Masks (we imagine) People Wear

Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter

December 2013

A colleague of mine who works with international business leaders told me a story the other day that illustrates how you can't assume anything about what moves and inspires a person simply by garnering a profile based on what you think you see. A CEO told my friend that recent big innovations he'd made in his company had sprung from a series of visions that had unfolded before him during his meditation practice. My colleague remarked that he himself sometimes tailors his language to fit what he assumes will be appropriate and acceptable in the business world. But, really, you never know! This newsletter features other stories of the masks we see people sporting and how what's on the inside is often very different.

To those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time... welcome! Here you'll find news of upcoming Vision Arrow and Radical Joy for Hard Times events, writings by us and about our work, reflections, profiles of people doing extraordinary things, and stories of transformation that occur when we accept in small, bold, startling ways, the invitations the world is always sending us.

THE SOLDIER AND THE HUMMINGBIRD

A few years ago, I was invited to give a service at a Unitarian-Universalist congregation near Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola is a hub for U.S. Navy, Army, and Air Force military bases, and I was concerned that my service, which was to focus on how nature offers insight and wisdom, not appear "airy-fairy" to a congregation I assumed would appreciate rational, rather than mystical ideas.

Afterward the service, as people were mingling and chatting over coffee and refreshments, a man in a military uniform approached and asked if he could speak to me privately. We moved a few feet away, and he proceeded to tell me a story about an encounter he'd had.

He owned a cottage on the beach, he said, and when he walked in the door one weekend, he saw that a hummingbird had gotten trapped inside and was hurling itself against a picture window in an effort to get out. The man tried opening windows and doors for the bird, but it kept aiming repeatedly for that one impenetrable vista. He tried to trap it in a bowl, so he could take it outside, but that tactic, too, proved futile.

Finally, the man told me, he simply stood still with his index finger extended. And the hummingbird flew over and alit on his finger and remained there as he walked outside, at which point it flew away.

The man stopped. He said nothing else. He didn't elaborate or explain his feelings about what had happened. He didn't have to.

And I, deeply moved by the story, as well as by the quiet, unemotional, yet heartfelt way that he had told it, received a great lesson in the impossibility of judging a person's inside by his or her outside.

Tsimshian eagle mask by David Boxley

TEACHERS IN DISGUISE

The myths of many lands tell of gods and goddesses who disguise themselves as mortals and then go begging to test the hospitality of mortals . Always it is the poorest of people who prove to be most generous. It's a good lesson in two ways: it reminds us that neither the poor nor the gods are always what they seem.

On a two-hour bus ride to New York I was getting increasingly annoyed by the woman in the seat behind me. She was carrying on a lengthy and loud conversation about how to get repairs done on her BMW. I was just about to turn around and snap at her when she ended that call and made another. This time she spoke in a much lower voice... as she tried to arrange that a doctor see a sick friend of hers and then send the bill to her, the caller, without revealing that she was the donor.

I had imagined this woman to be a grandstander who wanted everyone around to know that she owned a luxury car. And then she turned into someone who was not only generous, but offering her charity anonymously.

You never know what disguise your next teacher will be wearing. A teacher might be a harried airline attendant when storms have grounded all the flights, a CEO, or the person who cleans the office late at night. Maybe your next teacher is not even human, but a hummingbird trapped in a beach house, or a character in a movie, or a work of art.

Chances are that the guide to some crucial nugget of information that you really need right now will come along when and where and in a guise you're least expecting.

Neolithic stone mask, 7,000 BC, believed to be the oldest mask in the world

RADICAL JOY FOR HARD TIMES NEWS:

THE STORY OF THE RADJOY BIRD

People often ask how we came to choose a bird as the symbol of Radical Joy for Hard Times and the signature that Earth Exchange celebrants leave behind at wounded places after making a bird of materials they find there. The truth is, it happened quite by accident.

Two days into our very first board meeting in the spring of 2009, one of our members, Eugene Hughes, brought out a trove of art supplies he'd carted all the way from London. By that time we had spent hours and hours discussing our mission, our goals, our plans. Eugene wondered if we could arrive at our shared vision in a way that was less rational and more intuitive.

With tape we stuck several large sheets of paper together. Then we all worked in silence, each person moving around the paper, drawing, cutting out forms and sticking them on, writing, adding to what others had done. When we finished, we carried the painting outside to a little park across the street. It looked like a mess. Some of us hated it. All of us were baffled by it.

Then Noah Crowe stood on top of a picnic table and suddenly exclaimed, "It's a bird!" Instantly we all saw it: a crazy bird facing all the dark stuff of wounded places and striding into it, singing.

That's how the bird became our symbol. Birds, of course, are universal tokens of freedom and transcendence. Birds keep on signing no matter what's going on all around them. They sing in war zones. They sing after earthquakes. They make their homes in all kinds of places.

Ever since, the RadJoy Bird has been singing in and to wounded places where we bring our attention and our simple acts of beauty.

The first RadJoy bird, Cazenovia, NY, May 2009

POSSESSED BY OTHER, POSSESSED BY LOVER

In my book, The World Is a Waiting Lover: Desire and the Quest for the Beloved, I write about another side of that human tendency to see the mask as the truth: our propensity to regard a new lover as the answer to all our problems:

The new beloved seems to possess every quality we've ever hoped for in a partner. We flower. We glow. We assume that it's the other person who's making us feel beautiful, strong, capable, sexy, bold, while all the time it's potent, alchemical love itself, stirred up in us by the loved one, that's doing the trick.

The word psychologists use for the habit of placing upon the heads of others the crown of laurels--or thorns--we most need to wear ourselves is "projection." Because we want so badly to find and capitalize on our own vital, developing inner qualities, yet sense that doing so is the work of a lifetime, we take what our heart tells us will be the easier route: we locate the missing link in somebody else and heap our passion there. We hope that the other will either endow us directly with what we need or manifest it so completely himself that we are saved the trouble. For a while it works--until, inevitably, the beloved crumbles in our esteem, weakened primarily by an innate inability to be other than who he really is, rather than who we wish him to be.

The whole rigmarole sounds delusional: any fool should know better than to be duped by such a blatant case of mistaken identity. Yet the enduring human ruse of finding in the other what we need in ourselves, says Robert A. Johnson, is actually the start of any romance. "We seek in romantic love to be possessed by our love, to soar to the heights, to find ultimate meaning and fulfillment in our beloved. We seek the feeling of wholeness."

Venetian carvnival mask from Studio Djaru

MEDIA NEWS

My essay, "Gaze Even Here," published last year in Orion, explores what happened when three friends and I spent a week in an old-growth clear-cut forest on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was chosen a Notable Essay by the annual publication Best American Essays 2013. Click here to download a copy.

To listen to Orion's webinar featuring Glenn Albrecht, Lily Yeh, and me talking about about paying attention to wounded places, click here.

WRITING AND WORKSHOP NEWS

My book, The World Is a Waiting Lover, with a foreword by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, is available from Amazon.com or from your favorite bookstore. It's also available as an e-book!

UPCOMING VISION ARROW PROGRAMS

Youth Quest

Youth Vision Fast

(recommended for people ages 17-23)

July 15-25

In the high desert of eastern California

Offered by the School of Lost Borders

To recognize and mark the moment when a young person turns toward adulthood takes great courage, especially in a culture that has all but forgotten the importance of honoring this transition. With the intention of finding and facing your deepest truths, your strengths and weaknesses, you then turn toward the critical questions: "Who am I to be in the world?" and "What are my gifts?" This opportunity is both a great challenge and a simple task, providing the possibility of returning home with a timeless memory in your bones and a profound connection to the Earth, ready to embark on the life-long quest of finding and making your place in the world.

Guides: Will Scott and Trebbe Johnson

Tuition: $800-$1,200 (sliding scale)

Lead Like a River

August 9-16

Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Lead Like a River was chosen by the Times of London as one of their "20 Retreats That Will Change Your Life"!

In the lives of certain women and men there comes a time when garnering more successes and earning more money is not enough. What they long for is to undertake work that will contribute to the well-being of the planet. If you are a leader in the arts, community service, or business this program in the Atlas mountains provides the ideal opportunity to reflect on your path, gain strength through connecting with nature, listen to what is important to you... and take the first big step toward shifting your attention to a truly meaningful path.

You'll stay at the beautiful Kasbah du Toubkal, just over an hour from the Marrakech airport. Perched on rocks with stunning views of remote valleys and the summit of Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa, the kasbah is a remarkable venture between Berber and English owners, and has been named one of the top eco-lodges in the world. We'll spend five nights in the Kasbah and two nights high in a mountain lodge that we will trek to. You will have a dawn-to-dusk solo in a wilderness place of your choosing, where you will reflect on both the landscape around you and the landscape within as you mark your passage to a new height of personal leadership.

Program is limited to ten participants.

Guides: Eugene Hughes and Trebbe Johnson
Cost: €2,950 / $4,500 (includes all meals, lodging, and transportation to Kasbah du Toubkal Lodge; does not include airfare)

Seventh Annual Bali from Within

October 19-31

Bali, Indonesia

Bali from Within is a journey into the heart of one of the most beautiful places in the world, geographically, culturally, and artistically. In this trip, which is limited to only 4 participants, we work with Balinese guides who, over the years, have become friends. Together you will explore Bali in ways that tourists cannot do:

* visit the sacred spring Tirta Empul and receive a blessing there

* hike through lush forests to visit a great waterfall, a gigantic and historic banyan tree, and maybe drop in at the home of gamelan orchestra leader, Made Trip

*take a village walk and learn about sacred architecture and its role in everyday life

*luxuriate at Bali Botanica, a spa by a riverside in Ubud

*join a Balinese odalan, or temple birthday, where music and dancing are performed not for people but for the gods
*share reflections and responses each night in a Council with our own small group

Guides: Trebbe Johnson, Rucina Ballinger, A. Agung Detra Rangki, and Nyoman Sutarya

Cost: $3,950.

Quick Links...

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Vision Arrow

Radical Joy for Hard Times

Contact Information

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phone: 570/727-4272

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