Imagine Learning Shares in Asheville, NC

Last week, we had the honor of presenting on the future of education to a audience of teens and people in their twenties. There was a wonderful discussion about how the framework we are proposing could work, as well as some stories shared about their school experiences in comparison to the material we presented. Once again, we were embraced and asked what they could do to help! It was most gratifying.

Following the discussion we solicited their input on the presentation itself. Together, we explored how effective our presentation was and whether there were other ways to make the material easier to understand. They were full of suggestions and extremely helpful.

On a personal note, all three of my children were there and it was wonderful to share with them the entire scope of our progress to date. So often, they have heard bits and pieces but being able to show them the entire scope of what we will be presenting around the country meant a lot to me. I thank them for coming as well as thank the other young people who attended for their listening and their input. And Chelsea, thanks for making it happen. Onward!

Yes, Charlie, this is the time, and we on Orcas are ready. We are in our positions, we’ve sufficiently prepared ourselves, and we are ready to move forward.

It is all Written on Our Hearts.

The Presentation Stella and Charlie brought to Orcas was the spark we needed on Orcas to move us from dwelling on what is wrong with our Educational System, to discovering the possibilities that arise from receptivity, deep listening, and trust in our true nature.

Charles and Stella helped our group stay in that quiet place of openness, while we listened, shared, decided it was time to go forward, and while we talked about our next steps.

How accustom we are in our culture to staying in our heads when it comes time to make decisions, get things done, do our work. We have been taught to believe the heart cannot be rational, and should only consulted in matters of personal relationships. To get things done efficiently, we believe, we must remain rational, clear headed, and detached.

We become then, also detached from the truth of our being - which is not only heart centered, but includes the head, spirit, mind, body, earth, stars, universe...

We are parts of a whole that is so vast and unexplainable, that when our minds get close to it, they shut down. We, as a culture, have become afraid of this shutting down, and do not have many systems in place to help guide people through this process. Oh, sure, we have mental health facilities, ritalin, and all sorts of labels we can put on people who are simply, waking up to the truth of their expanded selves - or in the case of many young people, struggling to remain in that expanded self.

Our culture has developed many powerful systems that seem to be designed to keep people from even thinking about these matters. And yet, the human spirit cannot be squelched. We are speaking our truth, regardless of what is going on around us, because, at this point, as Charlie wrote in his post, we now know who we are.

Indeed, “We are the ones.”

The Next Steps

When I spend time with young people, I often ask myself these questions.

Who is this being before me?

Why are they here?

What are their gifts?

It’s amazing how these three simple questions will provide me with so much information. Often the information comes in at first, as an overwhelming appreciation for the incredible being that stands before me, and I connect with all the beautiful work they are here on earth to do. I might not always be clear about their specific work at this point, but being able to see their light seems to be the first step.

In spending time with the person, watching them in action, I might get more information about them, and as it comes in, I may or may not share it with them. I often wait until I’m guided to say something, and this is usually when they are most ready to hear and accept it.

I feel called at this time on Orcas, to help create opportunities of time and space for young people to explore, with the help of trained, skilled adults, these important questions. Who am I? Why am I here? and, What are my gifts? Charles and Stella have called those people who do this and other inner work, “Stewards of Learning”.

We have many on Orcas ready to do this work, and who wish to become Stewards of learning. We hope to go forward, with the continued guidance and partnership of Charles and Stella to help train these willing Stewards.

It also seems that a next step for all adults who feel called to do this work, might be for them to also ask themselves the questions, who am I, why am I here, and what are the gifts I have to share?

In asking myself, “Who am I beyond daughter, mother, educator, writer, friend, etc.?” I have discovered my being to be so great, it encompasses everything. I begin to know myself as everything. Then, going even deeper, I have caught glimpses of what it also means to be no-thing. These experiences have been both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

When asking myself, “Why am I here? - what part of the vast whole am I here to express?” I might come up with Harmonizer, Connector, Nurturer, etc. These answers also may change over the course of my lifetime.

I may have been a system buster in my past, in resistance to systems I saw were killing people’s spirits. Now, I might be called to help transform those systems. I have changed from a system buster to system transformer.

As for gifts, we’re all accustom to listing listing the things we’re good at - skills we might have. This is great, and these skills are a part of what we have to offer, but I also like to go a little deeper into my “gifts of the spirit.”

For example, I seem to be gifted with a great intuition about people, I can often see their life purpose clearly, and can help guide them towards understanding and sharing their gifts. I also have the gift of healing, as I’ve been working with Reiki for years, and have recently been learning about sound as a powerful tool for transformation.

It seems as if I was born with these gifts, but in order to make best use of them in the world, I have, over the course of my development, needed the guidance and training from someone who has sufficiently developed their gifts. Some of that guidance has come from people, although much of it has come from the unseen world. Call it intuition, spirit guides, my higher self, ancestors inner teacher - it matters not what I call it, what matters is that I’ve developed the habit of listening, and have had the courage to take action based on what I’ve heard and learned.

So, again, I keep coming back to these words - given to me by that unseen help..

It is all written on your hearts.

Thank you Charlie and Stella for helping us draw out the wisdom and knowledge that is within each and every one of us, and for opening us up to the possibilities for us to eventually help the young people of Orcas Island to do the same.

In Deepest Gratitude,

Samara Shaw

Orcas Island, WA

It is the Hour

Over the weeks prior to our presentation on Orcas, I kept feeling that we were heading into a conversation that was on the other side of a threshold we had not yet crossed.  That threshold was being the one to ask the people we were meeting with to let go of everything they knew and to open their hearts and listen to the voices of the young people as we had heard them in the Listening Sessions.  I thought of the Hopi prophecy called "We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For."  

It begins with 

"You have been telling the people that this is the eleventh hour.  Now you must go back and tell them that this is the hour."  

I do not feel a sense of doom and gloom when I hear this - as if this is the final hour...but instead I feel a tremendous rush of possibility.  All of the work to bring about a new vision on the planet that has been going on for so long now is ready to coalesce.  The message is saying that now is the time.

In another section, it says "There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore....

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate."


Let go of the shore. See who is in there with you and celebrate!  As I reread this, I knew that this was the wisdom we needed to carry us all across the threshold.  We needed this energy and this message to pave the way for the vision we were going to share.  We decided to open the presentation with Stella reading it to everyone.


I closed my eyes and saw myself standing in the room with everyone there and I looked with the deepest possible love I could feel into each person's eyes and celebrated their presence, rejoiced in their willingness to let go of the "known", and felt a tremendous sense of connection to them for seeing with their hearts.


It IS the hour!

Today Stella sent me this quote by Andrew Cohen:

Evolutionary Pioneers

"If you are trying to do something genuinely new, you have to be a pioneer, you have to be a change-agent. In order to contribute to creating the future, you need to be aligned with the very edge of evolution...at this particular time in history, for new evolutionary stages, structures, and potentials to emerge requires rare and heroic men and women who have awakened to the conviction that this next step needs to happen and that we're the ones who have to take it."

~ Andrew Cohen

As I read this, I thought of the men and women on Orcas Island who did not question the content of our presentation, but instead the first question asked was, "How can we make this happen?"  It was one of the most moving moments of my life.  In the world today, the obstacles and the old ways look like skyscrapers, mountains, invincible forces. The patterns of doing things a specific way have been so deeply etched into the landscape for so long that it seems they are destined to continue.  

But what I saw in the hearts of those who listened, were people who had let go of the shore and who saw a different possibility. They embraced a new seed in education.  Without knowing what that seed could grow into, they felt its freshness, its aliveness and their was a willingness to open to it.

They left the discussion that night saying that they wanted to be the ones who would take the next steps.  Rare and heroic.  Indeed! 

It felt so wonderful to be floating there with them. 

Imagine Learning Pesentation on Orcas Spurs Lengthy Conversation

On Friday night, March 11, Stella and I presented our vision for the future of education.  The vision stems from our research in the Listening Sessions we are conducting, as well as from our own listenings and educational experiences.  The new framework we presented holds the opportunity for communities to self-organize their educational approach and to provide a radically different education for their young people.

It was a wonderful opportunity to share and we felt well met by those in attendance.  Our hearts were filled by their passion for the subject.  What should have been a 20 minute conversation at the end, went for more than an hour and a half!  What was so gratifying was the fact that the conversation centered around how to move forward and not about whether our ideas were appropriate for them.

The conversation around the circle at the end demonstrated the significant wisdom that was present.  Everyone was engaged and the thoughtfulness, care and determination were wonderful to witness.  We really began to see some possibilities emerging for future time together. Orcas would be a wonderful community in which to begin to grow this vision.  Its size, its unique desire to be a model sustainable community, as well as the significant gifts of its residents give it great possibilities.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the presentation for us was the way the information we are learning in the listening sessions played such a major role. The innate wisdom of the young people we have worked with thus far is providing a platform from which to offer a new educational term and framework.  The shift that must occur from an externally directed and focused curriculum to one that is internally guided and focused is echoed strongly in their voices as expressed through the paintings.

Samara Shaw held the vision for us to come and for that we want to thank her.  Hopefully Samara, you will add your own comments or post concerning your feelings about what happened after the presentation.  Just know that we are deeply appreciative and excited for this opportunity and about where things seem to be heading.

Thank you Orcas!

The Journey Within

As I have become a huge fan of Laurens van der Post, I must share another paragraph that I read this week in the sequel to A Story Like the Wind, entitled A Far Off Place.  Once again the story of the young 13-year old Francois has continued (see post from December 8, 2010), this time with Francois taking a harrowing journey across the great desert of Africa for over a year. His journey comes to an incredible, but safe end and in the waning pages of the book, Francois' Uncle Mopani is reflecting over man's existence, and as he does so, van der Post writes the following:

"...the whole intellectual trend of the day put up a plausible pretense that our troubles were due to imperfect political systems, badly drawn frontiers, and other environmental and economic causes. The whole history of man as he, Mopani, knew it, had tried all of those approaches over and over again and at last, as far as he was concerned, they were proved utterly bankrupt. 


The real, the only crises out of which all troubles came, was a crisis of meaning. It was the terrible invasion of meaninglessness and a feeling of not belonging invading the awareness of man, that was the unique sickness of our day.  And this sickness, he was convinced, was the result of the so-called civilized man, parting company with the natural and instinctive man within himself. Never had the power of the civilized over the natural been so great... 


For that reason alone, the journey within could not be resumed soon enough..."


There is so much being said here and on many levels, but I would like to put it into context of what we see as the next step in creating a learning journey with and for young people.  What van der Post says to me in this passage is that at some point in the distant past, a decision was made by our forefathers to follow the belief that the way to a better world was through rationalization, mechanization, and standardization, and in so doing set us on a course that moved us away from the natural patterns of life.  In doing this, we began a long journey into the desert - a journey that has left our societies starving, thirsting, and so heat-stricken that we are struggling, even failing, to find a solution to getting out of this desert.  The efforts that we have made over and over again have not worked and despite all of the modern day way of doing things, we have brought ourselves into an even more precarious position.

As I sat with this paragraph, I began to think of young people faced with this way of being in the world. How difficult it must be for them today to move from their childhood of intuition, flow, creativity, play into the rationalization, mechanization, and standardization. In seeing this through their eyes and hearts, the impact on them is enormous.  As it was designed by those same forefathers, our current education is designed to honor this old path, to teach our young that the secret to success lies on the outside, lies in re-creating what we already have in place.  But as they well know, this is not the answer and I believe it has led many of our young people to a sense of aloneness, powerlessness, and despair.

As he says in the last line, the answer lies by taking a journey within - back to the natural self that exists in all of us, a self that is filled with magic, intuition, wonder, and curiosity - all seeking to create a sense of meaning and belonging - the place where real nourishment occurs.

What would happen if we sat down together and answered together, the question Imagine Learning is asking, "How do we educate young people to thrive in a world of possibility?"  The optimal word here in this instance, is "thrive."  Isn't it time that the learning journey moved from a system based on testing knowledge into one that teaches each and every student the skills, the insights, the ways to journey within themselves for the answers they need and for the nourishment they seek?

We can sit and point fingers at all sorts of reasons why we are here and who caused us to get here, but wouldn't it be better if we just sat down and did what our inner voices were telling us needed to happen?

Won't it be the most amazing day when we sit together and embrace the inner light of our young people as being sacred and that fueling the growth of that inner light is the most important thing that we can accomplish? I am so excited that we have reached this point in our history, that we can now look back and see that the time has come to choose a different path - not one that leads deeper into the desert, but one that leads to fertile lands beyond that will feed every one of our parched hearts, particularly those we call young people.

Imagine Learning to Hold Public Conversation on Orcas Island

On March 11 from 7 - 9 PM, we will offer a public conversation on the future of young people in education at the Senior Center on Orcas Island.  This is a wonderful opportunity to meet and discuss our vision with the community and to hear their feedback and ideas about where we are headed.

We are circulating an invitation to everyone on the island that says that we:

invite everyone, of all ages to a thought-provoking presentation and conversation:

"How do we educate young people to thrive

 in a world of possibility?"

“The times implore us, our young people implore us to create a fresh seed for education. What does the DNA of this seed need to contain?  What do we need to conserve? What do we need to let go of? What do we need to discover?  What will it take?”

This question has been our guide since the very beginning and now the time has come to begin to explore with others the ideas we have been nurturing and learning through the listening sessions, readings and meetings with others who are passionate about education, and our own meditations on the possibilities for the future.

Thanks again to Samara Shaw for making this happen.  She is a beautiful, positive force for change and we deeply appreciate her support.

We invite you to join us!

We pray for the People of Christchurch

It is hard to describe the feelings we have this morning after seeing the reports, photos and videos of the incredible destruction in Christchurch, New Zealand yesterday after a massive earthquake occurred. In 2008, we made many new friends in this city when we were there to lead a listening session and we have stayed in touch with them over the past two years.  Our hearts are heavy with worry and sadness, not only for them, but for all of the people who live there.  

According to the reports, the earthquake struck at lunch time, one of the busiest times of the day and more than 75 people are dead and up to 300 are missing.  The downtown is in a shambles. We can do no more right now than offer our energetic prayers and send healing energy to them.

In September of last year, an even larger earthquake struck there and while it was not as terrible as this one in terms of its toll on human life, its impact combined with the thousands of aftershocks took a very heavy emotional toll on everyone there. Now this is their darkest time.

Please join us in sending them your healing thoughts and prayers, especially Cobi, Holly, Julia, Max, Morgan, Pip, Glynese, Lee, Jocelyn, Vickie, and Gaike.

Osho on Courage

"In a better world, every family will learn from children. You are in such a hurry to teach them. Nobody seems to learn from them and they have so much to teach you."

                                                                 Osho

This inspiring quote from the book Courage, by Osho, really spoke into my heart.  It does seem that we have gotten so caught up in being the providers of knowledge that we have forgotten to listen. Listening to the inner wisdom of young people is a gift that carries immeasurable possibilities.  It is also a gift of giving them an inner sense that they are worth being listened to and that holds immeasurable possibilities as well.

Orcas Island - Here We Come!

On March 9, we will be on Orcas Island in Washington state to facilitate a Listening Session and we can't wait to get there!  One morning, like any other morning, I was reading my email and there was one for Imagine Learning from Samara Shaw inviting us to come to Orcas to do a Listening Session.  We called and spoke with her and set the dates and now we are making preparations to meet the young people of Orcas.


Samara has a deep belief that a new learning journey for young people needs to be created and she spoke about the desire of the island to recreate its systems to really support young people in their growth and learning.


In her email to me, she wrote: "We envision our island of a population of 5,000,  becoming a model sustainable community, providing programs for young people to learn about sustainable education, living, community building, etc."  What a beautiful intention they are holding and we really are looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing all they they are doing and planning.  


Here's a little map I found on the web.  As you can see it has a very unique horseshoe shape and is filled with natural beauty.

It is located in the San Juan Archipelago of Islands in the Northwest portion of Washington State. There are somewhere around 743 islands, islets and reefs at low tide. Of that many only 172 are named and out of these only thirty are inhabited. Orcas is the largest of all of the San Juan islands. I have visited the San Juans several times before (but never Orcas) and they are remarkably beautiful.


Many thanks to Samara for her gracious invitation.  See you soon, Orcas!

A Story Like the Wind

I have had the delectable opportunity to be reading A Story Like the Wind by Laurens van der Post. It is the story of a remarkable 13-year old European boy growing up in Africa.  Van der Post uses the story for social commentary on European values as they affect local cultural life in Africa.  He begins the book by saying that he is writing it to help Africans recapture their sense of magic and belief in the unknown forces at work in the world, which years of colonization and cultural influence has erased from their memories. He states that life in modern times has taken them far from this way of being in the world.

He also uses the book for commentary about young people and about education.  I want to share one particular section with you for it gets at the heart of many young person's experiences (including our own when we were younger) and it gets at the heart of one of the things Listening Sessions are trying to accomplish.

During the story, the 13-year old boy, Francois, has just lost his father.  His father had been in a distant location in Africa seeing many European specialists when he had died.  They had not understood why he had been sick and could not fathom why he had died.

But Francois, who had grown very close to many Africans working on his father's farm, knew the reason. He had been to an African seer and healer who had divined the reason and then also told him his father had died (before the seer could perform a distance healing on his father). When Francois' mother called the next day to tell him the news, Francois, already aware of the news, became a believer in the "magic" of the Africans.

He also blamed himself for his father's death because he could not get his parents to trust the African ways, as they kept relying on the traditional healing methods that the European doctor's knew.  Had he gotten his father to see the African seer and healer, Francois believed his father would have lived.  But he had to face the fact that his parents did not trust his inner knowing.

So in a moment of reflection van der Post writes,"The pattern (of only teaching the European values and customs to the Africans and not receiving any of their knowledge and wisdom) was all the more telling because had not he himself (Francois) experienced the agony of always being at the receiving end and so rarely at the point where one was allowed to give something of oneself? This was perhaps one of the greatest burdens of being young; one was always expected to take, and so rarely thought to be in a position... to give as well.  And what one had to give, when accepted, once measured in the scales of deliberate values of the grown-up world, appeared trivial."


Francois' belief in the seer and healer had been judged by his adult parents as trivial.  In fact, in the book, van der Post wrote that there was a saying amongst the whites in Africa that Africans "are just like children really and must be treated like children." So Francois' belief in the seer and healer was just as childish as the African beliefs.

How many times do we as adults relegate our children to this same status? Does the education system in operation today act from that point of view? Are we teaching our children that their voices are not worthy or to be taken seriously? Are we teaching them that the "magic" they see and experience every day is "trivial?" What happens to young people when we tell them over and over again that their instincts cannot be trusted?

The Listening Sessions are grounded in the belief that children hold an innate wisdom and that given the chance to speak what they see to those who will listen, they have truths to share that we can learn from and which speak to something within us that as adults, we may have long forgotten.  As each Listening Session evolves, you can visibly see the changes in the students as they realize that their ideas, their heart's desires are going to be contributing a future change in education.  The idea that their voice means something, can contribute something, can give back something is very powerful. Many students have awakened to a side of themselves that has been dormant for many years during the Listening Sessions.

The first offering of young people at the end of a Listening Session is to say, "Thank you."  They always say, that despite education commanding a significnt amount of their life's hours each day, no one is asking them about their experiences or their ideas for making their learning experience more meaningful.

Yet when you sit and listen to their answers to the questions we ask and you listen to their ideas for changing education, there is much wisdom that their young hearts carry. What also comes through is that there is a deep thirst for their elders to "see" them and welcome them more fully into the circle of humanity.

When the time is right, the wisdom in their stories will travel like the wind around the country and the earth and awaken our own deep courage to help guide the co-creation of a new learning experience.