Patience: It Isn’t Just for Breakfast Anymore

One of the things students in my classes always said they appreciated about me was my patience, my willingness and ability to explain something many ways and many times and to never get irritated or snippy about it. I prided myself on that patience, too. It was my job to be as clear as possible, to [...]

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Yeah, and how’s that empathic civilization coming?

It’s been a couple of weeks of trying to pay attention to my thoughts in an effort to tap into my more empathic self and be a kinder, more understanding me, and I thought I’d do a little report back, a status update.  I’ve been doing only so-so with this plan.  More and more I forget [...]

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Beans and Rice: Power and Control

I am still thinking about my experience making the mandala Saturday, still puzzling through my various responses and resistences to the challenges of that activity. Last summer at VONA,¹ I worked with Junot Diaz.  I haven’t written anything about that experience yet.  I’ll give the short-hand answer now and say it was an incredible week.  The longer [...]

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Mirror, mirror …

Reflection seems to be the slicing theme of the last few days, and I find myself in that place, too.  My first week and a half of slicing has been interesting, has catapulted me from nearly silent to practically bursting with things to post.  I’m still awed by this sudden shift, this rediscovery of an [...]

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Beans and Rice: Meditation and Revelation

Another successful WE LEARN conference comes to a close.  I’m on the train headed home, still marveling at how great the last two days were. _____ The conference always has a quiet room, a space where people can go and … well, be quiet, step away from the over-stimulation of the conference, relax, re-center themselves.  [...]

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