Clare Consultation, LLCBackward Thinking
Since 1996, I’ve included a suggestion in several syllabi for graduate courses. Each of the courses was required in the curriculum of students preparing as social science practitioners: therapists, educators, public administrators. Each had significant content drawn from scientific knowledge bases. And, because I was teaching them, each had significant content devoted to artistry. It’s been three decades since I made the decision to become an academic and devote my work life… Read More
February 1 – Re-imagining Underway
February. The love month. The month my skin has historically hit its most green (being of “olive” complexion – or so I’ve been told). The shrimpy month perhaps made so out of some vague attempt compensate the rutheless grind mid-winter in the northern hemisphere can present whether rainy in Portland, sub-zero in eastern Montana or, this year, astonishingly dry in California and wildly cold where my Mama lives in Georgia. It was February, 2009… Read More
American Work from the Ground Up
Labor Day is the American holiday designated to honor workers. Historically, the day arises from the American Labor Movement in the late 1800’s. The tradition continues — you likely noticed it last weekend – as a way of honoring the contributions of American workers to the health and wellbeing of our country. Also vital to the country’s emergence and continuing welfare is American Wilderness – a presence, a natural fact, that has… Read More
Human Parades: A Sampling (…read to the bottom)
Last Saturday, Portland Oregon had a clustering of human processions. Every year this time the Rose Festival hits its climax with the Grand Floral Parade — the second largest floral parade in the nation next to Pasadena’s Rose Parade on January 1. Typical to Oregon’s modesty and as true to its chutzpah, the Rose Festival was established a mere 17 years after the first parade in Pasadena way back in the first… Read More
DIY Fashion Statement
So, one of the features of being human is having a body. You may have noticed. Related to that is necessity, both climactic and social, of finding ways to cover, to clothe. The practical act of clothing keeps people from freezing in winter and can provide a bit of cooling in the heat of summer. The social act if covering the body may most joyously take on artistry with adornment being a… Read More
900 miles later
Moonrise over Montana – gibbous pearl thumbtack secured like the answer to a question phrased in clear blue. Hills role golden here. Like a pod of humpback whales they ease untroubled beneath blushing snowcaps.