Deracination is a great word: it means to pull something up by the roots, to sever or isolate someone (or something) from its native culture. All week, I have been chewing on an example I encountered at last week’s arts conference, and still, I just can’t swallow it. The meeting was convened by arts funders, …
I woke up in the middle of a dream this morning. Side-by-side with a young woman (I can see her earnest face so clearly, the tumble of dark curls that nearly covered it), I strolled through an encampment occuping a city square. We stepped over bodies, threading our way through a maze of conversations. “Before …
We’re midway into the new-year holidays sometimes called the Days of Awe, and so midway into the t’shuvah—self-accounting and reorientation—process this spiritual technology enables and demands. I love many things about High Holy Day services: the beauty of the liturgy and music, the communal and individual invitation to learn from experience, correct mistakes, and set …
Note to readers: This is the sixth in a series of blogs I am delighted to be writing for Harmony: The WomenArts Partnership Project. They will appear biweekly on the WomenArts site (when you get there, scroll down for a list of blog installments), and I will also reproduce each one here. This installment of …
Public policy should be driven by a few essential questions: Who are we? What do we stand for? How do we want to be remembered; what is our legacy to the future? These foundational questions underpin this second essay on the jobs plan we need. Before you dismiss this out of hand as absurdly idealistic, …
After seeing the economy bleed jobs for so long, it was hard to watch without ambivalence as President Obama finally rose on Thursday to call for a transfusion of public funds for job creation. I felt some measure of relief: at last, our national leaders are paying attention to the suffering caused by economic policies …
Note to readers: This is the fifth in a series of blogs I am delighted to be writing for Harmony: The WomenArts Partnership Project. They will appear biweekly on the WomenArts site (when you get there, scroll down for a list of blog installments), and I will also reproduce each one here. In this and …
The east is awash in Irene and earthquakes, and commentators everywhere are noticing how utterly shook up the world order also seems to be. Here’s Tom Friedman in the New York Times: [T]he European Union is cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model …
The last Harmony Project blog explored two of the many reasons for artists and activists to collaborate: to put a human face on issues, bringing them home much more powerfully; and to engage people in unearthing and exploring their own direct, personal relationships to issues. In this blog, two more ways that artist-activist collaborations multiply …
The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to “expect” stories with a particular …