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Ivy SeaZine - Vol. 5, No. 6 - August 2006 Greetings, SeaZine subscribers. I hope this finds you well and enjoying your Summer. For many people, things seem to be quickening. That's certainly how it seems in my own life! Transformation and change are perpetually at work within and around us, and time really does seem to be 'speeding up'! Whether that exhilarates you, intrigues you, fatigues you, or scares the you-know-what out of you depends a lot on your perspective and your mind-body-spirit foundation. This is important, because what we 'sow' now will determine our harvest in the coming months; and how we view things right now affects what we experience. In this edition of the Ivy SeaZine, and at Ivy Sea Online, you'll find a wealth of resources and support to help you maintain your sense of inspiration, vision, purpose, calm, and clarity in the midst of seeming chaos. In this edition of the Ivy SeaZine: As always, we at Ivy Sea want to be a resource and inspiration for you on your journey. Here are the resources you'll find in this issue of Ivy SeaZine: The key themes for this month's SeaZine are creativity and communication. Here's what you'll find below:
[Ivy SeaZine is a "voluntary, by request" subscriber-only publication. Want to subscribe and receive the Ivy SeaZine in your own email box each month?] Visionary Perception: There is a Japanese concept called Wabi-Sabi, which, among other things, expresses the 'perfect imperfection' of all things. Within imperfection and impermanence, we can find an unexpected perfection. Quite the paradox, isn't it? In our contemporary culture, the pursuit of perfectionism can often give result in anxiety and misery, rather than joy and skillfulness. This 'false perfection' is the impossible quest to meet a standard of perfection that is unreal and forever shifting -- one you chase after perpetually but can never reach or meet. Beauty, joy, creativity, insight, and true skillfulness, on the other hand, are born from the sea of imperfection. Nature, or 'Natural Systems', as always, provides the very best model. Wabi-Sabi and similar philosophies call upon us to see the great beauty and simple elegance all around us, and appreciate the so-called imperfections that contribute to a joyfulness and beauty well beyond anything that can be engineered or captured in permanence. Perhaps the elusive perfection that we have been seeking has been hidden all along in what we judged to be imperfect and flawed. Perfection, hidden in plain sight. Look around you; where do you see it? [If you'd like to learn more about the Wabi-Sabi philosophy, I highly recommend Leonard Koren's lovely little book, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers] Visionary Thought: An intention can be related to something we want to do, have, cultivate, or be. Our intentions are incredibly powerful, so it pays to be clear on what they are and how we keep ourselves focused on them. I was reminded of this concept (again) in the last week or so, while I was researching various texts on feng shui, which is sometimes called 'the Chinese art of placement' used to enhance a more harmonious flow of energy, or qi (chee). Though I truly believe that energy can be harmonized or disrupted, as I read some of the texts on feng shui, I found myself thinking that some of the 'cures' -- placing mirrors here, or a picture of a boat there, or a certain color in this corner, etc. -- can seem somewhat superstitious, or at the very least, not easily transferable to other cultures. I found myself thinking, "I really don't believe some of this." As I reflected on it, my hesitance centered around another belief that I have: that if you think something is absolutely true, it will most likely be true for you. So if you think putting mirrors in a certain place will enhance harmony or prosperity in your life, that intention alone may be helpful. In that way, even some of the quirkier feng shui 'cures', and anything else we might do by way of ritual, can serve as powerful focusers for our intentions. But it's important to recognize where the power rests -- in our intention, and its connection with 'the field of all potentiality', Intelligent Energy, or Spirit -- not in the particular mirror, or picture, or item, or 'cure'. The objects of ritual help us to focus on our intentions. There are many such ways that we focus our intention consciously, by using rituals, visual anchors, mantras, or affirmations. These are important tools for us. And as we're using these wonderful tools to help us to focus our intention, it's also very important that we're clear on just what that intention is, and on how much it really aligns with our purpose, vision, and path. Once we have a clear, aligned, powerful intention, we can use whatever tools -- from whatever wonderful traditions -- that can help us keep a joyful, sustained focus on it. * What are your top three intentions at the moment? * How do they align with your purpose and vision? Explore these or other expansive questions in an Ivy Sea Dialogue or Session. Visionary Communication: The writer Anais Nin said that, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Most of us can remember an experience of this being true, whether we saw something through the 'lens' of our own beliefs and assumptions, or whether we felt that someone else was, perhaps, seeing us through a specific lens. We can't help seeing things through a perceptual filter of our own beliefs, assumptions, experiences, and ways of seeing the world and our relationship to and within it. We really do see things as we are, where we are. However, we can take responsibility for ensuring that our perceptions are flexible, adaptable, and growing. Without that flexibility, we become rigid in how we view things, people, and circumstances, and that rigid view has a significant effect on our own experience -- and on others. I was reminded of this when I visited my childhood home earlier this year. It's a beautiful place, and it has been a long time since I lived there. While my life has continued to move along its path, changing and expanding me, many of the people in my hometown haven't been along for that ride -- so they see me as they remember me 25 years ago. This realization made me think of Anais Nin's quote, and how we can often find ourselves trapped in perceptions or roles that we've outgrown, because we've grown! Or we can also trap others in fixed perceptions or roles -- think of what happens in most families or organizations, and how it can be if people aren't flowing with growth to transcend stale or inflexible roles. For example, in most organizations, there are castes and classes of employees, all of whom are assumed to fit into a certain category. If one contributes an idea outside of his or her 'role' or category, it can very well be dismissed simply because of stale and inflexible assumptions about roles! This happens on tiny and huge scales, within us, between us, in our organizations in cultures. And it limits creativity, growth, connection, and potential. It reminds me of insects trapped in amber. There they are, just as they physically appeared eons ago, before getting trapped in tree sap that then solidified. They appear unchanged. But in that unchanging, they're not alive. Likewise, rigid roles and assumptions are like hardened sap that traps things within it and doesn't allow growth. To change is to create, to live, to experience, and to grow. We aren't insects trapped in amber, though if we get stuck in limited little-mind it can seem that way. * Where have your own beliefs, assumptions, or perceptions about yourself, your role, or someone else's, hardened like amber and trapped the flow of something that wants to grow? * How can you begin to open and flow beyond false boundaries that limit you, others, and your individual or collective joy, creativity, and potential? Explore these or other expansive questions in an Ivy Sea Dialogue or Session. Visionary Leadership: Rainer Maria Rilke, in his Letters to a Young Poet, counseled that one should not be so impatient to find the answer to a particular question, but should learn to love the questions themselves. This is very good advice for many of us, and for many reasons. For leaders, in an organization, or just in our livelihoods in general, learning how to really live into the questions is a vital art and skill. It's becoming more and more important. When we focus on answers, without really exploring the questions, we are very likely to select 'answers' that come from what we already know, or believe we know. The less we explore and question into possibilities, the more likely we're selecting an easy response from well within our comfort zone. This can be fine, if the particular answer really is optimal for the current question. But as we see all around us, many of the 'old answers' that felt so right and comfie just aren't cutting it when it comes to our current challenges. Up until now, in what I'll call the '20th Century, old-paradigm' approach, leaders were expected to know the answers. Those who wanted to impress others always had an answer for everything, whether they really did or not. They championed and 'rolled out' so-called 'best practices' based on what had worked at some previous point for some other organization. But now, if you're not asking questions -- and I mean really asking good questions -- you're stagnating, standing still, molding. That doesn't sound very appetizing, does it? In the new era, which pretty much is already underway, leaders -- which includes people not always in conventional or traditional leadership roles -- must become more and more adept at asking questions, at inquiring into things, and at really living with and living into those questions. Best practices are identified through creative inquiry and organic thinking. We must do this while living 'little answers' -- akin to building the airplane while we're flying it. Good questions provide the doorway to true creativity, innovation, excitement, energy, growth, and life. Learning to live into the questions -- and love the questions themselves -- is one of the must-have skills or 'competencies' for new-era leaders, wherever we may be found.
Dialogues & Sessions: Ivy Sea offers a wealth of resources for asking great questions, deepening skillfulness, clarifying your purpose and vision, and aligning it with skillful action in leadership, entrepreneurship, and right-livelihood. Several of our most powerful offerings were, for a long time, just part of our larger consulting projects. But after we heard time and time again from our clients about how powerful these dialogues and sessions were, we knew it was time to offer them as separate services. Fun, fun, fun! ** Vision-Quickening: ** Intuitive Imagery: Surface-level activity sometimes seems sluggish, or clarity seems hard to access. Intuitive imagery can connect you with deeper personal symbolism, archetypes, and imagery that catalyzes and speaks directly to your intuition, and provides powerful visual or verbal anchors as you live into your vision, purpose, and skillfulness. ** Destiny Shifting: ** Lightning Sessions: New Benefits for Ivy Sea VIP Members Ivy Sea Online VIP Members receive access to the VIP-only library of articles, tip sheets, dialogue-starters, and PDF workbooks or skill-guides. Ivy Sea VIPs who have Gold, Platinum or Diamond memberships also receive license to reprint Ivy Sea Online content in their own groups, on their intranets, or, for Diamond members, with their members or clients. In addition to the wealth of existing VIP resources, Ivy Sea VIPs now receive two additional premium Ivy Sea PDF workbooks -- The Big-Vision Sales & Marketing PDF workbook, and the Big-Vision SOHO/SoloPreneur's Quantum Leap Guide. Both of these fantastic PDF workbooks include key content, but also even more beneficial questions throughout the workbooks -- questions that lead you to greater insights, vision, problem-solving, and creativity. VIP members can access the VIP-only resources through the VIP Log-In prompt, located throughout Ivy Sea Online. Not a VIP yet? Learn more about the Ivy Sea VIP Membership. Wise Words for the Journey ** "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~ Lao Tzu ** "Energy follows thought. We move toward, but not beyond, what we can imagine. By expanding our deepest beliefs about what is possible, we change our experience of it." ~ Dan Millman ** "Adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ** "Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines, but there is no music. Then what?" ~ Kabir ** "We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with Creation more and more deeply, we will respond to its endangerment with a Sacred passion." ~ Hildegard von Bingen ** "Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how… The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark." ~ Agnes De Mille Until next month... Thank you for reading with us. Wishing you an abundant and creative month ahead. Sincerely, |
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Are you ready to seek, leap, and soar? Ivy Sea Founder Jamie Walters and Ivy Sea collaborators provide inspiration, resources, and consultation for the visionary entrepreneurs and inspired leaders who are exploring, redefining, modeling, and facilitating joyful, vibrant, prosperous right livelihood -- good work! Inquire deeply, clarify your vision, and rise into new levels of momentum, purpose, and skillfulness with an Ivy Sea vision-quickening program, a lightning-catalyst session, or a more indepth consultation. Leap... |
