1,121 Words - Infinite Possibilities

Dear Friends:

First let me thank you for your support as I embark on this journey. My podcast has garnered more than 400 views (at least 100 of which are not my girlfriend), and my youtube channel has had over 1000 views. Not bad, considering I have no idea what the hell I'm doing!

This summer has been a frenetic whirlwind. As I've learned about the “internets” and my brand new Macbook Miracle, it's been gratifying and humbling that so many of you have been willing to stumble along for the ride.

I am now back in Arkansas preparing for my second year as a drama/music teacher with Teach for America (TFA) in the Mississippi Delta. As I work with the kids to expand their vision beyond their current horizons, I hope that you will stay on board as I also endeavor to create something meaningful for myself and a broader community of artists, activists, and dreamers.

Now, you may be asking yourselves, “how does making funny faces on youtube create a meaningful community?” For me, it was a first and essential step. I've always had a lot of ideas and plans. This summer, I needed to start moving towards one. My larger goal is not the podcast.

As many of you know, economy of words is not one of my strong suits. As we travel together, however, I want to be as deliberate as possible when asking for your time and attention. Hence the following summary. If these plans seem ambitious, it is only because they are, and the cursory description I offer here is only a conversation starter. I have devoted a great deal of time and energy to a more deeply developed model, and I welcome input from anyone and everyone as I continue to clarify the vision.

The Peddler's Plan (longterm)

1. Stop planning and start moving.

2. Create an online community, physical venue, and educational outreach model for the development of creativity and the promotion of its strategic cultivation.

The Peddler's Plan (now)

In the near term, the podcast will be going audio. It is my hope to take Moondance live for the full moon broadcast in October (Harvest Moon). As Moondance continues, we will be examining some ingredients of a creative life. These broadcasts will be designed to encourage listeners to implement or enliven a creative path of their own, and will parallel my professional life with TFA.

The cornerstone of my work in the classroom this year is a project I'm calling Creating America. I believe that a brighter future is dependent on innovation. Our current educational model in America defines intelligence in very narrow terms and devalues risk-taking. A strategic process of theater education can help to free students from a host of beliefs and assumptions that hinder them and unleash the imagination we so desperately need. Through Creating America, the students of McGehee, AR will experience and articulate for themselves the necessity of creative cultivation as the foundation of meaningful education. We will present our findings to TFA's national leaders, (and President Obama via the internet) helping to shape their priorities and ultimately impacting hundreds of thousands of students.

In terms of my broader goals, TFA offers a unique and powerful network. I have been invited to blog on the Teaching as Leadership website. Teaching as Leadership is a sister organization developed to support alums in future political and social pursuits. It offers meaningful connections as far up as the Secretary of Education. Furthermore, I will recruit these past and present TFA'ers to my cause.

After the school year, I will empower this network to support the founding of our creative home, The Institute for Creative Emergence (ICE). At first, ICE will be an educational programing business. I will call on my decade of training as a theater artist, activist, and educator to offer programming for schools, universities, corporations, etc., designed to elevate the value of imagination and cultivate creative potential.

The second phase of ICE's development will involve a social networking platform on the internet (I have secured clusterface.com). My experience as an organizer and research into the nature and functionality of social networks has led me to a different kind of vision for Clusterface. That is a longer conversation (and one I'd love to have with any techies or futurists out there), but the fundamental philosophy is this: As the novelty of the new medium wares off, it will become clear that the potential of the internet is not rooted in the connections it facilitates, but in the nature and quality of those connections. For a social network to form is nothing new. For a social network to be a force for progress is also nothing new. These social movements, however, occur despite some fundamental principles of how social networks form. I have a different idea, and the internet offers the tools we need to facilitate this new, more powerful network.

The third phase of ICE is the realization of a physical home. The culture and conditions of modern life draws us further and further away form our creative source, our center. HOME ICE will exist to call people back to their essential nature, to welcome them home. HOME ICE will be in nature because an encounter with creation is the only way to rediscover our own essential nature and function as creators. HOME ICE will offer workshop and retreat space to healers, artists, and dreamers. The core community that takes shape, the “Ice Cluster”, can then re-emerge ready to utilize the strategic power of Clusterface to manifest our dreams of the earth.

By now, you are probably thinking I'm insane. Thank you! A Moondancer is by definition a luna-tic, because in order to come to our senses, we must be out of our minds!

Finally, I want to invite you to participate in anyway that feeds your journey. There are many ways you can move with me. First, please take the time to complete a very brief survey (click here). By learning more about our fledgling network, I can better design and facilitate the first cluster, our ICEcluster.

The end result of this journey, while informing our movement, is not the point. It is the movement itself that offers an opportunity to flirt with the truth of our existence, to know the unknowable. Movement is the nature of the dynamic universe and therefore, our nature. It is our birthright, our destiny. We may not be able to touch the unreachable moon, but we can dance in the moonlight.

Tonight brings us the new moon. As you look up at the void of the unimaginable cosmos, do me a favor. Imagine it.

With Love,

James