DavidSibbet.com

New Years Day with My Dad

My father, the Reverend Laing Witherspoon Sibbet, passed away this New Year’s Day at Sutter Solano Medical Center, in Vallejo, California. His death, as did his life, touched me deeply, and I’d like to share some of this story. He was 93, and up until his last sermon on Christmas Day in 2008, a full time Congregationalist pastor. I’ll begin at the end with what I wrote to the family the evening of his passing.

“Dad peacefully left his body tonight at 8:05 when he stopped breathing at the conclusion of a ceremonial last supper we held for him in the hospital. The day was a graceful ballet of our family— gathering and forming a loving container for his passing. He began to doze midday, after some animated attempts to talk and relate to his great grandson, Benjamin in the morning. (A severe stroke the prior day had left him unable to talk or move anything on his right side.) As the afternoon wore on his temperature cooled, his heart slowed, and the doctors were pretty sure he would be passing within the next day or so. At 6:00 we read him a very moving goodbye letter from his grand daughter Sage. Not wanting to leave him at this point, but needing dinner, we decided to have a “last supper.” A nearby Lucky Store provided unsliced sourdough loaf, grape juice, a candle, cineraria in full blue bloom, and tapioca pudding, his favorite. His wife Joanne, my brother James and wife Carole and I created a little altar on the hospital bed at his feet and stood around him in circle as he labored to breathe. He wasn’t in pain, and looked like he was going.

Our Known Universe

Lynn Kearny sent me a link to this stunning graphic portrayal of what science knows about our universe. It's a humbling, inspiring experience to watch, imagining that our lives are part of such an incredible dance of light. On this day when we celebrate the birth of new light in so many traditions, let us remember that however we represent the universe, that it is alive, and whole, and probably aware.

Reclaiming Ceremony

My heart is still singing from the four-day retreat I and 35 other colleagues spent in the redwood forests of Ben Lomond this summer solstice. We met at Sequoia Retreat Center, a truly sacred place. It was my eighth year participating. Each time the experience deepens.

The energy in this year’s gathering went up an octave—perhaps because of the crises in confidence the world now faces, perhaps because a core group of us has stepped across a threshold of withholding into true ceremony, perhaps because of forces we cannot explain. But these two weeks after returning have been filled with reflections about all that happened, and especially  the evening of Medicine Wheel dancing that is the turning point of the experience. I felt like our community reclaimed something deep and fundamental, and experienced true ceremony.

During one of my reflective times I drew this pen and chalk drawing of the dance, without thought of sharing, just so I could relive the experience. The image has come alive for me. There is something about the energy of line and patterns that re-evokes some of the magic. I have no idea if it will do that for you, but I feel called to try and bring it alive a bit in words. Something happened this time that all of us need more of. Perhaps in sharing those of you who feel called to similar experiences will step into them.

Making Sense of Moscow

I didn’t see much the night I landed in Moscow, or on the cab ride to Atlas Park Hotel, 20 KM south of the city, so when I had a chance to get a guided tour for a full day I was pretty excited. But how could I begin to make sense of a city of over 9 million and growing in one day?

First Impressions
I had my first sense of it when a tourist brochure at the Hotel had a map and I saw from the pattern that it was a classical organic city, radiating out from it’s center on the Moscow River without interference from hills, railroads, or other barriers shaping influences. It has a bit of the pattern of Paris in this regard. Later when I Googled this actual satellite map I felt like I was looking at the cross section of a living cell – and of course it is, a living social organism that is the heart of Russia.

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.

TED BIG VIZ Book and Movie are LIVE!!

You can download the TED2008-BigViz Book and see an amazing Movie of the 700 plus illustrations Kevin Richards and I did for Big Viz (see stories below). It's a BIG file, but amazing to see. Enjoy.

Yang Ming and The Labyrinth

New Year’s Day is a special mirror for me of what could be in the next year. This one was quite special. It began having my first South Beach Diet meal with Susan – two little onion, pepper, cucumber and egg quiches with tomato juice and three cherry tomatoes. I’m not the cook in the family, and this change is big for my wife, Susan, but we has plunged into it and both of us are learning about what our body does in response to all the highly processed carbohydrates, we like many others, have become accustomed to eating. It felt like the right thing to begin the New Year with. So what goes with right eating I wondered?

“Can we walk to the labyrinth this morning?” I asked. After a moment hesitation, for that hadn’t been part of Susan’s thinking, a smile came and she said, “YES!”

Before long we were hiking out the coastal trail at Land’s End at the northwest tip of San Francisco. It was a spectacular, crisp day. The trail is being extensively improved by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, with wide walks and stone-ringed cutouts. This first day of the year there were more people than we have ever seen, of all ages and ethnic groups it seemed.

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.

Synchronicities

Recently I returned from a trip to England where I led a workshop on Expert Facilitation with our partners, Meeting Magic, and conveyed our first ever Grove Worldwide Network Meeting with six partner firms that are using our products and methods in places like Australia, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, and England. This post is not about that directly, but about some reflections I had on the way to those events that crystallized some clarity about my purpose and intention for doing this collaborative work that has been my passion for more than 30 years now.

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.