Crossroads Dispatches

I only do what I feel like doing - Saul Williams

"Have wings that feared ever touched the sun?
I was born when all I once feared--I could love." - Rabia

Last week, I went to see Saul Williams live in San Francisco (hat tip to Kwan Booth, thanks) on his spoken word tour of the new book, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape. 

Although I've been to museums and other artistic and creative venues and shows lately after a long hiatus, I found his presence to be most illuminating for me personally. This is what I took in:

Saul Williams inspires other poets and musicians to create--and he does this through inspiration. Sure, there's always the worshipful fans, yet for the most part he seems to make you really want to make, rather than just sit in awe spellbound and mute over his genius.

He invited the audience to break the 'fouth wall' (and he used that specific phrase as in let's "drop the fourth wall" and "dialogue"). The fourth wall is that conceptual yet strict adherence to separating participants into passive audience or active actor. This is what I've been intrigued with for ages: participatory art. I write more about Saul's invitation to call-and-response or to a jam session in a new blog, The Stream is the Medium.

The last thing I learned was he means it when he says, "I only do what I feel like doing." (Just for context, the tone was gracious and it was the last sentence in response to an audience members' request that he say a curse word, although I think he said a variation of that theme when someone else asked for specific poem to be read.) That open secret is the key to his success. Saul Williams doesn't apologize for being true to expression.

To my detriment, I often attempt to read (or prejudge) others' expectations, judgments, opinions and unspoken 'rules.' So I do not do what I honestly feel like doing. Lately, I've asked myself when evaluating an opportunity, "If I take money out the equation, would I still do this?" I used to think I wasn't compromising enough. Now I realize in making the leap from mainstream technologist and marketer to an artist, I've consistently compromised vision and inspiration to the point its power is diluted. Following inspiration isn't sissy stuff and demands staying true to it despite core conditioning to abandon anything that doesn't fit the static quo and the ol' fight-or-flight survival instinct. 

 

"Culture is likely to break out in a society not when its poietai begin to voice a line contrary to that of society, but when they begin to ignore all lines whatsoever and concern themselves with bringing the audience back into play -- not competitive play, but play that affirms itself as play." - Infinite and Finite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, by James Carse

And, since I've not been blogging that consistently, I've a backlog of annoucements to share (they're all invitations to jam) and want to get these out since they could involve you, if you'd like to participate and engage:

1. I'm in Oakland, CA right now. Perhaps for a few weeks, perhaps longer. How long I stay is predicated on if there are projects to jam on with other playmates, collaborators and muses. Are you in the Bay Area? Are you interested in engagement, play, street theater, possibility spaces, urban games, storytelling the future, participatory art, incubating dreams? Drop me a note. I'll go anywhere where I can make a real contribution.

2. I'm currently engaged in an awesome project, EdZedOmega.org--a participatory, improvisational online documentary where six teens drop out of high school this fall semester and go their own way in a self-directed learning. They're crowdsourcing OUR (i.e. as in us, you, me, you!) visions and stories around education and how to improve it. (Check out this WIRED article on the behind-the-scenes to Ed Zed Omega.) If there's a downside (for me) it's that nearly everyone on the team is in Minneapolis and I'm in Oakland (and I've really yearning for face-to-face collaboration of late).

3. I've been kicking around a transactive narrative + real-world experience + urban theater (in select cities) juxtaposing the year 2020 with the multicultural, cross-pollinating Golden Age of Al-Andalus (medieval Spain) to spur people’s own dream ventures. In conversation with a partner that's into this idea too in New York. This is happenening and soon; may mean anything from moving to NY to visiting Andalucia this winter as a group pilgrimage (that's YOU I'm speaking about group). 

4. "I was once a sleeping ocean and in a dream became jealous of a pond." Or, "So amazing this choir of socks, shoes, shirt, skirt, undergarments, earth, sky, suns, and moons. No wonder I too, now, sing all day." Or, "Have wings that feared ever touched the sun? I was born when all I once feared--I could love." I've been very inspired by Sufi poetry lately (goes with #3) and am leaning towards visiting New Orleans for a spell and conjuring a street improv and urban game of sorts (during New Orleans Fringe Festival perhaps?) that may weave in Rabia--the 8th century female mystic and poet born in Basra, Iraq that was such an influence on Rumi--as a central character. Do you live in New Orleans? Intrigued? Make this a magical mystery tour where we live from a poetic perspective? (Timing: Halloween to mid-November 2012.)

5. I'm facilitating the exchange in experiential, online workshop on using the Web as an artistic medium in its own right. (The Internet is often delegated to being explanatory, promotional or distributive for other creative media.) It starts October 8th and runs seven weeks. Afterwards, assuming there was enough give-and-take feedback to have complete course materials--I'll package it up as a Creative Commons-licensed course that any student anywhere in the world with Internet access can use to teach themselves. (Limited to small group; minimum ten students to ensure generative feedback.)

6. Two new blogs: accompaniment blog for Crossroads Dispatches on Tumblr (for short and sweet inspiration and imagination posts) and The Stream is the Medium.

That's not even the half of it, yet enough of a seed to jump in and ask, participate, sip, write, sketch, dialogue, share.... Yep, first and last of all, the art of living.

 

"First of all, the art of living; then as my ideal profession, poetry and philosophy, and as my real profession, plastic arts; in the last resort, for lack of income, illustrations."

—Paul Klee, jotting in his journal his dreams and aspirations

 

Art credits: My favorite visual interactive artist's latest: The Weather Project now at the Tate Modern, by Olafur Eliasson, although Olafur himself calls the exhibit The Little Sun; PaPaYa art and gifts' credo.

This is a world liberated from adult judgments and expectations, and campers flourish in it

I've been carrying around a brochure for Steve & Kate's summer camps for a few weeks now in my purse. I'm not in their target audience, yet it spoke to me loud and clear:

"At Steve & Kate's, campers step into a world packed with possibilities: for experiencing new sensations, for expressing themselves, for exploring their unique passions and potential. The results are unexpected, and they're unexpectedly rich.

One camper dives deep into digital filmmaking. Another discovers a passion for dance. Or chess. A camper becomes engrossed in making the ultimate spaghetti sauce. Or developing Leo Messi-like touch on the soccer pitch. These discoveries are all the more exhilarating because campers make them for themselves.

This is a world liberated from adult judgments and expectations, and campers flourish in it."

Even more enchanting: "Our camp conforms to kids, not the other way around."

“Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,” wrote Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth. Archimedes’ “Eureka” in the bath, Newton’s apple, Jekyll & Hyde and the benzene ring: history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments and dreams. It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking.

“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.” This may sound like the pronouncement of some bong-smoking anarchist, but it was actually Arthur C. Clarke, who found time between scuba diving and pinball games to write “Childhood’s End” and think up communications satellites. - "The Busy Trap," by Tim Kreider, New York Times, June 30, 2012

I would love to start a 'camp' (ideally, both virtual and physical), although I've been wavering on the precise spelling out of this all-ages camp (more accurately ages 13 to 185) geared to the child-like wonder and inspiration in each of us.

One of the most touching details in Vermeer's oeuvre is that of the two children absorbed in their play in the Little Street. Although they occupy a small portion of the painting, the magical atmosphere that pervades the work would be deprived of much of its intimate warmth without their presence. As is befitting of Vermeer's enigmatic nature, neither the children's faces nor their play is revealed. - an overview of The Little Street by Vemeer

And I need to reveal my own voice before I go forth to harmonize with others. (I'd already recovered my voice circa 2006, in one sense, I just wasn't belting it out in public. In other nomenclature, it's often termed hiding your light under a bushel.) Lately I have shielded myself from writing, sharing, interacting, speaking publically because I don't conform, and agreement seems like an unquestionable virtue in this culture. But it's not among my virtues.

My highest ideal is to interact with a diversity of people with mutual respect, without any of us needing to convert anyone else away from who they are or judge another's choices. I don't claim this an ideal for the entire world, as that feels imposing. It's my own desire within my play-sphere of humans and other beings.

To that end, I started to jot physical camp ideas here (there's a real-live-tangible-awesome-face-to-face space available for lease in Santa Clara/San Jose right now).

And, I started to write out things I'm afraid to tell other people in a long list in order to get over myself and emancipate my voice. Here's a few things that relate to multiplicity and voice in that list. (The rest of list won't be blogged, rather posted as a FAQ or within the About page):

I wish for multiplicity. Don't be like me, please! No mimicry, no conformity. To that end, I have been quite inspired lately by learning more of my ancestral heritage, and researching the Golden Age of Al-Andalus in medieval Spain. It was quite possible a very vibrant and fertile time period of multiplicity where many types of people of different worldviews crossed paths and co-existed. Ancient Greek texts were translated to Hebrew and Arabic and Latin, and delicately doted over in universities and libraries. Poetry and singing flourished alongside with pomegranate fruit and olive oil trade. Not my highest ideal, but nonetheless a shining example during what is commonly referred to as The Dark Ages.

I don't know. My standard answer when people ask me about the future, especially "my" future. It tends to infuriate people. At that point, I might make up an answer but it's only to soothe them, not because I actually know. 

I have friends and acquaintances from all nationalities. Some are transients (no I.D. like Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild), Republicans, anarchists, Libertarians, theists, atheists, academics, circus performers, nomads, homebodies, vegans, hunters, crafters, bicycle riders, SUV drivers, saunterers, pilgrims, hitchhikers, train-hoppers, children, elders, shamans, Catholic priests, real estate brokers, dancers, hat-makers, scientists, tantrikas, athletes, artists, monks, hostel owners, strip-tease dancers, drug dealers, homeschoolers, educators, poets, startup CEOs, millionaire venture capitalists, homeless veterans, policemen. I usually don't mention this because not all these people would necessarily want to meet the so-called 'other', but that doesn't preclude me from finding value in them for myself. Apologies if my giving credence to another offends you or this indicates that I am now not worthy of belonging to a tribe. I don't understand all this Other'ing and category labels as exclusionary devices, yet I understand that it happens.

ART CREDITS: The Obliteration Room, envisioned by Yayoi Kusama was a participartory installation at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. It is aptly summarized by, "This is what happens when you give thousands of stickers to thousands of kids."

First photo and fourth photo by GoMA photographer Mark Sherwood; photos two and three of The Obliteration Room is from This is Colossal blog; last photo of The Obliteration Room by Daniela Sunde-Brown.

delving into spring, or does a bamboo ask Is this too exuberant?

At least where I live, the white and mauve blossoms are peeping through the buds. Feathery fern unfurls on the mesquite trees around the sidewalks sharing the Mojave desert. Delicate orange globules grace the gritty branches of globemallow.

In Chinese philosophy, Bamboo hints at the sensation of the bounding energy of Spring.

Leaping. Springing. Generative, generous, circulating.

I jot: treat myself as kindly as a newly planted seed.

Does bamboo ask: Oh, this is too exuberant? I'm running away with juiciness and bursts of myself, greening and preening... Life isn't self-conscious, It simply blooms. 

i imagine that yes is the only living thing. - e. e. cummings

I also jot what it feels for me, through me: a feathery tender type of power (blithe, light-hearted, skipping stones and ripples, barefoot meadow twirling, fireflies, laughter, soaring, whimsy, soaring, en-light-ness, cloud macaroons)... power nonetheless.

The Abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen called this vitality, this life-force, viriditas, or greenness: "In her works it has been translated in various ways, such as freshness, vitality, fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness, verdure, or growth. (Wikipedia)"

I happened to pick up a Food And Wine magazine at my convivial neighborhood coffee shop Sambalatte the other day for no particular reason. Flipped to the article on two chefs who got together for an entire weekend in one's home kitchen to improvise and delve and "explore the way inspiration turns raw ingredients into a finished dish." They prowled the fields of a farm in the Marin County hills, the stalls at the Ferry Plaza farmer's market, and unkempt urban park for wood sorrell and foraged berries for their raw materials. Then, they went off to play. (They called it cooking, but I knew better.)

The entire article reeked of Spring, even though its printed spine claimed January. Even if you are not a chef, it was a little gem of an article about the creative process, appreciating what's at hand and Nature as inspiration. Here are just two snippets from "An Intimate Look at the Creative Life of Chefs":

He [Rene Redzepi] opened his Copenhagen restaurant Noma at the age of 26 in 2003, a time when few people took Nordic cuisine seriously. Disavowing black pepper, olive oil and other non-local staples, Redzepi began looking more closely at what grew around him. His focus turned into a sort of radical naturalism that led him to discover, categorize and develop a cuisine around the edibles he found in the wilderness—new varieties of horseradish or seaweed, for instance, or a beach grass with a flavor identical to cilantro. One of the signature dishes at Noma is white asparagus cooked with pine branches plucked from trees that grow alongside the asparagus field; it’s landscape as recipe, and the results are improbably compelling.

And:

[Daniel] Patterson topped his egg with a sauce of fresh chèvre and water, adding a garnish of rosemary flowers he’d gathered from the roadside while walking his dog earlier that morning. Redzepi finished his with a sauce of aged goat cheese and nasturtium blossoms; he’d spotted the wildflowers in Patterson’s backyard while drinking coffee on the porch.

Yep:

The experience got the two chefs talking about how they develop dishes at their restaurants. “It’s weird,” said Redzepi. “Because you work toward some type of perfection, if it exists. And then when you reach something that you’re happy with—you can spend four years reaching that point—then it’s over. The whole thing is process.”

Patterson agreed: Once he gets a dish just right, its days on his menu are numbered.

To impress the direction I'm writing towards and delving for March/April, I present Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" via PaPaYa art/cards' blog (their stuff is so totally bouyant springy):

1. Allow events to change you. 
   You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
   
   
2. Forget about good. 
   Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.
   
   
3. Process is more important than outcome. 
   When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
   
   
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). 
   Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
   
   
5. Go deep. 
   The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
   
   
6. Capture accidents. 
   The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
   
   
7. Study. 
   A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
   
   
8. Drift. 
   Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
   
   
9. Begin anywhere. 
   John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
   
   
10. Everyone is a leader. 
    Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
    
    
11. Harvest ideas. 
    Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
    
    
12. Keep moving. 
    The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
    
    
13. Slow down. 
    Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
    
    
14. Don’t be cool. 
    Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
    
    
15. Ask stupid questions. 
    Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
    
    
16. Collaborate. 
    The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
    
    
17. ____________________. 
    Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
    
    
18. Stay up late. 
    Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.
    
    
19. Work the metaphor. 
    Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
    
    
20. Be careful to take risks. 
    Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
    
    
21. Repeat yourself. 
    If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
    
    
22. Make your own tools. 
    Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
    
    
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. 
    You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
    
    
24. Avoid software. 
    The problem with software is that everyone has it.
    
    
25. Don’t clean your desk. 
    You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
    
    
26. Don’t enter awards competitions. 
    Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
    
    
27. Read only left-hand pages. 
    Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
    
    
28. Make new words. 
    Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
    
    
29. Think with your mind. 
    Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
    
    
30. Organization = Liberty. 
    Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’
    
    
31. Don’t borrow money. 
    Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
    
    
32. Listen carefully. 
    Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
    
    
33. Take field trips. 
    The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
    
    
34. Make mistakes faster. 
    This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
    
    
35. Imitate. 
    Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
    
    
36. Scat. 
    When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.
    
    
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
    
    
38. Explore the other edge. 
    Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
    
    
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. 
    Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
    
    
40. Avoid fields. 
    Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
    
    
41. Laugh. 
    People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
    
    
42. Remember. 
    Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
    
    
43. Power to the people. 
    Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.

Bonus: Join me (hey, takes at least two to tango) on this exploration of viriditas. For those that want to delve more, I'm writing an email newsletter this spring that goes into more depth. It's also an experiment in generosity and circulation, so no strings attached. Sign up here.

I'm loving (and scheming up) live installations, urban games, interactive and outdoors art. This inspires:

Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Don’t, and You Won’t Stop by Mike and Doug Starn "was constructed throughout the spring, summer and fall by the artists and their team of rock climbers. Set against Central Park and its urban backdrop, Big Bambú suggested the complexity and energy of an ever-changing living organism.

Big Bambú encompassed a vast network of 7,000 interconnected 30- and 40-foot-long fresh-cut bamboo poles, lashed together with 70 miles of nylon rope. An internal footpath artery system grew along with the structure, facilitating its progress. The artists and museum made the artery systems open to the public, allowing visitors to fully experience the living sculpture and thrill of being aloft within this artwork (100 feet above Central Park)." - 20X200 (their description, and they also offer photographic prints by the brothers of their Big Bambu installation)

Art Credits: First photo of Big Bambú via Luxist.com; second photo of land artist Andy Goldsworthy's Before the Mirror (of woven bamboo) via University of Michigan Museum of Art; 3rd photo Big Bambú (recreated for the Venice Biennale); last, Bamboo Sphere in La Bambouseraie d’Anduze photo by Sebastien Abric via www.fotopassion.fr

There are good ideas, and then there are good ideas that make it easier to have other good ideas - Steven Johnson

"There are good ideas, and then there are good ideas that make it easier to have other good ideas." - Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

I believe that sentence summarizes the book Where Good Ideas Come From, and also where I'm pouring my energy into. I can make out a Renaissance (or Golden Age) on the horizon, and I believe it'll thrive most lushly in generative ecosystems.

The word (and sensation of) symbiosis keeps cropping up.

"What makes the reef so inventive is not the struggle between the organisms but the way they have learned to collaborate--the coral and the zooxanthellae and the parrotfish borrowing and reinventing each other's work. This is the ultimate explanation of Darwin's Paradox: the reef has unlocked so many doors of the adjacent possible because of the way it shares." - Where Good Ideas Come From

One of the interrelated things I'm going to be doing is getting out and about to meet and work and share with people face to face.

Sort of the 'stranger comes to town' narrative. May include mobile cross-fertilization Salons, field trips, smell walks, walkshops, cowalking (rather than coworking indoors in one spot), and other experiential explorations.

First stop is New Orleans if you'd like to join me any time in second half of March. Possibilities in Las Vegas, Vermont (not sure where yet), Miami, Indianapolis, Moab,  Portland(I'll be there for Open Engagement Conference on art and social practice in May), soon or any city you suggest.

I think every place offers its own magic and signature. My initial inclination (fleshing out) is to incite experiments and explorations that spur spontaneity and inspiration that play out within any city space (including solo); then, add modules that are culture and city-specific. All guided by this observation of Marcel Proust: "The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

While I was tossing this idea about, I read that Cuban-American poet Virgil Suarez takes his students and takes them to visit a place where they are a "fish out of water."

". . . the objective is to travel to a place, not too far, that will make an emotional impact on you, the writer [any Author of Anything].

I think some of the best work I've produced comes from having explored such never-been-there territory. I feel this way about going to hospitals, attorneys' offices, mechanics, and certainly a morgue or cemetery." - Virgil Suarez, Now Write

Bonus:

"A while ago,  I rode through the desert with a man who had books on alchemy. But I wasn't able to learn anything from them."

"There is only one way to learn," the alchemist answered. "It's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey. You need to learn only one thing more."

The boy wanted to know what that was, but the alchemist was searching the horizon, looking for the falcon.

"Why are you called the alchemist?"

"Because that's what I am."

"And what went wrong when other alchemists tried to make gold and were unable to do so?"

"They were looking only for gold," his companion answered. "They were seeking the treasure of their Personal Legend, without wanting actually to live out the Personal Legend." - The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

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.

------------------------------------------

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.

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

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.

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.

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