by Heather Plett | Feb 25, 2012 | art, Beauty, Creativity
I was standing at my kitchen sink yesterday afternoon when the tears started flowing down my face.
I wasn’t crying because of the drudgery of having to clean the house again, and again, and again. I was crying for the sheer privilege of being able to clean the house for my daughter’s sixteenth birthday.
Wilma Derksen didn’t get to clean the house for her daughter Candace’s sixteenth birthday. When Candace was just thirteen years old, she disappeared on her way home from school. Six weeks later, her body was found, tied up and frozen in a shed not far from the Derksen’s home.
Just last year, twenty-seven years after Candace’s death, her murderer was finally found and convicted.
Yesterday, before cleaning the house, I visited an art show made up mostly of art created by Cliff Derksen and Odia Reimer, father and sister of Candace, during and after the murderer’s trial. Every piece bore marks of pain, anger, guilt, anguish, and love.
The first piece I saw was a set of simple pencil drawings Cliff drew during the trial. There were sketches of the judge, the security guard, the jury, and various other players in the narrative that was their life for those twenty-three days. Mixed into the human characters were images of the guardian angel that protected them throughout, and the demons who were never far from their minds.
The piece that first made me cry was a set of simple black and white photos Odia took of the steps her sister would have taken on her way home from school. Just a simple, ordinary street, with simple, ordinary stories happening all around, and yet those everyday images took on a whole new layer of meaning because they represented her sister’s last view of the earth. Under the images were snippets of text representing the moments and thoughts the family experienced in the days after Candace’s disappearance – the way they’d been treated by police who interpreted their deep faith as religious fanaticism, the day that five plates were set at the table and one had to be put back in the cupboard, the guilt Wilma felt over not picking her daughter up from school that day.
Below the images stood a sculpture that represented Cliff’s anguish. It was titled “Suspicion” and was ostensibly about his youth, growing up on a farm… “how impossible expectation resulting in judgement, created an environment loaded with suspicion and distrust on all sides.” He felt trapped like the first post of a barbed wire fence – something I could immediately recognize, having grown up on a farm with similar expectations. At the bottom of the text, though, was something I had no way of relating to. “Is this symbolic of my 22 years under suspicion?” Imagine… 22 years he lived with the knowledge that some in the police force suspected him of murdering his own daughter.
My own memory flashed back to the day when I’d returned home to the farm after suffering at the hands of a rapist. My father, overcome with emotion and the pain of knowing he’d been unable to protect his own daughter, left the house for a few moments. When he returned, with great pain in his voice, he told the story of a man he’d once known who’d spent five years of his life hunting for the man who’d raped his daughter, with the intent of killing him. “Suddenly,” my pacifist father said, “I know exactly how he felt.” My father was not under suspicion, but like Candace’s father, he probably felt trapped, knowing he could do nothing to change what had happened.
The next piece that caught my attention was one that I’d seen before – 490 crocheted teardrops created by Odia. 70×7 – the number of times the Bible instructs us to forgive those who’ve wronged us. With each teardrop crocheted, I imagine Odia trying to find a drop of forgiveness in her heart for the man who’d taken her sister from her. I’m sure the tears she shed as she crocheted them were more full of rage than they were of forgiveness.
Upstairs in the gallery, two last pieces provided the final frame for the story that the other pieces began. One was a line of six black and white images of feet drawn by Cliff, called Sacred Ground. Each set of feet represented a different member of his immediate family as they sat in the trial waiting to hear the verdict. Most of the feet were barefoot. During the trial, they’d often removed their shoes to remind themselves that, like Moses at the burning bush, they were on Sacred Ground. God was with them in the courtroom and had been with Candace as she lay dying in the shed. What great faith that simple act of removing their shoes must have required!
The final piece moved me even more than the rest, and makes me determined to go back to the gallery so that I can sit quietly in its presence for a little while longer. It’s a set of 23 crocheted circles in red, black, and cream. Each day that Odia sat in the court room, she crocheted a circle. The colours represent the state of her emotions while she sat and listened to the proceedings – cream for neutral, red for pain, black for rage. Some days were mostly cream, other days were a complex mix of all three, and other days were pure black. One day that intrigued me was almost purely cream, with a tiny shock of black. Not unlike my own mandala practice, she brought the complexity of the experience into a simple circle.
With me at the gallery was my friend Gabby with her two small girls – beautiful, vibrant children who made the viewing of the art even more complex and meaningful. While I processed the sadness, little Sadie was busy pulling treasures out of her bag to show me. One was a large plastic sparkly diamond. Surrounded by stories of death, this little girl reminded me of the joy of life. Our stories are messy and complex and the beauty doesn’t stop even when the sadness overwhelms us.
As I stood at my kitchen sink processing the fullness of what I’d seen, I cried for Wilma and Cliff and Odia and the rest of their family. I cried for the day that Candace would have turned sixteen and their basement wasn’t full of the laughter that would soon ring through mine. I cried for the gift that my three daughters continue to bring to my life. I also cried for the sixteenth birthday I will never be able to host for my son Matthew.
Several years ago, I heard Wilma Derksen interviewed on the radio, and she shared a story about the one year anniversary of Candace’s death. She’d been holding her emotions together, when suddenly she’d noticed fingerprints high up on the wall on the way down the stairs. She knew those could only have been Candace’s fingerprints, left there on the many times she’d bounded down the stairs and jumped up to slap the wall above her on her way down.
As I wiped the fingerprints my own children had left around the house yesterday, I thanked God that there will still be fresh fingerprints to wipe off tomorrow, and the day after that, and… I pray… the day after that. I also thanked God for the fingerprints Matthew left on my heart, though he will never leave any on my walls.
A few weeks ago, I heard Wilma Derksen speak at TEDx Manitoba. She said that one of her greatest learnings during the trial was that you can’t hold two things equally in your heart. Though she tried to hold both love and justice during the trial, she knew that there was not enough space for both. And so, for the sake of her family that remained with her, she chose love.
Yesterday, as I prepared to celebrate my daughter, I too chose love. It’s the same choice my dad made after the rapist harmed me. And the same choice I made eleven years ago after human error resulted in the death of my son.
Again and again, I choose love.
by Heather Plett | Feb 22, 2012 | Creativity, mandala
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense. – Rumi
“You know what your problem is? You’re too good at seeing both the pros and cons of every situation.” Those words came from a former boss of mine who was somewhat frustrated with me at the time (fifteen years ago) for failing to take sides on an issues. (More specifically, I was failing to take his side.)
Although they were spoken in frustration and were meant as more of an insult than a complement, I have always been grateful for those words. They’ve been some of the most clarifying and helpful words spoken to me in my own self-discovery journey. (Incidentally, that wasn’t the last time I heard similar words from a male boss.)
At the time, though I may have blushed a little at his annoyance, I had a wonderful a-ha moment about a quality I possess that is both a strength and a weakness.
I can sit comfortably in the grey zone.
I don’t need a world painted black and white, true or false, right or wrong, good or bad. Most of the time, I am more comfortable in the centre line between the yin and the yang. I like to probe the depths of both the black and the white and find the grey buried underneath.
In the past, when I’ve been in leadership positions that have required decisiveness and clear direction, this quality has been a bit of a stumbling block. Staff would sometimes get frustrated with me when I’d show up at meetings with more questions than answers. On the other hand, when I invited them into the grey zone with me, there was usually rich and deep conversation that wouldn’t have happened with a more black and white leader.
This is why I am so thoroughly enjoying the work I’m currently doing. When I teach or host conversations or work one-on-one with clients, I invite people into spaces of exploration and questions. Together we explore the beautiful shades of grey in the field beyond “wrongdoing and rightdoing”. I get to ask good questions – the kinds of questions that don’t have immediate answers and require us to practice sitting with them. In classrooms where there are strong-minded, dualistic thinkers, I invite them into the common spaces and help them find shades of truth in the other’s line of thinking. I am happiest when I have helped people poke holes through the boxes in which they’ve placed themselves and they can begin to see that there is light outside the box.
I take Jesus as my model for how to live in the grey zone and still serve as an effective leader. His greatest frustration was with the church leaders who got so lost in rules and doctrine that they didn’t leave room for grace and compassion. Jesus lead as a storyteller whose strength lay in relationships, conversation, and deep and meaningful questions. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that what we now most commonly associate with Christianity today is narrow-mindedness, when Jesus was one of the most radically open-minded leaders in history?
I’ve always found it interesting that Jesus chose to never write anything down. I’m sure he knew that writing things down would give people throughout history the excuse to turn his words into black and white proclamations.
Instead of doctrine and laws, Jesus left us with stories full of grey areas. He invited us into that field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing.
I am sure that many of the people who resisted Jesus were just like some of my students, who express frustration that there are no clearer rules for right and wrong in the subjects I teach (eg. writing, facilitation, creativity). It’s easier to live in a world of black and white because then we know what’s expected of us and we know when we’ve crossed the lines.
But, unless you’re a police officer enforcing the law, most of the world doesn’t function that way.
We all have to live in the grey zone.
My mandala practice is one of the most beautiful ways I’ve found for living comfortably in the grey zone. Mandalas invite us out into the field that Rumi speaks of, where “the world is too full to talk about language, ideas,” and “even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.”
Mandalas invite us out past our linear, problem-fixing mindsets, into a circular world, where truth leads us down spiral pathways instead of straight lines. They help us shift out of the space where language and logic box us in, and into a space where colour, shapes, intuition, prayer, circle, and meditation open the sky above that field.
When I invite people into mandala conversations, we explore the shades of grey that were missing when they first looked at the issue through a black and white lens. After our conversation, they are invited to bring their questions to the mandala where the questions and the ambiguity become things of beauty rather than obstacles to be wrestled with.
I often struggle a bit when I’m describing my mandala practice for people, partly because it’s hard to describe something that engages primarily our right brains with words that reside primarily in our left brain. The grey zone doesn’t translate well in a black and white world.
But the more I do it, and the more I coach people in the process, the more I recognize its value.
We need tools that will help us find meaning in ambiguous spaces.
The mandala is such a tool. I invite you to learn more.
by Heather Plett | Feb 13, 2012 | Uncategorized, Wisdom
On Thursday, I was one of the lucky participants at TEDx Manitoba. There was so much inspiration packed into one day, I’m going to need to watch the videos once they come out to catch some of the pieces I missed when my brain was busy trying to process what was shared minutes earlier.
Part of my processing happened in my mandala journal. I have always been a doodler, but my doodling has become more focused and more colourful since I started taking my mandala practice more seriously (and taking it public). Most of the time, I simply doodle in the shape of a circle, and throw in whichever words jump out of what the speaker says, or out of my own responses. I totally love this process and highly recommend it. Bring markers with you EVERYWHERE! You never know when you might need to doodle. The other three mandalas I made can be seen here.
I’m sure that there will be pieces of wisdom popping into my head weeks from now that I hadn’t thought of before, but for now I thought I’d put together a few things that struck me at the event.
1. Stories carry transformational wisdom. The presentations that impacted me the most were the ones that had stories at the heart of them. There was the story of the solar house built long before it was trendy, the fruit-lover who created a fruit-picking co-operative to keep the excess fruit from rotting in her community (and beyond), the young man determined to help his peers stay out of gangs in their neighbourhood, and so many more. Stories help us imagine the world differently.
2. Life is messy, but the messes are worth sharing. The presentation that impacted me most was the one made by Wilma Derksen, perhaps because I am a deep believer in turning our pain stories into gifts. Wilma’s daughter Candace was murdered 27 years ago, and just last year the murderer finally stood trial. Wilma shared a deeply personal, messy, honest, painful, and hopeful story of the many emotional journeys she has had to pass through – from rage to forgiveness, from hatred to love. During the trial, she realized that she could not hold both love and justice in her heart in equal measure and had to choose love. Wilma’s presentation is a reminder to me that the messy bits of life are worth sharing, even if we can’t wrap them up in neat little bows and make them look pretty.
3. Art transforms bleak spaces and opens people’s hearts. Grant Barkman talked about using graphic facilitation as a tool to build consensus in group process, and Kale Bonham talked about using art banners to transform a bleak, crime-riddled neighbourhood. Both showed the power of art and design to shift energy and open up new stories. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it also gives more power to those thousand words.
4. Being a story-changer is as important as being a storyteller. Brad Tyler-West spoke about being bold enough to change the stories that no longer serve us and stepping into new stories. Other presenters didn’t overtly say the same thing, but demonstrated it in what they shared. Getty Stewart talked about how she had decided to change her story and made sharing the dominant factor in the way she interacted with her community. Matt Henderson shared how he’d changed the learning experience for his students by letting them co-create what went on in the classroom. Almost every presenter shared some story-changing moment in their lives when they went from complacent bystander to engaged change-maker.
7. What they taught you in Kindergarten still holds true – sharing makes the world a better place. One of the predominant threads running throughout the day was the theme of “sharing your gifts”. For Gem Newman, that meant sharing a passion for science; for Getty, it meant picking fruit that neighbours were letting rot in the back yard and sharing it with a seniors’ home; for TJ Dawe, it meant sharing ideas online. The whole concept of TED really is built on sharing… “ideas worth spreading.” There’s something powerful about being in a room full of people willing to gift others with the wisdom and ideas they’ve gained in their lifetimes.
8. We need to learn from nature and make nature our friend. David Zinger talked about the wisdom we can learn from bees, and how a study of bees might help us re-imagine our corporate structures. Robert L. Peters talked about harnessing the sun’s rays in more effective ways to heat our homes. Both expressed a desire to be present in the natural world and to let it teach and inspire us.
9. The grey is where the wisdom is. Forget dualism, and look for the space between black and white. See failure as a friend instead of a foe. Our dominant culture wants to define the world in terms of clean boxes and definitions. Those are not serving us anymore – we need shades of grey. The grey helps us find out who we truly are.
10. Walkable neighbourhoods are better for everyone. Hazel Borys shared profound truths about how much benefit there is in developing walkable neighbourhoods, and yet how much our current zoning bi-laws prohibit this. One slide that sticks in my mind is the one that shows how much more revenue a well designed walkable neighbourhood brings into the city coffers compared to a big box store. Not only that, but it saves the family a significant amount of money not having to drive to the perimeter for their groceries and family activities. She has proof for something I believed in my heart to be true.
11. The wisdom of the group is greater than the wisdom of the individuals. Again, this is an over-riding theme that TED demonstrates so beautifully. As TJ Dawe said, collective wisdom may be harder to mine, but the riches that we’ll uncover once we’ve done the hard work are worth every bit of the effort. Just like the cardboard city that emerged in my Creative Discovery class last week, we come up with better ideas when we work together than when we work alone.
12. Our children are our future. Linda Cureton said leaders need super powers (an idea that doesn’t really resonate with my belief in everyday leadership, but her ideas had some merit) and our future superhero leaders are currently riding tricycles around the neigbhourhood. Robert J. Sawyer hypothesized that, given the rapid advances in science and health research, the first immortal has probably already been born (again, it felt like a stretch for me, but was interesting none-the-less). Matt Henderson believes in giving youth more autonomy in the classroom so that they will emerge as stronger leaders and thinkers. A common thread was the importance of paying attention to our children.
by Heather Plett | Feb 10, 2012 | change, Creativity
Last night I asked my Creative Discovery students to consider the word chaos.
“What does the word mean to you? What does it conjure up?”
One woman groaned. Her job feels like chaos right now. “It’s being imposed upon me,” she said, “and I HATE it!”
Another woman (the scientist in the circle) spoke of the chaos theory and how random things are always happening. She said that helped her see chaos as a positive thing.
A third woman had a body reaction to the word – said it filled her with dread and angst.
“What I’d like you to consider,” I said, “is that chaos is a necessary step in the journey toward creativity.” And then I presented the change curve.
Before the transforming idea can emerge that will lead us to the new status quo, we have to go through chaos. There are no short cuts. You see it appear in almost every development model – from community development to project management.
CHAOS is a common factor in our lives any time real transformation is about to take place.
Around the circle last night, a few looks of recognition began to appear when they superimposed the change curve on their own lives. Ah yes, they’d been through chaos.
Getting up from my chair, I walked over to a large garbage bag. I picked it up and dumped the contents on the floor. It was full of things I’d collected from my recycling bin and garbage can – cardboard, plastic, styrofoam.
“THIS is chaos,” I said. “Out of this, we’re going to invite creativity to appear.”
“I want you to imagine your life and the space you’d ideally like to live in. What things are of value to you that you want around you? What do you want your community to offer you in order for you to feel comfortable and at home? Work on your own space, but also work as a community to develop a neighbourhood that reflects who you all are and what you value. Go ahead – make something out of chaos.”
The eager ones jumped in right away and started imagining bookstores and coffee shops. The reluctant ones took their time, but before long they too were drawn in.
Out of chaos, beauty started to emerge. A comfy coffee house; a bookstore; a neighbourhood park with a play structure and trees; a farmers’ market with bins full of fresh vegetables; a recycled water bin; an urban garden; a bike rack; a tiny picnic table with a chess board. Given more time, they would have gone on – they were already talking about building art galleries and neighbourhood learning spaces.
When we were done, we all gazed lovingly at our new tiny home. It was clear what we all valued – community, green spaces, books, good food, comfort, and friendship. There were no freeways or big box stores in sight.
At the end of the class, nobody wanted to put their new creation back into the garbage bag. This was no longer garbage – it was art and ideas and little bits of their dreams.
That classroom last night was a tiny microcosm of the world in which we live. It may feel like chaos right now, with a lot of garbage we’ve created cluttering up our lives and making us feel trapped. And yet, out of chaos, creativity emerges. When push comes to shove, and when we give space for our community and our values, something beautiful can come out of this mess.
Last night’s playtime gave me hope.
Now let’s go play with the garbage and make something beautiful.
Notes:
– Photo source for the change curve: Jurgen Appelo
– Inspiration for last night’s activity, my friend Sophia’s photos of cardboard city. Check out Halifax in cardboard!
by Heather Plett | Feb 8, 2012 | mandala
This week I had a flashback.
My very first mandala poem was published in a poetry journal about 25 years ago.
I didn’t have the language for it back then, so I wouldn’t have called it a mandala poem, but that’s essentially what it was – a circular poem that spiralled into centre. That womb-like poem began a long birthing process for me.
In the twenty-five years since then, I’ve been journaling in circle, doodling in circle, and making designs on my arms in circle. All of that has lead me to the place I am today, where my mandala practice has become so meaningful to me, I make one every day.
Lately, something new has been growing in me… a realization that this is too important not to share. Mandalas have helped me find clarity and a sense of peace around so many issues, I need to let other people in on the beauty of them.
So I’ve got a couple of new things to offer to help you develop your own mandala practice.
I’ll be doing one-on-one Mandala Sessions with people who are trying to work their way through restlessness to peace, through complexity to simplicity, and through confusion to clarity.
I’m also offering Mandala Discovery, a six week story circle and mandala-making workshop, for people who want to develop a longer term practice, or explore ways of using mandalas in their coaching or teaching roles.
To learn more and to register, go here. (Or click the “mandalas” link on the menu bar.)
Also… if you’re one of the first 10 people to register for Mandala Discovery, you’ll get a BONUS… a mandala journal with a one-of-a-kind cover handmade by me.
