Cultivating Curiosity

During the past couple of months, I’ve been working with my coach to gather the clarity and commitment to get started with my own business. Last week we had our final meeting as I felt that I had achieved what we set out to create. He challenged me to start posting regular updates about my ongoing progress on my blog, and since then I have been waiting for the right moment.

Today I think the moment has come.

Pieces of the Puzzle

The pieces of the puzzle started started falling in place when I realized just how important authenticity and embodied presence are to me. I saw my meditation practice in a new light as a tool not only for my own development but as a viable pillar for my professional work.

For some years now I’ve been observing the work of Richard Strozzi-Heckler on embodied leadership. I find his approach to leadership to be very grounded in practice—he has even taught the US special forces—but with a deep commitment to authenticity.

Some months ago I decided to further study Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a controversial but very realized Tibetan Buddhist teacher, now deceased, who places great emphasis on cutting to the core of who we are and bringing that into the world. One of his former students, Reggie Ray, seems to carry his teachings forward in a particularly vibrant way, bringing in somatic practices from other traditions while still maintaining the great depth of the original teachings.

Then it hit me. Continue reading

I wrote the following vignette last winter while exploring the topic of my life purpose with my coach. It tries to capture the essence of what feels most alive for me at the moment through a brief impressionistic scene. I notice myself returning to it again and again so I thought it appropriate to share it with you.

Countless of millennia ago, a tribe gathers around a fire to listen to its aging shaman…

Throwing a handful of dust into the fire, the shaman recounts his final vision:

“I saw wise men in orange robes being cruelly killed with magical spears. I saw ancient writings left in the dust, wise words falling on deaf ears. Mighty tribes building abodes that touch the clouds, old people everywhere, elders nowhere. Messages from everywhere to anywhere moving in the blink of an eye. Shelters, robes, people, places looking entirely different every spring.

“I saw a mighty tree, reaching up to the sky. I saw thunder clouds gathering. And the tree was withering. Supporting its mighty bulk was but the tiniest of roots. Would it last the storm, only time would tell.

“That tree, my children, is our tribe, ages and ages hence.”

With great effort the old shaman rises up and lifts his gaze from the fire.

“When that time comes, I will not be here. By then, neither will you nor your great-grandchildren. By then our tools will be obsolete, our names and language long forgotten. But there is wisdom alive in this very moment, wisdom that can be carried on and refined, and transmitted to that day.

“Who of you will carry that torch?”