Recently, Jen Louden asked a bunch of brave, sexy, creative women, “How you are claiming your power, trusting it, and using it to transform the world right now?” The answers they gave are beautiful and inspiring. Here’s mine:

When so much in the world hurts, crushes, overwhelms and swallows us whole, I vow to feel anyway.

To open my heart, anyway.

It is the boldest, most radical act a person can do. Always has been, always will be.

I vow to feel the sky, and your tender tears, with my fingertips.

To know the rhythm of the ocean in my bones.

To reflect moonlight in my upturned face.

To wiggle my toes in rich warm sun-kissed dirt.

To bury my nose in your pungent stink and stay there forever.

To throw my head back in deep throated delirious laughter.

To take in the pain of the world and not shun it.

To look fear in the eye and smile back with radiance.

My heart is big enough for all of this and more.

I promise to be reverent,
untamed,
kind,
beautiful,
wild,
proud,
unbridled,
wise,
childlike,
passionate,
peaceful,
generous,
and wanton.

And to feel anyway, even when the world is crashing down around me. I promise you.

Take my hand. Let me show you how to feel anyway too.

It’s a risk. I know. Only the bravest can swim in tumultuous seas. Only a boat built from the strongest wood will survive. A sexton that’s true.

We’ll navigate by the stars. They never lie. Steer steady toward a tsunami of bliss, as vast and limitless as the horizon. It’s there shimmering for us under the bright sun.

I will illuminate your inner territory. You will pry my heart open wider and wider. A blood oath between us. Fuller and farther together.

Come. Be with me. Let me throw my arms around your neck and pull your body close.
I will delight you,
entice you,
tickle you,
torture you,
tease you,
exasperate you,
enthrall you,
bewilder you,
enrapture you,
mesmerize you
and love you.

Claim what you desire. It’s right here. Now. Breathing, pulsing next to you.

Like a whisper. Like the brush of a kiss, a soft exhale against your cheek.

This. Now.

A moment so real it crushes insignificance with its weight.

Open me like a living poem. I dare you.

Click here to download a copy of this beautiful collection of 47 essays, poems, photographs and videos. (no cost and no sign up required, it’s purely a gift.)

The arc of justice bends because people are tugging at it.

A couple of weeks ago, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and several other leaders from the Atlanta community gathered at The Friends School for An Inter-generational Dialogue on Human Rights as part of the school’s 25th anniversary. I had the pleasure of visually mapping the candid conversation.

Click the image to view an enlarged version.

The big question of the evening was how do you build a culture and a community that works for everyone? Mayor Reed made some powerful points when he spoke about the people who are being left behind—many of who grew up in poverty and didn’t receive a good education.

Poor people are needed to do well because we are facing external forces we haven’t had to deal with before, namely the growing nations of China and India. The US business model is no longer working because we can’t afford to carry that much wasted human potential.

Jerry Gonzalez, director of GALEO, an organization focused on Latino rights, made the point that half of the labor force in agriculture are undocumented workers. Our agricultural economy would collapse if we decided we didn’t want these workers.

Toward the end, they focused on the children and how we can help prepare them to deal with diversity by:

• Taking them to vote
• Learning a foreign language
• Understanding our place in the world
• Knowing that it’s okay to be different
• Being an ally for those in need
• And most importantly…be kind.

Click the image to view an enlarged version

I’m deep into holiday hostess overdrive mode as I’m having a little cocktail soiree tonight and I wish all of you could be with me to celebrate the beauty of this quiet season.

I just wanted to let you know how incredibly grateful I am for you and for this past year I’ve had with my magic marker mojo business, but first a bit of news…..

They love me in Germany!

As an early Christmas present, I was featured in an article in the FAZ, a German daily paper based in Frankfurt that’s one of the three main newspapers in Deutschland. The article is about how graphic facilitation is changing the way we do meetings.

The link takes you to the German version but here’s a translation of the best part. (Email me if you’d like to see the whole thing.)

She doesn’t see herself and her colleagues as an artist. Art has as it’s primary target from the inner impulse of the artist. This is not happening at “Graphic Recording”. It’s more that she see herself as a kind of translator, who listen for keywords and atmospheres /spirit and try to bring all the information in an hierarchy. “We structure complexity” says Stuart, who studied politics and art and is a member of the “International Forum of Visual Practitioners”, in which around 80 persons from all over the world are organized.

It takes a village.

Back to gratitude, I have so many people I’d like to thank personally and I hesitate to name names because invariably I’ll leave someone out, but here goes:

To Julie and Brandy, my fellow magic-making colleagues, thanks for all the mutually supportive chats, brainstorms and fine dining experiences throughout the year. Julie, thanks for Big Sur. The night I stood out under the sky of a bazillion stars and saw the Milky Way again, I renewed my soul. I love you both madly.

To David, Fabeku, Chris, Lisa and Cairene, you all have been my biggest encouragers and supporters. I feel like my business is a teenager, no longer a toddler, entering a period of fun and exploration, largely because of the wisdom you’ve given and reflected back to me.

You all are running your own gorgeous, authentic endeavors and I’m beyond thrilled to be in your posse. (If you don’t know these folks yet, you should….just sayin.”)

To my wonderful clients, the individuals with their amazing ideas, who come to me for visioning and strategy sessions, you inspire me all the time. I’m so grateful that you trust me with your “baby” and that I can contribute to getting your idea out to the world. We’re gonna do amazing things next year!

To my fellow facilitators who I’ve teamed with to make some big shifts at some big organizations and companies, it’s been wonderful working with you and learning from you.

To the fabulous people at businesses and organizations who I’ve worked with this year, I’ve enjoyed it so very much and hope to strategize, brainstorm and vision with you again very soon.

And to everyone who’s hung out here with me on the blog, I appreciate you so very much. So. Very. Much.

You witnessed a couple of really challenging moments for me and responded with such amazing kindness and compassion. Your care kept me afloat and hopeful when I needed it the most.

You rejoiced with me when it was time to celebrate. But mostly you showed me that I’m doing good work in the world and it’s being noticed. Slowly, deliberately, creatively, I’m building my little world in my own way and leaving some colorful breadcrumbs for my fellow travelers. I’m so glad you’re with me.

May all your starry dreams come true.

So during this time of year when the nights are longer than the days, the fields lay fallow and the stars are tucked into place in the sky, I wish you the deepest of dreams for all those bright ideas of yours. And know that you always have someone who believes in you.

Peace and prosperity for you and yours in the coming year. And always love. Love. Love. Love.

Two weeks ago I was in Chicago for work. It was a sweet gig. About three hours of visually mapping the Keith Ferrazzi’s keynote (he of Never Eat Alone fame) and a small bit of a digital storytelling workshop.

There was the set-up part: super easy because the folks who hired me were big-time-do-this-kind-of-thing-all-the-time and they had everything covered. I just had to ask them to raise the easels up by about six inches so I wouldn’t have to do squats all day.

If these walls could talk.

The setting for the gig was gorgeous—the old Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, now the Grand Geneva. And I was back in Chicago on a perfect Indian summer day.

I did my thing for three hours. They loved it. And I was done. I spent the rest of the afternoon taking a little hike and sitting by the pool in the sun catching up on some reading. Nice huh?

Believe me, not all my jobs are this cushy. There was the time in DC at the Accenture conference when I did seven murals in one day—more than eight hours solid of listening to every word that was said, visualizing the ideas and organizing them into something that will make sense when people see it later.

My work might not look like its physically intense but it is. Tons of brainpower. Standing up all day. Writing arm over my head a lot of the time. It is athletic in its own way.

That evening I went to my hotel room, put on my swimsuit with the intention of doing a few laps in the pool, propped myself up in bed to check a few emails and didn’t move for the next two hours. I was catatonic at the Ritz.

I finally wandered down to the restaurant in a daze to have a bowl of soup and force some nourishment into my body so my brain might have a chance of working again.

Gigs that are sweet and easy? I’ll take them gratefully.

The cherry on top.

Because there weren’t any shuttles that went from the airport to the Grand Geneva, my client arranged for a car service to drive me. I rode up in the late afternoon, in the back of a town car, reading the Trib which was waiting for me on the seat along with bottles of water. Enjoying the scenery as we got further away from the city and into the farmland of Wisconsin.

The ride home was even better.

Waiting for my town car to show up at the hotel, the bell hops were on alert.

“Your car is here. It’s the white limo.”

I don’t think that’s my car, I said. But sure enough it was. A gorgeous white stretch limo with black leather seats and a groovy bar. I slid into that baby, and wow.

The driver and I started chatting. He wished he had known earlier in the day this was his job because he would have come up early to play a few rounds of golf. I mentioned that I hadn’t had time to see the lake.

“Are you in a hurry? I won’t charge you for it.”

He spun me through town and along the lake while the sun was going down. We toured the town. I felt like a visiting dignitary from behind my sunglasses.

Then he steered toward home (I was staying with family in the suburbs of Chicago where I grew up), rolled up the glass that separated us saying he’d give me some peace and took the scenic route home.

We rode through the rolling countryside of southern Wisconsin. Through little lake towns. Past barns that have stood for generations and farmers markets with their fall harvest. It was unspeakably beautiful.

I put my feet up on the opposite seat. Stretched out in that stretch limo. Soaked in the pride I felt from delivering another fine job. Played all my favorite songs. And most of all let my mind run away with thoughts of special stuff—wonderful, magical things that have already happened in my life and other stuff that I want to make happen or have come to me. It was like a two-hour dreamscape.

The luxury of having that kind of time not to do…..anything…..but daydream? A gift. A totally unexpected gift.

And being driven after a gig? I posted to Facebook that after this I’m going to want to be driven everywhere. I could seriously get used to that.

I was imagining putting that clause into my contract as a rider. No more scary, nasty cabs for me. Only limos and town cars.

The backseat is a wildly creative place.

I realized this is one of the ways that I create. It is almost always true that when I have a large expanse of mindscape in front of me, great ideas rush in. And that happened in the limo. All kinds of new ideas visited me.

Some of the conditions that made this possible:

• I had just completed some successful work. (feeling pride of accomplishment and a sense of relaxation)

• I had just done some profitable networking. (new possibilities percolating, excitement)
• I had nothing to do for two hours. (my to-do list wasn’t nagging at me)
• I wasn’t in front of my computer. (no distractions by other people’s stuff)
• I was in motion. (this is interesting because I often get great ideas when I’m traveling, like literally flying in an airplane or driving down the road)
• I felt like I was on vacation. (being in the countryside put me in a different frame of mind)

A new metaphor: the white limo.

The feeling I got from this limo ride—the specialness of it, the utter peace and relaxation, the novelty, the comfort, the privacy, the space and time to create, the letting someone else do the driving for a change—all these things I want to cultivate more of in my business.

So I’m thinking of ways to give Making Ideas Visible more of the white limo treatment because I need to spend more time in the backseat of a limo. How about you? What’s your white limo?

I’ll give you the punchline first:

I’m still blown away by the paparazzi snapping pictures of your work. Everyone at the conference loved it. It was a huge hit. I haven’t worked with someone of your skill before. You have so much flexibility, a great sense of humor and you know how to adapt to a situation.

That’s from my new buddy, Joel Mills who runs the American Institute of Architects (AIA) program Communities by Design. Joel is very much one of my right people.

Here’s the story.

Joel found me. We had a phone call. He hired me. I flew to Miami having only the slightest idea about what I would be doing. Seriously, it was the first gig where I felt entirely clueless. Not that I need a ton of background going in, but it helps to know where I need to be and when, and what’s going to happen.

But I wasn’t worried. I do yoga. I’m flexible.

And hey, I was in Miami. I loved the mission of this program. AIA put me up at The Epic which lived up to its name. *swoon* Have I mentioned my thing for high-end boutique hotels? And there were mojitos. Mojitos!

And Joel and Erin did take very good care of me.

A little background.

AIA’s Communities by Design gives world-class advice and recommendations to communities big to small all over the country that want to Revision. Repurpose. Place-make. And Redefine a specific place.

This whole project got me excited because one of my five lives (if you know the work of Barbara Sher) is an architect/designer/city planner because I would love the challenge of playing and designing at that scale.

A river gives birth to a city.

Our project was the Miami River Corridor—the ancient birthplace of the city where the first Indian settlement in South Florida existed.

The Miami River Corridor has a rich history that’s largely unknown. Part of it is a designated heritage site. There are old neighborhoods. Historic hotels. Protected Indian sites. All kinds of relics from a long time ago.

It’s also a working waterfront with marinas and a port.

The river winds through neighborhoods and public parks, some of which have ball fields and get used, some of which don’t.

It’s also polluted but getting better. Kayakers are using it more and more for day trips.

It has cultural significance. Rituals are performed in its waters like baptisms and voodoo sacrifices of chickens.

Its many things to many people. It’s also hard to get to. Most people don’t even see it except from a bridge as they are driving over. And plenty of people have never been on it, in it or beside it.

So there are issues of identity. And place. Meaning. Use. And what the river wants to be now. And issues about the health of the river itself and the communities along its banks.

Assemble the crackerjack team.

Enter into this story a brilliant team assembled by the AIA that included:

• an architect
• a landscape architect
• an economist
• a port operations expert
• a person with multi-government jurisdiction experience
• a planner who specializes in pedestrian and bike mobility

And me. With my environmental political experience. My current work as the board chair of an organization dedicated to protecting Georgia’s rivers. And being the daughter of a former 20-year Florida marina owner who was very involved in the controversial issue of protecting the manatees years ago.

For several days the team listens, really listens, to key stakeholders. They take tours on the river and in the surrounding neighborhoods. They get their feet on the ground. They experience the place with fresh eyes. They ask questions.

In a long afternoon meeting we dialogued with the MRC Commission about their dreams, concerns and issues. Because of a mix-up, I wasn’t able to capture the meeting live on a visual map. So I took copious notes—relying on my journalism experience like I did with the fine folks at AGU— and worked up a mural later that day.

Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

My favorite part was the public dialogue meeting where individuals who cared about the river were asked to share their vision for the future of the river corridor. We asked them what they valued about the river. Some of the answers were:

• the continuity of history
• living on the river
• economic development
• tourism
• unique neighborhoods
• accessibility

We talked about all the ways it was currently being used. What the impediments were to making it a wonderful place. And then created the vision of what it could be.
Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

My part was pivotal here because as I wrote and drew the ideas people shared, I allowed their vision to flow through me and into the paper so they could see how wonderful, special and significant this river is in all its facets. It was all right there in big gorgeous Technicolor. And they were wowed.

They felt heard, which was the most important part. As I often say,

Listening is an act of love.

In fact, the team got an email later from someone at the public meeting commending them for really listening.

The all-nighter commences.

The next step of the team’s process is kind of like cramming for your exams. They hole up in the hotel conference room and get to work. They think. They write. They compare ideas. They write some more.

Other folks come in to help. The youngsters who are tech savvy make maps and drawings and scale models. This goes on for 36 hours, mostly straight.

A room full of brains on fire. Culminating in a beautifully detailed 48- page report with recommendations galore. Take a peek. My visual maps are on page 16. (This is also a great example of how my client repurposed the murals created during the live event.)

All this work was presented at AIA’s annual conference. It created quite a buzz. People swarmed the murals to take photos.

I know those architects and I are going to work together again real soon. There might not be mojitos but we’ll make due with another local beverage. Aquavit perhaps? Ouzo?

I’ve been doing a lot of networking, which I like to think of as calling my boats home to me. See I have this image of my ideal clients and partners as sailboats, bobbing in a calm harbor just off my tropical island. Have I mentioned that the metaphor for my business is a tropical island? Well it is.

My business is a tropical island

It’s a place where calm seas and sunshine prevail. Its warm and joyful with pina coladas at the ready. There are treasure chests of loot on the sandy beaches, easily visible. Gold coins and dabloons shining in the sun. And my boats are gently bobbing in the waves anchored in the harbor.

The sailboats welcome me when I come out to spend time with them. Then I come back to my island and breathe in the scent of gardenia and frangipani like magic drifting in the night breeze. Everyone’s happy ‘mon.

So finding my boats….

Most of my boats are in this foggy place where I can kind of see them but can’t make out the specifics. Right now the boats are all maybe’s. Full of possibility and potential. Good, rewarding, exciting things can emerge. But a boat can also become a rabbit hole of time suckage.

So the question is: if it’s a maybe right now what tips a boat toward becoming a “yes” or a “no”?

Enter the Eggs of Possibility

Yes, I have a dozen eggs sitting on my desk. They are cascarones, the Mexican version of an Easter egg.

To make a cascarone, you crack the egg, clean it out, dye it, fill it with confetti and cover the hole with tissue paper. I have a dozen of these beauties sitting prominently on my desk. Gestating.

Each one represents a potential opportunity for me. They are gestating. Waiting to become a clear “yes.”

There’s the Africa egg because I want to do a lot more international work (I originally wanted to be a diplomat, so the international policy wonk side of me is eager to go for a gallop). And my intuition is telling me a trip to Africa is on my horizon.

There’s the Rumi in Australia egg: a new friend I met on LinkedIn and had an hour long conversation about working together which seems like it could go in interesting directions.

And there’s a few more Eggs of Possibility that I’m not ready to reveal just yet. You get the idea.

I look at the Eggs of Possibility throughout the day. I pick them up and check in with them energetically. I think about what they need. I hold them in my mind and heart. And I trust that in time they will hatch.

Yesterday my friend, the amazing Hiro Boga, held a free teleclass where she offered a taste of her amazing energy work. I never pass up an opportunity to tune into the depth of myself with someone as gifted as Hiro.

On the Yellow Brick Road call, (if you weren’t on it you should beg her for the recording) we would look toward the future of our business. Not in a yucky analytical planning kind of way but in a deeply centered, intuitive, sovereignty kind of way.

What’s your relationship to your future?

The question that kicked off her theme. After a bit of introduction she started doing her magic energy moving stuff, taking us through our body and focusing us deep inside the center of our skull where we connected with our soul. From that place, she asked us to look at the soul of our business.

The soul of my business is a magic marker and also a little girl

In connecting to the soul of our business, Hiro asked us to hold out our hand to welcome the hand from the soul of our business.** My business appeared to me as a beautiful young girl about five or six years old, in a summer party dress with flowers strewn in her hair.

** A few days prior to this call, I had a session with Hiro where she had me look at the soul of my business which I saw as a magic marker and at myself, which I saw as glittering gold dust. I know–gold dust! I love that image too.

This time the little girl was flitting about, clearly comfortable with herself and passing out her extra flowers to every one around her. I could tell she was so happy to be alive without a care in the world. Thrilled to be in her own world with those around her.

The future of my business is lush and there are boats

In the next step of the call, Hiro had us envision the landscape of our business’s future. I stood there, holding the hand of this wondrous little girl, and saw that we were in the crease where two mountains came together. We were somewhere tropical. Exotic. Lush. Think Caribbean. Gardenia and frangipani flowers scented the air. Mangos grew in the trees above us.

Surveying from our perch I saw the turquoise blue of the sea. Hiro guided us to look around to see who else was there. Ask for whomever you want to meet. Ask for allies and pay attention to who shows up.

I saw boats. Sailboats.** Nice-sized, sea worthy sailboats. Yachts even. And my people—my tribe– were on the boats, bobbing up and down with the waves, just waiting.

**At one point in my life growing up, my father owned a marina business so I have spent a lot of time on the water in boats, and love to race sailboats.

The spirit of the boat

I asked Hiro how I could find out more about the people on the boats because clearly they are my right people. I could only see them as vague shapes. I wanted to know these people. I needed to know these people.

This is when Hiro said the most brilliant thing.Talk to the spirit of the boat. Spend time with the boat like you would a new place you were traveling to. Get to know it. Ask for permission to come aboard. Ask the boat where it’s going. Ask what the boat wants to tell you.

Ahhh, of course!!

The touchstones for my tribe

This answer from her tied in so beautifully to something that came up in my previous session with her last week when we looked at the soul of my business. Right now I’m in search of my people, my tribe. Hello? I’m looking for you.

What she saw for me was so reassuring. There are many trails laid out for me. Many beings have gone before me and marked the trails. And the trails are a whole network that overlap and intersect like the delta of a river.

The delta of a river.

The image I have of my river delta is one you would see if you flew over at night during a full moon with the rivulets, tributaries and streams glistening in reflected light. Shimmering. Beckoning.

So I am using the river delta and the gently bobbing sailboats as touchstones for my right people—my tribe of fellow group energy movers who work their magic with businesses and organizations both overtly and covertly. This is where the soul of my business is taking me. We’re on a journey in the ocean of the world.

We have a lot of work to do in the world, me and the soul of my business. I’m off to spend more time with the spirit of my boats. I’ll let you know what I discover.