A few months ago, I had a very insightful
day at my friend Samara's farm. I use the word insightful
because the phrase "what do you see' came up a lot. With all
of the talk recently by Lexington's formal business and
political structures about supporting the growth Lexington's
creative industry, I thought back to the day at Samara's. I
also thought about my own personal experiences over the past
year as a full-time professional artist living and working in
downtown Lexington. It occurs to me that there are some
important parallels that can be drawn between my experience
last fall at Samara's and my experience over the past year as
a creative professional here in Lexington. First, let me
share with you the day last fall at my friend's farm.
Thanks to several ADHD moments that morning, I got there late
as usual. As I pulled up the little one lane road on the side
of the hill which leads up to Samara's place, here is what I
saw. In the beautiful morning Kentucky sunlight, I saw a
group of people who, with the exception of Samara and another
artist (Robin), I had never seen before with my eyes. They
were all sitting on purple, plastic, big comfy-looking lawn
chairs in a circle around a little fire pit that was actually
providing more smoke than heat on this cool Kentucky morning.
I can attest to this because, as the last one to arrive, I had
the good fortune of getting to sit on the only chair left
which was a wood and metal café style chair and not nearly as
comfy-looking as the other chairs. It was also right in the
path of the smoke which those who had arrived early had
strategically avoided claiming as their spot.
I made a note to myself that I was going to set all my clocks
in my house 15 minutes ahead of time when I returned home so I
would avoid having to take the "smoky uncomfortable" chair in
the future. And, whether it be around a fire or around a
dinner table or any other place where we gather and sit
together with other people, there is ALWAYS an uncomfortable
"smoky" spot that is there - whether you can see it or not.
When you are sitting there in that spot your line of vision to
the others you are sitting with goes from smoky and cloudy to
clear and defined depending on how the wind blows.
Your connection to the others you are sitting with too seems
to fade in and out with the smoke. When the wind blows the
smoke away from you and you can see clearly, you are connected
to the circle. When the wind blows the smoke back toward you,
you are disconnected. You are seemingly at the mercy of the
wind. That is until you realize that you can make the decision
to get up and move to another place in the circle. Rather
than being confined to sit on an already placed chair that is
right in the path of the smoke, you are free to walk around to
where there is nothing but clear unclouded sunlight and take a
place in the circle by making your own chair. So, that is
what I did.
I created my own seat in the circle by sitting on the lush
green ground in between two other people filled chairs. And,
even though I was no longer sitting in the other place where
there was a defined "chair", I found myself sitting
nonetheless and - with out the smoke in my face - enjoying the
wholeness of an unbroken circle on an unclouded day even
though there is no defined "chair" there. As it turns out,
that green farm grass was also a heck of a lot easier on my
backside than was the last, smallest, most uncomfortable chair
in the circle that was directly in the path of the smoke.
As the nine of us sat there and I looked around, what I saw
was a cornucopia of humanity that came in unexpected people
packages. We did not look alike at all. But as the day went on
we came to discover and appreciate a common journey that had
brought us all there together. We were all there on the
journey to love, acceptance and happiness. We were all there
to learn new ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us
in the way that binds us together in an unclouded circle as
opposed to the uncomfortable isolation of an ill fitting chair
in the path of a smoky haze.
As the day unfolded, there were several insightful moments of
that passed through us all. One conversation I had that was of
particular importance to me - and is a theme that swirls
heavily around in my thoughts these days - is the seeming
separation between creativity/arts and organized
business/politics in today's world. As I sat there talking
about this with a new friend attempting to explain how, as an
independent artist that has, at times, felt disenfranchised by
much of what I have seen and experienced through organized
business and politics in Lexington, these words came out of my
mouth without any aforethought.
"Organized politics and
business are insights into the needs of human nature.
Creativity and the arts express the current nature of our
human insight into need."
I immediately wrote this down in my journal before I had
another ADHD moment and forgot this little bit of wisdom I had
just been gifted with by the universe. As contemplation on
this phrase has set in over the past several months, I am
starting to see that my ponderings on how organized
politics/business and creativity/arts are seemingly separated
from each other is not what I had thought. They are in fact,
intertwined in a most ancient way that is still fully at work
today.
Why do humans seek out organized politics/business? At the
very root reason, I believe it is because we first seek to
have our basic survival needs met and to be safe. Scientists
might use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to describe this basic
human instinct. Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most
basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of thousands
of years. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain
how these needs motivate us all. It states that we must
satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first, which
deals with the most obvious need for survival itself. Only
when the lower order needs of physical and emotional
well-being are satisfied are we concerned with the higher
order needs of personal development and self-actualization.
Without getting to far off on this subject, here is Maslow's
basic outline:
1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink,
shelter, warmth, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order,
law, limits, stability, etc.
3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family,
affection, relationships, etc.
4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery,
independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial
responsibility, etc.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential,
self-fulfillment, creativity/arts, seeking personal growth
Organized politics/business in Lexington, just like any
civilization's political structures, offers a framework that
allows us to come in from what we have been taught to believe
is, by its very nature, a fearful world. A world that, some
days, seems brimming with hate, war, famine, poverty and
divisively hardcore notions of "different-ness" from each
other. Organized politics/business provide physical places
that are available for us to find shelter, safety and assuage
our fears. Organized politics/business provide a network of
individuals and buildings to deliver things like food, warmth
and "connective-ness" to others. Organized politics/business
is a fantastically designed concept for having our most basic
human needs met. At least our lowest order of human needs.
This aspect of organized politics/business is a wonderful
thing. In part, it seems to me to be a principle that we
should all try to live by and, when we are able, offer the
same others who are in need - safety, protection, food, drink.
The very way politics/business is organized today is an
insight into the most basic needs of human nature. So then,
what about the second part of that little gift of I was given
by the universe? The notion that creativity/art is the
current nature of our human insight into need. Well, first
let me say that I realize that I have been wrong in my view of
late that politics/business and creativity/arts are separated
from each other. They are in fact equal parts of an ancient
whole.
The first - politics/business - is a physical manifestation of
the recognition that we are all on a shared journey. As any
collective on a shared journey, it is in our nature to support
one another. Organized business/political systems are insights
into the basic needs of human nature.
(It also occurs to me that
not all organized support systems work efficiently all the
time in supporting the basic needs of the members of those
they are set up to support. I can point to examples from the
current state of our highest levels of federal government's
policies that value more highly wars for profit than wars on
poverty - all the way to the Donner Party which was the most
famous tragedy in the history of the westward migration.
Almost ninety wagon train emigrants (farmers, merchants,
parents, children) were unable to cross the Sierra Nevada
before winter, and almost one-half starved to death. These
examples show that not all organized systems of support work
all the time. But, nonetheless, they were originally organized
for a good and important purpose - meeting basic human needs.)
The second - creativity/arts - provide us the ability to
clearly see the current nature of our human insight into need.
Most of us in the modern western world - myself included - are
blessed with food and shelter. This is of course not to mean
that everyone is but most of us are. This means that we have
our basic needs of survival being met which puts our modern
state of existence somewhere in the middle of Maslow's
Hierarchy which deals with "belongingness and love needs"
(work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.).
Distilling this all down into a single sentence, it seems to
me that organized politics/business (at this moment in time in
Lexington) is finding itself tasked with moving the defined
groups it has created and labeled up the hierarchy where -
according to Maslow- resides our true spiritual and creative
nature. This is an area that Maslow calls
"self-actualization". The very nature of the wording means
that there is an incredible amount of introspection,
individual responsibility for one's current state of being and
fluid boundries that are not set in their definitions from one
person to another.
Organized politics/business seems to behave at times as if
allowing individuals to move up the hierarchy any further into
this "mind/body/soul space" (which for me is what creativity
and the arts are), would somehow render organized
politics/business as an institution inconsequential and
irrelevant. Logically, I suppose this might stand to reason. I
can easily understand why a century old system built around
the organization of "the masses" might view the spiritual and
creative progression of the individual (self-actualization) as
a threat. Indeed, it is a threat to those in organized
politics/business that define themselves by the personal power
(and wealth in some cases) that they have acquired under the
established structure. Organized politics/business in
Lexington has found itself in "midstep" just like every human
does at some point in his or her life. Based on preservation
of an established power structure, organized politics/business
seems, at times, to have gone into "lock down" mode in an
attempt to control the expressive nature of the very creative
enterprise that it is attempting to nurture and grow.
There is good news in this! The very attempt to politicize
and corporately engineer creativity and the arts means that
Lexington' organized politics/business is itself engaging in
an act of creativity. The way I see it, all the rantings and
ravings, maneuverings and manipulations and general
involvement at times of Lexington's political and business
organizations in divisive rhetoric and activity when it comes
to choosing which arts organizations or artists that it
chooses to support as its "flavor of the month" is nothing
more than a physical manifestation of defined groups of
individuals grappling to find equilibrium between their role
as a businessperson/politician and their role as a person with
a curiosity of the unknown.
This is the same creative process at work as when an artist
approaches a blank canvas with brush in hand. There is a
great act of subjective faith required for the creative
process to unfold into an objective reality. The artist and
the businessperson/politician have much they can learn from
each other. It is our willingness to perceive this that will
truly transform Lexington into the self-actualized creative
mecca that it is seeking to become. However, at times, we
see those in Lexington who have the power of the political
pulpit or the power of the pen or the power of the airwaves or
the power of the dollar get frightened when their
pre-determined way of how they think a dream should unfold is
threatened. THIS IS GREAT! Why? It's great because it means
that organized politics/business is not some big soulless
system of ceremony and pomp. It means that organized
politics/business is, and wonderfully so, human. A collective
of humans trapped for the moment in "midstep" and grappling as
an "organized system" with the same things that we each
grapple with on an individual basis:
- releasing judgment in order to find
truth,
- letting go of the HOW,
- knowing limitlessness and the purpose
of joy.
- embracing mystery as magnificent.
- choosing to awaken and dream.
In my Living Bible, I opened it this morning
to a passage from Mark 8:23-25.
Jesus took the blind man by
the hand and led him out of the village, and spat on his eyes,
and laid his hands over them. "can you see anything now?"
Jesus asked him. The man looked around and said, " I see men!
But I can't see them very clearly; they look like tree trunks
walking around!" Then Jesus placed his hands over the man's
eyes again and as the man stared intently, his sight was
completely restored, and he saw everything clearly, drinking
in the sights around him.
Last fall at Samara's, I found how easy it was to make the
choice to get up from the uncomfortable chair that was
directly in the path of the smoke. I created my own seat in
the circle by sitting on the lush green ground in between two
other people filled chairs. And, even though I was no longer
sitting in the other smoky uncomfortable place where there was
a defined "chair", I found myself sitting nonetheless and -
with out the smoke in my face - enjoying the wholeness of an
unbroken circle on an unclouded day even though there is no
defined "chair" there. What if we all were able to do the
same thing with Lexington's creative industry. I wander just
how large our circle would become?
There is something that I should
stop doing today. It is an important thing. It is to stop
being controlled by my own fear. Fear is not real but a
loveless emotion that I cling to because - in a twisted
sense - it makes me feel like I am more in control of my
life by making me feel like I am losing control.
The Johnny Cash song ‘When the Man
Comes Around”: has a line that says “like a whirlwind in the
thorntree”. I used to think that this meant danger. It
sounded dangerous. As I consider it now, the whirlwind -
created and guided by the hand of God – does not get bruised
or cut or damaged in the least. It blows free and without
injury regardless whether it is blowing a thorn tree or
anywhere else. In fact, a whirlwind in a thorntree
actually knocks off a few thorns. This makes the tree less
harmful if someone else happened to get mired in its branches.
There are unexpected blessings as
well. I recently read that a peacocks beautiful coloring is
created, in part, from peacocks eating thorns. Maybe
then, if we are open to being a whirlwind of God in the
thorntree of the world... it is actually an awesome
blessing. We must first be willing to perceive it as a
blessing.
We are better equipped to perceive
this blessing when we remember that (1) the wind is not hurt
by the thorns, (2) the wind actually knocks off some thorns
making the thorn tree less dangerous for others and (3) the
“wind picked” thorns that lay cast to the ground might be
needed as blessings to others and help them create beauty like
in the case of the peacock.
So today, I will STOP trying to
control the wind. I will enjoy the excitement in being a
breath of heaven swirling and whirling in the world to cast
thorns to the ground so that they may become beauty.
While life on earth is a temporary
assignment... it is an assignment nonetheless. When I was a
kid, sometimes I would get stuck on an assignment in school.
To be honest, sometimes I would copy from the person sitting
next to me in class. I was willing to accept this other
person’s answers as my own. I just accepted their answers
without knowing – or even caring – if the other person
actually had understood the assignment themselves.
I did not give myself the
opportunity to learn from my mistakes. I instead trained
myself to gamble with the ‘best guess’ of what I assumed the
other kid knew about what was right. I also trained myself to
be able to “blame’ someone else for bad outcomes. I also
trained myself to ‘trick’ myself in congratulatory fashion for
good outcomes as if the right answers of someone else that I
had copied were actually the result of my ingenuity and hard
work.
Life as a temporary assignment –
just like those assignments in the classroom when we were in
school. In both situations, our mistakes are great
opportunities to learn but only when we make them honestly.
Only when we own our mistakes as our own. When we do this we
can seek guidance and instruction from the Teacher who created
and gave us the assignment in the first place. We are assured
that through seeking the Teacher’s guidance, that we will be
able to learn to correct that which we did wrong. We will
learn a thought process that is designed for us individually.
We will gain knowledge that we can use to work through life’s
assignments without relying upon someone else to provide the
answers for us. As we practice each assignment we realize that
our mistakes – as painful as they might feel to us - are
actually joyous opportunities to add to our body of knowledge.
Knowledge that we need in order to accomplish our own
individual assignments is in this temporary assignment called
LIFE.
Dear God,
Thank you for the peaceful
center of the morning where I am a blank canvas – where I am
an artist – where I have an awaiting assignment. How
magnificent to feel your teaching hand guide my brush. How
spectacular to witness my mistakes from past assignments be
transformed into a skilled and schooled artist’s eye as I
begin to work on the blank canvas. As I beckon my beautifully
adorned soul from the blank canvas you place in front of me
each morning. Thank you. I love you. - Theo
Objectivity is a wonderful thing.
It allows us to assess situations more clearly. When not used
by our ego for its own purposes, objectivity produces a far
superior outcome that when we are not objective about a
situation.
Spirit has been helping me greatly
recently and allowing me to work through situations with
objectivity... when the situations apply to other people in my
life. But, when it comes to me, I seem to be holding
back from God in the area of “acceptance of myself”. I
can’t quite seem to let God completely take the burdens of my
past mistakes and transform them into objective knowledge for
today’s actions. Even though I know that today’s actions
create tomorrow’s realities, I find it hard to be objective
about my past mistakes. So I get stuck in the
transformation of past mistakes (information) into today’s
actions (knowledge).
There is a great Mark Twain quote
that goes something like this, “I’ve been through some
terrible things, some of which actually happened!” Now,
that is objective knowledge! Intellectually, I get it.
In practice though is where, for me, it often grinds to a
halt. The subjective information (past mistakes) to objective
knowledge (current action) sometimes just doesn’t feel like
its happening. It’s as though I am constantly waiting
for that proverbial other shoe to drop. The grinding halt
happens when someone calls and says ‘I have something I want
to share with you’ or ‘I need to tell your something’ or a
situation arises that involves individuals that I have made
mistakes with in the past.
Sometimes, fear just grips me in
those moments. I subjectively feel that I am again in the
middle of something bad and painful getting ready to happen. I
immediately stop being objective and open to the 'miracle
learning' of the moment. I immediately go into a fear
based defensive mode that grinds to a halt any knowledge
transformation or healing intercession that is about to occur.
I do this to myself based on my fear guilt of my past
mistakes. I do this to myself by inviting all that past crap
to come rushing in to the present moment. I allow it to
paralyze me. I allow it to build up walls against the healing
intercession that is about to happen. I allow my ego to take
me out of God’s game plan and throw me right back on the
bench. I become like a star player who isn’t allowed to play
in a championship basketball game in the final minute because
they have 4 fouls already and if they are put back in the game
too soon and get another foul... then they are going to be
taken out of the game entirely.
This is certainly not an objective
place to be. Even if I manage to push my own way through the
fear moment and stay in the game, I am not going to play well.
I am not going to be focusing on the game. I am going to be
focusing my entire attention on NOT getting another foul
rather than winning the game.
More often these days though,
there is something that I am beginning to understand.
There are objectivity seeds sprouting in me and beginning to
create that information to knowledge transformation. As
I better understand the power of forgiveness - as I am able to
objectively give it to other folks - I am taking the first
infant steps in finding it for myself. By not holding
back my forgiveness of others based on there past mistakes
toward me, I am objectively beginning to see how I was holding
back God’s forgiveness of my past. I am objectively
beginning to see that the guilt which I was holding onto from
my past mistakes was preventing me from playing in the game at
all.
We were all born with perfect
light inside us that gave us perfect and unique skills to
accomplish a perfect purpose. We were meant to fully use the
subjective perfect talents with which we were born.
However, we were meant to use them in an objective way in
order to fully participate and play the unique role for which
we were created on the team of humanity.
Dear God,
Put me in coach! I’m ready to play! Today,
get me back in the game. Help me to remember that at each
minute I can play full out because there is no ‘foul chart’ of
my past mistakes to hold me back. Help me to remember that at
each minute a new game can begin. Help me to remember that at
this minute, we are all star players that are predestined for
high scores, great stats, and great celebrations together as a
championship team. I love you. - Theo