I wish I could remember who sent this to me. Thank you, whoever you are.
Here’s to all of us working out our relationship with noise.
And to welcoming the music that arises so naturally and beautifully.
In self.
With other.
In community.
Spaciousness
It has always interested me to realize that space, or spaciousness, is most often present and needed in the most compact of circumstances.
I’m thinking of the spaciousness in the above photo, that I took in Canada’s Rockies last summer, is what creates my allure.
I’m thinking of the way that human beings crash in conflict, completely stale-mated and entrenched to defend territory of the outer and of the inner, when what’s needed is a moment of silence and no words. Or a walk by the river.
I’m thinking of the way that our human bodies participate in an illusion to appear as mostly substance, when in fact, we are mostly water. And further, how that water colludes to appears as mostly substance, but is in fact, mostly molecular space. The space creates the substance.
I’m thinking of the way that in contemporary western culture, the left brain is so often validated and privileged over the right brain, imposing linearity and rationality as preferred forms of common sense, when it is so often intuition, creative thinking, and the subconscious that change the game. Right brain knows its presence is needed, even if quietly.
I’m thinking of Judy Sorum Brown’s poem about fire, and her awareness that fire, which dramatically evolved who we are as humans, requires space. She say, “What makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between, as much as to the wood.”
I’m thinking of how the imposed speed of life these days in the 21st century, has taught many of us to squeeze out spaciousness and pause, just to keep up or keep from falling further behind. We wring contemporary life of its last drops of spaciousness, just as we would a wet cloth of it’s last drop of moisture.
I’m aware that many of us teach what we most need to learn. I teach a fair amount on the importance of a pause. Or a break. Or a long lunch. Or time to turn away to let good ideas settle. Or time to welcome the less obvious to blossom into the morning sun. Spaciousness continues to be one of my key teachers.
Just as water was teacher to American author Norman Maclean, writing about what he learned of family and unfolding life in 20th century Missoula, Montana in the closing of his beautiful book, A River Runs Through It, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
I am haunted by spaciousness.
Drop Into The Breath
I met Janice Rous 12 years ago. I was co-leading a workshop in Florida at which she was a participant. I was taking a break, sitting outside by myself near a pond, across from which was a beautiful white Heron. She asked if she could sit with me a bit, she also on break. Yes. Janice was easy to connect with.
In that moment, Janice, who would become a dear friend, offered an observation about stretching my shoulders. Mine were very tight and angled forward. “You are protecting your heart.” Wait, what?
Janice wasn’t forceful. She was just seeing what she could see, and offering that. For me she brought forward an emotional awareness expressed in the physical that I was not aware of.
Janice and I have stayed friends. She offers a unique kind of work and presence in the world (see her website, Body Dialogue). She is keen on naming how the body knows things that the mind can’t.
Janice recently created this three minute video above (with Katie Teague) that describes for her how breath brings us to our expansive and creative selves, in the midst of all that life is compiling and even imposing on most of us. Her message is an invitation to be with life. Janice is the one who taught me that though most of us humans feel we know how to breathe (and don’t really think about it), it turns out, that most of us don’t. Our breath is shallow, and often only from the neck up.
I love the simplicity in this. I love her vibrancy. I love the wisdom in this little film that starts with the breath.
Three Practices — Kindness, Consciousness, and Flow
I know that many of us are refining our practices. Essential practices that define who we are, or perhaps, what are work is in everything from the personal to the professional, the individual to the communal.
It can get a bit confusing, this refining — I find this. Even simple practices can become too much when stacked on top of each other into a toppling pile of albeit, great references. It means that most of us need to make some choices. Choosing a few that remain in our hearts with little effort, rather than compiling infinitely into a figurative or literal spreadsheet to occupy our brains. Of the many choices, I’ve always leaned, inevitably, to what I can hold in my heart.
It is sometimes through the confusion, because of the confusion, that many of us find a new layer of clarity. An erasing of the big list to reclaim a new marker of simplicity. I had some of that recently.
I’d gotten a bit tired by my own use of language around leadership practices. Through my work with hosting. Through my use of methodologies. Through my own teaching. Like most, I’ve been trying to offer helpful frameworks that are really invitations for people to be in good work together and that keep us honest with one another. Sometimes my language has been directed at the “doubters and the skeptics.” I really don’t like “convincing” people when there are underlaying fears that obscure what we are really up to. Sometimes my language as been for those ready to imagine further, with ease, and again with honesty. That’s a treat.
My three practices that I find myself returning to are words spoken by one of my dearest friends and colleagues — Toke Moeller. We met 20 years ago. It was his “being” that helped shape so much of what I would become, and what I would reiterate into. I can hear his voice in my ears and my heart speaking of these practices. There was nothing fancy about them. It was just raw honesty.
Kindness, because first and foremost, that is perhaps what we are trying to restore or reclaim in these many expressions of societal life. Kindness isn’t just about being nice to each other. It is so much more than that. It is reclaiming respect of other, of self, of possibility, and of wonder. What would it look like to practice more kindness together?
Consciousness, because it just seems that we have so much more that we can choose together, even in very complex environments, that bring us into a unique kind of wisdom together. Wiser together. Yes, this is something that I inherently believe we can do and must do together. So much more seems possible.
Flow, because there is so much available in the organic orientation. There are of course situations that require our good, linear planning with very detailed steps. Let’s celebrate the clarity of that. And, however, it seems that there is so much more of life that is partnering with the energy of life itself. It has intuition and spontaneity. It has life force in it that we sometimes get to feel more significantly. That, changes everything in who we are as human beings together.
So, I reclaim my attention to these three practices as I move further into 2018 and the people I’m working with. Smart people. Good people. Hungry people. Even a few skeptical people. These three practices — kindness, consciousness, and flow — at the level of scale that is self to family, team to community and organization.
It was Toke who early on (early 2000s) spoke this words, that I feel invite these three core practices. I’m grateful.
g
It Is Time
the train time is over
for those of us who can hear the call
of the heart and the times
my real soul work
has begun on the next level
for me at least
courage is
to do what calls me
but I may be afraid of
we need to work together
in a very deep sense
to open and hold spaces
fields
spheres of energy
in which our imagination
and other people’s
transformation can occur
none of us can do it alone
the warriors of joy are gathering
to find each other
to train together
to do some good work
from the heart with no attachment
and throw it
in the river
no religion, no cult, no politics
just flow with life itself as it
unfolds in the now…
what is my Work?
what is our Work?