Tag: What the arts offer

A great poem shapes the arc of Nest City

John O’Donohue’s blessing, For the Time of Necessary Decision, served me at a most critical point in writing Nest City.  When I was trying to sort hundreds of pages of information into a cogent way of organizing my thinking, my mom gave me his book, To Bless this Space Between Us.  When I read this piece, I saw immediately that the arc of Nest City follows the blessing in the form of 10 chapters and an epilogue:

1.  The City Impulse

2.  The Planning Impulse

3.  The Thriving Impulse

4.  An Uneasy Journey

5.  Destination Alive or Adrift

6.  Emerging Thresholds

7. (Un)Known Possibility

8.  The City Making Exchange

9.  Enduring Civic Practice

10.  The Emerging City

Epilogue – The Soul’s desire

 

 


 

The inviting city

A city can leave its mark in an instant.  For former Canadian Governor General Adrienne Clarkson’s parents, Rio de Janeiro was a happy moment on a perilous and uncertain journey in their migration to Canada from Hong Kong in 1942.  (For more details, see her book, Room for All of Us.)

While the Red Cross’ Gripsolm was docked in Rio, her parents explored the town and found cafes full of couples dancing the samba.  Her mother forever carried the urge to return to Rio and ‘really learn to samba’.  I can only imagine the mark a festive dance in a festive place would make on a young refugee couple making their way from a way of life that put their existence in peril, still on a perilous journey heading to uncertainty.  In my imagination, I see the young couple fearful for themselves and their two small children (Clarkson was two and a half), concerned about the family left behind, their well-being on the Gripsolm, and if all the effort to flee to Canada would be worth the effort.  Perhaps this brief moment in a city that loves to dance reminded them of what makes them feel good despite the circumstances.

Cities are constantly inviting us to enjoy them.  What is not constant is our reaction. Rio invited these young refugees to feel good, and significantly, they fully accepted the invitation.  I imagine other refugees declined the invitation to explore Rio and did not step off the ship.  Others will have explored the city and engaged in various degrees.  Some will keep walking when they hear the music.   Others will pause and listen.  Others will go inside and see exactly what’s happening.  Others will move to the front of the crowd for the best view.  Others will take their turn on the dance floor.  Others will take a turn making the music.

It is up to us to make a decision about what we make of the invitation.  It’s not possible to take everything in, nor are we interested in everything the city has to offer.  That is the beauty of the diversity of the city – there is something for everyone.

But it isn’t only about being invited, it is also about making invitations.  In Rio, someone set and prepared the venue.  Someone invited the musicians.  Someone provided food and refreshment.  Someones cleans up afterwards.  Following what makes us feel good, we all play various roles in the myriad of invitations the city makes to its citizens and visitors.

Whether inviting or being invited, the choice at every turn is simply degrees of participation and finding one that suits.  I am not a musician and I’ll dance a little.  To fully enjoy, I am often happy to watch or walk by knowing that something compelling could be around the corner.  In other instances I put myself on the stage or serve on the clean-up crew.

In cities, we each take our turns making invitations and being invited.  We offer and we receive joy.  The choice at every turn is when and how we participate in the dance that is the city, knowing that we will feel good.

As Clarkson puts it: some of the most frivolous things in life are the most important.

Luke and Yoda

Nancy Duarte, author of Resonate and Slide;ology, belives that we each have the power to change the world with our ideas.  She notices that when an idea is embedded in a story arc, the audience gets attached to ideas and they take root.  When a story is told, we physically react, and it is through this process that ideas take hold in us.

Any presentation, then, is about the story and the audience.  The story’s arc is grounded in the hero, but the hero is not the presenter, as we usually think: it is the audience.  In her TEDx EAST talk, Duarte offers the perfect metaphor: the presenter is not young Luke Skywalker out to save the world, but his mentor, Yoda.  The presenter is not the star of the show; the presenter is more like Yoda, who helps the audience move from one thing to another.

There is more to this metaphor than meets the eye:

  1. The world is full of Lukes.  There is not one Luke Skywalker that will save the world, but 7 billion.  It is not up to one hero to make a difference, but the hero in each of us.
  2. Yoda intelligence is everywhere.  There are, all around us, people with Yoda intelligence offering their wisdom to anyone willing to receive.
  3. The Luke in us works on inner well-being.  As was the case with young Luke, heros have moments when they are frustrated and do not believe in themselves. In this mode they have great difficulty hearing the messages of their mentors.  It is life’s journey to face difficulty and find peace and strength in such difficulty.
  4. The Yoda in us notices the right challenge at the right time for apprentices.  Each of us will at several points in life play the role of mentor or coach. Our default is to imagine that we must provide direction to our apprentices, but recall Yoda, who sits patiently, waiting for Luke to learn at his own pace.  He knows what challenge will, at the right time, best support Luke’s learning.  And he remains ever calm and patient with the apprentice while the angst of learning is taking place.

With so many Lukes and Yodas in the world, the odds are for us, not against us.

Massive gathering

People are compelled to gather.  We are compelled to have time alone and in small groups, and we are also compelled to gather in large and huge groups.  And we build spaces and places in our cities to do so.  This is a characteristic of how we live as a species.

Last night I was struck by how we gather to listen to live music in the thousands despite our easy access to the music.  Recently the only way to hear and enjoy others’ music was live, with the musician right in front of you. Radio, television, records, tapes, CDs and itunes have not dampened our interest in gathering to hear music live.  And the spaces we have created for this very activity still serve this impulse.  They are critical to our very being.

Having places to gather en mass are a feature in every community/town/city I have experienced.  Not necessarily for everyone to gather – those who are attracted to the invitation to gather show up.  And we build bigger and bigger spaces for gathering as we need to, be it hockey arenas, concert halls, open spaces in front of city hall and the provincial legisture, and expansive open green spaces.  We use the spaces to gather to protest, enjoy culture, have a celebration, watch sports, raise money, hang out with families and friends, and just be with other people.

Ultimately these massive places are a place where we look after each other, whether the community hall in a rural town or the convention centre in a city.  At a concert we are feeding our cultural identity and sorting out how we make our way through the world as individuals and as a collective.  The same is happening when we gather to protest the decisions of our elected officials.  In times of crisis we gather to hold one another, to hear news of what is happening or what to do next.  We create places for the commons to nourish our souls.  They help us thrive as a people.

From last night’s mass gathering to hear Death Cab for Cutie at Edmonton’s Shaw Convention Centre (from ‘The Sound of Settling’:

If you’ve got an impulse let it out

A city’s impulse?  To gather its people and host them well.


Brake a Leg [sic]

 

Our Celebratory CakeLast night was the last night of my acting class, so it was “performance night.”  We put our scenes on stage at the Citadel.  Four things jump out at me as I reflect on the evening:

  1. “You look like you want to do something with the gloves.  Follow your impulse.” These were our instructor’s words to one of my mates as we were going through our scenes one last time before we hit the stage.  It can be a big leap to trust our instincts in this rational world, but it is our instincts that take us to a creative place where new possibilities arise.  We have a choice to make about where and when we let our impulse out.

I’ve got a hunger

Twisting my stomach into knots

That my tongue has tied off


My brain’s repeating

‘If you’ve got an impulse let it out’

But they never make it past my mouth.

“The Sound of Settling,” Death Cab for Cutie

Perhaps it isn’t my brain that keeps me back – it may well know I should let my impulse out, but there is something deeper within that I need to pay attention to.  As I contemplate my work in conversational leadership, I will ponder these questions for a while:

  • What am I hungry for?
  • If I truly notice that, what is my impulse about how to let it out?
  • What keeps me back from what I truly offer our craft and the world?

 

  1. No matter how well you know your lines, you need to grasp the plot or you’re sunk.And your mate with you. There was a moment in my scene last night when I lost my line.  Stuck. I drew a blank.  It didn’t matter that my mate and I had nailed them many times before.  Somehow I just lost track, and when I look back I can’t quite explain why.  It just happened.  We tossed a few lines in that “went with the plot” for a bit.  It was shakey for a bit, for both of us sitting there in the bright lights, but my mate didn’t panic, neither did I, and we trusted we would find our way.  We did.  He threw me a word that got me back on track and all was good.Even when you know something well, you know it works, the recipe is never the same every time.  Everytime the circumstances are different.  In conversation or theatre, there is no silver bullet/cookie cutter. 
  2. There are people rooting for you, even if you can’t see them.Often on the theatre stage, the lights are in your eyes and you can’t see the audience.  You can’t tell if they are legion or few – except for the sounds they make.  Even if you could see them, by and large to don’t know who they are.In the case of last night, it was a modest audience: our class mates, our instructor/director, the lighting guy, Citadel staff and a few people class mates brought to the event.Out front, I have a choice to make about how to proceed: trust that everyone is critically watching your every move, or trust that they want you to play a part in something wonderful happening.  My choice about what I trust has an impact on what I will do and how I go about doing it.  Do I believe in the worst or do I believe in the best?  If I lose my lines, which plot do I want to draw on to carry me through? 
  3. Brake a leg. Even the Safeway cake writer can’t get everything right.  Nobody can.  And the cake tastes just fine. How much of what I worry about is just icing on the cake? (Like the numbering in this blog…)

 

The obstacle is not the objective

 

In my acting class last night an interesting parallel to my learning to be a coach.We’ve been exploring the notion of a basic objective in scene work for several weeks.My attention was grabbed yesterday when we stopped to have a conversation as a class about the exercises we have been doing.The simple meaning of our conversation was this: knowing specifically the objective of a scene, and the specific obstacles to that objective that need to be worked through is crucial.But the focus is not the obstacle – it is the objective that pulls me through the scene, but it the obstacle that makes me want to do so.This makes for a good scene.

On the spot as we were digesting our learning, I immediately thought of some meaningful coaching conversations I have had over the last year.The meaningful part being that a coach will offer opportunities for the coachee to explore how to move through obstacles to opportunities and the objective.It is not enough to simply identify obstacles.

In the coaching models I have been exploring, I have been paying particular attention to a continuum where at one end the coach “puts in” to the coachee, and at the other end the coach “pulls out” of the coachee.To be done well, both require heightened listening skills.Specific to the latter, the coach listens intently to the coachee, minimizing the filters and analysis as much as humanly possible.What the coach thinks simply gets in the way of what is wanting to come out of the coachee.While there is a time an place for coaching models that “put in”, there is an unbalance in that respect.People seem to be hardwired to have to tell others what to do.Even in our listening that comes through in the questions we ask.

So what would happen if in conversations we served as guides to wisdom that just sits in us?What if we rest in wonder about what is wanting to come out?

Whether as a coach, facilitator, parent, spouse, manager, that there are times to “put in” and times to “pull out” of the people I am with.I am starting to notice more specifically what I need in this respect.Being skillfull in conversation requires being attentive to your actions, your default patterns, what others need and, of course, having conversations with others around what they need and what you need from each other.

In my work as a community planner, conversation is needed everywhere.Quality conversation to ensure interests are understood and priorities arGovernment, communities, developers, not-for-profit organizations, school and health systems, food production systems, energy systems, are poorly integrated in their thinking and behaviour.Unresolved and deep-seated conflict is everywhere.I don’t imagine for a moment that it is possible to get rid of it.I do imagine, however, that if by identifying what it is we wish to accomplish together, and noticing the objectives that are in our way, we then have a choice to make about where we spend our time: focus on solving the obstacles and fixing he problems, or to focus on moving through them to welcome our objective.To do either, conversation that mover far deeper than the superficial is needed.

To make our desires a reality, we have to simply note the obstacles and move past them.Just as on the theatrical stage, they are not our focus.

The Art of Professional Practice

I have an addiction confession:  I watch all episodes of So You Think You Can Dance that I can find on TV.  What pulls me in time after time are the magical moments when the dancers pour themselves completely into their craft. In these instances, I don’t have to rely on the discerning eye of the judges to notice that something special has happened.  Even I, who trained as a dancer only for a few months when I was 4, can tell the difference.

In these moments, the dancers, who are already noticeably amazing, find a sweet spot.  Jean Marc Genereaux, one of the Canadian judges, refers to it as “the pocket”.  Mary Murphy will put you on the coveted “hot tomale train”.  L’il C will say that the performance was “buck”.  Invariably, in these spectacular moments the judges are in awe of the commitment the dancers make.  And from time to time, another descriptive word is used: “professional”.   And in the context of all the other descriptions, we can see that professional performance has a little “extra”, it is a notch above the rest.

I have been exploring with two professions, city planners and educators, how we go about our work and what we notice when we our work is getting unexpected, wonderful results.  They notice that their own behaviour is unusual in these cases – they seek and embrace challenges, they are aware of strenghths and weaknesses (own and others), they look for opportunities, and place trust in others.  This sounds remarkably like the comments the judges make of the dancers.  If they shy from what a choreographer is asking them to do, the performance will be flat.  They, as well as their choreographer, builds on their strengths to make a wonderful performance.  The dancers that stand out look for opportunities to add their own flavour to the choreography – they “make it their own.”  Finally, the dancers that stand out fundamentally trust others for their own success: their choreographer, their partner(s), wardrobe and set design people, producers, judges, audience, etc.

So what does this offer those of us working in the “professions”, whether city planners, lawyers, health professionals, engineers, teachers, landscape architects, social workers or geologists?  I offer some questions that I am exploring about professional practice:

  1. Do we seek the risks of new challenges?
  2. Do we willingly exposing ourselves to feedback, trusting its truth and value to our personal growth?
  3. Do we look for opportunities to inject our personal desires into our work?
  4. Do we know what it feels like to be in the pocket?  Do we notice if we get different results when in the pocket?
  5. What is the commitment we are making to the work we are doing?

Embedded in all this is a chicken and egg scenario – do I/we become “professional” from learning, or do I/we learn from being “professional”?  I look forward to exploring how the art of conversation will serve the art of professional practice.

The Runaway Train, The Dinosaur, and the House of Cards

 

Ronald Wright, in A Short History of Progress, highlights Joseph Tainter’s three factors that lead to a civilization’s collapse:  the Runaway Train, the Dinosaur, and the House of Cards.  An illustration of these phenomena are in PBS’ just concluded production of Dickens’ Little Dorrit.  Illustrations with a direct connection to today’s world.

Dickens illustrates the Runaway Train in Merdle’s Bank, where debt pays debt, and that debt pays more debt.   Merdle alone, as the conductor of the train, sees the inevitible crash.  He despises the Dinosaurs that seek his favour to “invest” with him, yet takes them on as passengers.  The Dinosaurs continue to believe in his wisdom and prowess.  ‘Society’ has complete faith in Society, hence Merdle.  For Society, the financial returns will continue.  This is what is owed to position, prestige and privelege.  Status is taken for granted.  There is nothing that can go wrong.  But it does.

The House of Cards. From the degradation and literal collapse of the Clenham household, to the rise and fall (and rise and fall again) of the Dorrit family.  The Merdles themselves who have enjoyed privilege find it gone.  The newfound wealth of the Dorrit family is gone.   “I might go back to dancing,” says Fanny Dorrit.  Her brother, Tip: “But what about me?”  All in which they found meaning is gone.  

Enter Arthur Clennam, in debtors’ prison as a result of inability to pay his creditors after having lost his fortune on Merdle’s Runaway Train. His despair is not from having lost his fortune, but from having let others down.  His happiness in the end is as it always was -enjoying, and in relationship with, people regardless of their status and position in Society.  Through Arthur Clennam and Amy Dorrit and the cast of characters that support them on their journey, we see that relationships are what endure in the world.   If you count only on riches and material goods, then you can’t have much to count on.  The House will eventually crumble. 

In today’s world, Merdle’s Runaway Train is the fall of Wall Street and even Bernie Madoff.  Dinosaurs refused to see that the economic train was heading fast down a path of disaster.  The harm for many is substantial.  The House of Cards is revealed.  What we have can disappear in an instant.

In the news this morning, 160 people are dead of swine flu in Mexico after only a handful yesterday. Travel advisories are now issued from the Government of Canada.  The World Health Organization views travel restrictions as pointless – it can not be contained.  Looks like a Runaway Train.  

It appears, if we stop and think about it, that our very existence is a House of Cards.  Our privilege in the West is a House of Cards, and perhaps a Runaway Train. Whether it is the economic conditions of our time, or the environmental and health stresses at this time, let us be wary of the Dinosaur.  It is what keeps us from noticing the Runaway Train and the House of Cards.

Then what is the opposite of Dinosaur?  Awake, conscious, in tune with the world.  In relationship with the world.  In relationship with others in the world to seek understanding and solutions.  A sense of happiness.  In Little Dorrit, the happy folk have relationships that cross (yet keep) many boundaries – jailed and jailor, poor and rich, female and male, servant and master, harassed and harrassor, young and old, unloved and loved. Perhaps this is the antidote to the Dinosaur. A way of being that  gets the best out of people for the challenges ahead.  

It can’t really be named, this anti-Dinosaur, but it seems this is what will cultivate our needed collective ingenuity.  

 

Doubting Susan Boyle

 

As I was enjoying the thrill of waiting for the play Doubt to start at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, I read the following by the playwright, John Patrick Stanley, and I knew I was in for a treat:

“There is an uneasy time when belief has begun to slip but hypocrisy has yet to take hold, when the consciousness is disturbed but not yet altered.  It is the most dangerous, important, and ongoing experience of life.  The beginning of change is the moment of Doubt.  It is that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or I become a lie.”

After the experience of the play, I looked at the world differently.  Stanley suggests that doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and I wondered how that plays out in the world.  Enter Susan Boyle. 

As I write this, the You Tube video of Susan Boyle’s performance at Britain’s Got Talent has been viewed over 62 million times. We watch Simon Cowell ask her a few questions before she sings.  Even though I know what is going to happen, it is perfectly clear she doesn’t fit the mold.  She doesn’t look or act “the part.”  When I watched this I knew what was coming, but I also knew in my soul that I would have reacted the same way as the audience.  I felt, with conviction, that there was no way this gal was going to be for real. Then she sings.

The judges’ chins drop, the crowd rises, smiles are everywhere.  Tears surface.  Susan Boyle, with the doubt she inevitably carried in people’s reaction to her, dreamed her dream.

Stanley’s words offer so much about how we see others.  Thank you to Susan Boyle for reminding us to renew our humanity, to dream our dream.  For reminding us that there are Susan Boyles everywhere in our world, should we choose to doubt our fixed assumptions and recognize them.