Merry Christmas to All

…and to All a Good Night. With gratitude and finest possible wishes to each of you ~ MC –Red Lodge, MT

<500 words to honor our Elder, Nelson Mandela

This week I had the distinctly privileged new millennium opportunity to sit in a microbrewery with a web design specialist.  “Websites are, at best, for linking good minds in support of human community and the planet we humans share.”  I knew I liked her.  Somewhere in the mix I asked about blog length (you who follow EX:Change know mine can be lloonngg).  She said, “Max 500 words.”  I was impressed.  I’m giving… Read More

Neuroplasticity and Gratitude

I was never much of a fan of talk about the biological bases of behavior.  Already in the mid 80’s, there were innovative graduate programs popping up to explore brain-based treatments more nuanced than conventional treatments like ECT, Labotomy and psychotropic medication. Nonetheless, I remained decidedly a proponent of the nurture side of things.  This bias came in large part from working with kids in schools and seeing the folly, and really… Read More

“He knows everyone in business.”

Every word was about kindness, about humility, or generosity of the most precious kind:  of time and attention, of friendship and guidance, of wisdom.  Last Thursday night, a man well into his 80’s retired … again.  This time from a talent and career management firm called Right Management. I still don’t know enough about this man, Jack Stowell.  My friend, Terry OConnor said, “Come as my guest.  Jack wants to meet you.” … Read More

On Defending the Dream until it is Made Real

I am writing this week to remind myself and anyone who might read here that the passage of time does not make the circumstances of last week’s blog any less immediate – any less critical than they were.  Racism and all other forms of social oppression are not gone.  The violence – physical, emotional, intellectual, physical – continues daily.  Please listen to this.  Linten in yourself.  Listen in the experiences and profound… Read More

Then Ernie Leans on Bert’s Shoulder while They Watch the News

So, I want to go back to last week’s Supreme Court decisions –back to the cover of the New Yorker  and the mixed reaction – from effusion to raging – it received.  We all know the controversy is less about Bert and Ernie than about the decision of the Supreme Court (or at least 5/9ths of it) to affirm and obviate the unconstitutional nature of that law passed in California amending that… Read More

Day after Memorial Day in Montana

The past few days have, for me, been filled again with Montana.  Specifically the valleys just northeast of the Beartooth/Absaroka range of the Rockies.  Yesterday our country gave an entire day to a remembrance many of us make far more often during the year in honor of the people who have given their lives in service to this country.  On that day I stood in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone, the country’s… Read More

Transition – when change seems like all there is

So this is a photo of transition.  Transition from winter to spring, from dawn to day and, as my photographer friends have taught me, this brief period when the angle of the sun rays relative to the surface of our planet is just so is also a transition they call sweet light.  So here you have it.  Daffodils just past dawn in sweet light on a day in my life when change is… Read More

Awareness is Tattooed and Riding a Harley

In a week of exceptions — a meteorite crashing through an otherwise ordinary Russian sky, a Pope resigning for the first time in 600 years – an unlikely story of a racist street fighter turned modest-but-powerful spiritual teacher beloved by people of all walks of life seems right in line. For context, I’ll tell you about this picture.  This is the sunrise earlier this month over a mountain in southern India.  Surrounding… Read More

“Good Job, Dad” — Change 4 Years Later

“The first step is faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King, Jr “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” Barack Obama Sasha Obama hugged her dad after he took the Presidential Oath of Office yesterday.  “Good job, Dad,” she said.  “I did it,” her father responded. Then today, President Obama stood before… Read More