Arlene Goldbard

I have a well-established habit of greeting passers-by. When I take my walk by the Bay, I like to smile or say hi to everyone I pass. I feel good when people cooperate. I sense a local lightening of the atmosphere, an infinitesimal exchange of positive energy. When people stare straight ahead or keep their [...]

The trip to London from which I’ve just returned was the first time I had visited that country since 1987, twenty years. I’d seen some of my English friends at international meetings or on visits to the U.S., but until this month, we hadn’t sat together for long, convivial chats, taking stock.
I learned a [...]

Here’s kind of a fun thing. The theater writer and teacher Scott Walters has “tagged” me to take part in a “meme” originated by Laura Axelrod. This virally transmitted unit of cultural information comprises five questions and answers. Its irresistible quality comes from the pure pleasure of talking about oneself, so I predict it will [...]

The longer I am privileged to live, the more astounded I am at the yawning gap between our own conscious intentions and the things that drive our actions. We humans like stories that add up, so we tend to craft neat parables of cause and effect to explain ourselves. But every effect has unlimited possible [...]

A wise friend reminded me yesterday that the lotus grows from putrefaction. Everywhere we look, nature teaches this lesson, that new hope rises only where something has been destroyed.
This has been a difficult time for me. In typical generational fashion, an apropos song lyric has been braiding itself into my thoughts, jutting into awareness [...]

On Friday, I went to rottentomatoes.com to check out the reviews for several films we were thinking about seeing. They all had high scores, meaning most reviewers loved them. But in every case, if you scrolled down far enough, there would be one or two writers who rated them “superficial pap” or something like it. [...]

The last six months have been some of the most interesting of my life as a writer and speaker. Since New Creative Community was published in November, I’ve been visiting conferences and campuses, giving talks and workshops to artists, activists, funders, policy-makers and students. I’ve met hundreds of people, seen all kinds of work, had [...]

I’m on the road a lot these days (catch me in Philadelphia next month), which gives me the opportunity to consume media products I don’t seem to have time (or appetite) for at home.
Last week at the University of Oregon I watched “The Today Show” each morning as I dressed. The entire time I [...]

What does it take to heal social trauma?
Like a lot of Jews of her generation, my maternal grandmother (may she rest in peace) was so repelled by all things German that she refused even to ride in a Volkswagen. She’d emigrated to this country long before World War II, but when that war was over, [...]

Life brings me many opportunities to talk with people who are serious about their work in the world, work that almost always involves some form of healing. Their lives are very different, but their dilemmas are often the same. Almost all of the teachers, therapists, community artists and activists I meet torture themselves about whether [...]