Sitting in Books and Company in Prince George. An older man is sitting in the window seat drinking tea and reading. Another comes up to him with a cup of coffee and points at the chessboard. “Hello Joe,” he says. “Want a game?” “Oh hello,” says Joe, looking up. “I’d love a game.” There is warmth in the rhythm and cadence of the exchange, these two men at 5:00 in the afternoon, wanting to pass the time of day in each other’s company. Such an affectionate exchange, from two men who clearly have the hardest days of their lives behind …
Euan Semple, recently liberated wage slave, has a lovely post on love and work: Where did all this come from, where did the idea that the most powerfully motivating force in the world had nothing to do with business? We spend most of our adult lives in the workplace and at work we bring about the most important and long lasting changes to our society and our planet – and yet we are not encouraged to talk in terms of love. OK we just about get away with “loving our job” our “loving success” but start talking about loving colleagues …
I’m currently in Prince George BC, with my partner Chris Robertson co-facilitating a two day Open Space gathering for people working on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder issues in Northern British Columbia. We have close to 200 people here and the dialogue has been amazing. If you want to join us virtually, follow along with the photos from the event, posted in real time.
I have been watching my five year old son learn to read. My son lives in a family of autodidacts. Almost everything we know and do in this family arises from self-teaching. We unschool out kids and have been largely influenced by the work of John Holt, Joseph Chilton Pearce and John Taylor Gatto in this matter. When we were deciding which educational path to pursue with our kids, we discovered Holt’s writings. But the choice to unschool is one thing…having the rubber hit the road is another, and the true test of our commitment would come around reading writing …
Michael Herman writes on Opening Space in Nepal after a series of Maoist attacks on Tansen. Today Michael reprinted a letter from one of the leaders he was working with in previous visits to Nepal: The people of Tansen are not hopeless, we Nepalese people’s energy is not swallowed by the fire and bullets. We have hope that the Palpa Durbar comes into its original outlook within a very short time. It’s the dream of Palpali and whole Nepalese people. And we are sure that our dream comes true since we have the sympathy from national and international government, …