I’ve been traveling and connecting with friends new and old for the past two weeks through No. California. Here’s one of the places I landed:
I am staying with two folks, Rich and Kathy, I had never met before I walked through their door. Rich noticed the license plates of the cars the three of us are driving.
Rich has only known me a two days, but he had enough of a pulse to what’s going on to comment: “Boy, are you in the right place or what!”
I have to agree. I love how the life process is supporting me these days!
It it seems that yet, again, I am having to learn and navigate my life, my relationships and my myself, with a profound understanding that “stuff just doesn’t work.” That’s it.
No need to complain. No need to blame. No need to fix it or change anything. And particularly, no need to reject it, walk away or refuse to engage it. It just doesn’t work. So there.
Now what will I do?
In the silence, stillness and expanded awareness of my mind, a whole new world opens up before me. Amazing.
And then again… I come up against something else that doesn’t work the way I’d like it to.
In a complete surrender to the past, the now and the future; this music video is the best encapsulation of my experience, today, staying in the open wave…not letting my mind control the path, just feeling into my psychological space while not getting caught in breaking water.
Recently I spent a week in beautiful countryside of Hertenstein, Switzerland, 30 minutes around the lake from Luzern, immersed in conditions created to support the development and emergence of 6 people eager to contribute to the Spiral Dynamics Group (SDG) as potential trainers. Co-leading with Christopher Cooke, new insights were revealed and seen by me, as result of dedicated, intensive and protracted interaction with Chris while “training” others.
One of those insights relates to an “open wave.”
I’ve known Cookie, as he is often called, for about 5 years now, our paths crossing in various cities across the US and many phone conversations related to the future of SDG. Chris has used a metaphor of an open wave for several years now in speaking about the process of emergence. The nuanced thing about metaphors, is they either connect and offer meaning and guidance or they miss. The open wave has usually missed with me, that is until last month. The context of this training, from Chris’ point of view is act as if we operate from second tier, which intrinsically means beyond yellow into the space of turquoise. Co-leading for the last 3 years with Don, the premise focus tends to emphasize yellow, leaving turquoise to the imagination and co-opting of first tier minds. My 10-day interaction served as an entre to dipping, full bodied, open hearted and mind twisting into a sequence of state experiences more closely aligned with turquoise than I have recognized before, leaving behind a flow that I have been surfing in ever since.
Here’s a cool video to bring the imagery and experience of surfing to this post.
As I watch in video form; what it’s like to surf a wave, I notice that, metaphorically, for the entire time I have been surfing at all (I’ll admit..much of my life has been spent on the beach…maybe even to the parking lot…not venturing into the water all) I have been inside the breaking water. Lately, and you can read several posts on my blog, here, I have written about being more in the break, where it is messy and hurts and I spill all over everything. Manly, however, I’ve gotten very good at breaking through the barriers, finding the open wave just long enough to return to the pipe waiting for the next break to appear in front of me, then working on the breaking though to the open again.
The biggest impact of revisiting the open wave metaphor, for me, was in the realization that it was time move out in front of the “breaking”, into the wide open space where the boundaries, instead of always being in front of me, shift behind me. In fact, the entire world of boundaries closes off behind me when I stay in the open wave.
Gulp!
Yet, notice that in surfing, no boundaries doesn’t mean chaotic, directionless abandon. In the open wave, as a surfer I am held in place by the momentum of the movement of the wave in combination with the competencies of practiced surfer. Controlled freedom in awareness of my surrounding conditions. AND I notice, in this place “the pulse” of the prime directive, or the pulse of evolution keeps me grounded, aligned and totally connected.
I think I might have the “hang” of the open wave. Ooops, there I go again, back in the break. Oh, well. It’s a good thing my capacity for resilience is active and strong. Getting up and out in front of the wave again is becoming easier too.
I came across this note in my files the other day. I held on to it because I find it a fascinating way to think about numbers, large abstract numbers. Check it out.
If I spent $1 every second it would take:
11.5 days to spend a million dollars
31.7 years to spend a billion dollars
317 years to spend 10 billion dollars
3170 years to spend 100 billion dollars
and, 6230 years to spend 200 billion dollars…that’s before the pyramids appeared on earth.
Ummm…the cost of the Iraq War is estimated in the trillions. With that large of a number, conceptual years doesn’t even help me. I just have no way to conceptualize “a trillion” of anything.
Storytelling has been on my radar screen for a while now. I realize how important stories are for communication, relationships, and for leadership, yet there was never enough “ummph” for me to spend time and money investing in the topic.
Two things happened last month. I read several informative and thought-leading articles by Dr. Kim Boal, professor of Business Management at Texas Tech University. It is Dr. Boal’s very informed opinion that there are two key functions associated with leading complex organizations; storytelling and tagging.
The second thing that happened is I was invited to attend a Smithsonian workshop on storytelling. That was easy. One quick metro ride is way better than reading and research so I agreed to participate in the two-hour introduction to storytelling as taught by Steve Denning.
Here is the quick and dirty on storytelling:
Svend-Erik Engh, Mr. Denning’s invited guest lecturer took the first hour to remind us that we all know how to stories, AND that telling a story is much more engaging, even it’s a bad story, then analytical detail about a subject. Really. Here’s his quick example: With a listener, answer these questions:
What is storytelling?
What is an organization?
What happened this morning?
If you take the time to go through this exercise and then ask the listener to give you feedback on what they heard, hands down- telling about what happened was easier to remember and had a bigger impact. And here is the big point; I listened to a badly told story, and told one as well. The bad story, for connecting and communicating with another was way more powerful than the brilliant cognitive approach I prefer to use.
So, the basic on storytelling is it works and we all know how to do it. If you forget, go ask a 4 year old, they can teach you. (I’ll spare the revert to Spiral Dynamics as to why it works: hint: purple code!)
Then Mr. Denning took over the workshop. The bottom line on the next hour of instruction: Telling a story concisely, that fits the environment, and that has the impact you intend…well now, that takes a lot more work, thinking and practice. Ah! So my cognitive skills do come in handy.
But hey, it’s a start. And worth the metro ride and two hours spent at the Smithsonian.
I love TIVO. TV watching is so much better now that I have choice about when and what I watch. Combined with hundreds of channels, programming is plentiful. What I especially like is the ability to record entire seasons of a show and watch a series in its lifespan over several months. I did this with CSI. I didn’t start watching CSI until its sixth season, then I watched (courtesy of SPIKE TV) all six seasons in about 3 months.
I’ve had a similar experience over the past couple of months with America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), Tyra Banks’ popular show that takes a handful of aspiring models and puts them through developmental pathway designed to call forth the Top Model in them. I use those words because it’s not just about teaching modeling, rather about “becoming” a model. Given the contextual frame I live in, I find ANTM to be an interesting education process for me personally; translating the experiences on the show to my own developmental desire; to bring forth to the surface, through behavior, the inner world, not of beauty per se, but radiant, vibrant life found in the fullness of human expression that makes even awkward girls beautiful.
I have an interest in developmental pathways, anyway. So in watching this show, I look for the design elements and the conditions that seem to work toward this end. There is a mixture of vmemetic conditions, content and context used in the ANTM design, seemingly built on top of strong base of Orange conditions. The ANTM pathway, does seem to require a descent amount of Orange code in its contestants. At it’s core, if one has the Orange code operating in them, they are aware and demonstrate a capacity to change…a worldview that includes an understanding that individuals can change things in this world, themselves, primary above anything else. On this show, over the 12 week cycle, there is ample opportunity to develop and change as Top Model qualities are exercised, critiqued and nurtured.
This excerpt I find fascinating. From the developmental lens I look through, with the limited exposure to the reality I have through the TV editing and showing, it looks like a classic case of too much complexity relative a persons ability to handle it. It’s like demanding that someone use algebra to solve a problem when the haven’t gotten past multiplication and division yet.
This scene is really more about Tyra than the contestant. From Tyra’s perspective, she has offered these girls a chance in lifetime, with an abundant environment of resources and support for them to achieve their supposed dream. When this opportunity is disrespected, Trya drops into Red like a bomb (with the archetypal Gen-Xer battle cry “take responsibility for yourself”) Exactly where her contestant is stuck, powerlessness to change. Tiffany, the contestant, doesn’t seem to have the self knowledge nor the thinking to know how to change herself because it comes with the Orange code. It doesn’t matter how much yelling you do, particularly from on high, nor how good the anger management program is, it won’t produce the orange code. In fact, I’d bet from this encounter Tyra’s rant more than likely embedded Tiffany in her powerlessness as the result of this very public shaming.
The answer? I don’t know, that’s why I watch shows like this!
John Petersen, founder of the Arlington Institute and frequent speaker at many of the Spiral Dynamics events I have attended, has dedicated himself to sifting through a spectrum of sources; in search of indicators, models, insights and early warning signals in pursuit of understanding, predicting and envisioning our future.
About 8 years ago, I came across the work of Lee Carroll, the man behind Kryon, a channeled entity of Magnetic Service. At that time, I thought the information from this source, while interesting, didn’t hold much attraction for the focus and issues I was working at that time. My mind is naturally resonate with metaphysical principles so I didn’t reject it, at that point I wanted a different kind of support.
Last week, John hosted Lee Carroll in the DC area for an afternoon lecture/channel. When I received an invitation I knew I needed to go.
The best my mind could wrap around the reasons I would be attracted to this event stemmed from an overarching interest in solving the big issues facing our planet. So if John thinks this source is worth investing in, I’ll listen. Beside my mental constructs have change significantly since I explore new age/metaphysical content. I was curious to know if some recalibration or shifting of my thinking was being called forth.
Off I went, a two hour drive from my home in Maryland to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia on gorgeous, sunny Sunday afternoon. That in itself would make the day enjoyable. The lecture was in held in a garden room where all the windows had been blacked out. Interesting. That was never fully explained, but I assume it has something do with Kryon as magnetic master, relationship with sunlight. Perhaps sunlight distorts or dilutes the channel connect. I don’t know…pure speculation on my part. We sat in very dark garden room.
I found Lee to be funny, down to earth, not strange at all, and very easy to listen to. The channel portion of didn’t yield much for me. But I enjoyed a refresh in the new age world. I took two things with me from that lecture. One of which is the real subject of this post.
What I valued most from the Kryon material is the integration of it with Lee’s scientific and engineering background. Lee spent some time with us on his leading edge of exploration involving the understanding of human DNA. The basic premise of Kryon’s channeling about DNA is that it is multidimensional and the physical part of it is only a small part of it’s whole nature. Lee was really excited about new discoveries in the physical world of DNA. He spent a significant portion of his presentation outlining a precept that DNA is not a strand, but a loop; a loop that is a super conductor of magnetic energy.
DNA, the basic structure of life on this planet, and it’s multidimensional properties is a magnetic force.
The implications of this precept are extraordinary. Lee’s excitement focused around the idea, if this is true, then our ability to shift and change can be largely facilitated by the direct and intentional interaction of human DNA.
I have been sitting with this imagery and possibility in my mind for the last week, intuitively following the spark created from Kryon/Lee Carroll’s illuminations. In conjunction with lots of activity and change related to my relationships, a model started to come together in my mind, as a critical piece of the next model around which to structure a support system for a Marriage.
"Peoples lives are way more sophisticated, intricate, and multifaceted than the systems they are using to manage them."
A Mouthful
Cherie is a professional with a background in solving complex business issues with technology-based systems, sales and marketing, business development, consulting, coaching, training, publishing, and project management skills. A creative, analytical, intuitive and whole systems thinker who is committed to leading a next generation organizational development services network.
