Day 4 of Quest 2016

From Visionary Tina Selig:  What advice would your future self a year from now give you today?

Amazingly, this came much more easily and wholly into my soul than some of the earlier questions. The advice of my future self - a year from today:

It is SO worth it, you have to begin NOW!

“You must do the thing you are most frightened of doing”

Remember when you told Mom that she was the grown-up now and she got to decide how SHE wanted to live her life? Take that advice.

Never, never, never, never, never give up. Ever.

Become self-referring like never before. You are your own best feedback, and you need to go with your gut instinct. You have a great “truth detector”

The “how” will make itself known. Just hold the vision, and let it guide you.

Day Three of Quest 2016

Visionary Guide Debbie Millman asks: How would you do business as unusual in 2016 if you knew – no matter what you chose – you would not fail?

Right now I am in that slippery place where I am not sure what I desire. Not sure whether I am doing things because “I’ve always done that” or whether I actually still choose to. I am grateful for the clarity that this week is helping with, because it truly is “getting clear with myself” and it is moving me in a good direction. At least I believe so.

Removing failure from the computation - always a good exercise - what would you do if....

For years, I have wanted to start a Science of Mind charter school - an elementary school that empowers children as creative thinkers while teaching them reading, writing, science and math skills. Our children need us to create spaces for them to succeed.

Since I moved to Eugene, the plight of the homeless has touched my heart. This town likes to think it is liberal and “with it” and “Berkeley North” and it is so very far from that. We have created no way for the shelterless to find a way out.

My greatest fear is that I will die with my “songs” - my words - inside me. I could write - I could put pen to page and create words that inspire and move people to live fuller, richer lives.

I find right now that my energy level is so low that nothing ‘grabs’ my soul and says YES, that’s it. That is where I need to be. And I know the very act of writing these lifts my creative juices and stirs them up. Actually, exploring the question from Day 2 of how to move toward change without making what IS ‘wrong’ sounds like an appealing way to spend my time.

Perhaps by exploring the synthesis of these first three, as Jeffrey, the director of Tracking suggests, I may get even more “clear with myself.”

Day 1 - Quest 2016

I have made a decision to enter into a person Quest in 2016, to explore my direction, my work, my life. I am so grateful to Dorianne Cotter-Lockard for sharing her blog and her work on this, and I chose to move into it as well. This is where it is described... http://trackingwonder.com/quest-2016/

So, here is my first foray into this. Posed by Visionary Susan Piver: What I most need to tell myself about 2016 is...

That it is safe - that I am safe - that the only one actually judging me - and the only one empowered to “judge” me, is me. I am the only one whose opinion matters. My struggle for years has been to relinquish seeking approval from “others.” I am now ready to act on that, and stop struggling.

2016 is the portal to all I have been building toward the past 66 years. From student to dissatisfied office worker to bar owner to minister, I have traversed a varied and multi-dimensional path over the years. I spent most of last year in recovery from a profound injury to my (dominant) arm, and realized early on it was a pilgrimage.

Lessons have been learned. Gestation time is over. Trail has been traversed. Wall is coming down. 2016 reveals itself as the perfect time and place to step into now. And I come back to my opening line. 2016 is a safe space and place. I am safe moving forward. It is the perfect unfolding of a life-long journey, and the world and I are ready to dance.

Quest 2016 Day 2

Day 2's Question, from Visionary Jonathan Fields:

“You wake up to discover a knock at your door. A wealthy uncle you barely knew has passed and left you a fortune. It’s more than enough to live out your days in glorious splendor, but there is a condition. To be eligible to collect, you must commit your full-time working energies to the pursuit of an answer to a single question of your choosing for the next 12 months.

You are welcome to continue that pursuit after the year ends, for years or decades if it warrants, but you must remain fully focused on seeking the answer until the last minute of the 365th day. A minute shorter, the entire inheritance goes to your annoying and equally long lost cousin, Philly.

What is your question?”

For me, the question is primarily how to create true and lasting change for good without making the current conditions “wrong.” It might seem simple or obvious to others, but for me, I see a world where the standard response is to make demons of what is/who is in order to compel change.

I believe that when I am in a state of resistance, I am anchoring what IS into continuity. How do we take the human psyche, with its need to compartmentalize and label, and move toward transformation together, without turning people into “others?” This question is not so much about me, but about helping model this so that as a people we overcome fear and move toward greater possibilities. 

I love my country, and the premises upon which it was founded. I love the idea that we are each, at least in theory, free to believe what we believe and speak that belief aloud, without fear of reprisal. I love that we can vote on what we would like to see happen, and that, somehow, our vote DOES matter, even when we are in the minority.
And I wonder how that potential has devolved into a place where US vs THEM is more important than e pluribus unum - Where fear has displaced hope as our guiding star – Where money is a greater measure of a man than character. I don’t like this world that is shaping up around me, and I am saddened that so many people, including some family members and former dear friends, find war preferable to diplomacy, and their right to bear arms more critical than the right of a parent to have their child come home alive.
How did we get here? What role did I play in shaping this place we are now? I have heard the dear Parker Palmer speak of the “Tragic Gap” – the space between how things are and how we know they are possible to be. If it is my experience, I played a role in creating it, and I search my soul to find the anger and vitriol that are being spewed around me.
Where is our common ground? We are all people, living on one planet, joining in one family – whether we want to be or not. We are on a ball of molten rock hurtling through space with no way off, and I am so tired of the divisiveness.
I always talk about finding solutions. Focusing on what is possible. Affirming “there has to be a way” over and over. It is said “the answer to the prayer is in the pray-er” so I look to myself for a way to end the divisiveness and frustration in my own heart.
We are so much better than how we are behaving. A dear friend’s beautiful husband has passed, and her life is broken open, and all this petty bickering pales in comparison to her journey. Can we stop? Just hold a cease-fire on name calling and snarky comments and see our own humanity?
That’s all I have. Wish there was more… but it is what I have in me to share now. I am struck by how the words of a 50 year old song are so relevant... "What's That Sound" by Buffalo Springfield.

Creative Dreams Adrift

Bits and pieces of me scattered around the house. Looking for an unlined journal, I located the paginated essay book I bought in 1970… a graduation from “diary” to “journal work.” I fancied myself so very mature at 21. It begins just a couple months before my marriage to Al… and ends with the entry of me writing an unsent letter, informing him of my decision to file for divorce. My writing in some of those last pages is small and tight and painful to see – almost a backhand slant to it. One of the last entries speaks of not being able to “find Linda” in all that was going on. 

And I rummaged through drawers of never-opened art supplies, which have been sitting there waiting for the creative urge to strike me. I thought I would like to take an unlined journal and a few pencils with me on this trip to the clergy retreat. Perhaps I could both write and draw my impressions of the experience, I thought. And what I found included a set of colored pencils by Mongol that I purchased for art class in 1968… and a smaller set I bought a couple years ago. Both seemed “too much of a production” to take with me. I am not sure what it is I am seeking. I don’t want to arrive looking like I think I am an artist… but who am I?

Fabric swatches rolled up and stored in a cupboard that was built to be a wine rack. I had great plans to make the guest room closet into a sewing nook, and I have fabrics I bought with the intention of turning them into clothing. Plans on hold, “a dream deferred.”

There is that in me crying out to create – and each week I create a message for my community and offer it up on Sunday morning. That is most assuredly creating. And somehow I do not recognize it as such. And I write my “daily pages” at least three days a week most weeks – and some of them turn into blogs and Sunday messages, and the notebooks are stored in boxes in the hall closet. And the freezer is full of food waiting to be turned into meals, but it is too hot to spend time in the kitchen. 

Is this that Divine Discontent of which 'they' speak? A house filled primarily with potential or spent energy… not much kinetic happening here, it seems. I am willing to move forward, and I don’t seem to know how. “Do what’s in front of you” – ‘they’ say that is the thing. So the computer is in front of me and here are the thoughts. And I yearn to paint, to cook, to write, to play, to release that within that wants to be expressed… and today does not seem to be the day. Not all essays have a resolution, it seems.

Which Side Am I On?

I was deeply moved by the movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. So many levels of meaning and metaphor, it is hard to know where to start. I saw at least the first two in theaters back in the 60's and 70s... and saw the “pre-quel” in 2011. None of them have moved me this much since the dramatic close to the very first of them, over 45 years ago.

The script and the images of the incredible sets are so powerful they help carry this story forward. It is a powerful morality tale about the power of fear that drives us to our lower levels of behavior.  It touched places in me that apparently want to be explored.

The movie speaks to our higher understanding - to our willingness to know more about what we do not understand. And, it speaks of the destruction that comes from following the path of our fears rather than that of our higher selves - our “better angels.”

Most of the adults in both sides of the story have experiences of “the other” that evoke their fear-based responses. In a way, it called to mind the ancient story of the blind men and the elephant - everyone was totally committed to the experience they had, unwilling to consider there might be another way of seeing things.

Justification tends to look only to the past for evidence on why I feel the way I do, why I believe what I believe. When I spend my energy feeling justified for my response, I am not open to new “evidence” that would have the power to change how I feel, how I behave.

The two key protagonists seemed able to call upon their higher levels to find common ground and build trust with one another. And, it gave a very clear picture of the pain in both casts of characters that gave rise to the fears that drove the action in the story.

As the character Malcolm is trying to calm things near the end of the movie, his friend Dreyfus screams at him “They’re animals!” - The script left unsaid the obvious truth that so are we.

What became very clear to me was that this movie and its message will be seen by all kinds of people, and with any luck the message of how complex our relationships are will sink in at some level. People will come to see the apes and the special effects. The fact is, this could be a story about Israel and Palestine, or Christians and Muslims, but not near as many people would go see it. This, hopefully, makes the message a bit more palatable.

In the end, I would like to think that I lean toward being a Malcolm or a Caesar, and I know full well that there is a lot of Dreyfus and Koba within me, as well.