What dream of myself
do I push away, thinking it’s too good to be true? This was the question posed
by Brian Swimme, mathematical cosmologist and philosopher at the California Institute
of Integral Studies in San Francisco and keynote speaker at the co-active
coaching summit in Napa this April. In co-active coaching this is known as a
powerful question. Training in co-active coaching is summarised by it’s
developer Henry Kimsey House as ‘context based, experientially driven
transformational learning’. “What I have to offer is perspective”, Brian Swimme
began. In effect 13.8 billon years of context. How did he bring the known
universe into the ballroom of the Meritage Resort and connect it to a coaching
question? Read on.
My non-scientifically trained English mind remembers Swimme’s words
thus. When Einstein developed his ideas about matter and energy he didn’t
simply download them from his forebrain. He brought them forth from his
viscera. It is no accident that what came out was a reflection of the structure
of the universe; because we are all woven into the fabric of the cosmos.
Einstein’s cerebral cortex did, however, come into play when he modified his
equations so that they made sense to him. Which part of these equations didn’t
make sense to one of the greatest and most courageous minds of the twentieth
century? Well, when Edwin Hubble started looking really hard through his mighty
telescope and proved that the universe is expanding he got on the phone to
Einstein and said, ‘get your big old brain over here, there’s something you
should know.’ And Einstein was forced to confront the fact that the changes he
had made were actually chisel slips on Michael Angelo’s David. Or, as he put it,
the biggest mistake of his career as a scientist. Thus, what dream of myself do
I push away, thinking it’s too good to be true? Give it some thought, and then
some more. It is a truly transformational question.
Apparently
such ideas are commonplace in California, but to this cold, small island
resident they took the concept of mind-blowing out of the realm of cliché.
Here’s another one, again as I remember it. The sun makes life possible. It
sends out light which is transformed by chlorphyll and the process of
photosynthesis into energy. We are all light, pretty much. The part of us that
is not, that is matter, would take up less space than a grain of sand.
The sun has matter to
burn, lots of it. It burns the equivalent of 4,000 elephants every second to
produce the light that makes life on earth possible, sacrifices 4,000 elephants
worth of matter to make elephants, and rabbits, horses, daisies, cherry
blossoms etc. And the amount of the sun’s light that actually reaches earth is
one billionth of what is actually produced. And it doesn’t ask for payment. The
sun is infinitely generous. Coaching point: think about that next time you find yourself fighting over scraps or playing at
office politics.
As well as the summit, I went to California to learn some new coaching
techiques at the Coaches Training Institute. Serendipitously it was training in
perspective coaching. In between the workshop and the summit I drove down the
central coast as far as San Simeon. I’ve seen Hearst Castle before, so instead
I drove around the Paso Robles wine growing region and added to my stock of
Pinot Noir. Apparently there was a late frost in 2011 and the quantity of the
harvest was much diminished, but this had a positive effect on the quality. I
learned this by chatting to the friendly round guy at Windward who was posted
out front, but it was self-evident in the tasting. He also gave me an
opportunity to challenge an assumption that some people make and which, me being
a Pinot fan, has impacted me negatively; namely that Pinot Noir is a girl’s
drink. I asked and of course he said it wasn’t, and how could it be if I am a man and I love it this much?
Coaching point: never waste an opportunity to challenge negative assumptions
and once you make a gain to the positive, lock it in and don’t surrender the
ground again without a fight.
Later that evening I drove 50 miles through the fog to the hot springs
at Esalen, winding along the coast on route 1 with sheer drops on the seaward
side. I was headed for the night baths, unclothed (if you like which many
people did), communal, mixed, dark and set atop the rocks with the Pacific
waves crashing below. Before I went I did some reading. The Esselen Indians
used it as a place to heal from 6,000 years ago until comparatively recently.
In the 1880s Thomas Slate ’homesteaded’ Easalen. My suspicious English mind
immediately said “that’s American English for the British word ‘colonised’”,
though I do know I’m in no position to take the moral high ground. Since the 1960’s
Esalen has been home to practices such as meditation, humanistic psychology
etc. which, for me, made knowledge of the ‘homesteading’ even harder to stomach.
To cut a long story short it was gloriously relaxing, but the history stopped
my thoughts from wandering where they may have gone to the pulse of the
universe and ancient wisdom. Later, at the summit, I was complaining about this
to a lady who was planning to go there soon for a retreat. I apologised for
spoiling her anticipation and she said, “no problem I’ll just imagine I was an
Indian in a past life and am coming home”. Powerful question: In what ways do
you rain on your own parade?
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