The Armored Knight

The first essay in a series exploring the innerwork of leadership under disruption

During a stretch when everything I relied on fell away, images of warriors kept visiting my dreams. One of them, in particular, stood out, and became an inspiration for countless art projects.

You see, I have always used art as a means to process emotions when nothing else made sense. A wordless way to be with myself and out of my restless mind.

He was a knight on foot, returning from the Crusades, defeated. He had lost his white horse, and a piece of his armor was ripped and dangling precariously from his arm, revealing a fragment of rich crimson red brocade underneath. 

That image stayed with me. His armor had failed him, or rather it had done its job, but could no longer do it.

What did the armor protect him from? What did the beautiful fabric underneath reveal? 

Fabric and color have been companions in my creative life for a long  time. Weeks later, I am kneeling on the dropcloth-covered floor of my apartment, mixing paint colors, and laying out patterns of what that rich brocade could have looked like. The questions are silently making their way into my body. Color became my way of asking questions, not thoughts, not words. Making patterns became a form of contemplation.

Over the weeks, the structured print pattern turns into a riotous display of abstract brush strokes, Joan Mitchell style. Later on, I am furiously cutting and gluing colored paper shapes on a board, tipping my hat to Sandra Blow and Matisse. Their deceptively simple cutouts carry an ineffable sense of balance, beauty and wholeness that words could never convey so succinctly. Every week, religiously, I am with color. The armor never got fixed, yet the colors took a life of their own.

By putting color on paper, I was instinctively attempting to stay in relationship with an experience that refused explanation and to be with that void. I never discovered what the brocade actually looked like, but somewhere along the way it stopped mattering. Somehow, my body understood what my mind could not wrap itself around. 

We all wear armor, disguised as titles, status, expertise, competence, productivity, perfectionism, certainty, identity. Disruptions have the unpleasant effect of ripping these shells off our bodies, revealing the vulnerable flesh beneath. It leaves us distraught and frantically trying to remedy the problem by doubling down on what we know best. We mistake exposure for failure and then try to eradicate it. Could the dissolution of the armor be an invitation to look at what’s underneath and what else is possible? Tending to these vulnerable places requires devotion, patience, practice, and a cadence. No promised outcome. Not even a clear direction. Just leaning into what is emerging in the moment and letting the body be with it.

During those months, I didn't know I was learning something about leadership. I thought I was simply trying to survive. Looking back, I see that the disciplines that sustained me—showing up every week, working with my hands, letting the body lead when the mind couldn't—were quietly teaching me a different kind of strength. 

Perhaps leadership under disruption begins when we stop asking how to repair the armor and start asking what is actually sacred enough to protect.