Walking through a friend’s rose garden the other day … this one opened to greet my lens:
In my in-box this morning, a quote from my friend Liz:
"There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility."
~ from Thomas Merton‘s poem, Hagia Sophia.
Last week about this time I emerged from a four-day Dreaming ceremony in the Santa Cruz mountains I have been doing every year with FireHawk and Pele of Resonance.
This time has become very important to me, as a way to re-calibrate myself with the natural rhythm of nature and the seasons and give myself a chance to re-align with my own internal pace. Entering this dance with time gives me a rare opportunity to slow down and reflect, to remember who I am beneath the busi-ness of my everyday life.
It is always suggested that we wait a while before sharing our
experiences, to let them sink in… so I’ve held back on publishing
this excerpt from my journal, written during the Dreaming, until now.
"This year’s dreaming finds me exploring something very precious and very subtle,
something that has frankly eluded me up until now; the nature of the
undulating line between being present and able to respond to what is being called forth in each moment, and being responsible for a pre-existing ‘list’ of things
I ‘should’ be doing.
This comes up for me so strongly because above all I’ve wanted to experience a sense of effortlessness and not
being "pushed" in any particular way during this ceremonial time. Completely unstructured time is a rare occurrence in my life and even though this time is not – strictly speaking – unstructured, its structure is fairly unusual in its flexibility. Our guides are exquisitely skillful in creating a container that can adapt and hold what is needed for each of us as individuals as well as for the whole. There is no doubt we are dreaming as a circle; for and with each other and all of humanity, as well as for ourselves.
Through my own internal work I have learned what it is to be immersed in the busy-ness of my life with care and attention – making mental lists
to guide my activities capably and effectively; I also know what it is
to enter an emptiness that does not concern itself with the sphere of
"doing" at all. What I am learning in this season of dreaming is about
holding both at the same time: dancing in a delicate balance of emergence and
self-responsibility. Listening to what is being asked of me without being bound by it; making conscious choices to listen for what is really mine to do and step forward to meet it with joy and freedom.
This is an ongoing exploration, and it is wonderful to have this space to stretch out into and ‘practice’ what it is like to live within this different relationship to time and expectations. But as always the challenge is in integrating what it is I am learning into my ‘regular’ life … I’ll let you know how I do. :-)"
For more of my experience at the World Café Europe event in Dresden, along with two photographs by Ulrich Soeder, one of the most inspired photographic artists I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, read these two posts on language and the ineffable, and the peace café in Dresden’s famous frauenkirch that opened the event.
An article by Jonathan Lethem caught my eye in February’s issue of Harper’s (The Ecstasy of Influence). The piece itself was very clever, and has a fabulous twist I won’t go into here, but what interested me most about it was his description of art as something that exists simultaneously in two markets – the market economy and the gift economy.
This interested me on at least two levels since 1) I am an artist, and 2) my work in the world – my ‘worldly art’ so to speak, given that I am in the business of design and communications – is inextricably entwined with the gift economy and exchange of Web2.0. So, the idea of art that can be ‘sold’ and yet still remain a gift was intriguing, and rang true to my own experience.
Much of Lethem’s article was inspired by the ideas in Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, which cites the central tenant of a gift as something that cannot be kept, but must be given away. In the gift of art what is passed can be an experience, like inspiration or illumination of some kind. Paraphrasing Hyde, “Art that matters to us – which moves the heart, or revives the soul, or delights the sense, or offers courage for living, however we chose to describe the experience – is received as a gift is received.”
But this way of gifting goes beyond art; much that the people I work with do also occurs within the gift economy. Heartland’s Thought Leader Gatherings, for example, are all about fostering courage and hope and inspiration, and much of the wonderful work done by the World Café exists entirely within the gift economy of volunteerism.
Lethem describes the cardinal difference between gift and economy exchange as his assertion that “a gift establishes a feeling-bond between two people, whereas the sale of a commodity leaves no necessary connection.”
I love this beautiful idea of all of us gifting our art (whatever that might be) out into the world and by doing so establishing an ever-widening network of feeling-bonds …
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