Worlds of Change

We've Moved

2011-02-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

We've moved this blog to a new site: http://worldsofchange.com. Our new site has many more features, including ways to search for whatever topics, fields and projects speak to you most. Please visit us there!

An Interview with Ruth Farmer

2011-02-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

IMA director Ruth Farmer is featured in an interview with Susan Moul, IMA graduate and co-founder of The Magazine of Yoga.

Come visit the site and read Part 1 of the interview here. Ruth tells us of IMA students, "Those kinds of learners want peers, advisors, guides, and they are interested in earning a degree. They want individualized. Their lives, their professional lives, or their personal lives make it such that they prefer low residency, but they don’t want to be alone."

In Part 2, right here, Ruth and Susan talk more deeply about the becoming a leader, tinkering, identity and trusting the process. She says of the IMA program's low-residency format, "Even before this technological revolution, Tim Pitkin (Goddard’s founder), and others at Goddard, realized the value of the intensive, low-residency education model. In the IMA program, intellectual exchanges during workshops, advising meetings, workgroups, in the dining room and in the dorms inform and energize students’ independent studies, as well as faculty teaching. Most of the IMA faculty have been with Goddard over ten years and are also working elsewhere in their respective fields. They model the commitment to life-long learning that we expect of our students."

Together, these two interviews give you a nuanced view into how individualized study unfolds at Goddard, and whether it might be just the ticket for your life's calling.

Blogs from Our Graduates

2011-01-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

Several IMA graduates are finding their path into businesses and organizations by making it and walking it. Read about what some of our alumni are up to these days.

Anne Smith studied sense of place, creative writing and especially memoir, and place-based community building during her time at Goddard. Out of her studies, she also started her own business and blog. In One Little Window, she writes about building community, raising her son, and making things to become more self-sustainer and close to the sources that sustain her. Quoting Eleanor Roosevelt in her sidebar, she reminds us ""One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility." This blog explores everything from preparing to raise to chickens to feeding the birds to resurrecting a 1942 knitting pattern. The blog is accompanied by Anne's business site, One Little Window, which brings to readers ways to buy vintage clothing sewing and knitting patterns as well as eco-products Anne makes, such as cloth napkins.

Scott Youman's new blog, This Energetic Man, is a marvel of a website when it comes to great writing prompts, inspiration, vision and replenishment. As Youmans describes his site, "This Energetic Man is a space on the Interweb to share my work and insight as a Transformative Language Artist. My work involves writing and the use of poetry, literature and myth to provide experiential workshops that help expand and affirm our humanity. The insight I offer, imperfect as it may be, arises from my work and continued interest in personal growth, spirituality and anti-oppression work." His site also lists writing workshops and retreats he offers.

Jeanne Chamber's great blog, The Barefoot Heart, isn't just the "ruminations of a red dirt girl" but powerful good writing about life and meaning, punctuated with ample humor. Jeanne describes herself as "a complicated simple girl fluent only in southern and english, i feel beautiful when wearing dangly earrings and dresses that caper. sundays are my most creative day, so i try to have at least 7 sundays each week. whether telling them in cloth, clay, or chirography, stories are my oxygen, characters my blood." Her posts include musings on bioquiltographies, travels with outrageously intriguing characters, explorations of the ordinary in which all manner of magic resides, plans and revisions of plans to live with greater vividness, seasonal transformations of us, and there's even good eats: occasional recipes. Much of her writing lands on how we can bring ourselves greater power and voice through simple, constant and nuanced awareness.

Visit all these blogs to see what Anne, Scott and Jeanne are cooking up, and how it might enhance your own possibilities.

Poet Laureati: A National Convergence of State Poets, Featuring Two of Goddard's Faculty

2011-01-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

Walter Butts

Two of Goddard's faculty are state poets laureate -- W.E. Butts, who teaches in the Individualized BA, is poet laureate of New Hampshire, and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, who teaches in the Individualized MA, is poet laureate of Kansas. Now the two will be meeting in Kansas as part of a national convergence of poets laureate Mirriam-Goldberg is organizing with other Midwestern poets laureate.

Cover photo for An Endless Skyway

The gathering March 13-14 in Lawrence, Kansas, includes readings, an auction to have dinner with a poet laureate, museum tours of the world-renowned Spencer Arts Museum with a poet laureate, and an all-day conference featuring panels on poetry as it relates to healing, the land, spirituality, publishing, making a living and the process of writing; and all-star readings."When we started organizing this, I thought maybe we'd pull in ten or so poets, and I'm blown away that we have 20 coming," Mirriam-Goldberg said. "Most are coming on their own dime because of their belief in the power of poetry, community and what can happen when we all come together."

What will happen when they all come together? "We're not completely sure, but I know the conversations will be fascinating, the poetry will be overflowing, and we'll probably do a good combination of lamenting the loss of arts funding in our states and telling stories that make us fall over laughing."

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

The other poets coming includi former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser, plus Marilyn L. Taylor (WI), Peggy Shumaker (AK), Karla Morton (TX), Walter Bargen (MO), Mary Swander (IA), Sue Brennan Walker (AL), Bruce Dethlefsen (WI), Lisa Starr (RI), Denise Low (KS), Norbert Krapf (IN), Marjory Wentworth (SC), Mary Crow (CO), David Romtvedt (WY), David Evans (SD), Jonathan Holden (KS), Joyce Brinkman (IN) and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda (VA). This event is also the book launch for An Endless Skyway: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate of America (Ice Cube Books).

Registration rates are very reasonable (beginning at $65 for the all-day conference), and ample accommodations are available in the area. For full information, please see www.UnitedPoetsLaureate.wordpress.com.

"I Changed My Whole Life": Ashley Gallo and Transformative Running

2010-11-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

Current IMA student Ashley Gallo just finished the New York City Marathon, her first time running in this world-famous rite of passage, and in the process, raising nearly six thousand dollars for the American Cancer Society. But she also was running is also core to her Goddard studies. Ashley has been studying running as a source of personal transformation, a way to challenge the mythology of athletes, and to demonstrate how using our bodies for health and speed and strength is the birthright of people of all shapes and sizes.

Here's what she wrote on her American Cancer Society page:

I know I don't look like the typical runner. I never considered myself an athletic person and found even spectating most sporting events to be boring. I don't think I'm ever going to understand how football works and the idea of balls flying at my face is pretty much out of the question. But I always found the idea of becoming a runner someday really sensational. John Bingham, who is known in the running world as someone who runs uncompetitively slowly and for the sheer pleasure of the activity, said, "Everything changed the day I realized that if I were to become a runner, I would have to run with the body I had." So I began. I run based on intuition and because it is incredibly meditative; more prayer-like and holy than anything I have ever experienced. As someone committed to social work, volunteering in the community and helping others, running became the thing I do for myself; it is my connection to the world, it's my connection to my body. Running has become foundational in my construction towards a more holistic authenticity.

I finished my first marathon last year keeping three promises to myself. I wasn't going to stop, I wasn't going to walk any part of it, and I was going to cross all 26.2 miles. Now I am focusing on losing weight and I will be one of 43,000 people running the prestigious ING New York City Marathon this November. I want to see what it's like to run a marathon in a "different" body than the one I had run the first one in. The NYC Marathon runs through all five boroughs of New York, and I have heard people who have finished it say that it was an experience that truly made them proud to be an American. I am excited beyond belief to be a part of something so epic.

In writing about her journey, she says on facebook, "Marathons at some point have to come from the deepest parts of your bones."Ashley has shown us precisely this with her journey, of which she says, "I changed my whole life." Such changes cannot help but to ripple out positive changes to all who know her.

(Pictures from Ashley and her friends, including, from top, Ashley, the running, and after the race, one of her fellow runners, Chilian miner, Edison Pena).

What Our Grads Are Up To: Body Empathy & Touring On The Sly

2010-11-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

From leading Body Empathy writing workshops in San Francisco to touring with drummers and a Ghana dance troupe through the Rockies, our graduates are rocking the real world.

On Nov. 13, Jen Cross, IMA-TLA who focused on erotic writing as a pathway to reinhabit the body, will co-present with Alexandra Cafarelli a workshop called "Body Empathy." Here's their description: "What if we could truly experience empathy for our bodies as they are – and then, by extension, for ourselves, as we are? As queer, genderqueer & trans survivors with a wide array of backgrounds and identities in a sexuality-/gender-restrictive culture, our self-protective tendency can be to “check out” by detaching mind from body to such great degrees that it can be dangerous. Physical activity and writing are two ways to check back in with your embodied self.
With deep respect for the privacy and variety in our personal experience of gender expression and our individual histories, this workshop will create safe space for participants to embrace our bodies as they are, and to write the stories our bodies have been wishing to speak, while allowing possibility for the integration of identity and physical presence. Using brief writing exercises and low impact body mindfulness exercises derived from improvisational theater, Zen meditation practice, and the internal Chinese martial arts, participants will have the opportunity to fully embody our gender complexity in a healing and playful environment." For more information, visit Jen's website, writingourselveswhole.org.

Griffin Brady, a recent graduate in world music, cultural studies and ethnomusicology, has been touring with his group, On the Sly and the SAAKUMU Dance Troupe of Ghana, West Africa, heading toward the Rocky Mountains to drum and dance in the new year. In between gigs, Griffin and the community he's coalesced run the Slyboots School, offering workshops on Rhythm Study, Harmony Study, Melody Study, Improvisation Study and Composition Study. He also organizes the annual Slyfest each August. Listen to some of the music and check out one of the coolest, most whimsical and edgy websites around at www.onthesly.org http://onthesly.org/

Hybrid Arts Learning at Goddard for Tiffany Beard

2010-11-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

Tiffany Beard, a first semester student in the Transformative Language Arts concentration, just started a blog and wrote an article for examiner.com in Washington, D.C. entitled "Hybrid Arts Learning Found At Goddard College." Here's a photo of Tiffany at the August residency sometime in the middle of her own learning discoveries. She describes herself as "The quintessential Renaissance Gal. An accomplished writer, singer, and performer; Tiffany is committed to helping fellow artists collaborate for social change." You can see Tiffany's blog here. Check it out!

Media Literacy For Teens & Kids: Changing Communities, Changing Lives

2010-10-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

In recent years, two of our students have shared with us astonishing work on media literarcy: Cara Lisa Powers, who graduated several years ago and focuses on working with teens, and Mary Rothschild, currently in her final semester and focusing on helping parents, teachers and children navigate media for kids.

Cara's not-for-profit, By Any Media Necessary, follows its mission "to provide interactive and engaging bridges from entertainment media to education and action." Cara's book of the same title was also the lion's share of her master's thesis. Cara develops all manner of curricula as well as action toolkits and public forums to help youth as well as their educations and community activists engage in greater dialogue about media and community. She's currently pursuing a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Change at Clark University.

Mary's organization, Healthy Media Choices, provides education and tools for parents and teachers and others working with children, drawing from a multi-cultural perspective and from narrative theory and therapy. In addition to a regular radio show (some of which are available in podcast s at WVEW from Brattleboro, VT., Mary presents workshops and trainings throughout the Northeast, and consults with organizations widely.

Both Mary and Cara help people concentrate on the real and enduring stories of their lives rather than mindlessly accepting the media stories about who to be. Their work is rich and far-reaching.

Workshops From Recent Residency: A World of Change In Action -- A Sampling

2010-10-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

Qualitative Research Methodology with IMA Faculty Member Karen Campbell: Research projects with human subjects are often the focus of IMA theses: An African American lesbian interviewed African American lesbians about their experience of acceptance/rejection in relation to their churches and local communities; the High Chief of Tobi Island designed a community visioning process toward taking charge of the conservation of their remote island environment in Palau; another student conducted oral histories with elderly Appalachian musicians. These projects took considerable planning around culturally‑appropriate and ethical styles of obtaining informed consent, “interviewing” participants, and the final presentation of the research data. This will be an interactive workshop so come prepared to give a succinct overview of your project (even if vague as yet) so that we can help guide you to the best resources.

Memoir, Narrative Construction, and Change, with IMA Faculty Member Jim Sparrell . In this workshop we will consider the role of memoir for personal/self/psychological change in the context of a constructivist perspective to more deeply explore heory underlying TLA and narrative medicine. I will touch on recent neurocognitive research from Joseph LeDoux and Deana Schilling, as well as work from Matthew Lieberman. In understanding the process of writing memoir we will use Sven Birkerts’ lovely little book, The Art of Time in Memoir.

Rethinking Right Livelihood from the Ground Up, with IMA faculty member Katt Lissard: At progressive institutions like Goddard, where many of us have been drawn to pursue our studies in order to create a more sustainable and satisfying life, the term ʺright livelihoodʺ can take on an oppressive quality, positing the necessity to find ʺthe ʹworkʹ that expresses and fulfills our needs, talents, and passionsʺ – and leaving us with a sense of dismal failure if we havenʹt figured out a plan for just how to do that. While we all want to discover and pursue our ʺcallingʺ or ʺmissionʺ and also find a creative, just and economically viable living in the process, in this workshop weʹre going to look at ʺright livelihoodʺ from the ground level, and move up from there.

What Does It Mean To Facilitate Change For Other People? With IMA Faculty Members Caryn Mirriam‑Goldberg and Francis X. Charet: We often talk about how our work and studies relate to changing the world, but what does it mean to actually help a person or community change for the better, particularly through workshops, coaching, consulting, activism and/or community building? To
truly facilitate change, we need to widen our perspective to understand the cultural, mythological and historic context of our work and those with whom weʹre doing this work. In this workshop, weʹll open up some of the big questions informing the theory, practice and ethics of helping others change their lives as well as our own assumptions about transformation, healing, creativity and liberation.

How Songs Find Stories: Music, Memory, and Narrative, with IMA Faculty Member Jim Sparrell: This writing workshop will include a demonstration of the musical timeline as a means of
accessing neglected memories, as well as some discussion of cognition, memory, and music, and time for participants to begin composing a personal essay or poem based on the construction of their own musical timeline. In addition, I will present this with illustration of ethical practices for giving
workshops in the community.

Jungʹs Red Book: Liber Novus, with IMA Faculty Member Francis X. Charet: The psychologist C.G. Jung has made major contributions to several area of thought and influenced people in the arts as well. His notion of the mandala or magic circle as an integrative symbol has caught the attention of many people. With the recent publication of what amounts to his own richly illustrated diary of fantasies and visions entitled The Red Book: Liber Novus we get a chance to peer into the remarkable
processes this man underwent.

The sky inside a stone, with IMA Faculty Member Ellie Epp: One long tradition says humans are made of two kinds of thing, a material body and an immaterial spirit, soul or mind. This ancient contrast between material and immaterial substances has persisted even in very recent thinking, where it takes the form of a contrast between matter and energy. But what IS matter? A stone in our hand is a dense, heavy thing, completely solid, and yet the physicists who are our authorities on such questions tell us that, seen at the level of atomic structure, even the densest physical matter is nothing but open space.

“I, You, and It”: Exploring Meaning through Audience and Form, with IMA Program Director, Ruth Farmer: Please bring something you have composed: a poem, an essay, or something visual/aural. You will use the piece as a starting point for exploring how form and audience affect meaning. We will discuss and practice James Moffett’s “four stages of discourse – inner verbalization, outer vocalization, correspondence, and formal writing."

The Power of Words: All Roads Lead Home

2010-09-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Here is faculty member Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's account of the Power of Words conference, a conference that began in IMA and that Caryn organized for the first seven years.

For the last six days, I've been immersed in the Power of Words, both lower case (as in how powerful our words can be when it comes to changing the world and our lives) and upper case, as in the 8th annual conference of the same name. For me, this event was a homecoming of many dimensions: the conference was held at Goddard College, my second home (who every knew that this phrase would apply to a dorm room where I live approximately one month divided over three visits each year for the last 15). It was also a conference I founded in 2003. But mostly, I found my way home to that newborn glow of what can happen between us all when we create together stories, poems, songs, performances and exchanges about what matters most.

Maybe that newborn glow also had something to do with the newborn -- Nahar Nadi Keefe-Perry -- daughter of the TLA Network co-coordinators, Callid and Kristina, who were responsible for organizing the conference. Born less than a month ago, this inquisitive and beautiful new being was a constant reminder to me about how precious, alive, tender and beautiful the life force is. The Network, by the way, is the not-for-profit organization started by Goddard students, faculty and alumni and others who resonate with what we started at Goddard in the name of TLA.

The things we do at this conference include the usual suspects for most conference (workshops, big group sessions, performances and panels) along with the less-than-usual (talking circles each morning where each of us could speak deeply in a small group, hearing ourselves through having good witnesses and learning how to listen fully to others). Performances were dazzling:

S. Pearl Sharp's performance poetry brought to the surface an artful and soulful combination of ceremony, humor, deep wisdom and the astonishing dance of Nailah.
Kim Rosen recited the poetry of Rumi, Mary Oliver, Derek Walcott and others with great passion and joy.
Gregory Orr's reading and talk on poetry as a way to praise the body of the beloved (which could be interpreted as the life force, Book of Poetry, or whatever we love most) illuminated everything I know and want to know about language.
Nancy Mellon's combination of superlative storytelling, mythological weaving and anatomy showed us how our bodies are our stories.
Greg Greenway's singing, songwriting, guitar- and piano-playing journeyed us through the heart of music in praise of homecoming, liberation and the hard work involved in being fully human.
Katherine Towler's reading from the third book in her Snow Island anthology took us to a small Rhode Island island, just on the edge of time and history, and shaped by a kind of yoga of the imagination so visible in her writing.
The Coffeehouse of Wonder was so gorgeous, full of the most expansive humor and wildest edges of grief, love, joy and courage that those of us in the crowd went wild every few minutes.

But what brought me home most of us was simply being in such a diverse community, covering age (from newborn to elders), race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, life experience in so many varieties that we made a community that had each other's backs and hearts. Sitting in the back of the haybarn last night were a pact of African American storyteller-shamans. Walking across the campus was a teenage girl who would still share her full imagination with her mother, both of them attending workshops together. Sleeping in the dorms were people ready to stand up and follow their callings as well as those leaning forward to open the door.

I'm back in Kansas through the magical surrealism of plane travel, but I'm still carrying that dazzle and depth, lightness and weight, freedom and connection of being part of the Power of Words.

Pictures (from top): Jen, Callid, Kristina & Kim; Nahar in the arms of Suzanne with beautiful mom Kristina looking on; Katie Towler; Scott and friends performing; a gorgeous pact of shamans; leaving Vermont.

Trust the Process: What Starting Goddard Is Really Like

2010-09-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Joanna Young, a new student in the Individualized MA, wrote this blog about what she experienced when starting Goddard. Check out her blog to see how it all turns out!

How do even begin to write about my week? It was intense, exhausting, relaxing, exhilarating, freeing, validating, educational, empowering.

On Thursday evening I drove into Goddard College in Plainfield, VT. I felt ill with nerves. Even a walk around the stunningly beautiful campus couldn’t settle the raging butterflies. (This is a campus like no other – an English garden-type maze, a water garden with fountains, garden house complete with carved animal heads, trellised walkways, a clock house… and a barn converted into the community center and Haybarn theater. This also included the silo room – or as my advising group came to call it – the Womb Room.)

I was about to embark on a life-changing adventure as a graduate student. I was facing a week, semester, two years of unknowns. And I’d have a room mate. This was a major challenge to me. Having never gone away to college as an undergrad, I had not experienced the right of passage that is sharing a room the size of a bath tub with a complete stranger. Walking into the room for the first time I was taken aback by the close proximity of the two miniature beds. What if she talked too much, snored, farted… what if I did?

Although I was beyond excited and anxious to start something I had been wanting to do for 15 years, the Unknown was eating away my insides. But once my husband left I became calmer. Stronger. Empowered. I unpacked my clothes and my confidence and went off to meet my fellow graduates.

Now, I don’t mingle well. My shy teenage-self is who usually shows up when the my role (i.e. mother, teacher, bank teller) is undefined and “just me” is standing there, exposed. When I walked into this first “check -in” I quickly realized this was one of those times. I felt my shoulders itching to concave, my eyes to cast down and my acne to pop. But before I had a chance to find a dark corner in which to dissolve, a tall, blond man from Wisconsin asked if I was a newbie. I said I was (could he tell by my deer-in-the-headlights stare?). He welcomed me and asked me what I was going to study. I began to relax and by the end of the evening, thanks to the incredibly welcoming returning students and faculty, I had pulled it off (I think). Joanna: Graduate Student.

That evening sitting on my crunchy bed (sans roomie still) feeling slightly forlorn, I wrote in my journal:

I have this song running through my head: “What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here…” But I do belong here [Our minds love to tell us crazy untruths.]…. A first step on a strange new journey – fearful, excited and a little overwhelmed by the hugeness of it all.

I let those voices of fear rob me of an opportunity by convincing me not to go away to school at 18 because of The Unknown, of looking foolish in front of strangers and distrust of my own abilities. No more. I ignored the voices and faced my fears. Instead I listened to my passion and believed the path would become visible once I took that step forward.

It did.

To learn more about trusting the process -- parts 2, 3, 4 & 5 -- check out Joanna's blog, Wisdomwithinink.com.

Graduation Day!

2010-08-08T19:44:00.001-07:00

Today I watched nine of our students graduate -- nine people who came here to Goddard College with a passion for studying something of their own design, and who, through the process of looking deep and wide and trusting where they were led, found their way to astonishing projects.

Mike Alvarez wrote a stunning thesis on the connections between creativity and suicide, looking at what the act of creation can mean (or not mean) for healing.
Jame Vincent created a collage of poetry, prose poems, fiction and dialogue along with a critical paper to study the intersections of exile, homecoming, language and creativity.
Bernard Carey, in studying the absence of fathers in African-American homes, ended up co-writing a play with his daughter, who he had abandoned as a child; a performance of great healing and courage.
Amanda Lacson took her study of mythology and love into a study of why and how we need to examine cultural stories about romantic love and into a powerful collection of poetry, prose and other kinds of writing exploring mythology and love in her own life.
Jaki Elmo, through the lens of speculative fiction, explored how fiction can help us navigate and see anew the possibilities of our world and she happened to write an entire speculative fiction novel along the way.
Angela Davis studied how mainstream European culture in the Middle Ages monster-ized the "other" -- particularly Moslems and Jews, and what this says about our time today.
Jenny Gundy wrote a memoir about embodiment, earth and homecoming and wrote about ecology and culture.
Jes Wright looked at how motherhood could be a source of liberation and creativity as well as restricting through poetry and prose.
Griffin Brady created the Slyboots Guide to Living and Drumming -- a curriculum based on his world-wide study of drumming across cultures.

As I watched these people give presentations in the last few days and graduate today, I felt such pride and love for their work. All of these graduates brought such bravery and vision to their work, giving themselves over to their heart's calling, what their life is leading them toward.

It was also wonderful to hear our keynote speaker, Jim Merkel, author of Radical Simplicity, speak about giving back to our community most of what was given to us, and seeing sustainability and love not as a trend that will come and go, but as a place to land and live.

What was most moving to me, however, was watching the graduates' families -- some flown in from across the U.S. and Canada -- who piled into almost all the presentations. The families became their own kind of family, getting to know each other, encouraging one another's graduating members and delighting in what all these students had achieved.

Pictures, from top, the graduates; faculty members Francis Charet & Karen Campbell with Jame Vincent; DawN Crandell, daughter of Bernard, with Ruth Farmer, IMA program director, and Barbara Vacarr, Goddard President; me and Amanda Lacson; Jim Sparrell, faculty member, and Mike Alvarez & Bernard Carey; Jim Merkel.

The Nature of Consciousness: An Interview with Francis X. Charet

2010-08-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

Francis X. Charet, faculty member in the Individualized MA program and coordinator of Consciousness Studies, speaks about the conditions of time, mind and the soul on the Single Eye Movement website. Drop by and listen to what he has to say. Here's an excerpt:

My own view is that there is a fundamental unity underlying "body" and "mind" and yet a distinction has emerged seemingly to initiate a dialectical process for the purpose of the differentiation of consciousness. Some have resisted this distinction in favor of one side or the other; there are others who have seen and experienced the unity behind it all and these are the visionaries. But to attain this level of consciousness, and not experience it as the consequence of regression into unconsciousness, is exceptional, transpersonal, and probably the work of several centuries on the collective level.

Read more here.

Speaking of consciousness, here is Francis with the very conscious Grace Paley several years ago on the Goddard campus.

Graduating Student Workshops at IMA August 2010 Residency

2010-08-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

At each Individualized MA residency, graduating students present their studies to the Goddard community. Here are the presentations students will be giving for the Aug. 6-13 residency. Altogether, these workshops give us a sense of the scope and depth of what students do when they can design their own studies.

Crossing Into Presence: Graduating Student Bernard Carey with Visiting Scholar DawN Crandell, Haybarn Theatre. “This theater piece is about my abandonment of my daughter and the pain that it has caused her.” It highlights the struggle that millions of families are going through, all across America. The consequences of father absenteeism are too devastating to our children and the fathers themselves to let this societal ill continue to run amok in our communities. The piece explores how Bernard and DawN were able to redirect the focus of
their relationship from a state of absence to a state of presence in this eye opening autobiographical work. In exploring ways to get their message out, they have come up with an empowering way to facilitate discussion in communities around the country on the issues of abandonment, responsibility and healing between a father and his children.

Unveiling Aphrodite: Examining the Mythology of Romantic Love, Graduating Student Amanda Lacson. My thesis is a personal and critical inquiry into Western myths of romantic love that have guided my expectations in relationships. I investigate the stories of my intimate relationships, linking my experience to popular Western myths and fairy tale, family
myths, and lesser-known non-Western and Western myths. I examine the meaning of mythology and its connection with cultural expectations of romantic love, discovering a conflict between the storied images and my personal experience.

Through the Lens of Speculative Fiction with Graduating Student Jacqueline Elmo. Humans use storytelling as a tool for communication, creative expression, instruction, social
cohesion, and self-reflection. This workshop explores how western fiction, particularly the speculative genre, is an exercise in the human capacity to empathize, imagine, and exist beyond the dominant stories and ideals propagated by culture. Drawing from my own relationship with fiction and with works from authors such as J.K. Rowling, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick, this presentation will chronicle my own evolution from a passive observer of culture to an active
commentator by means of immersion and authorship.

Suicide, Creativity, and the Self, Graduating Student Mike Alvarez. Experience the songs of Phyllis Hyman and Kurt Cobain, the photographs of Kevin Carter, screen shots from Jeremy Blake's 'time-based paintings', and much more as we examine the paradoxical relationship between suicide and creativity. What do self-destructive behaviors and creative activities have in common? Is creative work intrinsically healing? And how does the disease model of mental disorders diminish our understanding of the human meaning behind suicide and creativity? These are some of the pressing questions my presentation will address--questions that have
far-reaching implications in a time and place where the self, and its manifold human dimensions, are radically medicalized.

Constructing the Monster with Graduating Student, Angela Davis. What is a monster? How is monstrous identity constructed? What is the function of the monster? My thesis explores these questions within medieval European representations of the Other through the lenses of language, culture, location, and the body. Come for the illustrations, stay for the discussion! Are you a monster?

“Girl from the Gold Country,” with Graduating Student, Jes Wright. Come learn more about how a young woman, who grew up eating pomegranates with fool’s gold dust fingertips
and leaping off rock walls, jumped into the role of the “good” mother, and wrote her way out of it through poetry. I will discuss how motherhood, as an experience and an institution, is assumed to be a woman’s ultimate role in the United States. Drawing from Feminist Theory, I will examine the oppressive experience of the “good” mother role, the historical causes and
consequences of this role, and explain how poetry within the site of Feminist Mothering may challenge patriarchal motherhood. I will share excerpts from my memoir, Girl from the Gold Country, and present a short slide show of my journey.

Becoming Slyboots with Graduating Student Griffin Brady. Feeling Sly? Keeping your head above water in the music industry can be tricky. As an aspiring professional musician and educator you will undoubtably have to be sly and rely on every ounce of cunning and intellect that you have in order to make a living. Truth be told, music is not about money. There is a much bigger picture when looking at music as an art form to be honed and refined through a dedicated life of study and practice. As a result of these notions I have found that making a living and making a life are not always the same thing. Through my study at Goddard, I have worked hard to uncover my inner Slyboots and heal that disconnect. Come enjoy a short presentation on my process becoming Slyboots and be prepared to drum.

Exile at the Cusp of Memory, with Graduating Student Jame Vincent. Exile at the Cusp of Memory: Reflections on Exile and Creativity, with Graduating Student Jame Vincent. The threads in my study of writing and memory connect and shape my understanding of the dynamics of exile, language and place. In my presentation, I will speak of familial and cultural memories as active and continual forces.

Discovering a Sense of Embodied Home with Graduating Student Jenny Gundy. My journey began with a desire to reconnect to a once fluent and fearless voice that had gone dry. I’d hoped this voice would empower me to speak out and work toward more sustainable ways of living. My goal was to empower my self and others to live simply, in harmony with the Earth. As I studied place, bioregionalism, homesteading, and renewable energy, I realized that the effort to reconnect with my voice was really a quest for home. What made home so elusive? The global system of patriarchy, assuming an unnatural split between mind and body and humanity and
nature, causes dissociation from our selves and the larger body of nature. Furthermore, the dominant narratives about women’s lives contributed to my feelings of “homelessness” in
this culture. Eventually, I came to understand that home is an embodied state, a feeling of integration in my self, my human relationships and nature.

Music on the Sly: Griffin Brady Unplugged

2010-06-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the best art comes to us on the sly. So what better way to
to enjoy the summer than to chill to some new versions of oldies, particularly when they include astonishing drumming. Griffin Brady, who's going to graduate in IMA with a focus in music, culture and change, performs "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" with Larry LZ Dillon at the AAAlliance Regional Rebirth show, held in Fredonia, NY. You can also hear Griffin at Slyfest IV (held in Buffalo, NY), performing on a Dagara xylophone. In between performing, Griffin has founded the Slyboots School of Music and Art s, which encourages musicians to "hone your craft, motivate the masses, discover your voice, spread your message, travel, record, tour and broaden your mind. Your dreams don't have to be simply dreams... you just have to be a little sly about it." The Slyboots staff travels to the Dagara Music Center in Ghana, West Africa to perform and teach, and Griffin himself has been a frequent world traveler, performing with the Dagara Music Center, Buffalo Based on the Sly, You Are Sly and other groups. His thesis project includes a book-length manuscript, The Slyboots Guide to Life and Drumming, and future plans include performing in Senagal, Ireland and Northern India.

Connecting with Self, Others & Nature: Brian Moore & Transformative Language Arts

2010-06-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

Brian Moore, a graduate of the Transformative Language Arts concentration of the IMA, writes about how we can use the written word to connect with ourselves, our communities and the earth for Alternatives Magazine:

Within and around the earth,
Within and around the hills,
Within and around the mountains,
Your authority returns to you.
–A Tewa Pueblo Prayer

The poem above has great significance, for it is in the context of the earth, hills, and mountains—indeed, the landscapes in which we live, move, and breathe—that we express and embrace our own unique authority, connecting with those other sentient beings, human and other-than-human, with whom we share this planet.

To read more, visit the site,

In Praise of Goodness

2010-06-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

Goddard faculty member Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg was recently interviewed by Diane Silver, a writer who keeps up the blog, "In Search of Goodness," a 365-day quest to answer an impossible question. Here's an excerpt from Mirriam-Goldberg's interview:

DIANE: What about poetry and goodness?

CARYN: Poetry and poetic language – which I would extend to memoir, novels and short stories, spoken word and song writing, just everything we can do with language — it’s all about, at its best, taking life and encapsulating it, and passing it on to us in a way that we can see more who we are and how we live. Even speculative fiction shows you a lot about how you live or about how people could live or what people could become. I think the arts serve as a mirror of where we are, but also of a larger vision of where we could be and also historically where we have been. For people trying to cultivate goodness in their lives I don’t think they can do better than to turn to the arts because you’re going to see things there. You can hear it in song, you can see it in painting, you can listen to it in a spoken word performance.

DIANE: It’s a matter of looking at it, but also maybe participating in it? I know that writing has taught me a lot about myself.

CARYN: Creating it, looking at it, doing it. You can see in all these things — what’s the word I want? — you can see your reflection. You can also see where you might be limiting yourself, where you might go instead, through the use of writing, through imagery and rhythm. Imagery speaks to our five senses: smell, taste, touch and so on. Rhythm — just the sounds words make when they’re put together — kind of jars us out of that thick layer of stories and myths that I talked about earlier. We can kind of lift it up and look underneath it. You can use that as pathway to connect to who you are.

Pictures: Above: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg; below: Diane Silver

Helping Teens Empower Themselves Wherever She Lands: Heather Davis

2010-05-31T08:53:00.000-07:00

When Heather Davis was in the Individualized MA program (Transformative Language Arts concentration), she focused on how spoken word performance and writing could help at-risk teens find their feet and walk toward better lives. She didn't realize at the time that she would be aiming her own two feet around the country, starting up projects for teens to empower themselves.

While she did her practicum in New York City, she soon moved to Austin, Texas, where she co-founded an affiliate of 826, a non-profit focused on empowerment through literary. The Austin Bat Cave now has several staff people, vibrant community support, and offers after-school, in-school and other programs such as music writing, gender identity exploration, filmmaking, hip-hop poetry, college essay writing and making literary journals.

About three years, pregnant with her first child, Heather and her husband decided to move to Portland, ME to be closer to their families. Once she arrived, she discovered the Telling Room, which was modeled after the 826 program, and she showed up on their doorstep. "They needed someone with my skills, so I started coordinating volunteers and grantwriting, and now I work on fundraising, grantwriting and future program development." She's currently raising funds to launch an after-school program for refugee and immigrant teens from the war-torn, impoverished countries of Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan who have settled in the Portland area. "Schools have a limited ability to serve these kids because of budget cuts," she explains, and furthermore, the kids have just come through horrendous losses as well as dislocation. "Some of them had their parents killed and all kinds of things. We help them tell their stories and also find emotional support, and the academic and literacy component they really need."

Looking back at Goddard, which she graduated from in 2005, she says, "I went there knowing I wanted to do something in the education world and writing world, and it all clicked. Before I came to Goddard, I wasn't really part of any serious discussion about how to do the kind of work I wanted to do. The emphasis on right livelihood helped me move beyond the 9-5 capitalist worker bee mentality. The freedom of the individualized program let me design exactly what I wanted to do."

In addition to living out her own right livelihood in Portland, she's also joined a writing group with several TLA graduates, and she's taking writing workshops to work on a book about the six months she lived in a teepee in the desert, another place her feet took her.

International Sustainability: Camille Mata is Recognized for Thesis!

2010-04-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

Camille Mata, an IMA graduate who specialized in international sustainability and community building, won an honorarium and potential book project with the University of Minnesota Press through its Quadrant Fellowship. The honorarium includes a stipend and all-expense paid trip to the University of Minnesota where Camille will give a lecture on her thesis, and a workshop focused on a chapter of her thesis. She also plans to head to the Third World for a six-month or longer project involving

According to her faculty advisor, Ralph Lutts, "Camille Mata did an excellent research project examining the possibility of providing a sustainable system of providing healthful (organic) foods (community food security) to lower income folks in Oakland, California.This began with a study of the history of community supported agriculture, urban agriculture, etc. This was her third masters thesis, so she knew how to do a good job when she arrived at Goddard."

Quadrant is a program that promotes interdisciplinary publication and research, and strives to be a new model for Press-University partnerships that bring humanities scholars into dialogue with those in the sciences and professional schools

Intercultural Understanding, Overcoming Racism and Young Adult Fiction: Cynthia Curley Obrero

2010-04-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Cynthia Curley Obrero (IMA ’09) has worked in Theatre and the Music Industry since receiving her Bachelor’s in 1989. Throughout that time she believed theatre was, and still is, able to present to the public different ideologies, lifestyles, cultures, and ways of thinking about common ideas. Through the Performing Arts she felt she could help break down some of the barriers that stand between people of differing backgrounds. “I saw, and still do see, theatre as a tool for teaching and starting conversations about those concerns that affect us on a global scale. By placing very important yet shunned or ignored topics before individuals, I was hoping to create conversations, new ideas, or a different perspective that could cause positive change within those issues that seem easier to avoid: such as genocide, AIDs, domestic and child abuse, gender identity, prejudice, and politics - just to name a few.”

As she continued to work in the entertainment industry she found herself craving a larger role in creating change for better understanding between individuals and groups of differing backgrounds. After two years of “mind numbing brainstorming” she decided the best avenue to take would be to learn more about intercultural issues through the study of Anthropology. Goddard’s IMA program appealed to her for several reasons. “Since receiving my Bachelor’s degree I had learned that linear thinking does not include all or many of the aspects of an idea, ideology or theory and thereby does not allow for full or multi-dimensional understanding. In order to create systemic understanding more than one ideology needs to be analyzed, criticized and either incorporated or rejected in order to discover the answers to any question. I not only wanted to study the many facets of Anthropology, but Philosophy, Psychology, and whatever else might organically grow from my studies.” In her search for solutions to prejudice her studies eventually took her into Semiotics, Social Constructionism, Conflict Resolution, Cosmopolitanism, and Group and Individual Identities.

In the process of her Master’s she discovered a way to combine her creative side with the theoretical. She decided to write a young adult’s novel. The novel is action-adventure based yet it introduces the reader to new cultures – their histories, folktales, beliefs, languages, surrounding environments, etc. - in a way that allows for learning positive interaction with cultural and ethnic groups rather than labeling them, which so often leads to prejudice. The novel is the first in a series, which will take its characters and readers around the world. “I had the idea floating in my head before entering Goddard. Early on in my studies I discovered the book actually solidified my academic and creative backgrounds into something I could give to the public. Something that is educational, fun, creative, and may help to prevent prejudice.”

She went on to say, “I am very excited about it, but in the beginning I felt otherwise. I had never written anything before and was extremely nervous by the prospect of putting details and dialogue, especially dialogue, down on paper, let alone writing enough of it to fill a book. The more I wrote the more I became absolutely surprised by how much I enjoy writing. It still amazes and delights me that I achieved such a large task. I do believe my background has helped me far more than I knew or expected it would. I’m an introvert, which means I have usually sat on the fringes and watched people - their gestures, postures, speech, and interactions. This helped me a great deal when envisioning the characters and their personalities. My theatre background gave me an understanding of staging and intentions. And reading books and watching movies gave me a sense of suspense and pace.”

Since her book takes place in several countries Cynthia has done research online, through documentaries, books, and conversation through emails. This past year she traveled to Iceland to further enhance her understanding of the country and to better describe it in her book. “I had never been there. I had done plenty of research, but I felt I needed to actually see it and experience it myself in order to represent it appropriately. Quite honestly, Iceland had never been on my list of places to go. I am very grateful my book took me there. Iceland has an amazing history, literary and folk heritage, environment, and wonderful people. By traversing the locations I describe in my book and interacting with Icelanders I learned some of the nuances of the country and of some of its individuals that I would not have known otherwise. I would never have known about the colors, textures, scents, sounds, the Icelanders’ strong sense of connection with their history and their visions for the future, the pride in who they are, their generosity, their incredibly good English, and a magnificently diverse environment that seems to lend a beauty and a resolve to many who live there. It was a wonderful trip. My aim is to incorporate that experience and knowledge into my book.”

Cynthia is presently editing her book and hoping to have it ready for publication by the end of the year. “Goddard gave me the direction and freedom to think organically, logically, linearly, critically, and creatively. I was given threads of connection and foundation to my whirlwind of thoughts, ideas, images, and imaginings. From my academic studies of Intercultural Interaction and Prejudice Prevention I became a writer with direction and passion. Now I hope to use what I have learned from my life and my studies to plant a seed of understanding between peoples.”

Photos from Cynthia's trip to Iceland

Katt Lissard: Watch The Contamination Waltz - a new 7 minute video about HIV/AIDS and theatre for social change in Lesotho, southern Africa.

2010-03-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

( Click text above for video.) The Contamination Waltz highlights the creative process of the Winter/Summer Institute (WSI). Since its launch in 2006, WSI has been bringing performers and directors, students and teachers, together from three continents to create collaborative theatre in Lesotho. IMA faculty member, Katt Lissard, is WSI's artistic director.

Deena Chappell: Voices of the Archetypes

2010-03-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

Deena Chappell, a IMA graduation who specialized in consciousness studies, came to Goddard as an accomplished musician who has performed widely for years. Listen to an interview with Deena on the Carl Jung Gateway radio show on Blog radio. Her new album, "Voices of the Archetypes," was the central part of her thesis, bringing together Jungian studies, spiritual exploration, and her astonishing and provocative voice and instrumentation. You can also see more about Deena at her website.

Born into a family of musicians, Deena has been performing bluegrass, rock, folk, swing and jazz since she was 14. A well-known bass player, she also plays mandolin, sings in a popular swing/jazz duo with Nathan Knowles, and plays in a bluegrass trio, Dirty Old Strings. She's worked with the Vermont Arts Exchange for six years, offering music therapy sessions with vets, songwriting workshops for children throughout Bennington County, and other workshops throughout the area.

Francis Charet: Graduation Talk on Ganesha

2010-03-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Graduation talk delivered by Francis Charet, IMA faculty and coordinator of Consciousness Studies, at the Individualized MA graduation ceremony on Feb. 14, 2010.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Goddard community, families and friends. I am honored to have been invited to say a few words at this commencement. When I received the email from Jaes asking me, on behalf of the graduates, to be the commencement speaker I was sitting at my desk at home in Montreal. I began to remember my own graduate studies and all the things I was interested in and pursued, my ambitions, hopes and dreams and what I had attained in the years in which I studied. As I thought about all of this, I looked up over my computer and starred as I often do at a wooden image that sits on a shelf. It is a small statue of the Indian deity and mythological elephant headed figure, Ganesha. It found its way there, like other objects I have accumulated, because of my interest in the cultures and religions of the planet and of India in particular. In fact, it was really my encounter with Indian culture that first awakened in me a sense of the largeness of the world, how small and western I was, and how much we all have to learn from each other and yet we often miss the opportunity to do so.

As I thought about all of this it occurred to me that the figure of Ganesha represents a combination of the things that might be of value to try to briefly speak about to our graduates. Lost in work and other things I thought I would pick up on these ideas sometime later. As fate would have it, when I arrived at Goddard with as yet not entirely worked out thoughts, I ran into Sowbel, acting director of the HAS program, who said she wanted to show me something. This turned out to be this statue of Ganesha sitting on a figure with three elephant heads. Bemused, I took this as a sign that, indeed, my brief talk should be about the qualities that Ganesha embodies and clearly, to fit the symbolism of the three heads, there had to be three of them namely strength, wisdom, and responsibility, all qualities that are attributed to Ganesha.

Now Ganesha is one of those remarkable combinations of human and non human elements that India has characteristically produced in great abundance, flourish and wonderful variation. He has a human body, usually with a nice rounded and very full pot belly, and his torso is crowned with an oversized elephant head. In the earlier fateful encounter of East and West, he ran afoul of the colonizing Europeans and their aesthetic ideals and entered the list of what one contemporary historian of Indian art has called “much maligned monsters”.

Yet, since medieval times, Ganesha has attained an audience in India that surpasses them all. This elephant headed figure is found in greater numbers in statue, relief, painting and poster form than the rest. There are now monographs written on this figure and various stories to explain his emergence and I won’t detain us by looking at these as interesting and entertaining as they might be. Instead, I simply want to acknowledge that this figure has become an object of interest and popularity and now even migrated to the west and it might also have something to say to us and to our graduates in particular. In order to do this I would like to focus on the three things that I mentioned, namely strength, wisdom and responsibility.

Let me add that one of the interesting parallels between the figure of Ganesha and Goddard is that we, like the figure, combine together things that often are not combined elsewhere and in that sense we, too, are unusual and maybe even a bit exotic. In Indian myth and culture Ganesha is an archetypal auspicious figure who is known by his chief attributes as the remover of obstacles, patron of scholars and protector of the community. Obstacles Ganesha, the great and powerful elephant headed god, is often displayed as using his strength to move seemingly immovable objects and does so with considerable determination and patience. He is especially venerated for this attribute for the obvious reason that life is chock full of obstacles, big ones and small ones, some easily overcome others not. Graduates, I know that all of you have faced such obstacles in your lives but here, at Goddard, we also know that not infrequently, the greatest obstacles are those we ourselves have created. Getting out of our own way is a challenge and requires similar resources such as strength of character, determination of will, patience and kindness. Learning this has been an important part of your experience here at Goddard.

Knowledge Ganesha is the patron of scholars. This attribute implies that knowledge is one of the most desired and vital resources in order to understand, move through the world and make it a better place. Graduates, you have all acquired considerable knowledge in a variety of subjects and disciplines but I would venture that the most important acquisition has been knowledge of yourselves, who you are, what interests you, and what you want to take out into the world. This, too, has been an important part of your experience at Goddard.

Responsibility Ganesha is the lord of hosts and protector of the community. Knowledge of the world and oneself is both a valuable accomplishment and an indication of success that is commendable and is a shared goal of many educational institutions. Yet at Goddard you have learned something more and that is that knowledge becomes much more enriched when it can be applied in the world to make it a better place for all beings. This, too, has been an important part of your learning at Goddard. In India, invoking the presence of Ganesha and what he stands for –remover of obstacles, bearer of knowledge and wisdom, protector of the community - is common at the beginning of rituals, scripture reading, engaging in any contractual arrangements, and even in the breaking of ground for new buildings and other seemingly non religious events. Goddard graduates you are not at the end of your journey but at the beginning.

This is Ganesha time. Take the attributes associated with Ganesha, the strength you have acquired to remove obstacles, what you have learned and apply it wisely, your sense of responsibility for others and be contributors to and caretakers of the world. I should add that there is another attribute of Ganesha I have not mentioned: he is also the god of good luck.

Oṃ Gaṇeśāya Namaḥ

Pictures include Ganesha as statue and painting, Francis Charet with graduate Erica Pierce, and a graduation-Valentine's Day-Chinese New Year cake to celebrate graduation.

Amanda : Writing, Art and Environment

2010-03-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Amanda Sandos, a current IMA student, is studying environment art through visual arts and creative writing to explore the deep ecology connections between animals and humans. A staff writer for Got2BeGreen, and a volunteer at the Maier Museum of Art, Amanda is a former zoo keeper with extensive experience with both animals and art. Check out her blog about life on this wild planet.

Chilean Flamingo, Lake Natron, Northern Tanzania

I stand at the edge of a flock, on the shore of this parched bowl, the base of a volcano. Ten thousand birds flag their heads from side to side, necks stretched, marching in rows.

The quills on their backs click like beads when Masai women walk, barely heard over the honking chaos. Every year when the rains come, the lake rises from cracked earth,

they wade through bubbles, mixing blue-green algae and brine shrimp. If the earth is quenched they build, scooping and stamping, stamping and scooping, clapping

their feet, molding mounds, growing thinner, feathers frayed, caked, matted. She’ll perch at the top of her turret and sing – soft, lyrical – stretching towards any who walk past,

resting her neck against the one who stops, hoping he’ll rub his neck to hers. She’ll close her eyes and return the caress of the one standing with her in this boiling lake.

The one who will share their roost, turn their chalky egg, tend their chick, preen and feed, protect until these waters recede.

This year, they waited for the sky to open, but no rains came. Tonight, as the sun sinks, they lift their wings and fly, without ritual, without young.

New Issue of Trivia Voices Out!

2010-03-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism #10—“*Are Lesbians Going Extinct?*”—edited by IMA Faculty Lise Weil (Individualized MA faculty) and Vancouver poet Betsy Warland and dedicated to Mary Daly, is now online. Our longest and possibly most thought-provoking issue yet, TRIVIA 10 features writers from the U.S., Canada, England, and Australia, including the daughter of another member of the IMA faculty!

In an essay written in 1983, Nicole Brossard wrote: “Une lesbienne qui ne reinvente pas le monde est une lesbienne en voie de disparition.” (A lesbian who does not reinvent the world is a lesbian going extinct.) At that time, the phrase made very good sense. As writers, thinkers, activists, and in our day-to-day lives, we felt (many of us) compelled to reinvent a world in which we were for the most part invisible if not unthinkable, a world whose values we largely rejected. Today, over 20 years later, we are accepted, even embraced, by mainstream culture—as co-workers, wives, mothers, as TV talk show hosts and anchorwomen!—in ways we could not have imagined then. But how have we gained this inclusion? Have we gone quiet as lesbians (not denying our lesbianism but seldom foregrounding it)? Are we still reinventing the world? As writers, are we inventing new forms? Is there still a radical edge to the word “lesbian”? Or are we now, by Brossard’s definition, a disappearing species?

TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism is an online relaunch of TRIVIA: A Journal of Ideas, an award-winning international feminist literary magazine published from 1982 to 1995, edited by Lise Weil. TRIVIA publishes feminist writing in the form of literary essays, experimental prose, poetry, translations, and reviews. The journal encourages women writers to take risks with language and form so as to give their ideas the most original and vital expression possible. TRIVIA's larger purpose is to foster a body of rigorous, creative and independent feminist thought. read it at our website. Photo: feminist scholar and writer Mary Daly, to whom this issue is dedicated.

Transformative Narratives Blog

2010-03-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

Yvette Hyater-Adams, a graduate of the IMA in the Transformative Language Arts concentration, has a new blog, Transformative Narratives, to go along with her coaching, workshop facilitation, leadership development and other work. She says of the new blog, "For years, I've been conducting writing workshops, supporting writers as a writing coach, providing personal and leadership development as an executive coach, facilitating team building, and designing leadership development programs using transformative narratives methodology. Several of you have experienced this work, and have shared how it has been helpful to you on your path. On my blog, I'll speak to ways of using transformative narratives to give clarity to vision and goals, attain right livelihood, convey clear communication, and claim the power of your voice. My intention is that you'll find the messages in the blog helpful and supportive to your personal and leadership development, writing, and business goals." Read about Yvette's work in the world in an earlier Worlds of Change post.

New Half-Time Option!

2010-02-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

The IMA program is happy to announce a half-time option, starting next fall. New and continuing students will be able to enroll in the IMA program for six credits instead of the twelve awarded each full-time semester. This will enable many people to better balance their studies with their work, family and community life. Half-time students will come to the residency and then send in three packets at the beginning, middle and end of the subsequent semester rather than five full packets (every three weeks). This option has been requested by students in the IMA student, and we're happy to offer it. To learn more, please contact our program director, Ruth.Farmer@goddard.edu, and also see our website.

February Residency Wonders in Workshops

2010-01-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

World Café: Making a Difference: An IMA Community Event. Setting ourselves up in world cafe format (small tables for intimate conversations on important issues), we'll explore these questions: What makes for real and significant social and political change? How do we know that our research will influence change? How can our research change our angle of vision? How can our angle of vision effect strategies that will make a difference? (What kinds of questions do we need to explore to figure that out?) What does it mean to “make a difference”? (What is activism? What about the work of listening, sharing, really deep research? How might our findings change the way others work?) What do we feel we need to know, do, or be, given the state of the world and our professional/academic goals? (How can we create small, but always significant means of contributing to change that are both healthy and sustainable?).

Embodiment Colloquium, with IMA Faculty Members Ellie Epp and Lise Weil. The embodiment colloquium is an informal gathering held every residency to investigate and promote the new field of embodiment studies. Come with tales about your semester's adventures in embodiment.

Scholarly Personal Narrative with visiting IBA Faculty Member, Shelley Vermilya. Writing for our lives, writing from our lives, writing to understand our lives, and writing our lives to understanding our living. This is what memoir offers. Writing memoir for degree fulfillment requires a curiosity about our life experiences and an honest ability to examine personal experiences with academic awareness and acuity. How do we do examine experience, achieve a balance of creativity and critical writing and not tip over into catharsis? If we do tip into catharsis, how to we bring our work back to academic credibility? We will think about how research in various academic disciplines can offer a context in which to place our experience. That context will offer new ways for us to understand our experience. Our experience in context may provide us with new meaning and the academic credibility we seek.

The Many Faces of Place, Part 1 of 2; with IMA Faculty Member, Ralph Lutts. Join us for a discussion of place and your place-related studies. The concept and experience of place informs many areas of study and practice from environmental studies to anthropology, local and regional social change, local food and currencies, architecture, memoir, local history, and many more. This workshop will examine the many ways in which place can become a part of your studies. Come to the workshop ready to discuss your present or planned place related studies and practice. We will explore ideas related to place, use your work as examples, and explore innovative ways to use place to anchor our lives and work in the world.

Jung: A Three-Part Workshop with IMA Faculty Member Francis X. Charet. Jung: The Making of a Psychology of Consciousness. This three-part workshop will explore the rise and development of Jungian psychology using the film The Wisdom of the Dream and discussion. Areas that will be covered: the methods Jung used to explore the psyche, the theory of the collective unconscious, complexes and archetypes, the practice of interpreting symbols, dreams and their relation to myths and to the meaning of life.

Speaking Bodies: A Three-Part Workshop with Faculty Member Ellie Epp. Part I: How language happens: the recent science of language. Is non-language necessary to language? Could there be 'meaning' without a physical world? How can language have evolved? What are the evolutionary precursors of language in animals? What changes in primate brains have allowed language to develop? What happens in bodies when we use language? Is language somehow an encapsulated function, or does it draw on the whole of the brain, the whole of the body? We know language is social, but how should we understand the embodiment of social interaction among speakers? This first session of the Speaking bodies minicourse will set out an integrated way of understanding language as part of human bodies, which in turn are parts of the physical earth. Is non-language necessary to language? Could there be 'meaning' without a physical world? How can language have evolved? What are the evolutionary precursors of language in animals? What changes in primate brains have allowed language to develop? What happens in bodies when we use language? Is language somehow an encapsulated function, or does it draw on the whole of the brain, the whole of the body? We know language is social, but how should we understand the embodiment of social interaction among speakers?

Learning as Fluid Play: Breathing and Moving to Keep You and Your Study Alive with IMA student Mary Abrams. The human body is a cellular organism, primarily water. Water molecules need variation of rhythm and movement for living vibrancy. As fluid living organisms we utilize information within our structure combined with information exchange with the environment to obtain new ‘nutrients’ of information for living. Breathing, learning and studying are expressions and functions of information flow. This workshop includes an overview of how the human body is fluidly resonant with all living systems, instruction, movement demonstrations, and explorations using breath/sound and movement inspired by Continuum. Changing body rhythms heightens awareness of sensation and movement awakening our capacity to move more freely on all levels -- thinking, feeling, and action.

Your Calling, Your Livelihood, Your Life with IMA Faculty Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. A “calling” is a term often used to connote spiritual/religious vocations, one focused on serving God and/or a community through one’s work. Yet this term also speaks to what work, study, deeds and tasks we feel compelled to do in everyday life and for our livelihood, and when we engage in conversation with what's calling to us, we can find the pulse of our studies as well as keys to a meaningful way of making a living. To even hear your calls takes effort and deep listening (which, according to theologian Paul Tillich, is the first duty of love). We can also engage in arts and practices that help us test pilot, play act or further dwell within the energy of the call to see what it means for us.In this workshop, we'll enter into conversation, or deeper conversation, with our calling, dive down into some writing exercises to see what surfaces, and then discuss what we find as well as share resources, ideas, strategies and notions of how to follow the threads of what we love into work that infuses our life with greater meaning and joy.

Numen: The Nature of Plants, film with co-producer Ann Armbrecht. See this documentary film about the healing power of plants and the natural world and, in particular, about whole plant medicine as practiced in the United States. Featuring stunning footage of medicinal plants and moving interviews with leading herbalists, doctors, ethnobotanists and others, Numen provides a vision of healthcare rooted in the traditions of herbal medicine and offers concrete steps to improve individual and environmental health.

LanguageS, Language Loss and the Politics of Translation with IMA Faculty Member Karen Campbell. How does translation (and the lack of it into English) impact our appreciation of ourselves and others, our understanding of other ways of being? Is translation in fact possible? Do all the arts transcend cultural barriers? What happens when a language vanishes? These are some of the questions I will attempt to address. I’ll introduce languages embedded in their environments – and the significance of that for our scientific understanding of nature. Then examples of language “drama” including (mis)translation & scientific knowledge loss, for reasons ranging from colonial/postcolonial greed to contemporary need, profitability, to sheer unwillingness to imagine other ways of being as significant. I will also offer an experiential component – a chance for us to try translating visual images and poetry – so that the theory (and the challenges!) may become clearer.

The Art and Practice of Narrative Medicine with HAS Faculty Member Robin Rivinis and IMA Faculty Member Jim Sparrell. When we gather and tell our life stories we access memory, imagination, intuition, and we deepen sensory and somatic awareness and connection. We create structure for understanding and integrating our experience and as we build a conscious paradigm we shape our vision of how we want to live. Through the engagement of narrative values such as mindfulness, consciousness, playfulness, love of metaphor, curiosity, listening, and generosity we are able to resist generalization, homogenization, oppressive power structures, and reductionism. Instead we come into the potential of creative expression and invention of novel, revelatory, and eclectic personal and communal narratives. In this workshop we will identify some of the narrative traditions, such as oral history, poetry, psychotherapy, memoir, case studies, and literature. In exploring the emergent realm of narrative medicine we will include an overview of both current practice and a vision for the future, as well as exploring its relationship to other narrative traditions. We will experiment with writing in the spirit of narrative medicine practice.

The Feminism Question: Thirteen Ways of Looking at the “F” Word With IMA faculty Lise Weil. It is now some thirty years since the emergence of the Second Wave of Feminism in the US in the 1970s, and according to some, we are living in a post-feminist era. With the critical distance such an interval affords, it seems important to ask: what exactly did feminism achieve? What did it fail to achieve? How has our world been changed by this movement and in what ways has it resisted or reversed the changes it ushered in? Before we address any of those questions, of course, we will need to ask: what was/is feminism? It’s very possible that there will be as many definitions as there are people in the room. We all have our own experiences of feminism, whether it’s understood as a movement or a form of consciousness, and the workshop will be structured so that several different perspectives can be considered. I will start with my own story, which begins in the 70s in the northeast US where both feminist and lesbian culture were exploding and where in 1982 I founded the feminist journal Trivia: A Journal of Ideas. As a feminist editor in the 80s and 90s I was at the center of a series of political controversies whose legacies we are still living with today.

Goddard Faculty on Tour in Tucson

2010-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, IMA faculty and coordinator of Transformative Language Arts, recently gave four readings and a transformative writing workshop in Tucson as part of her book tour for The Sky Begins at Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body and her fourth book of poetry, Landed. She read at Silverbell Trading Company, an art gallery owned by permaculturists Barbara and Keith Rose; two events organized by Temple Emanu-El on embodied, transformative writing through age and change; and with local writer Jefferson Carter in the Historic Y courtyard in a bioregional reading organized by the Sky Island Alliance, an organization that protects the varied ecosystems of sky islands, mountains rising from the desert where many species of plants and animals reside. She was also featured in several blogs -- one on the transformative power of storytelling, Telling Stories, and another on the power of writing, Jump Write In by MA-TLA alumni Debra Thornley. She also held information sessions on Goddard wherever she traveled. Finally, she made a new friend (photo on left) at the Sonoran Desert Museum.

Ruth Farmer: Engaged Education

2009-11-29T13:17:00.000-08:00

Ruth Farmer, IMA Interim Director, has a long background in education. As she writes of her background in her Goddard profile: "My activism took root in North Carolina during the turbulent, liminal 50’s and 60’s. Fighting for social change and seeing it come into fruition – of a sort – gave me hope as well as faith. I have always lived in the borderland between pragmatism and idealism because I know that hearts and laws change at vastly different rates. This border existence is a place of learning. I live with the past and in the present, while envisioning and preparing for the future. I’ve marched, boycotted, written letters, organized conferences, donated money, and amassed thousands of volunteer hours. In these small ways, I help to improve others’ lives. In these small ways, I help myself to become a better person. I learn about the things that make this planet a more humane place." Listen to a podcast of Ruth talking about how innovative and meaningful education unfolds in Goddard's IMA Program.

Two photos of Ruth: Bottom one is Ruth being introduced by now-alumni Cynthia Curley while being applauded by IMA faculty member Ralph Lutts

Ann Armbrecht: Thin Places and the Pilgrimage Home

2009-11-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

Ann Ambrecht, IMA faculty member, writer and filmmaker, looks at the places -- thick or thin -- between cultures, and between humans and the earth. In her memoir, Thin Places: A Pilgrimage Home, she writes about how studying the Yamphu Rai people in northeastern Nepal changed her view, and showed her more about the deep wisdom about living on the earth. Her film, "Numan: The Wisdom of Plants," looks at the healing powers of plants and the natural world. Ann talks about writing and teaching, and how both show her how we can open ourselves up to the possibilities for real change and deep understandings in the world. Terry Tempest Williams, author of Finding Beauty in a Broken World, writes, "Ann Armbrecht has written an intricate, smart, soulful story about the shape-shifting boundaries bewtwen culture and landscape; people and place....It is a brave rendering of what happens when we allow our intellect to bow to our instincts and recognize love for what it is: a transformative pilgrimage requiring great courage and generosity of spirit, including forgiveness."

Jaes Seis: The Dark Mother, Shamanism and Consciousness Studies

2009-10-25T18:31:00.001-07:00

Jaes Seis, a current Individualized MA student, has found her other path in studying shamanism with a particular focus on consciousness studies and the dark mother archetype. Listen to her describe her study, which she began at Goddard. Experienced at shamanic work, leading workshops and offering counseling, she has worked around the world, including on a recent excursion to Peru. Her thesis on the dark mother looks deeply at how we define and explain darkness in our lives, and how darkness can be a force of transformation and of life itself. Click on the title for this blog to listen to a podcast of Jaes describing her work.

IMA Sponsors Continental Bioregional Congress

2009-10-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

Goddard's IMA program helped sponsor the Continental Bioregional Congress, held Oct. 3-10 in Summertown, Tenn. at the Farm, an ecovillage that began as an intentional community over 40 years when Stephen and Ina Mae Gaskin led a caravan of buses from San Francisco around the country. The original caravan began after a group of interdenominational ministers set up a tour for Stephen to speak to churches around the country to create between understanding between small communities and their young people, who were becoming increasingly involved in social protest. What started as a speaking tour ended up as a vibrant community with over 3,000 acres of land, and approximately 500 residents, plenty of ecologically-designed homes and energy systems, and a variety of businesses (including publishing, chocolate manufacturing, tofu, solar panel, and midwifery through the work and writings of Ina Mae Gaskin, who wrote Spiritual Midwifery).

The Continental Bioregional Congress, founded in 1984, brings together people from throughout the Americas to explore ecologically-informed ways of living, including housing, energy, health, community and eco-community awareness, and the arts. Bioregionalism, which focuses on learning how to live from where we live, and then crafting lives in concert with our ecosystems, is well-described by bioregional writer Stephanie Mills:

"Bioregionalism recognizes, nurtures, sustains and celebrates our local connections with: Land, Plants and Animals, Springs, Rivers, Lakes, Groundwater & Oceans, Air, Families, Friends, Neighbors, Community, Native Traditions and Indigenous Systems of Production & Trade. It is taking the time to learn the possibilities of place. It is a mindfulness of local environment, history, and community aspirations that leads to a sustainable future. It relies on safe and renewable sources of food and energy. It ensures employment by supplying a rich diversity of services within the community, by recycling our resources, and by exchanging prudent surpluses with other regions. Bioregionalism is working to satisfy basic needs locally, such as education, health care and self-governance."

What bioregional offers is also very congruent with the IMA's place-based studies in its Environmental Studies concentration: "The work of the concentration bridges nature, culture, community, sustainability, restoration, justice, and action as areas of inquiry, art, and practice. By looking particularly at the concept of place as an integrating bridge between these areas, students can conduct interdisciplinary, individualized studies that bring greater meaning and a sense of wholeness to themselves and their communities."

The congress itself is a bioregional model in action, or according to many, a ceremonial village of learning about ecology as it relates to our home communities. Coming together in congress, participants educate themselves, share resources, celebrate bioregional arts, and represent ecologically-focused communities from north of Toronto to deep in Venezuela. Because of Goddard's support, which was ear-marked for scholarships for people from south of the Border, along with other support, close to 80% of the 162 participants came from Mexico, Central America and South America, where bioregionalism has particularly taken hold and launched many centers, ecovillages, traveling arts troupes and political, economic and social projects.

Pictures (from top): Stephen Gaskin between Fabio Manzini, ecological architect from Mexico, and Laura Kuri, the key organizer of bioregionalism in Mexico; a participant hanging around at the Farm; writer Stephanie Mills with IMA faculty member, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg; Leonor Fuguet, Venezuelan activist and eco-troubadour; some participants at the All Species Pageant and Ball; tending the fire after the congress was called together by Native American elders from the area.

Bernard Carey: Absentee Fatherhood, the African-American Community and Healing Through Performance

2009-09-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened on Bernard Carey's way to create a mentorship curriculum for African-American men. Through his study of absentee fathers in the Black community (up to 65% in some communities), he found his way back to his daughter years after being only peripherally involved in her life. Through talking with his daughter, Dawn Crandell, a spoken word performer in her own right, about what he was learning about himself and the world, he ended up creating with her a performance piece that blends poetry, monologue and song to explore and seek to heal the rift between absentee fathers and the children they left behind. From there, he and his daughter have been invited to perform their piece -- "Crossing into Presence" -- in the New York and D.C. areas, and eventually in Europe.

Listen to Bernard's story of "Crossing into Presence."
Download an electronic press kit for "Crossing into Presence," which includes some of this powerful show.

Jim Sparrell: Vocation, Avocation & the Stories of Our Lives

2009-08-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

Jim Sparrell, IMA faculty member, recently spoke about the connections between vocation and avocation when he delivered the Commencement Address for the August, 2009 graduation of the Individualized MA Program. A psychologist who specializes in narrative therapy, and works with both children and adults, Jim often finds himself examining how we can reinvent the stories we live throughout our lives.

“I think in our culture, you work becomes your story: you are a psychologist, you are a doctor, you are a lawyer, and that can become oppressive. You have to carry that on as opposed to being a person who does other things in your life.” The IMA program at Goddard is a place, he explains, where people can reinvent their lives according to what they believe and what they can offer to the world. In terms of cultivating the freedom to rewrite our own stories, Jim has found great value in narrative therapy, which helps people see their stories both as their personal lives and in the context of a community and a culture.

Jim explains that looking at the layers of what shapes the stories we live gives us more avenues for greater insight and flexibility. “Another thing about narrative approaches is that it gives us ways of looking at and thinking about how to revise the story. One of the phrases that's used is “thickening the plot” because we often simplify – people are on the left or the right for example – and that makes for really lousy, deadend stories. So if we can see the story in terms of its complexity, it makes for very interesting and complicated stories, which is where we all live.”

Jim lives out the many layers of his story not just as a Goddard faculty member, school psychologist, and clinical psychologist, but as a gardener, crocheter of scrubbies (great and colorful disks he crochets for washing dishes with all profits going to charity), lover of cats, music affectionado, writer, and biker. In all of this, he finds his life's work an amalgam of vocation and avocation: “Whether I'm crocheting scrubbies or making jams or gardening, it feels to me as meaningful and important as working in the school and doing counseling, writing, and all the other activities I do.”

Listen to the podcast of Jim Sparrell reading part of his commencement address for the 2009 IMA graduation. Thanks to Katie Towler for pictures of Jim at work and at play.

Healthy Media Choices, Families and Stories: Mary Rothschild

2009-07-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

When Mary Rothschild was seven, television entered her home, and her family's life changed on a dime. “On a very visceral level, I had a very direct impression of my father turning away from us and toward the television. Even all the furniture got turned toward the television.” After having her own children, Mary investigated how television effects all of us, especially young children, a calling that led her to found Healthy Media Choices, a not-for-profit organization.

She founded the organization after another pivotal moment. When she was teaching craft classes to children, one day she found herself baking bread with six or so small children all under the age of five. “We all had our little pieces of dough, which I showed them how to knead without getting their fingers sticky. It was about 45 minutes of absolute silence, everyone paying attention to their kneading, and I remember thinking, 'This is why I was born.' Then this little girl looked up to me and said, 'Mary, the Lion King video is too loud.'” There wasn't any Lion King video playing, however. “I said, 'I don't see it,' and she said, 'It's in my head.' It was a moment I really felt a very strong call to really focus on what was going on with kids.”

From there, Mary threw herself in researching children and the media, and with other parents, meeting for potlucks, discussions, and eventually a conference on children and the media. “I began to see what was happening with the children, and how it dovetailed with the research. Even at a young age, images of media distract them.” She also attended a media literacy training in Albuquerque, N.M. and joined several media literacy organizations.

Healthy Media Choices now offers workshops for teachers, and parents (of children from birth through fourth grade) on media and children. Her weekly show, “Healthy Media Choices Hour,” airs on WVEW-1p-FM in Brattleboro, Vermont, and features long conversations with movers and shakers in the field of media literacy. She also presents talks, and consults with people on how to interact with media and find the best individual solution for their household. “Each household is an ecosystem. It's very unique unto itself.” A solution for one household might be to limit television viewing for young children to an hour a week; another family might just devote an hour each week to shutting off TVs, Blackberries, computers and other media and taking a walk, playing games or telling stories. Mary explains that even an hour a week of families interacting without screens can go a long way to offsetting the main messages of our culture that come through media, which she sums up as “You can never have enough stuff, you can never look good enough, violence is an acceptable way to solve problems....and if something is wrong, take a pill.”

Instead, families can rediscover or discover anew the power of storytelling born from their own values and experiencing instead of just watching the stories that come across the television screen. Mary suggest sharing “our story of struggle, success or failure, strength and courage in the face of difficulty....My experience is everyone is a storyteller. They just don't know it.”

Although very successful in founding Healthy Media Choices and plenty busy with the work, she decided to pursue a master's degree at Goddard to explore and learn from her own story and to expand the reach of Healthy Media Choices. “You could only go so far in my experience on vocation. I needed the interplay with professionals who could look at my work and say, have you seen this, or just evaluate what they saw. There is a phenomenon called founder's syndrome. There is something so intrinsic to my own inner life, my own vision of the world. That can have negative aspects, and it needs to be informed by a wider vision. I really found that in spades at Goddard.” During the last three semesters, she studied media literacy, ecology and culture, archetypal stories and the power of myth, and narrative theory and therapy. “Each step along the way has just broadened the lessons I can bring to my work.”

And while television can be a great way to see more of the world and get glimpses into the everyday life of other cultures, Mary values even more the glimpses of our own lives we can share with her families and community. “We have the strength to be able to joyfully take full advantage of our stories,” she explains.

Visit Mary's blog, and listen to her radio program on streaming audio or download podcasts.
You can also follow Mary on Twitter @mediachoices, and visit Healthy Media Choices on Facebook and Linkedin.

Residency Workshops: A Sampling

2009-07-23T16:50:00.001-07:00

As the fall 2009 residency approaches -- Aug. 7-14 -- so do a charm of fascinating workshops. Here's a sampling of what will be offered at the residency, and what kinds of workshops in general are offered (including everything from moss to birth to dancing with the devil).

Moss, with faculty member Ralph Lutts: We walk through (and on) a world of wonder at our feet, but pay little attention to it. This is the world of mosses. There are more different species of mosses than any other group of plants other than flowering plants. You can dry them, store them for years, add water, and they will continue to grow. They are extraordinarily beautiful. Have you looked closely at them? In this non-technical workshop we will take a close look at mosses. We will discover their distinctive ways of living and their places in the environment. We will also take a close look at their beauty and learn how to tell the difference between species. Join us as we explore this amazing new world at our feet.

Cognitive Significance of Birth, with faculty member Ellie Epp: We’re mammals. We come into being cell by cell inside an already existing human body. As we grow from two cells to many, the means by which we perceive and feel construct themselves in reference to a small, tight, wet, and instantly provident bedroom. Then comes an extraordinary passage, violent and outrageous, in which immensely strong waves of force bear down upon us to eject us into what must seem a cataclysmically foreign world. How does this central fact of human embodiment inscribe itself in our physical and thus our psychological being? Can we detect its traces in our intuitions, our metaphors, our habits of feeling? Our religions and philosophies? As a root both of brutality and of hope, structural traces of birth and prenatal life are visible in poetry, philosophy, science, spirituality. This workshop is an introduction to a form of self-investigation which thus also becomes cultural investigation.

Marketing Your Business, Project, Art or Organization Without Losing Your Mind, Blowing Big Bucks, Or Selling Your Soul, with faculty member Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and special guest appearance by faculty member, Katt Lissard: So you have an idea for a business, project, performance, or organization, and you know it's the right thing to do, but how do you build excitement, interest, and support around your vision? In addition to working collaboratively with others in your community, addressing real needs, and following your calling, you need to market what you're doing in a way that is true to your work, and ethically in concert with your values and community. Effective, ethical and creative marketing can help you reach new audiences, members, clients or customers; find and keep funders; and make vital connections with others doing similar or complementary work. Come learn how to create your own website, business cards, postcards, find funding and fiscal sponsorship opportunities and do ethical, far-reaching, low-cost or free outreach.

Ethics – Whose Story Is it? With IMA student Kathleen Connolly and faculty member Jim Sparrell: In this workshop, we will consider ethical questions related to telling your story or doing research that involves other people's stories. Our aim is to facilitate a discussion as a group about what it means that someone could be “hurt” by the telling of a story, and what it means to “speak your truth,” by developing questions that we might consider to help in making difficult decisions and break out of dichotomous thinking. In addition to sharing anyone's experiences of telling stories and hearing responses (bring your story!) we may consider recent controversies involving writers such as Honor Moore, Kevin Rouse, Linda Grey Sexton, James Frey, and Lauren Slater. Technology permitting, we will try to listen to or watch some relevant interview segments from these people.

Ah, Raza! The Making of an American Artist, with IMA faculty member, Gaelyn Aguilar, and special guest Gustavo Aguilar: In 1996, percussionist and composer, Gustavo Aguilar, experienced a moment of psychic disequilibrium that prompted him to examine what it meant to identify himself as an American artist. Set against the backdrop of Aguilar’s border town hometown of Brownsville, Texas, Ah, Raza! The Making of an American Artist traces a line of continuity to the spaces that have mapped themselves out onto him, and to the people whose dispositions are also his own. Intertwining various sonic environments (sound ethnography and an original score) with an intersection of a multiplicity of gazes (video ethnography and still photography), Ah, Raza! is a confederacy of components that broadens one’s vision of how to be what one is.

Images of Islam, Reflections in Contemporary Western Culture, with Francis Charet: Islam is perceived as a radical, violent, fundamentalist and authoritarian religion, one that subjugates women. Or, alternatively, as a tolerant, sophisticated religious tradition that created the basis for a flourishing culture and civilization. These images are taken up, mirrored in the media and advocated by specific groups, resulting in a confused mix, often without clarity. The intention of this presentation is to explore some of these images, unpack them, and see what credible or otherwise foundations there are for them, in order to generate a conversation and open up the subject with a view to deepening our understanding.

Dancing with the Devil: Finding a critical voice in writing and scholarship, with faculty member James Sparrell: In this workshop we will examine the value of contradictory or challenging perspectives in grounding work, making it persuasive and interesting, and on working for positive social change. Nothing stands out with uniformity. What is the resistance to this kind of work? Some sources of resistance include reluctance to engage in the arguments or ideas coming from dominant cultural perspectives that have perpetuated and perpetrated abuse, oppression, and violence in the process of domination; difficulty in developing a mindfulness that dichotomies can be transcended; incomplete scholarship; confusing values with logical arguments; and working within a supportive, progressive, (continued) democratic educational environment.

Poet Laureate of Kansas: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

2009-07-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

IMA faculty member and founder and coordinator of Transformative Language Arts Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg has just begun a two-year term as Kansas Poet Laureate. Appointed by the governor after being recommended by the Kansas Arts Commission, the poet laureate travels around the state to promote poetry and the literary arts, something Mirriam-Goldberg has plenty of experience with during the 18 years she's been leading community writing workshops. Mirriam-Goldberg is also an experienced writer, who has 10 books in print or forthcoming, including a new memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir about Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body, and a fourth collection of poetry, Landed, which will include a CD of the author reading her work along with singer Kelley Hunt performing songs co-written with Mirriam-Goldberg.

On July 1 at the Lawrence Arts Center, Mirriam-Goldberg took the torch, which was literally a giant sunflower (the symbol for the State of Kansas), from outgoing Poet Laureate Denise Low in front of a packed house. The event not only celebrated the outgoing and income poets laureate, but launched the first publication of the new Imagination and Place press, a project of the Committee on Imagination and Place.

During her 14 years at Goddard College, Mirriam-Goldberg has taught extensively in the Individualized MA program, and before that, the combined BA and MA program. She also founded Transformative Language Arts, which provides education for those drawn to writing, storytelling and performing -- using the power of words on the page and aloud -- for community building, spiritual growth, health and well-being, and social change. As someone who's offered writing workshops to a wide variety of people -- including housing authority residents, people of color, adults in transition, teens, intergeneration groups, and people living with cancer and other illness -- Mirriam-Goldberg has helped many find more of what they need to create and share as well as how to make stronger community together by witnessing one another's writing. She has also co-written songs with rhythm and blues singer Kelley Hunt, who performed at the July 1st event, and with Hunt, co-led Brave Voice: Writing and Singing for Your Life workshops and retreats.

"The poet laureate position follows the line of my life," Mirriam-Goldberg explains. "I'll be simply doing TLA on a much bigger scale in my home state and also in other places in the country. My main project for this position, 'Poetry Across Kansas: Reading and Writing Our Way Home,' is a combination of writing workshops, trainings and support for community people to facilitate ongoing writing circles, readings and presentations. I'm also thrilled to be doing a monthly radio show, available in podcasts, on High Plains Public Radio, which will give listeners a writing exercise to try at home as well as expose them to the writing of Kansas and other High Plains writers."

In reflecting on the life she leads, mostly in Kansas but also regularly in Vermont, Mirriam-Goldberg said, "I know that Kansas and Vermont are about 1,400 miles away, but there's a seamless connection between the value of the arts for changing the world both here in my town, which has a long history of social activism dating back to its Free State roots during the civil war, and Goddard College, which has long been a light for changing the world."

Listen to a podcast of Mirriam-Goldberg reading some poetry from her forthcoming collection, Landed. This podcast includes a collection of her yoga poems. See her website and blog too.
Photos, from top, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg; Mirriam-Goldberg, Denise Low and Rick Mitchell from the Imagination and Place committee; Kelley Hunt; driving through Kansas; kayaking in Kansas at Brave Voice.

Podcast: Alexandra Hartman on Film, Poetry and the Disobedient Body

2009-06-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

Listen to this new podcast on Alexandra Hartman's journey from poetry and web design to filmmaking and the disobedient body. Alex's website, and her entire 33-minute film -- The Word Made Flesh, an be viewed at her website. Her studies that led her here encompassed Embodiment Studies, Transformative Language Arts, Filmmaking and Women's Studies. Listen to our podcast at this link.

Podcasts!!!

2009-05-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

We are thrilled to announce that we're now be sharing regular podcasts on WorldsofChange features, including special audio pieces (such as music created by our graduates and students). Please check in regularly, and subscribe to our blog so you can hear the latest!

Taina Asili: Writing, Singing and Facilitating Toward Home

2009-05-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

Taina Asili was already a songwriter, artist, writer, activist and workshop leader when she started in IMA's Transformative Language Arts concentration. Through her studies of the power of singing, storytelling and writing to help people resist post-colonial oppression, particularly in Puerto Rico, where both her parents come from, she found her own way home. From that homecoming, she's gone on to create writing, art and music, not to mention some powerfully-needed workshops for many populations seeking their own homecoming. As she explains, “I learned a lot about how my own family – my grandmother, mother and father – passed that tradition on, and I now incorporate very deeply what I learned into the work I create now.”

She's currently plenty busy raising her son, Yabisi, for whom Goddard is a second home, while touring with her band, Taina Asili y La Banda Rebelde, preparing to release their debut album, “Mama Guerrilla” (celebrating the mother warrior spirit), and playing at colleges, festivals, community centers, nightclubs and political events in Vermont, Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. She recently performed at a large May Day event focused on worker rights, organized by a coalition of anti-war and worker-support organizations in Troy, NY. She explains that her new album brings together a lot of what she created during her MA, and also, when she performs, she now talks about that history and the broader transformations possible through the word.

The immigrant experience of her family (although Puerto Rico is technically a territory of the U.S.) also informs her teaching. Her current workshop, “Refugee Voices,” brings together 15-20 refugees from Burma, Iraq, Nepal and the Sudan for photography and poetry, all of which helps them forge community with each other and find a new way of making home in this country. Taina explains, “The first thing refugees have to deal with is finding food, clothing and shelter, but there's not a lot of opportunity to really process the experience of being in refugee camps and then transitioning to this country.”

The workshop not only helps refugees tell their stories through photographs and poetry to each other, but to the larger Albany, NY community. An exhibit at the end of the workshop breaks down barriers between the refugee community and their new-found hometown. “It's phenomenal because the larger community, now hearing the voices of these refugees, really want to support them.” The workshop series, funded by the Capital Region Arts Center, is organized by a coalition of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Grand Street Community Arts, and the Workforce Development Institute.

In reflecting back on what she learned at Goddard, Taina notes the essential lessons about the ethics of facilitation, “...to really be able to support other people's voices, and to nurture people in their own self-empowerment.” She also learned of multitudes of resources to use, such as the poetry of Martin Espada, suggested to her by an advisor she had, to many workshop exercises she's created for her thesis project, which combined her poetry, music, and a comprehensive curriculum on using writing for social change.

“That personal and social transformation I experienced is something I want to facilitate in others,” she says.

Visit Taina's site for more on her good work. Photos (from top): Taina performing with her band; Taina and family in Puerto Rico; "Refugee Voices" group; Taina Asili

Goddard Students Eligible for Discounts at Rowe and Omega!

2009-05-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

Through a partnership agreement, students enrolled in Goddard College programs, such as IMA, are eligible for 20-30% discounts for selected programs at the Rowe Conference Center and the Omega Institute, both of which are in the New England area (Omega is upstate New York, and Rowe in Rowe, Mass.). Some students find it helpful to take workshops at centers such as these to write about in their packets, get ideas for practicums, or just relax between semesters.

The Only Place to Do My Work: Quotes from Current Students

2009-05-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

"I feel this program may be the ONLY one that I could be doing right now. It gives me the latitude to explore issues that are important to me and what contributions I can make in the world."
-- Timothy Yuen

"I think that Goddard is the only school that would allow me to do the work I am doing. I am very excited about my work, and I love the level of trust and understanding that I get from the faculty. I think the personal connection and the ability of the program to adapt to fit my needs are what make it so special." Zach Katz

Check Out the Perpetual Goddard Slide Show!

2009-04-20T16:53:00.001-07:00

We just uploaded a long and continuous slide show of images of Goddard, which you can see on the right side of the screen. Hope you enjoy these images, and come join us and add more of your own vivid memories, insights and passions to the Goddard community.

Filmmaking, Poetry and the Disobedient Body: Alexandra Hartman

2009-04-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

Alexandra (Alex) Hartman came to Goddard to change directions in her life. She planned to lead writing workshops when she left Goddard, but something more local soon emerged: the body. “The IMA encourages students to find our own direction by trusting the process and following our study wherever it takes us. So I’d repeat to myself, ‘Trust the process, trust the process,’ and when things got strange and I didn’t know why I was reading about cannibalism or scarification, I’d repeat, 'trust the process,' until those words became a mantra.”

What emerged for Alex was a deep study of what it meant to live in a body, particularly a body with a tendency to be disobedient. "As part of my process of struggling to emerge as a grown person, I kept running into all of these shoulds and should-nots that related to my body. I began to see them as obstacles to my growth, and I realized how much of my life was spent listening to my fears. But when I started listening to what I really wanted to do, lots of times it was stuff I wasn't supposed to do, and I had to think hard about who was telling me what to do and why, what were the consequences, and why did I need to break rules?”

As an artist, poet, and long-time professional web designer, Alex communicated fluently through images, color, texture and voice. “Film was a really good amalgam of all I was into, but I didn't want to go into filmmaking. I didn't think I had enough time, but I kept hearing this voice in my head that said, 'You must make a film.' And I don't usually hear voices in my head.” Alex took a semester off, taught herself filmmaking, blogging on her progress and posting her efforts until she was ready to come back and put together a body of her body-oriented work.

The result was a 33-minute film called The Word Made Flesh, which coalesces, with the help of Duke Ellington's appropriately-named signature song – “Body and Soul” – 11 short films. She blended footage from found home movies, vintage soft-core porn and educational films, music, and her own filmmaking. Her study also drew on the fields of embodiment studies, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, women's studies and poetry, “and how everyone is looking at the body in those fields.”

Did making this film and coming to Goddard bring Alex the change she sought? “Oh, hugely! It allowed me to be who I am and to be as strong as I can be. I'm not the same person I was when I came to Goddard – I was timid and tentative, and now I'm operating on my own accord.”

See Alex's film, and the blog she used to chronicle her process of teaching herself filmmaking, her poetry, sources, video and visual concepts and much more at Alex's website.

Pictures of Alex, and several stills from her film, The Word Made Flesh.

A Marriage of Spiritual Memoir & Community Workshops: Suzanne Adams

2009-04-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

When Suzanne Adams started IMA's Transformative Language Arts concentration, she was already changing her life as a freelance writer and suburban stay-at-home Houston mother in a household of males. While she didn't know what she was shifting toward, she had a sense that this change involved creative writing, community work, and spiritual growth.

She soon herself immersed in writing as a spiritual practice, studying spiritual autobiography, and TLA as a tool for social change and personal growth for girls. One faculty member with an evangelical Christian background suggested Suzanne explore healing stories within the framework of Christianity; another faculty member, who specialized in feminism, prompted Suzanne to write about feminist theology and mythology. Another faculty member’s expertise in workshop facilitation was invaluable in furthering Suzanne’s goal of offering expressive writing workshops in the community. By the end of her studies, she wrote Reclaiming the Lost, a powerful body of essays on spiritual questioning and questing, writing as a calling, and how her changes catalyzed profound changes in her marriage. Accompanying the memoir was a study of mythology, theology, history, literature, sociology and psychology as it related to her topic; and a practicum focused on expressive writing for teenage girls. The writing especially allowed her to write herself into voice, identity, and stronger connections with her family, female divinity, and the wild.

Since graduation, Suzanne was admitted into the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, where she found strong encouragement to revise the essay collection toward a memoir about how one spouse's spiritual development can actually strengthen, and not necessarily, tear apart a marriage. She found even more support from her husband who, after reading her essays, even ones that weren't very flattering of him and their relationship, said to her, “This is your story, and I think you've written it in such a way that would help others, and I encourage you to continue this work.” Suzanne says that his response, “helped us to work for more transformation along the way.” She soon starts working with Farnoosh Moshiri through Moshiri's Studio 16, a highly competitive writing workshop. She's also presenting "The Sacred Knowledge of Myth," a workshop at the Power of Words conference at Goddard College Sept. 3-7, organized by the TLA Network.

She also started leading workshops in her community. “It's All About You,” a workshop fostering empowerment, self-discovery and self-esteem for middle school girls, that she first piloted as her TLA practicum at Goddard, is now on its feet at a Houston area middle school as a project of ARTreach, a local grassroots arts organization. Adams is in the middle of facilitating two 90-minute sessions twice a week for five weeks, helping girls negotiate media influences, discover their voices and visions and dismantle damaging messages through writing and art exercises and discussions.

Suzanne found her time at Goddard turbo-charged her quest to write and seek spiritual connection. “When I finally got there, that (being at Goddard) was the biggest catalyst of all. I was taking little baby steps up until that point, and the transformation that came propelled me full-speed ahead,” Suzanne explains.

Right Livelihood

2009-04-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

The term "Right Livelihood" may be rooted in Buddhism, but it's particularly relevant in a time of economic crisis, and many people needing to re-evaluate how they make a living and new ways to do work in the world. Right Livelihood connotes using your gifts, talents and experience to serve your community, doing work of meaning. In the IMA program, we focus quite a bit on Right Livelihood and how you can design a course of study that enhances how you interface with your work, community and passions.

Over recent semesters, here's a list of Right Livelihood workshops offered at residencies:

* Right Livelihood Panel (featuring faculty and students): What do we mean by this term, and what are ways to bring right livelihood to our current work, create new work, and help others find their own right livelihood?

* Connecting with Community: Making a Living Doing What You Love: How do you make meaningful connections with organizations, businesses and institutions in your community, and how do you nurture and grow those connections in search of relevant, important work that helps you enhance your gifts and also make a living along the way? This conversational workshop will include lots of tips as well as information and handouts on strong proposals, resumes, background material and more.

* Grant-Writing For Your Education and Work: An exploration of grant-writing resources, strategies, follow-up and other considerations, including ample information on where to find arts-based grants, awards and fellowships.

* Finding Your Calling & Making a Living From It: Two-part workshop on bringing to the surface more of what you feel called to do for a living, and then investigating how to begin and sustain an ongoing dialogue with that calling, including using tools such as writing, art, business plans, mapping, visualization and more.

* Planning, Facilitating and Assessing Workshops and other Other Arts-Based Community Projects: Come discuss how to set up workshops, coaching and consulting projects in your community, including ways to make contacts with local organizations, institutions and businesses; how to design and publicize (or assist the hosting organization with publicity) your group; screening participants; developing facilitation arts and skills; and general assessment information.

* How & Why You Do What You Do: Ethics from the Inside Out: All community work has ethical connotations, and how you handle those ethical questions that come up greatly influences the effectiveness of any work you do in your community. Come learn about the ethical dimensions of your work, and join us for a discussion of possible issues you might encounter, how to navigate your way through to the benefit of all, and why community work entails such ethical considerations in the first place. We'll have time for trouble-shooting, role-playing and lots of inspirational stories about how to make your practicum truly rewarding for all involved.

* Whole-Self, Real-World Facilitation: This workshop focuses on how to bring all of your wisdom and intuition to the real and outrageously dynamic world of facilitation. We’ll discuss how to forge a clear understanding of your own motivations and expectations; the role of the facilitator overall and as it applies specifically to you; the importance of sticking to that role (listening versus trying to rescue or fix); and intervention, confidentiality, and resource management for issues bigger than the group. Come share your experiences, callings, gifts and challenges in being facilitated and in facilitating at this interactive workshop.

* How to Do Arts-Related Work & Transformative Language Arts In Your Community: People, Places and Practical Possibilities: Panel discussion featuring students and faculty on specific ways to work with various populations, and approaches such as poetry therapy, journal therapy, educaitonal drama autoethnography, narrative theory, storytelling and coaching.

* Writing Business Plans for Changing the World: Begin creating your own business plan for launching the work of your dreams into the world, and look at how to further develop that plan over time, find needed resources, and start your own right livelihood.

Graduation in Goddard's IMA Program

2009-03-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Just about anyone who witnesses a Goddard graduation walks away thinking it was unlike any graduation they ever saw before. That's because each of our students is, in effect, his or her own valedictorian, sharing his/her story of finding a focus of study of great meaning individually and communally. During a typical graduation, often held in the winter in the Haybarn, a grand old theatre, or during beautiful summer days, in the garden, surrounded by lilies and pines, we of course begin with a speech, or in the case of this last February, a commencement performance by Bread and Puppet during which time, many graduates, students and faculty got to take flight.

Then instead of graduates streaming across a stage, the stories begin. Each graduate is presented by a faculty member, who tells the tale of how this study came into being, what it meant for the graduate, what it means for us, and how it can help change the world in some vital way. The graduate then gets to make his/her own speech, which may entail everything from crying and laughing while thanking a list of family, friends and faculty to playing wooden flute to leading everyone in a sweet old folksong. But in just about every speech and for just about every graduate, we hear how this degree is life-changing, helping students find their callings, do something they didn't think they were capable of, and finding a new way to energize their life, shape their work, and find greater life, spirit, connection and joy.

Graduation is nestled into a weekend of activities, bringing together graduating students along with continuing and new ones, with plenty of time for improntu jam sessions, the student-faculty reading, presentations by graduating students on what they studied that often are some of the most inspiring and mind-blowing moments of all, and lots of time for people to share experiences, encourage one another, and build community.

All photos from February, 2009 graduation weekend.

The Mystical Road: Read a Thesis on Pilgrimage

2009-03-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

Angela Mullins, featured several entries back on this site, has just posted her entire IMA thesis, Awakening to Awakening: Journeys Along the Pilgrimage Road. To read about her study -- which encompassed pilgrimages around the world along with investigating the cultural, psychological and spiritual road map of pilgrimage -- please see www.mysticalroad.blogspot.com.
Her work also demonstrates one way to create your own world-changing study.

Three Peas In A Pod: Faculty At Play

2009-03-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

In February, at the last Individualized MA residency, which we share with the Health Arts and Sciences program, faculty often met in the dorm each night to visit, relax, and, quite obviously, keep working. The three peas in a pod here are, from left, Sarah Van Hoy (HAS faculty), Francis Charet (IMA faculty and coordinator of Consciousness Studies), and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (IMA faculty and coordinator of Transformative Language Arts). Jim Sparrell, IMA faculty, was the photographer.

Transformative Language Arts and Reclaiming the Erotic: Jen Cross and Writing Ourselves Whole

2009-03-02T07:58:00.001-08:00

Jen Cross began with a hunger to study transformative writing, especially how it could help people, particularly sexual trauma survivors, reclaim the erotic and live more vibrant lives. Her passion led her to write this manifesto now posted on the website of her writing workshop business, Writing Ourselves Whole:

A Manifesto I believe...

that writing has the power to affect transformation, to spell out not only how we feel now but how we want to feel, how we believe we can feel.
that we expand in our erotic possibility when we become deeply aware of one another's truths and desires.
that there’s a power in writing about sex explicitly and in community, using charged and taboo language – we take that charge and make it our own electricity, utilizing it for our own ends instead of remaining subservient to it.
that much of our sexuality and our erotics is manifested through language–one of the ways to alter our reactions to all the sex-negative messages we are force-fed from birth is through practice and play with new language, in a less-charged space than a bedroom, alone or in the presence of others struggling and playing similarly.
that we all need safe space in which to be our whole, complete and complex erotic selves – to delve into the desires that we've learned or been told don't "go with" our particular identities.
that, finally, when we risk empowering and transforming ourselves, we transform and empower the communities we exist within–and changing our communities means that we are changing the world!

With such an expansive view of writing, spirituality, sexuality, the body and the body politic, it's no wonder that Jen is a gifted workshop facilitator in San Francisco who has helped many people create communal change through individual transformation. She credits Goddard with helping her articulate a theoretical framework for these workshops as well as Amherst Writers and Artists and Pat Schneider for giving her an ethical framework for non-clinical writing workshops.

Like many students, what Jen ended up studying wasn't what she initially planned. “When I began my studies, I had a deep desire not to focus my studies on sexual trauma survivor communities – I was still battling that internalized shame, of course, and a sense that real academics don't talk about their experiences of trauma. Where do these ideas come from that they get so lodged in us? However, midway through my second semester (it never takes long at Goddard), I finally allowed myself to hone in on the issues of sexual trauma, creative writing, and access to erotic language.” The essay she wrote on this topic become the first of many essays that composed her powerful thesis project that also included her poetry and prose.

“I am deeply grateful for having had the opportunity to dig into those difficult places of my history during my work at Goddard, and I am thankful, too, for the ways that the program encourages intimate and personal interaction with academia, ideas, theories, so-called certainties -- I got to experience that inevitable and beautiful tension upon realizing that I had to bring myself into all the work that I do. Disconnecting through some veneer of 'objectivity' just doesn't fly -- not at Goddard, and not in the real world of transformative/expressive arts and, you know, that other real world of true human connection and love.”

In addition to her writing workshop business, Jen has published in many journals and anthologies. See www.writingourselveswhole.org, and her blog for more information. See an audio piece by Jen at the Arts and Healing Network.

Place-Based Studies and Environmental Action: Ralph Lutts

2009-02-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

Ralph Lutts, IMA faculty and coordinator of IMA's environmental studies concentration, always believed environmental action in rooted in our relationship to place. “I came to realize that when we speak of thinking globally but acting locally, the local is one's place, and the notion of a place embodies knowing local history, local environment, one's neighbors and experiences.” He also found that science alone isn't enough to understand place because science tends to apply generalizations to specific situations. “The science is important, but human values are very important, the nature of personal experience is very important, and in order to discuss environmental effects, you need to bring all these parts together....As I got into this, I realized this has been a consistent theme in my life.”

As someone who grew up with a passion for the earth and for writing poetry and eventually essays about place, Lutt's community activism, while teaching at Hampshire College, led him to help found a local nature center in Amherst, MA. From there, he moved to Milton, MA – near where he grew up in Quincy – to direct a nature center in a 7,000-acre open space park just north of Boston. Realizing that the center's museum featured exhibits that could describe the natural history of just about anywhere in Southern New England, he helped raise funds to revamp all the exhibits to interpret the park's natural and cultural history.

After a decade in Milton, Lutts moved to Virginia to direct the Outreach Divisions of the state museum of natural history. His efforts included traveling exhibits to community centers and shopping malls around the state. “We saw ourselves as not interpreting natural history in the abstract but interpreting the natural history of Virginia.” As a result, the exhibits, which previously only reached 25,000 people a year, now reached over one million. At the same time, he worked with the economically challenged community of Saltville, VA., where an ice age mammal was being excavated. He arranged for public tours of the excavation site, and on salt mining history in Saltville, which was the principal source of salt for the confederacy during the civil war. Everyone who went on such a tour was given a “I dig Saltville” button, which showed local merchants the effects of eco-tourism.

While working at the state museum, Lutts also happened upon a community located in the Blue Ridge called Meadows of Dan. “I fell in love with the place and decided my next career move would be not for the job but for the place.” He resigned from the museum in 1994, started looking for employment, and found Goddard. Eventually, he fell in love with a person too – his wife-to-be, Sue, a librarian and quilter who now runs a bookstore in the heart of Meadows of Dan. They built a house on 39 acres of wooded landed just three miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

No surprise then that at Goddard, Lutts brought a place-based approach to environmental studies, an approach gaining cultural currency and of great interest to IMA students such as Sebastian Marino, the hereditary chief of a small island state in the within the West Pacific country of Palau. Marino came to Goddard to learn how to integrate indigenous conservation strategies into plans to protect the large coral reef near his island, which is also the largest protected natural area in Palau.. “If you live on a two-square-mile island for centuries, if not thousands of years, you know how to conserve the resource,” Lutts explains. The place-based approach is also effective for those on the move. Kate Mendenhall, another environmental studies alumni, wanted to understand organic agriculture on an international level, so she visited organic farms around the world, volunteering and studying how each farm fit within the context of its local culture and economy.

In all this work, Lutts advocates for the importance of personal experience that connects the person to the place, and the place to its history, culture, politics and, most of it, its most sustainable future.

Ralph Lutts, top photo, and Sebastian Marino, fifth photo down; all other photos by Ralph, from top, Lover's Leap view in the Blue Ridge, autumn in the Blue Ridge, pink azeleas, small yellow lady's slipper. To see the extensive extensive environmental studies resource page, visit George.

Bohemians at Goddard!

2009-02-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

I suppose that there have been bohemians at Goddard for decades - but these are Bohemian Waxwings. As I was walking to my office the other day I saw this large flock of birds high in a tree making a noise that sounded to me like purring. Gina Gifun, HAS student, refined that aptly to a sound like "pigeons purring." I saw them swoop down to eat the small crab apples and then fly back up high in the tree. After getting a closer look I thought they were Cedar Waxwings, and didn't have my binoculars with me. I emailed my wife who told me to look for Bohemian Waxwings mixed in. I did some research as to distinguishing features and hoped I could see them again.

So this morning I rushed out early from the dorm to see if they were still there. I was so excited to see them that I slipped on the ice and fell quite soundly on my backside. But I did manage to get some pictures and confirm the reassuring news that we continue have Bohemians at Goddard.

Happy Go Lucky

2009-02-11T09:05:00.003-08:00

I thought this was a wonderful film about looking at the world and the impact of perspective as a filter or point of view. Suggesting that perspective is a way of constructing the world.

Awakening Through Pilgrimage: Angela Mullins

2009-01-22T16:15:00.000-08:00

Angela Mullins, an accomplished flutist who has performed and taught around the country, came to Goddard with a yearning to go on a pilgrimage – a sacred journey to a site of religious and spiritual significance. So she set out to study pilgrimage, which she defined as “an intentional journey in which the pilgrim communes with the divine, communes with the divine, contemplates his/her life path, and renews his/her connection to the sacred.” Inspired by a pilgrimage to Camino de Santiago in Spain before she started the IMA program, she focused her IMA studies on pilgrimages to China, Tibet, Bolivia, Peru, and even Paris. The journeys culminated in her thesis, Awakening to Awakening: An Intimate Exploration of Pilgrimage, a comprehensive exploration of the traditions, psychology, and religious roots of pilgrimage, and a beautifully-written memoir of her own journeys that also includes her sparkling photographs.

Mullins explains that the study “allowed me to integrate parts of myself that never integrated before. When I first went on my original pilgrimage – to Santiago – that itself unraveled my life in a powerful way, and I realized that writing was going to be really important to my life, but the process of studying pilgrimage at Goddard and integrating my own experience to the depths of my soul, and my writing and study, enabled me to realize my work and life don't have to be separate things.” Along the way, she also took her bamboo flute with her on many journeys, and played around the world, offering her music and collaborating with local musicians. “Being in other cultures, I learned how music served culture, and how music is beyond high art and is its own pathway to healing.”

In addition to her music, she awakened the writer and photographer in her. She says she only started taking her writing seriously right before she started at Goddard. “Up to that point, I was a closet journaler, and would have smacked somebody if they dared to read it, but going on that first pilgrimage, and realizing writing would be an important part of understanding pilgrimage showed me how to follow writing wherever it took me, and how writing was its own pilgrimage path.” What she saw not only infused and opened up her writing, but her photography also as she took thousands of pictures on her travels.

Her pilgrimage continues in several forms. Right after she finished her thesis at the end of 2007, she went to Pisco, Peru to volunteer for Hands on Disaster Response. She currently is on a journey through massage school, and she's studying yoga, looking all the time for how these healing arts enhance and integrate into her writing, photography, and music, and in how she serves her community.

While she continues to teach flute at a studio in her home, perform, and do arts outreach in Washington, D.C. public schools – taking music into the classroom to help students find their own voices – she says her journey in the IMA program and around the world has “taken music from where it was before my life – as an intellectual process – and taken it back into my heart and back into my body. It's also opened up my whole life so that everything I do – music, writing, photography, yoga, massage, everything – now comes from that place within me.”

For more on Angela's reflections, please see http://mysticalroad.blogspot.comand http://mandalajourney.blogspot.com

Photos (from top): 1) Walking along the Camino near Pamplona, Spain; 2) Inside the Inca Ruins at Ollantaytambo, Peru; 3) Flying over the Himalayas: the Rooftop of the World; 4) Sharing melodies inside the Temple of Heaven, Beijing, China; 5) Friends from the Camino, in front of the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain; 6) Connecting with the music inside Templo de la Luna, near Cusco, Peru

Lise Weil & Trivia: Voices of Feminism

2009-01-07T13:49:00.001-08:00

Lise Weil, IMA faculty, had a revelation 26 years ago: “The essays that were being written by my friends at that time were to me the most exciting and important things being written in the feminist world, and I wanted to publish those essays and to attract more writing of that kind. I also wanted to create a space where women could take themselves seriously as thinkers.” That vision led her to found Trivia: A Journal of Ideas , which, over its 13 years as a print journal, published feminist writer throughout the U.S. and Canada, such as Gloria Anzaldua, Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Kim Chernin, Nicole Brossard, Paula Gunn Allen, Renate Stendhal and Betsy Warland.

Trivia had an impact on the field of women's studies and won grants from the NEA and the Mass Council on the Arts. In 2004, some IMA students approached Weil to join them in resurrecting Trivia as an on-line journal. Since that time, Trivia has flourished, again helping to shape feminism. While Trivia used to focus more on discursive prose and experimental critical writing, the new Trivia embraces creative writing as well. “It's changed too,” explains Weil. “The notion of feminism used to be much more monolithic.

This [new Trivia] is called 'voices of feminism' rather than 'a journal of ideas'.” IMA students, faculty and alumni, who have contributed to Trivia in recent years include Mercy Morganfield, Susan Moul, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Lise Weil, Julianna Borrero, Sara Wright, Rhonda Patzia; MeLissa Gabriels was a founding editor. Other writers of note, such as Judy Grahn and Deena Metzger, plus many Canadian and U.S. Scholars, poets and writers fill the pages of Trivia, each issue centered on a theme such as “The Wonderful and the Terrible,” “The Resurrection Issue,” “Love and Lust,” “Memory,” “The Art of the Possible,” and the “The Body.”

The current issue, “Unabashed Knowing,” was edited by Weil with co-editor and Goddard alumna Harriet Ellenberger. “It's about women's power of knowing, this ancient oracular capacity that women have always had to speak truth that no everyone wants to hear, to know things that not everyone wants to know,” Weil says.

Upcoming issues continue to embrace a wide spectrum of feminism. “Thinking about Goddesses,” currently being co-edited by Weil with Hye-Sook Hwang, a Korean goddess scholar, will incorporate stories, experiences and visions of and research on goddesses. Beyond that, Weil will co-edit an issue with acclaimed Canadian writer and scholar Betsy Warland, “Are Lesbians Going Extinct?” Based on a line from Nicole Brossand – “A lesbian who does not reinvent the world is a lesbian going extinct” – the issue asks writers, thinkers and activists to consider whether, as they are more accepted and occasionally even embraced by mainstream culture, lesbians are still reinventing the world.

Considering “Trivia” was one of the names of the Triple Goddess, and it's also a word marginalized in our culture, it's no surprise that Trivia embraces both these themes, each of which illustrates the journal's vision “as a place at the crossroads where women's ideas can assume their original power and significance.”

Photos, form top: Lise Weil, artwork courtesy of Gabrielle Meixner, and Trivia Logo.

Lorraine Hammond: Bringing the Song Back to the Source

2008-12-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

Lorraine Hammond – a well-known folksinger and songwriter with decades of experience performing and teaching Americana roots and folk music – came to the IMA program to study traditional music in her homeland, the Northern Appalachian region. “I grew up in a community where we sang the old songs, and I was the child of a farm family.” She not only sang, but learned to play the Celtic harp and 5-string banjo, and also became the foremost exponent of the Appalachian dulcimer.

Hammond's career teaching and performing takes her to festivals and folk schools around the country, including the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, the John C. Campbell Folk School (NC), the Mountain Collegium of Early Music (NC), the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop (WA), the Augusta Heritage Program (WV), and Summer Acoustic Music Week (NH). Yet over years of performing, she became increasingly concerned about the disconnect between this music's scholars, founders, performers and audiences. “There was a huge disconnect. Folk music is interesting to the upper class as something to be studied; it's interesting to academics as a form of literature; and it's interesting to the people who play and sing it because it's their vital expression of their lives and community. As I wrote the thesis, I was actively examining my own place in these three levels,” she says.

Having grown up learning folksongs from the likes of Oscar Degreenia, one of the original old time singers of this music, Hammond was in the unique position of coming from the very tradition she was studying. By employing an ethnographic approach, Hammond was able to combine a scholarly unfolding of the history of this music's origins with a discussion of the class issues, ethical dimensions, sense of place, and her own experience. She also bridged class issues that have historically denied early performers of folk music access to archival materials. Degreenia's daughter, Dolly, who is now in her mid-70s, hadn't heard her father's singing since his death because Middlebury College denied the family access to the songs collected by Helen Flanders on the grounds that they were now the property of Middlebury College. After negotiations, Hammond secured copies of Degreenia's singing, and she brought the tapes to Dolly, who heard her father's voice for the first time in 50 years.

In bringing the music back to its source, Hammond also found her own gifts as a scholar. “I have acquired a sense of competence that is the very reason I came in the first place. I really know my literature now. I know my sources. I understand how the important pieces of history fit together and have led up to the situation I find myself in,” Hammond adds.

Photos: Hammond with a rental mustang; Indian Neck Folk Festival, 2007. Dave Kiputh and Phil Zimmerman standing, Lorraine and husband Bennett seated; Folksongs with pre-schoolers, Soule Rec. Center, Brookline, MA 2007

Yvette Hyater-Adams: Changing Lives Through the Arts

2008-12-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

Yvette Hyater-Adams is a change artist who found, while exploring the art of change, how art can change lives. During 20 years in the corporate world as a Human Resources executive and since 1997, CEO of her own consulting firm, Prime Directive Consulting Group, she has worked with Fortune 500 company leaders to lead change. Hyater-Adams started the Transformative Language Arts (TLA) concentration in 2001. Seven years later, she has infused her work with what she studied at Goddard about how people and businesses can change for the better through re-storying their lives.

Her work was catalyzed by 9/11, which happened less than a month after her first Goddard residency. Back home in New Jersey, she immediately joined ArtistCares. She was soon traveling to New York City and Washington, D.C. to train people who did body work, martial arts, painting and other arts on how to integrate writing into their work, and from the writing, move through some of the trauma from 9/11.

Since Hyater-Adams' graduation, it's no wonder that she went on to found Renaissance Muse, which uses the power of words for wellness, healing, personal growth and a creative voice. She has also developed a Transformative Narrative Coaching training program, influenced by her many years doing professional coaching and her TLA studies, to be launched in June of '09. She is also offering a Foundations of Transformative Narrative Coaching as an introductory program with NTL for the Applied Behavioral Sciences. This program will train professionals who coach or advise leaders in hospitals, non-profits, and businesses to help them examine, affirm and/or revise the stories that guide their lives (Read more about this.)

“This is all founded on TLA – on how words transform people – and on the work I've done with change management programs in my career and academic life,” Hyater-Adams explains. It's also related to her consulting, and workshop facilitation, particularly in communities of color.

“The women of color who have attended my writing workshops tend to be middle class women who are successful in their own lives, but who have been secretly silenced in lots of ways,” Hyater-Adams says, explaining that some have been silenced through physical, mental and sexual abuse, some from low self-esteem and invisibility. “Many communities of color still feel that therapy is a huge taboo....You don't go outside of your faith to deal with your problems. Creating this space through TLA – to use art to transcend experience – is what the writing workshops and coaching methods I use is about. Coaching is not therapy, but a way to look at restorying your experience – what new story you can create that breaks the old story you held.”

All of it leads Hyater-Adams to continue her work as a social change agent, one person, one group, one story at a time.

Transformative Narrative Portrait Workshop February 27- 28, 2009, Philadelphia, PA

Francis Charet: Consciousness Studies and Pilgrimages to India

2008-11-25T07:47:00.000-08:00

Francis Charet , a faculty member in Goddard's Individualized MA (IMA), and BA programs, walks his talk, even if that means long treks to various ashrams in India. As founder of the Consciousness Studies Concentration in the IMA program, Charet knows the importance not just of expansive consciousness, but expansive cultural consciousness, enhanced by immersion in other cultures and spiritual traditions.

During the last year, Charet went to India twice, first in January of '08 for a conference on spirituality and psychology which Goddard College sponsored. After the conference, he traveled to the Rishikesh, the yoga capital of India, where he wandered, scouted out pilgrimage points and ashrams, and did a lot of yoga and meditation. While visiting the ashram of one of his teachers, the late Neem Karoli Baba, he met an elder, who, upon hearing Charet's Indian name of Vidura, told Charet of the Vidura Kutir (hermitage). "You must go there," the elder said. So Charet visited his namesake, where he was welcomed with open arms. Returning to India in September, Charet visited the Shivananda Ashram in Northern India along with other communities, all of which deepened spiritual practices, initially sparked by six months he spent in India in 1972.

"It reconnected me to some of the very important influences in my personal life that became part of my own teaching and research and academic work, and it was largely a rejuvenation, like going back to the holy land," Charet says. "Experiential learning for Consciousness Studies and this degree involves an engaged practice, and this arises out of the Goddard pedagogy in the program itself, but it also reflects what I felt so much in my own life. Your learning is grounded in experience." Charet has mentored students ground their MA studies in practices such as meditation, Kabbalah, chanting, dreamwork, memoir as spiritual exploration, Buddhist mindfulness practice, and shamanism.

Charet's main practice these days is yoga, which he rises early to do daily from colder climes -- his home in Montreal. He explains it's not just the physical exercise, but the spiritual practice of yoga. "It connects you to deeper resources and allows you to express this in your interactions with others, and it informs the work you do, which is, in my case, teaching. It opens you to a wider reality -- the Obama thing of "Yes, we can," there is hope, there are possibilities, the universe does cooperate even though sometimes we have grave doubts about that. I think connecting with these traditions when the connection is authentic can help bolster and give us the help we need in our lives, which are so driven by activity," he says."It also makes you calm," he adds while laughing.

See Consciousness Studies resources.

Larry Greer: A Calling for Death and Dying

2008-11-14T13:32:00.000-08:00

When Larry Greer, a building contractor in Maine, first received a Goddard postcard in the mail, he ignored it, thinking there was no reason for him to finish his bachelor's degree. But then a little magic and his wife, Peggy, intervened, and the next thing he knew, he and Peggy were driving to the college to learn about the programs offered. When he saw the sign that said, "Goddard College," he started crying without having any idea why. "If you told me then what would happen, I would have laughed in your face. No way would this lead to me holding the hand of someone who's dying," Greer said.

Fast forward almost a decade, and you can find Greer, now an ordained Interfaith minister, who specializes in death and dying, educating groups of ministers all over Maine on how to help parishioners come to terms with death. He completed his BA and his MA at Goddard, both degrees bringing him deeper into end-of-life studies. During his MA degree, he also developed a curriculum to help pastors as well as the general public cultivate greater awareness about death and dying in their lives and communities. He gives talks to medical professionals, including University of Maine nursing students, and Maine Medical Center doctors on the spirituality of death. Recently, he started leading workshops, based on Stephen Levine's ground-breaking book, A Year to Live, to three groups that include people as young as 20 and as old as 70 to explore issues such as unfinished business, forgiveness, and what people want in terms of disposal of the body.

His main job as an interfaith minister contracted with a local hospital in Scarborough, ME, to provide spiritual care for their patients brings him to nursing and assisted living facilities, homes, and hospitals. His work doesn't just inspire people; it brings them to his door. He tells the recent story of sitting down to dinner with his kids and grandkids when someone knocked at the door, and said, "My friend is dying." He looked at his family, who completely support his work, and they told him he had to go.

His work and calling are one and the same. "There is that piece, the call, and if don't answer it, it becomes a monologue, and not a dialogue." He's answered the call that came to him through a postcard in the mail, and it turned out to an extensive dialogue that provides others ways to engage with the biggest questions of their lives.

Pictures: Larry at home in Alfred, ME., and the studio where he gives some of his workshops. You can also contact Larry at LarryGreer@roadrunner.com directly to arrange talks or workshops.

Katt Lissard & the Winter/Summer Institute: Changing the World Through Theatre

2008-10-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

Katt Lissard, IMA faculty member, believes theatre can be an effective vehicle for social change, especially when it comes to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2006, along with colleagues from the U.S., U.K., South Africa and Lesotho she founded the Winter/Summer Institute in Theatre for Development or WSI (http://www.maketheatre.org/). WSI is a multi-cultural, multi-national project that brings together student performers and faculty facilitators from three continents to create collaborative theatre focused on HIV/AIDS. The roots of the Winter/ Summer Institute project are in the Fulbright Lissard received as a Goddard faculty member in 2004. She spent most of 2005 in Lesotho, teaching in the Theatre Unit at the National University of Lesotho (NUL), directing and producing shows, and researching the "theatrical response" to HIV.

By any measure, the Winter/Summer Institute has been successful beyond the co-founders dreams. After WSI worked to create collaborative theatre with rural villagers in the Malealea Valley in 2006, the villagers decided to form their own theatre group, which they call Khalemang Bohlasoa (Eradicate Negligence). They’ve been performing issue-based theatre for their rural mountain communities ever since, and joined with WSI again this past July to create a new performance for the 08 Festival. Student performers from each of the participating countries/universities have also continued the work of the Institute in the intervening periods between residencies in Africa. "The National University students are amazing," Lissard says. "Once the rest of us left in 2006, they recreated the show we'd made together, filling in all the now-missing foreign actors with other NUL student performers, and then proceeded to do the show almost until we reconvened in Lesotho this June (2008). They took that show all over the place, including to festivals in Botswana and Zimbabwe. A performance they did in Lesotho in 2007 for National AIDS Day prompted a call by the government for a renewed commitment to the battle against the virus!"

Lissard continues to work with students in New York at Empire State College, SUNY with Prof. Lucy Winner, a WSI co-founder and colleague there; and to collaborate with students and faculty at Wits in Johannesburg and the National University in Lesotho. She explains, "The other really important part of WSI is what happens to the student performers from every culture involved in the program - not just those from South Africa or Lesotho, but from New York, too. They're transformed when they do things they didn't think they could do or that they never imagined themselves doing. Former WSIers have been engaged in some remarkable endeavors - from creating a project for urban garbage pickers in Argentina, to running a youth program in the Bronx, to starting a school in Lesotho. WSI seems to encourage a level of self-esteem and confidence along with a desire to build and create projects that serve community."

The Winter/Summer Institute is an ongoing project. WSI will offer a weekend residency in New York City March 6th-8th, 2009. See WSI's website for more info.

PHOTOS - Top: Katt Lissard in Johannesburg in 2007 with WSI 06 student performers Kim Hess and Ditchaba Lekaoto; Middle: WSI performers and village actors in procession to the 2008 WSI-Malealea Festival performance site; Bottom: Over 600 villagers from the Malealea Valley attended the WSI-Malealea Festival in July 2008.

Welcome to Worlds of Change

2008-10-13T16:04:00.000-07:00

We bring you this blog to share stories of change and changers, stories that make a big difference in a life, a community, even our culture at large, stories we've witnessed in the Individualized MA program's students, alumni and faculty. Reading such stories can foster hope, give us ideas for our own work or studies, illuminate projects and arts that engender positive change, and spark in us more of story we're meant to live.

We also share these stories because each one is a ripple of change, catalyzed by focused inquiry, interdisciplinary study, engaged practice, innovative work, and deep reflection. Whether the project is a study of pilgrimage as a pathway to social change, political organizing to prevent environmental devastation, or writing workshops to help a previously silenced community find its collective voice, each project fully embodies one person's vision for living with greater purpose. Most of all, we share these stories because they're too important to keep to ourselves.

Please feel free to share your stories and responses as you read.

Photos: To right: IMA graduates from fall 2006, from left, clockwise, Sue-Ann Commissiong, Krystina Graves, Larry Greer, Patricia Boissevain, Cynthia Crisel, and Hillary Smith; to left: IMA faculty members, including -- from left-- Francis Charet, Ruth Farmer (program director), Ralph Lutts, Ellie Epp, Katt Lissard, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.