Clare Consultation, LLCJust Listen
Yesterday I came home, grabbed the blue nylon bag I use for light trips to the grocery store, and took off in search of … well … Rice Dream. Really – borderline hippie; soy, dairy and gluten free. It’s my latest answer to the love song of my sweetest tooth. To walk to the grocery store, I take the back steps and follow the sidewalk around to the front of the house. … Read More
We are Different & We are the Same: Voting from Here
The United States is voting. Or at least that’s an option for the next four days. Because of the way my mind works…I’ve been thinking about that. Voting. In the past 48 hours or so I’ve been in more-than-passing conversations with people – all American citizens – who, in the history of our country would not have been eligible to vote. That means they were variously (or in some combination) immigrants, women,… Read More
Gay Teen Suicide: Yes, Listening is a Matter of Life or Death
I’m from Texas. I haven’t lived there for 22 years, but I am from Texas. And I love very much about the State. There are also things – particularly things political, educational and environmental that get me a little crazy about my homeland. Then this week I found a you tube video that made me so very proud to be from Texas – proud of the elected member of the Fort Worth… Read More
Generations of the Social Network
I’m on Facebook. So is EX:Change. This is all because I have a daughter in her early 20s. She lives across the pond – far away from Oregon. I, of course, want to keep up in all the ways that work for her. Mostly we Skype, but FB, her I-phone, a smattering of e-mail and (very occasionally) the international postal network all come into play. Given my generation, being on Facebook may… Read More
Columbus Day: Do You Know Where You Are?
Yesterday I sat again across a small table from Dr. Dapo, one of the 100 voices of EX:Change (EX:C blog, “What’s in a Name?” 4-13-2010). We had seen one another on Multnomah Ave. several weeks earlier. I was walking fast toward the Max Station and Dapo was driving in the opposite direction. He honked and we stopped traffic for long enough to promise to find yesterday’s tea and coffee. Dapo (as he… Read More
What the Land Holds Up
Just home to Portland from a week in the Texas Hillcountry. I did lots of my growing up on the land that stretches out either side of the Guadalupe River. This week I returned to that river and those hills to see friends I hadn’t seen since all of us were 15 years old. That’s a long time. There’s a word used to describe this aspect of human systems – equifinality (thanks… Read More
“It says ‘Islam'”
I met Cheri Carter on February 11, 2009 in a coffee shop in Tucson, AZ. We were seated in the two cushiest chairs in the place, both hooked up to the shop’s wifi. She looked to me to be a white woman in her 60’s, carefully dressed, of slight build and great earrings. At one point, still a stranger, she leaned over to ask me something about my laptop. It was the… Read More
Hearing : Listening as Ground-Zero-Mosque : Islamic Community Center
The EX:Change is about listening across differences. Differences in political views. Differences in values. Differences in social circumstances due to income, education, ethnicity, personal relationships, physical ability, age. Beyond hearing what people have to say, it is about listening to get a sense of how life looks from another person’s perspective. We call this communication and it tends to be used to support understanding, cooperation, strong and generative community…stuff like that. The… Read More
8-9-10 — Right on Time
My friend, Jessica, is training for a half marathon. She’s never really been a runner before. Lately her body has gone through a vast transformation. A tall woman weighing in around 200, she’s nearing half her former size. That’s living change. Jessica is training for a half marathon because she can. Her body is ready for something like that. Her primary goal is not to lose more weight. In fact, Jessica is… Read More
Smarter Than We Think We Are
Way smarter than most media and elected officials give us credit. Way! I’ve been spending the past weeks looking hard for ways to get the attention of professionals engaged in the publishing industry in our country. It is, for sure, a culture all its own. As with any culture, there are conventions. There is jargon and there are protocols for what represents communication worth attending to. All of these, at least in… Read More