Archive for the ‘Positive Deviants’ Category
Emerge through emergency
Thursday, April 12th, 2012Know Thy Self. Be true to self. Live Integrity
Monday, March 19th, 2012
Know thy Self..inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and attributed to various well known Greek sages…..
But why so important to know thy Self?
How true are we to our selves? Seriously?
And what is the true nature of the “I”?
I used to think, before I became a mum, that babies came into the world as a blank canvas, and then we ‘imprinted’ on them their character. How wrong was I. Each child comes into the world so firmly stamped with their own BEINGNESS. Just as each cat or dog or bird has its own character. Our job as parents and teachers is not to alter the uniqueness, but to allow its fullest brilliance to shine. To hold a space for the fullest flourishing of the already present pattern integrity.
But there is the rub. Over the course of our life from infant to young adulthood, our integrity gets tampered with in so many ways.
Most of us have forgotten who we really are. The seed that was born in us is half formed, or buried, or squashed.
And then we get confused…am I this, or that?
Who am I? Why am I here? And what is my purpose?
Sometimes we don’t pause to ask these questions until we are well into the journey of our life…often this pause is instigated by a crisis…someone dies, we lose our job, get a divorce…and then we find a moment to ask how we got here…. why don’t my children know who I am…what is my purpose? And what the %$#&%$!! point?
We then spend then next period of our lives removing the rubbish, the learned behaviours, the acts, the masks, going on an inner archeological dig. “Who am I” is the driving force. We are searching for our unique pattern integrity.
The deepest nature of our soul is what we are after. This is the level of truth to which I speak. It will also be the aspect of self that will be challenged the most by our needs and desires of our more surface, egoic selves.
And this is where Integrity is found. It is our wholeness…us as Universe. Complete.
Authenticity is not some new age word easily used in self help classrooms.….it is big hard work…it takes the most rigorous self awareness plus mountains of courage…the courage to say yes to our soul, and no to our temptation.
And we will be tempted…again and again…and we will weaken..again and again. This is the human journey.
This is why we so adore and admire people who say yes to their soul and no to their lesser egoic desires and needs…the Nelson Mandella’s, Gandhi’s, Buckminster Fuller’s. Positive Deviants all. Because they remind us of what we are longing for….and what we care capable of. To live in our fullest expression of integrity.
The fullest, most honest expression of who you are. Against the odds…
Some questions to consider as you remember your always present but deeply buried integrity…please share in the comments..
Is knowing your Self important to you?
I know my life is about integrity…I love and curse my teacher Bucky in equal measure. His stand for integrity was total. I long at times to just stop…and break my own vows. And sometimes I do.
What are your inner truths? What do you believe in..or stand for…that you will and do pay a high price for?
And finally, how committed are you to knowing your true self…to doing the inner work, the self inquiry, the listening, the silence…the writing…to really know thy self?
The death of wisdom. Learning from experience is a faculty we fail to practice
Monday, January 30th, 2012
Bold statement. Usually not so true for positive deviants who have a tendency to suck the learning juices out of every experience.
Lets look at the facts. We no longer study history. Or those who do are kept in dusty corners of old Universities. How do I know this? There has been historical precedent to a collapsing economy, not just in the 1930’s but going back time and again from the beginning of time. There has been historical precedent for pretty much every version of war, going back to when man first sneezed. Even when we look at climate change, there is countless examples throughout history of humanity of the perils of treating nature and natural systems with disdain. Is any of the ‘expert’ voices out there referring to what history has taught us?
We do not have any eldership in our ‘modern’ day communities. Tell me how much wisdom has been passed down from your family elders in your life time? What have you learned from your grandparents, or even your parents? Where is the collective wisdom of our elders? Lost in a nursing home somewhere were we can’t ever find it. We think we are superior to our elders. That they know nothing because they didn’t have an iSomething, or connection to the internet. So we remove them from sight, and mind, failing to see the significant contribution they have to make. They know how to survive in hardship and depression, tools we may well need. What else can they teach us? What about how to grow old with dignity, how to make peace with death, how to read signs? (not the obvious ones) There is a beautiful movie, Bab’aziz, that has as its central story the gift of wisdom past from an old Sufi man to his granddaughter. What tragedy is the loss of this heritable wisdom in our culture.
We ignore wisdom of indigenous communities. We scoff in our arrogance, that they know nothing. But in their knowing nothing they survived and thrived for far longer than our little thrive moments which have been few and far between. How could anyone navigate across the vast Pacific Ocean in canoes without any instruments save for those supplied by nature? Stars, currents, wind, birds. Dumb luck, or some highly evolved navigation system that might offer us a few opportunities to learn from natural systems? What have they to teach us about paying attention to the instruments provided for freely by nature? Whole learning systems are literally dying as the elders die. Lost to us.
Our leaders of industry and politicians are far to wrapped up in the short term future to even lift a wisdom muscle that might involve considering the past. This is obvious.
But what about you? Do you take time to reflect, not just on your past, but on the past of your elders? History, ever given that a good look? Even simple reflection on the lessons you have learned from today, from your joys and pains, frustrations and humiliations? Do you use these as your school of daily wisdom?
As someone who occasionally delivers learning programs into organisations, I don’t need to see the studies on where real learning is gained. It always comes with experience. With getting our hands dirty, our hearts broken, our ego’s dented. Every day is an opportunity to learn. Even better if learning is facilitated through reflection, inquiry and some form of witnessing and reflecting back by another who holds the fullest expression of your truth as worth investing in. This is the work I mostly do that I love so. How valuable is this…better than a Harvard degree? Hell yeh. The school of the crucible of life.
Take a stand for your own wisdom. Cultivated over a lifetime, seeded by your ancestors, attended to daily. The world will thank you for it.
Tell me how you are cultivating your wisdom, or where you see communities learning from their elders in our ‘modern’ world.
SOPA, The Year of the Dragon, WWIII – Black Swans and no this is not what you think.
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
2012 will be the year of people. Regular people. Mothers, fathers, youth. Tax paying, hard working, making ends meet kind of people. People from wealthy countries, not so wealthy countries, black people, white people, gay and straight people. People will find their inner dragon.
It started loudly as the Arab Spring, and then it shifted to the USA and the Occupy movement. In Europe the fastest growing political group is the Pirate Party, started in Sweden, made up of mostly 18 to 30 year olds against online censorship. It will move at the speed of light, in totally unexpected ways. Because people are waking up to the power they always have held as a collective.
The politicians and power mongers are not reading the signs. Their hubris and arrogance is making them the blind. They forget that money does NOT buy everything. Never has, never will. The illusion is that money will buy votes, that money makes blind, mute, deaf slaves. But they have forgotten history. In their hubris and arrogance they have forgotten that people, the masses, us, do have a voice. We can say no. And when the workers of the system refuse to show up for work, the system breaks down. I am not speaking of unionism. And I am not a socialist. I am speaking of the power of people collectively protesting to no longer being slaves to a system that is being kept alive for the few. Of the travesty of greed and pride run rampant. Of the acceptance of evil as a normal day to day thing. Evil – like it being perfectly acceptable for some people to have all the gizzmo’s in the world made by hands of enslaved children. Or, evil like the rape and pillage of earth, making the local people’s environment toxic, and inhabitable.
Everyone knows that the system is broken. Broken. What people forget is the power they hold in their voice and action to stand up and speak.
I watched the great TED produced 13 minute video clip by Clay Shirky telling the truth about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). His final words where that even if SOPA was defeated, it would return.
The fight would not be over. Be prepared for the next round.
Now here is the truth.
If any version of SOPA clears the American legal system, we are looking at WWIII. Not the usual war with guns and military, but the turning of the rest of the Western world on the ‘mighty’ USA. And lets face it, the USA already has much of the non-Western world as enemies. I am not sure anything less than this type of global uprising of people will break the bubble of delusion that holds the USA in their own minds as this place that is an exception to the rest of the world. A place where they can get away with the very things they accuse other countries of. (Like electoral fraud, invading soverign nations covertly, rendition, war crimes…the list is long)
(To be clear, there are very wonderful, magnificent, brave people in the USA, people working their arses off to stop this kind of behaviour. I am speaking of the country as a whole… of the archetypal USA full blown in its shadow.)
When nations like Australia, New Zealand and countries in Europe, the usual allies of the USA, see their citizens arrested in their own country by the USA because of ‘their’ ‘copyright’ laws, then all the hell of Pandora’s box will be unleashed. When corporate USA thinks they can control the internet anywhere in the world, they better think again.
Like it or not, the internet belongs to no one country. And no one company, despite Googles efforts to change that. The internet is the defining invisible force of our next stage of humanities evolution. It is the boundless, freedom finding, liberating energetic network that transcends ownership. It has its shadow, as does all things. (Fraud, legitimate piracy, the ability to shred an innocent persons reputation in seconds, for example.) But for any country or company to attempt to ‘own it’ will create such wrath from the rest of the world.
There has been so much talk about 2012, about the Mayan calendar ending, about this time being the most important time in humanities history. Frankly I find this just a lot of distraction and noise, a place for people to focus their energy and make a shit load of money, continuing to encourage the type of fear that keeps people from thinking and seeking clearly.
History demonstrates that every single time in history has had moments of extreme crisis, where humanity reached a critical threshold. This is not the big one, it is simply another one. Can we stop the spin and get on with what needs to be done. We have too much work to do to spend any energy at all thinking this is the BIG time in humanity. All this does is continue to affirm our need to be ‘special’. This is a hollow egotistical need. It distracts us from our real purpose.
I suspect that what will knee-cap us will be the Black Swan. It will not be the usual suspects. Sure, the economy might fail. It has failed before and we survived. And god knows the financial system is in need of collapse in its current form. The EU might collapse and…people will survive. The Middle East might turn into a seething sess pool stirred on by the USA via Israel. Yep, this has been going on for the history of humanity. I am not glossing over the tragedy of all of these things that seem pretty certain to unfold.
Mother Nature will rise up and say enough, in her usual fashion, reducing humans to acknowledging that she has the kind of power that humbles us all. She is angry at being raped, pillaged, and treated with such flagrant disrespect. Her gizzards have been sucked dry, her skin scared and polluted, her oxygen poisoned. If she were one of our children we would be screaming foul to all four corners of the Universe.
But will anyone expect the world to turn on the USA? All of the world? I don’t think anyone sees that in the future. SOPA could do that. In an instant.
We are no longer working in linear time. The splitting of the atom changed all of that. We are moving at the speed of light, and at this speed institutions we thought impossible to fall can and will.
Interesting times, yes. We need wisdom (which won’t be found from our elected leaders), and is not something we have much of. We threw wisdom away when we made our elders elderly, and stopped learning from them. When we stopped being students of history, where the follies of man have been documented in one form of other for all of human time, and to which we have way too much arrogance to pay attention to.
The signs are all there. The cards have been played. Now it is up to us…how will we play our hand?
The perfect metaphor for this time is the lone man standing against the tank in Tiananmen Square. Each of us holds this potential, to stand up to. On this day, January 23rd 2012, the dawning of the year of the Chinese Water Dragon, we the people are called on to find our inner dragon. Lets hear the ROAR.
The Four Faces of Power
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Our journey in life is to learn to become ever more empowered, and to do this when the world offers us multiple temptations, seductions and distractions, or when we are betrayed, humiliated and shamed.
In my annual review (I will be publishing shortly) I have realised that my work is about supporting people and teams to manage their person power. How do we build a base of personal power that is rarely able to be diminished no matter what the circumstances? This is where my work with people really counts. It involves and includes integrity, clarity, truth, insight, foresight, advanced listening and choosing intelligence (yes there is an intelligence to make wise choices), and many other things. Like radical self honesty. You know, the raw, real, hard stuff.
Pretty much anyone I know wants it…the ability to stay in their own power when their personal brand of devil comes a courtin’. And we all have our personal brand of devil.
I read a great quote yesterday…about being the kind of woman (or man) that when my feet hits the floor in the morning the devil says..”Oh crap, she is UP!”
So, lets jump into the four faces of power.
Power over
This is the ego run rampant. Our desire to be better than, to have superiority, to keep others small so we can feed our need to be BIG. Its ugly, nasty and the world is full of this. More and bigger guns/weapons/smarts/houses/cars/toys/things…..This type of power comes from pride, greed, hunger, vengeance (I want to hurt you because you hurt me and I will do that by showing you how much better I am than you…)
It can also be systems run rampant. (Systems designed by ego’s run rampant) The power over us as a collective in our money and value system, for example. Or our health care system. Our political system…education system…they are pretty much all in there today..
Power over can be overt, or covert. When we really dive deep into our psyche’s we all have some degree of hunger for power over. For example…when did you feel superior to anyone? Specific example..These things don’t happen to me. They happen to other people, but not me. (Illness, accidents, natural disasters…) Oh really, and those other people are what…not as good as you???
I have a very high power over detector. Often why people pay me. They know they can’t get away with their BS.
There are some instances where power over is a positive thing when handled with skill and care. A teacher needs to have power over a class room. Not to be a tyrant, but to ensure a bunch of rowdy 6 year olds do not run rough shod over her and the other children. This kind of power over comes from both power in and power with.
Power with
This is the principle of synergy. 1 +1 = anything greater than 2. Or, when two or more people come together in the right environment, the sum of the parts is always much greater than what one person has to offer as a solo. In truth nothing ever happens in solo, so this is a principle that we would all be wise to embrace.
If your relationships have negative synergy, then you need to seriously consider its viability. (Negative synergy means that 1 + 1 = anything less than 2.)
I play in this field with teams and clients in relationship with intimate/business partners…keeping everyone honest, real. It is quite extraordinary when power with becomes evident.
Power from within
This is the juicy stuff. When you are deeply seated in your own power. Your sovereignty, integrity, authorship. It is not a permanent state, just an FYI. Why? Because we are designed to evolve and grow, and as we do, how we manage power also evolves. Plus things happen that we do not expect, and our centre is thrown off. This is the deal…the reason why we want to be in partnership with people who can whiff from across the Universe when your power base has been eroded and will kick you back to consciousness lickety split.
Power from within is all about congruence…when head and heart and being are in alignment. To get to THIS place requires a level of consciousness that is rare. Many people state they want this kind of personal power, but in truth, they don’t. They have too much invested in staying in their woundedness. Or they are not willing to do the kind of work it requires to move in this direction.
Power as
‘Power as’ is an external force that influences us. The power of an archetype or a myth for example. The archetype of the mother, the hero, the warrior has ‘power as’ an archetype.
We give people ‘power as’. The policeman, the banker, the politician. In our times, the celebrity has ‘power as’. Or specific people like the President, Gandhi. There is also the ‘power as’ of God’s, deities, or even superstitions. Black cats, ladders.
Movements or institutions may have ‘power as’. Banks used to have ‘power as’, but that is eroding. The collective mind has ‘power as’. Mother nature takes our breath away frequently in her ‘power as’…
Often what we have given “power as” is unconscious to us. Many of us are unaware of our deep superstitions. We are under the influence of ‘power as’ archetypes without knowing it. Ruled by the victim, the child, the saboteur..wondering how we found ourselves in this same spot yet again.
We can also develop our ‘power as’. There is a caveat. To be real in our intention to have ‘power as’ and not power over. George Cluney has power as. I don’t know him (open to an intro..of course), but I suspect that he uses his ‘power as’ to do good things in the world. He can and will open doors. Are they the right ones for the right reason?
The more congruent you are, the more empowered you are, the more likely you will have ‘power as’.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this article…on what your personal brand of devil is, how he shows up, and where you lose your power?
This article was inspired by an article written by Tom Atlee.
Working ‘with’ not ‘on’ your business. The Pattern Integrity of your business
Monday, December 19th, 2011
Part 3.
Anyone who has been on a team knows that add or subtract one person, and the dynamics of the team changes. Add one more child to a family, the dynamics change. Each team has its pattern integrity. Each relationship between two or more humans has its pattern integrity. Further, each relationship between human and other living things has its pattern integrity. By pattern integrity (see part 1 and 2 of this article) I mean a unique dynamic that is present and holds the integrity of that relationship. If the pattern integrity is not maintained, the relationship breaks down, or breaks up.
At the more complex level, an idea has a pattern integrity. When it is originally born as an idea or impulse, it has an integrity to it, like a seed has a DNA. If we do too much genetic, or in this case, memetic (memes are ideas) modification to the core DNA, we will end up with something very much out of integrity to the original idea/impulse.
This memetic modification happens more often than not. We get seduced by all variations of egoic distractions, like offers for money, fame, and the accouterments of ‘success’. Or by bright shiny objects of various forms. Before we know it, we wake up and our idea is nothing like what we held originally. To hold the pattern integrity of an idea, or a business, or a relationship requires focused effort and attention. Tragically, few people give relationships or ideas this kind of attention consistently.
A business has its own pattern integrity. (I hope you now realise that every dynamic has a pattern integrity…a tree, a spade, a blade of grass, an hour in the day)
Just as in part 2, we tuned into the unique pattern integrity that is you, we are now going to tune into the pattern integrity of your business, or your primary relationships.
In tuning in, it is also important to recognise that each pattern integrity has a beginning, and an end. To honour the pattern integrity of a relationship, we need also to honour that it may be at its natural end. This is dependent on the core DNA of that particular relationship. Endings do not mean failure. They mean endings of the pattern integrity. What is complete is complete. It is the incompletions that cause havoc and emotional/physical stress.
Lets consider an intimate personal relationship. You meet, and whether you like it or not (despite yourself) a dynamic field is already present. Just as two atoms at the quantum level create a field when in approximation of each other, two humans create a field. The integrity of the field is not something you can tamper with. It is a result of everything that has been present to this moment in your life, and everything that has been present in the life of the other. This is what you are tuning into when you tune into the pattern integrity of the relationship. The field can morph with time and changed circumstances, but the core DNA is very consistent. There is a purpose to the dynamic of the relationship that transcends human contamination. When that purpose is done, then so is the relationship. If we really honour the pattern integrity of the relationship, if we approach it with wisdom, then the pattern integrity will inform us as to the nature of the dynamic from moment to moment.
I have been working with a young client who created a project 18 months ago. It was an ambitious project, and from his point of view it failed. When we sit in consideration of this project, he now clearly sees that his original idea was then distorted through giving his power/authority away to people he felt knew better, and/or being seduced by shiny objects, to the point that his original idea looked nothing like its core seed. When he had to pull the pin on the project he suffered tremendous feelings of failure. The work we are now engaged in is to get ALL of the lessons from this experience. In my experience, when people get all of the lessons, they switch from being bitter and disappointed, to being in gratitude. Resentment, vengeance, disappointment, blame, anger..are all residual emotions from unreconciled lessons. The core impulse that this young client had is still resident. In time, and by affording this impulse its respect and honour, he may be able to maintain the pattern integrity of the impulse, and allow it to become expressed in the world in the form for which it was designed.
In my own life, as I use this “tuning in” tool, I listen to the pattern integrity of all of my relationships, with people and with my business. My business has its own dynamic, which is emergent, and therefore ever calling for refining and recrafting. To tune into its expression is a very powerful activity that deserves at least several hours of time a week. (What Michael Gerber from the E-myth talked about as working ‘on’ your business. Here I am suggesting a slight refinement…working ‘with’ your business. Working in partnership with the unique pattern integrity of your business.)
This time of year (late December) is a great time to pause and tune into the pattern integrities of all of our relationships, and with our business, our teams, our families.
To NOT tune to the things that most matter in our life is a tragedy. I urge you to take at least a morning, create a lovely space free from distractions, and tune in…be still, hold the pattern integrity of the dynamic you are tuning in to in front of you in your minds eye, and inquire.
what do you need from me right now to support your fullest expression?
what I am not seeing that you have been working tirelessly to have me see?
what is the truth of this dynamic (write it down, no editing)
what did I do well to support the pattern integrity in 2011?
what do I need to do better?
what would you like to see expressed in 2012?
is there any one thing that I need to do right now to support the fullest expression of the pattern integrity?
I will be taking the time to sit in these questions in reference to my two businesses over the Christmas New Year break. And will do the same with my primary relationships, including the relationship I have with my body. Care to join me?
Eventually we all pay
Monday, October 31st, 2011
Here in Australia we just had Qantas shut down for nearly 2 days, stranding thousands of people around the world. If you scratch below the surface of this action and zero in on the source of why the executive team decided to do this, it reveals the cost of a world in the middle of a transition to globalisation.
Complexity can never be looked at through a simple lens. As Bucky Fuller said, we have to start with the whole (synergy). Sure, if I were a passenger stranded in some place, with a limited time to get to a very important event, or to start my holiday that I have saved for for years, I would be seriously pissed off. And if I were a worker, imminently facing the loss of my job to cheaper labour overseas, I would be frightened.
But we simply cannot point a finger of blame while at the same time enjoying the fruits of the cost of this. Globalisation means jobs are off-shored. I get to buy my electronic gizzmo’s for a much cheaper price. Lovely. I get cheaper travel with airlines that have cheaper labour. Lovely. But at what price? And when do I ask that question? As I am paying for my next exciting techno gadget? Or when my whole livelihood is threatened? For as surely as my job may be under threat, somewhere in the world other families are celebrating their success in getting the very job we have lost. Just as blue green algae is celebrating a world with more CO2.
I am actually a fan of globalisation. It is a tide coming in that has its own momentum. To try to fight it is futile. Same as trying to fight the advent of the car. Sucks if you made your livelihood from horse buggies. (I do think we could transition to globalisation in a much smarter way than we are doing it now, by the way.)
The incident with Qantas is just another little signal in a sea of signals that change is moving faster and faster. The ability to adapt to change is ever increasingly becoming a skill of high value. Do you have this skill? Or are you the one resisting, being dragged kicking and screaming?
We cannot rape the earth of its millions-of-years-to-develop oil and gas, and not expect to pay. We cannot reach 7 billion people on the planet and not expect to pay. We cannot live lifestyles of obscene waste and not expect to pay. We cannot buy our clothes and toys cheaply from China and India and not expect to pay.
The question is, when will we pay? Or who will pay, and when? Qantas is a signal that its current workers are being asked to pay now. Today, or, in a few months or short years…they will still pay. No matter when, they will pay and they will not like it. Our dislike of things like a carbon tax is just about our reluctance to pay now. For somewhere down the track, soon, someone will pay. Will it be us, or our kids? Or both?
The tab will be tallied. This is unavoidable. Who pays and when, this we are bickering about. But make no mistake, it is simply a delusional delay.
Until we start to incorporate a different accounting methodology (integral accounting) that takes into consideration the all-in-cost of what we do, we are living in the delusion that we can get away with our many years of blindness, or sheer willful ignorance.
Part of globalisation at the spiritual level (now manifesting at the physical level) is the ever dawning realisation that we are all one. Truly I cannot do anything in my little isolated world and not deny the consequences. We no longer have that luxury. The people in the Maldives are paying for us now. As are the people in Tuvalu, and Bangladesh. The Amazon…the list is long….and painful. Animals…species, extinction…and yes, some of us privileged westerners are starting to pay. The confluence of the GFC and climate change, our health system, over population, all of these things are now showing up in a perfect storm that will effect all of us, even the 1%. In different ways, for sure. But there is no ‘there’ we can run away to. My air is your air. My sea is your sea. A virus is spread in the same air and water…
Getting fit and eating healthy food after years of indulgence hurts, in the short term. Few people enjoy that initial transition. But most people who stick with it, actually discover a vitality they had not even realised they had lost. To choose consciously to pay the all-in-price for everything we do will hurt, big time. Big changes in lifestyle will need to be made. We all know this, at some level, and are seeking to delay the arrival time for as long as we can. I propose that on the other side, when we are living with full consciousness of ‘we are all one’, then we will discover a vitality and humanity that we have long forgotten.
In the current movie, “In Time” there is a quote, repeated several times, that for a few to be immortal, many must die. Will, the character played by Justin Timberlake, has a response. “No one should be immortal if even one person has to die.” Idealistic, sure. But anything less reduces us to the lizards that we have evolved from.
Your thoughts?
Vocational arousal, dancing bubbles of joy
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
When you love your work, you spend your days in a heightened state of arousal. Pretty cool. What’s not to love about that?
The world is filled with people who have brought the system…”do as you are told, go to school, get the required education, get a good job, work for the machine.” Today we are seeing the youth saying… “Hell no. I start my life saddled with massive debt from an education that I was told I needed and now I can’t get a job?”
What is a job? And who would want one long term? A job has no vitality. It is a way to fill your day while you are planning what you really want to do. And often in the planning you become numb, totally swallowed by the machine. And you forget who you are. And what role you have to play that makes your eyes sparkle and your heart sing. So we have cities filled with zombies. The most aroused they get is through very ordinary sex, too much social media, or crap TV, magazines, gossip…
Bucky Fuller did the computer sums and discerned that it is probably cheaper to pay people to stay at home, to not commute, to not produce stuff that adds no real value but consumes earth energy. They then might have a chance to discover where they are vocationally aroused. And we would honour people for doing what was spontaneously arousable within them that adds value to the whole. We would honour those who love to do the caring roles that our current society regards as worthless…like taking care of children, the elderly, the physically challenged. We would not say that they are less value than the guy who gets paid silly money for trading bits on a screen. We would honour men who wanted to be stay home dads, and women who wanted to be stay home mums. We would celebrate the artists and artisans, music makers, poets, the masters and the apprentices. We would measure value by the joy in the eyes of the creative spirit, and the contribution they make to the joy and wellbeing of all.
How to navigate your way back to vocational arousal? Most of us have lost the map. And we have no idea where to begin looking. It is actually an inner journey. More like an archeological dig. Much debris needs to be removed, many things need to be unlearned. Exquisite care needs to be taken. Support of a fabulous guide is helpful. Time needs to be surrendered. Radical truth needs to be confronted and lived in. Views need to be expanded, for most of us are seeing through the lens we have been taught is the only lens. Whole worlds become visible.
Vocational arousal is life. It is the twinkle. The dance and the music.
This, or nothing…
Ah joy
Delicious dancing bubbles of joy
There is no ending
and
no beginning….
Only an eternity
of
light
With deep homage to Barbara Marx Hubbard for coining the term, vocational arousal.
Running trails, high frequency tuneable sets, a body singing
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
How to explain to non runners the feeling of running when you hit the high note? A natural high, the body, nature, beauty, freedom, and low level flying.
This passed weekend I participated, for the second year in a row, in The Lamington Classic. This event, now 42 years old, is one of the oldest, if not the oldest trail runs in Australia.
Starting in the beautiful Green Mountains of South East Queensland, O’Reillys resort, day one is a half marathon across very technical (as in tree roots, rocks, mud, switchbacks, undergrowth, overhanging vines) trail, the first part of the Great Walk (a 50 km walk from O’Reillys to Springbrook), to arrive at Binna Burra on the Beechmont Ridge. Day 2, is the return run, this time slightly complicated by more uphills, and some already tired, sore legs. And the occasional hang over from too much cheer post race Saturday.
For 17 years I have been a dedicated runner. Rare are the days that I struggle to get out of bed to run. And in summer in Queensland, with the birds awake before 4 am, and full light by 4.30, getting out of bed to the dawning day is the best way to celebrate life.
The most amazing thing about running, as about most sports, is that you are constantly learning. While I certainly qualify for mastery in running at many levels, its beauty is that it can humble you in an instant. Reduce you to a shadow of your usual confident running self. In a heart beat. It can also surprise the heck out of you, and out of nowhere comes the place where you breath heaven.
Few people who do not run understand the reasons why we runners get so much joy from the experience. Pounding the pavement…day in and out. Year in and out. For everyone the reason why is different, but the themes are close.
Multiple reasons for me…the joy of movement, the opportunity to stay fit and in shape, the ability to eat chocolate cake without guilt, the camaraderie from running with others, the constant and ever increasing atunement to the body, to its conversation with you, the ability to see the world and run; that my body feels like singing when we run together (my body and I, when we really run in partnership), stress and anger release, time in nature, outdoors…all of these reasons and more.
I was explaining to a client that the precessional effects I have gained from running have far exceeded the cost of my commitment. Specifically, I get to tune into my body at a high frequency every day. To be clear, not all runners do this. Many don’t. They are the ones that get injured, fall apart, push too hard, break down. The addiction they have to running exceeds their common sense. Or, to be blunt, they simply don’t listen to their body, because it is speaking to them, as it is to all of us, every minute of every hour of every day.
Any masterful athlete knows that their body is an exquisite instrument, irreplicable… to be honoured, respected and above all, listened to. Our bodies speak constantly. But do we listen? And if so, do we act? Once again we find the battle-field of the ego and the voice of wisdom and truth. Most pay homage to the ego. Humility comes when we honour the wisdom of our bodies truth.
This, as well as our energetic system…informing us constantly…it really is quite amazing. The wisdom that resides in our cells, in our atoms, in our energy field. So strange that we even doubt it! Like a high definition tunable radio set, we can pick up signals of ever finer frequency. The older amongst us learn how to do this, as an art, because we had our systems numbed out when we were children, or were born without the skills. Many children today however, are born with all of their channels wide open. And simply no resources on how to block, protect, discern, and manage the signals. And rarely a parent or health care professional who would even consider that we have gone through a physical and energetic metamorphous that has increased our signal receptor ability to off-the-charts. Our children’s systems cannot cope, and they often get drugged, numbed or locked down. Autism, depression…on the rise…no mistaking the change in the humans ability to receive signals at ever higher frequencies.
As a runner, I have learned, am still learning, to tune in at a level most people don’t. This not only helps me stay fit, it allows me to tune into emotional energies. The field, whether it be Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenetic field, or the akashic field, or the quantum field. Same field. Acute attention required. The signals are all there, all the time, just like radio signals are always present…they just need the tunable set.
Come Saturday, Day 1 of the Lamington Classic. Relaxed, running with two girl friends, plan to run together. I am by far the most experienced trail runner. I lead. First 7 kms is gradual uphill, so just a steady grind. Then it gets very technical, and downhill. My body has not been feeling sparky the last few weeks when I have run. Like that box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get…so best just to show up and have a go. Not today. I am flying down those trails. I am in love with love, and trails and running and mud, and being deep in a jungle. For a little while I wait for the girls to catch up. But at some point I just go for it. It is too much fun, there is too much rhythm going on. I feel as free as a bird, and happy as a pig in mud. My physical and energetic body showed up today. Yeh baby! And I am in my element. Downhills, trails, technical. Requiring 100% pure focused attention. A single lapse and you are gone. No time to see the view, the trees, or anything but the path in front. This is where it becomes you, your body, your breath, your foot strike, and nothing else…nothing, not a thought, not a thing…no room. I am not good at sitting meditation, but I sure can run. Woohooo…this is life…this is it..right there…hurtling down hills of mud and rocks in the deep jungle.
At some point with about 5 kms to go I get a bit wobbly…low blood sugar…should have had some fuel on board. Have to take it extra carefully. It is the brain that falters before the body, blood sugar to the brain and lapses in concentration. By the time low blood sugar hits the body it is well advanced.
Last few kms and I trip and mildly sprain my ankle. My formula for this, learned over years of running, is to keep running. Have to slow up a bit, but definitely don’t stop. Years of doing this and I never suffer even mild swelling afterwards, when I finally stop. How remarkable is the body?
Home…wonderful feeling…crossing the line…then turn around and go back to meet the girls as they come in.
The afternoon spent with way too much merriment, and then the sleep of someone who has run hard. The kind of sleep people would pay good money for. The sleep of fresh air, outdoors and hard physical exercise.
The next day, just Fiona and I, as Donna went home late in the day of day 1. We grind the hills, pretty much all up hill until the last 7 kms. Then open it up. Yiiipppyyy. Home straight, downhill, the joy of low level flying through the forest. Full focus required, as body is well and truly tired by now. Muscles sore, energy system starting to lag..
Ah the joy. Pushing just a little into the red zone. Not too much. But enough to know you have done a great job.
Cross the line…and we are done.
A hot shower, followed by scones and jam and cream, and a session feeding the magnificent Rosella’s, before we hit the road for home. Birds on my head, my shoulder, my arms, loving their beauty, and that I can be privileged to be so close to such magnificent creatures.
Every ingredient to make a wonderful weekend. Good friends, great running, beautiful country, lots of laughs, excellent sleep, wildlife, mud, nature, beauty, and the joy of downhill trail running.
Truth at the Speed of Light
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
“You can’t handle the truth” yelled Col.Jessup forcefully to Lt. Kaffee in the famous court room scene from the great movie, “A Few Good Men.”
Col. Jessup was right. Almost all of us cannot handle the truth. Not the real truth. The whole truth. And so we carefully craft our lives to avoid facing it.
We drug ourselves, over eat, stay extra busy, sleep too much or too little. Lurch from one addiction to another. Because underneath is a truth that we are desperately trying to ignore. Yet, paradoxically, in this truth is our ultimate emancipation. Our deepest integrity.
Truths like….my life is a lie. My relationship is hollow. Our leaders lie, and we say that is OK. Our governments are corrupt and I am doing nothing about it. My child is taking drugs, my partner is having an affair. I have spent my life working at a heartless job because I sold my soul a long time ago out of fear. I have a house full of stuff I don’t really want, or rarely use. I am so afraid to take the step I most want to take because I might fail. Or, even deeper. I am a liar. I am a cheat. I betray myself. I betray.
We are at the stage of human evolution where everything is speeding up. Like it or not. We have transited from the age of matter to the age of energy. The solar age. The age of light.
Our children have developed the capacity to tune into signals and frequencies that we are unable to access. Their receptors are hyper sensitive. They have all the AD’s and other autism’s that seem to be spreading like wildfire. We have no historical way of supporting them in this. So we resort to drugging them into somnolence. We do not have the language or the tools to deal with the new wiring of the new human. We have no pathways to navigate. There are no leaders who know how to run businesses and governments in this solar age. And besides they are so buried in a system of lies and complicity that there is no distinction between the true and the beautiful. North is lost to them.
We are trying to apply the old pathways to new roads. And what a mess that creates.
If we really had the courage we would be in a constant dialogue with truth. Truth at the speed of light. Available to us 24/7. Tuning into the highest frequency of truth. Silent long enough to listen and hear. Brave enough to act. Wise enough to listen to the truths of others as ours emerges and so build a coherent whole.
There is no plan to this level of truth. It emerges. Whole and intact, in the moment.
But can we handle it? Take a deep breath…your life is calling. Life is calling all of us. Can you hear it?
