Bridge at the Nurtury 26th November

Thanks Sandra for a wonderful bridge experience. We all had fun learning the vagaries of Stayman and transfers. As the evening progressed your patience and insight made us all feel as if we were becoming better bridge players. We are looking forward to our next bridge away day!

"Bellywood" Customized Away Day

Did you know that we do customized away days? How about this for a fun idea with friends or colleagues...

Try a new form of dancing with Sharon Levinger (pictured) that brings Belly Dancing together with Bollywood-Indian pop dancing to produce...Bellywood! This fusion of Middle Eastern and South Asian Dancing makes for a fun-filled away day - especially as those cold winter days set in. Be prepared to experiment with technique and rhythm from 10am to 4pm and come away from the experience with a whole new appreciation of what your body can do. Did we mention a Moroccan-themed lunch? That's included too!

Sharon Levinger has been a professional belly dancer for 10 years. She has already taught Belly Dancing at the Nurtury and is eager to share this popular new technique with you.

If you like this idea or have your own idea for a day away with friends or colleagues, we'd like to hear from you.

On Generosity: Customized book and film club 19-21 November 2010

This past weekend 6 members of wine women and philosophy got together to do one of our wwp weekend options. Four of them had already attended a wwp book and film club...Sharing their adventure with other members at our bi-monthly salon evenings resulted in 2 more women signing on for the experience. Together, they approached us to run a book and film club weekend especially for them. They were keen to build on the philosophical formation that they have all been exposed to at the salon evenings and wanted to use this opportunity to work some of these ideas into our generosity-themed book and film club weekend.

At our book and film club weekends, participants read 3 assigned books before coming. Over the course of our three days together, we watch the films that have been made from these books. We choose female authors from a cross-section of eras and we try to experiment with a range of genres...For example, on this weekend we had a novel, an autobiography and a collective diary on the menu. Books are chosen on the basis that they all speak to a common theme - in this case, we were looking at generosity in pedagogical contexts.

In keeping with the theme, the weekend kicked off with a typical school dinner. As participants tucked into shepherd's pie, stories were exchanged about our individual acts of generosity. Leading on from these, the notion of generosity as a 'female virtue' was discussed. From there we proceeded to the salon to watch our first film: Music of the Heart. Based on the true story of Roberta Guaspari's creation of the East Harlem Violin Program, this inspiring story of a woman bringing music to inner city children set the scene for a weekend full of rigorous insight and lively exchange on everything from balancing generosity in one's vocation with the obligations of one's personal life, to the subtle nuances that underlie our daily acts of giving and taking.

Saturday morning found us looking at some classical and post-structuralist approaches to the 'virtue' of generosity. It also found the cynics amongst us probing those so-called acts of generosity that may produce good results, but are, at their source, of questionable virtue. Armed with ideas on generosity springing from theorists as far ranging as Rene Descartes and Paulo Freire, Frederich Nietszche and Emmanuel Levinas, David Hume and Benedict Spinoza, Aristotle and bell hooks, we struggled to find our own take on generosity and discovered in the process that each of us had a very different sense of what it means to be generous both in a teaching and learning context and in life in general.

This was, as it turned out, the perfect state of mind with which to embark on our second film experience: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with the indomitable Maggie Smith in the title role. Miss Jean Brodie's unorthodox teaching methods only served to further complicate the whole idea of what it is to be a generous teacher - infuriating some of us while at the same time, exciting others. Saturday lunch found us enjoying a break from the traditional school dinner - Thai carrot and ginger soup followed by spinach and feta tart - whilst debating the question of whether generosity can be taught or whether it is implanted in our nature.

Under a brilliant November sun (!) a brisk constitutional was taken. Returning to our Nurtury school room, we entered a completely different world to that of 1930s Edinburgh and Marcia Blaine School for Girls. Suddenly we were in Long Beach, California in the wake of the 1994 Rodney King riots, where a young teacher called Erin Gruwell was evolving an innovative way of reaching out to a group of disenchanted youths living in what equated to a war zone. As we watched The Freedom Writers Diary unfold, we viscerally recoiled each time an act of institutional meanness and pettiness was directed towards this enthusiastic young teacher starting out in her career. Those 'old guards' can hang fiercely on to the done way of doing things, and we were starting to get a very good idea of what generosity is in relation to what it was most definitely is not. Equally, as the success of Erin's tolerance-based curriculum began to break through this negativity, our collective tension lessened and a tangible sense of relief could be felt throughout the salon. This actual bodily experiencing of generosity's presence and absence helped us when it came to working through the difference between 'justice' and 'generosity' the next morning - the former tending to demand an intellectual and considered measuring up of a given situation, whereas the latter often grows out of a more affective and spontaneous response.

On Saturday evening we relaxed, enjoyed a Moroccan-themed dinner, and were entertained by wwp band members (a number of whom happened to be attending this weekend).

After breakfast on Sunday morning we pulled forth a couple of exercises from the P4C movement - a philosophy for children initiative that we had looked at one of our salon evenings.
These games, designed to foster a more open and creative community of inquiry, helped us to question the kinds of connections we make between objects, words and ideas, as well as make interesting and productive connections related to the theme of generosity. Working from personal stories of our own ungenerous acts, we grappled with ways that we might change our responses to those situations that tend to trigger our 'ungenerosity'. We also considered the possibility that certain ungenerous acts might in fact have hidden generous results.

Summing up the books we had read and the films we had viewed, we each picked a scene from the whole corpus that stood out for us as an example of ungenerous conduct. From this we drew up a tentative list of what 'ungenerosity' looks like:

meanness; betrayal; disrespect; a rendering invisible of the other; a shutting down of the other; a manipulation of the truth; an abuse or misuse of power; an abuse of love; indifference.

Acknowledging that generosity is usually most conspicuous by its absence - and by extension, easier to discern than by its presence - this tentative list enabled us to shed new light on the meanings and felt sensations of generosity as we took a pre-lunch Socratic Walk - the purpose of which is to probe, through a progression of linked questions asked whilst walking, each other's understanding of a particular moral aspect of life.

These understandings were shared over a final lunch together. In bringing this weekend to a conclusion we also opened up a discussion on what our next book and film club theme should be. Contenders in the running are 'loyalty', 'passion' and 'pride'...Watch this space for more details!

Our heartfelt thanks go out to Wendy, Pat, Heather, Sue, Allannah and Bernice. Your incredible generosity over the course of this weekend embodied the wine women and philosophy spirit beautifully. If, as the ancient Greeks contend, generosity lies at the crossroads of magnanimity (the giving of one's self) and liberality (the ability to give freely) then you are all testament to what this human quality exemplifies. We can't wait to see you again next year!!

On Walden Pond

Many thanks Carolyn for gifting us Henry Thoreau's Walden. It's a beautiful read - I feel its inspiration as I sit here, reading, and looking at Loch Robin...

Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns us and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and forepaws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so the divining-rod and thin rising vapours I judge; and here I will begin to mine. (p.60)

'Words and Walking' Weekend (Oct 23-24)

This past weekend our good friend, Pat Machin, gathered 6 friends who all share a love of books. The customized experience that grew out of this love was called 'words and walking' and activities ranged from presenting a bag of your favourite books fireside to making beaded jewelry to exploring the ambulant realm of walking philosophy.

After a lunch of curried parsnip soup and goat's cheese souffles on Saturday, the group donned coats and walking shoes and headed out to try peripatetic walking. This consisted of pairing up and, whilst strolling down the late autumn lanes surrounding the Nurtury, questioning the nature of Socrates' Big 6 : moderation, virtue, piety, good, justice and courage. Paying heed to Eastern Philosophy's Classical Greek equivalent, Nishida Kitaro, we also included 'what is harmony?' in our line of questioning.

Around a roaring fire down by the lake we contemplated together what we had learned from this exercise, both in terms of the issues at hand and our 'walking the talk' experience. We then took a completely different track : trying out a post structuralist walk where we experimented with our haptic sense and got to know our surrounding environment by walking as sentient 'bodies without organs' that felt their way through the world as energy fields rather than flesh and bones. This proved somewhat of a challenge - one that we revisited later on that evening over Moroccan kemia and tagine.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch over tea and scones, Pat was organizing her posse into a book sharing extravaganza. This involved taking notes on people's favourite reads and plenty of appreciative oohs and aahs when they coincided.

Sunday morning found the group taking over the breakfast table and creating beautiful jewelry from Pat's prolific collection of beads. Forest walks followed...And finally, to top a great weekend off, a warming lunch of Thai-inspired carrot and pumpkin soup and spinach and feta flan.

Special thanks to Pat for creating a wonderfully stimulating weekend of 'words and walking'. What a great combination! And to Carolyn, Elizabeth, Judy, Louise, Ann and Wendy - it was so great to enjoy your company for these 2 days. For more information on organizing your own customized weekend, please visit our website or contact us directly.

Members' Salon Evening Conference Style!

Last Thursday (21st October) was the first time we tried out 'the conference' format at a salon evening. After a brief consideration of the links between a pedagogy based on conversation ( which is what wwp is developing together) and the format of the conference through history, we got underway. The theme of the conference was girl's and women's education and our call for papers resulted in 4 presentations - each lasting 10 minutes and then followed by 10 minutes of questions. Our line-up was as follows....

1. Sue Meyer: 10 years on, what has happened to same-sex education at James Lyng High School?
   
2. Bernice Lamb Senechal: The importance of girl's education in the developing world
   
3. Linnet Fawcett: Theoretical struggles in shaping wwp's women-driven pedagogy
4. Rona Brodie: What have we learned from women who have been part of the wwp experience?

The papers were inspiring, informative and thought-provoking. Questions to emerge from the conference included:

• What does a same-sex curriculum look like within a co-educational school, and who does it benefit?
• Are the UN Millennium Development Goals that target girl's and women's education being met? And how are exciting initiatives like Women For Women International impacting both the lives of girls and women and the larger community?
  
• Do women, as Carol Gilligan has suggested, really speak in "a different voice"? And, as Gloria Steinem has asserted, does this voice grow more radical with age?
• What does a school for women look like that embodies an ethic of shared passions, generosity, and receptive inspiration?

The general opinion of those attending this evening was that the conference format was a great way to exchange ideas and learn something new. What is emerging from these salon evenings is a philosophy club where members are stepping forward to help the rest of us learn, and where we are building a shared vocabulary and experience to draw upon when 'talking philosophy'. Who knew that doing philosophy could be such fun! Exuberant thanks go out to Sue and Bernice for their highly educational and eloquent presentations and to everyone else, thank you for posing such great questions and giving your experiences so generously. It truly was an evening that exemplified koinonia - that is, a spirit of sharing that helps build strong and supportive communities.

The next salon evening is our Holiday Party on Thursday the 16th of December. The wwp choir and band will be performing and there will be a small vernissage of paintings from the painting autumn colours weekend (members and guests who attended this weekend please bring your paintings along with you!).

The theme of the evening is participation...to that end everyone is asked to bring along a 6 inch square of fabric. The square can be a piece of material with some significance to you or you can design your own square. The point of the exercise is to participate in making a table runner for the Nurtury. As at last year's holiday party there will be carol singing led by Kathy McKnight and, if you've been particularly radical this year, perhaps even a return visit to Ms Santa's Grotto!

Artists Colony Retreat Scheduled For August 2011

Following the success of our recent Painting Autumn Colours Weekend we are delighted to offer an Artists Colony Retreat next summer from the 1st to the 5th of August. Our resident artist Janice Poltrick Donato will be on hand during the week to help you with your art projects and inspirations. For more details on this retreat, and all our summer retreats, please visit our website.