Dear Reader,

Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician, therapist, and author of Kitchen Table Wisdom, writes: “Wholeness is never lost, it is only forgotten.”

​Alison Gopnik puts it another way when she describes the development of human consciousness as an evolution from something like a “lantern” to that of a “spotlight”. Children see the world in its wholeness. Adults forget how connected everything is. And though the spotlight brings with it some efficiencies - some capacity to predict what happens next with less error than a child - the amnesia we tend to have for what else might be true or perceived or how something might end or happen or even matter, heightens our fear of uncertainty and the belief that we don’t have what we need to stay in control, to feel good, to be good enough.

Remen continues, “Integrity rarely means that we need to add something to ourselves: It is more an undoing than a doing, a freeing ourselves from beliefs we have about who we are and ways we have been persuaded to ‘fix’ ourselves to know who we genuinely are. Even after many years of seeing, thinking, and living one way, we are able to reach past all that to claim our integrity and live in a way we may never have expected to live.”

What is it that we’re trying to remember? In our work with children, what is it we could help them not forget? These two wise women have some related insight to offer:

“The environment we create will determine what prevails. In other words, what we nurture and encourage wins.” Jane Goodall​

“I’ve long believed that those who have more joy, win.” Robin Wall Kimmerer​

But they lead me to wonder, what if we could nurture and encourage a more joyful way of being that does not rely on a measure of what or who has lost? Children, like all of us, experience loss. They struggle and grieve. They perceive injustice when they hold their lanterns to the world. With so much accumulated experience, as adults, the concept of winning as the opposite of losing - of being a winner so you won’t be a loser - holds visceral memory and meaning that entices us to compartmentalize - and to continue to be motivated by the notion of the win. What would we do with that concept of winning if we’re trying to remember how to be whole? Trying to remember that wholeness includes it all? How do we create an environment in which all of what happens is included, and there is enough to go around for everyone, and no one loses because no one wins?

The poem that Rosemary Wahtola Trommer sent this morning is, I think, because it is beautiful, a more effective way of saying, of carrying the meaning, of what I’m trying to say:

On Christmas Morning

It was broken when I opened the gift,
the long ear of the small clay bunny.
The giver apologized, but how could she
have known that in the breaking
​
it became that much more precious—
aligned with the truth that all things
break, and the breaking makes
them no less beloved. Perhaps more so.
​
What surprised me was how the break
cleaved a perfect heart shape a message
hiding inside the whole. I cried then,
​
not because the figurine was broken but
because I’m gloriously, terribly broken, and oh,
it’s so beautiful to see it, the love in everything.
​
In asking these questions about ourselves, about what to do with all our brokenness and imperfections and not knowing, I realize my own tendency to want to outsource the answers. I want to find someone out there who can tell me what to do about the discomfort in here. But those kinds of questions are for me. And yours are for you. We’ll get to a better “we” when we each settle into a friendly relationship with the understanding that - I already have enough. Because I already am enough. And part of being enough is being whole and being whole means being broken. And being broken is where we can see the love in everything best. That’s what we’ve forgotten. That’s what children know and what we can help them hold on to - by reconstructing this narrative for ourselves.

I had been writing this essay and I paused. And in that pause I checked my email. And there was the poem, a gift sent early this morning. Robin Wall Kimmerer, in conversation with Jenny Odell, said this: “A gift carries a kind of spiritual luster. We cherish a gift for the relationships it embodies. When we use it, it is wrapped in gratitude. When we use a resource, it is clothed in entitlement.” In our schools and classrooms, are we nurturing an environment of relationships or resources?

We can nurture and encourage an environment in which the participation of each individual sharing their own particular gift ensures that when we get together, we can make all that we need to go around. Kimmerer writes, “There is a tragedy in believing the proffered narrative of our system, which turns us against each other in a zero-sum game.” When we think we lose when we break and win when we don’t or when we endlessly seek a fix because we’re afraid we’ll lose without it, we have no alternative but to leave others behind. We’ve built a whole system based on that story. And it doesn’t work for anyone - not even those who appear to be winning.

​Oliver Burkeman writes:
"… there's a general attitude here that's well worth cultivating – a healthy skepticism toward the part of your brain that's so enthusiastic about controlling how things unfold…."

He shares a story to make the point:

"The psychotherapist Sheldon Kopp once wrote that his job, metaphorically speaking, was to stand at the open door of his consulting room as a new patient rushed toward him, eager to fling himself into Kopp's arms, to have his problems solved – and then to stand aside, so the patient would crash onto the welcome mat, and then be obliged to pick himself up by drawing on internal resources he hadn't known he possessed. The patient had a whole plan for sorting his life out, and for co-opting Kopp into the scheme. But what he really needed was to have that plan forcibly put on hold."

​And he asks:

"What if – and personally I find this thought almost unthinkable in its radicalism, but still, here goes – what if there's nothing you ever have to do to earn your spot on the planet? What if everything you actually get around to doing, on any given day, is in some important sense surplus to minimum requirements?"

What if you are already enough? Kimmerer writes, “We live in the tension between what is and what is possible.” It is a generative tension. It is grounded in the truth that things could be otherwise. We are the curious and the imaginative and the playful. And that makes us no less capable of getting serious and important and transformative work done. Perhaps more so.

Wishing you a very happy New Year from Matt and me.

Up next in The Studio RESILIENCE We'll be reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit and exploring questions such as: What emerges in times of crisis and what guides us? How do we create community in difficult times? How does our curiosity, imagination, and recognition of abundance help us in times of collapse? ​ Join us

Guideline We're thrilled to be in conversation with Vanessa, Darryl, and Ben this month. We look forward to hearing their thoughts on their work through the lens of resilience in their very diverse, very connected communities: Nest Tijuana, Newtowne School, and Little Owl School.

The Language of RESILIENCE - RESISTANCE​ ​ Our Studio Arts mentor, Kathryn Ann Meyers will lead a video workshop focused on thinking with mixed-media watercolor resist. Members at the Inspire and Transform commitment levels enjoy monthly videos that include prompts, practices, and invitations to deepen their relationship with a variety of materials. Kathryn Ann's Work →

WATCHING, LISTENING, READING

Good things:

2024 has been another good year in The Studio! Our through lines (hooks to a big idea that is relevant to the field of education) were: rhythms, play, perception, story, flourishing and the arts, refuge, curiosity, imagination, and abundance. You can find the books we've read here!

Guide Lines are one-hour conversations with folks (practitioners, researchers, administrators) we think going deeply with will catalyze all sorts of thinking about the monthly through line. This year we've hosted Fiona Zinn, Darryl Redick, Michelle Ramirez, Mara Krechevsky, Miriam Beloglovsky, Jesús Oviedo, Sophie Ann Edwards, Georgia Heard, Kirsty Liljigren, Kelly Goodsir, Cindy Foley, Xitlali Zárate, Alicia Bustamente, Vanessa Esquivel Martinez, Shawna Coppola, Amanda Jewart, Jenna Barruga, and Donna Indrakumaran. Their wisdom and guidance has been deeply appreciated by the community.

We started our first two Leading for Playful Inquiry cohorts and planning is underway to facilitate this program again next year. Be sure to let us know if you want to be among the first to know when applications are open.

In January, we'll be offering a couple of new membership options including one for institutions. We'll let you know when they are ready.

Here are a few links you might want to explore:

Sarah Jane Hardy is the Artistic Director of our local children's theater - a person I really admire. In this recent podcast interview, she talks about her approach to engaging children in the arts and to creating art for children.

This conversation between adrienne maree brown and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a good one.

If you've got a Netflix subscription - since we've been thinking about abundance this month as we've read The Serviceberry, the video Buy Now is worth watching. And if you haven't explored The Story of Stuff - it's a good time to do that, too!

This interview between Robin Wall Kimmerer and Jenny Odell is a delightful read.

We also enjoyed this conversation between Tara Brach and Valerie Kaur. We are looking forward to speaking with Valerie who, along with Nicole Marie, will be our guideline guests that month. Registration is open for their 8 week course: Revolutionary Love for Young Children: Building Cultures of Belonging. Learn more about the course here.

“If the trauma of violence and oppression is inherited from our ancestors, might we also inherit resilience and bravery?”

— Valerie Kaur

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