This journal, started in the spring of 2019, is where I am exploring different ideas, some of which may not have yet to find their place within a tapestry of patterns. They are concepts that I am beginning to explore – emerging and unfolding.
The formless becoming formed.
Here we sense an important experiment that has extended beyond our original intention, one that explores a potential glimpsed by Doug Engelbart as we venture into "thought vectors" in interconnected "concept spaces", a vision originally inspired by Vannevar Bush's article As We May Think.
Pattern 253 Pattern 253, "Things from your Life", is the very last pattern of Chris Alexander's Pattern Language for architecture.
Walled Garden A walled garden] is designed to protect against wind and frost. A place that is protected. Safe.
Abstracting Toward Prime As we think about complexity, such as when we dive into a deeper understanding of Tangled Layered Networks we can become overwhelmed by our inability to fully, completely understand. We just can't hold that much detail in our head, leaving us stuck in the mud of stasis.
Epochs of Wisdom We sense that this is important work that we are doing. One that is challenging us to think anew. Perhaps work that might have implications beyond us.
Into the Forest Here, in the Pacific Northwest, we are tree people. Either by birth or by choice.
Model in People's Heads We ponder David Wood's words: "Everything below the line of representation is a model in people's heads."
Emergent Law of Three We talk about the Law of Three, that which holds a Prime Pattern and forms Triviums.
Unbounded Emergence It has been said that matter simply exists as a thin experiential crust on unbounded emergence, that which is filled with zero point energy.
Mind Meld In our first adventure, _The Dayton Experiment_, we dove deep into the Agile experience of joy, seeking to understand its essence and role in both the story of Agile and its potential to transform the learning experience in our schools. Discovering, in this journey, the importance of Joyful Sandboxes.
Monadic Mind When Ward explained to me his experience of pair programming with Kent, something clicked inside of me. A recognition of an experience deep inside of me. A truth I knew.
Questions that Intrigue As we ponder Tempo Interruptions, questions begin to surface:
Third Space The concept of "third space" was introduced by Harvard professor, Homi Bhabha in his attempts to grapple with the cultural tension created by colonialism.
Spatial Trialectics Joint Cognitive Whiteboard explores the challenge of creating when a mental map is missing.
Intrinsic Good We sense the importance of that which we call "good".
Shared Wonderment We wonder about wonderment. The space of the imagination. A place we can share with others.
Patterns of Meaning We continue to ponder how meaning manifests. We suspect that meaning manifests from the observation of emergent patterns of behavior.
Trialectical Synthesis Trialectical sythesis is the simultaneous melding of multiple pieces of information, each in a spatial relationship with the others, to gain a new understanding.
Blanket of Thought We begin to explore Free Energy Principle. We sense great importance here.
Dancing Emergence We believe that patterns are perceived when they are emergent. Patterns of behavior. Patterns of meaning.
Wonderment We continue to wander in wonderment through Fristen's ecotone. A place he has defined, where the interior and the exterior intertwine, driving creation, the negentropic nature of organic matter.
A New Synthesis We begin to explore the potential of a new Trialectical Synthesis. One that may emerge from the space created between three important theoretical paradigms:
Cultivating Connectome In a recent study from Harvard, neuroscientists identified the correlation between highly creative work and the utilization of all three primary networks in the brain: the default network, the executive network and the salience network. The Whole Mind.
Three States We explore our three states of learning. Of creating. With intention.
Understanding Complexity We utilize what is called 'active inference' to engage with an external state through action. This external state is similar to what Woods refers to as states 'below the line of reference' when looking at complex systems in the theory of Graceful Extensibility.
The Paradox of Stress I think about stress as I run up Mt. Tabor. I push my body. It sometimes hurts. Often, I start to feel winded. It is not a comfortable place.
Overlapping Blankets With Markov Blankets we begin to find convergence between the ideas of Piaget, Koestler and others. Indeed, in these overlaps, Third Spaces are created, places where adaptive creativity flows.
Radical Premise of Worth We rank worth. Worth of each other. Not intentionally, but implicit of how we think of each other. This ranking underpins social order.
Hyperthought What is that sense of the 'mind meld' that happens with pair programming? How might that experience relate to the sense of a singularity from which infinite multitudes coexist, that which Borges explored in The Aleph?
Emergent Patterns There is growing evidence that everything in our cosmos is connected by aligning forces. Patterns that are not yet understood.
Coleridge's Dream In an opium infused sleep, Coleridge dreamed. He dreamed of a place far away, both in space and time. A place of splendor. Paradise.
Agile's Delight I recently came upon this posting by Jeff Sutherland in which he described the origins of the Agile Manifesto
Emergent Consciousness If we are to understand Friston's Free Energy Principle, all living organism makes meaning, down to the cellular level. It is by making meaning – sensing surprise, interpreting, and then acting, a Learning Cycles – that they adapt and survive.
Feeling Patterns As we explore using AR imaging to render data 3 dimensionally, we think about the viewers of this data. How might a team look at this data together to reveal areas of potential exploration?
Fence after Fence Alan Kay's Turing Award Lecture ends with a demo is a fascinating exploration of object oriented programming, a fulfillment of his expression that "everything is an object."
Creative Potential The Agile Mindset unleashed new creative potential, one the was realized through rapid Learning Cycles.
Metanoietic Consciousness We have been searching for a name – a name that we could use to claim meaning around an understanding. An understanding of a new way of thinking – a new consciousness, that which we now call _metanoietic consciousness_.
Crafting Wholeness Possibilities begin with the commitment to craft that which is beautiful, that which is whole. Day after day, crafting wholeness. Wholeness that is good. Wholeness that might delight – one that opens the door to a greater emergent wholeness that might manifest and transform.
Opening the Door As we imagine opening the door to a new way of thinking, a new consciousness, we can't expect known words to help us. For our known words are understood with our existing way of thinking.
The Handoff I sense the time of the handoff is quickly approaching.
Another Emergence It is now time to explore emergence once again. The book is done – one that emerged over the last two years. The experiment in Dayton is done, one that emerged over five years.
Fractal Patterns At the forefront of physics is the exploration of emergence. Emergence from that which we know as the nothingness of dark energy, dark matter – that which constitutes more than 95% of the universe.
Adaptive Urgency We adapt because we must in order to survive. Without that urgency, we become complacent, flaccid. This urgency lies at the center of all vital organisms, that matter which evolves. It is from this urgency, that new consciousness emerges.
MVP Redefined We challenged ourselves to create what could be called a "minimum viable pattern" – an MVP – that held the essential elements, but not the full experience. By creating this language we could launch others quickly.
Fractal Attractors We are beginning to explore the nature of fractal attractors, a type of attractor referred to as a strange attractors. We sense something important here.
Biotic Energy Benjamin Moore coined the term to describe the vital energy found within an ecosystem. These systems are dynamic and, what we now know, are chaotic, in nature, refuting the deterministic linearity of Newtonian models.
Looking over the Horizon It is with curiosity that we are inspired to look beyond that which we know. To look over the horizon.
Deeper into Biotope We sense that it is important to explore the underlying nature of the wiki as part of this discovery process. Recognizing the inherent organic nature of this experience, we seek guidance from paradigms used to describe complex ecological systems.
Understanding Whitehead By nature, the Cartesian Mindset is reductionist and deterministic. It is also linear. We are beginning to understand the nature of a non-linear mindset, one that creates a new consciousness.
Whitehead Collection As we seek to understand Whitehead, we begin to collect artifacts – what he might call "stubborn facts" – that might illuminate his philosophy.
Guiding Wisdom We think about the nature of patterns. From Alexander we have embraced the paradigm of pattern languages – recognizing that this paradigm is likely rooted back in the pattern books of Downing, a link through Scully.
Light on the Hills I left New Haven, that citadel committed to knowledge. I left New Haven and Yale in my junior year yearning to know something more. I ended up in a valley, a world unto itself, down a road miles from Ardara, the nearest town in Donegal, Ireland.
Meaning Emerging I would like to suggest that there is another dimension of wiki that is often overlooked: it provides an opportunity to create meaning in a new way.
More than a Delusion Here is a recent response about the nature of the wiki, a discussion sparked by an essay by Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen: How can we develop transformative tools for thought?
Divine Cadence We speak of the divine: that which cannot be known. We use the word knowing the discomfort, a similar discomfort when we use the word 'sprit' or 'sacred' as in sacred intention.
Everything is a Field As we explore Whitehead, we do so with an understanding of particle physics that has extended beyond his time.
Following Curiosity We understand that real learning, deep learning, begins with curiosity. We, as _homo sapiens_, are by nature curious creatures.
Whitehead's Prime We are always looking for prime patterns. Sensing these patterns allows us to understand complexity in a way that we can share the richness of this meaning with others. And so it is with Whitehead.
Inflection Point The inflection point is that point where a curve changes from being concave to convex.
At the Sharp End We are moving ahead with our first experiment of the Awesome Nerds. This experiment is launching with a high degree of messiness. We are looking to understand how teachers might use key aspects of the Dayton Practice.
Whitehead Connected Recently John Bywater opened the door to Whitehead. That feels like the missing key that has unlocked much of which I have sought to understand as I have tried to share the essence of agile with others, particularly those seeking to reimagine education.
Insight of Use Andy Matuschak has been exploring new tools for writing to support new models of thought.
Text as Symbols Recently Ward shared in Riot a page of references to me that he wanted to share with Frode Hegland. That began an exploration.
Importance of Wholeness I reflect on Andy's notes and Frode's tools. They are all fascinating and hold important insight.
Resolving into Wholeness We continue to explore the different aspects of wholeness.
Mandala Moment In the recent demo for the Down Under DIG, where we experimented with the DIG framework with a group of Australian educators, Penny shared her creation: a mandala.
Only a Learner I profess no expertise. I profess no superior capacity to understand. I am simply willing to experience and, from that experience, to learn.
Reflecting on 1995 We reflect on 1995 – 25 years in the past. Recently, there have been gatherings organized to celebrate the emergence of the wiki that year. But there are no celebrations slated to celebrate the other important emergence of that year, Episodes.
Emergent Self In the recent demo day for the Woodcrest DIG, Penny revealed that this learning experience allowed her to understand a part of her that she was interested in exploring further – an artistic side.
Integrative Learning We begin to ponder the potential of a new learning pedagogy emerging from this experience of the DIG, one that might blend together the direct instruction with active learning pedagogies such as inquiry-based and project-based learning.
False Dichotomy We have noticed that there is a long-standing debate in education that underpins many discussions. This debate seeks to define the pedagogical model that is best suited for teaching our students.
Story Arc We are beginning to see the story arc that leads us from Whitehead to Friston that informs a deeper understanding of the agile mindset.
Friston's Language Much like we had to grapple with Whitehead's language, we must grapple with Friston's.
A New Path of Discovery There are moments on a journey when a door is opened and a new garden of potential discovery is revealed. A place to wander, a place to be surprised, a place to eventually find new meaning – a rich meaning waiting to emerge.
Creative Metasynthesis We seek true nature. With this lens we ponder type theory wondering if this theory unlocks a powerful understanding that underpins a new way of thinking, a new consciousness.
Theoretical Speculation In Leopold Kroneck's challenge of Cantor’s set theory, he laid the foundation for ‘intuitionism’ that led to Russell’s radical type theory.
Moments of Genius We are curious about the moments of insight that flow through us as we sit uncomfortable in spaces of unknowing.
Sense of Wholeness Satisfaction is desired – a wholeness achieved that allows us to sit back and find the calm of completeness, an order, a balance.
Intelligence Amplification The early computer visionaries saw that real promise of computers not in Artificial Intelligence (AI), but in Intelligence Amplification (IA).
Three Minds As we introduce the experience of the agile mindset to educators, we are beginning to speak with more clarity about the thee minds: the feeling mind, the thinking mind, and the sensing mind.
That Which Emerges Christopher Alexander defines 15 properties that he felt are the essential elements for the emergence of organic order – those that underpin all emergence.
Dilution and Distillation We ponder agile from the past and agile to the future. We sense that as agile practices became more widely adopted and profited from, something important has been diluted and, while not lost, often obscured.
Emergent Moment In a moment, a thought appears. It emerges from a place unknown, in a space where we have grappled to find meaning in a monadic vortex.
Penny's Trivium The other day we explored Penny's role leading the cultural transformation in her school. As I listened to her, a found common themes emerging and wondered if they might form a trivium that might help guide this journey.
White Space We continue to ponder the importance of 'white space', that space of potential.
Creativity Imagined We have been intrigued by Whitehead's coining of the word 'creativity'.
The Space of Emergence There are two important concepts of Taoism that help shed light on Whitehead: taiji and wuji.
Individual and Collective Emergence We are noticing that there are two spaces of emergence in the creative cycle.
A Year to Remember 1927 was an important year.
Walking into Emergence We sense that this journey is not just a walk into the unknown, but a knowing walk into emergence.
Entering a P-zone We are grappling with finding new language around this experience of awakened wonder that happens during a DIG.
Escape Velocity We might think of schools as starships that have been in the orbit of a star that has died and is now a black hole that threatens to suck them in.
Emergent Order The premise of emergent order – that which is found in nature – inspired Christopher Alexander's work in the latter part of his career.
From Nouns to Verbs As we move forward in our discovery process of emergent order, we recognize the importance of seeking patterns in movement.
Unlocking the Quantum Mind We enter into the learning journeys we call DIGs with a guiding intention to awaken wonder.
Hidden Potential We begin to ponder that which we are calling _hidden potential_.
Toward a New Ontology We acknowledge that what we are exploring is more than a 'mindset'. Indeed, it is more than a 'consciousness'. It is, in fact, a new understanding of being, the very nature of reality.
Systems of Creative Co-creation As we see the learning framework of DIGs – which we beginning to recognize as a more universal process framework – supercharge the intention of inquiry-based learning, we are begin to sense the possibility of new complex systems emerging, that which we now are calling _systems of creative co-creation_.
Cultivating the Garden Vital and adapting complex systems are organic in nature. But the dynamics in these systems are intricate and relationships are often not directly visible.
Communities of Learning We begin to explore the concept of _communities of learning_ as we seek to better understand DIGs.
Hidden Wonders David mentioned that learning to lead DIGs keeps opening new doors of discovery for him, doors that lead to deeper insight.
Sensing the Eddies As we listen to the stories, we sense the flow of a river – a river of their story.
Metaphors of Meaning We are beginning to appreciate the power of metaphors as we guide others in these experiences of awakening.
Understanding Bohm We sense that there is great import in understanding David Bohm, that theoretical physicist who reimagined quantum physics and the very nature of reality.
Inflecting the Narrative There are two interesting moments in the journey of a wave: the moment that it is forced to return back to its guiding baseline and the moment that it crosses that baseline.
Building Adaptive Capacity We are beginning to recognize how the DIG framework is helping teams build Adaptive Capacity.
Culture of Wonder As we reimagine education we recognize the this education must flow from a new culture of learning.
Formless and the Formed David Bohm sought to understand an underlying reality that held, as one, 'energy', 'matter', and 'meaning'.
Emergent Thinking We have been exploring the third leg of a new Prime Pattern, one that is seeking to hold a deeper meaning into the nature of the _movement_ of thought.
Sensing the Ridgepole Emergence happens as harmonics resonate into a moment – a process enabled by a intention. We recognize this intention as a 'ridgepole' that guides creative manifestation.
Walking into Wonder How might we continue to walk into wonder together in a way that allows surprising emergence?
Extended Mind As we continue to walk into the wiki experiment, we began to explore a thesis put forth by Andy Clark and David Chalmers in _The Extended Mind_.
Deep Learning It is not knowledge alone that we seek, for knowledge without experience that grounds that knowledge, does not make us wise. Only when the learning is deep, touching something deep inside of us – that mysterious place of memory and feeling – does the wisdom manifest.
Aristotle's Trivium Aristotle believed that humanity was comprised of three experiences: theoria, praxis, and poiesis.
The Deep Blue To understand ourselves, we must go deep, into the deep blue, to seek meaning that gives us meaning – a process that makes us wise – a journey that empowers our creative imagination.
Preparing the Soil There is a time when we must prepare the soil.
The Greenhouse We begin to recognize that we must nurture, tenderly, new sprouts. Sprouts of curiosity. Sprouts of courage.
Toward a New Narrative We seek a new narrative for education.
Interwoven Stories We begin to wonder how the stories of learning journey might be made more visible as a collective artifact.
Inquiry Trivium We sense the emergence of a new trivium, one that we are calling the _inquiry trivium_.
Life Learning We now know that we learn through a process of cognition that is beyond just the realm of our brain.
Informing Form Bohm talks of 'active information' that guides the emergence from quantum potential to quantum states – a state of matter, a 'moment' of realization into a form we perceive as real – an Ontic Form.
Cultivating Mindspace We are beginning to explore another naming of a critical element of the creative process, one that David Bohm called Free Space.
Leaning into Meaning We ponder the window that Curiosity offers.
Emergent Potential We are beginning to explore _emergent potential_ as we seek to assess the blossoming of a student's learning potential.
Toys and Tools We play with toys and we make with tools – this distinction is important.
Collective Poiesis We have recognized that to understand the potential of the wiki, one must feel both individual creativity emerging but also to experience collective creativity – something we call _collective poiesis_.
Natural Order We now recognize that natural order, order that is autopoietic, emerges when essence flows into wholeness, goodness and delight on a path toward a greater purpose.
Ways of Knowing Today is Columbus Day here in the US. In some states and local communities, it is also know as Indigenous Peoples' Day to highlight the counter narrative to America's 'discovery' by Europeans.
Cognitive Horizon We sense importance in the concept of _cognitive horizon_, one that helps us understand the domain in which active inference explores with epistemic Foraging. One that helps us define more clearly learning potential.
Our Whole Being When we learn, we learn with our whole being. Not just the processing in our brain, but the processing in our whole body and beyond.
We have experienced the potential of Learning Cycles. And we know that the faster the cycles, the faster the learning – the manifestation of meaning.
As we continue to explore education reimagined, we recognize the importance of purpose – the 'why'. We have long understood that there was a reason, the external 'why', that of preparing students for a dynamic new creative economy.
We now recognize that develop to our full potential as learners we must first nurture learning capacity.
Descartes claimed that our soul was held within a small gland in our brain, the pineal gland. It was through this gland that we were directly connected to the divine.
There was the rock. It stood their, firmly in the ground, between the house and the river.
Bohm talks about the three elements of reality: energy, matter, and meaning.
We know when we find it. We pause and feel it – a truth that touches our soul – our core.
Bohm called them moments, moments in which there is emergence from the implicate order to the explicate order. Moments of emergence, quanta moments. Whitehead referred to them as 'actual occasions'.
We begin to ponder the essence that flows through vital systems. Systems that are complex, systems that are adaptive. What we call adaptive complex systems.
We are now appreciating another dimension of the inherent tension between the education bureaucracies and schools. This tension feels universal.
We talk a lot about the need to build culture. And we recognize that to transform an organization, any organization, we must first reimagine and build a new culture.
We sense the prime pattern of Lisp in its lambda essence: variable, abstraction and values (applications) one that is bounded and held within whitespace.
We are beginning to ponder how it is that the computer helps us think in new ways.
We pause to consider Wiki Nature, a concept mentioned in passing, but one that speaks to a deeper truth of the creative process.
We are beginning to explore practices that hold the potential of releasing new creative potential.
We begin to ponder how the concept of stigmergy might illuminate the emergent characteristic of complex systems.
Alan Kay talked about how, by focusing on 'objects' most software developers missed the more important meaning of 'messaging'. It was the messaging, not the objects, that brought software programs to life in The Space Between.
We sense important inherent meaning in Natural Order, one that might allow greater understanding to unfold.
We seek to understand something we sense. An experience that has been repeated multiple times, when we vulnerably expose our personal narrative to others we trust. And then when we get to glimpse ourselves in the eyes of others.
We sense that writing in the wiki is a Poetry of Patterns where meaning emerges from the White Space between words that are each rich with meaning.
We set the monkey loose to explore my wiki and watched, incredulous, as meaning unfolded.
Rule number one of complex systems: systems are built by consciousness. In Diana Wright's book, Thinking in Systems, she starts with this quote from Robert Pirsig:
We are pondering the aether of Natural Order. We sense that natural order, from which autopoietic systems emerge, exists within an aether – a quintessence that allows beauty to manifest by Wrapping with Love.
We strive for utopia that is an Audacious Aspiration that is a gaze that allows it to become our guiding North Star
Within our western ways of knowing we see consciousness as being defined and bounded by the senses where all consciousness is inherently separated. We wonder what might happen if we begin to liberate ourselves from this construct of the dualistic Cartesian mindset.
My son and his partner recently bought a home surrounded by a beautiful garden. Many elements of this home are wonderful, but as you spend time in it, you begin to recognize a deep confusion. Almost 100 years old, the house has been rebuilt and updated multiple times, each time introducing a new style. The house struggles to know itself.
Learning that has personal purpose and meaning is autopoietic – that is, a self-creating process.
We allow a monkey to explore the wiki, seeking to learn from it.
We sense an important truth: first and foremost, we must seek wholeness. A wholeness that allows emergence to unfold through a life essence we find difficult to name.
Courageously, we learn to walk into truth. Truth is not only that which is define outside of us, an externality, but also something within us. Something we know deeply, a Deep Truth.
As we ponder the words of Buckminster Fuller
While many have gained mightily from the fruit of the Scientific Revolution and Industrialism, we have begun to more deeply appreciate the constricts of the worldview that birthed it. A worldview that justified not only colonialism but also repressive control of others, racism being its most extreme example.
We are beginning to wonder about the nature of emergence, that which has the Natural Order that we sense is alive.
We continue to be intrigued when we watch emergence with the Markov Monkey – an unfolding that opens us to surprise. Where we find caches of meaning stored, covered up by time.
Constructivism can be traced back to educational psychology in the work of Jean Piaget (1896–1980) identified with Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Piaget focused on how humans make meaning in relation to the interaction between their experiences and their ideas.
When we designed the pattern languages for both transformation and the DIG, we sought the simplest language possible, something we called the 'minimum viable pattern' in MVP Redefined.
We continue to be curious about the nature of the Tender Self, that which we glimpse in the experience of the DIG. We wonder if wonder itself is the window into that self, the True Self which, we sense, is the wellspring of the Creative Genius.
We have come to recognize the potential when we practice Deep Listening with each other. In this process, we trust others to see our Tender Self, that little five year old within us, that self that wonders without fear.
Piaget named four stages of intellectual development in children:
We have been exploring the nature of trust with others. We have come to understand that trust includes:
The answer has been inside us for this entire time. We just were waiting for us to understand.
We are beginning to name and explore the importance of collective contemplation.
We sense Hidden Potential, that which emerges from an unknown to a known in a creative moment. We have come to appreciate how these moments realize from a Monadic Vortex.
We seek collective transformation, guided by our intuition, empowered by our belief – our belief in its possibility.
We begin to ponder the nature of transformation, not just within complex systems but within chaotic systems.
We experience emergence – that moment we cry out with an "aha" or "eureka" – Eureka Moments.
We experience emergence – the joy the flows through us, Eureka Moments.
Deep Learning is empowered by Curiosity. When you waken wonder, you are awakening curiosity.
We make new meaning at the edge of our current consciousness.
As we explore into the edges of Creative Leadership we begin to recognize something we are calling the 'field of potential'.
We sense a new leadership model, something that we are calling 'creative leadership'.
We recognize the importance of 'holding space'. A space that allows for Deep Listening.
We imagine meaning emerging and unfolding, nodes that are formed into increasing levels of understanding.
We sense the importance of all systems to come alive in Natural Order.
We seek to sustain a beginner's mind.
As I walked my journey with Jami in Dayton, we began to notice increased 'coincidences' that supported us, knowing full well that there were no coincidences.
The Aboriginal people of Australia have a concept that has been named by outsiders as 'Dreamtime' or 'The Dreaming'.
We seek to become fully alive. It's not happiness that we seek, but meaning. Alive with meaning.
We seek to explore our greatest self – a self the is alive and living into its greatest potential.
We sit and listen deeply to others, clearing our mind of thoughts. We listen to feel, trusting that these feelings will guide our intuition – Deep Listening.
We sense the deep waters within. Waters that nourish us, from which our creativity flows.
We are beginning to appreciate three core practices that we must practice as we are Cultivating Ustawi.
Feelings and motivation are directly related in the relationship of the insula and the ACC.
Feelings are precessed, activated by the introsceptive nature of the insular cortex, in the salience network.
We are curious about how we might intentionally nurture our creativity as a daily practice of personal wellbeing, as we are Cultivating Ustawi.
We sense a commission to explore new horizons of our cognitive potential – a potential in three dimensions.
According to the Encyclopedia Britanica: Eudaimonia, also spelled eudaemonia, in Aristotelian ethics, the condition of human flourishing or of living well.
We stumble onto these words, words that form into a term that has new meaning felt – a meaning that might be felt by others.
We begin to ponder the nature of episodes, those learning journeys through which we grow.
There was a moment - a moment I was lost.
The Poet does not understand the Engineer. Nor does the Engineer understand the Poet.
A story was told in one of our DiGs, a story of a mother who wanted her children to learn her language, Danish, so that they would know her, know her feelings.
We begin to ponder the nature of episodes, those learning journeys through which we grow.
We sit with our stories, our stories inside. These stories, wisps of feelings, complex and intertwined.
We sit, and listen. Listening to the stories, listening to the feelings – Deep Listening.
An emergence that unfolds. An unfolding that enfolds. A time that ends. Again.
We seek to be. Being, a place of stasis, a balance that is internal and external.
Energy that becomes matter, becomes meaning. Energy that unfolds only to enfold.
We are, in subtle ways, changed by delight. We feel refreshed, renewed, a new.
We ponder the experience of collective creativity coming alive with surprising consequences.
We reflect on moments of time where there was new magic that had tremendous impact on the unfolding of our story.
We sit and ponder. And feel.
Our consciousness unfolds only to eventually enfold. It's in this unfolding that we come alive as learners, sensing something flowing through us that brings us to life, allowing us to leave behind that which might inspire others.
▷Portland. We explore the doors of 53rd Avenue, the street I live on.
He was only aloft for 12 seconds. But in that moment, they both knew that something momentous had happened.
There is magic in a computer, magic that has the potential to delight and inspire new creative potential.
We sense a new potential, perhaps one that cultivates a new approach to computing. Not one constructed, but one that is cultivated. One that is emergent, not engineered.
Alfred North Whitehead sought to create a new philosophy, one that would free us from falsehoods that locked away our potential. The falsehood of dualism, the falsehood of materialism, and the falsehood of idealism.
A term coined by Alfred North Whitehead, one used to describe his radical philosophy.
We feel life, a spirit that we struggle to name. That, perhaps, must be unspoken.
There are experiences that transform us, where we see the world in a new way. In a way that no longer allows us to see the world in any other way, leaving behind our old self for a new self.
We sense in our community a powerful commission
We sense the transformative potential of sapience, felt through Eureka Moments where new meaning emerges that becomes wisdom for a learner, wisdom for others.
We sense magic, magic that is a mystery that transforms. Magic that brings us to life, from which wisdom unfolds.
We begin to ponder the potential from which wisdom, personal wisdom, might emerge. A journey that brings learning to life.
We seek to become wise.
We are called to find our Why, that which defines purpose, purpose that defines meaning.
We appreciate the importance of creating space that can be held in silence for ourselves, recognizing how powerful it is to be Holding Silence with others.
We sense the sacred river, rivers flowing through deserts, bringing life, bringing surprise, bringing wonder.
We thought the universe spun around us. That is, until Galileo recognized that, indeed, not only were not the center of the universe, but that there was no center at all.
In a recent conversation with principals in Australia, I was surprised by the reaction when I stated that our deeper commission with this work together was to 'reclaim humanity'. I am prone to hyperbole, so when everyone sharpened their focus and I sensed a collective "Yes!", it wasn't what I was expecting.
We sense new clarity about the nature of self. Self that we have been, self that we are, self that we could become.
Power becomes real only when it's sensed by another – before that, it's simply an illusion.
With Smalltalk, Alan Kay did not commission Dan, Adele, and the rest of their team to develop a "better old thing", but to create "a new Kuhnian paradigm in the same spirit as the invention of the printing press" in the hope that they could "bring new ways of thinking to a faltering civilization that desperately needed" it.
Sitting on a park bench, tripping on LSD, Bill Atkinson looked to the heavens above.
We create order from chaos through our consciousness, order that allows us makes sense of our experiences.
We all make sense of the world through our consciousness, one that is define by patterns of concepts that are interconnected in our mind – a Semantic Network.
There are those who believe that intelligence can be measured, allowing us to compare and rank each other's capacity for thinking and creating. This belief has a relatively short history, reaching back only 150 years, back to Sir Francis Galton who used newly developed statistical tools to measure the potential for Creative Genius.
We seek the luminous self of the Three Selves sensing that for this reveal, one must find truth, feel joy, and create beauty.
We claim a commission, that of Reclaiming Humanity in our schools, in our society, in our world. A commission that guides us, challenges us, gives us courage to do the hard work of transformation.
We are now curious about is the potential of form unfolding where intention and process are defined.
We begin to ponder the meta forms that wikis might have.
We seek the lotus flower.
We imagine, now, what we are calling the 3 Principles, that which may be helpful guiding our path and the path of others.
When Ward Cunningham returned from an OOPSLA conference where Christopher Alexander's 
pattern languages were discussed, he began to ponder. At the core of pattern languages was Alexander's appreciation of the processes of collective unfolding of architectural space. Traditional communities were not designed by a master plan defined by an expert, but by a multiple of community members each making a series of decisions based on a shared understand of beauty, unfolding through Stigmergic Iteration.
We collectively define knowledge and share it with others. By nature it's bounded information that exists external from us, that which might be called 'exoteric'.
We see them. We feel them.
We ponder the nature of love, sensing its multiple dimensions, wondering about the potential of a prime pattern that holds meta essence.
That which is matter, makes up only 5% of that which is, but 80% of that is simply intergalactic gas. Our senses, the world we live in, is within the rest, a mere 1% of all that is.
Sometimes we make up new words for lived experiences that have no name – and so it is here.
We must draw deep to become whole. In this moment, each moment, we need to know who we are secure in this place, in this experience. It's from this place, this moment, that we grapple to make sense, confident that we are grounded and able to draw from deep resources within.
We know, by the work of Jean Piaget, Karl Friston, and others, that we learn when we have experiences that are unexpected. Friston calls this 'surprise' in his theory of Active Inference, that which brings about an expansion of our mental construct of the world, a 'Bayesian belief update'.
Occasionally Sara Walker asks her team "What is life?" knowing that they, who are at the edge of this exploration, still have no firm definition. So they ponder, explore, and postulate.
That which is matter, makes up only 5% of that which is, but 80% of that is simply intergalactic gas. Our senses, the world we live in, is within the rest, a mere 1% of all that is.
We sense something powerful in the simplicity of words that can be easily held but are pulled from deep, fertile soil.
We allow our imagination to fly on the Blue Plane, that which Carver Meade called an 'ideaspace', one that unleashed the creative imagination of Alan Kay and his team at PARC, allowing the personal computer to come into being.
We find the journey of the journey intriguing.
In order to explore the potential of the Hypertext Super Collaborator, we become curious about using it as a tool to allow deeper learning to happen in a classroom as learners begin to practice Deep Listening.
We know, by the work of Jean Piaget, Karl Friston, and others, that we learn when we have experiences that are unexpected. Friston calls this 'surprise' in his theory of Active Inference, that which brings about an expansion of our mental construct of the world, a 'Bayesian belief update'.