David Sibbet

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.

Pathfinder Gathering: Visualizing Our Commitments for the Next Cycle of the Sun

The longest day of summer, the solstice, is a special time for me. It’s right after my birthday, and for the last six years has been a time for gathering in Santa Cruz with three-dozen or so colleagues in a special Pathfinders Summer Solstice retreat. Our intention is to take stock of the past year and set intentions and commitments for the next cycle of the sun. It was an especially powerful experience for me this year, one that I would like to share.