The email from the guru read: I got drunk and forgot the conference call

I am working on a conference on creating legacy for high powered executives. It is led by three folks who are well respected in the spiritual community, as well as people who have gained great success in the business world.   http://www.Retreat@strmedia.com

We are all working as volunteers, believing in this idea as a concept, which in a new paradigm, could redefine success and what we leave as a legacy, both to family and corporations. And so we have all been toiling, agreeing to share the proceeds and hopefully have a rollicking success and then move on to produce many more of these symposia. Maybe.

But first we have to launch this one. And so since we all have other tidbits of work we have conference calls to get as E says “into harmony”. We had one of these calls last night. E and I were on the phone waiting, I was yacking away. There was no J. I called his cell and left a message. we parsed some potential conference glitches and then agreed not to worry about J;  life had intervened.

This morning we received this email from J ” I went to a memorial service for my mentor. It hit me harder than I expected. I got drunk and forgot the conference call. My apologies. Can we talk this afternoon?”  I love that J,  a spiritual demi god  to me, wrote with candor. It was so clear, so open and so unashamed.

In my life, for years, there has been a kind of obfuscation about ever, EVER making mistakes. I had to lie, cover up and attempt to prevaricate to create the sense that I was  perfect or I wouldn’t be able to exist within my family or work world.

And here was J’s complete honesty.

I value that and it is freeing. Often I feel I am the only one floating alone, stumbling and  falling so egregiously off the path. Id someone so much more evolved than I am, can find the inner grist and safe space to say, I took a detour, I am back, then I maybe I can as well.

Information VS Knowledge, who’s winning?

I had the opportunity to spend time, really all day, with my first close, wise woman friend, this past weekend. We became pals in Brownies when we were seven.  Her name is Sharon, but I always called her Nella, Sharonella, Cindernella, Nella in the Wella, it goes on and on. My father was a great nicknamer and I suppose I inherited his love of changing names to provide a litany of love with each iteration.

Nella and I often bought TWIN OUTFITS, we had endless sleep overs,  and I ladeled out my secrets as she read Superman comics, because I knew when she read she became totally deaf. And so I learned the power of saying things out loud to another person, even if no one seems to be listening. Similar to writing this blog.

This past Sunday while we talked and ate bagels and drank stong coffee, we touched on many things, the loss of our parents and what it means to be orphans at 60, our siblings, the kinds of crazy we endured and grew through as children to become adults, parents, partners. In short we decoded things the way we have done for a half century.  I always thought Nella was wise,  although she sees herself as unwise and thus less valuable than what I see gleaming before me, but that is also the value of friendship. Our friends see us as we should view ourselves, they clean the mirror to shine back.

We talked about technology and kids and spouses and Nella blurted:  There is so much more information now than there is no room for knowledge. I have been grappling with this statement without knowing what was eating away at my time, my calm and my resolve. It is the accretion of information.

I know how to use endless devices, aps, sites, machines and I can manipulate logging on, signing in, SKYPING over and linking in, but I feel a paucity of knowledge. I feel diminished by all strings of information I am toting. They feel like a ball of twine I  haul everywhere and I attempt to tug on the correct string to extract simple, small things. And yes, let me be honest, I am exuberent when I figure out, this blog for example. When I get pictures to send, or link or I achieve   simple tasks, but I forget what it means to accomplish something requiring knowledge.

Knowledge is the whole ball of twine, but it is covered in wax so it can not unravel and thus you can use it to interpret and intuit. Knowledge is what happens when you are not looking at all the strings,  all the time. Knowledge happens when you have a synthesis of learning which leads to problem solving and wonder and forward action to help yourself and others.

How can I return to knowledge? How can we all?