Catch A Glimpse

Posted on March 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Deep in the alcove of the side entry to an old building lurked a man wearing a faux bear hat and a too big worn out raincoat. He was doing a slow dance, in invocation and I stopped to watch him. Our eyes met for a moment, just long enough for me to know that he did not mind my witness. His slow pushing and pulling of the air seemed out of joint with the pace of commuters racing to get somewhere. This man seemed to come from another era. He was not of the city; his dance was a nature dance. After a while I left him dancing in his alcove.

I passed a family hunkered down in a doorway. They were tourists. They were dressed for Florida and seemed surprised that it was cold in Seattle. They were confused by the rain; their map of the city was dissolving into mush. “What do you want to do now?” the father asked his kids, trying to buoy their wet spirits. There was no reply. They wanted to be warm. “How about finding that glass blowing place?” he asked.

As I crossed Pioneer Square I saw, laying near the memorial to firefighters, an empty jacket, pants, socks and shoes. It was as if someone had lain on the ground and disappeared, leaving their clothes behind. I wondered if this was the work of faux bear hat man. No one else seemed to notice so I walked on.

A man stepped in front of me and asked if I was up to doing a good deed today. Then, he asked me for a quarter. I imagined he must be a genius marketing executive gone destitute. As it turned out I was up for a good deed this day and thought his ask was too low so I gave him all of the change in my pocket. I had a lot of change in my pocket. He looked at me like I was a slot machine when I handed him a fist full of coins. He smiled when I said, “Great pitch!”

Worlds collide. I once saw Stephen Hawking talk about multiple universes, like bubbles that sometimes brush against each other. In those moments of bubbles touching, we catch a glimpse into the reality of the other universe. Today it seems that we are, each of us, a bubble universe. How else can I explain these strange and wondrous glimpses?

Filed under: Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Show Up

Posted on February 14, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” Neil Gaiman

The clichés are ubiquitous: fingerprints and snowflakes, each of us is unique in the universe. There will never be another like you and if you’ve ever looked through a telescope into the universe you will recognize how profound a recognition that is. The universe is vast and you are unique in it. You are vast.

The paradox of our uniqueness, of course, is that we want to fit in. As E.O. Wilson suggests, the strongest human impulse is to belong. The question becomes do you need to sacrifice something essential to fit into someone else’s idea or is bringing to life your unique perspective the very thing that will make you belong?

I recently heard a speech and the speaker was making a case for self-love. She spoke of the myriad of opposing opinions she’s heard and sometimes entertained about who she should be. Like most of us, she spent many years trying to conform herself to those conflicting ideas – other people’s ideas of who she should be. Aesop wrote a fable about that and the moral was clear: you will lose it all if you don’t listen to yourself. No one has the capacity to love you like yourself. When you come upon your idea of who and what you want to be, and strive for that, there is no conflict or sacrifice. You will fulfill it all when you listen to yourself. This, too, was the speaker’s conclusion.

To me, the shorthand is to orient your life according to what you bring to it and not according to what you get from it. Show up as you know yourself to be not as anyone expects you to be. Let yourself be seen as who you are: unique in all the universe.

Filed under: Identity, Perspective, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Join The Symphony

Posted on January 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

The exercise in class was a word cluster, a free association exploration about stepping into personal truth. Afterward, Winifred shared an image that surfaced during her cluster. She told the group that it was as if every living being on earth was a musical note in a song. When she stepped into a global perspective, she heard all the notes combine into a chorus. As she moved further out into a more universal perspective, the planets had songs and everything combined into a symphony of notes, high and low and everything in between.

According to her revelation, no note was insignificant; the symphony, to have full power, needed all the notes – so to diminish or minimize her self was to diminish the voice of the symphony. She said, “The world needs our notes.” And then, after a pause, she added, “…within every individual is a universe and each emotion is like a single musical note. In order for an individual to fulfill their universal note, they must feel the full spectrum of music within themselves.” She said, “Even suffering is a note, a note necessary to complete the symphony.”

Her message: Living your truth means to play without inhibition in the symphony of the universe. We need your note to complete the sound.

Filed under: Metaphor, Transcendence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Feel The Possibility

Posted on December 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

650. 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 the backseat of Lisa’s car. It is night and we are driving one of those amazing highways that knows no large city. This road is a ribbon connecting the occasional community, none with more than 10 stoplights. It’s been several miles since we passed through the last town and it will be many more miles until we see another light. My face is resting on the window because I cannot believe how many stars are visible when not obscured by the glow of a city. And I am counting my great good fortune because on this night there is a meteor shower. It looks as if stars get so excited that they have to flame and run. “There’s one!” Megan calls. “Where?” Lisa says, peering over the steering wheel. “You missed it.” I rest my face on the glass so in love with this moment and my two companions that I can barely breathe.

We pull off the road so we can gaze at the stars without worrying about driving. We stand on the edge of a fallow field, shivering in the cold winter air, necks craned to the sky. It is not lost on me that we are returning from Kansas where we attended a Launch for presenters; a workshop that, when we are old and rocking on the porch, we will look back and say, “That two days with Kevin Honeycutt changed the trajectory of my life.” And on the way home from a life changing experience called a Launch, the universe decided with great humor to coordinate with Kevin and gift us with a meteor shower. “This is what love is supposed to feel like,” I think to myself, linking arms with Megan who gasps, exclaims, “Oh My God!” and points to the latest sky streaker.

Shivering, I remember Holly from my coaching class having an epiphany, saying, “I feel possibilities. I make lists of them, all of the endless possibilities! They are visceral, like stars! It’s like, constantly discovering a new star, feeling the possibility – the gratitude extends to the possibility and the possibility extends to helping someone and the helping circles back to me! It’s a cycle. It’s an adventure and I feel it!”

“OH!” Lisa, Megan and I gasp and point at the same moment. “Did you see that one?” we chime in unison.

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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