Dear Reader, Matt posted this poem this week in The Studio. It speaks of trust, and family, the power of the arts, the past, and hopes for what might come next, and I wanted to pass it along to all of you as we begin this new year with big doses of both love and fear. Beginnings by Jacqueline Johnson I did not expect to find a riverso far inland.What underground tributary,lake is your source?It goes on for miles into thecenter of an unending earth. Back then everything was music,wind running...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Dear Reader, The Studio community this month has been engaged in inquiries around our relationship with time and so my awareness of the off-beat rhythm of this newsletter has been heightened. Matt and I try to offer something of value to your inbox, predictably, a couple of times a month - but I don't seem to struggle any less with deadlines now than I ever have at any point in my life. Maybe that's why I find the topic so interesting, and the world beyond the linear ways we typically use...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Dear Reader, “What we need right now is tenderness and vulnerability… If I can fight in some way to hold onto that, to show the softness, to show the importance of love, as silly as that may sound, when everything feels violent and horrific, to point out the beautiful thing when everything feels, you know, like, there's no hope–I guess I want to keep doing that. And I want to make sure I do it not just for others but for my own soul, for my own self.” Ada Limón A couple of weeks ago, Matt...
5 months ago • 4 min read
Dear Reader, "With attention and intention, we can shape our system in ways that resource the pathways that nourish our well-being (Deb Dana, Anchored, p. 105)." In July and August in The Studio for Playful Inquiry, we read Anchored and Inciting Joy together as we focused on the practice of finding glimmers - which is Deb Dana’s word for paying attention to the world and our experiences with the intention to perceive what brings us joy, delight, happiness, or comfort. In many ways, our...
7 months ago • 2 min read
The Studio for Playful Inquiry Leading for Playful Inquiry This week, we're on retreat with our first leadership cohort in Cannon Beach, Oregon, thinking and reflecting and planning with the friends we have made through our online program over the year - meeting in person for the first time - sharing food (lots of food) and impressions that can only be shared when you are breathing the same air, feeling the same ocean mist together in the three-dimensional world. So we're stopping by your...
9 months ago • 1 min read
I'm hearing it constantly: In these wild times, it's really important for everyone to write. Maybe that's a message you're hearing, too. But you might be wondering where to start - or what that call has to do with your work with young people. We've designed an antidote to that: a short series to get you started. Over just four meetings - each designed to attend live or at your convenience - we'll help you put pen to paper in a way that you'll find meaningful. And it's cheap - we've got pick...
11 months ago • 1 min read
New Offerings! Your stories offer an essential corrective to misleading images of who children and educators are and what is happening in our schools and centers. In this intensive short course, we'll work together to develop and share stories that you value. Learn more Over the last year, 19 educators and administrators from around the world have strengthened their capacity to lead with and for playful inquiry. Their enthusiasm for the experience leads us to offer the experience to a small...
11 months ago • 1 min read
"'Dialogue' comes from the Greek word dialogos. Logos means 'the word' or in our case we would think of the 'meaning of the word'. And dia means 'through' - it doesn't mean two. A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. Even one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of the dialogue is present. The picture of image that this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will make possible a flow of...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, It is clear that if we are to live in harmony with ourselves and with nature, we need to be able to communicate freely in a creative movement in which no one permanently holds to or otherwise defends his own ideas. Why then is it so difficult actually to bring about such communication? David Bohm, On Dialogue This month we've been thinking about dialogue as we've been finishing our reading of See No Stranger - we've asked: What is love without dialogue? Below is an excerpt from a...
about 1 year ago • 4 min read