the essentials of cat communication. Fuji is a love and appreciates being greeted in the morning. We had a nice pet and then she walked to her bowl and stared at me. Her message was clear so I put food in her bowl. Next she drank a prodigious amount of water and I refreshed her supply. While I filled the water dish Fuji settled into her favorite spot on the back of the couch and yowled at me. I responded immediately and rubbed her ears and beneath her chin until she was sated with attention. Then, she slept.

As a coach I often have conversations with clients about proper boundaries. As I watched Fuji drop into sleep I marveled at how easy our communication had been. There was no hinting, no guessing, no apologizing, no timid offers, no power games, no diminishment, and no justification of need. She told me what she wanted and when she wanted it. I complied when I could. There was no confusion and no miscommunication.

Don Miguel Ruiz writes that the most potent act of self-love is being impeccable to your word: say what you mean and mean what you say. It is self-love because it is not predicated on the needs of others. It is not dissipated by worth issues or control games. Impeccability is predicated on the understanding that your needs are valid and yours to communicate without justification or defense. In this sense, clarity and transparency are expressions of self-love.

Fuji is a great teacher. Note: as I came back this evening Fuji opened an eye and said, “Pet me, please.” I gave her a pet and she fell back into a deep, restful sleep.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Call Your Name

Posted on February 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

697. 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 is not lost on me that I’m unable to get back to Seattle. The initial flight delay set off a ripple of stand-by lists with actual guaranteed seats on planes 2 to 3 days from now. I waved the white flag, let go of what I thought was so important, and decided not to spend 3 days in airports. Instead, I went on a road trip. I made a run for Omaha, renting a car and driving seven hours, into and through a white-out-snow-blowing-so-that-I-followed-the-tail-lights of the car ahead of me because I literally could not see the road. I talked with friends on the phone while I drove. I had hours of silence and quiet. I saw a part of America that I don’t often see because I fly over it instead of drive through it.

When I looked at the ticket agent and said, “I’d rather not wait in the airport,” she thought I was nuts. How could I make the decision to walk away? She said, “But, we can’t change and itinerary, we can’t transfer your flight to another city. You’ll have to buy another ticket.”

“That’s exactly right,” I thought. I would rather go off the reservation and drive, not knowing when or where I will find a portal into Seattle. Spending 3 days of my life sitting in an airport waiting for the smallest possibility of a seat on a plane seemed crazier than walking out of the airport and asking, “Well, what’s next?” I’ve spent too much of my life waiting for something to happen. I no longer have it in me. The ticket agent had a rule to follow and I realized that I did not. Rather, I have one rule and my rule is: don’t wait.

I have a mantra new to this year. It wasn’t a resolution; it just seemed to find its way in: Act. Try. Aim. In other words, practice what I preach: step into the unknown as a way of being, not as a once in a while activity. Act. I don’t need to know where I am going before I take a step. If something seems to take life from me, walk the other way. Try. See what happens. And then aim.

I now have a seat on a plane out of Denver on Wednesday. I will have driven or trained halfway to Seattle before getting on a plane. I’m having adventures, spending time with people I love, and not knowing what tomorrow holds. And, I am certainly more alive now than I would have been had I decided to sit and wait for my name to be called. “Isn’t it time.” I thought as I left the airport in my rental car, “that I started calling my own name.”

Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , | 10 Comments »

The Crux Of The Matter

Posted on August 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

512. 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 my head today I am having the most interesting conversation. The crux of the matter is this: could I love myself, truly love myself, if I did nothing for the rest of my life? What if I sat on a park bench tomorrow, gave up all pursuits, let go of all ideas of service or gain, swore off all forms of productivity; could I still love myself?

I am the son of good puritan Iowa farm stock. More than once in my life I have heard people speak of my father as a good man because he was a hard worker. Both of my grandfather’s were blue collar, hard working business owners that “did well” in the world. One was a milkman; he owned a dairy in Monticello, Iowa. The other had a business fixing sewing machines. They belonged to service clubs and sometimes attended church; we don’t talk about those things when we talk about how good they were; we talk about what they did and how hard they worked. We talk about the virtue of their toil.

This is no flippant question. I work with too many people that hate themselves because they are not doing what they want to do or they think they need to do more to be valuable. I am hard on myself if I do not achieve everything on my list each day- as if I didn’t do enough to earn my love.

What if loving myself had no requirements; what if loving myself had no conditions? What if loving myself had no connection to my doing or not doing? What if I did not have to earn it? What if loving myself was the beginning point, the first assumption, the prerequisite,… the structure of the land so that all of my behavior and my actions, like water, followed this path of least resistance?

I do not think I would do less work. I am certain I would work differently. How can I possibly be fulfilled if my center point is anything other than love?

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

Filed under: Love, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: | 10 Comments »

Do What Is Best

Posted on July 6, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Judy (she-that-I-revere-but-saying-so-makes-her-wiggle) read a recent post about voice-less-ness and mind reading and sent me this gem:

“My 90-year old friend gave me the gift of a lifetime when she taught me the phrase, ‘What’s best for me is…’. It frees me! If someone isn’t interested in what’s best for me, well, then, I may not need that energy in my life. I pass it on, with love. It’s been a long journey to get here.”

What a great statement of boundaries! What a terrific statement of self-love!

On a recent trip I had the opportunity to spend time with several of my elders, people who are in the sunset of their lives. They shared this common trait: They have no time for pleasing. They are clear about what they want; there is not doubt about what they need. The games are no longer interesting to them so they are fairly free to express their thoughts regardless of what others might think. It was refreshing.

It has been a long journey for me to get here, too and I wonder why this simple center is so hard to come by. As Judy said, “It frees me!” Caring for yourself, attending to your needs as much or more than you invest in the needs of others would seem to be a first principle. I’ve learned that you cannot truly serve others until you learn first to do, “What is best for me.”

In some traditional societies the grandparents primarily raise the children. The parents are too busy working the fields and attending to the rituals that sustain the community. The parent’s knowledge has not yet aged into wisdom. With the grandparents ever present the children are steeped in the wisdom of age. Who might we be if, as little children, our 90 year old grandmother looked at us and said, “Let me teach you a phrase….”

Filed under: Emergence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

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