BeautyDialogues

Death and Dappled Things

A month or so ago Deborah Goldblatt and I hosted a World Café out at Commonweal in Bolinas for a group of end-of-life practitioners. Leading up to that event everything I saw or heard seemed to relate to our subject in some way - perhaps unsurprisingly given my sister Karen's death at the beginning of this year and my friend Kay's passing in June.

To prepare, Deborah and I went to see Anna Deavere Smith's phenomenal Let Me Down Easy at the Berkeley Rep, which was obstensibly about the body and resiliance - and it was - but it was also about death and disease and how poverty (and wealth) effects people's access to health care. If that wasn't enough, the circle I meet with every week in Second Life began a 16 week journey exploring the subject of Death and Dying through the 8 directions of the Medicine Wheel.

Somehow the essence of my whole matrix of experience during this time is rendered immaculately by this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. We heard David Whyte recite it on one of his many CDs, this one about "apprenticing one's self to one's own disappearance" as we drove over the sacred mountain Tamalpais on our way to Commonweal.

It's called Pied Beauty:

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.

The Times We Are Preparing For

I think I've mentioned that I have a fabulous women's group that meets in a sheltering cave in a mountain in Second Life. Every Thursday morning the five of us sit in circle and share the deeper levels of what's up for us.

In my case last week it was the final stretch of a long preparation period for the first event in the "Conversation for the 21st Century" series. This (material taken from our transcripts) is what I found myself musing upon:

These last few weeks have been so crazy that I am being forced to face how dysfunctional it is being this stressed. I am behaving in ways that do not serve me or anyone, even if I am getting a lot done. My impatience can be terrible. I'm not nice. ... well, not as nice as I can be anyway :-)

And it's ironic, because truly I think that's one of the most important things I could ever do; just be kind. Listen. To what people have to say, yes certainly, but perhaps more importantly to the stillness that is behind the words.

I have been realizing and valuing how important it is to be calm and clear and strong and unstressed, especially in these times when life seems to be moving faster and faster for all of us…

(William Yeats expressed the phenomenon so beautifully in his poem about modernism, Second Coming:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ..."

Those of us who can be the strong "anchor" or center points that CAN hold during these times are increasingly valuable. Sometimes I wonder if there is a role we're preparing for that none of us may even see clearly yet, but will turn out to be of far more importance than anything we could ever "do".

As of right now, there are over 500 people registered for the event I'm hosting tomorrow!! To me, that represents a responsibility as well as an opportunity...

To prepare for it - in the day I have between now and then - I'm looking for ways to create a sense of spaciousness for myself so that the experience of awareness and presence can enter my voice tomorrow and call it from others throughout the room.

As it turned out, it's a good thing I did...

The event was just wonderful - we had the most amazing conversation starters who conveyed real depth and wisdom about the subject (community), and the 200+ people who showed up to engage each other in conversation lept to it immediately as a shoal of flashing fish to water. Everything in the first hour and a half was all I could have hoped for ... and then... we had a massive breakdown in technology.

I've been using this software since November of 2009 and never seen anything like this happen before, but Tom Foolery was up to his April Fool's Day tricks during the last round of conversation when the 60-some small group conversations began to bleed into each other, causing people to hear others who were not in the room with them. Imagine how confusing that would be if your only sense perception was auditory!

It was definitely a test of equilibrium for me and my co-host Ben Roberts, as we managed to bring the situation back to center by muting everyone and trying to explain what was happening when we had no idea ourselves.

Luckilly they had been able to talk for 15 of the 20 minutes in that final round, but it was disconcerting nonetheless, and I really needed all my patience and presence of mind to keep the container of wonderful energy we had built up until then intact.

One of the things I drew heavily upon to do that was the positive intent in the room. Everyone there wanted to keep the energy alive and moving, too, so together we weathered the bumpy patch and moved into a wonderful harvest with full participation, and the rest of the event went smoothly.

These are the times we are preparing for.
May we all live into them fully, and be kind to ourselves and each other as we weather the bumpy patches.

One Song, A Thousand Dances

One of the things I and the people I hang out with in Second Life love to do most there is dance... this excellent video made by Second Life machinima artist Tutsy Navarantha shows why (and to one of my favorite songs - Mast Mast Dam Mast by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) . 

Maybe it will be the catalyst for you to take the plunge and explore Second Life ... Come on, you know you want to. :-)

The Discipline of Peace

Every Monday night a group of us have been gathering in the Medicine Wheel in Third Life where we are guided through a process by the amazing FireHawk Hulin. Each month we focus on one of the eight directions, following a pattern called the Discipline of Peace, articulated by RainbowHawk and WindEagle of Ehama Institute.

These two wise teachers have written a book on this pattern, a handbook for creating circles of what they call the First Peace, peace within ourselves. My copy arrived yesterday. The multi-talented FireHawk designed it and I am totally enchanted by its beauty.

Here's what WindEagle and RainbowHawk have to say about the NW, the direction of the wheel our group is exploring this month:

THE UNIVERSAL RELATIONSHIP OF
CO-CREATION EXISTS THROUGH
CAUSE AND EFFECT

Through cause and effect the spirit
consciousness co-creates the Universe.

CONSCIOUS DREAMING
From the diamond of the true self,
step on the high path of
higher consciousness,
open to all potential,
align all thoughts, words
and deeds to be life affirming.

Co-create with the spirit of the Universe.

Impossible in Real Life

Even some of my most techno-freak friends have been unable to "grock" my fascination with Second Life, and I usually find myself avoiding the topic since I seem to be unable to convey why I find it not only mesmerizing, but also somehow really important. I know the idea of a "virtual world" pushes up against many closely held assumptions but I hope this post begins to open a different window.

The other morning after my woman's group in Second Life (which meets in a five-chambered cave carved into the side of a beautiful mountain on Sunseed Bardeen's Third Life), I found myself in a spontaneous conversation with some people from another Second Life group I'm part of -  Bettina Tizzy's Impossible IRL (Impossible in Real Life). The creative collaborations that Bettina has attracted and the art she showcases and promotes on her island are examples of some of what's most exciting to me about Second Life - visit her place in Chakryn and you'll see what I mean.

In this instance, she was sharing a video she'd found and posted on her wonderful blog:

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Sharing the Gift

There's something tremendously satisfying about really helping someone. These days my joy is in helping others navigate their way through web 2.0 challenges. Maybe that's because I know what a little knowledge and confidence in that realm can open up for them.

In the last few days I've helped several people get their bearings in Second Life - get their avatar to look the way they want it, learning to move around and use the menu controls, etc. I love seeing people gain confidence in themselves and enjoy participating in that magical world, but I think my favorite thing is helping people get to grips with blogging.

Each blog is as unique as its author, so it's important that the design and structure of a blogging platform be totally aligned with what the blogger wants to say; what kind of experience they want to convey and evoke in their readers.

Whether it is something as simple as customizing an RSS feed or helping someone through the initial stages of conception, there's something fascinating for me about my work with blogging. Blogging is so personal in many cases, so creative and authentic and raw - something new venturing out into the world, a harbinger of fresh wisdom and beauty and knowledge. There's a particular thrill for me in having a part in introducing these new voices and their new visions.

One thing I've found is that no one knows it all. We can always learn from each other, and I love being part of the chain of sharing what I have learned as much as I enjoy learning from others. This flow of generosity and freedom is really the essence of the gift economy upon which so much of web 2.0 rests, whether or not money is involved.

There's something deeply magical about this, and it goes far beyond web 2.0. In fact, part of the power of web 2.0 may be in its awakening of this deeply human impulse to share what we know with each other. Whatever it is, it sure feels good to me, and I plan to continue being of help when I can, as long as I can.