Archives for 2010

This TED talk really made my jaw hit the floor. You may not know this about me, but… my life has been rough. I don’t mean I’m a victim. I mean I’ve been unhappy. Like 20-years-on-Prozac unhappy. (And other meds too.) I sought peace, not as a researcher, like this woman, but as a desperate […]


There’s this guy, Chris Rosebrough, who has been preaching (loudly) that there’s something wrong with GLBT people. He apparently has a radio show, where he talks about what he calls love (but looks nothing like love to me). I don’t want LGBT kids to be convinced they’re hated by God, or that there’s something wrong […]


Despite the following very sweet quote, please get ready to join me in hacking through the bullshit, and talking about how to pull off this “no blame” thing when somebody screws up… Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. — Rumi If you haven’t read part […]


I am interested in putting together an unconference following the openspace format. Wanna play? (By play, I mean come, or help create it, or ???) So far, in my mind, it looks like this: HUMAN::CONTACT unconference for exploring technologies of compassion The topic I’d like to focus on is “technologies of compassion”. That is, ways […]


Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. — Rumi When I first ran across the Retrospective Prime Directive, I was excited. It gave me hope that there were folks who’d found a way to do business without relying on blame. In my experience, blame gets in […]


Apparently I’m on a poetry kick. There is poetry clawing at the inside of my skull, or pecking, hoping to crack me open so it can escape. But I gird myself with reminisces and meta. This is by Billy Collins, one of my favorite poets. Introduction to Poetry I ask them to take a poem […]


The Step-Mother Speaks Today my son cried for the first time about you leaving. My son-our son- has always said he understands. He’s always said he was ok. “Ok” without warm arms around him for so long.”Ok” without a warm breast to lie on. You are “cool.” You’re his “really good friend.” And he’s said […]


(For Tracy, around 2006) An earthquake shook my shoes on Saturday night, and my hat. It was centered, I am told, nine miles below that first kiss, at Burnside and Thirty-first. Nine miles seems far, but the roots I pulled up to get to this place were planted thirty times as far from that kiss, […]


When I hear about Dexter, I was all “Gross! I’m not watching a show about a serial killer. Who’s a protagonist! Gross!” Somehow, I watched some, and at first, I winced. More than that, I looked away. I wanted to know why folks loved it, but I couldn’t watch the… you know… parts. But it […]


I just read these words from Tobias Mayer, and wanted to share them. “So how do I see Agile? I see it as one stepping stone (a particularly beautiful one) on a great journey towards a business world that is more caring, loving, respectful and altogether more joyous.” — Tobias Mayer Read the rest of […]


Agile isn’t about bucking up and pretending things are working when they aren’t. It’s not about acting perfect and unflappable, but it is about finding ways to see clearly and act out of curiousity and joy, rather than out of fear. Many years ago, I was at home, learning with my little unschoolers, when I […]


I tried to fit me into the profile options at LinkedIn. Today, I decided to quit trying. Then, someone asked me what I’d like better. I find that question kinda exciting! ^__^ So, here goes… I’d enjoy, play with, participate in, appreciate a site with… …a profile that welcomes concurrent projects, instead of being linear, […]


Yesterday I wrote a post about why I don’t have a job or a freelance thingie anymore. Since I want collaborators, mentors and co-explorers, I thought I’d mention what I am doing this season. Agile Studies I am learning everything I can about Agile. I can’t get enough of it. Specifically, this means learning about… […]


Last night at a meeting, somebody asked me why I don’t make money. There are a lot of reasons, but lately the reason I don’t make money is this: I am a full-time student. Not at a university (though Ohio State says they’ll hand over my Philosophy degree if I take three non-Philosophy classes so […]


Yesterday I read (but didn’t much enjoy) a post about Agile suckage. And it got me thinking about why Agile is a good idea for business. I’ve been thinking about this because I couldn’t give a rats ass about profit [*ok, I confess that’s not quite true—but not for profit’s sake]. That statement might come […]


I just figured something out. And wow. So Radical Love Project isn’t filling my time or my life, lately. Well, it kind of is, in that I haven’t stopped with the crazy pursuit of love. But since we moved to Columbus, that path is fuzzy. It’s taking a long time to feel like we have […]


My friends who are not programmers or IT people ask me what’s up, what’s exciting in my mind & my life, and I don’t know what to say! “You wouldn’t understand” isn’t very appealing… so here is my attempt to explain why I’m madly, deeply, head-over-heels in love with a “software development methodology”. So you […]


I mention “NVC” sometimes. Along with Zen and a few other things, it has informed my daily practice, and feels like a big part of who I am. Sometimes I hear curiosity about what it is, so I thought I’d try to talk about it a little. I can describe what it is pretty quickly, […]


A couple of days ago, I tweeted this: Wish the atheists would notice that we don’t believe in that God, either. Several folks retweeted that, but a few atheists replied, suggesting that it didn’t matter which god I don’t believe in. What matters is that I believe in some god, and so I’m silly. (That’s […]


Since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to be 45. I think I imagined I’d be “old enough” then. I’d know what I was doing, who I was.


This is a poem by Hafiz of Shiraz, an Islamic mystic from the 14th century, translated by Daniel Ladinsky. (I found it on the website of Gina Cenciose, a teacher of empathy and mindfulness practices based on NVC.) I know the way you can get by Hafiz I know the way you can get, When […]


This is something I have a really hard time putting into words. I want to try, but please bear with me. If it doesn’t make sense to you, I’d love it if you’d ask questions to help me flesh it out.


In the 80s, when “Message in a Bottle” and “Roxane” were on the radio, I wasn’t really listening. I didn’t know Sting from Adam from Gordon Sumner. But now I’m reading his memoir, Broken Music. How that happened is this: I was looking up version of “People Get Ready”, and I found one that Sting […]


“So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.” Ayn Rand… I read this and remembered how it felt to think that those were the only choices. It’s a feeling that has the comfort of familiarity. But I’m glad to be rid of it.


There was a time when I wouldn’t say the Nicene Creed (or any other I’d come across) just because I didn’t “agree with” it. When that was the case, some folks said that it was ok if I didn’t want to say it. I could just listen. Other people wanted me to understand why they […]