This post is continuously updated. It’s a living document on the flow of life at the edge.
For some people that causes problems or issues. That’s OK.
My work apparently rubs some people the wrong way. Also OK.
Others apparently find joyful transcendence. That would be in alignment with my style.
When you engage with work that compels you to look at the naked truth of who you are, that can cause a bit of uncomfortableness. Learning to sit with the discomfort if you get lucky it merges into the silence.
At that point of merging the flow really flows…. When you get comfortable again, you keep pushing into the unknown… and when it all becomes too much…you pull back and chill out for a bit. Maybe have a dirty martini. Or sex on the beach. Or a day or two of wandering aimlessly through the streets of desire.
This is one aspect of Edge Flow. The ebb and flow of internal flow.
Did you skim the part above about merging into silence? The great thing about writing is it can be all things to all people. Most people will skim this, but others (the special ones…the ones who engage with their full beings and senses) will feel it in different parts of their being.
You’re the ones I write for. You, and all those who love the written word as they love fine chocolate, deliciously naked bodies, or savoring the precious little joys in life that most of us overlook.
State of the Edge Flow Manifesto
The majority of 41 invites to a group of amazing edge-pushing writers, artists and changemakers have now been sent. (To who precisely..? For starters the luminaries here.) The responses coming in are just absolutely, intimately, ecstatically delicious.
When you ask the right questions, they just beg to be answered. And I fully recognize my imperfect capacities in this regard…
What I’m continually learning and refining in this work, is the art of honing in on the most relevant and engaging questions for my subjects. This is the hardest part of the process, this choosing of questions, second only to choosing the subjects.
I’m not fond of the assembly-line approach. Everyone gets their own carefully chosen questions. Two to be exact.
My job is to peer into the soul imprint of each subject’s work on this earth and ascertain what their essence is crying to answer, within the context of what I seek to shed light on. The more I’m flowing in myself, the easier it becomes.
Which brings us to the core of what I’m getting at: (which I was pleased to discover meself)
The Tyranny of Structurelessness
There’s a famous piece from the 1970‘s by Jo Freeman on the inner workings of social movements and their organizations, The Tyranny of Structurelessness, essential reading for anyone with anarchistic tendencies, and those who love to hate them.
What always struck me about this in practice is that with no real structure, control in an organization is inevitably ceded to the core participants who seize upon it. The direction becomes easily swayed, and the voyage invariably tumultuous. Eventually, the chaos works itself out, for better or worse…
In our own lives, we see this happen all the time. We want to be wild and free, and set sail to fly with the wind. We want to set the world on fire with our passion and creativity. But when we venture to do these things by the seat of our pants, with no cohesive structured to guide our work, we’re burnt by the sun and sent crashing down to earth.
What happens is the domineering aspects of our personalities take over, and our quest is left shipwrecked by the mutinous tyrants of vanity, insecurity, self-doubt, loathing and general disorganization.
The challenge is to create adaptable, living frameworks to operate in. Frameworks of structured intention, with the understanding that they will change, but with the appeal of reason keeping them together.
Frameworks that really work
Frameworks are easier for left-brain highly analytic people, and harder for right-brain highly creative people.
That’s why the fusion of both sides in a way that works for each can create amazing results. But you have to make it work. Creativity and vision meets planning and structure, in a way that works for you…the supreme goal. :)
To close with a more personal example…
I started my process of Edge Flow invites with a spreadsheet. On the far left column are all the names of invitees. The next has their two questions, followed by columns for dates, confirmed responses, contacts, etc.
I love this! I despise structured authority, but being organized is a point of pride for me, since it pulls on a part of my nature that’s always rebelling. It’s like taming the beast.
Knowing my rebellious nature, I decided to put it in chains, and proceed down the alphabetical list one by one. I put my chin down and did the work. I would sit with each person’s work for a while, come up with my two questions, craft the email, refine the questions, send it out… and move to the next one down. It was painfully enjoyable, like the satisfaction you might get from a hard day’s work. Over and over and over. This went on, dragging on, for the first 15-20 people, for the better part of a WEEK.
Then I did something different. I took my structured list, and started to jump around to where my interest was drawn… “Ooo…this person, what do I want to learn from them, what are they up to right now anyway…what’s the burning questions their soul is crying to have answered..?
Why didn’t I do this from the start? My reasoning was if I did it that way, I would skip the hard ones, the people that scared me to contact — the people in the upper echelons of worlds which I had absolutely no connection with or realistic hope of getting a response from.
But this was assuming my own weakness — the kiss of death for all things structured or free. I tortured my work, and crimped the flow, under the false pretense of structure to account for weakness.
Structure must be joyful to work right — you’ve gotta set it free. Stare the weakness in the face say HA — Booyah suckah…try me!
For the second half, I gleefully jumped around my list, pulling up the ones who called to me, until I finished all my questions. And it took me a matter of hours.
Such a small adjustment, and everything turned to joy. What allowed me to make this decision…? Simply easing into the flow, within a workable framework. A structured flow.
Glorious, free and wild yet adaptably structured Flow.
Curiously delicious.
This is the core of my current work, and what I’m moving fully into. It’s also what’s behind Edge Flow. I want to give the artists and highly creative ones — those kissed by divinity’s spark — clear and functional pathways for flowing and doing our greatest work.
The freedom of your true expression, unleashed effectively to the world, brings us to our knees.
It also dissolves hate, injustice, separation, conflict, starvation and destruction in the world. How…? Just watch the process of aligning with the great flow of your spirit. It’s real. And it touches everything outside you also.
This is all our greatest work.
The Dreamers are the saviors of the world…. Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish. ~ James Allen (“As a Man Thinketh”)
Where does last week’s edge notes go when it dies? (Shhh… I have a secret, and if you subscribe to my capturing epic flow series I may be compelled to share it with you.)
Retweet and share with your friends… IN FIERCE LOVE, FLOW & GLORY.
