Do Ask – Do Tell: Opportunities Abound

This past week Steve Jobs died. People talked endlessly and impressively about the impact his life made on billions of lives all over the world. They called him the DaVinci/Einstein of our time. I enjoy considering the power that the Internet and Social Media have to connect us all immediately and immensely. Now, a few simple sentences from any one person can be heard around the world. I thank Steve Jobs and all of us for the creativity, impact and opportunity to connect, respect and change one another’s world with our thoughts and words.

It may seem a strange leap to now talk about something totally different, yet still connected. This October is the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. Matthew Shepard was a gay man who was beaten, tied to a fence and left to die alone in an empty field. So – what’s the connection here? I asked myself – would Steve Jobs have been able to be who he was and do what he did – if he had been gay? Would he have made it through middle school and high school – let alone develop the inner strength he had telling him he could do, say or be anything no matter WHAT anyone else thought, said or did to him? I don’t think he would have lived to experience the opportunity to touch the minds and hearts of the entire world!

I think of the military’s “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell” policy that kept thousands of men and women from the opportunity to share who they are with any of us even though they offered their lives in the service of all of us. Once this Salem witch hunt concept literally died I started to consider all of us creating a policy of opportunity called: Do Ask – Do Tell! This policy of living allows us all to help gay youth and adults speak of who they are, what they feel, what they need and more importantly what they THINK! I look forward to a world where a gay teen, instead of being overwhelmed, alone and considering suicide, will have the opportunity to make and share the next scientific discovery that changes the world. Perhaps a gay teen might feel the freedom to write a poem because their unburdened mind was allowed to open and easily share their heart with anyone. If we can all expand the wonderful Internet project of “It Gets Better” to “It’s Our Job to Make it Better” – I think Steve Jobs might smile from the beyond, knowing that we, like he, helped one another be creative by giving one another the opportunity to connect and share who we are in any given moment instantly, universally and respect-FULLy.

I hope you enjoy one poem (below), shared on this social media to express more of what I mean, who I am, and what I think. It’s my attempt to not only say “it get’s better” – but to take the opportunity to MAKE it get better.

Stories of “Coming Out?"

I’m not strong enough to be a Matthew Shepard
I’ve barely the strength to be me.
I’d rather be a Shepard-of-Matthew’s
than see another nailed to a tree.

I’m tired of the burdens we give and we receive
by hiding-in or coming-out
It sets us up to grieve.

What gives us the right to judge? – division makes me cringe!
It’s not me who’s coming-out -- It’s you I’m letting in.

If we go back to rules we learned in kindergarten,
We’d all be free of sin.
We’d spend all day looking --- and laughing
and inviting each other IN.

When Art and Words Literally Jump off the Page:

This summer, I was lucky enough to travel to Paris and India and experience how art and spirituality are cut from the same cloth. In the air of Paris the heart opens and in the earth of India the soul dances. The first time I experienced being in the presence of original art from the Masters, it was in New York (the Paris/India of America) at the MoMa art museum.. Standing in front of a Van Gogh I felt myself being pulled into the canvas, as if it was a portal, where time and place do not exist.

In Paris, at the The Musée d'Orsay Museum, I walked into a room filled with an immense sense of this powerful portal of non-place. The walls were covered with more than life-size examples of art from the hands of a group of Masters. I am not schooled in the history or technique of the various styles of art, but I knew I had walked into a room filled with palpable proof of how art and the artist can literally jump off of the canvas, grab us by the psyche and shake us to our core.

I remember knowing immediately that these artists MUST have shaken the people of their day right out of whatever was the standard style and comfort of their time. I also sensed the reverberating response they must have received when people then had to have thought them mad. It was this out-of-the-norm I loved even more; the sense of courage ahead of it’s time. I felt their souls living in the paint on that page, and could hear their message clearly. I’ve always known that art, story, word, music and creative expression are how we dance with the Mystery that mystically sings through us all. In this room in Paris, I found proof of this Mystery.

I don’t generally read ahead about the art I am about to experience, so when I walked out of the room, I glanced up at an “explanation” of the exhibit. I’ve enclosed here some quotes from an article found at www.ashe-prem.org/eight/alamantra.shtml

Le Nabis - The Prophets:

“A group of artists informally named themselves Le Nabis (‘The Prophets’, or more properly: ‘The Inspired’.) Initially, Le Nabis was composed of Serusier, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Henri Ibels and Paul Ranson although they would eventually number a dozen or so and be associated with other artists such as Cézanne and Redon. That there was a mystical influence to this group is certain.The artists would gather monthly for dinner together. At the beginning of the meal, the presiding Nabi would intone:

‘Sounds, colors, and words have a miraculously expressive power beyond all representation and even beyond the literal meaning of the words.’
In October of 1888 artist Paul Serusier brought a painting done on the lid of a cigar box that he created under the guidance of Paul Gauguin. It was to become known among those it brought together as ‘the talisman.’ It was a landscape, but one that departed from the naturalist or imitative style. Gauguin had encouraged the young painter to exaggerate his impressions, to use his own symbolic, decorative logic. This style stressed an emotional interpretation of a subject over a mere imitative depiction or re-creation. It taught a conscious effort to rely more upon memory as well as apply symbolism to explore abstract concepts. In other words, no longer would a piece of art be a simple depiction of a subject, but the subject would itself become an expression of the artist’s own visionary experience. How this begins to introduce a new sort of mystical element through the projection of the artist’s will or vision should be readily apparent.
They used devices such as heavily decorative borders to enclose and partition the subject of their works and define them as expressions of the artist’s vision rather than a mere recreation. The goal was to ‘seek beauty outside of nature’ and so they were interested in not corrupting the sense of wonder or mystery contained in any given thing including ‘the ordinary,’ which they felt could be and should be transformed.

The Prophets remain an excellent example of the variety and evolution of creative thought. They are the story of a place and of a time where genius rubbed shoulders with genius and created a legacy of inspiration for those who embrace the human condition and its endeavors. They are the fruit of a moment where time meets itself, where the death of one age gives birth to a new one.”

I was thankful to have taken the time to read the write-up on the Le Nabis. It gave root to the sense of spirit I could feel traveling through time. A spirit that came from their souls, through their focus, via their brush strokes that now literally jumped off the canvas and into our consciousness. I found myself dedicating myself even more to a discipline of play that would allow me to commensurate right here and now, inviting others to “show up”, share, express and envision, just as did the souls of Le Nabis. I could almost feel Serusier showing his cigar box painting to Gauguin and laughed out loud at the literal message to “think outside the box” --- inviting us all to live life through art as a visionary experience that affects our present and creates our future.
It is my fondest hope that we all discover and share the artist that lives and breathes in the heart and soul of each of us. That we might tell our stories, dance our messages and sing our songs easily and instantly in every moment. We are each prophetic members of Le Nabis when we recognize the power of each word we chose that has the potential to literally jump off the page, reach another artist and connect us as we express the now and envision the future together.