The Symbol In Front Of You — Today Mine Is Rhubarb

This is rhubarb. It grows in a small garden patch outside my front door. It gets ample unobstructed sun most of the day. It makes for great Rhubarb Crisp, particularly when served warm and with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream slow melting on top.

Rhubarb is growing prolifically. In my small garden patch. It’s a lot of leaf supported by a seemingly much smaller stem. Each year, reliably, it grows from starts cut back to the ground into what is now this mound of rhubarbness.

This rhubarb has history. In my small garden patch. I was given a start from an older man that I respected, who was growing rhubarb in his garden, also unobstructed.

I’m a reasonable contemplative person. I like to make meaning of things. I like to connect ideas. I like to see things systemically. Doing all of this feels like gardening to me.

The particular thought-gardening that feels most prolific to me is often about connecting one’s inner world to the one’s outer world — I love it for me. I love to see this with others. I love to see it in groups.

The symbol in front of me — this is an invitation to an awareness practice. Because I’m reasonably contemplative, and have come to realize that for some of us, our gift is to be reasonably contemplative, without being snooty about it. It starts rather simple, with a question. Try it.

What has your attention?

This question is really code for “What is one thing that has your attention — not the all of your attentive field.” In asking this question, it’s not about a right answer. It’s not about a smart answer. It’s about having permission to name a symbol, whether silly or profound, as an honest answer. For me this morning, one of those symbols is my rhubarb, that grows in my small garden patch, unobstructed.

Question two in this awareness practice is to explore out loud a bit. Try this too.

Why do you think that symbol has your attention?

Again, this is a question of freedom. It’s a request for the “some of it” not the “all of it.” It’s contemplative. Not meant to be snooty or obligingly impressive. To get to more of how one’s inner is connected with one’s outer. For me, I’ve named a bunch of it above. My rhubarb. Spring. Unobstructed. Prolific. Tasty. With history. There’s more, but this is plenty when not seeking a perfectly impressive response.

Question three is a good one. Keep going. Contemplatively simple.

What does your noticing about that symbol have to do with who you are,
what you are doing, and what you might be becoming?

Contemplative. Because inner is soooo not removed from outer. And that’s practical. Because the “now” of things, in the garden patch in the front yard and in the garden patch that is human psyche, delicious when served with ice cream, is soooo not removed from the “long arc” of things. For me, that vibrant growing, unobstructed — my symbol, my meaning — has a bit to do with that troubled relationship I’m in. I wish for vibrant growing. For me, that inspiringingness of spring growth — my symbol, my meaning — has a bit to do with the way that I want the work I’m doing to turn out this week. And, and.

Contemplative. Practical. Like rhubarb. Unobstructed.

To plant, grow, adore, and share awareness. This is massively valuable work. It’s what some of us bring. I have learned that to be given freedom to connect the inner to the outer, the now to the long arc — it’s rich. To witness each other through such honest simplicity, well, that changes a room from the inside out. It grows.

Like rhubarb.

 

Just Like I’m Writing Now — Thanks Patricia Raybon

In my living room area is a 5 foot by 5 foot window looking out into a shared communal yard of the small town-home complex that I live at. Or live in. Next to this window, on the inside, is an old refurbished recliner chair. It’s faux leather with distressed mission style wood slats under the arms. It’s distressed, not intentionally for design. It’s just old with to-be expected nicks and chips and scratches and a few stains. I got it at the consignment store seven years ago.

Next to the chair and window is planted a Norfolk Pine that has five stems growing from its base and now stands four feet tall. I love this tree because it has survived. It was a Christmas purchase from The Home Depot in 2015. I’m told these trees aren’t meant to live beyond the season of purchase. I don’t like that thought — the farmed for short term consumption model. But despite my best efforts with three previous years, thinking this will be our annual tree, they all died. This one didn’t. I feel it as friend. Next to this faux leather recliner. Next to this 5×5 clear window.

It’s the time of year when I need to put a few things on the window that help the birds, mostly robins and sparrows, navigate their flight paths through the communal yard, over the fences, into the trees, onto the swing set, and in and out of several other places. It’s impressive to watch them. From my chair. I can hear their chirping and singing. Last year, there were too many that crashed into my window. Some were stunned. Some died. I buried them. It felt right to honor them. Their flight. Their song. On my window I put a few colored post-it notes. I’m a facilitator after all. Use what you’ve got. There are many ways. Always.

Yesterday a friend sent me link to a post about writing. It’s Patricia Raybon. Her post is called “Writing in Life’s Storms.” She begins:

My husband is probably sick, but I’m writing a book proposal. Not despite him being probably sick. But because he is probably sick. It doesn’t make total sense. But I keep on writing. I’m supposed to be at a writing conference in Michigan—supposed to be teaching there now.

Instead, we’re going to doctors. We’ve scheduled an MRI. It got unscheduled. We scheduled it a second time. It got unscheduled again. We scheduled it a third time–because my husband is probably sick. So while we wait for tests to tell us, either way, I sit down and write. Just like I’m writing now.

And that’s the point. Writers write not because the moment is perfect. We write because it isn’t. Learning that changes everything.

What I’m learning is that this writing, for me, and for many, is medicine. We write because we can’t not. We write to make sense of things. We write to claim joy. We wright to claim angst and sorrow. We write to journal in public. We write to learn. We write to give temporary words to experience that is beyond words. We write to contribute to a medium of awareness, whether it be for our inner worlds, or for someone else, for a one or for a many. We write for an outer aha that might make even a small difference in another’s navigation, whether through chirps, songs, fences, trees, or post-it pasted clear windows.

It’s good to be human, writing.

Flow

Every couple of months it seems that I find myself revisiting some of the most simple narratives I can find about the work I do and the life I live. Every couple of months it seems I find myself re-digging further into re-understanding and being with groups.

It gets complicated doesn’t it. Family. Community. Work. Self. Nation. Globe. Politics. Climate Change. Immigration. Healthcare. Education. Technology. Kids turn to teenagers and want to drive the car — got one of those. Communities morn the loss of a friend or neighbor who dies way too soon. People work amidst layoffs and reorganization. 850 year-old cathedrals burn as people watch in horror.

There is much to pay attention to for all of us. Some of us seek to see and understand and evolve the whole of things. Some of us surrender to days on which we just try take one step of kindness.

This week it seems that my revisit to a simple narrative is words spoken by my friend and colleague through The Art of Hosting network (and initially, Berkana), Toke Moeller. Toke has a way of naming the simple in a way that feels wise to me. And catchable.

“What if we were just trying to create and support each other in practices of being more kind, more conscious, and more in flow with life itself?”

I’ve often used this question with groups. One guy that I worked with even created a kind of jingle tune out of it. I love the simplicity that it calls me back to. I love the momentary grounding that it creates for so many of us in so much complexity.

I won’t expound much upon what each of these words mean, could mean, or should mean. Rather, I’ll give myself permission to just be in wrapping that such principles can create.

Kindness, because we owe it to ourselves and to others. We are all in our mixes of complex challenges. We are all in our versions of needs, excitements, demands, offerings, wounds, joys.

Consciousness, because, I continue to learn through good practices like The Circle Way that there is a center to touch with each other that holds an intelligence related to but different than what we hold individually.

Flow, because, I continue to learn that there is an abundant kind of energy in life itself, an undeniable life force, despite the many human attempts to mechanize all layers of human existence. The picture above is from a Flow Game that uses questions to create access to a bit more of that life energy.

Every couple of months, I need to sit by my window in the morning sun, seeing the rainbow refracting dew on the grass (welcome spring), the trees budding in their own pace, the blue sky being vast, and remember in my bones that there is a broader story that I believe we are all a part of.

I best become aware of it with kindness, consciousness, and a welcome of flowing with life, and it flowing through me.

Not Mine, But Ours

For those relaxing a bit more into the thing behind the thing behind the thing, when it comes to circle.

This work is not hard
but it is focussed.

Living as circle is a way of being.
It brings us into a requisite vibration
such that we can now be in relationship
to the heartbeat not mine, but ours

to thinking and feeling not mine, but ours
to grander scale not mine, but ours
to inspired and tangible action not mine, but ours.

Circle is the ultimate amplifier.
We move circle and it moves us.