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I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may never complete this last one, but I give myself to it . –Joanna Macy ​ On July 19, 2025, Joanna Macy died at the age of 96. She was an author, teacher, eco-philosopher, and Buddhist scholar and practitioner. I had the privilege of participating in a workshop with her in January 2000 and have read several of her books. Today, I write to honor her and all that I and so many others around the world learned

In my previous post, “ What Is Home ?,” I mentioned three centers of knowing as being central to being at home inside ourselves. Some of you might have been wondering what that means and how it might help you in the variety of roles you play: leader, colleague, neighbor, parent, grandparent, student. Let’s take a brief look into what three-centered knowing or three-centered awareness means and then how it might serve you. Throughout my investigations into the brain, Feldenkr

“Where do we come from? Where do we go? And what of politics, war, and love? And why? What is the sense of it all? Will we ever make it home? We all have the same questions, no matter our culture, country, generation, or age.” —Joy Harjo* in “Catching the Light” Such times we live in. A climate disaster in the making. Wars on five out of seven continents. Autocracies on the rise around the world. Democracy under threat here in the U.S. Asking will we ever make it home, opens

As many of you know Alan Briskin and I have been researching and writing about relational fields for several years. Our book, “Space is Not Empty: Harnessing the Power of Relational Fields to Impact our World” is nearly complete. Hooray! Thus, I have been MIA from my blog posts. I now have space inside and around me to begin writing posts again. I hope they inspire you and me to care more deeply and compassionately for one another during these very challenging times. It seem

Introduction I am writing a book with Alan Briskin about fields. This post is part of a series based on our explorations and writings. The more we explore and experience fields, the more I come to believe that (1) knowing they exist and influence us; (2) perceiving and attuning ourselves to them; and (3) consciously influencing them for good is essential to creating space for caring about others and the world we live in. In the previous post I explored the Art of Inwardness

Alan Briskin and I are writing a book about “fields:” personal, social, and noetic. I have written several posts about them including one on the personal field. The piece below continues to explore the value and practices for perceiving and influencing the personal field. Thank you for your interest. Given the plethora of distractions and diversions at our beck and call, perhaps it is time for all of us to learn what John O’Donahue calls the “art of inwardness.” By inwardne

As noted in previous posts, Alan Briskin and I think of a “field” as a dynamic, living series of perceptible and imperceptible forces emanating from multiple sources inside and around us that influence how we feel, think, and behave. Field phenomena include everything from how you feel with good friends, to social customs and group norms you might take for granted, as well as conflicts that arise among competing factions. When we think of them in this way, fields are everywhe

—Arnold Mindell , As noted in my previous post , Alan Briskin and I think of a “field” as a dynamic, living series of perceptible forces emanating from multiple sources inside and around us that influence how we feel, think, and behave. Field phenomena include everything from how you feel with good friends, to social customs and group norms you might take for granted, as well as  conflicts that arise among competing factions. When we think of them in this way, fields are ever

“We are all at once composition and composer.” — ​​​​ Maya Angelou , As noted in my previous post . Alan Briskin and I think of a “field” as a dynamic, living series of perceptible forces emanating from multiple sources inside and around us that influence how we feel, think, and behave. Field phenomena include everything from how you feel with good friends, to social customs and group norms you might take for granted, to conflicts that arise among competing factions. When we

Generating New Fields of Awareness: The Neuropsychology of Change A four-day virtual workshop Dec 14-17, 2021 from 8:30am-1:30pm PT. Mary Gelinas, Ed.D. and David Sibbet have been working together for several years on neuropsychology and change. This workshop also integrates new thinking from Mary's work with Alan Briskin on fields and David's emerging insights about the power of visual thinking in a co-creative context. Our last offering of this workshop was outstanding and

When you read the word “field,” what comes to mind? A meadow surrounded by a wooden fence with horses grazing in the distance? of vegetables in tidy rows? Perhaps a baseball, soccer, or football with athletes playing competitive games? Or you might think of a particular area of study like biology or history as a . You could also think about the exciting electromagnetic that precede thunderstorms. Might there be another way to think about a field in a way that allows it to

My husband has a wicked sense of humor. For years, I often misperceived his dry wit as criticism, especially if I had been silently rehashing what seemed a less than sterling something that I did or said in the past with a client. If I didn’t pause to check and notice his expression or ask if he was criticizing me, I was off to the reactive races moving into some form of criticism of him or withdrawing entirely for a period. Even now that I know better and appreciate his humo

You might have heard of the indigenous South African philosophy of , “I am because of who we all are.” Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, in a conversation earlier this year with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, she described the meaning of ubuntu as “a person becomes a human being through other people.” As a clinical psychologist who worked alongside Bishop Desmond Tutu on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Gobodo-Madikizela witnessed firsthand the invisible threads

“What do you think we should be talking about more?” I heard myself recently say to a friend, “The world is just too much for my soul these days.”  I had just read an announcement from the Wiyot Tribe on whose unceded ancestral lands I live that they had declared a State of Emergency on the Wiyot’s ancestral rivers due to extreme low flows and drought conditions. The Wiyot Tribe are my neighbors. Some of them are friends, colleagues, and former students. This comes on top of

Once upon a time one of my dear friends quipped, “My body? It’s just a garage for my brain.” I chortled, recognizing my own perspective. Her name was Mary too. This was several decades ago. Now, I know better. The body is not an empty structure in which to park anything. Nor is it anything to unconsciously push around as if it were an object, subject to my demands or anyone else’s.  The Body is a living process that includes the brain and that is also intricately and utterly

In conversations, human brain function is both a blessing and a burden. Brain function is a blessing when it enables us to communicate what we think and care about and listen to the same in others. Brain function is a burden when we automatically jump to the conclusion that what others are saying or doing is a threat. These conversation exchanges are when we have “knee jerk reactions” like interrupting or criticizing them, defending ourselves, or simply checking out. Because

In college, I served as the news editor for the Northeastern University News. Now fifty years later, thanks to the vision of our then editor in chief, the group of us who produced the student newspaper, the literary magazine, and the yearbook, have decided to produce an anniversary issue of the NU News. I am grateful for the opportunity to revisit and reflect on those times with the talented and caring friends and consider how I am changed because of them and the paths each o

April 6-9, 2021 Daily from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm PT Mary Gelinas, Ed.D. and David Sibbet have been working together for several years on neuropsychology & change, co-facilitating eight GLEN Exchanges in 2018-19. This workshop integrates all this experience with new thinking from Mary's work with Alan Briskin on fields and David's visual facilitation experience. It will be offered to general public now as well as to GLEN members with a 50% discount. The majority of any income

In a recent conversation with friends and colleagues in the United States and Europe, Marilee Adams, author of an insightful best-seller—“ Change Your Questions, Change Your Life ”—said, “The antidote to uncertainty is inquiry.” Since then, I have been reflecting on the truth of this observation. “Antidote” usually refers to a medicine to counteract a particular poison. Although uncertainty is not a poison, the discomfort we feel with uncertainty can become one. So, although

In 1992, neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson met the Dalai Lama for the first time. Like many neuroscientists and psychologists, he had been studying what was wrong with human brains: anxiety, fear, depression, and stress. But his Holiness asked why he wasn’t using neuroscientific tools to study kindness and compassion.  At first, the question startled him, but it then led to nearly two decades of collaboration between them and the establishing the Center for Healthy Minds at