The Art of an Angel

Feedback from true friends...."do you really believe in angels?"

...which is to say...

"am I hearing you correctly, like in formal religion...?"

My answer is that 'I am not really sure'....

But, this I know....there are 'agents of insight', real people, most of the time they appear as 'real people', who give us all the significant messages we need at certain moments of life...

These are, to me, sacred moments, call it what you may like.....

The 'art of an angel' comes fro the 'heart of the angel'...

Art is not science....it is shape and color and form and motion...and wild and free

This comes from heart, not brain....or mostly heart!

Today, after many hours with a very sophisticated professor here in Turkey, after many sidebars into educational talk....I learned he is a poet....a published poet...
That is heart....that is art...it was no 'accident'

Angels....angles of insight.....art....heart....it does sound like there may be a poetry to this all...a philosophy of wisdom....a new word for the English language..."philoetry"...the cross of potry, the ultimate art of words, with wisdom, philosophy...

Passion may be the root of it all....the ability to love....to hold it, find it, in the first place, then to express it...

I know my writing has veered in this direction...that is OK with me....I hope you, my reader, too. I am doing this for both of us, after all...

Maybe we are supposed to be as close as we can to what we ultimately imagine, here on Earth, as angels, or agents of insight for our fellow brothers and sisters....

That means teachers of insight....ultimate insight, I mean....ultimate...

....what your purpose in life is here and now....what is Paradise and false, and what is real...how and where and when you may share with others how you found it...and be ultimate teachers of others...

NO, this not a movement....just my late night thoughts from around the world as I meet new people and cultures and see the bigger picture of the world we live daily....the world of business....

When people experience the "Blueflash"....they see their life purpose as clear and distinct....somewhat, all of a sudden....these moments are few and far between....to be anticipated....to be celebrated...

The art of the angel is all the good magic they may play for you to deliver what you need to have and hear at that moment and in a harmonious way...in your best interest...they too, these people, these humans who just cross our paths, have the message we need to hear....they may know it....they may sense it ...it is their 'art' to know to share it with you at that moment you can hear its value to you life...it is their 'art'....it is the "art of an angel"....

....because it is art and it is wild and free, without boundaries, with color, with definition, yet, with license for freedom....

As we receive the art of angels....agents of insight....we need to appreciate their own isolation...they too are not totally free souls...they struggle with getting out their message...we need so much to hear that call..

....their art touches our heart...

Then, we are both caught in the system of free---or to be free---...we are engaged...their message is a message to the art of their soul...it is freedom wanting to also set us free.....

The Heart of an Angel

Several days ago, I posted essays from my heart on what I see in artists I have known, including myself. Big heart. Isolation, fear and walls. Yet bridges of product that communicate with us all in the form of the artist's paintings, products....

Now, we deal with angels. Messengers, agents, unknown sources, but clear messages...

OK, let's get real....

There MAY be angels out there (all major religions believe in angels, believe it or not....)

There may not...

Or, we just do not know what this is all about....

So, let's say, there are people, who appear as normal people, but who are not....just normal people....they may or may not know themselves that they are carrying the mail for greater messages....or they may know it....

Woo....

Now, let's say, from the receiver's end.....we are wanting messages, we REALLY would like to have messages, signals....what are we supposed to do?

I have been in that state for many moments, hours, days, weeks, months of my life....wanting to see something of what I should do, if only with my own will plus some outer signals from a loving source...

CAREER QUANDRY! This is what much of professional life is all about.....figuring about what to do, where to go....what even interests us?

We are all out there on that same agenda.

We are all looking for a blueflash that explains everything in one envelope....

Possible...?

I think so, otherwise, I would not have spent most of my creative life in this area over the last ten years or so....

Is it worthwhile....this pain?

YES.............

Stay with me.....have faith....it gets better.......

OMG....yes, there are people afoot...out there who are supposed to be our agents of insight....maybe call them angels....they bear messages for us....but we need to recognize them and sort out what they are saying and if they are really true to us.....

The heart of an angel, if he or she is really there for you, is to speak to you deeply about what you really would love to do with your life.....

The heart of the angel is to help you....trust them....when you know them....

The heart of the angel is to help....purely help....

Your heart for an angel is to want that help....if you can be so open to believe that there are human forces within our society who have the amazing ability to bring you exactly what you need to hear at the exact moment you need to hear it.

Those moments in life are actually quite rare, but most of us figure it out when it is happening...or just slightly later....

These people are not supposed to be the obvious ones. Remember 90 degree angles....for true angels!

Blueflash for Women

We are interested in launching one of the world's few and only MBA for Women CEO Programs. One other exists in the world, that we know, and it has deep and rich history and domain....

Fifty-plus percent of the world's MBA students are women. Three percent of Fortune 500 companies employ a woman as CEO. Glass ceiling? YES. Time to break that apart?
Why has it taken so long?

Women. Mothers and daughters holding together more than half of our wealth, families, structures worldwide. Women teaching daughters and also, importantly sons in this world how to treat women....in families, in marriages, in companies....

The connection with the Blueflash? This has several levels....firstly, it is my own time to recon with this issue....YES, it is time for us as CIBU to get down to serious and launch this effort formally....YES, it is time for MBA programs to wake up on another front....namely this one....YES, this is a great opportunity for so many to benefit...

See, blueflash living and thinking involves a continuing series of positive flashes of blue light....insight into the rarest form of what;s worthwhile....

Blue light is gender neutral....but this essay is about my enthusiasm for a new horizon which could be remarkable in scope and long overdue in delivery!

Why "My" Blueflash?

It is "My" blueflash, because it is very personally my own, unique to me, my life, my past, my pathways.

Just as it is "Your" blueflash.....it must be unique to each of us.....

You need to find it alone, just like you were in a group of mountain climbers in a blinding snow....separated from each other....together, yet you must trust each step, keep moving upwards to the top of the mountain....no one can do it for you....it can be a chillingly lonely affair....we seek each others warmth, but we must draw from our own deep spirit of fire within...

So, we are not alone in the journey. In fact, it is others who give us the gifts of insight, tools, and signposts along the way....it always comes in from 90 degree angles, remember?

Messengers, angels, agents, mysterious messages from the internet that do not have a traceable author, yet are directed to our heart...

OK, now it is starting to make sense....blue flash living, seeking means looking to the side....sending out signal beacons....looking for agents...

MY blueflssh....YOUR blueflash....we are alone in one. We reach the top of the mountain and see we are not alone.

Brand New Country: Turkey

For me, this my first day in this great country Turkey. I am quite lucky to have a colleague from here who is my guide and support for CIBU's College agenda---to attract more students to our college than others!

But, wow, Istanbul...what a beautiful city...reminds me of Sydney...port city for sure, International... but here now in winter, it is a wonderland...culture, people, food...deep talks with locals about the future....

Careers are visualized in one day....with the help of others....that is the blue flash....

What the connection? Maybe here it took place for me and some others in the typical (research-based) situation....off the work site with others you love and trust....

Some parts of a vision crystalized, other parts still in motion....

It is very wonderful to play the part of bringing people to their destiny...it is the gift of the giver....

Some great folks at the dinner table, by accident, (AGAIN, OF COURSE!!!!)....maybe will play a part out in our future...

I guess blue flashes can happen in small doses....maybe I need to correct my theory...it is not always an epiphony (the research says it is about 30% epiphony)......thus the aggregating of a few seminal experiences and people and mentors in the small window of time....that seems to be the formula....

It is also about being away from desks and the workplace...

It is for each of us quite personal....I don't mean to prescribe a formula...but it is a series of definite personal experiences, concrete in clarity....

More to come.............
As Always......

Big Time CLARIFICATION

I just noticed some others who have used the blue flash concept.

Let me just humbly clarify:

1. I am not a mystical, transformational ego-personality with a single name like 'Moses'

2. I am a flawed human, happens to have high credentials (Wharton '68, Cornell Ph.D.'75) and have been in main line education for my career, including founder and President of CIBU, the accredited California International Business University...www.cibu.edu

3. I am not looking for followers, or movements or transformational shift people...
just real folks who are trying to figure out what to do with themselves on this thing called 'Life"

4. There are no religious, paid memberships or other stuff of that sort...

5. I do not and will not do retreats for hundreds of people, or thousands of people in far off places to walk on fire, walk on water or walk on others...

6. I am of the belief that one persona at a time, slowly, surely, every day, every way, we are doing our best

7. Knowing that, I know we make mistakes of culture and sometimes these are so huge we later realize they ruin what we treasure

8. This blog is dedicated to scholarly, intellectual, spiritual committment...to the idea of seeking consciously our life purpose. One at a time, with great understanding of individuality and culture...and with humility

9. This is not pushing a cause, religious, political or esoteric....just for real folks wanting to get their destiny coordinates....

10. Whew!

Blue Flash, not Blue Emotion

The whole concept of a career awakening is that it comes as a flash, in an instant, our whole life is crystalized into a picture......not a long, blue (as in 'the blues')horizon.

It's like when you wake up on a great morning....

Your life from there on seems to make more sense...

It is the essential optimism, not euphoria....remember Paradise is a lie...it is the belief that there are people, places that we want to be....but reality is what we love today...who loves us today...

So, Blue flash seeking must be realistic. Must have boundaries, role defined, not life defined...

Blue emotion is like the blues....sad, down, not toward anything that has an outcome we anticipate with satisfaction, let alone anything we know....

Blue flash living is staying with the most important project of your life....maybe a child, maybe a company, maybe an institution or even a book....

It cannot ever go to the blue horizon, but must life for the blue sky in the morning....each day we can....

Heart of the Artist, Part Two

The psychological world of an artist who is trying to capture some essence of technology with nature and life spirit is going where the Chinese have gone for thousands of years..."Fung-Shue", translated 'wind water'. This means the combining of nature with our modern world.

In Asian offices....we see fish tanks, plants, sometimes, gardens inside modern technological structures....

In Asian minds, we hear of this voice for nature....it is calling....

In the heart of the artist, we see both playing out this duel or this concert....

It represents the deepest part of the artist....the part that must resolve itself with the true outside world of McDonalds and Starbucks.....

The heart of the artist, I now realize from my experience, is one of the truest hearts....true in intention....true in delivery....products of art...

But is destined to be a lonely heart? Van Gogh had a lonely heart....full of life and love and craft, but in the end tragic....Gaugin, tragic in lonliness...

Is it the destiny of the true artist to be a lonely heart? I cannot answer this, but it is a real question....true art acts require isolation....not only from the work schedules of family and friends, but of maybe life's rhythm....of isolation from friends, loves, family...

So, we cannot change the deeepest part of the heart of the artist....it cannot be changed....it should never be changed....

There is this 'zone' that athleetes speak of....artists speak of it...performers speak of it. Entrepreneurs speak of that zone when they speak of 20 hour work days where they never come up for air...but they aare fully alive, happy and productive....

This is part of the deepest aspect of the Blue Flash in our lives....we seem to be like naked without clothes, unless we have some claim to work....something we are putting on the planet....unless we are 'all out', we are nothing.....

David McClelland, the famous motivation psychologist from Harvard, studied high achievers....he found the same...

All out life...passion...maybe neglect for loved ones in the picture, but PASSION for achievement....

We understand this. It is part of life's picture. We all pay some price for this as well.

Blue Flash is the ultimate picture of what this passion is...how it comes together, what forms it will take and how the inventor, artist, entrepreneur play the leadership role...

It is one of the simplest things in our life, but one of the hardest to deal with humanly...

These people, including me, are so passionate that they often lose touch with reality and push the envelope so much that they may hurt others....more to come on this trade off.

Be a couch potatoe is your other choice...It is just that simple...not much in between...

The Heart of an Artist

January 21, 2010
I have done a lot of paintings in my life. From childhood, I tried to capture stuff...the essence of cities was my passion....abstract...great licence....I painted with friends and family....sometimes it became passionate to create a new form...a new picture of my inner scape of something. My mother taught me the art of loving, living and art itself....she and I spent many hours with canvas and water colors. She taught me that the artist has heart.

I left that art twenty five years ago....haven't painted since.....words have been my palette....poetry, lyrics and passionate essays about the essential life issues as I have experienced them as a College President....

Recent events have shown me the inner world of the 'heart of the artist'. It is a wide and open canvas of amazing shapes and forms and emotions.

These people are destined, too, to have life purpose, maybe even something that represents something quite commercial as a venture, like selling their art, making friends thru art, being in a community of art people who share something quite deep.

One of them recently said she just wanted a week, a single week, to paint, nothing else.....what is this passion?

It seems to be the heart of the artist. Wanting wide open scapes, freedom to escape the bounds of 'normal life' with jobs and family and culture....to be totally free...to fly like a bird....and to free fall with passion and love.

Not all art is full of such happiness. That is the struggle. To be free. To grow up into something of the fully mature creator artist....

I cannot muster that passion as an artist with paint and canvas and form and shape. I cannot even put words to geometric shapes and organic or inorganic forms....but I know it when I see it....it is pure passion...the true heart of the artist waiting for his or her life moment of discovery....even if it is just with a select few.....those who love the work of an artist, understand the artist and feel that same passion....

Athleetes speak of the 'zone'. I think artists also are in the zone of something wide and wild and free when they paint....the heart of the artist is struggling to put paint to canvas to say what is deepest in their heart....a love for life and living....

I felt that when I painted, too. Many years ago. Now I feel it in my words that I put down for others maybe to understand and take home.

Every day, every canvas is new. Like a birthday. Happy birthday to the artists out there....every day is like a birthday with presents and yet you are getting older, but your your heart gives us the gift of freedom, joy and expression.

Blue flash? Yes, it is all connected in this global society....the vision of your life as an artist is wrapped nicely into the package of who you are, your heart and soul. Your destiny to create. The heart of the artist today we celebrate and they have made all of our civilizations so great and worth the time we spend to say who we are..........

Many BlueFlashes?

Are we supposed to have just one? My answer: NO! We may have several...one may lead to another. Remember, Sir Edmund Hillary was first to climb Everest. That was his greatest achievement, everyone thought....he said otherwise. He said that through doing this he discovered the Sherpa people and then devoted the rest of his life to helping them. That, he said was his greatest achievement!

I think I found my Blue Flash at age 42...saw the vision of CIBU, then spent the time since then building it. It has been overall great in my life. Everything came together. It provides me new things, energy, everything I could hope for. It is not Paradise. Remember, Paradise is a lie...it is the way we want to think of things, people, places.....the truth is what we actually have and love today.

My life has down days, and crashes, too. But overall, it is a huge gift. But it leads on to new venues, even for me....like Hillary, I too have my Sherpas....it is the people who I have helped to come here and have this experience, not the university blackboards, walls, books.....it is that we all brought over 3000 people from 80 + countries here and made them lifetime friends....and some few of them I have helped find their path to the blue flash....

There may be more out there for all of us, and me too! Life is rich with surprises, some of them very good to great.....it never stops....

Blue light is the rerest one in the prism of light. It is rerely seen by the naked eye. It is looked for, just beyone where the green flash takes place on the prism....

But, blue, wow what a color....light blue....it says hope, faith, new things, and Good Morning...

Good Morning, San Diego sunrise. The coffee smells good at 719am....I am up and ready for a great day.....mid January in Southern California is the best place to be in America....in my world.....if you are already here, celebrate, if you are not yet here, come visit us! It may lead to some great surprises!

Scale

Scale is the proportion of measures we use and how they affect the outcome. The outcome is our lives!

Astronomer Jeffrey Bennett (www.jeffreybennett.com) taught us lots about scale in the universe. How small planet earth is....how small in time our lives are....how way out of the way planet Earth is....not at all at the center of the universe, but in a far off place....

So too our lives....

We are here for an instant of total universe time.
We look up at stars and yet we must construct or own universe and be so at our own center, that we have some control in our life....we are not vegetables!

So, the average person takes about half their life to finally get in gear with the career, or figure our their pursuit of happiness. We change places, mates, partners, even hime countries just to finally get at home with something we can mke permanent for the planet....

Most of you, if you are still a student, have 60 to 75% of your life left....you can still play....you can still flirt....you can still experiment....scale is on your side....

Imagine if you were 50 or 60 and had not yet figured out something that was your destiny to do or create?

Sale is scary.....evaluate if you have it on your side or if you feel some urgency to get things figured out...

One possibility is that you never would get it figured out....you would be like a traveller....a tourist on the planet....just enjoying the ride....

OR, you could be a builder, a creator...a developer...an artist...a designer...an entrepreneur....a starter of fires within others....you could even impact others, fellow travellers to do something....

So what do you want? It is hard, I know....how do you know what you want, when you don't know what you want?

We will keep on talking so this my become clearer.....

Destiny?

Are we supposed to be playing with our future? Like playing with fire?

The very idea that each of us has some role to play out....just that we will find it in time if we are patient....that is what our world seems to want from us. Like the rules of the road...

The old song says, "you can't hurry love...", so what are we supposed to do, just wait?

No, wait, a minute, some of what we hear says, do not wait, take a role in it, go for it, do not just go with the flow, make the flow.....

These are the terribly discordant sounds from the orchestra....which section is playing out of tune?

So many want to shape and mold their destiny, but how? Where to start? With what?

The worst of all is to want to take action and be something, but not to have a clue what!!! Or where to start.

Here is what I know, it helps to get out into "traffic"....to expose your life to as much as possible, to meet new types, an have some fun while letting it all unfold....and have some faith that it will....

I was there, with all that pain....I know....

The Formula

Seems to be that those lucky folks who have found happiness in their pursuit of it.....

They wanted it....
They were aware they were looking for it...
It was not the central thing...it was a by-product
The central thing was a thing....a central project of one's life

They went thru pain to find it...
Finding it came thru others, usually a single messenger who congealed it, somehow...
Yes, these people are very important...how do we find them....who are they?
How do we know when they appear?

There is usually not a drumroll....

Blahs are part of Life!

Several days ago I wrote a piece when things seemed gloomy. That is part of life, even after the Blue Flash! I am nearly 20 years into living my Blue Flash and every day is not the same. Some are super high days, others there are downers.

Paradise is a lie. It is the way we may want to think of people and things and places, but the truth is what we have today....who we love today, and the things we are dealing with today, some great, some not full of too much hope, but they are real.

Blue Flash living is real. It is not Paradise, but you have found your purpose and who ever said it would be a readiant day every day? No way.

I live in this great place. We have built CIBU. It has new energy. The beat is good, very good. I am human, so I will have my seasons.

It is 8am now, sunny, blue sky, the mountains to the East are sharp and clear, my coffee is ready....Good Day!

New students, new destinys

We have welcomed about 3000 students to San Diego since 1995, from over 80 countries....wow...most go home happy with their 'experence'....it is real good stuff for the resume, no doubt....study in the USA, California....

How many have been able to log enough mental and digital pictures here to make it a profound eperience? Like, life changing...

It gets you out of your home country and into the California culture...some are so in love with this place they cannot leave and do anything to stay....

Others just return...

It reminds me that places are as powerful as 'faces' in our life.....the sense of place...

So it is a part of the ultimate picture, after all....how we build our geo-planetary lifestyles is driven, as it should be, by partly the places we do love so deeply...

I love San Diego. That was part of my equation, for sure!

Blahs

Just working out some stuff. Blue Flash is the big moment that clears what you are supposed to do....then you go about doing it.....and along the way there are great moments and downers....

When you want to reach out to someone and touch them and help them and you cannot make contact...what then?

I think that love is never lost on anyone....we have to accept that it just makes us stronger that we can love and handle it if it is not returned...because somewhere out there it is understood. We have to believe in that. Hope and faith keep us going....to find our blue flash....what tomorrow's message will be, or the signal that we are being heard.

So, while I have this passion to help others with their destiny, I am still working on my own...join the brotherhood and sisterhood of being real human and being able to feel extasy and agony all in one....and get up and go on....

Grad. School was Paradise, looking Back, then it was a Huge Mountain

Cornell University for 5 years taught me so much. Great Professors and inspiring mentors. Idyllic place to live, work, study, ski, play hockey, love, be loved, raise dogs, raise tomatoes, buy a house, buy a farm.....

I was so lucky....I fell into being a profesor at 29...Ithaca College...I had young, amazing students...it was all about having fun, pushing out the walls, finding out how far I could go with people....but I was going nowhere, just exploring...

seemed like turning 30 was so hard a year....did not have a clue where I was headed....maybe did not want to know....

so if I am lucky enough to live to 90 (not clear at all yet), one third of my life was like exploring a dark attic with a flashlight....fun stuff to discover, but one third no clue where or what or why was life for me al about.....

Actually, I did not even think about it that way....it seemed then that those kind of questions would just sort of evolve....or I would find out through "experience"...

So comfortable years, those 20's and 30's...no urgency....lots of running, play, sleep, up early to ski or work, or teach....all pure joy....

The seeds were getting planted....

Did I Ever Even Entertain the Idea in my 20's, 30's?

Flat out...NO! I was too busy having fun with exploring life, my boundries and what was out there.....looking back....it was not possible....to be serious....to do anything but explore....

And did I explore! Everything....jobs....bnking was 2 years....it just did not fit....teaching public schools....one year....fun but not long term.....family company....scary....I saw everyone going to grad school....it was time...i was 23...wandered back to my professor at Penn....he remembered me and took me tolunch in the Penn Faculty Club just to help me sort out the options...Prof. Richard Rowan....he recommended Cornell, the best. I had a marginal chance. He was willing to write a letter....it made all the difference....

Cornell was truly home 5 years....more later.....

How it all got started.....

It was 1988. I was lost. All this education. In my early fourties....what in the hell was I going to do with myself. I had been the professor, entrepreneur, consultant, administrator....nothing congealed...nothing made sense...halfway thru my life and the feeling that I still had no clue where I was headed....or if my life would make sense....or if I would create anything on the planet....just having a good time and being a passenger was not enough for me....

Pain....not like a toothache, but there....

One night I saw it come together and it was like a picture on the ceiling (I was lying in bed).....there were people in it....everything in my life made sense, all of a sudden. How did I get there? To be continued....the BLUE FLASH had hit my life, and the next morning I felt different....it was the turning point. I am lucky it happened with half my life left....