37days

N is for now

“Nothing is worth more than this day.” –Goethe

In 2008, I am going to be here now.

When you unpeel it, 37days is all about now, but I find I don’t live in now very often. I live in then, or when, or one day.

I want, instead, to live in Now. This moment. What does that look like? I think it looks like a lot less time on the computer and a lot more time playing Candyland with a four-year-old or making vegan cupcakes with a teenager or raking leaves with Mr Brilliant. I think it looks a lot like paying attention. I think, for me, it looks a lot like writing or being creative every day. Maybe it just looks like breathing deeply every morning before flinging ourselves into the whirling stream of our lives. It is far too easy to be swept into the competing currents.

As Thich Nhat Hanh has written, “Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”

Pema Chödrön has reminded us that Now is the only time. That how we relate to Now creates the future. That what we do accumulates and that the future is the result of what we do right now.

I asked Billy Collins (you know, we talk constantly) if death is the main chord of all poetry. “Yes, it is. But poetry isn’t a consolation for death, for the reality that you will die. Instead, it is an expression of gratitude that you’re alive. Poetry italicizes experience or brings it into sharper focus. It provides a fuller immersion into life.” Poetry is about seizing the day, but we only need “carpe diem” if we realize we have a limited number of diems.

Retreat to move forward

Sometimes we have to retreat to move forward.

The next 37days retreat is scheduled for September 28-30, 2007, and registration has just opened for it. Limited to 14 people, I hope you can be one of them. I'll be joined by my business partner, David Robinson, in facilitating the weekend retreat. He's magical and brings so much to the gathering. Plus, we laugh a lot.

September 28-30, 2007  / MIND THE GAP: The Power of Personal Stories

[A 37days Retreat]

“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” -James M. Barrie

If you had only 37 days to live, would you feel happy with the story you have lived thus far? How would you express that story, learn from it, leave it for others? Those are the fundamental questions behind this blog and the grounding for this unique, experiential weekend gathering focused on unmasking our personal stories to achieve greater creativity, healthier relationships, and fuller engagement in what poet Mary Oliver calls our “one wild and precious life.”

Often, there is a gap between how we wish to be seen and who we really believe ourselves to be, between the story we meant to write and the one we’ve written so far. This gap mutes the colors of our lives and inhibits the quality of our engagements with other people—in our families, our organizations, our communities. Maintaining that gap diminishes our creative impulse and often splits our intentions. Why, then, don’t we do more to shorten that distance and mind that gap?

This unique Gathering will explore these questions:
How do we make meaning of our lives through story? What are the stories we tell ourselves about others? About ourselves? How do those stories reduce us? What learning and significances are right in front of us, in the stories of our days? How can we summon the courage to move beyond the limits of who we think we are into what we were meant to be? How can we relinquish our “role” in order to discover who we might be beneath the mask?  What treasures can be found in the in-between space between me and you, between perception and preconception, between my Self and the Other?

We’ll explore concepts such as:  Life as a finite or an infinite game, intention and direction, wicked problems & tame solutions, and naming our vicious and virtuous circles, those patterns that either reduce us or allow us to live expansively.

Learning Activities / We will: 

• Use improv theatre, ritual, metaphor, mask, story, writing, and other narrative tools
• Explore “role” and other expressive personal and organizational “masks”
• Be 85% experiential--not in the sense of simulations or role plays—but as unmasked engagement with others
• Invite participants to extract meaning from experiences as a collaborative learning community
• Use focused free writes to help participants frame experiences in their own language for deeper exploration
• Experience how changing ourselves can deeply impact our families, communities and organizations.

Here's what people had to say about the last 37days retreat:

“You created a safe environment for valuable learning.”

“I loved the gentle humor that developed in the group, the inclusive quality of the experience, and the practical writing techniques that I’ve probably encoded into my cells.”

“You don’t facilitate as if to say ‘we are the leaders.’ You’re great at taking cues from the group.”

“The story you wove through the whole weekend was masterful and amazing.”

“Your facilitation is beautifully collaborative.”

“Your ability to bring movement and play into the experience, and at the same time, relate that play to deeper concepts, was truly a pleasure to experience and to watch.”

“I appreciate all the thought, caring, and preparation you put into making the retreat weekend transformational for all of us.”

 Cost / To honor the impulse of giving behind 37days, this retreat is offered for a reduced fee of $475-775 inclusive of tuition, materials, housing, and all meals. Please pay what you can in that range.

Location / Our 2007 retreats will be held at the Bend of Ivy Lodge in Asheville, North Carolina. Go here for more information and registration forms for this and other 2007 retreats (PDF).

We'd love to have you join us there. It won't be the same without you.

Be still, or at the very most, swing slowly

“The near stillness recalls what is forgotten, extinct angels.” – Georg Trakl

This week, the same message came to me from four places: on a table, while driving up Hillside Street, by a bonfire, and watching a tree swing trace its lazy arc.

On the table

She opened the door. “Hi,” she said, “it’s good to see you.” “You, too!” I said. We walked to two identical chairs near the window, black with straight backs, burgundy silk quilted pillows perched on their cushions. We sat down. She opened my file. “What’s been happening with you recently?” she asked. “Not much,” I answered. “Just traveling every week and doing volunteer work and writing a lot and getting ready for Emma’s birthday and getting Emma started in high school and planning a 37days retreat and doing some client work and sending out a book proposal and applying for some fellowships and collecting contributions for a charity auction and taking Tess to the park and creating baby kimonos and….”

She sat looking at me. “Is that all?” she asked with a smile.

“I guess it does seem like a lot when I list it all,” I said. “But I’ve been cutting back.”

Shave with Ockham's razor

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

In the summer of 1996, I had a bout of terrible headaches—debilitating, numbing, paralyzing brain crushers. I was convinced they were symptoms of a brain tumor; John quietly suggested that it might be a vitamin deficiency.

In fact, they were something in between brain tumor and vitamin deficiency (migraines) and were mainly solved by quitting my job. Not that they were stress-related or anything.  Ahem.

In general terms, my headaches are always Intracranial Aneurysms, sore shoulders are a harbinger of Ewing’s Sarcoma, indigestion is a Massive Myocardial Infarction, to which John always replies: “Vitamin deficiency. Vitamin Deficiency. Vitamin Deficiency.”

Wear solids

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci

After the Parent/Teacher Organization meeting at my older daughter’s middle school a few weeks ago, I was instructed by my family to stop at Ingle’s Market for the following essentials: 1) dog food, 2) apple juice, 3) baby wipes, 4) Shonen Jump magazine, and 5) Edy’s Special Edition Peppermint ice cream. We’re living on the edge here in Asheville, living large, partying hearty. Long gone are the days of “pick up a six-pack, some chips, and a frozen pizza.” So, I made my way down (or up, perspective matters) to Ingle’s where I found myself cart-wandering with my middle-aged compatriots, each trying desperately to remember exactly why we were there, lost souls trying to find The Promised Land or, at the very least, the jasmine rice and some hot mustard.

As I stood in the cat and dog aisle, I had myself a little tiny revelation. 

Close the boardroom closet

“Never confuse movement with action.” – Ernest Hemingway

I don’t remember ever being this busy. Not even that time in the fourth grade when I was starring as Johnny Appleseed in our class play, learning to play the autoharp, and simultaneously creating my report on Missouri, the “Show Me” state, in a cardboard box panorama (I believe the Latin term for it is “Cardboardorama®”). Remember that fantastic technology?, those stories drawn on long paper rolled between two dowels inside a box decorated to look like a TV set; it was like watching the merry history of those stubborn Missourians unfurl before your very eyes. (Powerpoint’s got nothing on Cardboardorama® 2.0).

Let go of your legal pad

“The best things in life are not things.” – C. & J. Woods

On Sunday, August 28, 2005, as I cleaned Cheerios off the kitchen floor for the 59^th time, and just after the contents of a 12.5 fluid ounce glass bottle of maple syrup were ceremoniously unleashed onto that same floor by a 36” tall human tornado named Tess, I happened to look out the window into my backyard as I held the small of my back and stood up again. And as I straightened to a full stand and saw the orange and yellow lilies and happy zinnias and Tessie’s bright shoes and a swing set and a little red plastic chair on the deck outside—all in just the right light, that bold rounded yellow kind of light like the good people of Cadiz so often enjoy, it hit me in a rush of physical sensation: I have everything I need. I don’t need anything else, ever.

Pop up your Nimrod

“There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I grew up in a small Southern town where nobody knew the street names, but just gave directions by landmarks and events: turn left where the Biltmore Dairy building burned down, go straight past the Pool Hall where Guy "Frog" Ramsey got shot in the face, turn right at Mull's Feed and Seed where evidently nothing of note happened other than the rambunctious selling of feed and seed.

Daddy was the town barber. Mama worked at the bank on the Square with the Town Clock on the side of the building that was always off by 8 minutes but it really didn’t seem to matter to this slow-moving populace, perambulating past my vantage point in Modern Barber Shop like they were wading through tepid water. It was as close to Mayberry as you can get; I was Opie’s missing red-headed sister, working at the public library and taking piano lessons from Myrtle Muench once a week for twelve whole years, culminating (of course) with a slightly mechanical (yet secretly rousing) rendition of Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”