Crossroads Dispatches

The self ended and the world began. - Louise Glück

‘What makes a really capable child give up in the face of failure, where other children may be motivated by the failure?’ - "The Effort Effect According to a Stanford psychologist, you’ll reach new heights if you learn to embrace the occasional tumble," Stanford Magazine, March/April 2007

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Young girl, small town, Siberia:

"Awestruck, she watched the animal trainers, the acrobats, the jugglers, and clowns. And then the lights dimmed and a spotlight shot upward and a lone woman climbed up a rope to a metal bar suspended far above the floor. Later Olga would learn that this wondrous sport was called "trapeze." But before she knew the word she knew her destiny. "That's for me!" she promised herself.

. . . Most circus performers come from circus families or have trained as gymnasts. Olga had neither circus connections nor gymnastics' training. She didn't even know where the nearest circus school was located. She had no allies. Her parents were conservative and practical. Her sisters, her grandmother, her friends were all walls she had to scale on her way to the trapeze. Even the friend who had recklessly lowered her onto a stranger's balcony in the middle of the night wouldn't help her run away to the circus.

Olga began to feel she had been born in exile, imprisoned and ignored. Her parents didn't take her pleadings seriously. No one understood her." - Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil, by Mark Schreiber

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"The Census says that 5.9 million Americans ages 25 to 34 are living with their parents, an increase of 25 percent over from before the recession. Men are now twice as likely as young women to live with their parents.

. . . Only 55.3 percent of young adults 16 to 29 were employed, according to the Census, down from 67.3 percent in 2000 and again a post-World War II low. - "Editorial: Generation Needs More than a New Name," Willoughby, Ohio News-Herald, September 24, 2011

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You read this and it seems so... dim. According to some.

According to who?

Is it?

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"Young eagles have no instinctual fear when they emerge from the nest. They learn to avoid dangerous predators such as the wolf and fox, so Kazak hunters must climb to the nest and capture the juvenile eagle before it learns to fly -- when it is fearless. The Kazaks call the fledging a 'balapan', which they compare to a celestial raptor Hangaard (Khan Garuda). Living with an eagle may seem impractical - the raptor must be fed a marmot or a rabbit every other day and when it is cold in winter the nomads will sometimes feed it from their own flocks. The visible benefits of owning an eagle may not seem to tally with the cost, but what binds the Kazak to the eagle is something more than utility, it is what anthropologists call 'deep play.' The Kazaks say that the eagle 'chases away darkness from a man's heart.'"-- Hamid Sardar

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I had lost all sense of deep play when I lived in New York City.

I tried to make it--according to other people's terms.

I should have wisked away to the circus ;)

Get an playmate eagle.

Anything.

But NO it was black or white....

failure or success...

not growth.

(Ms. Carol Dweck, thank you for your research on growth mindsets.)

Students praised for performance and ability tend to want to continue receiving those kudos, and won't risk threaten their reputation as a smart cookie or as a success. "The mastery-oriented children are really hell-bent on learning something" have been praised on process and effort, and they go for it for the pure privilege of growing. They'll look foolish. So what. Kids that were praised for performance tend to want to confirm their greatness, and kids praised for process seek activities that expand their abilities. (see also Little Bets, by Peter Sims)

Why, glory be, you are so successful!="All this implied that when students were valued for their intelligence, failures would be taken more personally, even as being disgraceful."

Whoa, look at you, you are learning!="Tend to view failures and setbacks as opportunies for growth. They have a desire to constantly challenge and stretch themselves."

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"Uranus thus confronts the Saturnian part of us that wishes to hold on, to maintain the status quo, to resist change in favor of security, tradition, and the established order.

The rebel-trickster side of the Prometheus archetype can thus come from within or without, and in the latter case a person can feel constantly subject to problematic changes that require one to reorient one's life. Whether these changes are precipitated by other people, by new psychological or physical conditions, or by external circumstances, their role is to open one's life to something new. If one is identified excessively with the past, if one tries to hold on to structures that are outmoded, then one will experience Uranus as a disruptive force that at times can be quite uncomfortable. But the potential is always there for one to integrate the archetype, and for one to contact one’s own capacity for freedom and excitement, for openness to the unexpected and the new.

When any planet is in major aspect to Uranus, that second planetary archetype tends to be liberated into expression, often in sudden, unusual, or unexpected ways. The second archetype is given an exciting, creative or innovative stimulation, and can be a source of both freedom and unanticipated change." - "An Introduction to Archetypal Astrological Analysis," Richard Tarnas, Ph.D.

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"Come to the edge" he said,
"We can't, we are afraid" they said...

"Come to the edge"
"We can't, we will fall"
"Come to the edge"
and they came
and he pushed them
and they flew.
- Guillaume Appollinaire

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(below fly w/audio-visual piece 'Olga' ... )

 

"After years of rampant consumerism and easy credit, such nascent initiatives speak to the new mood in Greece, where imposed austerity has caused people to come together — not only to protest en masse, but also to help one another." - "Battered by Economic Crisis, Greeks Turn to Barter Networks," NY Times, October 1, 2011

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". . . . Unlike most runaways, who are impelled by impulse, Olga postponed her departure for months. She would need at least a little money, and, not being a thief, would have to earn it. And she needed an act.

. . . For a few days she tried juggling with stones and fruit, but having no one to teach her, quit in frustration. She thought of animal acts. . .  Her father refused to buy her a dog so Olga went to Ishim and befriended a tiny shaggy mongrel she spotted at a refuse dump. It followed her home, where she washed it and named it "Lassie," after a dog she had seen in a movie.

Her father said, "You can't take care of yourself! How are you going to care for a dog?"

But Olga proved a good master and proceeded to train Lassie with a determined patience she rarely accorded humans. In no time Lassie was standing and playing dead. Olga would make her climb the stairs one at a time. If Lassie failed to stop on a step until given permission to continue, Olga would make her start all over. By the end of the month she had an act." -- Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil, by Mark Schreiber

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"“I felt liberated, I felt free for the first time,” Mr. Mavridis said in a recent interview at a cafe in this port city in central Greece. “I instinctively reached into my pocket, but there was no need to.”

Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a growing network here in Volos that uses a so-called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek, to exchange goods and services — language classes, baby-sitting, computer support, home-cooked meals — and to receive discounts at some local businesses."

. . . For Ms. Houpis, the network has a psychological dimension. “The most exciting thing you feel when you start is this sense of contribution,” she said. “You have much more than your bank account says. You have your mind and your hands.”- "Battered by Economic Crisis, Greeks Turn to Barter Networks," NY Times, October 1, 2011

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"Now all [Olga] she needed was a train ticket to Tyumen, her first stop on the road to Moscow. She had no money of her own and certainly couldn't approach her parents. There weren't many jobs available for a young girl, and she was still attending school. She and her friends had brought lollipops from gypsies in Ishim, but none of the townspeople sold them. So one day Olga asked a gypsy woman how they were made and went in to business for herself, stealing sugar from her parents' kitchen. The first batch was awful, but the second was good enough to sell to her friends. Her father kept asking where all the sugar was going. To this day he doesn't know it financed her escape, the first yellow brick in her long road."  - Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil, by Mark Schreiber

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Exactly one year ago today I was living in NYC.

I'm not sure if I were there today I would be part of the Occupy Wall Street protest.

protest (etymology of the word:)

mid-14th century (implied in protestation) "solemn declaration," from Latin protestari "declare publicly, testify, protest," from pro- "forth, before" + testari "testify," from testis "witness" (see testament).

my public declaration

I can certainly identify with many of the frustrations of the protesters. I was broke, I was running out of options: tried and tired all the grant proposal crayon inside the line forms, tried potential investors (long story, 'twas a media venture), tried X and Y and Z's and Kickstarter and plain hustle. Gave up. Try the government. Trudged to the food stamp office, uh-huh so they'd alert my landlord, and that would send them red flags (I was month-to-month, not on a lease) -- so there goes that. I'd never felt so powerless. So I left NYC before rent was due up again. I did not Make It in America. Near penniless with just enough for airfare, I moved in with family across the country.

(btw, I'm only able to share this aloud now since I've shifted into

a growth mindset...

even if the USA is predominantly a fixed mindset...

it's

a #

not me

although one can fixate on poor too)

So yeah, I can certainly identify.... and yet....

I am not 1%. I am not 99%.

I am the 100%--and I don't see that message conveyed much.

Except I just did when I read this. There are instances... for instance, that one woman.. you'll recognize her when you get to that point in the story below (and this again is an excerpt of a longer piece) conveys the I am the 100%:

"We stood there for a while, and when it started to rain, we got under an umbrella with an older, white couple who looked to be in their mid-sixties or so. Then they walked up to a police officer, spoke to him, and he motioned for them to approach the ranking officer in front who was standing with a bullhorn. We then saw this couple walk out of the netted area and leave.

At this point, Rebecca and I walked up to the same ranking officer and politely requested to leave. We were told no and to get back in the crowd. We overheard two officers holding the netting asking each other what they were going to do with all these people. They obviously had no idea what the leadership’s strategy was, if any. We then went under the umbrella of a group of young women who were in their teens and twenties and were talking to a detective (or someone with the NYPD who was wearing an overcoat). He asked us some very leading questions: “Are you all together?”, “So no one told you to disperse?”, “Did you know you would end up here?” We said we had no idea what was happening. Then he told us to talk to the same ranking officer with the bullhorn. This time when we approached, the cops gave him a signal and he motioned for us to all pass through. Just like that.

As we were leaving, I asked one of the women what she had said to the officers before we came over and why they had let us go. She said she had struck up a conversation with an officer and told him he was “beautiful” and a “beautiful person” and that the “love and good vibes” she had sent his way seemed to have an impact on him."

Alas, in the next sentence the writer belittles

the magic and power of the 100%...

the compassion of unconditional love and remarks in response

to the truthfulness of that woman, she adds: "Oh, I’m sure."

It's so easy to be jaded.

Dig deeper. Be still. Feel the undercurrent.

Be sure of love. It's there's 100%.

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Olga calmly told her parents she was running away to circus school one day in August.

"Let her go," he told his wife, whose tearful pleading was no more effective than his own threats. "She'll be back tomorrow."

. . . . She was fourteen years old.

Olga Sidorova became a trapeze artist with Cirque du Soleil for many years.

Today, she teaches master classes at the aerial dance studio and school she founded in Sydney, Dancing in the Air.

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There were too many roads, too many versions.
There were too many roads, no one path--

And at the end?

16.
List the implications of "crossroads."

Answer: a story that will have a moral.

Give a counter-example.

17.
The self ended and the world began.
They were of equal size,
commensurate,
one mirrored the other.

-- a small snippet from poem Prism by Louise Glück from the book Averno

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The depths go deeper at psychopomp http://tinyletter.com/eve11

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ART CREDITS: High Trapeze, 1904, by Sidney Sime via Random Index blog; Kazak Eagle Master - Delouin, Bayin Olgii - 2003, by Hamid Sardar; 'Olga' video by filmmaker Marc Silver for Cirque du Soleil; photo from Olga Sidorova's site; Hecate's crossroads via The Inner Journey: The Moon,  Mythology and You blog

I'm not going to wait twenty years to see if we can make a living off what we do. - Guy Laliberté

The only place I found in Las Vegas that feels like my kind of 'home' is a cafe (and Red Rock Canyon). The owner is Brazilian, and opened the Sambalatte "lounge" as he named it, one year ago. No doubt naysayers thought September 2010 was a horrible time to open a coffee shop--pastries, cappuccino and chatting all discretionary luxury in times that sees Vegas with the worst unemployment rate (14.2%), the most foreclosures; the state of Nevada has the number one spot in terms of declining income, and second state in terms of poverty rate increases of the nation.

Yeah, whatever they said, he did it anyhow.

And, I can state that Sambalatte is always bustling and buzzing. I've never seen the place even slightly waning in traffic.

So, over a week ago there, I languidly pick up a book in their community bookshelf titled Cosmos and Psyche. The gist is the author applies Jungian microcosm and macrocosm archetypes of the history of the modern individuated man (roughly the year 1496 with Pico della Mirandola's manifesto Oratio ) against the cosmic planetary alignments in those five hundred years. Author Richard Tarnas concludes that right now is identical to cosmic archetypes and planetary alignments with the attendant tensions and tumult that catalyzed the High Renaissance five hundred years ago, stating "this too was an epoch of extraordinary turbulence and uncertainty, and also of great cultural creativity and dynamism."

In my world, it is a ripe time for Renaissance.

And it's also why my G+ tagline is Renaissance gal.

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"What would you write about if you could start over with a blank slate?

No preconceived notions. No promises. No history. No expectations from your readers. Starting from zero, right here, right now."

- Ev Bogue on Google+ yesterday

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"To answer that call meant gambling everything Cirque had earned so far."

I originally began to be intrigued with the back story of Cirque du Soleil because of a new project (more soon--next post). By serendipity, while browsing a local magazine at the wonderful Sambalatte (see above), I read:

"Twenty-four years ago, Guy Laliberté developed Cirque du Soleil with a grant from the Canadian government. The former street performer intended for his creation to last only a year, but the popularity was unprecedented. Cirque du Soleil continued to perform and Las Vegas is now home to seven Cirque shows. Forever on the cusp, the performance company and its founder recently achieved two new milestones.

In September 2009, Laliberté left behind this planet for a new adventure. Boarding a Russian Soyuz Capsule, he was launched 220 miles above Earth. During his space flight, Laliberte took hundreds of photos that would eventually become a coffee-table book called Gaia. Proceeds from the limited-edition book will be donated to his foundation One Drop, which is dedicated to bringing safe and clean drinking water to disadvantaged communities." - Vegas Rated, Issue 1, September 2011

In a book I just checked out from the library, we harken back to 1987 when Cirque was invited to perform for the first time ever outside Canada. But the LA festival didn't exactly want to pay for their travel expenses. Conundrum: ""I thought, 'I'm not going to wait twenty years to see if we can make a living off what we do. The opportunity is here, let's make a deal. I told Thomas Schumacher, 'Give us the opening slot, promotion, and one hundred percent of the gate.'"

. . . The simple truth is, at that particular moment in Cirque du Soleil's history, it could only afford a one-way trip to Los Angeles. Transporting the cast, crew, and equipment across the continent from Montreal to Los Angeles stretched Cirque's finances to the very limit. If they didn't earn enough money at the gate, Cirque could not afford to return home. Cirque du Soleil would end there." - Cirque du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun--An Authorized History, by Tony Babinski

(In retrospect, LA Festival organizer Thomas Schumacher says it was the worst deal he ever made. Guy Laliberté says, smiling, "He thought he was saving money, but he could have made a bundle if he'd kept part of the gate.")

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"The greatest audacity is the riskiest. In 1987, Guy Laliberté bet everything on that first trip to Los Angeles. Negotiations with the L.A. Arts Festival had been spotty: Guy felt the Festival wasn't prepared to share Cirque's enormous financial risk in traveling to the States. So they decided to go it alone, making Cirque a "fringe" event, the Festival providing only ticketing services, promotion and a listing in their catalogue. It was also agreed that Cirque du Soleil would do the opening of the Festival. Getting to L.A. cost Cirque every penny it had; if Cirque failed, Guy knew he'd have to sell the tent just to get the artists home. Audacity won.

Audicity. Audicity. Audacity. Use the word often enough, it turns into gibberish, a meaningles sneeze. What in the Sam Hill does it mean?

Franco thinks a minute. Audacity is rejecting everything you have done before, he says.

Even if it worked." -- Cirque du Soleil, edited by Veronique Vial and Helene Dufresne 

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 "[Renaissance artists] understood the imagination as a magical power that can “lure and channel the energies of the anima mundi.” - Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee

That sentence is the main theme I'm working with lately. Did the original Renaissance just 'happen', or was it lured into form by pure vision of each as powerful as a magical incantation?

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One story from Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims:

Pixar was coming off a three hit homerun, and hired Brad Bird as a director who was coming off a Warners Brothers failure, The Iron Giant. Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, and John Lassiter told Bird, "The only thing we're afraid of is complacency--feeling like we have it all figured out. We want you to come shake things up. We will give you a good argument if we think what you're doing doesn't make sense, but if you can convince us, we'll do things in a different way," Bird told Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Hayagreeva Rao. "For a company that has had nothing but success to invite a guy who had just come off a failure and say, 'Go ahead, mess with our heads, shake it up'; when do you run into that?"

Bird's ideas for The Incredibles were estimated to cost $500 million and take ten years to accomplish based on current processes. If and only if he could figure out how to lower those estimates, he could proceed with his vision of numerous, rich characters. "In order to help shake things up, one thing Bird did was to seek out people within Pixar who he described as black sheep, whose unconventional views could help find solutions to the problems. "A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things," Bird said. "We gave black sheep a chance to prove their theories and we changed the way a number of things are done here." Eventually, Bird's vision for The Incredibles was within technical and fiscal reach and ended up being cheaper per minute than Pixar's previous movie.

Ed Catmull studied Toyota's concept of a learning organization after watching computer graphics giants (once) like Evans and Sutherland and SGI fail despite their lead and despite access to great talent. (I once worked for E&S, before I got into all things Internet.) They are okay talking about mistakes, and there is a cultural "willingness to be challenged."

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"Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." - Tennyson 

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"I founded Charles Schwab in 1974, when America was confronting a crisis of confidence similar to today's. We had rapidly rising inflation and unemployment, economic growth grinding into negative territory, and paralyzed markets. The future looked pretty bleak.

Sound familiar?

Yet I had faith that our economy would recover. My vision was simple: Investors deserve something better than the status quo. I launched the company with four employees, a personal loan on my home, and an audacious dream. I didn't know exactly how we were going to do it, nor could I foresee that over the decades we would end up building a business that serves over 10 million accounts. But we went for it." - "Every Job Requires An Entreprenuer", by Charles Schawb, Wall St. Journal, September 28, 2011

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  "Personal Renaissance", by James Burns and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and 1500 people who worked on it. The Mural Arts program employs prisoners, addicts, and youth who previously spent time in juvenile detention "in a way a regular employer might not. Later on, the program helps them find long-term work." - Yes , Fall 2011

"Great art is never silent, can't be ignored, and serves poorly the status quo." - Philadelphia Mural Arts Program

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Ellen Kullman was a VP running a $2 division and managing about 6,000 employees at DuPont, when her manager asked her if she would start a new services division from stratch. When she said yes, half her peers believe she'd been summarily demoted; "the other half thought I was crazy." Her story sums up:

"I don't know if I would have become CEO if I hadn't done this. When you're an engineer, you learn to go with your head. When you're starting something new, you have to go with your gut, too. We're a 209-year-old company. We won't make it to 300 if we only ask, is my polymer better? Now when I go through strategy reviews, I say, 'That's what it is. What could it be?'" - "DuPont's Ellen Kullman on Her Risky Path to the CEO Job", Bloomberg Businessweek, September 19, 2011

 "Life should be lived on the edge of life.

You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope."

- Philippe Petit, who walked across the twin towers on a tightrope in 1974, in the documentary Man on Wire

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"All the things that really matter to us are impossible, you know. They say translation is impossible; sure it is. We do it because it's necessary, not because it's possible.

Writing poetry is impossible. I don't know how to write a poem. A poem--there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don't know. There is so much that comes out of wht we don't know and what we don't have any control over. I think that is one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility." - W.S. Merwin, poet laureate and Pulitizer Prize winner in interview, Yes magazine, Fall 2011

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"If you put off everything until you're sure of it you'll get nothing done."

- Norman Vincent Peale

ART CREDITS: 1000 Ways to Escape by Souther Salazar; photo of O Cirque du Soleil show at Bellagio hotel via BestofLasVegas.com; Flickr photo of Rainbow Village by zosoiv7, "this tiny village in Taichung, Taiwan was painted by Mr. Huang Yongfu, an original native of Hong Kong";  it was once known as a military dependents’ village but the painter, 86, covered every square inch in art (via HonestlyWTF blog) ; Before That Dream is Tamed, by Souther Salazar; Personal Renaissance mural by James Burns and the city of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program

Before I die I want to ______

Before I die I want to.... that was the question sitting there blank on the blackboard. The answer not to be engraved in stone, a fixed and unmoving testament. Just chalk--so it's okay to morph it, play it by ear and adjust to the rhythm of life. I was intrigued by Candy Chang's interactive art projects, as I flipped through the magazine:

"Through a series of large-scale projects that combine installation art with social activism, Chang has encouraged people to engage with public spaces to let their voices be heard. In 2008, while living in New York, she invited Brooklyn residents to anonymously reveal their rental costs on sticky notes posted on a local storefront—helping them determine the fair market value of their apartments. In 2011 she constructed a blackboard over an abandoned house in her current city of New Orleans, stenciling it with the phrase BEFORE I DIE I WANT TO.... Passersby wrote in answers like "go to school," "feed an elephant," and "understand," in chalk. Chang says the project served as a reminder of "what matters to people as individuals and as a community." - Oprah Magazine, "How Candy Changs Public Art Projects Are Changing Communities Everywhere," September 2011

Somehow that story reminded me of at least two things (plus a few interactive art projects I'd been musing around). Before I die, I want to get back to New Orleans to culminate a creative project I started there. Preferably way way before I die, like more like next month. October 2011.

Before I die, I want to be real. In the interest of saving face (clients and potential employers Google our names and hold our vulnerabities and voice against us as I've been told by HR folks...) I've not been sharing much of myself over the last three years. Screw it, I can't pretend and I can't live that way (i.e. meekly, in hiding). Plus, context is everything, and since this site is 100% coming from my lens, my voice, it helps to have a glimpse where I'm coming from and going to.

This is a question I got in my inbox a few months ago from a reader:

Question: So I'm curious if you've jumped off the Silicon Valley treadmill permanently or just recharging the batteries before taking another shot at it?

I jumped off in late 2004, ever since the surviving the tsunami, I've never again been attracted to that world, but I also try not to be repelled by it either. I was set up to start a firm with some friends, the four of us were going to do a consulting and coaching practice around social media for business when we all came back from holidays, etc. to kick off Jan 2005. Not.

Obviously too much coincidence to just happen to be in Thailand, just happen to be on the beach, when such an unmistakable wake-up call knocks on one's door. I don't exactly go to Thailand every day, or any of the other nations hit [by the Indian Ocean disaster on December 24, 2004].

The peace came because having witnessed the enormity of that disaster and its aftermath (I returned a year later in Dec 2005 for nine weeks), I immersed myself in a monastic life for the next 16 months. My main thing has been enlightenment/self-realization/whatever-name-you-give-it since that time, everything else is a backdrop. Luckily, I didn't leave Bay Area right away as that is where I found my teacher, Adyashanti.

Speaking of Before I Die, I Want to.... this oldie blog post came up as something to share. Especially for those of you who have only been reading for a couple of years. Wow, and Geshe Michael Roach shows up in it pretty prominently in this post after I rustle it up and skim it. I only just re-read my favorite chapter (on the Economics of Limitlessness) and promptly wrote to his office two months ago. I want him to come speak in New Orleans. Why? A hunch.

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

August 11, 2005

If Not on the Day I Die, Then Not Today

There's a practice called "Death Meditation" in Tibetan monasteries. The idea you get in your mind when you hear that phrase is probably lying down on a cold piece of sidewalk somewhere  and trying to imagine a lot of tubes up your nose, relatives crying at your side, and heart monitors going off with a beeping sound. But this is not the point at all. To put it simply, you just wake up in the morning and stay there in bed, lying down, without opening your eyes. And you say to yourself: "I'm going to die tonight. What would be the best thing to do with the rest of my time?" via Geshe Michael Roach, The Diamond Cutter

Which is eerily similar to this quote I referenced the other day from Steve Jobs:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself:  "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.  - Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement speech

I suppose you might get the urge to to try skydiving that day, or maybe go sing in a karaoke bar, or get the most expensive tickets to a Broadway play (assuming there's a matinee). The Death Meditation practice has to be done on a regular basis, over an extended period of time - and that's when it has its strongest effect. One result you'll find comes pretty quickly is that you streamline your life: You cut out the things that you own or do that slow you down...

If you were really going to die tonight, would you sit and read through the whole Sunday paper, or most of the magazines you subscribe to? Would you really surf around the TV looking desperately for anything of even minor interest? Would you still go out and spend an hour or two at lunch or dinner, gossiping about the other managers. Decide then: If not on the day I die, then not now either. Because, frankly, it may really be today. - Geshe Michael Roach, The Diamond Cutter

I read these words last night.

I did the Death Meditation this morning. I did not have an intense desire to beam myself to the Parthenon in Greece (I'm an ancient civilization junkie) or bask in the glow of the Taj Mahal at dawn. I'd no desire to bungie-jump into a canyon, or race a car at top speed across the glistening salt flats. You'll say this is only because I've already done many exotic or biochemical fueled adventures. Yes. Run Boston Marathon, check. Run fifty-milers weaving through mountain ridges, below glaciers, facing oceans and fjords, check. Run intense white water, check. Run off to Prague, Hong Kong, Venice, Bangkok, Oaxaca, Tokyo, Auckland, check. Run through matchbox villages, hidden serene canyons, fern chocked valleys, check. Yes - and no. With all I've done there was still...well, more I wanted.

Or was it less?

There was a practical  part of me well aware that I have to wrap up my presentation for the BlogBusinessSummit by tomorrow. Can I make the presentation memorable so that if it was the last thing I did it would be worthwhile? So many folks whip together a few bullet points with little feeling for what they are leaving behind. And then there are presentations that seep into you like Julie Leung's on the social masks we wear (you had to be there because the visuals and Julie's presence are inextricable; but here's the audio).

There's a few things I won't get to by tonight. Beginning the book that won't go away or this new blog I'm working on launching. That's ok. But could write a poem. Better yet revise that poem I'm working on. Get the class blog up and share the poem (for my fellow Taos Summer Writers Conference's The Yoga of Writing students). Today.

And if this was the last post I wrote would it be reflective of what I am for? I think of this not only because of this Death Meditation, but I was reminded of it reading Steven Vincent's last post last week (more context: my RIP post). Yes, at any time this could be my last post. That's not meant to stop me dead in my tracks. Unperfect is what blogging is all about (as Tom Guarriello and I joked at a Starbucks in Manhattan when I meant to say imperfect!). There are days where I rant and days I whine. So I wondered: What was my very last post before the tsunami? Yes, thankfully, it's precisely what I'd have left behind. It's titled: A Story of Peace and Goodwill.

I read about the concept of survivor's guilt the other day (why am I alive when all these others perished?). Strange, I don't feel guilty about surviving the tsunami. My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones and those we lost. I do feel like I have a responsibility to really live and to give and to share.

But the honest truth is I don't feel the quite the same urgency as I did in, say, January without constant reminders.

This morning as I laid there I thought of calling up a few family members and friends and catching up with personal email (including to some of you out there). I called up a friend to go on a hike this afternoon. It's not about the hike, though.

I won't get to it all today, but I get a chance to die again. I hope.

p.s.  Just finished The Diamond Cutter (and am still too spellbound to do a proper review). It's hands down the best business book I've read this year - maybe ever. If it matters at all Roach was founder of Andid International Diamond Corporation which has sales in excess of one hundred million dollars a year. He started out as an errand boy (ok, not your typical errand boy - he'd been Princeton-trained and is an ordained Tibetan Buddhist monk). 

ART CREDITS: All photos are of Candy Chang's work and from Candy Chang's website; her blog is here.

They had no problems understanding light speed and teleportation except that they could have done it more discreetly. - Malidoma Some

"The millet fileds were generous and the harvest was good. The hard work of collecting and transporting grain from the farm to the roof of the houses where it waited to be put into the granaries was over. Now, in the fallow season, the villagers turned their attention to spiritual matters, to initiation. The dry season would be painfully idle if there was nothing else to do. One afternoon I was sitting outside with my sister when a town crier came running to my father's house. In a Dagara village, the town crier is considered an envoy of the spirit. He does not greet people or otherwise behave normally, for he is possessed by the message he has been commissioned to convey. He appears very agitated while doing so because he is responding to what the spirits have told him to do.

Out of breath, he stopped in front of us, mumbled something, and drew a cross on the mud wall of the women's quarter. He said nothing, but instead sang a bizarre song. As he was about to go away, I stopped him.

"Wait a minute. What's all this about?"

"What? You don't know? Well, a child who lives in this house will become a man--if he lives that long. . ."

This answer transfixed me, I sat down. I had imagined that Baor was scheduled for the middle of the dry season.

Seeing my perplexity, my sister tried to clarify things for me. "You cannot be told about it until the day before. If you know ahead of time, something is wrong."

"So my initiation begins tomorrow--and I am not the least prepared for it."

"Your not knowing is your being prepared." [replied his sister] - Malidoma Some, Of Water and the Spirit

Now is the dry season. The millet harvest was good. The season of initiation for my eternal boy. Not just in the Northern Hemisphere. Or in the tribe of the Dagura of Africa. Here in the imaginal hemisphere, too.

Typically, I wouldn't be thinking what I was doing or who I was being ten years ago although the recent attention to 9/11 had that effect. Plus, the photographer Brooke Shaden wrote an open letter to her future self in ten years time.  

"I’d like to see the world, but not in the way that most people say they want to. I want to go places and sit in every open field I can find in each unique country and hear the wind talk to me." - Brooke Shaden, "34-Year-Old Me"

Ten years ago... ten years ago. I read both Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman as well as Hidden Journey: A Spiritual Awakening by Andrew Harvey in the same time frame in the winter ten years ago while I lived in Salt Lake City and was still a computer engineer (unemployed) and still married (separated). Both books influenced my life by upending what I thought I knew about how the world works. Yet my life was already being upended as our startup closed up shop January 2001, I found looking for work as a former dot-com CTO daunting (the "new economy" was now a pariah in traditional IT circles) and my husband asked for a divorce.

I was more willing to listen to alternative answers than I'd been ever before. (The open-ended question I threw out was, "What is my purpose?"--pretty standard, yet almost any question will do....)

"So it comes to pass that, when we pursue an inquiry beyond a certain depth, we step out of the field of psychological categories and enter the sphere of the ultimate mysteries of life. The floorboards of the soul, to which we try to penetrate, fan open and reveal the starry firmament." -Bruno Schulz

Okay, I'm willing to listen. Maybe consensual reality maybe wasn't a fixed reality or reality, after all. 

"To a Dagura man or woman, the material is just the spiritual taking on form." - Malidoma Some

It also shook up my belief that everyone has pretty much the same universal world-view.

In a letter to a friend, Gustav Mahler reveals this about the composition of his Third Symphony, "I tell you in, at certain places in the score, a quite uncanny feeling takes possession of me, and I feel as if I had not created this myself." I would read things like this in 2001, and it'd sound romantic and soothing to hear--although, then, truthfully, I had no clue what Mahler meant.

So reading Of Water and the Spirit was like standing at the edge of a lake--the first body of water I'd ever set eyes on. Although no book is going to be an experiential dive, and until I at least dipped a toe, I would not know wetness. The book did, however, entice me to care about exploring and experimenting with wetness.

So, a few days ago in a Google+ exchange, someone was sharing how they were upset by a brand-new violent, pornographic game (or book?) and another person replied: "Words are wind." And added, that it doesn't matter what the content is as it's only make-believe.

"The world of the Dagara also does not distinguish between reality and imagination. To us, there is a close connection between thought and reality. To imagine something, to closely focus one's thoughts upon it, has the potential to bring something into being." - Malidoma Patrice Some

If I fully believed that words are 'merely' wind, I wouldn't be writing now nor ever. Although paradoxically, words are wind. It's only that many underestimate the power of Air.

In fact, there is a good deal the dismissive tone of the comment, "Words are wind" stirred a fire within me. Noting my anger I connected it with something a mentor of mine said recently, Stifled passion, sooner or later, ends up bursting out as anger. All which has catalyzed me to wholeheartedly commit to accomplishing a few "word as wind" projects with optional interactive elements that I've had on hold (for several reasons with "no money" among the excuses).

“Words that merely come from other words are hard and aggressive. Such words are also lonely, and a great part of the melancholy in the world today is due to the fact that man has made words lonely by separating them from silence.” - Max Picard via Dennis Lewis, "Some Impressions on Words, Voice, Listening, and Silence"

"As in the case of "Star Trek," Westerners look to the future as a place of hope, a better world where every person has dignity and value, where wealth is not unequally distributed, where the wonders of technology make miracles possible. If people in the West could embrace some of the more positive values of the indigenous world, perhaps that might even provide them with a "shortcut" to their own future." - Malidoma Patrice Some

Bonus: Excerpt from Malidoma Patrice Some's introduction to his memoir here. It speaks to the fluidity of 'reality' and the power of imagination.

Announcing: I'm offering Tarot readings (the Tower archetype of 9/11 got me thinking about Tarot again) as a whimsical way to do a personalized consultation for your creative idea--be it a new business venture, new product line, or a Black Rock Arts Foundation grant proposal. Whatever you desire to make tangible through your sheer creative expression and exuberance. I'll throw in my own quirky amalgamations to the alchemical William Blake Tarot deck's two cents. All proceeds to fund a month-long online vignette du jour (there's more to it than that as you may infer from the above post) creative project using the setting of the city of New Orleans. (Thus, the tie-in with Tarot as Nola is where I learned the archetypal craft.)

ART CREDITS: All photographs on this post by Brooke Shaden. (Brooke's blog here.)

I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. - C.S. Lewis

"I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." - C. S. Lewis

I didn't read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2nd in The Chronicles of Narnia) as a child. In fact, I first cracked open the series only a few years ago. I did savor fairy tales and classic myth from globe spanning cultures such as Greek to Sumerian to Japanese to Navajo. (Sweet surprise! The book devas generously are gifting away all the Kindle versions of one of my childhood faves--Andrew Lang's The Green Fairy Book plus other colors of the prism.)

I'd read in many sources that it's worthwhile to recall childhood instincts and inclinations to reclaim natural, innate talent and delight as a potential livelihood. The most recent example I'd come across is real-world game designer (and motivational speaker) Jane McGonigal's story shared briefly in this excerpt:

". . . Jane’s first year in the real world [after college]—editing at a dot-com in New York, ruling out law school and publishing—left her feeling a little lost. One day [her sister] Kelly asked her, “As a child, what did you do that you loved?”

“Making up games and giving motivational speeches,” Jane answered. “But that’s not a career! Who does that?” - Elle magazine's article on Jane McGonigal

So it would seem that I applied the same logic, my conclusion should be read (and write) fairy tale and modern myth. (I'd probably lean toward the stylized parables that appeal to young and old, male and female, like The Alchemist.)

You'd think that's the logic if early innate inclinations are any clue.

Immersed (yet thoroughly trapped indoors as an eight-year-old), I imagined realms where I would saunter in adventures with elfs, unicorns, and undines well beyond the fortress walls of the concrete block house in our Miami suburb.

Even as a child, I wanted to live out an enchanting fairy tale in real life--no mere vicarious thrill would sate me.

Perhaps the closest that rings true (for me) is real-life mythic life and real-time writing of it. Yet to be honest, that feels like I am putting my very life, soul, heart, spirit, plus everything sacred and profane on the line. (Have you ever noticed how easy it is to scramble sacred and scared?) I tremble as if I'm staring down a dragon. Why so? I happened to read this recently, and it resonates:

"If you didn't know human nature, you might suppose that a single activity like painting, mountaineering, or writing could be treated separately, but the whole person is affected because the whole person is being expressed. (This is why it's said that you get to know yourself on the mountain or in front of the lank canvas.) Even if you pick a very narrow skill, like running a marathon or cooking, your whole sense of self shifts when you succeed with passion as opposed to failing or backing off.

The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but actually it's the most natural way to approach any situation. When you hold some part of yourself in reserve you deny it exposure to life; you repress its energy and keep it from understanding what it needs to know." - Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets (longer and worthwhile excerpt online)

Yes, yes, place your entire identity on the line.

".... it still matters what other people think, right?"

The pilgrimage shall in the mists of perceived time slay all identity. In the meantime, gumption and courage might have to do.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction." - E. F. Schumacher

Bonus: Sharing inspiration behind new narrative 'game' (game as in leela) project on Google+, I  added:

"I'm working on this because it's the most challenging, riskiest, scariest thing I can think of to do among my livelihood options. Plus, if I live through it intact, it will take me to my edge while using my gifts."

Another Google+ post that peeps within one creative risk on my project.

Bonus: Click on this link to accept my invitation to you to join my private circle a.k.a. "creative cluster" for folks that congregate at this blog on Google+.

"Creativity is like breathing – pointers may help, but we do the process ourselves. Creative clusters, where we gather as peers to develop our strength, are best regarded as tribal gatherings, where creative beings raise, celebrate, and actualize the creative power which runs through us all." - Julia Cameron, A Guide for Starting Creative Clusters

p.s.  I am more partial to the first book The Magician's Nephew better than the more popular 2nd in The Chronicle of Narnia series, partially because it tells of the creation myth and authoring of the world of Narnia and of another world. All photos from the movie version, as well as movie stills from http://kingsandqueensofnarnia.tumblr.com.

I was doing what I could with what I had where I was. - Bob Dylan

I was doing what I could with what I had where I was. -- Bob Dylan

What Dylan replied when asked about the secret to his success.

That may be paraphrased as I had to jot it down quickly as I was passing through the casino mall. The point is it's exactly what I needed to hear today.

Drain my energy on whining about what I don't have, and who I can't afford to hire, and the imperfect conditions I'm in for inspiration to work, or whatever. Sure, been there done that. Or--I can do what I can with what I have right now.

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Above is an example of a public post I shared on Google+. They're shorter and tend to share a singular point rather my rambling shares over here. Note, if you check it out now, that I only be sharing about 30% publicly, the rest are private circles, including one circle (my largest, and hopefully the most active) I've set aside just for creative folks like you that visit here.

If you need a Google+ invite, please leave your name in comments below and I'll send you one, and add you to the fun and mystery-laden blog circle for everyone here.

The prime reason I'm keen on Google+ is it has features designed for interactivity in a way that a blog and/or an email newsletter is not. As Greg Christopher shares, "Google+ is a Salon in the old French style. It is a gathering place for people with something to say. People with opinions and a desire to interact with others. People who don't care that their grandma had cereal for breakfast before planting her farm on Farmville, as much as they care about connecting with other passionate people with something to say. It is a place where ideas have sex, to borrow from Matt Ridley. Where someone who is a Star Wars geek can talk to other Star Wars geeks. Where artists, journalists, philosophers, geeks, and freaks of all types can find their home. Where you can find your own community and talk to each other about precisely what you want to talk about."

So Crossroads Dispatches is more like the stage, and our private Google+ circle is more like the lobby... where connections and conversations actually happen informally.

p.s. I've also shifted the monthly subscription that deeply peers into the magic of our life with fellow peers and adventurers, Encanto, entirely over to a private Google+ (previously it was a private blog). There's currently a special for new Encanto subscribers where first trial month is only $12. Check out sample Encanto correspondence (from when 'twas bloggy).

ART CREDITS: Bob Dylan's album cover for The Basement Tapes; Anselmo Bucci's painting of La Coupole, Paris.

game-changing, or how to turn economic recovery into a multi-player game experience

"Game-changing."

You hear that term bandied about in innovation circles. In application, it isn't that frequent as "game-changer" implies something that leapfrogs one out of the lock of a current system, institution, industry, regime, paradigm and defines its own brand-new game. 

I hadn't connected the dots with the synchronicity of hints and winks that life is a grand "game" until recently.

I sat down to eat lunch the other day, and absentmindly (well, could almost replace instinctually or spontaneously with "absentmindedly") pick up the top magazine in my Mom's pile to browse through for eye-candy. (Not typical for me; if I am going to read while eating it would be the Internet.)

I open up her recent Elle to the story of Jane McGonigal. The article profiles her life and her purpose: fleshing out her childhood joy into a profession, announcing her new game company, showing how she got into real-world gaming (differs from video games in that it interleaves real-world issues and real-life experiences with game mechanics), and the head injury that instigated her latest game: one that helped her regain her joie de vivre and her health.

So I thought: what if we were to repurpose Jane's concept of "how to turn recovery into a multi-player experience" into "how to turn economic recovery into a multi-player experience?" And I don't mean recovery as in return to the past or status quo. Perhaps dynamically better than yesterday: I like what Umair Haque says here about the classic Greek principle of eudaimonia: "Eudaimonic prosperity, in contrast, is about mastering a new set of habits: igniting the art of living meaningfully well. An active conception of prosperity, it's concerned not with what one has, but what one is capable of."

I'd been thinking that economics and money touches just about everyone's life--okay, nix that for fairies, elves and dragons. But humans are fairly enthralled (dare I say, seduced) by this whole game of exchange of gifts that includes bits of colored paper and tinkling coinage.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Bucky Fuller

Backtrack a bit to May 2009, I was working on a grant proposal that tied into New Orleans' "Creative Recovery." (For context, "Creative Recovery" grants were through Transforma Projects mini-grants: "The Creative Recovery Mini-Grant program supported work produced at the intersection of art, social justice, and recovery in New Orleans. It fueled the recovery process with the energy of the local creative community by supporting the vibrant activity on the ground level.")

I realized after I'd dreamed it and written it up (then, reading the fine print) that I disqualified for applying for the grant as I was no longer a permanent resident (however, I was in New Orleans at the time). The seed of the idea kept tugging at me, so I wrote it up as a real-world game concept in February 2011. Here's the original Kickstarter project proposal here (unfunded); although, the concept has evolved considerably.

"The "next Google" is unlikely to be a search engine, however, just as the "next Microsoft" was not a desktop software company. I used competing directly with Google as an example of a problem with maximum difficulty, not maximum payoff. Maximum payoff is more likely to come from making Google irrelevant than from replacing it. How exactly? I have no more than vague ideas about that. I wouldn't expect to be able to figure out the right answer, just as I wouldn't have expected anyone to figure out in 1990 what would make Microsoft irrelevant. " - Paul Graham, entrepreneur, angel investor, and founder of the tech start-up incubator and education program, Y Combinator

At this point in my musing, I'm reacquainted with an old blogging buddy in his private Google+ circle last week, and he linked to the article below. (Worth reading the whole she-bang for context and inspiration.) My friend asks his circle how we might use Google+ to correspond with each other and take action towards life-enhancing visions of the world (or what I also call a Renaissance). That's when things get intriguing...

The article my Google+ buddy shared to kick off the private circle discussion:

"Put what, why, and who you love ahead of what, why, and who you don't, and your roadmap will begin to write itself.

Now, my little principle might cause those with hand-made suits and beancounterly tendencies to leap out of their chairs and hit me with the tarantallegra jinx. But even the cynics might be willing to admit: given a mysteriously non-recovering "recovery" for a global economy perpetually poised on the brink of perma-crisis, the status quo's out of ideas, out of options, and running out of time.

In an economy dedicated to the pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, the greatest hidden cost and unintended consequence is that something vital, enduring, resonant, and animating has gone missing from our lives — and it might just be the biggest thing: meaning in what we do, and why we're here." - Umair Haque, "A Roadmap to a Life that Matters," Harvard Business Review blog, July 13, 2011

I was surprised to see this article in the Harvard Business Review blog--it's a bit warm and fuzzy for HBR (at least the HBR that I recall from years ago)... although a great sign... sign... signal, design... as the article lays out a design intention as in William McDonough's mantra: "Design is the first signal of human intention."

Linked in the above post is Umair's post on eudaimonia, Greek philosophy of "a deeply fulfilled life", where Umair contrasts the trajectory we are on with what we may prefer to set into motion, into design. In my own blog (see purpose paragraph under the headline, Crossroads Dispatches), what he calls eudaimonia I've encapsulated as:

"A neo-renaissance, eco-epicurean savors, curates and shares slices from the surf's edge on the inspiration, imagination, the art of living, the living of art - and anything that screams Life."

"In short, I see an outcomes gap: a yawning chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between what our economy produces and what you might call a meaningfully well-lived life, what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia.

The economy we have today will let you chow down on a supersize McBurger, check derivative prices on your latest smartphone, and drive your giant SUV down the block to buy a McMansion on hypercredit. It's a vision of the good life that I call (a tiny gnat standing on the shoulders of the great Amartya Sen) hedonic opulence. And it's a conception built in and for the industrial age: about having more. Now consider a different vision: maybe crafting a fine meal, to be accompanied by local, award-winning microbrewed beer your friends have brought over, and then walking back to the studio where you're designing a building whose goal is nothing less than rivaling the Sagrada Familia. That's an alternate vision, one I call eudaimonic prosperity, and it's about living meaningfully well. Its purpose is not merely passive, slack-jawed "consuming" but living: doing, achieving, fulfilling, becoming, inspiring, transcending, creating, accomplishing — all the stuff that matters the most.

. . . .  Though it harks back to antiquity, eudaimonia's a smarter, sharper, wiser, wholer, well, richer conception of prosperity. And deep down, while it might be hard to admit, I'd bet we all know that our current habits are leaving us — have left us — not merely financially and fiscally broken, but, if not intellectually, physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually empty, then, well, probably at least just a little bit unhealthy. Eudaimonic prosperity, in contrast, is about mastering a new set of habits: igniting the art of living meaningfully well. An active conception of prosperity, it's concerned not with what one has, but what one is capable of." - Umair Haque, " Is a Well-Lived Life Worth Living?," Harvard Business Review blog, May 12, 2011

So this is a backstory on the genesis of the game. I've a few ideas for an enchanting real-world game that'd be worthwhile for each of us individually--and widening the circle, collectively. I think the "economic" recovery is a matter of re-imagining our present and future as to what we would truly desire no holds barred, rather than constantly extrapolating scenarios of the past onto the future.

To tie this in all together to the present day, Google+ could be an effective way to communicate with our "allies" (i.e. us) on a near-daily basis to play a game I'm formulating. (I'll admit this is much simpler if you already use Gmail as your hub, as I do, then it's integrated into your Internet experience.)

Allies is the multi-player aspect of the Super Better game that Jane used day to day to recover from her injury and post-concussion syndrome; so it is not a game of solitaire ;)

Please let me know if you need an invite to Google+ by August 1st (I may not check comments at this post later).

   

The economic thriving game is unfurling in a baby step next week. [Above is Derek Sivers' video "Start Now. No Funding Needed." Derek founded CDBaby in 1997.]

If you have game suggestions, or other suggestions, please let me know in comments or over at Google+. And, please note, if you go over to check Google+ out, you are viewing the public posts. The way Google+ works is you have to be in my circle to view the super secret ones ;).

p.s. Jane McGonigal's new company, Social Chocolate, initially starts an online verson of her Super Better concept game that she used to recover from her own head injury; she's extended the game for any type of injury and/or illness (yet to be released, forthcoming). I've been thinking of what game-changing means in terms of healthcare and other fields too--but that's another story.

p.p.s. I'm well aware of the "this is a first-world problem" argument. We start where we are ourselves and branch out inclusively from there; it's not advocacy on public policy. This engages people to people. The game is meant to be something you can personally participate in.

ART CREDITS: Cy Twombly's Camino Real; iron hoop trundling was popular in the 1960s and 1970s in China; hoop trundling boys circa 1830 in New York City via Funny Emails; an American Indian hoop game via Buffalo Post.

You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life? - Rumi

"It is far more delightful to be fond of the world because it has thousands of aspects and is different everywhere. . .  for every divergence deserves to be cherished, simply because it widens the bounds of life." - Karel Capek

Are there times you're just not riveted by your desires and visions? Can't do anything to prop them up to be enjoyable to play out? There are certainly lots of reasons for that, including existential. Also it's easy to get caught up in cultural spells of what we should do, want, have, be so that the vision isn't even ours, so we can't truly align with it.

For me, I have had to keep expanding any vision that pops into my mind into ever-widening circles to be more inclusive and more encompassing of the world-at-large until it was compelling and adventurous enough to intice me. Otherwise, I'm just fine sipping lemonade on the porch.

Row row row your boat gently down the stream... merrily merrily merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Two days ago I read Joe Vitale's blog where he said someone offered to invest in any of his encompassing ideas, “If you can put people to work, turn water into fuel, or anything else that’s considered humanitarian on a grand scale, they can make it happen.” Joe continues in his post:

My mind recalled all the wild ideas I’ve ever had. I ran one or two by my lunch partner.

“That’s not big enough,” he said.  - Joe Vitale, Lunch With God

That's how I talk myself out of my own ideas lately. "That's not big enough." And I mean talk myself out of in the best possible way as it behooves me to be devoted to an idea that's compelling.

(Guess what, I learned that words compassion and encompass have similar etymological roots.)

I'm currently car-free in a city (Las Vegas) that doesn't really make it easy in 107+ degree sunny weather to tool around. On my private blog, I'd been playing a game where I receive an imaginary check each day (the amount increases by $1000 each day) and I have to put it into play right away (no hoarding). Although, I've quit said game and approach it now from "What project do I want to do next?" assuming "money is no object."

For the first week, I used the money to do projects--perhaps a public art installation, or arrange a Hunch Hub retreat or Salon with other folks. As I've already said, I enjoy producing things much much more than consuming things. I find that if I think about paying the rent, or buying a croissant in a cafe, or getting an iPhone and much of the desires I'm advertised to suppose to have--that they fairly boring to me. But if I think broadly "bigger than me," it gets interesting again.

Day 8 into the game, muse: "I really ought to get a car." Although in my heart of hearts I'm not THAT excited about a car.

Why is that? I ask myself. Why don't I want a car? Why do I want a car? I kept on with Why questions in my head. Even that exercise barely helped... sure, I want mobility to have the freedom to go from A to B, true. That wasn't juicy enough, and I can't fake enthusiasm.

This is what I wrote down (slightly edited) in a private blog post:

Going to settle for a VW Beetle, or something practical like an FJ-Cruiser--too bored to even pretend to want them. Rather, my mind keeps being flooded with blue or silver-blue convertibles, so I'm going with it.

So while searching for VW beetle photos... found this gem!--from a car forum: "is essentially a low-cost alternative to the Porsche Boxster."

"If all goes well and the [Volkswagen] BlueSport Roadster receives the final green light for production, the first cars could arrive at VW showrooms around late 2012."

Yeah, it's def more than $8000, but more checks will be arriving. This is my deposit ;)

Still.... I couldn't muster sustaining interest in any car--not even the all-electric Tesla, although at the same time I am in a city with dismal public transit, and a severe lack of sidewalks for pedestrians, etc. And did I mention how hot the asphalt gets in triple digit weather?

I thought about it and saw what I truly want is the about freedom of movement. Car being one of thousands of ways to achieve that end. That could be Zipcar combined with good city public transit, or so many other ways And also, I want to not only flourish myself, but have freedom of movement available to All.

Not so much impose my 'vision' on everyone but add options... something for everyone--walking, biking, anti-gravity propulsion capsules, flying saucers, rockets, flying, teleporting, bilocating, Zipcars, public transit--oh i love those Japanese bullet trains! More stuff like Eurorail (Amtrack, er, so-so). Then, there's that cool guy that runs the super-cheap $30 shuttles to LA from Vegas... more shuttles, limos, flying carpets, Segways, etc.

Monorails, light rails, people-movers, cablecars, gondolas, flying porpoises, Blimps, steampunk airships, hotair balloons, kite trios, caravans of camels, Mary Poppins umbrellas, whatever floats your boat... just get me/you/us from point A to B. Car is NOT the sole way.

Why not make those train cars more aesthetic, fun, spacious, maybe interactive theater with costumes for all to wear and make-believe in the cars?

Just read this tonight [at the time of writing] at bookstore on teleportation, and walking on water. Explains my vast respect for the East:

In 1894, Baird T. Spalding was on an expedition that he wrote up in a tome, Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East. They came to a swift river and many in the expedition party wanted to pay a visit to a neighbor on the other side. The stream was about "two thousand feet wide, running bank-full, and the current was at least ten miles per hour."

"When Jast [one of the guides] rejoined the group the twelve fully dressed, walked to the bank of the stream, and with the utmost composure stepped on the water, not into it... I held my breath, expecting, of course, to see them plunge beneath and disappear.... I think each of us held his breath, until they were all past midstream, so astonished were we to see these twelve men walking calmly across the surface of the stream... and not sinking below the soles of their sandals." - Spalding

Spalding was too afraid to try this himself although Jast and Neprow insisted he could do the same and be safe.Jast instead that none of the folks that crossed over were special. "They do not have one atom more power than you were created with." Spaulding also mentioned that he had witnessed Jast materialize and dematerialize his body at will and be at two places at once.

"How is it, a few are able to do the things we have seen accomplished, that all men cannot accomplish the same things? How is it that man is content to crawl, and not only content to crawl but is obliged to do so?" - Spalding

If my guide insists that I can walk across a raging river--no bridges, other the 'bridge' to spirit--just as gracefully as he, would I? Would you? Now, that, my friends is what I want. To expand our view of what is possible, and to walk the talk.

p.s, What is this beautiful old-school convertible? Found during my car search. Lovely (via Honestly WTF).

p.p.s. This post was originally posted in my private for-my-eyes-only blog, then re-edited for Encanto circle members. The me-only blog is basically a place to sift and discern what I want to create apart from the many voices in the fray and explore project ideas before they're fully crystallized.

ART CREDITS: Amy Sol "To You From My View" via Design Milk; flying hovercraft in comic The Storm by artist Donald Lawrence via fan-tas-tic.com; magic carpet painting/illustration unknown; 2004 Detroit peoplemover photo via DetroitYes!; photo of gondola navigating narrow street in Venice by MorBCN; Dokshum iron bridge in Bhutan, a 500-year-old chain link bridge built by Thangtong Gyalpo, a 15th century monk via OneWorld.net

companions on the journey. . . of enchantment

I was re-reminded of my purpose (for want of a better term) while reading this via Time magazine about J.K. Rowling's new online venture, Pottermore:

"When Rowling does what she does best, it's the closest thing to magic available in our mundane, Mugglish world. And I say that as both a Harry Potter fan and the father of a Harry Potter fan." - "Is Pottermore Good for Harry?", TIME, June 23, 2011

Sadly the reporter admits they don't perceive miracle and magic abounding. But hey I've been there too.

Even as recently as a few months ago, the world seemed confining, and confounding. Now, suspending belief and lies, a boundless radiance is present.

BTW, that purpose I'd nearly forgotten... it's called ENCHANTMENT.

Let me back up a bit, okay way back.

When I was starting a freelance consulting business in 1995, I went it alone for a year (this was before the virtual watercooler now known as Twitter existed). It's not that I absolutely needed peers, but there was an undeniable desire to have playmates to chat and bounce ideas with that might understand what I was navigating too.

Most of my buddies had jobs, and couldn't relate (nor care) to the uncertainty and other rewards and challenges of free agents. Also, I was starting an online magazine at the time (long gone now, it was called AwesomeWomen.net) and hired a part-time researcher/writer to help me with that side-gig too. To make a long story short, that's how I became actively engaged with the local Women's Business Center and National Association for Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

For many years, those were my peers--we had diverse businesses, yet fundamentally a common journey that isn't necessarily a mainstream journey forged deep bonds between us.

Another time I created a peer network rather than seeking a ready-made group. About two to three months after surviving one of the largest natural disasters of the last century-- Indian Ocean tsunami, I roped my housemates at the time into co-creating a weekly group that met at our home on Sunday evenings called Daring to Live an Authentic Life. Among the messages (many others as well--outside scope of this post) that I grokked through that experience was one that insisted, "Don't settle." Steve Jobs summed up that message a few months after Daring to Live an Authentic Life group sprouted:

"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs, commencment speech at Stanford University, June 14, 2005

At that time, I was yearning to have some mutual support in applying spiritual principles and simply being true to myself in a world that seemed (to my perception at that moment in personal history) not to necessarily reinforce a natural, unique direction of being.

"Living is my job and my art." - Michel De Montaigne

That hints at why fairly recently I began forging a virtual roundtable called Encanto.

It's not Hogswarts--as that'd be a bit more of the old-school-lecture do-as-I-say-model. Hogswarts however does provide, in my opinion, a way for Harry to have even more fun (and mischief) with playmates Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger than he may have had in a hermitage. My intent is to lean more towards King Arthur's Roundtable where we're surrounded with fellow peers on a common journey of self-mastery (and I'll dare say self-wizardry).

Blogs, as most websites do, tend (certainly not universal, just tendency) to invite skimming more than diving. Also blogs, being public websites available at a click of a mouse to anyone that can rustle time on a computer anywhere anytime in the world, tend to invite passersby through on their way to another destination. I know loads of people alight on Crossroads Dispatches looking for an image of stardust chess, faerie truffles, a diagram of a medieval alchemical crucibles, an essay on an essayist, or an article on Google's internal product development process--and then, poof! move along on their merry way.

Alas, as much as I'd adore public blogs (as a format), they don't match my wish for depth, intimacy, delving, diving--they aren't designed as a prime vehicle for a circle, or a roundtable, of explorers delving into the magical realms of infinite existence itself.

Encanto's intention is to be a vital, lived, engaged experience rather than a passive, drive-through experience. This Friday, July 1 midnight ends the introductory pricing ($25/month) to the Encanto circle. Then an entirely new chapter in delving into the magic of life begins ($58/month unless I hear a whisper from a griffin that it ought be otherwise). The number of magicians at any one time enchanting and engaging is capped at 25 to sustain its intimate Roundtable look and feel (there may be ebb-and-flow and circulation of members).

As always, the public blog shall continue its own unique expression, and I am honored that you are part of that journey as well, whether this is a stepping-stone from a Google search or you are a long-time confidant.

ART CREDITS: Thought of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party since a roundtable need not be round;  illustration "Knights of the Round Table Summoned to the Quest by the Strange Damsel" by Edward Burne Jones (via The Textile Blog: Edward Burne-Jones 'Quest for the Holy Grail' Tapestries--they're all beautiful); a still of the Hogwarts dining hall from first movie with Harry Potter's companions on the journey--Ron and Hermione

perhaps consider what life would be like if we truly lived by what we believe moment by moment

{Below's a repost of a May 25, 2007 article I wrote that captures my zeitgeist since many folks may be new here; and I haven't touched on this much in past two years. I am in a very optimistic, visionary, yinyang encompassing Renassiance frame of mood that provokes 'social art'--&/+ the kind of art that bursts forth dynamic cultures and civilizations. Enjoy, Evelyn---}

"Perhaps consider what life would be like if we truly lived by what we believe." - Lost & Found on The Hierophant

When I first got to the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, and saw that there were no full-on grocery stores, that's when I first got a clue that the trip was going to be a tad more expensive than I'd anticipated.

That old flashback anxiety came up the first day or two when I went out to eat, paid the bill and then flash forwarded into the future calculating in my head the total spreadsheet amount for food expenditures  for the two months (plus in actuality).

It didn't take me very long to get into the New Orleans' laidback vibe, however, and feel that somehow everything was going to be alright.

What I ended up recalling (my life flowed with grace and miracles in Thailand and Sri Lanka the winter of 2005 too) was when I take the initial, if faltering, step, the Universe takes at least 99 on my behalf.

Small example. I rarely needed to take cab rides while in New Orleans. I would simply decide where I wanted to go  - be it in Tulane or Magazine Street or the Mapleleaf Bar - and voila! someone would inevitably offer me a ride - typically without me asking.

The first time, I'd only been in town for two days so I took a cab to the Jung society meeting on the Enuma Elish myth in uptown. There I met Dan and Diane - literally right next door neighbors to where I was staying - voila! a ride home materialized.

I had no idea when I got there how I'd get home (it was a church tucked off the beaten path; a cab would definitely need to be called out.) Yet I did know I needed to be at that particular meeting. That was the step. When you listen and hear, "Go." You don't balk, "But that's all the way in uptown. It'll cost $25 roundtrip. And...."

Don't give up even before you start. You move in the direction you're being pulled despite appearances that you ought to wait until all the ducks are in the row, and you've lined a ride home, and the stock market is, and the...

I don't wait for evidence to present itself that I'm on the right path. Evidence comes, if it does at all, in hindsight. You move because the wind blows you that way.

"The only thing that will move you (and I don't mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a tree. It's simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that's the way you go. You don't ask questions anymore. You don't evaluate why the breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don't know why. And you know you can't know why. There's never been a leaf anywhere that knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That breeze changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment, simply because that's the way life's moving. And when you're living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way it's moving because it is the same as you are." - Adyashanti

Actually, that's the way I met my friend Wyatt. I didn't know how I was going to get home that day I met him busking on University Avenue either. That was our opening exhange. He asked for money. I walked over, lowered my voice and explained that I'd give him something but I didn't have enough for bus fare home myself. (Tended to go through these feast and famine cycles in the past.) I only know that something was compelling me to go to Palo Alto that day. I followed that whim. Of course, I ended up getting a ride home from my friend that works at IDEO... yet I didn't know that apriori.

I found that New Orleanians were generous, sharing and less of a "me, mine, and my" frame of mind than I'm used to observing in the US.

It's there it all dawned on me that money would end up becoming extraneous.

Call me quixotic, idealistic, dreamer. (I cannot explain the how's) I've seen into the future. (Though yes, the future keeps shifting because we change it.) Surprising myself, I feel moved toward "collective" (for lack of better name) and cooperative ways of sharing which don't necessarily involve money, or monetary systems.

I want to play in that realm. Live by that belief that we can take care of each other.

To me, art isn't to be merely visited, watched...it's more like a space you inhabit, you absorb, you be. Doubt I've said this, but I'm into social art. Not social as in we're going to exchange comments, trackbacks, and I'll add you to my buddy list.

Social as in art that creates civilizations...like this...

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

- John Lennon, Imagine

I witnessed so many acts of collectiveness in Nola, ah, where to begin. Okay, here's one I witnessed: One evening I run into a cool pianist I've met at Mimi's upstairs. He is giving away a newly inherited piano to a fellow pianist sitting there at the counter. They'd met the week earlier at Mimi's. It's an extra piano, and she doesn't own one.

That logic doesn't resonate with everyone. Why not put the piano on Craigslist? Why not eBay? Why not donate it to the ___. Because he met whom it was intended for.

Last week Donna wrote in comments: "For some real fun, try giving money away, and watch how fast it comes back to you. ;^)" Yes. (The Diamond Cutter is a marvelous true story of this in practice. If it matters, he ended up a multimillionaire in the process.) Obviously one doesn't give with any expectation of getting. I don't give for quid pro quo or karmic brownie points.

Anyhow, once I got the lesson of giving, I found another lesson was waiting.

& it has to do with truly living by what I believe. As runners are wont to say, though, your mileage may vary.

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving

And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;

Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, 'I would give, but only to the deserving.'

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;

For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.        

- Kahlil Gibran

UPDATE: As soon as I hit publish, I get this about circles of sharing and generosity entrepreneurs in my inbox:

"Imagine walking down the street and a woman comes up to you and says, 'Hello. I have an offering for you.' Puzzled, you look up and in your palm falls a $7500 check. 'Why me?' 'Serendipity,' she says. 'What should I do with it?' 'Whatever you want.' 'How did you decide on $7500?' 'We sat in a circle of silence, wrote down a number on a piece of paper and it averaged out to $7500.' And then she walks away. Now that's a pretty ridiculous story, but that's what has brought us together here." - "A Radical Experiment in Generosity Launches," CharityFocus.com

art credits Visit (detail of entire painting above) by Mari Klarwein; Breath of Gaia, by Josephine Wall (btw, discovered via a cool art blog by Melissa Ulto you may enjoy, Multo.com::Visual Magic); Tree of Fruitfulness, by Lieve Prins; can't find origin (from Myspace page while surfing) but probably one of those fantasy games

Edmund Hilary was an ordinary beekeeper in Auckland, New Zealand, and other folks that didn't know how.

"In that wonderful story [Parsifal, Galahad and the Holy Grail myths], when any knight sees the trail of another, thinks he's getting there, and starts to follow the other's track, he goes astray entirely." - Joseph Campbell

I recently watched this video #1 that was sent to me via Sonia Ricotti's newsletter. It's worth watching (9 minutes).

Mind you, I already know the story of Edison, and the Wright Brothers, and the ascent of Everest pretty well. What I found intriguing was how Bob Proctor pointed out the fact that when they were in the midst of it, what they were attempting was not known. In fact, the refrain Bob repeated, "They didn't know how."

In the short six-minute video, Bob Proctor shows a slide of Edmund Hillary and Tenzay Norgay, the first documented (never know if some pilgrim didn't get there first but made no fuss) ascent of Mt. Everest.

"When they started they did not know how. They did not know how to get to the top of the mountain."

"Keep in mind that Edmund Hilary was an ordinary beekeeper in Auckland, New Zealand. Where did he ever get the idea he could go to the top of Everest?"

"It was believed that anyone that tried to get to the top would die." (And there are folks encased in ice up there.) Bob shares that he watched a TV interview with a Canadian woman that had just come down Everest, and was asked by reporters: "How does it feel now that you conquered the mountain?"

The woman climber's response: "We didn't conquer the mountain. That mountain can't be conquered. We conquered the limitations within ourselves."

Bob goes on to have us imagine Thomas Edison attempting to tell some of his friends, his wife or even his relatives about his "experiments.

"They would have thought he was right out of his mind."

Edison did not know how, he just knew he was going to do it. In another slide, Bob Proctor shares this tidbit:

"Thomas Edison's teachers told him he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times." Edison replied, "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.""

And, consider this, the Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin, The Royal Society of London, June 1985

I agree with Bob, that most people are locked into the idea of HOW (and then don't budge). When, to me, what matters is WHAT? or WHY? In the video, he asks to inquire: "WHAT DO I REALLY WANT? Just make a decision on what it is you want."

"The way to maintain one's connetion to the wild is to ask yourself what it is that you want." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes in the Intuition chapter, Women Who Run With Wolves

"You won't know how until after you do it," Bob continues.

So what does that mean you don't know how? It means you're on the edge of Unknown, hurtling toward another eternal horizon, and there aren't going to be a lot of folks that grok why you do what you do. After all, you are not them, and vice versa. You're on your path, unfolding your myth. No one else knows how for you.

Whatever skills and strategies acquired through status quo thinking and cultural conditioning fail to work in the domain of the soul's journey. Yet--something--something natural and spontaneous will take the place of automatically reacting to others out of habit.

If you do know how, it's probably too cozy for your soul to stretch to its own boundarylessness. So I agree with Joseph Campbell, "If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's." As well as with Almine, "Let not the confusion that briefly figures in and out of your minds disconcert you. It is the releasing of the old; the releasing of the patterns and spiderwebs of existence."

In the midst of it all, it can feel lonely, or frustrating if you are seeking external kudos or support (it's not necessary if you can see yourself supported by and as Infinity and self-reference your Inner Ally). But like I said, just in case, consider me an ally, too.

p.s. Although Proctor made it clear that Edison mostly likely would have been underestimated by his relatives or friends, there are always other trailbrazers around to befriend. I'd have to research the precise dates of their friendship in regards to their respective inventions, yet Edison was close allies and peers with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone in a mutually beneficial kinship.

Photo Credits: American Academy of Achievement photo of Hillary and Norgay at Everest base camp after their historic ascent; speaking of trailblazing: image of airship designed by architect Vincent Callebaut. "Hydrogenase, is a zero-emissions, biofuel-powered airship that specifically employs organic algae for power... The algae farm supplying the ship’s fuel is an organic purifying station that receives carbon dioxide delivered via ships. The CO2 is then processed by the seaweed," via Earth Techling.

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. - Epicurus

"Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance." - Epicurus

Interesting article in the LA Times today on how today's Web 2.0 millionaire entrepreneurs pour their wealth into start-ups and non-profits, rather than consumption.

This is a good a time as any to delve at least through the surface of what I see as a potential Renaissance birthing (potential, as in it's a matter of desire--not imposed).

This deserves more consideration, but here's a start.

WHAT WE BUILD, rather than WHAT WE BUY

"This is not a community that values good looks, visible wealth or having a hot body. Those are not the ways that they distinguish high status from low status," [Alice] Marwick said. "Technology millionaires don't hobnob with celebrities or buy a fancy car. They travel to Thailand or they fund an incubator. These things are just as expensive, but that's the classic hacker ethos that prizes the mind, not materials."

. . . Silicon Valley measures achievement by what entrepreneurs build, not what they buy." - "Silicon Valley status symbols emphasize mind over material", LA Times, by Jessica Guynn, June 18, 2011

Before I spotted the LA Times piece, I sent this (excerpted) to the Encanto fellow wayfarers and members:

"I've been playing a game where each day I pretend I am given a written check of a different denomination--for instance, day 1 I receive a $1000 check. Day 2 I receive a $2000 check, and so on---thus day 20 would be $20,000 and day 52 would be $52,000. It is a tougher game to play than I had imagined.

Most days (I'm only on day 10) I use the money to do some sort of public art installation, publish a journal (with artwork from a collaborator I have in mind), or arrange a retreat, conference or Salon with other folks, or otherwise spend it on things that aren't for me, alone. This is partly due to the fact that I'm a minimalist, and partly because I enjoy producing things much much more than consuming things.

I've made a lot of money in my yuppie past, and found that stuff just never did it for me; back then I was into experiences--that meant marathan-running or eating out at new restaurants or traveling to exotic countries or having front-row seats to the Pioneer Theatre. (Fine, marathon-running is NOT a spectator sport but generally much of what I did for pastimes was to pass time.)

Nowadays experiences don't appeal to me that are sit-down, sightsee, spectator-based either; I prefer to produce, participate, play. I'll be in the parade banging the tambourine along with the others, not watch from the sidelines." - Evelyn Rodriguez

In the LA Times story, Alice Murdock asserts that hacker culture is a masculine culture. I like my culture hackeresque... that's indie, that's self-organizing decentralized bubbling up grassroots rather than hierachical top-down gate-keepered, that's freedom of expression, an expressed culture (yeah, we were that idealistic in 1997)-------------------->

Actually, hacker ethos is a pretty whole-brained, holistic thing. It's sort of Whole Earth catalogy, even.

Recently, venture capitalist Fred Wilson--and, note he's based in New York City--mused about the next 'Net thing (in other words, Web 1.0 was about investing in building block infrastructure, Web 2.0 is about applications) and bouncing off Carlotta Perez' work he forecasts a coming cultural revolution. I would like to agree with him. (What I mean by that is I doubt it's a sure thing unless we want it to be so.)

All I know is, count me in for a cultural Renaissance (adore that word a bit more than revolution).

One reason I left Silicon Valley is I didn't feel an epicurean sensitivity to simple refinement and beauty I desired. I suppose the pendulum swung wee too far yang ever since they decimated the plum orchards for those semiconductor labs.

Looking back, I believe an awakened sublime and sensuous cultivation for the yin was nurtured by savoring Italy three times in a single year (while consulting to Telecom Italia's Internet portal division, Virgilio, and to the ISP division).  I pitched them social networking (using Ryze and Friendster as examples--there were no others yet), and they pitched me conviviality (including face-to-face old-fashioned rapport and authentic networking).

I've never been the same since Italy.

I enjoyed picking ripe tomatoes out in the family I was staying with's garden (outside Turin with Monte Bianco a stone's throw away), drinking handmade vino from their own vineyard, sharing a potluck al fresco feast with friends, and returning to my dreamtime in their mulberry treehouse. Bested any five-star experience I've ever had.

Italian imagination and midsummer night festivity influenced the first Salon I hosted August 2006 to mix and mingle media, food, techie, and arts folks.

Then, after a while all fancy restaurants had this sense of "been there, done that," (plus the sense of doing for me rather than with me). At least for me, I'd come to the point where I wasn't nurtured by consumption. (You may think yin is passive, but it's also the creative numinous, the fertile imagination painting visions in the aether--otherwise known as ideas, etc.) There was something more engaging and enthralling to participating with than being pampered to.

I concur with Andrea:

"One of my favourite movie scenes has always been the alfresco birthday dinner party that Juliette Binoche’s character throws Armande (Judi Dench) in the fairytale-like film, Chocolat. The casual backyard setting, in a quaint French village, features a rough-around-the-edges wire framed canopy, folding wood chairs and a long, linen-covered harvest table. Completely proletariat but utterly timeless and stylish in a way that the French pull off better than anyone. This kind of comfortable and chic setting inspires easy conversation, drinking copious amounts of red wine and gathering with friends well past sunset  — and ends with empty bottles, burned-down candles, live music and dancing into the wee hours. My kind of dinner party!" - Andrea Mills, Canadian House and Home

THE WILL TO DO IT

Nowadays, perhaps because I've lived in five cities since I left San Jose, CA in 2008, I am more inspired by an encompassing, planetary vision of Renaissance, rather pinning it to a specific place be it New York City or London or name-your-tangible-patch-of-land.

Renaissance... it's little like the etherealness of the Internet (which isn't tied to geography) and the etherealness of Shambhala, "a borderless kingdom of meditation practitioners committed to realizing enlightenment and social harmony through daily life." And mostly like the way James Carse describes the attitude of horizons (see Bonus below).

The other day I was thinking how much I enjoyed the Foothill Writers Conference when I participated in 2006, and how much my writing flourished from my attendance there that summer, and checked online to see if I could make it an excuse for visiting the Valley this summer. Lo, and behold, I find that it was cancelled in 2010 due to lack of sponsorship, and that may be its fate this year too. In Los Altos, where the Foothill College, the hosts of the writing workshop, is located: "According to a 2007 estimate, the median household income was $158,745, and the median income for a family was $185,848." Having been there, it's true that the Valley peninsula is a prosperous place (by banking standards) so much so that the lame economy excuse doesn't really explain why arts are left to languish.

"our kids attend schools where art is required every day. as it should be" -- Fred Wilson in the comments to his own post, "To Science and Art"

When John F. Kennedy asked Dr. Wernher von Braun what would it take to build and send a rocket ship to the moon, he replied, "The will to do it."

Last night, I was reading Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, edited by Diane K. Osbon, and this popped vivid. Oh, so relevant:

"From what I have seen in the history of the arts in New York, when money is poured on something it flowers. With money there has to be a flow. I had a beautiful experience of a man with money when I was a trustee of the Bollinger Foundation, which was founded by Paul Mellon, an enormously wealthy man. He and his wife had been in analysis with Carl Jung when the war came and they had to leave Switzerland. They asked Jung what they could give him in the way of a gift to express their gratitude for what he had done. He suggested they establish a foundation for the interpretation and study of symbols. That's whay they did, and it is an example of a lot of money being put to the right use. The influence of that Bollinger Series on on the literature and science of America has been enormous.

. . . When you put the money in the wrong place, it can be devastating. Where is the money [and its activating of priorities by what it attends to] going and where is it coming from in the economy of a nation, the economy of a city? You can turn a flowering culture into a desiccating culture just by wrong channeling. What factor in your own consciousness are you going to favor in the spending of the money? For instance, I have a seventy-five-dollar book coming out. Some people will say that is expensive, but those same people will spend one-hundred-and-fifty dollars to have dinner in a restaurant with another couple. So, is the money going up here in your mind or is it going down there in your stomach?" - Joseph Campbell (recommend the longer excerpt of Campbell's money musings in, "Money is a Congealed Energy and Releasing it Releases Life Possibilities")

 YIN YANG OF CREATIVE CULTURE AND INNOVATION

"Science and art are seen as two very distinct endeavors and I suppose they are. But I see science and art as the yin yang of creative culture and innovation." - Fred Wilson, "To Science and Art"

This is not meant to be a treastise on art, nor a plea for art. Rather liken it to seeding the inquiry that maybe art is different. Different from technology (and I'm a computer engineering grad, so I'm not making that up), as different as day is from night or female from male or inside from outside. Different. Not implying better or worse. Not hierarchy; rather, harmony. Complementary contraries. Technology often strives for functionality. Not so art: its purpose is, well, different (almost pointless in that it can often precipitate in a primordial pre-thought). Since it's fresh, and resonant, for me, quoting Campbell from last night's book again:

"What I understand art to be, then, is the revealing power of maya: the production in music, in dance, in the visual arts, and in literature of such "divinely superfluous beauty," of objects for esthetic arrest which are of no practical use, but which open up dimensions within. And the projecting power of maya, on the other hand, I take to be desire and loathing, which link you in phenomenal discourse to the object as object. It is as clear and clean as that." - Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living, edited by Diane K. Osbon

I don't exactly advocate swinging the pendulum from yang to yin, from active to receptive, from external to internal. The equinimity of equilibrium might be nice for a change (who knows, I've never seen it fully yet).

In Sufi master and author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's essay, Invoking the World Soul, quoted below (I've enjoyed hearing him speak several times when I lived in the Bay Area), he is sharing Platonic ideals (and overall newfound appreciation for philosophies and arts of antiquity--Greek and Egyptian that the printing press made easier to share) embraced by  many Renaissance philosophers and artists that diversified and expanded some of the pendulum extremes of the prior Ages and of the times (i.e. the Inquisition was still pretty robust, ask Pico della Mirandola):

"So one can go back, for example, to Plato who understood the cosmos is a single living creature, which contains all living creatures within it.  So from the very origins of our Western civilization there is this deep understanding that the Earth is a living spiritual being.

. . . .In the Renaissance, the world soul animated and formed nature according to divine proportions.  And once again the garden of the world was enchanted with magical power and transcendent meaning — implicit in every part of nature. This was this wonderful relationship in the Renaissance between the imagination and the creative principle in life.  And there was this extraordinary flowering that really came from the divine feminine within the imagination, within life, and it was celebrated.  Once again the garden of the soul was here in this world.  It wasn’t just after you died in heaven, in paradise; it was here in the art that the Renaissance masters created.  And this is why, for some of us, the Renaissance touches the soul now so deeply and why there has been a revival of understanding of what happened in the Renaissance. " - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Invoking the World Soul

This is corroborated in several Wikipedia entries (my better resources are in storage) of the greatest influencers of Renaissance look and feel, for instance:

Marsilio Ficino "espousing the Neoplatonist view of the world's ensoulment and its integration with the human soul. "[...] There will be some men or other, superstitious and blind, who see life plain in even the lowest animals and the meanest plants, but do not see life in the heavens or the world [...] Now if those little men grant life to the smallest particles of the world, what folly! what envy! neither to know that the Whole, in which 'we live and move and have our being,' is itself alive nor to wish this to be so."" - Wikipedia

I'm coming full circle to the title of the collection of Joseph Campbell writings I am reading, I mean the title itself is worthy of reflection:

Reflections on the ART OF LIVING.

And, considering the kind of culture we are creating is the one we are devoting ourselves to day by day minute by minute, not the culture 'they' are creating as they includes us (remember, we're hackers).

And, I come back to Italian ethos too again,

"I thought -- and now I know -- that Italians claim more time for their lives." - Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

p.s. This post was setting a bit of context-setting, however, I'd prefer future ones on new Renaissance to be more off-the-cuff, spontaneous and daring in a improvisational sense so it leans more towards the future than past history (while planted in present, and presence too). If there are any excerpts or article links--they'll be in the footnotes, at the end.

BONUS: Sramana Mitra wrote a great 3-part article on her compelling vision for a Silicon Valley Renaissance, that also values arts and culture. I added my two cents in the comments in part three.

BONUS 2: Really worth reading James Carse on his refreshing view of the Renaissance and metaphorically referring to cultures as horizons: "There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself." An aside, Flickr founding team was very influenced by Infinite and Finite Games, too. Kevin Kelly, in What Technology Wants, praised it for "alter[ing] my thinking about life, the universe, and everything."

Here's wee tidbit (my favorite longer excerpts of "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" here):

"Who lives horizontally is never somewhere, but always in passage. [Note to ourself: Thus,  the crossroads...always a new crossroad. Always liminal, infinitely unfolding at the edge...]

Since culture is horizontal it is not constrained by time or space.

To the degree that the Renaissance was a true culture it has not ended. Anyone may enter into its mode of renewing vision. This does not mean that we repeat what was done. To enter a culture is not to do what others do, but to do whatever one does with the others." - James Carse

ART CREDITS: "Once given the marvelous new capabilities..." quote box via 1997 essay (it does still rock conceptually), Create or Be Created: How the Internet Cultural Renaissance is Turning Audience Members into Artists, by William Butler O'Conner; Photo still from one of my favorite movies, Chocolat, via Heirloom Philosophy; photo from backyard birthday party created by Jeremy for Ashley (they're the photography duo, we are the parsons) via 100 Layer Cake; exuberant public art (and very metaphoric!) via Honestly WTF: "Not only was it balls to the wall amazing, it was 110% real! And honestly, who doesn’t love bouncy balls? Danish photographer Peter Funch was there to capture the impressive spectacle and thanks to my new favorite online art store, Lumas, the limited edition prints are available for sale."; btw, my $2000 bcheck went to secure a Solar Blossom, "a pop up art gallery that is powered by solar and is inspired by the Bluebonnet flower" via Treehugger.

The more experiments the better. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

After watching this video "The Dare of DIY" by Tara Gentile, on how the handmade, DIY, artsy, "why not?" culture is akin to entrepreurship and tying the two into a tapestry, I'm adding Tara Gentile into the ally category, too.

Tara shares that a common thread among the handmade, DIY, indie set is the burning question:

Can it be done?

The business of sharing your stuff out in the wide world can also be looked at in the same adventurous spirit of the creative act. Tara, quoting landscape designer Steve Gerischer from the book, Made by Hand, shares, "Look at it as an opportunity to try stuff out, "Ask yourself, "What do I get to do?" not "What do I have to do?""

 

Watch live streaming video from etsy at livestream.com

And loving this sentiment, from same book, Made by Hand by Mark Fraenfelder (a few sample chapters in PDF here): "I am at my most creative when I do something I have no experience with." says Andrew Anker, SAY Media (SAY Media is behind Typepad, where this blog is hosted, btw).

Another gem from Tara's video presentation at the Etsy Labs gathering: "You have no preconceived notions about how something is going to turn out, you have no specific expectations, you have no instructions, you have no role models,--you just kind of give it a go. That's really the crux of experimenting."

BONUS: This post is eye-opening belief-busting one to ponder: "Can You 'Get Right' by $100."

ART CREDITS: "Home Sewing is Easy" is a detail of a printed, novelty cotton fabric--tres cute----via Sew Tessuti.

....you start out into the dark. Then, strange little help-mates come along - Joseph Campbell

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances." - Brian Tracy

Platitudes are so easy to bandy about: Take more chances! Be bolder! Do what's never been done before! Exclamation points galore.

Can be a wee bit harder to act on, be, and embody.

If I were trying to, let's say, start a dry-cleaning business I believe I'd have many more allies. Yet try to do something you're not too sure anyone's done before (and definitely not that crystal-clear and known to yourself, either), and as far as I've seen allies are far and few between. Truth be told, I get more flak than support. So I tend to keep mum. Yet I'm not sure staying tight-lipped and isolated is the best remedy for creative folks, either.

So let's consider each other allies for a moment.

And you can consider this blog to be your friend. You'll have to participate to get the full benefit of alliance. (I'm not a mind-reader. So by participate, we can begin by use of your blog with links here to add your two cents--I'll find the clews, use the comments below, or subscribe to Encanto... I see Skype group calls in the future. Private email doesn't benefit others in our circle; so that's last resort.)

So here we begin... First, it can't hurt to devour some more Campbell, because Campbell is an ally too.

"If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's." - Joseph Campbell

I owe a huge thank you to a few screenwriting books for re-reminding me of Campbell--although I'll be upfront and say that most script-writing tomes don't address the power of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey in terms our own journey. (I have two characters in a 'story' I'm writing in the film biz, so it's been  part of my research). Wildly enough, screenwriting books keep dropping in my lap--for instance, a publicist just sent along "Riding the Alligator: Strategies for a career in screenplay writing" (still reading, so neutral so far). All these screenwriting how-to's praise Campbell--a lot.

So when I stumbled into the philosophy section of the bookstore a week or so ago, I decided to skim An Open Life, an edited conversation based on a series of interviews conducted between 1975 and 1985 with Joseph Campbell and Michael Toms as I wanted to get back to the source, rather than reading 2nd and 3rd-hand interpretations (it's been six years since I read Campbell).

The beauty of the book, An Open Life, is it is written decades after his ground-breaking The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and so he's had the benefit of time to reflect and re-consider what he's researched and shared.

After an evening of reading a few other books on myth and mystery at the bookstore, as I headed with my mother back towards her car in the parking lot, and the vanity license plate, GUIDED winked from the first stall. (Really, I don't make this stuff up.)

I think that's the crux of what Campbell is trying to say about following the clues in this passage, and that once you do heed the Herald you'll feel GUIDED one step at a time into the Unknown:

Campbell: [Answering interviewer's question on the Eastern guru-disciple model, Campbell says that it's not necessarily culturally appropriate in the West and gives a Holy Grail example, paraphrasing from La Queste del Saint Graal.] "They were seated at King Arthur's roundtable when The Grail appeared "carried by angelic miracle, covered, however by a cloth. Everyone was in rapture and then it withdrew. Arthur's nephew Gawain stood up and said, "I propose a vow. I propose that we should all go in pursuit of this Grail to behold it unveiled."
. . .
"They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the forest that he had chosen where there was no path and where it was darkest." Now, if there's a way or path, it's someone else's way; and the guru has a path for you. He knows where you are on it. He knows where he is on it, namely, way ahead. And all you can do is get to be as great as he is. This is a continuation of the dependency of childhood; maturity consists in outgrowing that and becoming your own authority for your life. And this quest for the unknown seems so romantic to Oriental people. What is unknown is the fulfillment of your own unique life, the likes of which has never existed on the earth. And you are the only one who can do it. People can give you clues how to fall down and how to stand up; but when to fall and when to stand, and when you are falling and when you are standing up, this only you can know."

Interviewer Michael Toms paraphrases elements of the Hero and the Call, and mentions there's a chapter in Hero with a Thousand Faces entitled "Refusal of the Call", "you talk about how we often follow society, and with the Call the reverse is what's more appropriate."

Campbell [Wee snippet, much longer reply including that it is certainly possible to live a noble life "in the village compound", as well, if no Call comes]. On the other hand, if the Call is whispering: "But if a person has had the sense of the Call--the feeling that there's an adventure for him--and if he doesn't follow that, but remains in the society because it's safe and secure, then life dries up.... If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line...  And just like in Dickens' novel, little accidental meetings and so forth turn out to be main features in the plot, so in your life. And what seems to have been mistakes at the time, turn out to be directive crises. And then he asks: "Who wrote this novel?".... The secure way is really the insecure way and the way in which the richness of the quest accumulates is the right way."

Interviewer, Michael Toms: "Joseph, in that same chapter on the Call, you wrote: "The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal [of the Call] is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest." And then you go on to talk about how we get fixed in our own security and our own ideals and are reluctant to see them change."

Campbell: "There's a kind of regular morphology and inevitable sequence of experiences if you start out to follow your adventure. I don't care whether it's in economics, in art, or just in play. There's the sense of the potential that opens out before you. And you have no idea how to achieve it; you start out into the dark. Then, strange little help-mates come along, frequently represented by little fairy spirits or the little gnomes, who just give you clues, and these open out. Then there is the sense of danger you always run into--really deep peril--because no one has gone this way before. And the winds blow, and you're in a forest of darkness very often and terror strikes you."

Interviewer: "So often we see those dark places as huge problems rather than as opportunities. What does mythology have to say about that?"

Campbell: "Well, mythology tells us that where you stumble, there your treasure is.... where it seems most challenging lies the greatest invitation to find deeper and greater powers in ourselves.

Toynbee speaks of challenge and response, and every culture and individual runs into these challenges. If the power to respond fails, then that's the end. But where the power to respond succeeds, there comes a new amplification of life and consciousness.

When I wrote about the Call forty years ago [published 1949], I was writing out of what I had read. Now that I've lived it, I know it's correct. And that's how it turned out. I mean, it's valid. These mythic clues work."

[Later interviewer Toms asks about the irrationality of following this sort of Call:] Campbell: "This is irrational. That's the point. All compassion, all sympathy, is irrational. Love is irrational. The rational is always stressing I--thou opposites. The mind is in the world of separateness and angular structures. It's a world put together in a way to be calculated. Compassion, love--these jump mathematics."

p.s. The cited chapter "The Refusal of the Call" starts off using King Minos, who built the labyrinth in an attempt to contain his shadow--here the Ego refusing to surrender, as an example of refusing the call, which was projected as a monster, the Minotaur. It's an example of Carl Jung's statement, "When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate." Your demons, and monsters, refusals and aversions, become writ large, projected on-screen 'out there':

"The divinity itself became his terror; for, obviously, if one is oneself one's god, then God himself, the will of God, the power that would destroy one's egocentric system, becomes a monster." - Campbell

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears / I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Another writer on a philosophy Wiki aptly interpreted this chapter further, and shares: "An unanswered call makes the would-be hero a victim now needing to be saved by a hero. This is an interesting psychological point made by Campbell. Our need to be saved and desire and victimization are actually the result of our own failure to answer the calls presented to us, a failure to recognize the Herald in our midst. But we express this as victimization, or the need to be saved. What a tangled web we weave when we refuse the call. [My note: could explain over-emphasis on Messianic/Savior and Superhero plotlines, rather than on self-mastery.] King Minos is given as an example: whatever house he builds will be a house of death, always creating new problems to be solved by a hero."

ART CREDITS: Parsifal, by Willy Pogany ~1912 via The Art of Narrative; 1895 painting by Edwin Austin Abbey shows the Arthurian knight Sir Galahad via National Geographic; Theseus by Edward Burne Jones of the hero, Theseus, following Adriane's clews (the unfurling thread of inspiration in form of little clues and cues) to root out the Minotaur, and find his way back via the very beguiling website on Hellenic literature-from article "Theseus and the Minotaur are One."

when an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill - chuang tzu

When an archer is shooting for fun 

He has all his skill – Chuang Tzu

I enjoy checking in on Kickstarter creative projects to (a) support other artists and (b) for inspiration.

At Karakasa Games' website, there's a video where indie game developer Wiley Wiggins mentions how the current game industry caters (for profit's sake) to the lowest common denominator with the result being "a lot of beautiful games--a huge spectacle--but are kind of soulless."

I've spent effort to dilute the spark of my ideas to appeal to executives' conceptions of what is blockbuster!! mass! appeal! No more! So I'm very encouraged by these indie trends. Congrats to Wiley and his team for raising $24, 221 for their game.

Anyway, you may also enjoy scouring Kickstarter projects for allies, inspiration, and fun yourselves.

p.s. I also adore the story-telling game Do! The Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. They raised $24, 383 for their whimsical storytelling for children project (updates here):

"Premise: There are hundreds small worlds orbiting a flying temple. Like islands, these small worlds often have strange cultures and unique problems. Whenever the people have a conflict that cannot be resolved on their own, they send letters to the temple requesting assistance. The temple sends young monks on a pilgrimage across the universe responding to a stack of letters one at a time. Their goal is to leave each world with less trouble than when they arrived." - Daniel Solis

They ask backers to collaborate and write make-believe letters to the "pilgrims" (i.e. future players of the story-telling game) for an imaginative, yet simple [i.e. NO computer necessary] game. This game also appealed to me, as serendipity would have it, it has some common elements to one of my projects, too.

For me, disaster was my saving grace. - Ash Ambirge

“The only way you can tell the difference between disaster and opportunity is to decide to make an opportunity out of every event.” - John T. Unger

In last few days, I've heard several inspiring true stories of disaster and adversity overcome through surrender and grace. In no particular order...

• Bob Doyle shares his story in this 15-minute video via Sonia Ricotti's site, Unsinkable. "I felt like a complete loser.... To be someone who wants to make a difference in the world that wants to give up--talk about being knocked down." / "If you can give it up to the Universe, you're life can change." / "I'm just going to have fun with this, I'm going to follow whatever comes up [as far as intuitive nudges]."
• "My good friend (and bestselling author) Sonia Ricotti went through a NASTY phase herself. A potentially deadly blood clot shattered her health. Financial devastation stole her lifestyle and home out from under her. An important relationship ended (which, to make matters worse, involved an alcoholic)...all of it hitting her AT ONCE. Something like that could destroy most people, but Sonia knew what to do and did it in style... She bounced back on a grand scale... and rebuilt a thriving business and a beautiful life." - from an email by Joe Vitale
• "Want to hear the story of how I created my first product while homeless, crying, and living in my car, out of a K-Mart parking lot in the slums of South Philadelphia? And how I leveraged my blog to pull me out of homelessness?" - Ash Ambirge
• John Unger's third disaster was "having the roof of his studio cave in while he was standing on top of it, which nearly brought him to bankruptcy but ended up as the catalyst for the full-time art career he has now." - Chris Guillebeau interview with John Unger / Then John shares: "Part of my resilience is that I know from experience that just because it seems like the apocalypse, it doesn’t mean tomorrow isn’t coming. I figure that the world ends every second, and it starts over the very next second. I’ve seen the end of the world so many times I’m just not impressed by it anymore." / And another gem: "In fact, one of my favorite lines about how I started my art career is “I did it with nothing, because nothing is free.”"

I'm sharing these stories because I realize there a ridiculous amount of stigma and shame around job loss, business and financial "failure" (particularly in the success-frantic USA) that it's time to directly confront that failure/success see-saw duality that can get us fixated (and stuck). Failure?... whatever--it's merely an inflection point in a very very amazing process called Infinity. (btw, I adore James Carse way of looking at Life as an Infinite Game.)

My first brush with disaster was when my Dad died fairly suddenly two weeks before my high school prom. It's one thing to deal with emotionally (and I touched on that previously in Father's Day posts), but it was also a financial ruin for our family. My Mom had no income source--other than social security widow's benefits, and no marketable skills. Zero life insurance. Three kids, and I was the oldest. I managed to graduate college with zero debt and zero student loans from a private university (read: private=expensive) by working part-time (first job ever), qualifying for merit scholarships, and jumping at the right time at the right place (the state was pouring resources to any student whom wished to study computer engineering when I was second semester sophomore--so I simply switched my degree from computer science to computer engineering even though it meant losing credits and going to summer school to catch up).

I believe I dealt with that disaster and also with the post-tsunami "post-traumatic growth" opportunity fairly well (considering) because both felt like random, outside events out of my control. Surely it wasn't my fault that my Dad died when he did. It wasn't my fault that a tidal wave formed at the exact minute we were vacationing on an island shore in Thailand.

Yet, if we lose a job, or bankrupt our business venture, or get mixed up with sabotaging romantic/business partners and everything goes to hell in a handbasket, it can feel like a thoroughly personal reflection and assessment of our unworthiness (or our stupidity or insert-the-self-berating-term here) in comparison to natural disaster or an accident. Those times are when I've found it hardest to recover since I tend to focus far too long on, "Oh no, this is all my fault."

And, to be perfectly honest, when it isn't a wild natural disaster, allies are few and far between. Mostly, their refrain goes something like, "I told you so." Plus the entire universe seems to agree that it is so totally your fault and you are the duddiest dud in the entire galaxy--that is, until you stop that b.s. In other words, get over yourself--it's all part and parcel of process of your unfolding myth.

Pretty much the Ego is always vying to find some identity to affix to, and "poor me" works just as swell as "rock star me." (Neither are true.)

Anyhow, without further ado, here's another graceful way to look at "failure" that one rarely sees mention of in the risk-averse public sphere from former vice-president of Facebook; this is an excerpt from Chamath Palihapitiya's final email to his troops as he left to start his own venture fund:

"don’t ignore that which you don’t immediately understand and keep pushing to evolve faster than what people expect. it can create unease at times but its our only path to long term relevance.

speak the truth. its too easy to “manage” – upwards, sideways, downwards and be rewarded for it. this is death. speak candidly especially when it means it won’t be well received. respect the person but don’t let bad ideas go unchallenged.

their is more valor in failure than success. success is hard to define and hard to isolate root causes when it happens. its rare to learn much of anything from success except to conflate luck and skill, but you learn tons in failure. take enough risks that you continue to fail… and celebrate those so that it becomes the battle scars you talk about when you do eventually succeed." - Former VP Facebook, Chamatch Palihapitiya

p.s. PLAY as LIFE is an INFINITE GAME... Join us on Encanto monthly... more unfurling on July 1st when pricing goes up slightly (new and current subscribers by July 1st are locked into their original contribution amounts).

art credits: from seesaw glum to glee: not sure who's digital illustration this is but it's via Big Kid Walking Through the Park blog; illustration "I am nothing without you" by Niko Geyer (see also his site, Niko Geyer); oh, I've saved this seesaw photo from ?? for several years--yikes, not sure whom to credit; photograph "Woman on see saw" by photographer Ann Giordarno

$650,000 grant drops in your lap, and you'd...

I received this totally spam email. Yet it contains a good question.

They want me to put to "good use" a sum of $650,000.

Great, let's play along with that. Could I put it to good use? What would I do? (The original headline/subject line was "About the Donation.")

What would you do?

And, being my birthday (not today--that day), I thought I'd check out the random daily Abraham quote for a year-long emphasis to embody:

"What anyone else has or does not have has nothing to do with you. The only thing that affects your experience is the way you utilize the Non-Physical Energy with your thought. Your abundance or lack of it in your experience has nothing to do with what anybody else is doing or having. It has only to do with your perspective. It has only to do with your offering of thought. If you want your fortunes to shift, you have to begin telling a different story."-- Abraham excerpted from the book "Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness"

The "About the Donation" offering of $650,000 email read (deleted the phone number in the signature):

Hi,

Sorry I haven't gotten back with you, daily activities has kept me busy with work as a private  air charter service consultant.  I contacted you on the internet while looking to support a non profit charity, rescue group or a  social worker and I am proud with the good work you do and happy to know that my sponsorship money goes directly to a good use.

 I am making these donations because the economic downturn has created seemingly insurmountable challenges for nonprofits - organizations that rely on the generosity of others for their financial viability.  I know that is is a critical time for nonprofit organizations.

I am making a cash donation of Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars which I inherited from my late grandfather who was an industrialist and international businessman. My late grandfather's heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving.  I trust that you are reliable, trustworthy , compassionate in order to handle these donations for a good cause.

Let me know how you can make use of the funds.

Regards,

John Hamilton

Now my response to the correspondence, which I wrote off the top of my head without thinking and analyzing and agonizing about it too much--heck this window of opportunity may not be around forever, so I responded promptly (in the new myth blog, not to the spammed email):

Dear Mr. Hamilton,

Thank you so much for your offer. I am sorry to hear about your grandfather's passing, and my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family at this time.

I obviously am not familiar with your intentions nor your late grandfathers. But I will tell you want I have in mind.

I will locate a fiscal agent in order to filter the donation through, and it can be a tax deductible contribution for you. This is one idea for the best use of funds. As you already indicated that your grandfather loved to give, this bodes well for the idea I'm about to present to you.

We can place the $650,000 into a microloan program for culture-makers that are focused on the imprint of giving.

We can give copies of Geshe Michael Roach's book, The Diamond Cutter, to those that do not have the resources to purchase it themselves. I checked, and online, it is available at Google eBooks (may be useful as we can have a 'group' reading and see what others are highlighting) for $11.99.

In addition, there will be a "lending library" of books such as by Florence Scovel Shinn, Joseph Campbell, Lewis Hyde, Rilke, James Carse, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, The Alchemist, etc. available.

There will be pop-up unconferences free and open to all (funded by sponsorships) available in different U.S. cities as well.

However, the bulk of the funds are used for microloans to artists pushing the edges of innovation in areas that are difficult to secure private or public funding precisely because they do not fit a known, established medium, genre or category. Emphasis will be given to arts and creative projects that push the edges iin terms of possibilities, i.e. telling new stories. (Using the word 'story' generically--in other words, showcasing brand-new options rather than portraying or fighting the status quo.)

Loans will range from $1000 to $75,000, in general although there could be situations where more is given, especially in a peer-to-peer arrangement. For instance, for larger loans, we may tap into a network of potential private individual loaners (they may use something simple like Loanback).

To emphasize, these are no-interest microloans and are payable back to the fund in order to keep it sustainable and circulating to new artists and organizations. This is not private equity, and no one takes a stake or stock in the ventures that are given loans. Neither are these donations. Part of the intent of making these "loans" rather than donations is that the artist/collective/company is committed to making a longer-term viable venture, rather than a one-off project (ala Kickstarter), and are in need of a modest amount of startup capital.

Of course, this model is really rather flexible and not set in stone as we are in the conception phases, and would welcome your feedback as we move forward with your grant of $650,000.

Thank you so much for your generosity,

Evelyn Rodriguez

p.s. This is not copyrighted. No rights reserved--please take this idea, and spread it like wildflowers. You are welcome to implement this idea. The more the merrier. Never can have too many microloan programs for cultural innovation, and renaissances and such.

ART CREDITS: Photo "Humble Gift" by marielliott; emerging fern unfurling (a.k.a. koru symbol) by ericinsf

Creation is pleasure and torture at the same time. It’s trying to make something out of nothing. It’s a birth of some sort. - zooey deschanel

"Creation is pleasure and torture at the same time. It’s trying to make something out of nothing. It’s a birth of some sort. Sometimes it’s like pulling a piano out of a swamp. Sometimes it’s like walking on air. The torture of that nothing-space in front of you, and the pure elation of filling that space with something good—it’s one of life’s great juxtapositions. I am grateful for that—the torture and the pleasure. " - Zooey Deschanel, Southwest Air Spirit Magazine, April 2011

Make something out of nothing. She can't literally mean nothing, right? I mean you need at least a studio, or a Mac Air, or a guitar, or an illustrator wanting to be paid for that picture book collaboration. Where does all that come from? Money? You think? I used to think so.

Nope, not money. Where does money come from? Keep following down all the turtles... Nothing. (Five purple stars for any homework turned in by the participant reading this:  Don't just take it on word, check it out for yourself.) Okay, another tack...

"In 2009 a group of wealthy Germans asked their government to require them to pay higher taxes. "We have more money than we need," said the 44 multi-millionaires. They wanted to help alleviate the ravages of poverty and unemployment. I urge you to make a comparable move, Leo. In what part of your life do you have more abundance than most people? Are there practical ways you could express your gratitude for the extravagant blessings life has given you? I think you'll find that raising your levels of generosity will ultimately lead to you receiving more love." - Rob Brezsny, Leo horoscope for May 19, 2011-- nope I'm not a Leo btw, this just seemed relevant

I hadn't read The Diamond Cutter (the business book, not the Diamond Cutter sutra which I have re-read) since 2005. Recently, I found it tucked in the Buddhism section in a bookstore recently although it more appropriately belongs in the Business category. It made so much more sense to me now than it did six years ago. In fact, I was fairly stunned by author Geshe Michael Roach's description of "The Economics of Limitlessness."

 "You can just throw out the idea of sharing limited resources, and by the way you can throw out the idea of poverty itself. Wealth is a perception (and therefore a reality) forced on anyone who has been truly generous in the past. It is therefore available to all people. The mind--a mind crippled by the assumptions and, frankly, fairy tales [collective imprinting at subconscious level] of our civilization, passed down by well-meaning parents over its entire length--balks at the possibility that every living person could have more than enough wealth. It's not something that has ever happened before in our recorded history, says this state of mind, and so it could not happen now. We've heard this argument before; it wasn't true then, and it's not true now. Watch out, Columbus [and all the explorers prior], you'll fall over the edge because the world is flat. Iron could never fly in the sky, or float for that matter. It's not possible that practically every person in the world could have the same access to the world's information, running through wires made of glass or beamed down from a place beyond. Where is the absolute amount of wealth in the world? Where does new wealth really come from?" - The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life, by Michael Roach

There is just no way that I can fathom to distill this idea of limitless wealth for all into a single blog post. The crux comes down to knowing the source of wealth (i.e. the source of anything) and changing subconscious imprints (personal and collective) from separation to wholeness, from scarcity to infinity: "this particular imprint can be planted only by watching yourself giving all you can to others.... financial, yes, but also in terms of giving your own time, and your emotinal and professional support, and helping people with ideas."

Connecting the dots between these three excerpts this also means I will be giving much more of my time and ideas to this blog as time and ideas are two things I have in extravagant abundance currently.

So ask yourself: In what part of your life do you have more abundance than most people?

p.s. I'm in the mood to chat more about symbols, myth, subconscious, storytelling futures, especially experiential art, alchemy, and luxury (more in the Coco Chanel way, "Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.”), creative process, and such flux.

BONUS: And making something out of nothing is pretty much alchemy, eh? I've transcribed an excerpt here from Deepak Chopra's The Book of Secrets on the alchemy of transformation which relates to the source of wealth (Chopra calls it "one reality"), the nothing. The alchemist in the diagram appears next to a huge salt shaker, which reminds me of this passage from the excerpt that distinguishes transformation from change: "The key to true transformation is that nature doesn't move forward in step-by-step movements. It takes quantum leaps all the time, and when it does, old ingredients aren't simply recombined. Something new appears in creation for the first time, an emergent property. For example, if you examine hydrogen and oxygen, they are light, gaseous, invisible, and dry. It took a transformation for those two elements to combine and create water, and when that happened, an entirely new set of possibilities emerged with it, the most important from our point of view being life itself. The wetness of water is a perfect example of an emergent property. In a universe without water, wetness can't be derived by shuffling around properties that already exist. Shuffling only produces change; it isn't sufficient for transformation. Wetness has to emerge as something completely new in creation. Once you look closely enough, it turns out that every chemical bond produces an emergent property. (I gave the example in passing of sodium and chlorine--two poisons that when combined produce salt, another basic element of life)."

what is best in music is not to be found in the notes - Gustav Mahler

"What is best in music is not to be found in the notes." - Gustav Mahler

It's been difficult to write lately, as I didn't wish to be explaining... I yearned to express, but it wasn't happening. There was something that needed to complete and be directly experienced first.

Last night, I was watching what to me was an amazing video. It consolidated a concept I'd been thinking about myself. I kept wondering why some art was able to convey a transpersonal and direct transmission of the divine.

Sometimes I call that "black hole" art.

For instance, one day last September I was feeling pretty down and out. Even an art museum could not cheer me up. Room after room in a fog of color splotches. Yet the moment I entered the room with Van Gogh's Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape (with the Alpilles in the Background) all was right with the world again. It's a difficult thing to explain as it is experiential. Right now, looking at a photograph of the painting doesn't have that same knowing that takes one into that felt sense of Absolute. (I reckon it may be because the photographer resists going there.)

So, of late, I've been calling that "quality" as black hole art, as in:

"I have contacted a place of internal gravity within myself beyond my own doing or my own will that is pulling the impulse and energy of the "I Am" thought into Itself." - in a letter to Adyashanti from one of his students

Back in 2003, I was in Berkeley improving my Spanish at a local language school while vaguely hoping the tech economy would pick up again so I could get back to work. Although the truth beyond all the obvious is I was on a pretty hardcore spiritual journey ever since 2001 when the dot-com startup I was at (first employee after the founders, so I was very emotionally invested) imploded followed rather quickly by my divorce and other sundry personal disasters. When I went to the bookstore looking for a good Spanish-English dictionary, I wasn't quite expecting to find a book that would accelerate this 'journey.' But once I opened the book, I couldn't stop reading it. That book led me to an intense study of A Course in Miracles. I read the entire thousand-plus pages over a course of days (it may have taken a week or so, as it's not easy reading) sitting in that studio apartment. I probably ought to have been looking for work, but even then I guess I was starting to realize this is my work.

"It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust which creates Goethe." - Carl Jung

Since then, I have spent more time in my own sort of self-study into the nature of Reality and my own true nature that has taken me on many paths including Buddhism and Advaita, yet I have a lot of respect and appreciation for A Course in Miracles to this day, and also for Ken Wapnick whom I've studied in person several times at the Temecula classroom.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that I have a thorough appreciation for ACIM and Ken, although I don't really even know where my big blue book is (I suppose it's in storage). The words in the book aren't the point anyhow.

The beautiful part of the video is when Ken shares his own personal journey on how he realized his psychotherapy grad school studies were coalescing with an understanding of why he was so drawn to music, and in particular some of Beethoven's later compositions.

"I wrote from the heart, may it reach the heart of the listener." -- dedication in one of Beethoven's scores

Two aha! moments to pay attention to are when Ken shares how he wished to create a mood in the room, an environment in his therapy practice that was as palpably peaceful as he had experienced at a concert of Beethoven's music the evening before. (Ken was in grad school at the time, and said he couldn't pull it off.)

 

The other aha! is when Ken talks about the felt difference between Schubert and Beethoven's compositions he experienced. Listening to Schubert he could feel the sadness that he would not allow himself to go "there". This sadness I recognize now as the core of the Dark Night of the Soul. And the "there"?...

Part I and Part II of "Music, Melos, and Miracles: The Art of Listening" are twenty minutes in video--I thoroughly believe it is worth it, as it conveys so much of its own.

Plus it explains everything I've failed in past to convey in my art (akin to how Ken says he failed to establish a presence of peace in his early psychotherapy practice), and why I set aside everything--paid work that might have provided living wage, relationships, et al-- to go through this Dark Night of the Soul... and, actually to go "there"--all the way.

"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him." - Carl Jung

p.s. A great interview with Jeff Foster on the Dark Night and the end of seeking (and, of course, the seeker as well).

the creative act is primitive - steven pressfield

"Have you seen this great New Yorker cartoon:

A perplexed person stands before two doors. One door says HEAVEN. The other door says BOOKS ABOUT HEAVEN.

What makes us laugh, I suspect, is that all of us feel the pull to pick BOOKS ABOUT HEAVEN.

Are we that timid? Are our huevos that pocito?

When we're offered a chance at heaven, what diabolically craven force makes us want to back off--just for now, we promise ourselves--and choose instead heaven's pale reflection?" - Do the Work, by Steven Pressfield (free Kindle version available through May 20, 2011)

Having spent a week in Los Angeles in deep observation (far from my first visit in LA), I realized the town is set up in a rock-star-and-million-fans model for sheer survival's sake. In order to have enough reach to rake in the advertising dollars, which pays the bills, stories have rote mass market blockbuster hit appeal (code for "least common denominator"). Sure, I also met many indie folks, but that was the exception, not the rule. For instance, one indie transmedia/locative-cinema producer said, "I want to serve the story, not the P&L."

While walking in Venice one day, I came across this book, "One Buddha is Not Enough," named after a retreat in August 2009 to be led by Thich Nhất Hạnh:

"Did we come to a retreat to see Thay the way we'd go to a rock concert to see Madonna or to a basketball game to see the star center? If the rock star or sports hero doesn't show up, we're entitled to a full refund."

"The book is dedicated to the idea that awakening is a collective process, and that we and our community are our own most important teachers."

In the perfect and oft ironic Way of the universe, the Infinite saw to it that Thay (as he is affectionately known by his students) was bedridden in a Boston hospital and could not attend the retreat in Estes Park. People were "heartbroken and angry," and feeling gipped--even though sixty of his closest monks still were in attendance. It is a testament to the capacity of the sangha to perceive the actual intent of a retreat entitled, "One Buddha is Not Enough," that only eight out of a thousand walked out.

Someone else must be the guru, someone else knows, someone else has access we don't, someone else is the expert, someone else is that Buddha-nature, the Infinite is out there--you know, out there in the Heavens, or anywhere... certainly not here, not now, not us. Heaven is for special people like Thay. We? We're not worthy. Old scripts re-written for contemporary times. We'll just take the book about Heaven, thank you.

"A perplexed person stands before two doors. One door says HEAVEN. The other door says BOOKS ABOUT HEAVEN."

Rick Carter, production designer for Avatar and Jurassic Park, at the UCLA symposium, Transmedia, Hollywood 2, told the story of his grandmother, born in 1882, laughing with her sorority sisters at the turn of the 20th century at the absurdity that anything heavier than air could fly. Guffaws at the gall of anyone to conceive of such silly scenarios.

Of course, his grandmother would eat her words as she lived long enough to see heavier-than-air ships land on the moon and stepped onto airplanes herself. Jules Verne had already introduced the conception of a flying ship made of metal into the public consciousness in his fiction. I believe Leonardo da Vinci may have preceded him. Verne's visioneering planted seeds that would spur inventors seventeen years later to build the prototype for the perplexing metallic sculpture I boarded to get myself to Los Angeles (and pay only $29 plus tax one-way!).

When Rick told that story, I instantly grokked that I was like Jules Verne, and never ever would I be the practical tinkerers like the Wright Brothers. Simple, really, in retrospect, yet have I spent so much of my lifetime berating myself for having fantastical ideas that I don't know how to implement on my own. So I plant seeds of possibility--they may or may not take hold in physical reality, but to each his own gifts.

Some other intriguing parts of Do the Work: (Btw, I don't completely buy into the idea of any ongoing war as even resisting Resistance reinforces a false sense of duality.)

"Next to Resistance, rational thought is the artist or entrepreneur's worst enemy.

Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego.

Instead, we want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.

Homer began both The Iliad and The Odyssey with a prayer to the Muse. The Greeks' greatest poet understood that genius did not reside within his fallible, mortal self--but came to him instead from some source that he could neither command nor control, only invoke.

When an artist says, "Trust the soup," she means let go of the need to control (which we don't do anyway) and put your faith instead in the Source, the Mystery, the Quantum Soup.

The deepr the source we work from, the better our stuff will be--and the more transformative it will be for us and for those we share it with."

---

"Don't prepare. Begin.

Remember, our enemy is not lack of preparation; it's not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account.

The enemy is Resistance."

---
"The creative act is primitive.

Babies are born in blood and chaos; stars and galaxies come into being amid the release of massive primordial cataclysms."

p.s. The current work that I'm resisting is facetiously code-named (just a working title) after Revelations 21, http://bit.ly/revel21

p.p.s. If you also gravitate toward the interactive and intimate model in lieu of a blockbuster rock-star model (even 1000 fans is too broad and "fans" way too fourth wall for me), you might be interested in this free online magazine by In Treehouses on reaching your 1000 True Fans.

ART CREDITS: Your handy-dandy Green Muse via Magpie's Nest so there is no excuse for "My Muse hasn't shown up yet"; according to this site, fictional characters Frank Reade Jr. and his daugher Kate Reade envisioned helicopter airships a few years before Jules Verne's "Albatross." I like it: Fiction begets more fiction begets 'real' airships.

it represents infinite potential - j. j. abrams

“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.”– Margaret Shepard

I'll be in Los Angeles Friday attending Transmedia, Hollywood 2 at UCLA. If you're in the LA area, I'll be there for about a week afterwards as well--contact me if you'd like to meet up.

Going to LA completely on a hunch. Originally, I was going to wait until I had enough resources for this trip, but I could die waiting. Instead, I vowed as soon as I had enough for one-way fare, I'd commit. Booked April 7th 'randomly.' And, later, learn that the yearly Transmedia conference would be the following day.

Random? Risk? Or 'twas it inspired?

Well, we'll see. Let the chips fall as they may.

The word hazard features prominently in the title of the participatory storyline, I'm working on. (It's partly set in L.A.) The actual etymology of hazard is interesting, with Spanish and Arabic undertones: a game of chance. So it seems fitting that I take the first "chance." (Does chance actually exist?)

"Who can tell the dancer from the dance?" - William Butler Yeats

This so-called "Hazard" story may unfold to become something immersive along the lines of this Vanished participatory 'game' (partnership of MIT and the Smithsonian) launching today, April 4th.  

Vanished invites middle-school kids to explore a make-believe mystery in a narrative setting as they participate by doing science.

Science in the classroom is a far cry from the exploratory nature of science in the field. Same goes for our own lives--it's not exactly found in books, blogs or workshops. I want to do Life and expand its mysteries, not be lectured at.

“Current science instruction relies too heavily on memorization and activities with predetermined outcomes causing many kids to lose interest in science and have misconceptions about what it means to be a scientist,” said Scot Osterweil of MIT Education Arcade. -- via ArtDaily.org

Reading The Art of Immersion, by Frank Rose, I was quite taken by the snippet where J.J. Abrams (for a person that doesn't own a television set, I was pretty hooked on Lost) is talking about infinite possibility.

". . . Abrams described his lifelong infatuation with Tannen's Magic Mystery Box, a $15 cardboard box he had bought at a New York magic shop as a kid. He never opened it, though it sits even now on a shelf in his office."

"I realized I haven't opened it because it represents something important to me," he explained at TED. "It represents infinite potential. It represents hope. It represents possibility. And what I love about this box, and what I realize I sort of do whatever it is that I do, is find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential."

Mystery, he went on to say, is the catalyst for imagination. What are stories if not mystery boxes? What is Lost if not a mystery box? Star Wars? What creates mystery if not the deliberate withholding of information?

... "I mean, look inside yourself and figure out what is inside you," Abrams said, "because ultimately, you know, the mystery box is all of us."

I must admit, I know I would have had to open the Magic Mystery Box--especially when I was a kid. And then go find another treasure to open.... one box leading to the next.... surprise after surprise.

p.s. All new (and current) Encanto newsletter subscribers are gifted with their very own Magic Mystery Box via snail mail through April 24th... a melange* of tailor-selected found objects and handmade inspiration from moi. You are highly encouraged to OPEN the box!  Infinite possibility is infinite--so there's so much more where that came from.

* Definition of MÉLANGE: a mixture often of incongruous elements

ART CREDITS: Pandora by John William Waterhouse. Pandora’s name means “all gifts.” Psyche Opening the Golden Box, (detail) also by Waterhouse.

i lower my standards - william stafford

Today is the first day of the Casi Cielo Intensive Salon--an online group encouraging living in the present moment and sharing the art that emerges from Now with other artists. Daily blog posts consisting of contemplative and writing (and sketching) prompts through Easter are public (subscribe to Casi Cielo Salon blog free here via email).

I have plenty of material for this blog, and so the daily tidbits of inspiration will stay separate and over at the Casi Cielo blog. Yep, you can still sign up to participate in the private, shared space with fellow Salonistas, and/or donate. To give you a peek, sample post today is below:

"Contact with the awareness of the Absolute can come about only when the mind is fasting, when the process of conceptualization has utterly ceased. When the mind feasts, Reality disappears. When the mind fasts, Reality enters."  - Ramesh S. Balsekar,  A Net of Jewels

Today is Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday. I've lived in New Orleans--and in fact, was residing in the Marigny neighborhood during last year's Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday is a holiday, and traditionally the last big hoorah to indulge before Lent begins. (Although, in New Orleans curbing indulgence isn't in the city DNA.)  Alhough I was marginally raised as Catholic--I quit after my communion, I don't observe Lent either, at least not in any typical sense. 

Me? This year I'm "giving up" memory. I'm giving up rehashing the past for Lent.

Live by the current of inspiration alone.

Perhaps, spurred by the quote by Balsekar above (just serendipitiously sent by a friend this a.m.)  give up believing in my thought gyrations. Reality happens in the present not in the synapses of my brain. Beyond (or more accurately, below) what I think it is, it is.

Today I'm not providing a writing prompt. 

Indulge your intuition. Feed on your inner muse. What does It prompt?

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

-- William Stafford

Most people 'paralyze' the muse with their thought gyrations of perfection. Consider that anything you write is okay, and that you can not write it wrong. Trust in simply showing up... each day for 40 days (minus Sundays). When poet William Stafford was asked how his daily practice of writing one poem a day could possibly produce quality poetry of high standards, he replied:  "I lower my standards."

"William Stafford woke up every morning, seven days a week, at 4 a.m., made himself a cup of instant coffee and a piece of dry toast, and stretched out on his family's living room couch. There, notebook on lap, he wrote until the sun came up. He wrote a poem a day, a process he describes in the short lyric "Just Thinking": "Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. / No cloud, no wind. . . . Let the bucket of memory down into the well, / bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one / stirring. No plans. Just being there." Stafford was a late bloomer whose first major collection of poems, Traveling Through the Dark, was published when he was forty-eight. It won the National Book Award in 1963. He went on to publish more than sixty-five volumes of poetry and prose." -- "The Poets Laureate Anthology" edited by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt

ART CREDITS: Sure takes a lot of showing up every day to a blank page to get this vortex of words. Book sculpture and architecture by artist Matej Kren.

"to all the muffled... joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count" - Rilke

Be--and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sonnets to Orpheus”, II:13, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Those stanzas of poetry distill the spirit of Casi Cielo Salon that is going to delve into present awareness, ordinary rapture, and shared writing starting March 8th.

"Unmuffle yourself; come close to the hearth. Come into the circle of home," intones the portable quotable online I Ching.

Come from wherever you are whoever you are. You don't need to book a flight to a deserted island to be. You don't need lots of eccentricities or 'character' either.

I'm currently living in the edge of the suburbs in the Mojave desert. It's not the kind of atmosphere that I normally find inspiring. There's an constant urge to say, Not this, not now. To postpone to perhaps some other place, some other time.... later, when it's better, or shinier... rather than be and write from here as just me.

Funny, I was skimming through one of Byron Katie's books and her husband, Stephen Mitchell, wrote this in the Forward (yep, same Stephen Mitchell as translated Rilke's poem above):

"The Mojave is bleak even by desert standards, it lacks the whimsy of cactuses, yet becomes truly beautiful if you start to pay attention to it. If you take a walk with Katie there at sunset, the warm wind seems like a caress and the rocks are subtle in their shades of brown and yellow and black and red, and the shadows are blue. She will lead you up canyons to places where hidden water drips and you might begin to see the desert as kind and believe her when she says it was her teacher."

Bleak, or not (that's an interpretative layer anyhow...).... it too is Wholeness. So are you. "Unmuffle yourself; come close to the hearth. Come into the circle of home."

Casi Cielo will have a free, public, online component as well, but if you really want to jump into the sandbox with us....

WHAT: Facilitated Intensive Salon of peers interested in living in present awareness, ordinary rapture and sharing their everyday writing. Loose and structured. Loose in that you decide on your topics of rapture and length and style of writing--erotica or renku or brochure or video game or watercolor sketch....; structured in that there are optional daily prompts (excepting Sundays) and I'll nudge you to submit something to the private group shared space if we don't hear from you in a while (i.e. no spectators).

WHEN: Seven weeks March 8th-April 24th. (Sneak start for early-birds starts March 1st.)

HOW MUCH: Seven weeks for $40 covers all daily prompts, feedback, facilitated online group (private and cozy as most writing circles are). Included as a bonus if you subscribe to Encanto newsletter+pilgrimage ($25/month). Register Encanto+Casi Cielo here. Register Casi Cielo Intensive Salon here.

ART CREDITS: Leonard Knight painted the hills at Salvation Mountain and it's now a "National Folk Art Shrine", photo via Life magazine; Kelso dunes in the Mojave photo by Cami Renfrow

live in the &

even lotus blossoms
bend a bit...
oh floating world!
-Issa, 1819

While listening to this archived Ken Bechtel radio show about Living from the Both/And (rather than Either/Or) last night (it's a treat I recommend) AND nibbling on a sliver of my favorite organic dark chocolate, Green and Blacks (with tea!), I noticed on the packaging their trademarked tagline. I stole it for the title of this post:

Live in the &.

Plum blossoms, delicate pink, have started to bloom here.

I'm re-reminded that the heroine of a narrative that's been weaving in my mind's eye since the '08 Beijing Olympics is named after the plum blossom. It's time to write, again.

behind me
laughter at my rags...
plum blossoms
-Issa, 1804

And, just to have company, I'm starting a Salon for folks that want to delve into present awareness, ordinary rapture AND write--check out the Casi Cielo Salon. An Intensive version of the Salon starts March 8th, that includes a private, intimate, sharing, gathering space for inspiration in action.

In both/anding fashion, during the Intensive Salon (March 8th-April 24th) public inspirational cues will be available for all similar to (but not same) as the 40 days of Everyday Inspiration in 2007.

Here's a little background on the Why's:

"The best time of my life (thus far...) was a period in 2006 where I kept a journal for forty days and wrote  in the present tense and of the present moment. It was subtitled "40 days of Ordinary Rapture."

I was 'stuck' in the further suburbs of San Jose, CA without a functioning car. Although I had a roof over my head, I was having trouble putting food on the table. I was whining to a local friend, "I am getting tired of tea and toast everyday."

She put me to a challenge. What if every time I ate a piece of bread to view it with fresh eyes and senses as if, "You have never tasted a morsel of bread before that moment."

So the journal became a way to record my daily ritual of tea and toast at dawn and tea and toast in the twilight. I was also "playing" with Jesus' intent of forty days of fasting in the desert, and this sentence: "Man does not eat by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God."

There are no adventures of ice-climbing across New Zealand or marrying a rock star in that journal.  Yet I saw magnolia trees in my neighborhood for the first time. Before I just drove by them on the way to something else without a second glance.

The scent of roses blooming was richer, and one day I understood their voice. I strolled to the local park and felt the glee of children at play. As I walked everything shimmered as if in an enchanted fairy tale; and yet, nothing changed externally.

Soon, I could afford more than Earl Gray with bergamot and sourdough. I enjoyed white peaches that dripped with sensuousness from the farmer's market. I fell in love.

There was none of my typical ennui. A subtle and sublime joy suffused my daily life, just as it was. I suppose one can call it mindfulness, but it was more like Wholeness."

seven years strong and still ticking... "If you're strong enough, there are no precedents." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

"If you're strong enough, there are no precedents." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Before I started this blog on February 6, 2004, I had thought about creating a blog for two solid years, ever since the O'Reilly P2P Conference. Personally, I knew a lot of technology bloggers--people far busier than I was that told me their secret is that they wanted to write what they wrote, share, and exchange it with others.

"When do you find time?" was my question. "You just do," they said, even folks that already did plenty of writing on deadline as journalists. I saw through my resistance and that "time" was my excuse to balk. In a nutshell, they were inspired, not motivated to blog.

I started a "technology and culture"-themed blog sometime in the early 2003. It didn't last very long. A combination of fear that people actually were reading it, and that I was spending my spring evenings after work in Milan typing behind a computer screen rather than enjoying the tangible interactive life on the cobbled streets with gianduia gelato strolling the square around the Duomo. (Or I might have been in Rome--either way I was consulting in Italy when I quit blogging the first time.)

I wanted to talk about Taking The Red Pill (a February 24, 2004 post), and other philosophical, existential, spiritual questions. My fear was that I'd be ostracized from the tribe.

Yes, this eventually happens(ed):"Spirituality?" my friend looks peaked. "I like what you write. But spiritual? That makes me think of...of Marin." (We're in Silicon Valley.)

Since a commenter asked a question on moais, I decided to go back to the original National Geographic story on longetivity where I first heard about the moai concept. The print article's not online, the video version of "The Secrets of Long Life" is (then, click on "Reason to Wake Up"). Okinawa, an island in Japan, is "home of the longest lived people on earth. The video zooms in on numerous people into their 100s leading healthy and active lifestyles--stretching, biking and offshore diving and fishing.

Moai, the National Geographic video continues: "the rough translation is that it's a group of friends who go through life together and help each other. And the energy and vitality they would get from that I think factored into the longevity equation as well."

The moai concept held a magical allure for a few years. Yet I've never witnessed it "in the field." And something seemed off.

An insight last evening helped coalesce why not. It was one of those evenings where everything swirled together into a collage (I was multitasking online, but then again I tend to bounce and surf and skim online so it's simpler multi-tasking than in real-life) that felt like puzzle pieces all falling into place.

One minute I'm watching, then rewinding the National Geographic video on Okinawan life and moai's, then next I'm downloading from a blog a free chapter of an e-book that just happens to be on The Alchemy of Relationship. I'm also bouncing back and forth reading a longer PDF (source forthcoming), and everything built upon each other in a smooth way.

First, in The Alchemy of Relationship (I've excerpted tiny part) Almine outlined the stages of relationship (and for my purposes here I'm thinking larger than groups of two or three) from dependence (describes my childhood and my family of origin) to co-dependence (quite a lot of cliques like this) to independence (common in USA--i.e. do you know your neighbor's name?) to interdependence: "These stages lead from uniformity to unity within diversity." 

The aha! was seeing that my the tech blogger community was a tribe/clique/echo chamber in stage 2, and many groups I've been part of in last couple of years are Stage 2 too (Portlandia "Dream of the 90s" kind of sums it up hilariously: "You're a little San Francisco right now."--thoroughly tribal).

Moai's as genuinely supportive as they seem are also a form of co-dependence. There's only so much you can veer from the "box" before you'd be outcast.

I saw I was veering backward to co-dependence (not necessarily in the Melody Beattie sense of that word), when I wanted to share and create with other people, rather than moving foward to interdependence from my stalwart independence. In the end, tribes have strict boundaries that tend to exclude, whereas interdependence is inclusive, whole, diverse, celebratory, and--the icing on the cake--exploratory: "Diversity produces more chances of exploring the unknown."  

"In the stage of unity within diversity [interdependence] the chances are maximized for individual growth to contribute to the growth of the group within a stable environment." - Almine

That was what I was trying for--interdependence--something rarely seen--being allowed individuality within a whole WHILE having the "stability" and "support" of a tribe. This interdependence I found best described in Scott Peck's The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, where a group moves from psuedocommunity to community. The crucial shift (if it happens, some don't make the transition) in the stories Peck shared of actual groups involved a willingness to accept other people as they are without fixing, converting, or "offering advice" (usually forms of fixing and converting). In all honesty, I've seen this with the miracle partnerships, and also in some longer-term (versus one-evening) writing workshops--but that's about it.

Anyhow, I was bouncing between a few different materials, and copied the below into a newsletter I'm working on.

"And if you're operating as yourself, you can always take advantage of the program. And you know how to find the right allies. You follow your [inner] Strategy and Authority. That’s how you get the right allies in your life." - source forthcoming in a future post

Simultaneously, I hear, "All we had was each other, and we made it," streaming from my Mom's TV in the other room. Billy Crystal's voice in some movie in background as I cut and pasted the above about "right allies." That instant, I wondered then about the "center for possibility" (a nickname as the name hasn't formulated itself yet).

The "center at the edge" or whatever has been the back-burner the past month as I wasn't sure it was actually a project that the Universe was insisting I do. (I am not interested in pushing against life and the world. I work from inspiration, not external motivation.)

I shared recently that I use writing for exchange, and feedback on the fertile verge, and to keep pushing edge of ourselves. By "exchange," I don't interpret this in terms of letters, or email or Tweets. It's much deeper, more encompassing.

So, next, I decide to use the I Ching (my result) to confirm whether the "center" project should be pursued or dropped. At this point I was finally unattached to the outcome, just simply wanting what's best for all. I drew Hexagram 58, with no changing lines.

The online I Ching I use (above) interprets 58's symbol as Joy.

Joy's nothing to sneeze at.

"When it comes back to teach you
or you come back to learn
how half alive you've been,
how your ignorance and arrogance
have kept you deprived --
when it comes back to you
or you yourself return,
joy is simple, unassuming.
Red tulips on their green stems.
Early spring vegetables, bright in the pan.
The primary colours of a child's painting,
the first lessons, all over again."  - Thomas Centolella

However, my verymost favorite online interpretations always come from LiSe Heyboer. Here, Hexagram 58 is a symbol for Exchange, and Expansion.

Ah! Now we're are getting somewhere...

The actual Chinese letter (from what Lise shares) appears to represent "interdependent lakes", such as "Rice paddies or Wadi's, the perfect place for meeting each other and exchanging." I think that's also an apt symbol for a community--each of us are our own lake and reservoir of well-being and sovereign unto others, yet completely interlocking as well with every body of water as one body.

Here's a peek at an average "six impossible things before breakfast" gathering at the "center at the edge of possibility and ?":

"A cat is dangling by the screen door daydreaming of darting outdoors. Wood floors are soothed by warm rugs and vibrant colorful plush pillows piled by people. A circle of folks that one would rarely see gathered together is gathered around lounging on the floor, or sitting languidly on a deep couch.

There is laughter and unbounded hunches colliding and mingling. Someone says that they once read that art is ideas brought into form. The circle is itself enclosed in a complete circle of glass and screened doors on a ridge overlooking the gentle bosom of undulating hills.

It hardly matters that it's the crack of dawn, and Joey the rooster heralds another day as slats of light softly fleck the night sky and tinge the mountain silhouette. Heralding the fresh golden age, day by day."

Thanks to everyone who's been along for any step of this seven year journey. This blog, remarkedly, has outlasted any other group endeavor I've undertaken--be it a job, business start-up, dwelling arrangement, or marriage!

This is just me expressing like a seven year old my birthday wish. And blowing the candles with you.

HOW TO FUND Interdependence Projects like ye olde center at the edge of possibility: The old adage: "The answer to how is yes." I don't know how this will unfold yet. Walking into the unknown one step at a time...

Here are two models that might click, and that might be useful to your or other community projects as well.

A few years ago, I was hanging out with a friend in Pacifica, and because I'm always the one with plenty of time (I think it's just that I stress less), he sent me to Starbucks to get some coffee while he wrapped up some business e-mails from his home office. While there, I noticed an article facing up on a table that caught the corner of my eye on my way out of door. This is only significant in that I don't read newspapers unless I spot them in passing, and I didn't read the San Francisco Chronicle (I lived actually 50-60 miles south of SF.)

I've kept the original newspaper through many moves, and here it is online: "A Means to a Home." It outlines a cooperative financing model for buying homes that don't involve a traditional bank: "A key distinction with Ameen's form of finance is that, unlike a traditional mortgage company, the cooperative shares risk with the homeowner. If a home's value increases, they both profit. But if the home loses value, they both take a loss."

I also like Elizabeth Gilbert's organic banking concept: "Take my money out of the bank and fold it, instead, into my community."

"In the past few years, a couple of locals have surfaced with bright ideas to help revive our economy—for instance, by opening a bakery, like my friend Patricia. Or a coffee shop, a Pilates studio, or a pair of funky gift shops, like my friends Maria, Sarah, Kate, and Meg. These entrepreneurial women were talented and passionate. The only thing they didn't have was capital..." - "The Power of Organic Banking", Oprah Magazine

So Gilbert stepped up, and offered them all loans herself. 

p.s. I have an entire category in "footnotes" blog where I collect excerpts about true community and interdependence. You can subscribe via RSS to the feed, "Community."

BONUS: This was in my inbox today via Brain Pickings. Hmmm,....Center for Possibility... Museum of Possiblity... and love this: "...inviting visitors to share their dreams and visions for the future of the space."

"We love public space, that priceless petri dish of human interaction. It’s the lifeblood of any city, and the reason we left LA for New York. Unfortunately, much of it remains un- or underutilized, with cities failing to engage people in interacting with and in public space.

To prevent this disconnect when inaugurating its Quartier des Spectacles, the city of Montréal came up with an exceptionally inspired solution: The Museum of Possibilities — a wonderful daylong pop-up installation inviting visitors to share their dreams and visions for the future of the space by jotting down their ideas on pieces of paper and attaching them to colorful balloons."

BONUS 2: Peer exchange rocks. Check out the diagram in Beth Kantor's announcement of a peer exchange Salon for nonprofits learning social media. (Great way to exchange!) The diagram shows--for those not clicking through--Retention Rate of Lecture (5%), Reading (10%), Audio-Visual (20%), Demonstration (30%), Discussion Group (50%), Practice by Doing (75%), Teach Others (90%)

ART CREDITS: Outstanding in the Field (pop-up outdoor restaurant gatherings held at farms by artist Jim Denevan) photo via Seattle Met;  stiill captured from video by National Geographic's David McLain of an Okinawan moai;  Amish girls Flickr photo by Las-Initially; Jim Denevan's artwork--when it's not a group outing; Hexagram 58 rice paddy via my favorite I Ching site; 1934 photo of three kids and a cake by Conde Nast via Foxtongue on Flickr