Learning Together. Building Community.

From the center of Reality, the whole circumference of life is seen to be completely harmonious, for when the center is found, it becomes clear that the enumerable radii all converge from the circumference towards a single point. ~ Maharishi Maresh Yogi I’m learning to see my life as if I was standing in the center where all things are one. If this moment was the center of the circle, my shoulders would be relaxed, my hair would be strong and healthy and I would sleep restful

My mother loved butterflies. Her house was full of them. Not the real kind, but butterfly pins, embroidered butterflies, painted butterflies, chains of quilted butterflies, even those on a wire that you stick in a potted plant to decorate it. All the books in her library were stamped with a green butterfly stamp. Mom passed away suddenly this fall. It was rather an abrupt end to a rich and full life. The other morning I had a flash of an image of her—she’s a beautiful butterf

What do you do when you’re grappling with a bunch of random ideas all at once? So many of our digital tools are linear: word processors, spreadsheets, etc. Sometimes you just need a wide open, unstructured space to capture thoughts as they come. Then you can start to see the connections between the ideas and how they naturally group together. It’s hard to do this with a word processor. This is where whiteboards come in handy. And digital whiteboards have the added advantage t

Twenty-five years ago, Priscilla Plummer was sitting with a group of women in a village in Mozambique. Knee-deep in the research for her master’s degree, she wanted to learn about the realities people were facing in Southern Africa. As she got to know the women in her village and listened to their stories, Priscilla realized their experience was very different from the picture painted by the big development organizations with their projects and programs and reports. It was cl

How do we develop a learning mindset? It’s not possible to know everything, so obviously we’re going to have to learn as we go. But how do we get ourselves into a learning mode? So often I get defensive when I run up against my own ignorance. Or when I make a mistake. Or when I inadvertently say or do something that causes pain for someone else. But defensiveness is the antithesis of learning. I can’t actually learn anything when all my energy is marshalled into defense mode.

It’s hard work, becoming conscious. And what makes it doubly hard is this: I wake up and look around. My eyes are open and it’s a beautiful thing. So I go down the path a ways and then realize I’ve just awakened from a dream within the dream. Now I have another awakening to go through. And another. And another. After awhile I think, “Will this ever end?” But it doesn’t. It keeps going, uncovering layer after layer. Okay, so this isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon. We’re in this f

I’m part of a group dedicated to educating ourselves on racism and supporting one another in taking action. In each session, we deepen these newly-formed bonds of friendship through a process of story sharing. Last week, one woman shared a story about the power of listening. It was the mid-1990’s and Casey was flying back to Portland from Denver after attending a public health conference. She got settled in her seat and pulled out her voter’s pamphlet to prepare for the upcom

This country has been divided for so long that we need to re-learn how to work together. Our labels (right, left, black, white) have become a kind of shortcut to understanding different views. But now this shortcut is preventing understanding. And understanding is what we desperately need as we face the problems confronting us. These problems are so big and intertwined that the only way we’ll solve them is if we work together. And since we don’t yet have the answers, this mea

Have you ever noticed how we tend to separate people by age in this society? The young and the old are shuttered off by themselves. What are we losing? How would we benefit by reaching across the generations? My daughter and I were looking for a place to sit and chat one sunny afternoon recently and found a bench overlooking a grade school playground. Below us, we saw all kinds of people doing all kinds of things, peacefully coexisting. The little kids were playing on the mon

We’ve just finished a series on consultation and how it can be a powerful tool for learning together and building community. Now we’ll be focusing on learning itself. We’ll be exploring learning from all angles—individual learning, learning in groups, learning in the family, learning as a human race. We live in urgent times. Humanity is at a turning point. We have the ability to change our trajectory from one of conflict and environmental catastrophe to one of collaboration a