To Grow, Your Shell Must Break

This video leaves me in awe. Sensing the power within the fragile form pushing its way out of the shell is an encounter with mystery. All the wisdom schools and books of insight pale beside this living teaching of how life grows through itself. For the bird to become what it is, the tiny creature shatters the shell that originally nurtured its birth. This being has become too big for its existing framework. Despite all odds, the bird's soft body presses against the hard shell. Its spindly legs flex; its soon to be wings expand; its head and neck stretch. The life force is unstoppable. Pressing, pushing, twisting, doing whatever it takes to crack that damn shell to be free, to move toward flight.

Every one of the countless birds around the globe come into the world this way. Again and again, life bursts the safety of its shell to set out on a great adventure. Some birds fly thousands of miles on yearly migrations. They soar above mountains, across rivers and over cities. They stop in unknown fields, find food in unknown forests. Back and forth, high and low they move, weaving the global web of life again and again.

In this new year time, you have the opportunity of this little bird. You have the chance to shatter the shell that once nurtured you, find your legs again, stretch your wings and set out on a fresh journey of discovery. You can cooperate with the life force pressing from within you to burst the shell of your worn out beliefs, routines and structures of protection. You can reach beyond the limits of the old year and enter the unknown possibilities of the new. Enjoy your journey. I look forward to seeing you along the way.

Healing the Living Earth

At the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen they're getting it wrong. World leaders are talking up the science of climate change. They're preaching fire and brimstone about carbon, greenhouse gases, ravaged rain forests and humanity cooking the earth into poison stew. They're looking at the earth as a mathematical formula that can be rebalanced by pushing the broken pieces of the global ecosystem back into place... News flash: seeing the earth as a machine is what wounded it in the first place. Continuing to treat Gaia's living body as an engine that can be fixed by replacing parts and retuning it will only wound it more.

The intentions are right, the mindset is wrong.

It will take two things to heal the earth: 1) interact with the planet as a living being and 2) design and dwell with cities, buildings, products and other human creations as organs in the body of Gaia. Climate change is nature's response to our attempts to halt her changes. Straining to freeze frame living processes into measurable and controllable quantities, we have blocked the veins and lungs of the earth. If we don't want Gaia's heart to stop beating, we have to stop attacking her with our mechanical mindset.

The moment we relate to Earth as You instead of It the world of fragmented parts becomes a living being. When we respond to Nature as a living being we can see what we share with all living beings: hope and fear, youth and aging, health and sickness, abundance and scarcity, and so much that is elusive and indescribable. We can see that we are interconnected with all beings, that our wellness is intimately related to the wellness of our neighbors. We can see that we share these life processes with earth and she shares them with us.

Certainly we need to reduce our carbon footprints and handprints. We need to recycle, build green, farm organic, power with solar and wind. But the tasks will be easier and the ways will be clearer when we dwell as living beings interacting with the living being of the earth. Then, instead of making futile attempts to heal a lifeless machine, we can heal the vital systems of a living being. Live for an hour seeing your home, your neighborhood and your city as living beings within the living body of the earth and see if that opens some pathways to your role healing the world.

A Porch Can Save the Earth

Within a porch, Nature, Imagination and Architecture gather to talk. How the dialogue goes, so goes the destruction or renewal of the earth. If Imagination rocks on the porch and senses the familiar syllables of Architecture at its back while peering out and hearing Nature speaking in unintelligible tongues, Imagination may believe it best to tame what it sees as Nature's brutality and wildness. Imagination then spreads Architecture into the jungle with the intention of harnessing Nature and boxing it up as a useful resource. This kind of talk strangles Nature and sucks the air out of the porch. Imagination suffocates and Architecture disintegrates into a ruin.  

On the other hand, Imagination can rock on the porch and sense Architecture as a structure for framing a conversation with the vibrant mystery Imagination sees out there forming and transforming. From this worldview, Imagination employs Architecture as a means of exploring a relationship with Nature. Through the dialogue, Nature, Imagination and Architecture can discover the possibilities within them and their interactions.  The trio is enriched and the Earth has a better chance of thriving.

The Primal Wound is the Womb of Renewal

The primal wound is seeing 1 as 2. It is believing I am separate from you, that we are separate from the world. Belief in separation aches. Aching spawns the search for healing. Striving to heal puts us in conflict with what is and often inflicts more wounding. The weird mystery is that without the wound of duality there is no me, no you, no world. 

Without wounding, the materials of the garden of the world—stone, clay, trees—are not transformed into building blocks, bricks and lumber. Without digging a foundation pit into the earth, a building cannot come into existence. Without these materials, healing places cannot be created. Nature's incomprehensible law is that for something to be born something must break apart. We mostly see the chasm left by the breaking as an empty hole. It is a hole, but it is not empty. It is filled with potential on the crest of being born. 

To resist wounding increases suffering. To celebrate it is insane. But, we can step back and observe the forces of dissolution reveal hidden forms and relationships ready to come forth. We step forward and facilitate nature's mysterious process of ongoing birth, death and renewal. We can take the horror and disappointment of the primal wound and participate in its miracle of being the womb of renewal.

Sex, Lies and Architecture

On the surface, the movie, The Reader, is about the after-shocks of an affair between a young man and a former Nazi concentration camp guard. The mixture of tender love scenes and brutal courtroom testimony about the holocaust make it easy to miss a powerful question raised by the film, can an individual resist the urge to go along with the tribe? Each of us would like to believe that when push comes to shove we would do the right thing and stand up to mindless brutality. Yet, blazing a trail into a saner, healthier world is not as easy or clear as it might seem.

We live in a society where survival is based on damaging the ecosystem and wounding the soul. Our survival systems for obtaining food, shelter and clothing are enacting a holocaust against the Earth and numbing the vitality of our spirits. In the last 40 years there has been tremendous growth toward more compassionate ways of living. Yet, the same old beliefs glorifying money over life and ego-centered image over interconnected vision still guide much of daily living. 

I face this each day I work as an architect. I want to create dwelling places that nurture the soul and honor links to the greater web of life. Yet, day after day this well-meaning intention is thwarted. Out of touch planning and building codes, the whims of the latest design fashion, the affordable efficiencies of standard building technologies make it almost impossible to create buildings that nurture the planet and the soul. In the hope that someone would see through the societal cloud of wrong-headed design, I wrote two books about the links between spirit, mind, body, nature and architecture. While many people and students have been inspired by these books, few clients have expressed interest creating dwelling places that are genuinely holistic. How can I blame them? Try as I might, living an integrated life of making soulful architecture attuned to nature and making a living is something I haven't been able to pull together.  

Seeing The Reader, reminded me that this struggle between the individual responsiveness required to address the fluid needs of living and surviving in a society that thrives on suppressing that individual responsiveness is an timeless theme. Several times in the movie the opening lines of Homer's Odyssey are read: Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide... Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover, he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do as he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home.

What we face, individually and collectively, is the task of seeing through the illusion of our times. This mistake of the group mind believes that survival is based on conforming to the present systems of dwelling in the world and making tiny shifts. It says, for example, that progress is developing an electric car instead of progress being walkable human scale communities. The question for me is, can I step back from the box of the collective mind far enough to distinguish what actually works from what doesn't? Can I open to and live a vision of an integrated life, or will I be like Odyssey's sailors carrying out the sheer folly of eating the cattle of the sun-god and never reaching home? 

It's Alive!!!

Passing any strip mall, big box store, or office park, I see a graveyard of lifeless buildings. I understand the limitations of budgets, building codes and routine function. But I don't get limitations in imagination and missing the chance to infuse matter with life. The energy is in there, waiting to be released from the frozen appearance of stone, wood, glass, even plastic; released from the seemingly static stance of walls and furniture. In the rush to find renewable sources of energy such as sun and wind, the potential power within designed objects is being overlooked.

To free the vital forces within architecture, takes letting go of frozen beliefs about form, function, color, sound and other qualities of built environments. By naming a pillar a "pillar" we limit the possibilities of what a pillar can be. Then, along comes an architect like Antonio Gaudi who sees that a column can do more than stand vertically to support a beam. It can tilt! It can dance! Put them is a row and a line of tilting columns can become a conga line of a colonnade.

Energized buildings aren't the result of wild shapes and clever design tricks. They come from looking past preconceived ideas of beauty, purpose, cost, etc. and saying hello to the building elements and furnishings we live with. Try it. Look at the room where you see. Direct your attention to a piece of furniture. Notice what preconceived ideas you have about the furniture. Look through those ideas and imagine you have never seen a designed form like that before. What do you see? What is within this object that wants to be expressed. How could the object be altered to release the energy within it?

Listening for Change

Sometimes, the most creative act is listening. We celebrate initiative, movement, the can-do attitude and the extraordinary effort. With all the problems facing the planet and the neighborhood, it's natural to rush into action. "Just do it," sums up our beliefs about improving life. Yet, at the root of pollution, climate change, and overcrowded cities was someone trying to do the right thing. Who would have imagined what could go wrong with providing people with electricity, faster transportation, more abundant food, better housing and longer life spans? On the other hand, doing nothing creates problems too. The world would be a bleaker place if people hadn't stood up to bigotry, violence, corruption and a host of other ills.

Between action and inaction is listening. At its best, listening involves stillness noticing the flow of movement in mind, body, relationships and the surroundings. When I allow the stillness in me to simply notice the chattering in my head, the sensations in my muscles, and the interactions around me, I realize how little I listen and how much is happening when I do.

What happens when I listen or feel listened to? My mind opens, my breathing flows, interactions with others and the world come alive. Points of resistance and ways to move through them are more easily seen. Opportunities for growth that nourishes others as well as myself are a bit clearer.

Listening in this way is one of the key skills in creating architecture attuned to the sustainable processes of nature. Our preconceived ideas are powered by great intentions, but those helpful beliefs can blind us to genuine, vital connections that are crying out to be included in repairing a polluted environment. If we ignore the way water actually flows, assuming we know everything about it without listening to its ways, our roofs will leak. If we ignore the qualities of the ground upon which we build, our foundations may sink. 

The biggest obstacle to healing the planet and ourselves may not be that we aren't trying enough. It may be that we are trying too hard. All the helpful speeches, rallies, movements, organizations, and individuals may be more effective, if their passion to "Do something!" was proceeded by a feel moments of listening. Like wise gardeners waiting for the right moment to plant their seeds, we can listen for the auspicious moments when the gathering of forces of nature will support our endeavors.  

The Perfect Self

This is an interactive artwork by Jennifer Parker called "The Perfect Self." About it, Jenny wrote, "You can move around the labeled pins (characteristics) on different areas of the brain. Maybe you feel more compassion one day?  Maybe this is a vision brain for what qualities you are desiring?" You can see more of Jenny's art at her Flickr link, http://www.flickr.com/photos/junipertrail/sets/72157601812728795/

If there's one thing about ourselves, perfect and otherwise, the labels in our thought streams are constantly shifting. One day we're right with the world, the next day we're not. What I appreciate about Jenny's artwork of found objects is it's honest representation of who we are. 

Buddhists say, "the self is made of non-self elements." Like this collage, what we can "me" is made of bits and piece gathered on our life journey. The DNA structuring our cells arrived at our bag of "me" from millions of years of evolution. The air we breathe and the food we eat comes from processes of nature beyond our making. The language we use, the culture we identify with, the cities where we dwell are hand-me-downs that we paste together to shape the stories of our lives. The people who we share the journey with meet through chance encounters.

When I remember this, creating architecture (and living life) becomes a creative mystery. Releasing the ego's need for authorship, I enter the freedom participating in the patterns of design that are spontaneously emerging. When "I" step aside, the fun and real creativity begin. Suddenly, the situation shifts from a childish "am I getting my way" encounter to an expansive "let's party" fest. The experience moves from straining to push life into a preconceived box to a fluid ride flowing toward unexpected possibilities. 

The architect Louis Khan suggested asking in designing architecture, "What does the building want to be?" Since buildings are collages similar to Jenny's artwork, they are assemblies of the forces coming together at a particular place and time. If our intention is to overlay our preconceived notion of truth, or rightness, on that moment and setting, we are blocking the revitalizing energies and patterns that want to be born there. This is the essence of sustainable design, to trust and facilitate the patterns and wisdom of nature wanting to be born here and now.

This is both more difficult and easier than it sounds. The difficult part is loosening our grip on the belief that we are in control. Yet, what could be easier than relaxing our fingers and accepting that we are not in control anyway. Sure, we select the style of roof we want, but that roof has to meet a whole list of requirements that are beyond our choosing. It has to respond the laws of rain and gravity and the height limits of the local zoning code. We can face this a victims that we can't do anything we want, or as creators dancing with the complex music of the world.

Maybe the perfect self and the perfect world is not what we think we should have, but appreciating and participating in the one that is being born again and agin each moment.

Sustainable Gestures

The word calligraphy comes from Greek words meaning "beauty writing." Watching Sherrie Lovler wield a pen to make letters like the ones she created for the piece above is definitely watching beauty writing. It's also magic writing. From a stiff pen and a puddle of ink, Sherrie flows the arcs and swoops of the alphabet across the page. Each letter has its unique personality and emotion. The strokes delineate the birth, growth, decay and death that mark a lifetime. The gaps and spaces sculpt the formless into form. Together, the letters generate families of words, communities of sentences, nations of paragraphs, and worlds of chapters that express the story of creation. 

Using keyboards and electric mice to write letters and draw architecture, we are losing touch with the connection between imagination, our bodies and the physical shaping of matter. Our influence in designing the world is becoming more and more abstract. When our surroundings become abstract, we can become placeless, homeless. Life can become disconnected flashes of information. We can lose the threads of connection that weave life into a sustainable whole. 

Selecting fonts and composing words and sentences on a computer can be amazing and beautiful. Yet, when I see Sherrie making letters, I see the power of creating forms through a specific moment in time and place. Each "a" is a unique creation. Each "b" contains the forces alive in that now. Forms that have been used for centuries are given new life. They are renewed and sustained by the gesture of Sherrie's hand as it moves in a particular way that it hasn't moved before and won't move again. We think of sustainability as a long term endeavor, but it is moment by moment renewal that breathes life into forms that continue.

Years ago, I heard a story about a Japanese a school that was too poor to buy new paper for their calligraphy class. Instead of using ink for their letters, the students dipped their brushes into water and focused on sensing the shape of their hands and arms as they wrote invisible characters across the page. When each class was finished, they set the paper out to dry and used it again the next day. They knew that beautiful characters are the result of beautiful gestures. Recalling this reminds me that sustainable economies, relationships and architecture are the calligraphy produced by sustainable gestures.  

You can see more of Sherrie Lovler calligraphic art at www.inkmonkey.com

 

Everyday Altars

Altars are a microcosms of the world. On them, we honor what we believe is sacred. We leave off what we think is profane. Altars concentrate the mess and mystery of living into focal points of order and clarity. They are stage sets for the creation story each of us uses to shape the forces and substances of nature into the architecture of dwelling. A Christian altar inflects the world toward a different narrative than a Buddhist one. An altar in a tropical jungle might be laden with orchids and papayas. One in a desert might be decorated with stones and bones. 

Our minds are altar-makers. They are raised places, moving through the world, filtering and sculpting sensory data into stories. These altars of the mind honor what aligns with our preferences and reject what doesn't fit our values.

Homes and cities provide countless physical altars where we honor the varied actions of living. In a kitchen, the cooktop is an altar for transforming raw food into nourishing meals. The bathroom sink is a raised place where we honor the purification and beautification of the body. A bed honors sleeping, dreaming and loving. An office desk is an altar to creativity and commerce. Apples stacked in a grocery store bin honor nature in the marketplace of exchange.

On these everyday, altars we concentrate nature into seeds of imagination. Day after day we cultivate some of these seeds and weed out others. Through choice after choice to honor this and neglect that. In this way, the garden of the world is formed and reformed. Mostly we tend the garden unaware of what is designing us and what we are designing. Yet, each stopping point—a desk, a table, a market bin and more—offers us a chance perceive what the world is offering itself and that select ways to interact with it that foster sustaining ways of dwelling here now.

THE KEY TO SUSTAINABLE LIVING

The key to sustainable dwelling is noticing. Sound simple? It is. But most of the time we're too consumed with the movie playing in our heads to look at what is literally under our feet.

The photos above show a few manhole covers I noticed one day. I came across hundreds of them. Each one expressed a different pattern within a circular frame. If these designs hung on the walls of a temple, they might be called mandalas, diagrams of the totality of creation. Instead they covered holes in the street. Instead of being crafted by monks for spiritual purposes, they were drawn by anonymous artists at drafting tables. Instead of arcs depicting the cycles of being and becoming, the ridges of these designs help people avoid slipping and falling.

The practicality of these manhole designs doesn't reduce their ability to connect our individuality to the rest of life. In fact, noticing the connections between common, functional objects and cosmic designs is a way to live "the universe in a grain of sand." Noticing what is before our eyes and seeing connections between the parts broadens our vision beyond isolated fragments. From this wide-angle perspective we have a better chance of moving passed disconnected living into holistic dwelling. 

Spend five minutes today noticing what passes before your eyes. Discover connections between the patterns you see and the greater network of nature. Email me photos or sketches of what you find and describe your experiences.