Does Beauty Hold the World Together?

Lately, every where I turn, I see the tender, gentle, spring world taking shape around me.  In Vermont, spring comes slowly amidst cold days, and gray days like today.  Yet little by little, the earth turns green and the trees and shrubs move from bud to flower to leaf.  We live in an old apple orchard that is now a cloud of pink and white fragile blooms.  In our orchard, we live on a hill overlooking the Scholten Family Farm, 400 organic acres where we watch 80 Dutch Belt cows graze.  The Scholten Family makes Weybridge Cheese for sale in local markets and beyond.  Now, the fields are plowed and the cows are out. As I watch spring unfold, among other things, I have been listening to National Public Radio's weekly broadcast, On Being, where host, Krista Tippett interviews all kinds of people.  Two of my recent favorites are with cellist, Yoyo Ma, Music Happens Between the Notes, and Nobel Prize winning physicist, Frank Wilczek, Why is the World so Beautiful? In some wonderfully connected ways, Yoyo Ma and Frank Wilczek are speaking about the same things.  What we can't see that holds us, curiosity and vulnerability, knowing and not knowing, being present, and that all life is in constant movement and change, while certain fundamental things remain the same.

These ideas remind me so much of Vea Vecchi when she speaks about poetics and aesthetics.  Ever since I have known Vea, she has quoted Gregory Bateson who defines aesthetics as "the pattern that connects."  Rather than being something pretty or pleasing, even though it might include those things, aesthetics points to the fabric of life that holds the world together...the unseen, the seen, the in-betweens, the visible and invisible, the emotions, the sense we make of things, what we are naturally drawn to as humans, and the great mystery of the universe that we inhabit.

What are these "patterns that connect" in the world and inside us?  I think of architect, Christopher Alexander whose research shows that all human beings, when given a choice, will  choose a light filled room rather than a dark one, certain timeless decorative patterns over others, and a wide array of other features.  He wrote about this in his book, A Pattern Language.  Another fascinating aspect of being human that scholar Rhoda Kellogg has researched, shows us that children all over the world, from the beginning of human history, have made marks with sticks in the sand, hands in the mud, pencil on paper in instinctual gestures of circles,  lines, dots and mandalas.  From the time we are very young, we are reaching out to the world to make marks, make patterns and make meaning, to see what we have made reflect back to us who we are in the world.  And then, there are the universal patterns that artist, Sabra Field describes in Cosmic Geometry, repeating patterns in the natural world, microscopic to cosmic, that humans have repeated since the beginning of history, in the man made world in design, art and architecture.

I wrote a blog post several years ago where I quoted some of a TEDx talk that Vea Vecchi gave in Reggio Emilia, Italy.  I quote Vea again here as her words and ideas strongly connect to the themes of this post.  These words seem particularly relevant and meaningful in our world right now .

The atelier (or studio that is not only a central place but also a way of working throughout our schools) has brought many materials and techniques, but also has illuminated a need, not only for children, but for human beings to communicate in a way that rationality and imagination travel together.  We believe in a multiplicity of languages that are integrated and not separated.  We believe that this makes learning and understanding more rich and more complete.  Poetic thought does not separate the imaginative from the cognitive, emotion from the rational, empathy from deep investigation.  It lights up all the senses and perceptions and cultivates an intense relationship with what is all around us.  It constructs thoughts that are not conformist.  And this creates two important elements: solidarity and participation, both of which are the foundation of democracy. To conclude, we believe that identifying and researching beauty and ethics is the indispensible foundation for a livable, sustainable future that everyone speaks about but that seems so difficult to bring about.  It is only with an intelligent heart, with courage and with vision that we can proceed. 

The Mindful Child (and Adult)

This week we have been at the beach on a small island on the west coast of Florida with our family.  As everyone peels off to head homeward and Ashley and I enjoy one more day, we reflect on how grateful we are to have had this time where land meets sea with our sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren to chase waves and sand pipers, fill buckets with sand, and pick up glistening shells with names like Kitten Paws and Angel Wings. There is perhaps no better place than the ocean to draw us into the present. No matter what our age, most of the time, we let go of our preoccupations, the past and the future, our worries.  We are soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the light on the water, the texture of the sand under our feet and the distant horizon where sea meets sky.  We have so enjoyed this time with our sixteen-month-old granddaughter and our four-year-old grandson.  Watching children this age, no matter where, also brings us into the present moment.

As I reflect on our week, two enormous influences in my life come to mind. The first is the Reggio Emilia approach... in this context in particular, learning side-by-side young children while becoming a participant observer in and documenter of their play and learning.  The second influence is mindfulness as taught by Zen monk and master, Thich Nhat Hanh.  These two approaches guide me in my every day life and interactions.

I have loved reading Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia by Vea Vecchi and have returned to it often.  In her book, Vea tells learning stories about following her grandchildren through their early years.  I remember watching Vea with her camera and keen eye, observe children at the Diana School in Reggio Emilia.  I wrote about some of these experiences in Bringing Reggio Emilia Home and in Bringing Learning to Life.

When our sons were 5 and 8, we attended our first retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh in Santa Barbara, California.  Over the years, we have attended several other retreats in Plum Village in France with Thich Nhat Hanh.  These multi-age, international, playful and thoughtful experiences have influenced the way that my family lives in the world.

My nighttime and beach reading collection this week includes A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles, by Thich Nhat Hanh, Sitting Still Like a Frog: Mindfulness Exercises for Kids (and Their Parents) by Eline Snel, and The Mindful Child by Susan Kaiser Greenland.

I heard about these books from my daughter-in-law Caroline, who teaches kindergarten in the Boston Public Schools. She learned about them because this year, the Brookline School Staff Children’s Center, where our grand children attend, is focusing on mindfulness. I highly recommend these books. They will give you background, get you started or add to your understanding and practice.  As Susan Kaiser Greenland writes, mindfulness increases our ability to:

• approach experience with curiosity and an open mind

• calm down when we are angry or upset

• concentrate

• develop compassion, patience, humility, happiness, generosity and equanimity

• live gently and in balance with ourselves, others and our world

This week, our grandson, Asher, who is four today, taught us how to do “finger breathing.” Trace the fingers of one of your hands with a finger of the other hand.  Breathe in as you trace up the finger and out as you trace down the other side.  Do this one way and then back again, taking ten deep in and out breaths.  Just breathe and smile.

Cosmic Geometry

Cosmic Geometry is the name of a suite of prints made by Sabra Field, a 78 year old artist based in Vermont who works with print media.  I first noticed it when it was being installed on the back wall of Wright Theater at Middlebury College as a mural.  Sabra Field is a graduate of Middlebury College and the installation is the result of a student's collaboration with her to transform a blank wall in the back of a building into something inspiring and provocative. The suite of prints represents repeated patterns in the universe from the cellular level to our galaxy and how these universal patterns in the natural world make their way into the man made world, in architecture, in design, and in our thinking.  The patterns are: spiraling as in the galaxy and a sheep horn, scaling as in fish scales or on an artichoke, branching as in river deltas and leaf veins, and bubbling in soap suds or the hexagonal pattern of a honey comb.

In an interview with the artist published in the Times Argus in 2014, we get a view into her creative thinking and process:

“Our ability to see the cosmos has expanded far beyond what we dreamed half a century ago: from inside our DNA to far beyond our galaxy,” she writes in the show’s introduction. “Instead of overwhelming us, we are enchanted to find in these new images a sense of familiarity.”

Field points to the spirals of a fingerprint or fiddlehead fern, the scales found on an artichoke — her favorite vegetable — or along the many fish her late husband Spencer caught.Her kitchen in East Barnard — population 183 — also came in handy for creating model bubble patterns.

“I took dish detergent and made my own suds, then put it between two pieces of plexiglass.” Why? Because astrophysicists believe the intersection of galaxies exhibit a similar structure. The more Field studies, the more she believes in order over chaos.

“Everything is part of everything, All these phenomena take place at an enormous range of scale, but they do something for me,” the artist says. “The ancient Greeks and the contemporary art world are not that far apart. We’re talking the same language.”

We wanted to have this suite hanging in our house as the idea and the reality of Sabra Field's work is compelling and inspiring.  If you want to see it or her other prints or purchase them go to her website.  We all see patterns everywhere that are living inside of us, part of our cellular structure, and appear in the natural world near and far.  That is indeed, a miracle and a mystery including math, biology, chemistry, art, design, architecture, astro physics and all.  If you come to Middlebury, drive up to campus and find Wright Theater.  Don't miss Cosmic Geometry.

Exploring Identity at Buckingham Browne & Nichols

The work that the early childhood through second grade students, teachers and administrators have done during the 2015-2016 year at Buckingham Browne & Nichols Lower School is beautiful and exemplary. If you live in the Boston area, we highly recommend that you give a call and arrange to stop by and view the gallery that includes identity projects that all of the classes have engaged in, pre school (Beginners) through second grade.  If you can't go by, go here to view a video walk through of the gallery.

As part of the introduction to the gallery, teachers write:

This project demonstrates that identity is the space from which deep learning emerges. It is through this powerful sense of knowing and being known that our best selves emerge.  These are the selves that are not afraid to question, to innovate, to advocate, and to imagine.  These are the selves that take risks, safe in the knowledge that their community will catch them and carry them through the process. These are the selves who are not afraid to ask, "What might be possible?" 

This morning, we stopped by to see the gallery installed.  The work is varied, thoughtful, compelling and engaging.  The gallery includes graphic work, reflective writing, poetry, collage, painting, multiple drafts and finished pieces. We feel at once so proud of all the teachers and students and in awe of what they have accomplished.  Growth, willingness, perseverance and hard work on the part of each and every member of this community has made this work possible and now visible for all of us.  It is thrilling to see and feel the momentum and energy that takes over when teachers see what is possible and a new way of teaching and learning ignites and begins to take the lead.  It seems unstoppable and contagious.

May we all be uplifted when student voice rings true in many different forms, when students are inspired and supported to do their very best work for an authentic audience, and when we all learn from the perspectives and wisdom our youngest citizens.

What Do You Care About and Why?

This year at Middlebury College, on several Fridays every semester, you can go have lunch and listen to a conversation where one person, an alum, a faculty member or a student, speaks about what he or she cares about and why. This event is sponsored by the Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Apparently, this kind of thing happens also at Yale and Stanford and other colleges and universities. Last November,  I attended one of these Reflection Fridays, as they are called, to hear Laurie Patton, the new president of Middlebury College. I have been thinking about her responses ever since because her voice, her presence and her stories completely captured my imagination.

Here is what she said.

What matters to me and why.

The way I like to think about that question is: "What is my question?"

What is the one question that I’ll never be able to answer and that I will never get tired of asking.

I’d like to pose that to all of us.

We are all endlessly curious about something and we never get tired of being curious about it.

Every single one of us has that place of endless fascination and curiosity and joy.

It is not: "What is your passion?" though it could be part of that.

It is not, "What do you love the most?"

It is not is your identity. It’s none of those things.

It is what is the question that you keep asking and it always needs to end with a question mark.

For me, it is: “What is the nature of the poet in society?” That is the only thing I care about, actually.

I love this idea so much.  Of course, I started thinking about what my question would be right away.  I am still not sure why this seems so different than stating what you care about in a declarative sentence, but it is completely different.  Having this kind of question as a guide means that you are always a researcher, always looking for deeper meaning, always wondering, always seeking relationships and connections.  You are part of a process, an unfolding, a journey.

With students and teachers in schools we often refer to Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings which come from Grant Wiggins and his theories and frameworks for Understanding by Design.  This idea of searching for and articulating a Life Question puts us in direct relationship to these big ideas as Grant Wiggins calls them.

Laurie Patton went on to say:

I carry books around with me by Adrienne Rich and others, people who write about the role of the poet in society.  I carry them in my bag so I can always go back to them.  I learned some tough languages, Sanskrit and Gaelic because I had to understand the poetry of those languages. 

At a certain point, I realized that part of this for me is wanting everyone to find their voice.  The more I did academic administration and I loved it and people loved the way that I did it, I thought, "Why is this working so well?" And the reason is that what is so joyful about doing administration well is helping people come to voice, helping things that aren’t visible become more visible, and helping people speak whatever that truth is even if it is hard for others to hear.

And building a world, even if it is a small world, where we are better at it every day, even though we are never going to be really good at it because it is so hard, is so important.

Everything that I do is related to helping people come to voice and come to voice in the most poetic way possible. I don’t mean help them write great poetry, though some people can do that. Poetry is about seeing something new and juxtaposing two things together that are not usually together, that is what good metaphor is and there are various cognitive theories about that. What I love about good metaphor is that it allows you to hold difference in tension in a way that maintains relationship.

What I mean by coming to poetic voice… is that it allows for the deepest and newest meaning in our lives to emerge.

I am still working on my question and I will write about that in a future blog post.  In the meantime, think about your question. What matters to you and why and how does that take the form of an endlessly fascinating, always leading you on, always nourishing and inspiring, kind of question?

You can hear Laurie Patton in conversation with John Isham during this Reflection Friday here.