Wild Ambition

A few weeks ago, we were in Banff in the Canadian Rockies, getting ready for the last hike of our holiday when a freak storm hit. Within a few minutes, hail was flying around us, like the Goddess had cast off her string of pearls. We watched the forest as the wind corkscrewed trees out of the ground, and listened to the sirens stir around the village, attending to the stalled movements of summer tourists and townies.

My friend Anne came in from the beach, and as the storm continued, we started a conversation that lasted most of a day while our families napped and read and ate Cornish pasties (the meat pie, not the erotic adornment) that we’d packed for the hike. The conversation would become one of the most seminal events of 2007 for me, full of insights about what it is to live a wild and free life. Even after the storm subsided, I abandoned the plan to play just a few more hours on the trail, and paid attention to the weave of talk and contemplation that nature had opened up for me. Those spoken words would become the rich humus from which I would write my new film, and we would later see that this day of rest was exactly what was required before we re-entered our busy lives.

I teach planning. Or rather, I help people remember what they already know about how they want to live. Together we design ways to, as author Alice Sebold says, “realize that in the midst of your failure, you were slowly building the life that you wanted." We often characterize what we think we do not want as mistakes or failure, still, these are truly the moments that are making us, shaping us into the kind of people who can make our visions real.

Many years ago, when I was an employee, some guy told me the best planning went like this: “Ready. Fire. Aim.” (I mentally wrote my resignation letter as he spoke.) Today I would tell him that I believe battle language enacts war, and that I get what he is saying -- sometimes we just have to try things, see what happens, absorb the 'failures', even give up our original idea for what is taking shape around us. Really though, in this state of wild ambition, no mistakes are possible. We're free to invent and create in what the Zen masters call "spontaneous right action," resting in the awareness that reality can not fail us. This isn't about having some 'secret' knowing that will provide us with everything we desire. Wild work is about seeing that our choices (and mistakes) are informing how we live and prosper. For some, staying in from the storm is building the life they want; others will need to dodge falling ice at the peak.

The planning work I do now is to help people notice when they’re holding the original idea too tightly, or when perseverance is required. It’s less about self-assurance, and more about what can happen when we’re not so tied to our definition of ‘who I am’. It's about distinguishing when we are making things work, and when the work is making us. Stay tuned to this blog for regular updates on what I call wild ambition -- that moment of abandon colored with focus, elegance and grace.

What's your vision for your life? If you want to learn more about working wild, contact me at sonyalea@gmail.com or (206) 729-2270.