With Pimms in hand and Lao-Tzu in mind, the 3rd members salon took place last night, August 27th, in Montreal West. Bernice Lamb Senechal was our guest salonniere, and she began the evening by situating Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu amidst his circa 600 BCE contemporaries, Confucius and Buddha. After hinting at how he differed from these two, and giving us a small taste of his approach to life - going with the flow and seeing the world in its many shades of grey - we broke into small groups and took to our activity stations. A tempting excerpt from Lao-Tzu's writings awaited us at each station, and our task was to engage with his controversial ideas around "suppleness," "actionless action," and "living without artifice." We then reconvened for a wrap-up, and mused over suggestions that Lao-Tzu was in fact a woman.
Thank you to Bernice for animating the evening and making it a thoroughly lively, entertaining and enlightening salon. Thank you too to our wonderful members, who never fail to turn up in scintillating form, and always amaze us with their insights and intellect - not to mention their great sense of humour.
The next members salon will be held on
Thursday, October 29th - 7:30 to 9pm - and will be animated by Janice Poltrick Donato. Janice will explore the notion of transcendence, particularly in relation to how we see the world and strive to represent it in art.
Make sure, also, to pencil in our special holiday season salon on
Thursday, December 10th - same time, same place - and keep watching this space for more details.
We always welcome new members, and encourage existing members to bring along a friend to these events.
Are you 4 friends, colleagues or family members who want to get away together on one of our weekends? If you are, have we got a deal for you! Take over our bunkroom which boasts 3 single beds and a sofa bed and one of you gets your weekend free.
With Pimms in hand and Lao-Tzu in mind, the 3rd members salon took place last night, August 27th, in Montreal West. Bernice Lamb Senechal was our guest salonniere, and she began the evening by situating Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu amidst his circa 600 BCE contemporaries, Confucius and Buddha. After hinting at how he differed from these two, and giving us a small taste of his approach to life - going with the flow and seeing the world in its many shades of grey - we broke into small groups and took to our activity stations. A tempting excerpt from Lao-Tzu's writings awaited us at each station, and our task was to engage with his controversial ideas around "suppleness," "actionless action," and "living without artifice." We then reconvened for a wrap-up, and mused over suggestions that Lao-Tzu was in fact a woman.
You are invited to attend wine women and philosophy's Open House which is being held at The Nurtury, in Lakefield, Gore - between 2pm and 5pm - on Sunday September 13th and Sunday October 4th, 2009. An easy drive from Montreal, the day is free and all are welcome to come along to find out more about our beautiful premises and location, as well as about our exciting wwp weekend and Away Day line-up for Autumn 2009. This is an opportunity to see first hand whether The Nurtury would be a suitable place to go on one of our artist or writer retreats, or to host your own retreats, meetings or events. It will also give you the chance to meet some of our salonnières, and to find out if wine women and philosophy is for you. As with all wine women and philosophy occasions, a welcoming glass awaits you. 
Thanks to all our members and guests who attended last night's salon. The discussion centred around P4C - a philosophy for children programme created by Matthew Lipman in the 1960s and designed to nurture critical thinking in young people while building a 'community of inquiry'. After Rona provided us with a brief background of this initiative and introduced us to some of its guiding principles, we partook in a variety of exercises that gave us a real taste of P4C in action. The evening was lively and fun, and the ideas to emerge around the notion of dissensus as a way to create a respectful dialogue between people who disagree, was extremely thought-provoking and energizing. We are excited about how these members salon evenings are unfolding and how the membership is growing.