Cosmic, Transcendent, Grounded Leadership
- Insights Into Practices: Cartwheeling In Thunderstorms
- A Favorite Quote
- A Poem: Just Thinking
- Half-day Retreat – October 13th
Cartwheeling In Thunderstorms is a children’s book by Katherine Rundell. I haven’t read the book, but look forward to reading it.
I love the title. I feel like most days I and our world are doing cartwheels in the midst of thunderstorms. Some days the thunderstorms make cartwheels difficult or impossible. Other times I don’t mind getting wet and though the sound of thunder doesn’t exactly go away it doesn’t stop me from exploring possibility, some joy, and even a touch of optimism. The thunder can be frightening or beautiful, even sacred. This feels true in today’s political landscape, the chaos of our world, and the events and challenges personally and in my communities of work, family, relationships.
In an interview published in September 25, NY Times Katherine says:
“The unifying thread is that our world, as chaotic and burning as it is, demands our astonishment because of its beauty, its generosity, and its intricate variety. It’s so colossal that to not salute it would be a failure of imagination, perception, and intelligence. And so I want these books to say ‘Pay attention, You owe the world your attention. You owe the world your love.”
I also find this book title a great description of mindful leadership or what I’m calling Cosmic, Transcendent, and Grounded Leadership.
“Cosmic leadership” refers to a leadership style that transcends the personal and embraces universal principles, guiding vision and actions with a sense of interconnectedness and higher purpose.
It’s a way of including or integrating cartwheels and thunderstorms. It means embracing being:
· Playful and serious.
· Visionary and grounded.
· Intuitive and decisive.
· Ordinary and sacred.
Doing cartwheels means paying attention, with love, imagination, and intelligence. The practice of doing cartwheels raises these questions:
How can I help? How can I serve?
What do I need to be happy, and to help others be happy?
What if it were easy and enjoyable?
What brings me and others alive?
How can I let go of mistaken beliefs, old and not useful habits and patterns?
(Fog approaching Mt. Tamalpais in Mill Valley)
The practice of paying attention to the thunderstorms leads me to ask:
How do I not turn away from the chaos and insanity of our world?
How can I be present and curious for my own and others pain and confusion?
Where is the thunder coming from? What is my role in creating or reducing the thunder?
The practice of cosmic leadership makes me think about my former mentor, Yurok-trained shaman Harry Roberts. I first met Harry when I was a young Zen student, living at the San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm. At the time I needed to learn to weld, to repair a variety of old horse-drawn equipment.
Harry taught me that the secret to welding is to see that many things in our world, including ourselves and the material world, appear as more solid than they are. When we weld, we apply heat to metal so that it unfreezes and the fluidity becomes more obvious and apparent. We can then shape metal to a form that we can use. He went on to say that our lives are like this. The conditions of our world, our view of ourselves and others, appear as solid. We can unfreeze these through our attention, our love, and our vision of what’s possible.
And, another mentor, who died a few years before I began practicing at the San Francisco Zen Center, Shunryu Suzuki says:
“Everything is within our mind.
Usually we think there are many things out there.
In Buddhism, mind and being are one, not different.
As there is no limit to cosmic being, there is no limit to our mind;
our mind reaches everywhere.
It already includes the stars,
so our mind is not just our mind.
It is something greater than small mind and that we think is our mind.”
– Shunryu Suzuki, Branching Streams Flow In the Darkness
A Favorite Quote
“Usually we are not interested in the nothingness of the ground. Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But If you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich.
Shunryu Suzuki, Not Always So
A Poem
Just Thinking, by William Stafford
Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.
Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot–peace, you know.
Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.
This is what the whole thing is about.
Half Day Sitting, In-Person and Online – Sunday October 13th
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. in Mill Valley.
I really like half day retreats, where there is time for some extended meditation periods, some walking, and time to process with a small community. Then, time to enjoy a Sunday afternoon. Join me if you can.
Warmest wishes,
Marc