David Sibbet

Fires, Family and the Fourth of July

I’ve been thinking a lot about fire this Fourth of July! Soot’s falling on my Santa Cruz friends from the Big Sur fire, called the Basin Complex fire. At only 5% containment it has already burned some 71,200 acres and is threatening the town of Big Sur itself, the Zen Center’s Tasajara Retreat Center, Nepenthe’s and other landmarks. As scary as this is, our morning Chronicle quoted some local residents as seeing the great cycle of renewal in this catastrophe. The coast will survive. These ecosystems are actually accustomed to burning, and many species depend on it. But what is renewal when one’s own house is at risk? What is change when one’s sacred memories and sacred sites are the ones changing?

Seeds of Light

Can I walk each day in a sacred way? Can I start each day in the clear light mind? Can I have my work and play circle around my spiritual practice rather than fitting my spiritual practice into my day? These are the questions that are front and center on returning from my Joshua Tree Vision Quest. The deep nourishment I received from my reflective time on the desert feels almost like waking up again from a long sleep. I want to stay awake. And I want to stay engaged! I feel like I am watering little seeds of light.

At Joshua tree I connected deeply with what I consider to be my real work, which is to plant and nurture seeds of hope, and to awaken myself so that who I am and what I do supports others waking up. This work is most engaged with my extended family, and the staff and clients I work with through The Grove, many of whom have left The Grove to start their own businesses and take their learning and insights into new jobs. I spent hours thinking about how the desert plants seed themselves, and appreciated that we humans seed our lives through our projects and stories. When we work side by side with another, we learn from the way they are in life, and these experiences are the deep templates that guide our development.

White Mountain Studio Tour

Here is a short little tour of my White Mountain Studio. I made this to test out how to get video into this blog!! I also have a new gallery show in our Third Life Galleries in SL. Just search for Third LIfe, and at the Pier teleport up to the Galleries.

The Story of Stuff

This holiday was a complex time of joyful immersion in family and community and sober reflection on the course of our consumer society. I felt good about spending much more time on relationships and less time on shopping this year. But we did give some gifts, heartful expressions of love... and in the back of my mind I rationalized that I was helping support what is clearly a challenged economy. I asked all the clerks I saw how things were going and they said OK, but slower than last year. I know Grove clients are starting to slow down on their bill paying, an early indicator of recession. I wrote earlier about a client who is experiencing unprecedented fuel driven commodity price hikes and is VERY worried.

Is it possible that our society, like the stock market, needs a "correction" like this, as painful as it could be? A got a confirmation of that perspective in an e-mail from my colleague Diana Arsenian, a gifted graphic facilitator and designer who is part of The Grove network. She included a link to "The Story of Stuff," and really encouraged me to watch it. Coming from her, and supported by two other friends who I remembered has also pinged me about it, AND having some time the day after Christmas led me to watch. It's a 20 minute, beguilingly simple, clever, graphically animated  story narrated by Anne Leonard, linked to a very rich web site encouraging involvement and action. 

The Story of Stuff is a powerful example of visual storytelling (supported by our neighbors at the Thoreau Center for Sustainability, The Tides Foundation) and took me into thining how we at The Grove might start using our visualizaiton expertise.

So there I was, fully implicated, considering the impacts of my (and most of the rest of our) chosen lifestyles. I'm still roiling with the impact. Could this year be a time when we make a turn as a society toward more sensible thinking? Will I be a part?

Do take the 20 minutes to watch this. It should shake you into some deep reflection if not change. We all need to do both!

The Joy of True Community

I come into the workweek renewed by a "corn feed" at our Argonne Community Garden autumnal equinox work party. The garden has 70 plots, and is next door to our place in San Francisco wrapping around the Argonne Children's Center, the first solar public building in San Francisco. It was built thanks to the focused effort of our garden community and leader Ed Dierauf back in the 1980s when the District thought about selling the land. Our network is strong and came out in force, with politicians in tow! Two young architects threw themselves into the project and instead of more apartments we have a wonderful children's center--AND community garden.

This weekend we were welcoming a group of new members, several of whom are biodynamic gardeners we were thrilled to discover. Two years ago I was elected President of the garden, succeeding Ed, and help "facilitate" the major events we hold. It's unlike any other facilitation I do. This is community, and I'm a part of it. It's more like just showing up and being me! Our gardeners come to the garden for refuge and renewal, not more organization--but there are things we need to attend to.

Remembering for Mom

After a month of client trips, to Seattle, England, New Jersey, and Chicago, I finally am on vacation for a week and half. Susan went up to Portland to see our grandson Reid. I faced an open weekend. What called to me was driving to Sacramento to see my 91 year-old mother and visit John, my brother, who lives in Placerville. This post was stimulated by all the reflections about aging, Mom, love and the surprises that wait for us in the midst of forgetfulness.

Compassion is Revolution

Last year I received a small bumper sticker from a Tibetan organization saying “Compassion is Revolution.” I have it on the back of my car and see it every time I open the hatch. This weekend, it took on a new layer of meaning.

Three of Susan and my four children were born Cancer babies, in late June and early July, and decided this year to rendezvous and celebrate all together this weekend, July 7-8, at our home in San Francisco. I was prepared for the visit being fun and welcome, but not for the depth of the feelings I would have catalyzed by little Reid, our new 8 month old grandson.

Reconnecting with San Francisco, the African Way

On Saturday my wife Susan and I decided to spend a day reconnecting with our city, the old fashioned, hands on way, inspired by my recent trip to Africa. Things were so intimate and immediate there I was  already feeling cooped up and contained being inside so much.

We began at the Presidio Nursery, where our Community Supported Agriculture group sorts food. We were "sort leaders," meaning we got the list of what was picked at Good Humus farm the day before, and orchestrated the various cluster representatives in dividing up the cabbages, beets, carrots, garlic, oranges, asparagus, and lettuces into 62 baskets. It only took at hour. The produce is fresh and organic and unbelievably tasty. We are blessed to have this relationship, and to know where our food comes from. We pay twice a year, once to Good Humus for the winter crops, and then now, in the spring to Live Power Farm for the summer crops. It's a link back to the way people have lived in relation to food since they began growing it. It tempers the alienation. We only sort three times during a season, so this day is always special.

Then Susan and I went to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Louis', a concession on Golden Gate National Recreation Land out at lands end, overlooking the old ruins of Sutro Baths. This family restaurant has been here since the 1950s, and is a blend of local and tourist clientele. Linda remembered my name as she got us coffee, even tho I haven't been there in a month. "I know Susan" she smiled "and you are connected." We sure are. We had our 40th anniversary this month! Our talk this morning was all about stories from Africa, and how touched I was by the people and their love of the land and their intimacy with it. This is the place we come for our deepest talks, where we can look out at the sea, and suspend time. Susan's family is Navy, her grandfather was the Chief of Naval Operations under FDR. The sea and its ships is in her blood and this Golden Gate is part of her earliest memories after WWII.

SUTRO BATH RUINS AT LANDS END IN SAN FRANCISCO

New Year—30 Years in Business!

This year is the 30th anniversary of becoming an independent organization consultant and information designer. Thirty years! As this new years begins it’s triggered some reflections about what it means to be in “business” and where we are going with The Grove, the worldwide network of people who are working with the many methods and tools we have developed over those years. What does it mean to be in business? What does it mean to be in business for oneself, which is the way it’s put when a person gets a “DBA” (doing business as) registration and prints business cards? What does it mean to be deeply in service using business as a medium for contribution?

The Miracle of New Life

On Friday evening our youngest son Phil called from Portland to say his wife Emily was at Kaiser in labor, and that our new grandson was on his way!! It took us about ten minutes to get tickets for a morning flight up (and one back that evening, for Susan was to chair her California Poets in the Schools Board meeting on Sunday). And so the miracle of Reid Carlton Sibbet begins in the outer world. Here he is in all his 8lb. 9 oz glory. After 23 hours of labor he stopped coming out. His 14" diameter head wasn't moving through, so the doctors did a C Section and there he was at 3:17pm Saturday.