Category: General Learning

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A friend recently shared this Apache blessing with me. He’s a thoughtful friend, who has been through a few careers. I love him for his clarity and simplicity.

May the sun bring you new energy by day;

may the moon softly restore you by night;

may the rain wash away your worries;

may the breeze blow new strength into your being. 

When I let myself wonder about the deep layers of work that many of us are doing together, “blessing” feels like part of that. Yes, it’s conversational leadership. Yes, it’s strategic visioning. Yes, it is practicing methods of engagement. And, knowing each other well enough to offer blessing for the work that must happen — that’s pretty cool. Witnessing each other well enough to feel blessed and encouraged — that’s rather inspiring. Invoking divinity into these human lives, the unseen that shapes these temporary structures that enable us to live — that’s rather striking.

Blessing.

 

The 90 second film below is a spoof on prescription medication advertisements. It has the usual stuff. Cheezy and cheeky characters. Coercive narrative (a prescription will take care of everything). Required warnings. Soft music. The film brilliant in part because behind the humor are things that ring true. truths. One of those is that “we are nature.” And, “it’s helpful to spend time in nature.”

I use these truths often in workshop design. For example, designing time for people to take a walk. To get outside. To rest from the dialogue and planning. To pause in the strategizing. Walks can  be in the forest — it’s great to work in retreat settings. But it also could be in a neighborhood. Or even just staring into the sky for a bit. It can be a moment of reflection and meditation with attention to a natural setting.

Being in nature is an invocation to a pause. I long for the freedom that welcomes a pause like this, just because. Without justification. But just in case some verbiage is needed to make it more utilitarian, what I share with people is that nature invites a different mode for sense-making.

It was the poet David Whyte that once said a concept that has stuck with me. “Sometimes, the truth depends on a walk round the lake.”

Enjoy this spoof. For the fun of it. And for the challenge to welcome pause.

Here’s an oversimplified story, but it is still worth saying because it is pattern.

In my teens and twenties it seemed to me that being a man had a lot to do with being tough. Stoic. Competitive. Never letting my guard down. Outsmarting others. Never showing weakness.

In my thirties and forties it seemed to me there was more to being a man than that. There were cracks in those images. And it was just getting tiring to hold living up to those images. Silly even. It was time to learn with other men in stories, and even rituals. I started participating in a men’s retreat and varied men’s groups. Dialogue groups. Drumming circles.

In my fifties, I continue to learn about opening myself. As man, yes. As human, yes.

I’d like to think I’m reasonably evolved about these things. If I give myself permission to say it, I am quite evolved with these. Not done evolving. But have done some pretty good letting go, working with boundaries, exploring the roots of experience and feeling. And I’m through a cycle now, watching some of this earlier phase play out in my sons and other younger men, which is rather retroactively informative!

My friend Kinde Nebeker just posted a piece, “The Man of Awakened Heart.” I quite like here list of traits, which I’ve copied below. Her full post is worth a read. (Kinde is also someone that I’m starting to work with. Later in October we are offering a leadership session on “The Inner and The Outer of Evolutionary Leadership.”)

• He is able to express a full range of emotion — love, anger, compassion, fear are all alive in him. He does not squash any emotion; though he is also able to express his emotions appropriately.
•  He gives full-bodied hugs that are filled with presence and caring. He is able to hug both women and other men in this way.
•  He has the capacity to listen deeply with his full attention.
• He has gone beyond the need to live up to some ideal of manly identity. Who he actually IS as a man is enough.
• He has clear boundaries, but no armor. His boundaries are fluid, not rigid.
• He has the capacity to go into the frightening territory of his own shadow and his own vulnerability. He can stand in that vulnerability, in the place of not knowing, without trying to cover his butt.
• He has come to know and honor his own feminine energy. It is alive in him and he has a conscious relationship with that energy.
• He can take action, letting his heart give him guidance.
•  He smiles a lot because his heart has been broken repeatedly and he has let it break — standing the pain, and eventually letting his heart open wider. In doing so, that heart of his becomes the strongest muscle he has. He has the capacity to deeply love many people.

It may be an oversimplified story, but it’s worth leaning in to, no. If I go big with it, it’s worth leaning in to because it helps make conscious the choice of who men are and invites growth. Or, stay simple, it helps create awareness in the life of a dad and a son figuring out the day to day.

A friend sent this video to me on the weekend. It is six minutes on why new math matters.

I admit, there are times when I have wondered (translation, doubted) the value of new math being taught to my elementary school-aged student. I’m a rather involved parent. I like to do homework with him. I like to know what he is learning, even if he is getting it all correct.

This video is about more than math. It is about developing the ability to think conceptually. Creatively. And that applies to working with groups, yes. And, the narrative is a good challenge to the primary story of math education — efficacy and speed. Oops, there is it is again, a cultural story that is about a lot more than math.

There have been moments when I, relying on my “old school” math, wonder what my 10 year-old is thinking and why it is taking him so long. Dr. Raj Shah of the Math Plus Academy offers a good description of what I sometimes describe as the need to slow down (so that you can speed up, or, er…, not).

Conceptual and critical thinking isn’t about moving through things as quickly as possible. It’s good to have that ability, when needed. But critical thinking is called for in more and more of the complex environments we find ourselves in. The ability to see alternative conceptual frameworks — oh yea, that’s good.

I love it that this video works with a simple equation, 45 x 24, to show some of this.