The Wild Winds of Winter

by Circle of Trust Facilitator Paul Michalec

Here in Colorado we are experiencing the fullness of winter conditions and the importance of slowing down and turning inward for warmth and self preservation.  On cold and gray days, with the sun low in the horizon, a person’s identity is obscured under layers of clothing and blurred by passing snow squalls. Wrapped in a cocoon of warmth people look like self-contained universes spinning through the snow and ice as they complete the day’s business.  

Circle of Trust work invites me to consider winter’s metaphorical qualities in my personal and professional life.  I’m mindful of the challenges I face when projects aren’t completed on time or I strongly disagree with a colleague around who should take the lead on a task.  Instead of dwelling on disappointment, doubt, or failure, our principles and practices encourage me to consider the light- and life-giving aspects of winter.  For instance, winter’s isolation, although rarely pleasant, becomes an opportunity to listen attentively to my inner teacher.  It is my experience that the darker and colder my professional or personal winter the greater is my opportunity to hear and name my most precious inner beliefs and gifts.

YES! Magazine Exemplary Essays Project

Parker Palmer's recent interview in YES! Magazine was used as a writing prompt in the YES! Exemplary Essays project.

Students in Professor Victor Nolet and Rosalie Romano's "Introduction to Educational Inquiry" course at Western Washington University's Woodring School of Education read and responded to the YES! Magazine article Know Yourself, Change the World.

Two of the best essays were selected to be published on the YES! website, along with Parker's response.

The essays answered this prompt: Palmer cites a study that found relational trust was the one variable, not money, models of governance, state-of-the-art curriculum, in-service training or technology—that made a difference in improving kids' learning. What do you think goes into relational trust between teacher and student? Teacher and teacher?

The study he cites is published in this book entitled Trust in Schools by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider. What do you think?  Do readers who have been to Courage to Teach series have any stories to share about cultivating trust in schools?

 

Happy New Year!

As 2009 draws to a close, may you be blessed by what you've learned this year and how your life has offered up glimpses of "What's God, what's world, what's gold."

Warmest wishes to you for the new year!

Deciding

One mine the Indians worked had
gold so good they left it there
for God to keep.

At night sometimes you think
your way that far, that deep,
or almost.

You hold all things or not, depending
not on greed but whether they suit what
life begins to mean.

Like those workers you study what moves,
what stays. You bow, and then, like them,
you know-

What's God, what's world, what's gold.

-William Stafford, An Oregon Message

P.S. Our vision for 2010 includes engaging many new friends in our circle — won’t you join us by making a year-end gift to the Center today?

Happy New Year, New Podcast

Happy New Year!  In our latest podcast, we share two segments from Parker Palmer's 5-CD set from Sounds True, called An Undivided Life: Seeking Wholeness in Ourselves, Our Work & Our World. The first is entitled "Perfection is not the goal of an undivided life" and the second, "Trust and distrust in personal and political life."  Please listen and return here to share your comments.  Parker is in the midst of writing a new book, The Politics of the Brokenhearted and is planning two retreats, open to the public, with the same title.  Please click here to learn more participate in this rare opportunity.

Download or play podcast: New Year

 

People are talking...

Every day our inbox is full of links (via Google alerts) of interesting and thoughtful writers around the world who are drawing connections between Parker Palmer's writing or our work and their own lives.  Here are a few from today.

Business blogger Scott Ginsberg on "4 Ways to Help People Love Themselves More When They're With You" (see #4)

National Teacher of the Year Finalist Cindi Rigsbee reflects on her career and mentions Parker Palmer in Teacher Magazine (April 2008)

A blog post from China entitled "China needs 'The New Professional'"

If you've written a blog post with such connections, please feel free to mention it in our comments.

A Note from Parker Palmer, Founder and Senior Partner

I’m very proud of what the Center, its staff, facilitators and volunteers have accomplished over the past decade. I spend a lot of time thinking and writing, but these good colleagues “put wheels on ideas,” creating programs and retreats that have taken tens of thousands of people deeper into the workplace, and the larger world, with their identity and integrity more firmly in hand. That’s why my wife Sharon and I participate in the Parker J. Palmer Fund — which is not, I hasten to add, my retirement fund! We want to help the Center find a sustainable future and continue its life-giving work. I invite you to join us in this good cause. Every dollar will be well-spent to support people like you who are helping to humanize our institutions and their own communities. Thank you for your interest and participation in the Center’s mission. And the happiest of holidays to you and yours.

Annual Fund

 

More Thanks ...

[This post and the previous one are Parker's responses to the comments on this post.]

Once again, I'm very glad I decided to do this, because I'm learning so much from the folks who write in. Here are a few responses to the latest entries:

Sandie, many thanks for your affirmation of the core idea of heartbreak and of the power of the Courage to Teach program to help ”crack our armor.” For me, two very important statements in your entry -- real keepers! -- are these: “I live in a world where isolation is a code word for safety…” and “Democracy is too precious to leave anyone on the margin.” If small groups of folks can come together in the workplace and other daily venues of our common life and learn to break through our isolation, that “habit of the heart” can carry over into the body politic and help reduce the marginalization that undermines the vision of a government of, by and for the people. It's slow, painstaking work, infrastructural work, but I've seen it happen, I've seen it spread, and we need lots more of it. One of the big lessons of our current economic crisis is that ignoring infrastructure over the past forty years, and grabbing for the “quick fix” instead, helps pave the road to ruin. So thanks for the reminder of these critical root-system issues, and of the fact that there are ways to do something about it -- including the Circle of Trust model that the Center has to offer.

Paul, as usual, I find you right on target with specifics. And, as always, I am grateful. As I read your list of six questions, each with well-defined dimensions, I thought you were quite gentlemanly to call our current conversation about health care “substantially below what we and our democracy could have.” The “death panel” debate looks downright debased, even demonic alongside your grounded and thoughtful approach to this critical issue. In this book, I want to address the question of how to reopen “the public square” to many voices, including the voices of people like you who have immense credibility in various work arenas, credibility based on long experience of the sort you have in medical education and health care reform. How do we get your voice more clearly into the health care debate? How do we get the voices of seasoned public school educators into the school reform debate? More and more, it seems, the people who know the least about a field have the most power over forming public policy for that field. How do we give people like you more leverage on these things? No easy answers, but your blog entry reminds me of how important the question is.

Thanks from a Grateful Writer

The first five responses to my notes toward a new book on democracy make me wish I’d done something like this as soon as the internet came on the scene. In fact, I've found myself so energized by the ideas shared here that I herewith break my own “promise” that I would not respond to the folks who write in! I won't be able to respond with great frequency or at great length. But I will do it when I can, because I value responses of this sort very much; I learn from them and want to encourage them.

Among other things, it occurs to me that we have a chance to model the kind of civil discourse that is so badly needed on the web. (Where do some people get the idea that we can speak to people in cyberspace as if they were not human beings, worthy of respect? Probably from the same place we got the notion that “reality” TV shows were a good idea!)

Yolande, I am very grateful for your point about Rumi's concept of “otherness,” and would be glad if you could find and post the reference you mention. I agree completely about the problem that comes when we fail to take responsibility for creating “otherness” or “separateness” by projecting our own fears on individuals and groups. That's why the concept of “life on the Mobius strip” is so important to me: the inner and the outer keep co-creating each other. When we miss that point, we are more likely to do harm than good to ourselves and the world around us.

Your Thoughts On Parker's New Book

I am working on a new book, and what follows [here, in our current newsletter] are some of the “sketches” I’ve been making as I try to discern its shape. Normally, I don’t share notes like this in public. But since my topic this time is democracy, I thought it would consistent with the topic, and good for me, to open my thinking to discussion. And since the Center is planning to host several large gatherings on this topic at sites around the country, your responses will help us shape those events as well. I’d love to hear what you think, with one proviso—I cannot respond to your comments individually or I will never get the book written! So thank you in advance for whatever you have to say. The topic is of great importance to me and I hope it is to you, too, whether or not you agree with what I have to say about it. That’s the way of democracy! —Parker Palmer

 

I Brought My Soul to Work

by Jay E. Valusek with reflections by Circle of Trust® Facilitator
 Paul Michalec

Paul As a Circle of Trust Facilitator, the observations of the poet Marge Piercy have a certain resonance: ”Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground. You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.” I sit in a circle, inviting participants to encounter a deeper sense of self, not really knowing what might be growing inside the soul. Shortly after a recent retreat, a participant (Jay Valusek) sent the circle the following email. Now I know a little of “what was happening” and nurtured into life through the mysteries of a Circle of Trust.

Jay I’d like to share a story with all of you about what happened immediately after our Circle of Trust retreat last week. I decided to bring my soul to work. 

I am a freelance writer for high-tech companies, mostly in the oil industry. Not a place my soul gets much nurture. One of my clients is the CEO of a software company, for whom I write speeches. The day after I returned from the retreat, I was faced with a serious problem: I had two days to write his speech for a major event and I couldn’t reach him on the phone. When I finally made contact, he spent an hour talking vaguely about innovation and customer collaboration. Not much substance at all. Afterward, I called the woman in charge of the event. I told her that I didn’t think I could pull any rabbits out of the hat this time. By day’s end, I still had no idea what to do...and only one day left to write the speech.

However, because of the time we spent together on retreat, I decided to let my challenge sit overnight and trust whatever arose from the “abundance” within.

New Interview in YES! Magazine

A brand new interview with Parker Palmer appears in the current issue of YES! Magazine.  One of our favorite quotes:

Every line of work is deepened by bringing all of our human capacities to bear on whatever we are doing, and that includes our inner sensibilities as well as our externally oriented knowledge and skill.

--Parker J. Palmer

 

Complete a survey for a chance to win

We're in the midst of investigating the potential for offering some programs online and hope you can help us out by taking a very brief survey.  If you're reading this blog for the first time or the hundredth, your input is valuable!  Please click here to begin.  You will be forwarded to the survey on SurveyMonkey.com.

If you complete the survey, you will be eligible to win one of two copies of Parker Palmer's 5-CD set from Sounds True called “An Undivided Life: Seeking Wholeness in Ourselves, Our Work and Our World," so please include your email address in the last question.   If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, please email our Communications Director, Tracey.