Tag: sailing

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Acadian Musing.

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Missing the mark. Being off the mark… Over and over… and…. weeping. Weeping and then deep laughter. A tune… the silent hanging instruments. Sudden sound… the intimacy of a song. The intimacy of a symphony. The intimacy of … an event. To experience a gathering… in house, in hall… on a street corner… dancing on the bow of a sailboat… dancing in the rain… dancing between puddles. Missing the mark… Off the mark… to see that care in connection.

Passings. Feeling the absence of neighbor. Feeling the absence of a long ago woven moment. Feeling the absence of a voice that is long silent… yet, so present in moment… moment memory. Passings, making room for emergent tendril weaving… a symphony of tapestry. A tendril symphony… woven… a tapestry… across the all and all of creation.

It is raining. thick drops of rain. The storm upon…

Thinking of long departed friends. The various choruses of … all gathered in song. The gathered ensemble. Sudden in raised song… woven tendril… sudden in raised song.

A friend has taken a leave. Another sudden gone in passing. Another sudden passing… and another… just passing… the gentle laying down.

Missing the mark… starting from off the mark. Music speaking in tendril weave. The guitars hanging… and now singing. The recorder… long in drawer… out and singing. Long silent… now singing.

Loving notes… tendril weave. Some sung… some touched… some – to make new living. All of creation. Just down on the farm… here and there… rain… now falling in sheets. Rain… now tendril weaving in tapestry sheets… thin and thick…

There it is… a song on the dancing storm. A song… on the dancing storm.

Long silent strings… singing… long silent muse now dancing… long silent … long gone… now gathered all around and in chorus… across the weave of time… all singing. In harmony … all singing. Just so… there in moment. A new suit of strings… bent to guitar… bent to dobro… bent to bouzouki… bent to requinto… singing… singing with voices of chorus… with solo song… with duet… with trio, with quartet… all in dancing song.

A lone cowboy… teaching to sing the middle french… and now, in canyon… the walk… that song of the walking of the lonesome valley… with chorus all around. there…

I think of Charlie… recovering from a stroke… brilliant and with care.

I think of bands… long ago… and bands now…

I think of a chord… sung with many voices… in this sheets of rain moment… they are all singing. Every one… even those who cannot be in same room the more…

Missing the mark… off the mark. Connected in tendril weaving. Hearing a song … from a different voice… yet, in tendril weave…

A song of voyage home… a song of love passing… a song of new birth… Yes… in each… the tendril weaving of … the all of creation.

So… in this moment… giving thanks. Those here… those passed… those moments of tendril weaving… a magic… just so… a magic… or … a sacred… the turning from missing the mark to being with the moment mark… a turning from being off the mark… to being in moment anchor… anchor and dance… To Roy… to Cam… to Roger… to Lyle… to Paul… to Leo… to Barb… to Pam, and Pam… To John… to Vance… to David… to Ellen… to Myrt… to all the voices… to Amy… to Spud… sudden to acadian … a place that … held silent… yet, so foundational… all on the tendril weaving… a gift. Just so… a gift.

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Of Moment

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… of the moment.

In each renewal, there is a death of passing on… the breaking apart of vessel on the rocks… the burning of ships on the shore… the emergence of the surviving moment… the renewal of the covenants of community… the pivot and delight of new living… the grief  in comrades riven or separate roads taken…  sadness of the wisdom which is passed on, and passing on… the curiosity of the all… A sunrise.

The setting of the day and the new sunrise… the liminal night… into the new sunrise.

Perineal in cycle. Day – Night – another Day… A breath, an exhale… another breathing breath. The moment of last breathing. The moment of first breathing.

The ‘breathe on oh breath of life’ – a song of rising.

All in pulse of cycle. The tides. The day into night into day… the phases of moon and passing of moment into minute… into hour, into day… in to week into month, into year… into years and decades… the long march of time…

Portal of moment. Always at the mouth of the long march of time… spilling into the sea. Rivers running down mountains… spilling into sea…

The bright sun, in invitation. Drops in air, leaping to sky… to fill the clouds with the tears of rain… to dance upon the winds… all over the earth. And sudden to cry down in falling waters… tears of joy, of rage, of long sadness… as a birth… that dying into new…

And on the porch… a putter sit. The instrument in hand… the playing of a new song… of an old verse… new in this moment. The rising of the wind… as song. The rising of the drops as invocation to weeping of the clouds… A harmony on the porch. Just so… a harmony on the porch. A gift…

In thanksgiving. This set of moment. This curiosity in layered rhythm… three with two… with six… with 13 and 17… all in one symphony. At the downbeat. In the rising through the movements… and the harmony of each instrument’s voice.

A flower leaps into bloom. The bloom opens in the bright sun… the drying wind comes to ease the petals away… all on the wind and tide of creation’s songs.

So, in moment… a quiet song on the porch. A quiet song on a walk next to the rippling and dancing stream… a quiet song out on the desert… bright sun… cool snow… the whole of the wonder of …

All in moment. Held and lifted… holding and lifting. In healing balm… In loss… in healing balm. All and all… The joyful dance of the puer… in the face of slaughter… even in that moment… the joyful dance. What … in every time there is a purpose… is this moment?

Invited or not… present. A gift. And the breathing breath. A gift.

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Riffing Mark in Lent.

Mark 9:30-50*

To reify** a parable. To make it concrete and real… the greatest of the foibles. The greatest of missing the mark… to put four corners on a great circle… 199A8920-6221-4675-8E2D-F3CFB6A2DA75

Missing the mark… to see or feel or stumble or … all of that, of missing the mark. So there is the parable … the declaration to remove, tear out… break off… The permission to cut, to drown, to … it is not permission at all… it is a charge of responsibility. All with a babe held in arms… to be passed with gentle love… all around from one to another.

Waking from a dream of being locked out of many familiar places. To have all agency stripped away. To have nothing but my feet… to trudge away from the ‘new’ and ‘special’ ways of seeing… the pivot that strips away all that is familiar. 3F99E1F7-AA26-4D74-84B6-E2C4404B37ABAnd… beginning that trek… with the first step. Suddenly understanding that the path that was so clear… now well shaken and stirred… 

The ‘new’ leader is ‘taking charge’… in ways that begin again. And… that is not the path that is of my path. All the friends and partners of that time are suddenly busy in the new plan… the wonder and comfort of that which was familiar and off being a part… is suddenly locked and apart. 

A new seeing … first as fear … to see that the change is coming quickly. A storm on horizon.

That which was … is now not. The tide has shifted and the harbor… comfort and care… the boat of my heart… is carried away on the tide and tested in storms. The whole of creation is about… dancing and howling and roaring… of a storming delight… in the maelstrom… far from a known land… held in creation’s arms… passed gently from arms to arms… Even as the owners of those arms … argue among each other… still the passing is with gentle kindness… The noise of the storming argument… does not touch the warmth of being passed from tide to tide… from rising sun to rising moon… from winds of the east, the north, the south, and west…4D25AEA9-CBF4-45F3-B6B8-69F89C487D3C

The joy of ‘those times’ is no less a joy. Those joys, are of the peace which passes all understanding. The gift of invitation to be in a moment of creation. That sacred shared moment of the whole host of creators… be they one, two, three… many… or beloved communion with just one other. All joy of a harmony … called forth in moment. A friend speaks of a shooting star… the wonder of moment… attempting to hold that moment… as holding back the tide… pushing the river back up the mountain… the preservation of a great flowing stream… that is alive with wonder.

All of this… in the tossing of night into day. The shifting of tide from rushing to slack and rushing again… the foment of waves… torn by a rip… Dancing winds … that rage back and forth… amid all … the sudden understanding of a peace which passes all understanding. The moment of that quiet kiss… the gentle passing of infant… from arms to arms… the voices… are a storm. The arms are the caring of all creation. 

So it is a gift of this lenten retreat… a gift of arms. The shift of storm… and caring arms.

The whole of the host of creation. A gift of this dawning day.BD56AAE8-84DF-4E65-AE1E-4FFD0DE14D77

*(They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve,

and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink becaus

e you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”)

** Reify:

  1. make (something abstract) more concrete or real.
    “these instincts are, in humans, reified as verbal constructs”
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… Not a thing… it is the tide… turning

10-23-2021 That moment… of “Wake Up”…

What is wrong? Not a thing… it is the pang of dying and being born. What is wrong? Not a thing… it is the pang of the old trying to hold on and the new easing that holding into the stream. What is wrong? Not a thing. It is the sun beginning to light the day and the night… feeling the warmth of that light. What is wrong? Not a thing…the stream, the tide, the wonder of all creation… is inviting the old into the new. And… both the old and the new are striving to hold to comfort. What is wrong? The pain of the dying that is also in the birthing… it is all working in the tide.63B3F928-BBB7-47F7-A8D9-C70C99681096_1_201_a

What is this? It is the livingness of a moment. And, it is the pain of growing into a new place. It is the dying down and the growing in… all bundled in a set of cells… buried in the nerve. The pain… oh the pain…

As the old moment eases away… the deep pang of wishing for the rose in full bloom to pop back… as the last petal fall away… and the bones of the beautiful rose… fall to earth… so that the next may come… there is the honoring of the passing.

A set of buds breaks open… ah, that breaking… the pang and pain…

A note eases to silence… that last kiss of moving air… moving the hearing hairs of nerve endings… and then… all is at stillness… a pang… a deep pang… so deep, that the nerves scream in desperate need to … and then, in silence… a different step appears… in the haze of this pang and pain…

Light appears. A breathing appears. The husk of passing… the shift in tide… the flowing river… each and each and each…

The sun, through deep grey … lighting the darkness that was night… now suddenly… morning. Kisses of morning.

There, in this moment… not that of passing… this of emerging and singing the song of creation. This… emerging, singing the song of creation… that great wheel… the spark of aliv-ing… sudden to a birthing… sudden to a mastery… sudden to a gentle comfort of a newly birthed. Sudden to the gentle care of the dying down… sudden and connected… now, the wheel – turning and turning again.

Such is the first light of this day… such is… in grace, peace, and care… such is. With thanksgiving… such is. With love… such is. Just so… such is.

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Some random thinking … Playing with Time

Can we ‘make’ the sun rise more quickly? Can we delay the moon’s rising? In the speeding up of the deep carbon cycle… are there consequences for this ‘adjustment’? Each is a far fetched moment… yet, there is active demand to have daylight be more… and night less… so that there is greater productivity… what other cycles are being ‘adjusted’ in the name of – a specific system need-as opposed to a harmonic balance-in the dynamic of the ‘whole’ of a linked – supporting – emerging set of variables? Just musing the sun rise… a dynamic balance.

A Way To Think About Your Project

Each a view of the same set of elements. Each element speaks from a different set of foundational facts… The conversation, if it is adversarial, stacks the various foundational facts, Triangleselements, views, and position in different perspectives, contexts and places… being invited to rationalize this pile, this stack, this conversation… takes time, thought, collaborative perspective, respect for the various agency… all in a sense of calm… it doesn’t come cheap… if the whole motivation is to get a quick determination… to get to where ‘I’ want it to be… well, that is an argument that will return again and again… Seeing the patterns spin… play that tune again, and again, and again… or not… and if not, taking the time to make rational, connected, linked, and aligned agency.

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Of a morning… 12-25-2020

B9053F48-AC89-4732-8219-A0DB53EA4B1FOf a Christmas Morning. The wind is down… Still dancing and playing. Enough to blow the porch around… And so, battened, hunkered, sheltered… with family and friends scattered in places near and far… comforted by the stories of the desert fathers and mothers… grumpy and also filled with care, empathy, humor, … a bit dusty from days of wind, piles of sand, blown over and then away… care-worn and yet, and also, and even… filled with humble care, humble love, humble wonder… at the rising sun of this day.
Of a morning. Blessings to each and all beloved. Holding in mind’s eye, the whole of the journey’s host. Some gone on before… the beacons to harbor, to camp, to home. Some off on far away journey. Seeking and finding on a path which, for the moment, has looped away. Some, from a moment of great connection… now on a river, stream, bay or ocean… long shifted in the tide. The parting, perhaps not of the same texture of the shared moment. And, in this dawn, lifting up that moment shared. For, it is the soul moment.
The rest is but cover of other condition.6DCD975E-1FEF-4A06-B728-86E0B6248E6B
Of a morning. Chipping clay from leaden feet. My own – of course. For every moment of amazing place… a pat of clay to humble in oh so human. The wounding from, these feet have trod… Yet still, the dawning of this day, as each dawning, to fall again in love … at this altar of the world.
A blessing of the dancing wind. A blessing of the warming sun. A blessing even of the dust filled air… even that set of mote – a blessing.
In dreams, last night, again in a barn. The rain and storm… battering against the walls… the machines drawing milk from warm and steaming cows. The stench of manure and urine … of sweet milk and my own sweat. The sacred moment of, sudden care. Just there, sweet hay also is in the stench. A song begins to lift in my heart. For, this is dreaming and waking dream… all wrapped in a moment.
Now, far distant… through years… a moment back in that barn… a sudden remembering and also crystalline vision… on a boat, in a storm, on a flight, in halls in far off lands, at the foot of castles, in ancient stadium, with baton in hand… at letter A, in the 3 with 2, at a birth, at a death… the whole of the host… in the arms of love, in the arms of lyric, of song, of all of creation… of a dawning morning. The fire is burning bright. The wind dances. Children are waking. In this same dawn, a breathing is stilled… the leaf falls from the tree… a train leaves on time… a ship sails, a song… the last note… there, just beyond hearing… fades away… and it is all of this, in each breathing moment.
A gift. A humbling gift of the living moment.2D3FA2AA-9C15-4F3D-AC10-CF280E6AF4C9
In thanksgiving… in lifting up… in the bidden or not… presence.
And into the dawning of this, this new day.
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The Four Points…

# 05-04-2020 North, South, East & West.

Yesterday was big; really, really big… Just saying. The culmination of four years. The gathered and collective conferring. The great and grand celebration. Friends gathered; those who have completed the tasks laid before… now to begin the new journey. Suddenly one is completed… Ah, that word… it is not a moment of completion. It is a moment of … How to even begin to integrate the sudden end and new beginning. The 947FA514-DE38-464C-997E-ABA2A3B5A648conferring, which now give a license to learn… The crossing of one finish line, only to see the long and wondrous trek that now calls… The trek that calls… On, come on… this path, this trail, this … high and winding pass… all calling. All calling and the echos of the call… splashing, as the rising sun… The rising sun, as it kisses the tides of the bay.

Looking at numbers. All in a sheet. The numbers telling a story of greater and greater activity… And then… it stopped. Not slowed down… in a matter of days, comes to a complete and total … stop. A full and complete stop. The complete landing… the complete … full stop. Silence. Only the beating heart of the beast… at complete stop. As when the boiler goes completely cold. The creaks and groans are just the stresses of the sun kissing the surface and then the dance between that portion in shade and that portion in sun. The flexing of the external… for 6D2A2192-7AB2-49D4-8A0F-EC2D1CA4CA85the internal is gone cold.

The organs of bureaucracy grind on. The budget cycle is in full swing. Planning and framing for the new budget year. Putting together spread sheets and a plan for all aspects of operations… making the numbers work… Planning for how to spend the dollars that now … wait … what dollars? The whole of the planning scheme is tossed on its head. The house of cards is show to be built on shifting sand. The programs, the solid foundations of the local… is shaken to core… that core, driven by a complicated organism that, for the moment… has shut down. The rushing of cars outside… rushing to harvest … fresh food to the table. The hyper local nature of … one day at a time… the links of the supply chains tighten… or go completely slack. A single description denies so many of the links and tangles of this organism moment… This and that proposal… this and that ‘critical’ decision… this and that… suddenly, the assessment of critical and blather are exposed in a new set of ways.

What is critical in one set of universe… may have not value in another. The idea of this universe or that universe… the great and grand joke that it is all one universe. There are E92F035E-A2E7-4E13-BB53-FC1C19921957links between each and every aspect of… the ardent regulatory scheme… The grasping regulatory scheme. The reactive regulatory scheme. The imposed regulatory scheme… the scheme which seeks equity… the scheme which imposes view or frames outcome… unconnected to a fact pattern that is underlying… From where do these come? Someone died… someone might die. Someone didn’t get paid. So, there is an urgency… a great and grand urgency… for someone, a very special someone…

Rushing to craft a budget. Rushing to make the time frame. Rushing… and in that rushing… the sun rises and lights a newly crafted path. One not seen in recent times. That of … the very foundations of… shown to be sitting on shifting sandC6529D6A-F898-4C8F-B946-62FF4336C90E.

The caging in of that shifting sand… or, as the storm blows that sand… exposing and covering… revealing and hiding… all in the same storm… Clarity in the storm. The day is breaking, without a cloud in the sky. The earth tide is solid in its moving… Yet, everything is changed. As with the graduation… it is an invitation to a new integration. It is not a completion… a closure… it is a new step in integration. On this moment the sun rises.

On this moment, in gratitude, the sun rises.

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This is not a form… It is a way of practice

The apparent form is not a form at all.  It is a matrix of listening. It can be as mindmap. It can be as outline. It acts as iterative process.  When we begin with … how… if it not framed as a what or behavior, we are not asking a question at all. We are making a yes/but statement. Each question word is contextualized with the other question words. This is linking using Lean Six Sigma practices, Active Listening practices, Spiral Dynamics practices, Chris Alexander practices,  Traction Gap practices, Range practices, Natural Systems Practices… the list of analogies goes on and on. (Memenomics, Spiral Dynamics in Action, Adizes, Collins, Katz and Nowak, Frankl, Kooser, Hollis, Mate’ ,   It is the practice of leveraging daily work to grow daily work. So, to engage the work is to engage and connect in community.

Pillars The Framing Questions - Project Emergence

Just musing on this challenge.

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Riffing on the wind

03-30-19 Riffing on the wind.

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Or… whoever is from creation, hears the words of creation…

Easy to fall into argument. That wonderful moment when two are standing and looking out on a vista… look, it is raining. Look it is snowing… and it is doing both. As we hear with our seeing, it is doing both. How to resolve? Is it to resolve, for in creation, it is doing both. In the filter of my hearing in seeing… it does one thing… and in the filter of the beloved standing next to me … it does another.

The wind, dancing, knocks over an umbrella… “I hate the wind…” The wind dancing… in the same moment, moves the boat to the front of the race… “I love the wind…” It is the same wind and the same creation. All in the same moment… how can this be?

IMG_7951The deeper dive… the longer riff… it is both and. In darkness, so much presence. In light the presence still.

Thinking of the St. Helens explosion. A grand celebration of power in creation. Wonder, fear, death and living past death. Making street lights come on in a far away place. To be a sudden change … even though, in other parts of creation, the event was a triumph of prediction. Now, years later, the mountain… stands as relic? No, stands as monument and dancing living creation… No, should… No, could…

This riffing on the wind. Celebration. A friend is given a short time to live. The voice that passes this information to me, that friend, is celebrating not his ending but the amazing moment of his living. He just wanted me to know. For, having heard from another of his ‘plight’, he wanted to cast his own perspective to the long life he has had and the wonder of this next segment of journey. Riffing on the wind.

Riffing on the wind, a house renewed. Sacred and failed systems… now renewed. The wonder of reaching for a spigot and … behold… water comes forth. Behold, the drain, drains. Riffing on the wind.

The crop is harvested. The most recent oranges hang … ready to pick. The grasses,IMG_7947 released from long hibernation by the long winter rains… all riffing on the wind. This wind that is change. Daily, moment by moment; riffing on the dancing of the wind.

From all creation we each come. In the wonder of a lenten meditation… riffing on the wind. There is now, this moment, a shift, a change… for the wind is singing… even in the speaking of … the singing of … to riffing in…

Dancing on and with all creation. For, in that dance, there is the work of being in creation. In gratitude… in all creation. Seeing in and hearing and breathing in… all creation.

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Appreciating — a reflection on the writing that challenges each day.

Chris Alexander
Brene’ Brown
Viktor E. Frankl
Murray Bowen
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Richard Feynman
T.H. White
Atul Gawande
William F. Buckley
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
Gabor Mate’
Barbara Brown Taylor
Ernest Becker
Daniel Botkin
Temple Grandin
Steven Pinker
John Sarno
Peter Wholleben
Richard Rohr
Parker Palmer
Anne Lamott
Christopher Cowan and Don Beck
Clare W. Graves
Seth Godin
Michael Gungor
Peter Block
Daniel Tammet
Edwin H. Friedman
Donald Miller
Harry G. Frankfurt
Jay Harman
Janine M. Benyus
Adam Kahane
Jackson Katz
Rebecca Solnit
David Graeber

It is a partial list of authors who have demanded attention this past year. Even as I tap this sentence, asking forgiveness for those forgotten, more raise pages to be included. Ah, such a rich place of learning to tap. In that demand is also a grand invitation to look at the foundations of much of my thinking. An invitation to evaluation, discarding, even wholesale remodeling. Along with this list of amazing thinkers, a larger context of the universe in which we all dance has also emerged. The simple question of, “Around what do you organize?” This simple question turns much of the narrative of the past several years on its head. The deeply shaken set of held belief, life narrative, story arc… all dumped upside down. The grand humor of seeing some of the foundation stones… turned over to reveal so much richer a vision. …

In song, in writing, in listening to the hopes and dreams of many clients… in the growing that happens each day in the fields around the house. In the deep seeds of thinking, observation and listening that the fun and challenging partnerships around and surrounding demand…

All of this, a tradition of taking stock. A tradition of pausing to give thanks for so many teachers. A gift of this huge classroom. And so many partners in that learning.

It all started with a review of the current list. The list that shifts and grows each year. For, there is so much to learn. In each new learning, the reminder of … the more I learn, the less I know.