Engaging Fire

YWCA Career Circle Feedback

2010-07-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all the wonderfully engaging women who attended today's workshop, "Fear: Use It or Be Used by It."

Please use the comment fields to leave feedback; three sentences about what you learned and anything else you want to communicate to me and/or other attendees.

This feedback will help inform and evolve this work and is much appreciated.

Sleepers Awake!

2010-07-12T12:29:00.001-07:00

I was having tea with Gloria Burgess (of Jazz Inc. and Lift Every Voice Foundation) last week and we were talking about leadership and how out of alignment American culture is with American ideals and emerging values of sustainability. We agreed that the pursuit of "The American Dream" (more info on just what this is/means, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream) has hurt more than helped most Americans, while crippling our planet.

Gloria laughed heartily when I quipped: In order to have the American Dream, you have to be asleep.

See, what is most dangerous - for you, me, us, and them - is that the American Dream is set in a troubled sleep of scarcity and insatiable consumption. In order to chase this dream, you have to believe that you don't have what you need, that what you need to be happy is your own material riches, that the stuff you have is never enough, that you will always need more/different stuff, and that there is not enough stuff to make everyone happy. This mindset has set the pace and tone for the American lives we are living today - which most of us feel are not all that happy - and has directly contributed to the below-prime mortgage fiasco that triggered the economic collapse in 2008.

The area of happiness research offers some insight into what really brings happiness (Happiness Studies). We are happier when we spend time with family and friends, when we help people, and when we share resources equitably. Other research shows that we are softwired for connection, empathy, and belonging (see Emphathic Civilisation), not competition, aggression, and violence. How does this fit with consumer society and "keeping up with the Joneses"?

Awaken dreamers! We have all we need and more!!

Practice abundance thinking and enjoy the creativity it activates and nourishes. Walk outside and meet your tribe, start creating your family of choice. We are poised to make a monumental choice to care and connect with all that frightens us, to hug the frightening monster of our nightmares and know that it is bringing us important information about living consciously and compassionately and happily on this planet today and for many tomorrows.

Flights of Fear

2010-05-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

I love tastings! Call me yuppie, or uppity, or shee-shee, or whatever - I love enjoying little bits drink and food arranged and paired in such a way as to emphasize the experience of taste and texture rather than the mere satisfaction of animal hunger. I'd rather have a wine and cheese pairing that brings me ecstatic awareness of sensational joy in my capacity of scent, taste, and felt than a huge meal prepared to satiate my physical hunger and induce a food coma. I'd rather have a beer flight than a pint of my favorite stout.

Recently I introduced a group of jobseekers to the concept of "flavors of fear." They ate it up! It wasn't quite 31 flavors, but it was about 18 more than most of them were aware existed. Not that they hadn't experienced them - not at all. Everyone recognized the feelings of awe, concern, horror, reverence, and dread - they just weren't aware that all of these were aspects of fear. We did some exercises around bringing up these different feelings/emotions and "tasting" the fear in them. We appreciated that more often than not these were blends that may even include other feelings/emotions which we have been taught to believe are separate from fear - love, care, anger, arousal. Like fine wines, to consciously experience emotions and their associated biochemical cascades is to notice notes and aromas we don't expect - like leather, tobacco, and apricot from rotten grapes and old wood.

I love turning people on to fear! Fear alerts us to what is important and arouses us to interact with a challenge. Our greatest fears as individuals are our greatest challenges as a species - fear of the unknown, fear of the "other," fear of abandonment, fear of annihilation. Our challenge is to slow down and practice interrupting our reactions to fear so that we may taste what is moving through us. When we can become aware of the flavors of fear we can make choices to respond rather than just react (and there are way more than just fight or flight responses!); we can appreciate what this fear has to tell us rather than just stuff ourselves until we fall asleep.

Do Be Do Be Do

2010-05-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's seen this bit of "folk wisdom" (i.e., graffiti on the bathroom stall): To do is to be - Socrates; To be is to do - Satre; Do Be Do Be Do - Sinatra

That last one seems to be the most poignant for me at this point in my life. I vacillate constantly between identifying with what I do (especially to make money) and trying to express who I am regardless of what I do. I've labeled the former as a masculine characteristic, but I know many, many women who do this, too, and it really is a Western characteristic (which, admittedly, is quite masculine).

My recent (the last three years) experience of being unemployed for at least three months annually (and, no, I'm not in the construction business - I graduated, got a divorce, and relocated) has been very difficult on my psyche - as well as my finances. While I value quality relationship work, community building, intellectual exploration and exercise, and being a good friend and mother, I still struggle with whether or not I have a purpose (right?) here without producing anything for financial compensation. And - this cannot continue for long for very practical reasons. While my friends share food, entertainment, and companionship with me regularly without any expectation of recompense, I'm the one that has to pay my bills.

So, this is another thing - the tension between how I live and how I want to live: I live alone in an apartment and must have money coming in to maintain my ability to continue doing so; I want to live in community where wealth emerges from relationships and experience and basic needs are covered by collective resources. But who am I in the latter scenario? Am I actually striving to dissolve my identity by intending to have a life in which I can live fully and not make any money? Would this feel like suicide? I would be doing just what I am now in my unemployed state, but would the absence of the Damocles sword of bills really contribute to my being happy and me while not making money?

I like to think I'm somehow more evolved or mature or better than all those "spoiled rich kids" who live in just such a state of being - but I doubt it. I may become inured to real life, removed from the real experience of so many who continue to struggle. From my privileged "compound of community" I may lose awareness of how life happens. Or would I? My imagination is failing me when I try to envision a world beyond consumerism, capitalism, and hierarchical power. Perhaps "infecting" the world with values that have nothing to do with money or production would change things so much that what I perceive as "real" life would be radically different from what I know now of privilege and power.

However, I'm/we're not there yet. Not even close - regardless of how many wonderful people are in my sphere of influence. The levels of complex, interdependent aspects of how humans exist on this planet is beyond predictable. I keep watching for the linchpin, the leverage point that will move humans to actually evolve - or disappear. We are amazingly adaptable creatures, but for all our technologies and all our stuff, we are still acting out very old patterns. Evolution (transformation) is different than adaptation (transition) and it will take evolution to get me to imagine how I can be and do without some form of money.

History Lesson

2010-04-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

I got another lesson in un-history yesterday. That is, I learned - again - that something I'd been taught in school to believe as fact was a complete (and recent) fiction. However, that this fiction has become fact in our culture marks it as myth, or sacred story. Our attachment to the hard line between history as true and myth as false shadows the real truth - that stories have power, regardless of how many facts they contain, for the people that repeat them.

George Santayana, a Spanish essayist and philosopher, wrote, "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."(1906) This phrase has spawned many paraphrased versions, such as:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

Consider for a moment the source of this quote - particularly in light of the phrase, "as among savages." Who is telling this story? How does he define "progress"? What combination of rank, culture, economics, race, age, epoch, etc. informed his writing?

History is very different from "the past." History is a written account of events by those who are still around to write them, i.e., history is written by conquerors. The spin doctors who seem so transparent today create history by repeating their account again and again. The account that sticks, that lasts through centuries, is the one that best serves those in power. If you are not a member of the power elite, or their followers, your account - regardless of how factual it is - gets lost in the mob mentality of sound bites and spin. Even Shakespeare, a man of rather mythic proportions today, participated in political spin when he cast Richard the III as a monster to validate Henry IV's usurption of the throne via murder.

Many power minority groups have been accused of "revisionist" history; indeed, such a claim may well be made about the previous example. And they say it as if it's a bad thing. Well, as far as history being an account of and by the winners of power struggles, I guess it could be. Re-visioning, taking another look at, the past more often than not shows that history is fabricated for very specific, likely political, ends. It is an edifice built to show off how superior the winners are, how they couldn't help but wrest power, land, money, culture, etc. away from "savages," malcontents, and monsters. If more facts got out, if others got to repeat their accounts, it would likely be bad for those "winners."

So, if you seek to stop repeating history, re-member the past. Put back together the events, people, and times that were ripped apart to feed propaganda and power elites. And the best place to start is with re-membering, very honestly and authentically, your own past by getting around and behind the history you've written about it in your own mind and life. "As within, so with out" - as you re-vision and re-member your past, and share this process with those close to you, the more free we can all be from history.

**The new re-visionist story I learned was that no one in Europe believed the world was flat when Columbus set sail. Everyone had known for centuries the world was round. The story about Columbus defying sages who thought the world was flat was written by Washington Irving in the 19th Century. Again, consider the source...

Embodying Irony Sucks

2010-04-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

OK - so I'm writing a book about fear and transformational learning. I know this stuff inside and out; in fact, I researched and wrote a dissertation on this stuff! Still, I'm sitting here staring at the page for chapter two about shadows in the classroom, and I'm almost paralyzed by fear.

Yes, the "fear expert" and "transformation specialist" is suffering from fear that she's not good enough, that she's bullshitting her way through this, and that she really doesn't have anything to say that anyone wants to hear. Stories and admonitions swirl through my consciousness that tell me I don't have enough experience, or the right kind of experience, or that what I'm writing about is useless to "real" educators.

The thing is - I know all that is wrong. I know that people get lit up just talking about this stuff with me and that icons of adult education have encouraged and praised this work as both necessary and worthy. I have taught people in classrooms, workshops, and retreats to overall positive reviews. I have been almost ordered to write this book by people I love and respect and I am, ultimately, the only one that can do it.

So - WTF?!

Well, I'll just write about not being able to write. That's the kind of weird thing writers do.

Part of this could be called laziness. Writing is hard! It doesn't appear that way to observation - indeed one person I allowed to witness how I write quipped, "It just looks like you're wandering around and staring off into space." Regardless of how many times I explain that the work is internal, that the vast majority of writing happens before anything gets on a page, people who don't call themselves writers just don't get it. And I'm tired of my own brain repeating this crap over and over - that I'm not really writing unless I'm putting words to a page (hence, this blog post to get that part of my brain to shut the hell up!).

Part of this is being isolated from others with whom I can talk about this topic in a way that will light up my thinking. While I know other folks get lit up when I talk about this in an introductory way, it has been a long time since grad school and talking with people who light me up. Being an expert (in the "I know more than those around me" way) in something is fine for the ego, but it sucks for really creative and dynamic work.

Part of it is being creatively "out of shape." It has been a very long time since I wrote in this way for this long. My writing muscles are sore and complaining about the sudden upsurge in activity. Perhaps this post is way to back off and keep going...

I still need to write this chapter and book. I can write whiny blogs, I can run errands, I can go back to bed, I can dink around on Facebook, but I still have to write this book!

Ultimately, I will write this book in whatever way it happens. This is my process. Yes, it's self-absorbed. Yes, it's weird. Yes, it's almost completely invisible to the naked eye. And, yes, I can create and deliver something of value as a result - regardless of how long it takes.

Even though I don't want to, and I'm scared, and the irony of the situation is so very painful.

The Taxman Cometh

2010-03-23T15:58:00.001-07:00

I saw "The Iceman Cometh" some years ago at the Ashland Shakesperean Festival and was very unimpressed, to the point that I really don't remember the play at all except for the overall feeling of dread every time I hear the name.

I have been dreading 2009's tax judgment for a few months, ever since I committed financial heresy and cashed out all my retirement accounts to get out of consumer debt and get my money away from the Casino on Wall St.

In this moment (an hour or so have hearing the news), there are a few things going on with this:

1) My priorities have radically changed since my mid-twenties (when I opened the first account) and I resent being penalized for growing and changing, i.e., I no longer want to put off my life until I can afford to live it and the United Banks of America do not like that kind of thinking.

2) Somehow, through the squirrelly world of tax laws, I owe more taxes on money I didn't make last year. Huh? The accountant (yes, I employed a professional to navigate these treacherous shoals) rattled off some numbers the "proved" why I "made" way more money than I ever saw, but that did nothing to bring sense to the matter.

3) I knew this was coming and have semi-prepared for it; I still resent it and am too awful of a liar to try to get away with anything.

4) The money that I now owe my government is money that I got to work with last year to float me through bouts of unemployment, divorce (that's another thing: I'm penalized for being single), and multiple relocations. It's money they didn't get to have to do stupid stuff I don't like for one year. Good.

Now I'm all amped up and anxious about how I'm going to pay this huge amount given that I just got laid off and have no immediate prospects.

But, really, that's just an old game my head is playing.

I've lived through my own worst nightmare and thrived in the hereafter. I have resources and assets the government can't touch - friends, family, intelligence, health, creativity, ingenuity, and strength forged through some serious shit. I have savings that will see me through multiple months of no employment, and this kind of situation is exactly why I've been stashing money away!

So, yes, any one of my "untouchable" resources could go away tomorrow, but my ability to keep creating more, to continue to engage with others and life will not go away. Life is in flow...and ebb, like it feels right now. Still, my experience over the last four decades assures me that life, including my own, personal life, finds a way. This is far more important and vital than any amount of government script.

Fear and Dandelions

2010-03-22T09:23:00.001-07:00

OK, it may be spring fever or it may be cosmic insight - your call - but it occurred to me this morning that we treat fear and dandelions very similarly and they have a lot in common.

Dandelions are the poster children for what is "wrong" with your yard/garden. They are to be eradicated at all costs because those spiky leaves and shaggy, yellow blooms shout "Inept! Failure! Sloth!" to all who see them poking through your carefully tended lawn and garden. They are seen as wholly negative and even those who otherwise profess a reasonable environmental awareness will resort to the most toxic herbicides to keep those nasty weeds at bay.

We do the same with fear. There is nothing good about fear. To show fear is to shout to the world "I'm weak! I'm incapable! I'm stupid!" Even those who value emotions and have great competence when dealing with anger, joy, love, and grief will do all they can to avoid, quash, and deny fear as wholly negative. Fear is something that is only whispered as something to be gotten rid of as soon as possible.

The thing is both dandelions and fear are good for us! Dandelion greens are better than spinach, their blossoms make great wine and fritters, their roots a fine coffee-like beverage - all of which are rich in minerals, vitamins, and healthful tonics. There is a very good reason the colonists brought them here (yes, they brought dandelions here on purpose!) - they are one of the best sources for vital nutrients and they are hearty in many, many environments.

Fear is also good for us. Different aspects of fear can keep us from physical harm, alert us to imminent threats, inspire us to move or connect in new ways, and bring our attention to what is vitally important in moments of confusion and chaos. As with dandelions, one can access great bounties of nutrients by learning a bit more about how to use this gift of the gods (yes, the gods/God gave us fear on purpose).

So go ahead and eat the weeds! Engage with fear! We'll all be better for it!

Dancing on the Edge

2009-04-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Sounds rather cliche and a bit crazy, doesn't it? Still, "dancing on the edge" is an appropriate and powerful metaphor for navigating fear and change.

Regardless of the style, tradition, or level of accomplishment, dancing is ultimately about balance and grace (yes, even popping has grace). Often we think of these aspects as evidencing in quiet and stillness, but that would be a rather tedious dance. Balance happens in dynamic movement, in strength and awareness of the web of influences one is playing upon and being played. The balance and grace of dance happens in passionate movement attained over time and practice - on the edge.

To dance at one's edge means to stretch a bit farther than is comfortable and known, to leap rather than step, to allow the music to sweep you away beyond your control. This is learning, this is change. Whether or not you can - I recommend that you do if at all possible - dance, learning about and how to dance can be a very powerful tool for activating the potency of change and fear.

Think about it - which is more scary: talking in front of a crowd (often cited as the number one fear) or dancing in front of a crowd? (I don't even think they surveyors asked about this one.) Accomplishing this feat, surfing this fear can bring you powerful insight into other challenges and fears. Engaging your body in emotional and psychological efforts means you are using more of your mind, which is definitely not limited to the capacity of your skull.

Bill Buxton, one of Microsoft's top innovators, advises: Always be bad at something that you are passionate about. So perhaps dancing doesn't tap that for you - fine - but find something that engages your whole body - yoga, kayaking, gardening - and brings you passion and an edge. It needs to be something which draws you a bit out of your comfort zone, something in which you could make mistakes and even - gasp! - fail. Experiencing, not just "knowing about," the emotional and psychological events of physical endeavor is how adults, and others, learn best.

We need to remain in awareness of the shared value of "dancing on the edge" as we embark on our adventures: balance and grace. Both are gained through strength and practice; both are illusive unless complemented by mistakes, falls, strains, fear, and passion.

Inside Out

2009-02-21T20:18:00.001-08:00

One of may favorite parables is about Martin Luther and his tree.

In case you haven't heard this one...

One day, shortly after posting his complaints against the Catholic Church on a church door, Martin Luther was working in his garden. A small group of priests came up to him, hoping to catch him off-guard with an existential question that would lead to his recanting. One of them asked, "Brother Martin, if you knew for certain that you were going to die tomorrow and meet our Lord, what would you do?" Martin Luther was quiet for a moment as he continued to carefully fit a fruit tree sapling into the earth. As the priests waited, Martin sat back from his work and glanced up at them. In a calm, quiet voice, he said: "I would finish planting this tree."

This is a parable that is retold more for its truth than its facts. It reminds listeners to live each day fully, to live your entire being in each moment. It also reminds us that we will all die, regardless of what we do or do not.

But what if we turned this question inside out? What if I were to come up to you right now and demand, "If you knew for certain that you were going to live for two hundred more years, what would you do?"

This really turns our awareness and responsibility around. We would actually be around to experience, first hand, the world we are creating today. Also, no longer responsible for only our own, individual "salvation" we are met with the prospect of - as beautifully put by Sean Penn during his Oscar speech - potentially facing our grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren with burning shame for our short-sighted carelessness. This makes the adage about seven generations real and immediate. With the prospect of living out the consequences of today's actions, would we continue with what we are doing today?

I have kept Martin's answer to that existential question in mind for many years. Now, with my growing awareness, participation, and investment (thank you, President Obama, for reclaiming this word and sentiment), I find that doing only what I think is right/sustainable/good for me is a primer for what we are truly called to do.

Yes, keyword: We. We are in this together. There is no "away" to which we can escape the consequences of our collectively unconscious acts. If we are to live, it is we who must wake up.

And it is time to wake up; the alarm is getting louder and the snooze button will not make it stop. Wake up crabby, wake up refreshed, wake up confused, wake up ready to go - however you do it, it is time to wake up and get moving away from the distraction, sleep-walking, and "zoning out." As our president has extolled - it is time to put aside childish things; i.e., time to take responsibility for our actions beyond immediate gratification and power plays. It is time to look deeply and far into how we want to live, not just what we do to acquire phantom wealth/money.

So, how would you answer the question: If you knew you would live for two hundred more years, what would you do right now?

Martin Luther would likely give the same answer.

Can we hear the kids?

2009-02-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

You know that little sinking feeling one gets when the kids go quiet? You just know something is not right; they're either getting in trouble or hurt. When kids are healthy and engaged, we hear them; when we hear healthy, engaged kids it signals to us that things are "right."

Well, in the circles of community development, transition, and improvement I have not heard the kids.

One recent evening I attended the latest one of these circles of people talking...and talking...and talking about what to do to bring about vital, sustainable change for our communities. When my daughter (age 12yrs) asked, "What are we actually going to DO?" she was commended for her insight and then the adults proceeded to talk about how she was right that we had to do something. The one other person under 18yrs in attendance said nothing the entire time.

The day after the meeting, my daughter and I debriefed. We thought of ways kids could be included in this work, rather than just tolerated or added to what the adults are doing. We came up with ideas for creating "pods" for the kids during meetings: when the adults are theorizing, the kids could be working in another space to brainstorm what they can do, start networking with friends, create a website, plan an event to take the theory into practice. At one point, the pod would rejoin the adults and meld what they've been working on with what the kids have brought. I asked her if she thought it would be helpful to have one adult along in the pod to guide, not rule, the process (aware of the pitfalls of distraction). Her response: "No - trust the kids." She beautifully brought me into awareness of my own projection of my frustrations with adult meetings! I then asked her what kind of age range could be encompassed by our ideas of inclusion. She undercut my guess by three years; in her opinion, everyone over the age of five could and should be a participant in shaping a nourishing world.

Two days after that meeting, she had established a group of 20 people - including four adults - who are interested in working for sustainability, particularly in the area of consumerism as it is targeted at kids and teens. My proud-Mom buttons are pinging everywhere!

This is what our efforts need - the energy, creativity, perspective, and experience of our most vital resource! Our children need to be engaged with the work of building their inheritance. We all know stories of "spoiled rich kids" who have no clue as to how to manage the enterprises that have facilitated their lives. Well-meaning parents mistakenly "protect" them from the hardships of the work they've done to secure a particular incarnation of "the good life." How much more important it is for our children to know what it takes to guarantee clean water, air, and soil for everyone! What a waste of time, energy, and resources to constantly reinvent the wheel as young adults have to learn anew, reclaim what their parents and grandparents knew and did.

The sustainability of any movement or enterprise is predicated on legacy planning - who will do this work when you don't? How long will it take someone else to be in a position to replace you when you move on to something else? So often, the answers to these questions arrive in multiples; one trailblazer or hub is replaced by many.

Beyond technology and getting things done, our kids need to learn from us how to do it together over the long-haul. As with so much in life, sustainability isn't just what we do - but how we do it.

In a 21st Century world of collaborative leadership, we need to be listening for and to our kids. Their engagement will made all the difference.

Doing It Anyway

2009-01-19T15:44:00.000-08:00

This is one of those times that I'm really not in the mood to be thoughtful, inspiring, or insightful - and I'm going to do it anyway, I hope.

Today, I'm feeling really sad and scared - as so many people who are losing their jobs, incomes, houses, livelihoods are. Those of us who have worked hard, been good people, played by the rules (mostly), and absolutely did our best are being trampled by the fighting elephants of unscrupulous, greedy financiers and power brokers who don't seem to notice and certainly don't care for our suffering.

I have been "following my bliss" for years, and the money has not come. I realized yesterday that my embrace of this mantra was naive, at best. This phrase was uttered by a very privileged, white, American man who had access and opportunities that very few of us have. It's all well and good to have dreams, but I really wish someone had shown that idealistic girl of twenty (me) that bliss needs to be balanced with awareness of shared reality; that the world we inhabit is not conducive to nurturing bliss for everyone who wants it. Also, the evil American paradigm of getting ahead if you work hard enough is complete, toxic crap - so many people are ahead of me who have done very little; so many people are behind me who have done so much. As I face, again, the abyss of the financial unknown I am overwhelmed by weariness and anger; I hate feeling duped.

Dr. King said that Pharaoh kept the slaves enslaved by getting them to fight amongst themselves and that only when the slaves come together can freedom be achieved.

We are wage slaves. All of us who "have to go to work" whether or not we're sick, maltreated, the sun is shining, our child is in need, we need rest, or we'd just rather read a book and have tea with a friend. How did we get here? Who sold us? What was our price? Can we earn our freedom? Must we fight for it? Can we possibly come together to end this slavery once and for all?

We are good people; the vast majority of us work very hard for very little. Why?

I am privileged and oppressed. I have a warm, safe place to sleep; enough good food, a loving, support network of people; a decent place to earn money to pay for my basic needs; and a healthy mind and body. I don't have enough money to get appropriate care for my daughter; I am not considered an asset in business due to my background in academia and non-profits; the only job I could get is impermanent and far below my capabilities; and "following my bliss" has cost me hundreds of thousands dollars in tuition I will likely spend the rest of my life paying off - with interest.

We who aspire and desire beyond what we have are schooled in acceptance, compassion, and "the power of now." What if we defy our lessons? What if we throw off the yoke of the hourly wage - what would that look like?

Imagine for a moment:

Tomorrow you tell your boss you want better stories to tell from your deathbed. One or two of your co-workers over hears you. All of you are moved to silence for moment. A nod moves like a wave among you. You all take the rest of the day off.

- Or -

You all beginning talking very actively about how you could spend the majority of your waking hours creating better stories, stories that aren't about enduring, oppression, seething anger, or quiet desperation. This conversation spreads into the hall and the group email posts. The head man (and it is most likely a man) hears a rumor that production is down due to too much staff interaction. He reacts with new policies and penalties for talking to each other, blaming a few bad apples for endangering the company and "your families' well-being." These are ignored in favor of a "field trip" to another company where some friends of friends have come into the conversation to create new stories.

Imagination is sparked and breathing eases. People trade jobs or share jobs or go on sabbatical - all with full pay and benefits because the non-violent protests in HR offices throughout the region have reached the state level and the combined force of wage slave rebellion has awakened the minds and hearts of sonambulistic governance. People embrace the idea of working to live, rather than living to work.

Siesta becomes mandatory and childcare workers can pay cash for their children's tuition.

Fantasy - yes. So was travel to the moon. So was having a black man in the Oval Office.

Yes, we can!

What a trick! Following my bliss was misleading - and my hope and perseverance has led me into bliss!

In Gratitude for Being Broken Open

2009-01-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling rather low energy tonight (fighting off a cold, actually), so I'm fishing around my journal entries for something good to share - since mustering creativity is more than I can manage at the moment.

Here's what I found dating back to July 2008:

Thank you, Anna Deveare Smith.

What we do for our kids! I was on the return leg of a bus trip from to Federal Way to drop my daughter off with my sister so she could spend some time with her cousin. My sister, a nurse with her own 3-bedroom house and an SUV, “couldn’t afford” the gas to come to north Seattle to pick up her niece; so I, an office temp trying to start her own business with no car and renting a one-bedroom apartment, get to ride the bus two hours each way for my daughter to have a day with her cousin. But I have my book. Borrowed from the library after listening to her speak on Democracy Now!, I’m reading Talk to Me by Anna Deveare Smith. As I board the same bus (“Didn’t I just see you?” asks the driver), I am consoled by the presence of this rich, consciously streaming narrative and am looking forward to diving in for the next couple hours. But the highway is too bumpy and I have to stop reading. Now I have two hours of looking out the window; not all together unpleasant, but not what I wanted (I’ve been down this road before).

In Sea-Tac (a city created and named after an airport), we are held up at each stop by tourists heading into Seattle who are unfamiliar with riding buses – I suspect not only in this city but in any city. One woman is noticeably gregarious and plops down in the one seat next to me, effectively separating herself from her party with the declaration, “I’m sitting right here – you never know who you’re going to meet.”

I didn’t exactly jump at the chance. She wore a lot of perfume, had the barrel shape of the uncomfortably privileged middle-aged, white middle class, and a southern accent. A whole bunch of prejudices leapt to my forebrain. In a matter of seconds, I had decided we had nothing in common. Still, somehow I unconsciously bypassed these prejudices – and before I was aware of what I was doing, I extended my hand to her and said on the tail of her declaration, “Hi, I’m EV.” She returned my handshake in a firm grasp and said, “How sweet! I’m Nancy and we’re just back from a cruise.” Ugh, more prejudices crowded for attention.

I ignored them. Something greater was at work here. As I was holding Talk to Me in my hands, I was sitting on a Seattle bus next to Nancy who wanted to meet people, to talk. Anna had written about her project to find American character between the well-rehearsed lines of everyday speech, she was looking for the treasure that appeared when language, syntax, grammar broke down. Now, plopped down almost in my lap, was a living American character who wanted to talk.

I discovered that Nancy knows and is related to a lot of people who are having babies. She takes special care in not just choosing gifts for these babies, but described in detail how she would wrap each present around a theme and how the use of the elements could be extended beyond the visual aesthetics of gift wrapping. She sees herself as “keeper” for her husband (who looked to be at least ten years older) and they had just completed their latest cruise to Alaska – a rather subdued affair due to the “elderly” passengers. She hails from Baton Rouge and her form of racism is rather more raw and overt than mine; I live in a city of mostly whites, she lives in a city with a robust black populace. She is polite and thoughtful enough to cosset her racism in firsthand accounts and CNN news reports. Her rendition of one of her husbands employees was caring, for all its assumed superiority. This employee is a young, black woman who relocated after losing her home in Hurricane Katrina. I felt my heart break open when Nancy told me this young woman’s name, Katrina, and how she now hates her name.

Nancy and I talked for about 45 minutes - she asking me some questions, me challenging her assumptions about political candidates (I just can’t help myself!), and each of us holding space for, in Parker Palmer’s terms, the “other.” Just as I was thinking, “Well, this has been a good exercise,” the treasure appeared.

In the midst of public transportation, gas prices, and personal values as expressed by vehicle choice, I mentioned that I felt it ironic that in a few hours I would be heading down this highway again to see a live performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show in Tacoma.

Even from behind our sunglasses I could see her eyes light up.

“You’re going to Rocky Horror?!” she almost squealed.

She started doing moves to "The Time Warp" sitting down! Her voice got higher and her sentences dropped in and out, got clipped in the middle, and came faster and faster as she talked about how much fun I would have. Her excitement overtook mine for the evening, but I soon got caught up and started feeling really excited about the show for the first time (I’ve seen RHPS many times and was going at the behest of a “virgin” friend).

We hopped off the bus at the same stop and I wished Nancy (white, Southern, Republican, married, nurse, grandmother, tourist, Rocky fan) safe travels and she told me (white, Northern, anarchist, mother, divorced, working a temp job while starting a business, new transplant, Rocky fan) to “Have fun tonight!”

Thanks to Anna, I opened up with someone who was very different from me and got to really listen. Thanks to Nancy, I spent the transfer to my next bus and subsequent ride planning my outfit and listening to how much I love being surprised by people who show up from behind their labels.

Shadows of "Emotional Intelligence"

2009-01-06T21:47:00.000-08:00

I have some "issues" with the concept of "emotional intelligence;" these are many and varied, but the one that's popped up lately is how this concept of "managing emotions" is again being used to set one group above another, to reinforce the hierarchy of "good emotions" and "bad emotions." As with the diatribes about "living fearlessly," the notion of managing one's way into a life without suffering is overly simplistic, reactionary, and potentially dangerous. We need fear and suffering - always present/always in balance with love and joy. The dynamic balance of emotions - all emotions - is what brings us into rich, vital lives.

To be fair, perhaps we (I and the proponents of E.I.) are conceiving of suffering in different ways. This is my take on it: Yes, suffering – not one of my favorite feelings. Still, to devalue any of our vast palette of emotions to is participate in perpetuating white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy (thank you, bell hooks). Efforts to suppress, manage, and intellectualize emotions have led to efforts to suppress and oppress people who have expressed emotions deemed “bad” or less mature – particularly women. While I certainly agree that suffering is not desirable, I would die without it. I do not seek pain, suffering, or grief and neither do I seek to eliminate them from my experience of life. Without suffering we do not have compassion (“suffering with”); without suffering I would not know what it is to feel relief, joy, or peace. Some of us have the privilege of limiting our suffering to that which we can control – our own actions and reactions. Many, many people do not have such privilege; their sufferings are neither chosen nor optional.

In the midst of hunger, war, addiction, mental illness, abuse, oppression, and a sick plethora of plagues on our existence, people suffer; and as long as one suffers, we all suffer regardless of how present, mature, or “good” we are. This is where the dynamism of living consciously can really serve to move us into lives of abundance. I am vastly grateful for all my emotions; they teach me, make me more present, and connect me with Life. It's not just that I suffer with others through our ultimate connection, I'm also joyous (OT: why is 'suffer' a verb, but 'joy' isn't?) with others - my joy potentially easing some suffering, my suffering potentially eased by the joy of others.

The shadow of "managing emotions with intelligence" is that rationality is not usually the best tool to address imminent or existential experience. Perhaps we could try choosing how we feel about our thoughts, rather than constantly choosing how we think about our 'felts.' I feel this would lead us to focusing on our strengths, appreciative inquiry into our work, and including more and varied voices in our conversations.

Setting Out to Find Home

2008-12-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

I just got The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood, in the mail. I ordered it Christmas Day with an Amazon gift card from my semi-estranged sister. It's been on my wishlist for over a year, but now I had to have it - and it came to me in a beautiful way.

Why now? Because now I've met Penelope and we've embarked on our own odyssey.

I met Penelope Stuart Bourk at the Whidbey Institute in November. She's an artist who has sculpted wood and fiber into intricate and evocative expressions of Homer's Odyssey. She had installed her "islands" as part of a lecture on the spirituality of home. Each sculpture/"island" was accompanied by a page of text which summarized this part of the Odyssey, offered her reflections, and asked generative questions. I was fascinated by these sculptures which ringed the large room where the lecture would be taking place, and delighted when I discovered the artist among the small crowds around the pieces. I listened and commented and was almost disappointed when we were called to take our seats for the "main event."

But, before I took my leave of her, Penelope said, "I would love to talk with you more - please take one of my cards and email or call me. I live here on the island and you could come and we have plenty of room if you wanted to spend the weekend sometime." I was surprised at this generous, intimate offer from a woman I just met - and I happily took her card.

A week or so later, I wrote to her and told her of the resonate power of her pieces. I also asked if she could send me the accompanying texts as I wanted to use them as tools to meditate about the concept of "home" and journeying from and to such. This was particularly poignant for me as I'd spent the last year and a half "homeless" - even though I never lacked a warm, safe place to sleep or enough food. The psychological and emotional toll of living on borrowed time in borrowed space had exacted most of my energy and resources and I feel I'm just now feeling "at home."

Her reply was wonderfully disappointing. She wasn't going to send me the "tongues" (her term for the texts) - she wanted me to join her in taking her work to the next level.

Long story short: we are now partnering in bringing together a group of people to do together what I wanted to do alone! What we are calling "The Odyssey Project" is shaping up to be a kind of on-going workshop that explores "Home" through conversation, art, and practice with the goal of supporting - of all things - the soul of leaders! This is work that has emerged from my heart and feels like a gift in every possible way - and that is how we are offering it. We're not charging people for this workshop (partly because it's a "beta" and we're going to draw them into developing the curriculum) and we're not being paid (although we are on the lookout for grant opps). I'm doing it anyway - even as I face continued under/unemployment in the next few months. As Larry Parks Daloz put it in Common Fire, I can't not do it.

Penelope and I are set to launch around Chinese New Year; we will welcome the Year of Earth Ox with a diverse group of people who are passionately "nostalgic" - a hot desire, yearning for Home and willing to commit to journeying together for about a year (only one-twentieth of what Penelope and Odysseus has to endure!).

I'm almost dizzy with excitement!

What We're Willing to Pay

2008-12-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

I'm learning about business and corporate culture. I have the impression that service-based business is harder on employees than product-based business, i.e. the softer professions have a tougher environment than the harder professions. As an very small case study, I'm thinking of the difference between two places I've worked recently: Waste Management and Microsoft - both international corporations (though very different in size); one is service based (waste collection/management) and one is product based (software & technology).

I think the difficulty for service-based/"soft" employees is due to the service-based business having less room and motivation for creativity and innovation. When one is selling stuff, this stuff tends to need to be "new & sexy" so people will want it. When one is selling a service, especially a basic one (waste collection, medical care, etc.), reliability and consistently are more valued than new and flashy. It's rather like other soft professions that are basic to our society - education, social welfare, emergency services, utilities; these are generally undervalued in dollars compared to professions that produce luxury items...and services.

Perhaps that's the difference. Folks working to provide luxuries are treated better than folks providing basics. The culture of basics is bureaucratic, micro-managing, distrustful, and focused on maintaining the status quo. The culture of luxuries is open, trusting, supportive, and focused on doing the best work possible. As much as I've shunned business and corporations for all the "bad" those entities do in the world, I've found that they hold many of the values as I do for how they treat people - respect, trust, support, encouragement, fun. The worlds of government and academia in which I've spent so many years are furtive, stress-filled, grasping, draining.

Perhaps it's been my position in these environments, that of entry-level and mid-management; agian, position of basic service to the whole endeavor. I'm sure these characteristics show up in all work places, in all places where people have to be together who don't necessarily choose each other.

How can we better value the basics and those who provide them? Can the basics also be realms of creativity and innovation? Is there something implicit in sustaining basic services/products (food) that demands objectification of the workers, i.e. treating workers as drones or mechanistic cogs, who provide them? I want to think that we have the capacity and the technology to treat every kind of contributing worker well - but do we have the will? Is it just too much to pay for what our food is worth? Do we really need so much "disposable income" so that we can buy things and services we don't need?

Well, I guess consumerism (not necessarily capitalism) needs us to do that. If we were to flip our value system upside-down and tax "bads" instead of "goods" - as has been suggested by Alan Thein Durning - and paid more for spinach than for a latte...what? Would civilization collapse? Would our children be better off? Would we work as hard, as long, and as thanklessly as many of us do now? I've noticed a gap in how we are with each other and I want to bridge it. One first step would be to find out if anyone is on the other side of the chasm who could catch my kite and real in the first cable.