Retiring the "Codex", heading to "reframe"

I began writing Codex Reperio in early March 2005, as my job was pulling me across the globe and my mind was traversing equally farflung realms within myself. Four years, a couple of continents, and three hundred posts later it is time to move on up. As I notch up the triple century I'm retiring the Codex and shifting the game over to reframe- at arthurjosephson.com.

reframe will be a collection of intriguing pieces I pick up along the way. The red thread that runs through, what may seem like an eclectic mix, is the act of “reframing” or seeing from a different, perhaps deeper, perspective. This might take place in a physical reframing as in photography, or it might be through philosophically, politically or historically reframing an issue into a new context. I feel that the essence of leadership development involves the continual expanding and reframing of one’s views on the self, of our collective organisation and of our ecological landscape and relation to it. I welcome your attention, comments, suggestions and links.

Thanks for reading and be well.

Returning to Giza

There are few moments from my travels that live as vividly in my mind as camel riding around the Pyramids of Giza in the spring of 2005. To ride, wide-eyed, around this wonder of creation, to feel completely immersed in an ancient experience that is at once utterly exotic and intensely familiar. For we already know the Pyramids intimately, such is their penetration into the culture of history and modernity. We know their immense size, their definitive shape and structures, their dominance of the landscape, their mystery- yet it is indescribably shocking to witness them for these same factors. To see the Pyramids for the first time is to see a myth made real, to see a color that you have only ever heard described, and in this awe you are in sweet communion with myriad generations.

Last weekend I took my family to see these grand monuments of Pharaohnic Egypt. It was my parents' thirtieth wedding anniversary and my sister had joined us from Istanbul. We ventured to Giza and found camels and horses with which to cross over to the Giza plateau, and thus come across the Pyramids from some empty desert- to taste more fully this feeling of discovery that so many have reveled within. Watching these three people I care deeply about, who were a world away in the months I lived here, now ride wide-eyed around the Wonder, to see their minds ignite in realisation of their experience and this intimate and overwhelming connection to an ancient story- this was a truly joyous and fulfilling moment and one that will live indelibly in my mind forever.

What I Have Learned So Far- Mary Oliver

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems Volume Two, (thanks Rudi)

Kutiman pwns Youtube

Kutiman, an Isaeli funk musician and producer, puts together incredible funk, dub, jazz tracks mixed entirely from Youtube samples. Whatever you are thinking right now, you are wrong. It is so much better than that... Even now, your assumptions are drastically underreckoning. This is the best thing on the internet right now. Be blown away.

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

In today's Christian Science Monitor, Michael Spencer writes of the closing chapter of Evangelical Christianity in the west.

"We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close".

Full article

This is Jazz

The Max Grunhard Quintet perform Sea Shanty

Instamatic Focal Point: Madrid, Spain

Some photographs I captured during a recent weekend in Madrid with my marvellous flatmate, Giovanni.

Two recommendations for happy living.
1: When possible, go to Spain. 2: Always live with Italians.

THY 1951

I work in the Schiphol World Trade Centre, i.e. the airport, i.e. the field next to the airport where this crash just occured.


No-one was killed. Sadly nine people, including two pilots, died. Rest in Peace.

Living the Surreal Life

Shock-rocker Alice Cooper describes an early encounter with Salvador Dalí, in February, 1973.

"Let me tell you about the first meeting. We sit down at the St. Regis in New York, which was sort of Dalí's stomping ground, and eight unisexual nymphs wearing chiffon and glittery eye makeup walk in. Then Gala, his wife, in a full tuxedo- top hat, gloves, spats, cane, everything. Then Dali comes in and he's got Aladdin shoes, purple socks that Elvis gave him, blue velvet pants, and a giraffe-skin coat, and goes, "The Dalí... is here."

Full article in Spin Magazine, February, 2009.

The Design of the Universe

"Astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner George Smoot shows stunning new images from deep-space surveys, and prods us to ponder how the cosmos -- with its giant webs of dark matter and mysterious gaping voids -- got built this way."

Literally awesome, as in inspiring complete and utter awe- this overwhelming feeling of wonder and admiration. Arne Næss, the Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer and founder of "deep ecology", who passed away last week, put it beautifully when he wrote,

'The smaller one comes to feel compared to the mountain, the nearer one comes to sharing in its greatness. I do not know why this is so.'

Good News

Three Marks of Existence

I've been enjoying the Buddhist Geeks podcast over the last couple of weeks. It features great interviews with luminaries from a range of traditions, the hosts bringing a healthy skeptical and practice-focused attitude. In one recent edition they dialogue with Jun Po Roshi, an American Zen Master in the Rinzai Zen tradition, about his history with entheogens and a new form of Koan practice that uses NeuroLinguistic Programming techniques to help anchor spiritual realization in one's linguistic structures. He also shared a remarkably clear explanation of what Buddhists consider to be the three universal characteristics.

"No matter which tradition, go back to the foundational teachings, that are the three marks or the three statements that the whole Buddhist system is built upon.

(The first is) impermanence. How wonderful! Get impermanence: nothing lasts. If I truly experience impermanence then I'm in gratitude for whatever is, because everything's on loan. And its a temporary relationship. That's a shift in understanding. He said that needs to be tasted and understood. If you really grok it, then you don't grab any more. Clinging and attachment is the problem.

The second is that with life comes pain. Stop running and hiding from pain. Bring it on! How interesting? Wouldn't that be different if I stopped ducking and hiding from pain.

And then finally, Knock, knock. (Who's there?) Nobody... The centre, right now, of your personality and your being is absolute pure emptiness or shunyata. The idea of a soul or the concept of a continuing thing is a neuro-linguistic, philosophical construct that allows you comfort, but it's existent there only and it arises in the absolutely purity of your being."

- Jun Po Denis Kelly

Koala, Bushfire Survivor

This is incredibly Australian on about fourteen different levels.

The Victorian Bushfires

scorched trees mark the dead
land, hungry for rain and fire
behind char she cries

some powerful pictures

Return to Oz

I landed in Sydney at five p.m. on Christmas Day. Deep within my bones, a hunger, which had lain dormant for months, was given unrelenting voice. My stare became a search as eyes drew in every possible ray of light- which seemed to fall brighter and bluer from the broad Australian sky. In the first quiet moments, standing in front of the unusually still, Eucalypt-ringed airport, winter was forgotten and I was welcomed home. There is a universal homecoming experience, and then, there is coming home for Australians- we who've lived long from our far-flung island home.

I like to jest that Aussie's need to recharge every year or so, returning to a land where life is lived in accord, prosperity and unrivaled natural quality- to reset our guides on what is important, replenish that which we have given or the world has taken from us, and finally get some decent asian food. And from this deep place within me, this place that I only let myself listen to when my feet are moments from my native soil, it is all utterly true. An important part of my psyche needs this return, this clarity and this space, and in the final days of 2008 this need was paramount.

 

2008 was a indeed blessing. Two months traveling across Argentina and Brazil, a beautiful relationship and a parting of ways, beginning with a new organisation and a new bar for learning, the opportunity and challenge of again leading a team of brilliant minds and now managing a studio. I experienced extremes of profound insight and reflection and acute dissatisfaction and entanglement that have left me indelibly marked and already set new directions in what has been made of 2009. And after this year, I knew I needed to take stock back in Australia, to genuinely reconnect with my family and friends, to again dwell long in places that had raised me, to step outside of life's waterfall for some moments and choose which river will next carry me forward. 

It was all of these things, and more. I surfed at Manly every second day, saw Test Cricket at the SCG, took beers by the Opera House, had meaningful discussions with truly wonderful people- relations old and new. But when I sat again on the long flights back to Amsterdam- what struck me most was the time I'd spent forging meaning relationships with my family; playing golf with Dad, seeing a Monet exhibition with Mum, and taking Tilly to a music festival on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. It was these moments, and all the collective dinners and late evening discussions, that made the 34,000 kilometres unquestionably worthwhile- and made it easy to leave once again, upon this journey that knows no end. 

Days Like This

Tilly and I made the most of "Days Like This" festival, which coincided nicely with my trip back to Oz this January. Kicking off from a supremely sunny Sydney Sunday, ranging into a long, relaxed afternoon and well into one of those summer nights in which the warm breeze seems to hold you almost above the ground. The line up was unbelievable, so I've posted some great tracks below. Enjoy.

Atmosphere, from Minnesota, play Lovelife.


Brother Ali,from Minnesota, rhymes a cappella.


Fat Freddy's Drop, from New Zealand, perform "Dark Days"


Mr Scruff, from England, plays "Get a Move On"


Flying Lotus, from California, playing "Fly Lo's Like Wo"


DJ Vadim, from Russia, plays Milwaukee

A Thought for 2009

The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the question,

nor is it bought with going to amazing places.

Until you've kept your eyes

and your wanting still for fifty years,

you don't begin to cross over from confusion. 

- Rumi (مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی)

Views from The Hajj and Eid al-Adha

Thursday "marked the end of the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha, or "Feast of Sacrifice" - which also marks the end of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia." The Boston Globe has a wonderful set of photos of Muslims around the world in prayer and pilgrimmage presenting a unique combination of diversity and unity.


"Muslim pilgrims perform the "Tawaf" ritual around the Kaaba at Mecca's Grand Mosque before leaving the holy Saudi city at the end of the annual Hajj pilgrimage on December 10, 2008. (KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images)"


"An aerial view of Muslim pilgrims atop Mount Mercy outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia on December 7, 2008. From this hill, the Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon nearly 1,400 years ago. (REUTERS/Susan Baaghil)"


"A Muslim pilgrim prays at the top of Mount Noor in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2008. The pilgrims will visit the Hira cave in Mount Noor where the Prophet Mohammad worshipped before his first revelation. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)"

Wisdom Book

"Inspired by the idea that one of the greatest gifts one generation can pass to another is the wisdom it has gained from experience, the Wisdom project, produced with cooperation from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, seeks to create a record of a multicultural group of people who have all made their mark on the world. Presented against the same white space, all of the subjects are removed from their context, which not only democratizes them, but also allows for a clear dialogue to exist between them. In an attempt to create a more profound, honest, and truly revealing portrait of these luminaries, the project encompasses their voices, their physical presence, and the written word. This comprehensive portrayal of such a profound and global group is an index of extraordinary perspectives."


Andrew Zuckerman has produced a short-film and scans of his Wisdom book at www.wisdombook.org.

Many thanks to Rudi for the voice calling in the desert.

Reflections on a Mountain Lake

There are conversations that you know will echo in the records of your personal history, if not the pages of some broader text. One such conversation that is marked indelibly in my reflections took place in the spring of 2005, at the mountain lake of Ochrid, Macedonia. Perched on the wall of a five-hundred year old monastery, Tom Weaver, Brodie Boland and I took a break from the conference we were orchestrating to connect in the tangible stillness of the afternoon. Brodie and I were completing our term together as Directors of Eastern and Western Europe, respectively, and Tom had taken a break from his career, designing the future of schooling across the UK, to chair our leadership summit.

It wasn't so much the conversation, although it was as far reaching and honest a trialogue as any, as it was the meeting of the three of us upon this rare mountain lake, at a tipping point in each of our individual journeys. We were young and powerful with much to be proud of, yet humbled by this place, by each other's presence, and the most distinct feeling that whatever unfolded from this moment would be marked with the challenge and call that names history.

The image of those mountains towering above the water in the distance, the confidence and trust we shared, the laughter, insight and ability; these will be defining pieces of my youth. In our best of times, we may look back on them lightly, but in the cyclical moments of darkness I do not underrate how important such experiences were in helping me find the light.

Tom continued his career at the cutting edge of designing learning environments through ever larger enterprises and now has taken the entrepreneurial leap. He has also launched a phenomenal blog that puts my Codex to shame. Brodie went on to lead our organisation, join a strategy consultancy and soon enough will take an academic turn, in the whichever premier graduate institution is lucky enough to earn him. He, of course, uses his blog Kyosaku to help us realise and release.

Portraits of Stillness

Turkish photographer, Nilgun Kara, captures simple portraits of stillness in this elegant selection.

Habermas on Creating Order from Crisis

"The age of privatisation is over. Politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order."

"Q: Speaking of Uncle Sam – you must be deeply disappointed with the United States. For you the US was supposed to be the draft horse of the new world order.

Do we have any alternative except to bet on this draft horse? The United States will emerge weaker from the current dual crisis. However, it remains for the present the liberal superpower and it finds itself in a situation which encourages it to overhaul its neoconservative self-image as the paternalistic global benefactor. The worldwide export of its own form of life sprang from the false, centralised universalism of the Old Empires. By contrast, modernity rests upon the decentralised universalism of equal respect for everyone. It is in the interest of the United States not only to abandon its counterproductive stance towards the United Nations but to place itself at the head of the reform movement. Viewed historically, the confluence of four factors – superpower status, the oldest democracy in the world, the assumption of office of a, let's hope, liberal and visionary president, and a political culture that provides an impressive sounding board for normative impulses – represents an improbable constellation. Today America is deeply distraught by the failure of the unilateral adventure, the self-destruction of neoliberalism and the abuse of its exceptionalist consciousness. Why shouldn't this nation, as it has so often in the past, pull itself together and try to bind the competing major powers of today – the global powers of tomorrow – before it is too late into an international order that no longer needs a superpower? Why shouldn't an American president – buoyed by a watershed election – who finds that his scope for action in the domestic arena is severely constrained want to embrace this reasonable opportunity – this opportunity for reason – at least in foreign policy?"

Full interview on SightandSound.com. Conducted by Thomas Assheuer and originally appeared auf deutsch in Die Zeit on 6 November, 2008.

Pathétique and Peanuts

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor- "Pathétique"
- animated in the film "Snoopy, Come Home".

Rise

A spectator raises her fist in celebration seconds after it was announced that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008.

"So you may shoot me with your words,
you may cut me with your eyes,
and I'll rise - I'll rise - I'll rise - rise - rise.
Out of the shacks of history's shame,
up from a past rooted in pain,
and I'll rise - I'll rise - I'll rise - rise - rise."

- written by Maya Angelou, as performed by Ben Harper

A seemingly endless string of disasters, a hardening of the spirit that drew new rifts between us, the elicitation of the corrupt, the incompetent, and the cruel; do we let ourselves believe that these dark times are over? Is this one sign enough to bring the wearying soul even the briefest respite? Is it a crack in these storm clouds that reminds us that the sun lies just beyond? Or is it first ray of a new dawn, that makes us realise the depth of the night and the inevitable direction of change?

As he said himself, "This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change". It may yet be a symbolic victory, but in a decade that seemed to lose the very meaning of "freedom", "democracy" and "human rights" as symbolic casualties of war, the promise of new meaning to these symbols is incredibly assuring. It may be simply changing the hands who wield power, but when those hands had become so stained with blood and money, there can be few things more important.

The million stories that have forged this piece of history reveal again that there is something in us which hungers for this light, a common part that yearns for freedom from a yoke that was bought in fear and desperation. It is a light, that no blindness can truly take, because we realise that for all the shadows and the chains that bound us in the cave of ignorance - the light itself was always there, burning from within us all.

May our children mark this as a vital and profound new chapter in the history of our interwoven civilisation. Peace.

Soundbites

• That this is history.
• It feels freakin' great to believe.
• Finally, one apocalyptic netherworld we didn't manage to steer ourselves into.
• Just stay alive Obama...
• Did we just manage to survive the outburst from September 11?
• It was always going to get horribly McCarthyist.
• Please, spend the political capital.
• At least one night before the illusion bursts.
• Did we actually learn something?
• Peace, and sweet rememberance of this Moment.