heathervescent

Kissing the Unknown

I could not resist the call of the forest surrounding my hotel. Pulling myself away from a the crack called twitter, I pulled on my sneakers, trench coat and went out into the European dusk.

The air was thick with darkness, the last bit of light filtering through the high canopy. I thought for 1 second, that it might be crazy to go for a walk in an unknown forest in the middle of nowhere. And I didn't even have a flashlight or pocket knife on me. But never, mind, I've done this before. 

My eyes adjusted to the lower light. The gravel path turned to forest bark. The moist silence descended on my soul. The light became shadows as I walk deeper in the forest. The silence became thicker. Surrounding me. I surrendered to the present. 

I stopped in a crossroads. Standing and listening. A faint rustle. Leaves falling. Then the wind. The wind blowing in the trees. The wind blowing through the forest. Hearing first the wind. Then feeling it across my skin. Breathing it in. Remembering how I love the wind. A bench appeared and I rested. Soaking in the silence and wind and rustling leaves. Drinking it in. 

Then off in the distance, dark trench coat, a mirror image of myself, picking her way along the path. I stand, ready to fight, but it's not time. We will just have a conversation. She will remind me. When the time comes, I will gratefully release to her all that I am, and start a new journey. I ask her to remind me of this often, lest I grow complacent and fail to express any pedaco of potential, fail to create the most unbelievable life I could ever (and not) imagine. 

I remember my previous dances. The sacrifices I made. My stumbles and missteps on the path with heart. I recently began wearing a reminder of my greatest sacrifice. It's potent. And doing it's job. 

Through the darkest part, I heard an Owl. Then the rustling of some creature. I looked into the woods, could see nothing in the darkness. I remembered my afternoon hikes in high school - bush whacking along Indian paths, finding dilapidated ruins. I wondered if any predatory animals lived in this forest. I expected not - or if so, well fed. The fields of this area are lush. The owl continued. I thought that Red Riding Hood must have been told in forests like these. I could believe the fear of the wolf pack. But I expect to come face to face with Coyote or a Bobcat in Griffith Park. Although I had been visited by a Coyote of a different sort. 

Off in the distance I saw light streaming through the trees. I thought about the warmness that one would feel, if one had really been traveling by foot in a forest. It turned out to be a truck, packing some things up. Blinding me as I returned to civilization. A rebirth? A re-member. Returning, holding the knowledge, the feeling, to keep the present, from the past to savor, remember in the ever-present. 

An encounter with Death, circa 2002

(Note: this was written almost a decade ago, before this blog existed)

Last night the Virginia back roads coaxed me away from my glowing liquid display and conditioned air into the moist pleasure of evening. I found myself on two lane roads. I didn't know where I was, how I got there, or how to get home. I followed the nudges of infinity. To turn here or there. I found myself at the end of a dead end road. The tarmac was crumbling into the overgrowth. There were two dirt tracks that went on behind a vehicle barrier. I parked the car. I was wearing my work clothes - business casual pants and shoes. The forest called to me. I was drawn to a path near the vehicle barrier. 

I got out of the car. As I walked towards the path, I looked down and saw a spinal column set of vertibraes. I stopped. I was surprised, shocked, a slight wave of fear went through my body. I looked at the vertibraes. They were beautiful, bone white, they fit together perfectly. My eyes followed the line and I saw the skull still attached. I realized that it had been a deer. 

As I looked at the spinal column, I thought about how crazy it is what I am doing. That it is crazy for a single woman, all alone, unfamiliar with the area to go randomly driving, stop someplace where she doesn't know she is, and walk into the forest. My brain is churning with how crazy it is. I know it sounds that way, but that doesn't stop me. The spinal column is a reminder of my death. That one day I will die. Perhaps it will be this night in this forest. And if that is the case, then I must go to it with courage, curiosity but no fear. 

For a moment, my brain creates a view of the world where I am getting back into the car and driving away, and then I realize that I am walking into the forest. The air is calm, moist. It is just after sunset. The light filters through the trees. There are bugs humming in the air. There are fireflys flickers orbs of light here and there. It is magical and I feel the power. The light is that of my dreams, I call it the darklight. 

At the end of the path I find a reservoir. The water is calm. There are a pair of fishermen out in a boat. I can hear their voices across the water. I sit by the edge on some rocks and become enveloped in the silence. In the dream of this place.

 

My Possible Relationship

Sometimes it's the possibilities that do not become reality. 

A dream. A possibility. The pathway to make it a reality, clear - not so difficult to walk down, yet unwalked. I see possibilities. I see the pathways to make them reality. Sometimes, I want them to pass from the veil into this reality. To become. Possibilities that could change my life. A set of dreams come true. Real-ized.

In the space of a moment, the possibility passes through the veil. No longer possible. It's here. In this reality, with the certainty that comes with a choice made, an action, selection. Possibilities evaporate. I pass my hand through the veil. I grasp at the possibility. I pull it close. I feel it's hot breath on my body, pulsing, writhing, taking form. Possibilities growing stronger, weaker. A momentary embrace, puissant, before I open my hand and release. The moment has passed, the possibilities remain. 

Anything could still happen.

Non-Visual Designer

Today was the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) montly #futrchat. I'm currently a student member (but soon to go full Pro) and I love being a part of this community of professional futurists. Earlier this year, Cindy F (@urbanverse) and Jennifer Jarratt (@jenjarratt) started hosting the #futrchats, an hour on twitter where anyone who wants, can join in on the conversation. There is topic for discussion, like the Future of Money, or Disasters or today's: The Future of Design. 

I don't focus too much on (visual) design, because there are already so many people doing it and although I'm a visual person, I don't create visual things. So I never really considered myself a designer - but this #futrchat changed all that.

I very quickly became aware of a very big assumption: that by design, I was meaning visual design. I don't do that. I don't do graphic design or make pretty pictures. But I do design experiences. I design my life. I shape and re-shape. So the moment I released my pre-conceived definitions of design a whole new definition of design just flowed out: the non-visual designer. Maree Conway asked me to define this further, so I did: (from my tweetstream)

"As a non-visual designer, I design experiences to shift mental mindsets, the way people see the world.

Sometimes the non-visual design is expressed in a user-interface that includes visual design, sometimes it is theatre. "

When I think back to the events I've co-created (barcamp, geek dinners, cacophony events, mash-up performances, zombies without borders) they have all been to shift the mental mindset of not only the participants/performers, but especially the "audience." For a while I even described what I did as "unforgettable ephemeral experiences." I know, a bit flowery, eh?

So much of what I do, who I am, the life I live has been consciously designed, created with specific experiences in mind.

How did I do this? 

I took my professional experience as an Internet/Software product manager and applied the methods/processes I used to define, build, manage, launch and market internet products to myself as a product. Heathervescent, the product of me. My life, the product of me. Heathervescent, the brand of me. I wasn't content to let my life happen to me. Life's too short and I want to do too much. It's not about expressing/developing ONE potential - but to explore, express the many possibilities of potential. The Expression of Possibilities.

Uthur Doul's possibility sword deeply changed the way I thought about the world - and myself. After seeing him master the possibilities (in my mind's eye) I was no longer content living a limited linear life. I became aware of my possible lives - some predestined, some experienced, parallel lives, echoes from the past, foreshadowing future lives. Here, in this one, this reality, I try as much as I can, to leave the possibilities behind and with utmost intention, create, express, a life that never existed before, that can not be copied. A life that diverges from the expressed possibilities, because this one weaves pieces from those worlds (talvez donos de barcos no Caribe, meu amigos do passado no Fortaleza), creating, sometimes patiently, sometimes explosively a life impossible. A life that could only be created with conscious (self) design.

San Francisco Reflections

I knew it would be true. San Francisco_is_ a great city to come back to. But her streets, although burned in my neural pathways, are faint, forgotten except for muscle memory. My car, as extension of this muscle memory, surfs the pavement, my body leans in the curves, even as I strain to read the street signs. My objective, the ocean. Revisiting a place. A lookout. A memory. The divergence of life from ordinary to extraordinary.

I sit on these high stones. It's a gorgeous day. A cool breeze comes off the ocean. I watch the waves in their green and grey. White effervescence paints uneven horizontal lines on the sand and in the sea. I remember this same place, dark one night. I was cold after riding Lady Knight through the fog, chasing something ephemeral through the streets. A glimpse of something unknown. I caught it here. (Or perhaps, it lead me here to be caught.) In this space, I stood facing it. Facing my fear. Opening the crack, stepping through, and into a different world. A world of my own making.

Sometimes I reminisce of that world. The one I left behind. All around me, untouchable, unlivable. It was the choice I made. A choice to choose. Never undone, as much as I might forget or deny. I had forgotten. But the memory is fresh now, in my mind.

Coyote Fear

I am constantly amazed at how resilient we humans are - and yet so fragile. How beautifully contradictory.

As the boyf was out of of town, I decided to take the opportunity to spend some quality time in the desert at LoriLisa, my little scrap of Mojave wasteland. I knew it was going to be hot: 90+ degree hot, but I was not dismayed. My plan was to work in the evenings and mornings and lay low during the hot afternoon. 

I headed out early afternoon on Friday in time to arrive for a spectacular combination sunset and moon rise. Truly only planetary bodies can compete with the expansive geological scale of the desert. Mountain ranges eroded into prehistoric effluvial plains. It was over one of these ranges a blue-ivory moon rose from the desert haze. I was racing the clock. Flooring the pedal that flogged my combustion engine faster. I could not reach my destination fast enough.

Behind me the I saw the red-orange rays of the sun setting behind a past range. In a moment, the pavement gave way to sand and my tires kicked up a line of dust as I headed to the far edge of this sparsely populated civilization. We were bumping and jumping through the washes and fish-tailed the back tires a bit just for fun. 

The tires stopped, the radio silent, I stepped out into the cooling desert.

 * * *

We sat in my front yard, splayed out on a retired bedspread watching the planets shine and the moon rise, getting smaller and whiter as the night progressed. That's when the coyote's started their howling. I had forgotten to pack my pistol and had only my small knife on me. When packing for the trip, I had considered exit strategies for mere human (redneck/meth-head) predators - and had completely forgotten about natural ones. It was a lesson in city living. It's gotten to me. I felt tamed. 

Out in these places I have heard the lone or two coyotes calling out his brethren, often far far in the distance. Not this time. This was a large pack - I would expect at least 7 or more. And it sounded VERY near. Intertwined with the coyote's barks and howls, I could hear a dog. It was easy to hear the difference. I expected the pack to visit LL any moment. For hours the coyotes barked in the near-distance. We watched and listened to the desert, no safety of the firelight. (I had opted against a fire because the moon was so bright.)

The planet set and the moon carved an ecliptic pathway across the sky, outshining the milky way and all but the brightest stars. The howling subsided and that's when I noticed the strange rasping sound of the wind in the creosote bushes. My vision was shifting and everything took on an underwater illuminated pointillism.

Moonshadows lept from my fence posts, my house, my legs. I was not quite brave enough to do my midnight walkabout - one of my plans for the evening - with that pack of coyotes and my pistol left at home. So I strayed not far from my land. 

The wind caressed my skin - soft warm and comforting. The upside of an unbearable desert day is a warm night. What does one do out here, I pondered? What can one do, but watch and think and see and listen and be silent. To be present. To feel the wind. To see the moon shadows. To hear the coyotes. To smell the air. To taste fear and comfort. To be present in the moment for hours.

Future of Space Travel Analogy

The breakthrough came this morning:

Birds are to the Earth as Humans are to Space.

The analogy is not as simple as it may seem. There is a new Nature report out describing a type of internal GPS/internal avian magnetic compass that birds use to navigate their migrations.

Wouldn't it be cool (and perhaps it is necessary) for humans to create/develop a similar sense to navigate to cosmos?

Great Art

"They’re accessible and subversive at the same time. If that isn’t the definition of great art, what is?" (source)

YES!!! Accessible and subversive. Open and Closed. Displaying both sides of the coin, along with the coin, and the limitations of a coin. Opening the art to outsiders to experience and express it their own way. To make what is not theirs, theirs and thusly important.

2010 Themes

Oh, it's going to be a year of burning. Burning Desire that is. I'm sitting here in my office, (which I hope I will not be sitting in next year) looking at my mindmap of goals for 2010. I've tried different techniques in the years I've blogged, chucking out the old for the fresh and new. This year, I'm returning to some tried and true, and mixing and mashing up my techniques.

You probably know by now, that I'm very goal focused. But sometimes goals are not what is needed. Being goal orientated can sometimes be too rigid. To not allow for the magic and spontaneity to express itself. To lose an opportunity because you ignore it. Goals fixate you. (And this is a double-edged sword.)

This year, I've got several mindsets I'm remembering, some very specific goals, some vague goals and stretch goals. I'll share one from each bucket.

Mental Mindsets: Yes, and...

Several years ago, I started a start-up company with an actor. He had interesting ways of thinking about things, and one thing I learned from him was this concept of "yes, and." I remembered learning it in an improv class. You see, when you're improving with someone, for it to be good, to flow, you have to accept what they have given you, and then take it from there. You can't deny what has been given to you, even if it's something utterly ridiculous. You say yes, and take it where you want to take it from there.

The Specifics: Throw a party at my desert property

On New Years Day, I visited my property in the desert. It's been through it's fair share of drama in the short time I owned it, so I have kept it fallow. This year, my simple goal, is to invite a select group of friends out to my land and break it in. It might be next month, it might be July, it might be October, but Heather is going to throw a raging desert party on land I own in 2010.

The Vague: Cultivate Relationships that Fulfill Me

I've done an inconsistent job of picking friends, colleagues and collaborators over the years. I've made a lot of great friends. I've done a lot of cool things. And I've got a past filled with long-term friends and collaborators, and those who did not make the cut. I want to cultivate more of those long-term friends. Friends who stick with you through the disagreements and bumps. Friends who put their own perspective aside. Friends who align with my vision, values, morals; and those that strategically oppose mine. Friends that challenge and engage. Friends I can grow and nurture.

The Stretch: Essays on the Future

Do I dare to expose a dear stretch goal on this open blog? Oh, why not. One of my stretch goals is to write an essay each quarter on some topic that vaguely has to do with the future. I do not see these essays as predictions, but rather topics that have been knocking around in my mind. There is a high probability that one or several of these essays may include wildcards and black swans.

And that, my readers, is a taste of what I'm shooting for 2010. Unlike other years, I am not publishing my full list. I have a few projects on it that shall remain secret until it is time for their unrevealing.

So, how about you, what are your mindsets, specific, vague and stretch goals for 2010?

Poem Incantation

Reading and writing and planning and scheming.
Talking and meeting and driving and singing.
Walking and watching and thinking and learning.
Posting and questioning - answers returning.

Powerful direction.
Unknown adventure.
Allies surrounding.
Present, Past, Future.

First steps and next steps I take on my journey,
My dream destination not always in sight.
Twists and turns like a Hollywood thriller,
It's just as I'd want it - of course, it's my life.