2020 (#21) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 6:8 , Gandini , Heidegger , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Derrida , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Derrida

All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is the
child. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, and
full of hopes; there are no paths. Although it isn’t
easy, we have to make our own paths, as teachers
and children and families, in the forest. Sometimes
we find ourselves together within the forest, sometimes we may get lost from each other, sometimes
we’ll greet each other from far away across the forest;
but it’s living together in this forest that is important.
And this living together is not easy. (Malaguzzi)

Noach found grace in the sight of Adonai. (Genesis 6:8)

Literacy risks being seen both as the only pathway to success and at the
same time a punitive boogeyman that scares away children’s joy. Generally,
teachers are as much in agreement about the importance of literacy as we
are about the importance of play, but sometimes we think they are mutually
exclusive—that time devoted to one takes away from the other. Literacy
and play, indeed all learning and play, can go together. They really must
go together; together they can and should be pleasurable and rewarding
experiences for children, and for teachers and parents as well, who clearly
want the best possible for their children now and for the future.
(Gandini)

In it’s essence, language is neither expression nor an activity of man. Language speaks. Accordingly, what we seek lies in the poetry of the spoken word. (Heidegger)

The tangle which is entirely below the level of consciousness can be set right by being with yourself, the ‘I am’, by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.
(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

… a presence both perceived and not perceived, at once image and model, and hence image without model, neither image nor model, a medium (medium in the sense of middle, neither/nor, what is between extremes, and medium in the sense of element, either, matrix, means). When we have rounded a certain corner in our reading we will place ourselves on that side of the lustre where the “medium” is shining. (Derrida)

From our perception of the world there follows acceptance of a unique First Principle possessing various powers. Pictures of name and form, the person who sees, the screen on which he sees, and the light by which he sees: he himself is all of these. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

There is no such thing as a “metaphysical-concept.” There is no such thing as a “metaphysical-name.” The “metaphysical” is a certain determination or direction taken by a sequence or “chain.” It cannot as such be opposed by a concept but rather by a process of textual labor and a different Sort of articulation. This being the case, the development of this problematic will inevitably involve the movement of differance as it has been discussed elsewhere: a “productive,” conflictual’ movement which cannot be preceded by any identity, any unity, or any original simplicity; which cannot be “relieved” resolved appeased by any pholosophical dialectic; and which disorganizes “historically,” “practically,” textually, the opposition or the difference (the static distinction) between opposing terms. (Derrida)

2020 (#20) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 3:20 , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Gandini , Derrida , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Both children and adults need to feel active and
important — to be rewarded by their own efforts,
their own intelligences, their own activity and
energy. When a child feels these things are valued,
they become a fountain of strength for him. He feels
the joy of working with adults who value his work
and this is one of the bases for learning.
(Malaguzzi)

20 The man called his wife Havah [life], because she was the mother of all living. (Genesis 3:20)

If the first person, I, exists, then the second and third persons, you and he, will also exist. By enquiring into the nature of the I, the I perishes. With it ‘you’ and ‘he’ also perish. The resultant state, which shines as Absolute Being, is one’s own natural state, the Self. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

Malaguzzi’s very first explorations and experiences with children were
based on play with a purpose. His views were contrary to ritual play managed and controlled by adults, where children were expected to repeat
gestures and words chosen by teachers. In Reggio, when children arrive
at school in the morning, they play with their friends using materials or
games or toys. There is first of all the joy of finding their friends—friends
with whom they will spend a long day together and with whom they have
already shared years of companionship in school. Some of them have been
together since they were a few months old to three years old, and they will
be together to when they turn six. Relationships with many shared experiences of learning and play are at the basis of life for all young people who
go through those schools. (Gandini)

What is getting archived!

That is not a question. It is once again an exclamation, with a somewhat suspended exclamation point because it is always difficult to know if it is getting archived, what is getting archived, how it is getting archived — the trace that arrives only to efface itself / only by effacing itself, beyond the alternative of presence and absence. It is not merely difficult to know this; it is strictly impossible, no doubt not because there is always more to be known but because it is not of the order of knowledge.

This is never a sufficient reason not to seek to know, as an Aufklarer — to know that it is getting archived, within what limits, and how, according to what detoured, surprising, or overdetermined paths. (Derrida)

He who is beyond time – is the un-nameable. A glowing ember moved round and round quickly enough appears as a glowing circle. When the movement ceases, the ember remains. Similarly, the ‘I am’ in movement creates the world. The ‘I am’ at peace becomes the Absolute. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

2020 (#19) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 2:18-20 , Malaguzzi , Gandini , Heidegger , Genesis 35:16-18 , D.T. Suzuki , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Each one of us needs to be able to play with the
things that are coming out of the world of children.
Each one of us needs to have curiosity, and we need
to be able to try something new based on the ideas
that we collect from the children as they go along.
Life has to be somewhat agitated and upset, a bit
restless, somewhat unknown. As life flows with the
thoughts of the children, we need to be open, we
need to change our ideas; we need to be comfortable
with the restless nature of life. (Malaguzzi)

18 Adonai, God, said, “It isn’t good that the person should be alone. I will make for him a companion suitable for helping him.” 19 So from the ground Adonai, God, formed every wild animal and every bird that flies in the air, and he brought them to the person to see what he would call them. Whatever the person would call each living creature, that was to be its name. (S: iii) 20 So the person gave names to all the livestock, to the birds in the air and to every wild animal. But for Adam there was not found a companion suitable for helping him. (Genesis 2:18-20)

Creativity requires that the school of knowing finds connections with the school of expressing, opening doors (this is our slogan) to the hundred languages of children. (Malaguzzi)

Malaguzzi said very clearly that nothing in the school should happen
without joy. I do not think that he would have separated play and learning.
(Gandini)

Language is the house of Being, in its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home. (Heidegger)

16 Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. 17 And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.” 18 As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni.[h] But his father named him Benjamin.
(Genesis 35:16-18)

The will in its primary sense, as I said before, is more basic
than the intellect because it is the principle that lies at the
root of all existences and unites them all in the oneness of
being. The rocks are where they are— this is their will. The
rivers flow— this is their will. The plants grow— this is their
will. The birds fly— this is their will. Human beings talk—
this is their will. The seasons change, heaven sends down rain
or snow, the earth occasionally shakes, the waves roll, the stars
shine— each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and
so is to become. There is absolutely nothing in this world that
has not its will. The one great will from which all these wills,
infinitely varied, flow is what I call the “Cosmic (or ontological)
Unconscious,” which is the zero-reservoir of infinite possibili-
ties. (D.T. Suzuki)

When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

2020 (#18) : Malaguzzi , Gandini , Genesis 2:15-17 , D.T. Suzuki , Sri Ramana Maharshi

School is not at all like billiards. When you play
billiards you push the ball with a certain force and it
hits the table and bounces off; there’s a definite way
the ball will go, depending on force and direction.
Children are not at all like this, predictable. But
sometimes schools function as if they were; these are
schools with no joy. (Malaguzzi)

It is amazing what observations and also conversations with children can
tell us educators about the complexity and beauty of their theories. Teachers
in Reggio Emilia are also well aware of what is important for children to learn
in terms of language development and numeracy, for example. Therefore,
on the basis of what the children do and say, the teachers can offer them the
possibilities to explore further and learn more. For example, in one school,
the children realized that there was a small table that they liked very much
and used for many projects and constructions, and at a certain moment
they asked their teacher for another one like it. The teacher called in a carpenter, but asked him not to measure the old one but to ask the children
to take the measurements. This developed into a long project in which the
children invented and experimented with various ways to measure the old
table. They ignored the tape measure that was in the school, trying instead
to use their bodies and various objects, settling for a while on a shoe. They
created measuring tapes with random numbers, but then realized they all
had different lengths. Finally, they came up with a way of measuring that
Play and the Hundred Languages of Children 7
the carpenter could use. If the teacher had suggested right away that the
children use the tape measure, they would have lost all that they learned in
this group research.(Gandini)

Of course, many things that happen in school can be
seen ahead and planned beforehand. But many
things that happen cannot be known ahead of time.
Something will start to grow inside the child and
suddenly what is happening in the school will move
in that direction. Sometimes what happens starts
inside the adults. School can never be always
predictable. We need to be open to what takes place
and able to change our plans and go with what
might grow at that very moment both inside the
child and inside ourselves. (Malaguzzi)

15 Adonai, God, took the person and put him in the garden of ‘Eden to cultivate and care for it. 16 Adonai, God, gave the person this order: “You may freely eat from every tree in the garden 17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You are not to eat from it, because on the day that you eat from it, it will become certain that you will die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)

The more teachers are convinced that intellectual and expressive activities have both multiplying and unifying possibilities, the more creativity favors friendly exchanges with imagination and fantasy. (Malaguzzi)

The truth is that what involves the totality of human ex-
istence is not a matter of intellection but of the will in its most
primary sense of the word. The intellect may raise all kinds of
questions— and it is perfectly right for it to do so— but to expect
any final answer from the intellect is asking too much of it,
for this is not in the nature of intellection. The answer lies
deeply buried under the bedrock of our being. To split it open
requires the most basic tremor of the will. When this is
felt the doors of perception open and a new vista hitherto
undreamed of is presented. The intellect proposes, and what
disposes is not the proposer himself. Whatever we may say
about the intellect, it is after all superficial, it is something
floating on the surface of consciousness. The surface must be
broken through in order to reach the unconscious. But as long
as this unconscious belongs in the domain of psychology, there
cannot be any satori in die Zen sense. The psychology must
be transcended and what may be termed the “ontological un-
conscious” must be tapped. (D.T. Suzuki)

The duality of subject and object and trinity of seer, sight, and seen can exist only if supported by the One. If one turns inward in search of that One Reality they fall away. Those who see this are those who see Wisdom. They are never in doubt. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

2020 (#17) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 2:10-14 , Malaguzzi , Gandini , Nietzsche , Sri Ramana Maharshi

There are hundreds of different images of the child.
Each one of you has inside yourself an image of the
child that directs you as you begin to relate to a child.
This theory within you pushes you to behave in
certain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child,
listen to the child, observe the child. It is very
difficult for you to act contrary to this internal image.
For example, if your image is that boys and girls are
very different from one another, you will behave
differently in your interactions with each of them.
(Malaguzzi)

10 A river went out of ‘Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided into four streams. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it winds throughout the land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. 13 The name of the second river is Gichon; it winds throughout the land of Kush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it is the one that flows toward the east of Ashur. The fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:10-14)

The environment you construct around you and the
children also reflects this image you have about the
child. There’s a difference between the environment
that you are able to build based on a preconceived
image of the child and the environment that you can
build that is based on the child you see in front of you
— the relationship you build with the child, the
games you play. An environment that grows out of
your relationship with the child is unique and fluid.
The quality and quantity of relationships among you
as adults and educators also reflects your image of
the child. Children are very sensitive and can see and
sense very quickly the spirit of what is going on
among the adults in their world. They understand
whether the adults are working together in a truly
collaborative way or if they are separated in some
way from each other, living their expThe environment you construct around you and the
children also reflects this image you have about the
child. There’s a difference between the environment
that you are able to build based on a preconceived
image of the child and the environment that you can
build that is based on the child you see in front of you
— the relationship you build with the child, the
games you play. An environment that grows out of
your relationship with the child is unique and fluid.
The quality and quantity of relationships among you
as adults and educators also reflects your image of
the child. Children are very sensitive and can see and
sense very quickly the spirit of what is going on
among the adults in their world. (Malaguzzi)

Teachers in Reggio Emilia work together and are supported by pedagogical coordinators; they all share and start from the basic principle that
children have great potential and desire to explore, construct, and learn.
The teachers consider the existing space in the city as learning space and
prepare environments and situations in the school that respond to the gifts
of children. Teachers observe the children in these possibility-rich environments, and on the basis of shared observations and documentations, they
construct new possibilities for the children. (Gandini)

In this world only the play of artists and children exhibits becoming and passing away, building and destroying, without any moral additive, in forever equal innocence. And as artists and children play, so plays the ever-living fire, building up and destroying, in innocence. Such is the game that the aeon plays with itself. It builds towers of sand like a child at the seashore, piling them up and trampling them down. From time to time it starts the game anew. A moment of satiety, and again it is seized by its need, as the artist is seized by the need to create. Not hubris but the ever-newly-awakened impulse to play calls new worlds into being. (Nietzsche)

Under whatever name and form one may worship the Absolute Reality, it is only a means for realizing It without name and form. That alone is true realization, wherein one knows oneself in relation to that Reality, attains peace and realizes one’s identity with it. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)

2020 (#16) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 1:7-9 , Bettelheim , D.T. Suzuki , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Gandini , Heidegger , John Ashbery

Creativity becomes more visible when adults try to be more attentive to the cognitive processes of children than to the results they achieve in various fields of doing and understanding. (Malaguzzi)

7 Then Adonai, God, formed a person [a] from the dust of the ground [b] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being. 8 Adonai, God, planted a garden toward the east, in ‘Eden, and there he put the person whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground Adonai, God, caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis (1:7-9)

Like Biblical stories and myths, fairy tales were the literature which edified
everybody—children and adults alike—for near all of man’s existence. Except that God
is central, many Bible stories can be recognized as very similar to fairy tales. In the story
of Jonah and the whale, for example Jonah is trying to run away from his superego
s (conscience’s) demand that the fight against the wickedness of the people of Nineveh.
The ordeal which tests his moral fiber is, as in so many fairy tales, a perilous voyage to a
sea in which he has to prove himself. (Bettelheim)

But this so-called relative level is not really relative; it
is the borderland between the conscious level and the uncon-
scious. Once this level is touched, one’s ordinary consciousness
becomes infused with the tidings of the unconscious. This is
the moment when the finite mind realizes that it is rooted in
the infinite. In terms of Christianity, this is the time when the
soul hears directly or inwardly the voice of the living God.
The Jewish people may say that Moses was in this state of mind
at Mount Sinai when he heard God announcing his name as
“I am that I am.” (D.T. Suzuki)

By being with yourself, the ‘I am’; by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.
(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

In my research on bedtime, I have avoided giving advice. I think personal choices are already so complex and so based on psychological needs of
both children and parents (mostly mothers) that there are no formulas that
can fit all situations. What I was studying was, first of all, the historical background of traditions (lullabies) and devices (swaddling clothes, cradles) to
ease and facilitate the going to sleep of infants and young children.
I was also very interested in the rituals of separation at bedtime and
how there are in those rituals both individual family and cultural variations. There is a time of the day in the lives of families with young children,
especially in western cultures (I was studying New England and two regions
of Italy), when there is a heightened sense of interdependence and a pull
between the desire both to enjoy each other’s company and to let one’s self
go to sleep. The schedule of young children at bedtime in Italy is almost
two hours later than it is in families in my sample in New England, but
the strategies that children find to receive more attention are brilliant and
inventive in both cases. (Gandini)

Language is the house of Being, in its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home. (Heidegger)

Hasn’t the sky? Returned from moving the other

Authority recently dropped, wrested as much of

That severe sunshine as you need now on the way

You go. The reason it happened only since

You woke up is letting the steam disappear

From those clouds when the landscape all around

Is hilly sites that will have to be reckoned

Into the total for there to be more air: that is,

More fitness read into the undeduced result, than land.

This means never getting any closer to the basic

Principle operating behind it than to to the distracted

Entity of a mirage. The half-meant, half-perceived

Motions of fronds out of idle depths that are

Summer. And expansion into little draughts.

The reply wakens easily, darting from

Untruth to willed moment, scarcely called into being

Before it swells, the way a waterfall

Drums at different levels. Each moment

Of utterance is the true one; likewise none are true,

Only is the bounding from air to air, a serpentine

Gesture which hides the truth behind a congruent

Message, the way air hides the sky …

(John Ashbery)

2020 (#15) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 1:4-6 , John 4:34-37 , Derrida , Heidegger , Malaguzzi , Bettelheim , Montessori , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Nietzsche

Of course, many things that happen in school can be
seen ahead and planned beforehand. But many
things that happen cannot be known ahead of time.
Something will start to grow inside the child and
suddenly what is happening in the school will move
in that direction. Sometimes what happens starts
inside the adults. School can never be always
predictable. We need to be open to what takes place
and able to change our plans and go with what
might grow at that very moment both inside the
child and inside ourselves. (Malaguzzi)

(A: iv, S: ii) 4 Here is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created. On the day when Adonai, God, made earth and heaven, 5 there was as yet no wild bush on the earth, and no wild plant had as yet sprung up; for Adonai, God, had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no one to cultivate the ground. 6 Rather, a mist went up from the earth which watered the entire surface of the ground.(Genesis 1:2-6)

34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” (John 4:34-37)

it is what I have called the translation contract: hymen or marriage contract with the promise to produce a child whose seed will give rise to history and growth. (Derrida)

Language is the house of Being, in its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home. (Heidegger)

Creativity seems to find its power when adults are less tied to prescriptive methods, but instead become observers and interpreters of problematic situations. (Malaguzzi)

A child, for example, who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at
first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful
friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be
changed from a menace into a desirable companion. Belief in the “truth” of the fairy tale
gives him courage not withdraw because of the way this stranger appears to him at first.
Recalling how the hero of many a fairy tale succeeded in life because he dared to
befriend a seemingly unpleasant figure, the child believes he may work the same magic. (Bettelheim)

Take the bees. They come out in hot weather.
They are covered with a sort of fur or a sort of yellow
and black velvet. This fur is not necessary in a hot
country, but it collects the pollen from flowers which the
bee itself does not use. This pollen, however, is useful
to other flowers to which it is brought by them and which
are thus fertilized. So the work of the bee is not useful
to itself alone, it is useful for the propagation of plants so
that one might say that this fur has been developed by the
bees for the propagation of plants, not for themselves. Don’t
you begin to see in this behaviour that animals sacrifice
themselves for the welfare of other types of life, instead
of trying to eat as much as possible merely for their own
existence or upkeep ? The more one studies the behaviour
of animals and of plants, the more clearly one sees that
they have a task to perform for the welfare of the whole.
(Montessori)

Hold on to the sense ‘I am’ to the exclusion of everything else. When this mind becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and vibrates with new knowledge. It all comes spontaneously; you need only to hold on to the ‘I Am’.(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

A spirit thus emancipated stands in the midst of the universe with a joyful and trusting fatalism, in the faith that only what is separate and individual may be rejected, that in the totality everything is redeemed and affirmed …(Nietzsche)

He who is beyond time – is the un-nameable. A glowing ember moved round and round quickly enough appears as a glowing circle. When the movement ceases, the ember remains. Similarly, the ‘I am’ in movement creates the world. The ‘I am’ at peace becomes the Absolute. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

2020 (#14) : Malaguzzi , Montessori , Tao Te Ching , Malaguzzi , Parashah 1: B’resheet , Bettelheim , Katha Upanishad , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Derrida

The environment you construct around you and the
children also reflects this image you have about the
child. There’s a difference between the environment
that you are able to build based on a preconceived
image of the child and the environment that you can
build that is based on the child you see in front of you
— the relationship you build with the child, the
games you play. An environment that grows out of
your relationship with the child is unique and fluid.
(Malaguzzi)

The child is endowed with an unknown power and
this unknown power guides us towards a more luminous
future. Education can no longer be the giving of know-
ledge only ; it must take a different path. The con-
sideration of personality, the development of human
potentialities must become the centre of education. When
to begin such education ? (Montessori)

There is a time for being ahead, a time for being behind; a time for being in motion, a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous, a time for being exhausted ; a time for being safe, a time for being in danger. (Tao Te Ching)

Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known. (Malaguzzi)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. So there was evening, and there was morning, one day. (Parashah 1: B’resheet)

The child asks himself: “Who am I? Where did I come from? How did the world
come into being? Who created man and all the animals? What is the purpose of life?”
True, he ponders these vital questions not in the abstract, but mainly as they pertain to
him. He worries not whether there is justice for individual man, but whether he will be
treated justly. He wonders who or what projects him into adversity, and what can prevent
this from happening to him. Are there benevolent powers? How should be form himself,
and why? Is there hope for him, though he may have done wrong? Why has all this
happened to him? What will it mean for his future? Fairy tales provide answers to these
pressing questions, many of which the child becomes aware of only as he follows the
stories. (Bettelheim)

The powers of life adore that god who is in the heart, and he rules the breath of life, breathing in and breathing out. (Katha Upanishad)

The beginningless begins forever. In the same way, I give eternally, because I have nothing. To be nothing, to have nothing, to keep nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the highest generosity.

You may call it love, all-pervading, all-redeeming. Such love is supremely active — without the sense of doing. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

When we have rounded a certain corner in our reading, we will
place ourselves on that side of the lustre where the “medium” is shining.
(Derrida)

2020 (#13) : Malaguzzi , Genesis 1:9 , Elkind , Genesis 1:10 , Bettelheim , Genesis 1:11 , Gandini , Genesis 1:12 , Emerson , Meister Eckhart , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Derrida

Creativity should not be considered a separate mental faculty but a characteristic of our way of thinking, knowing, and making choices.
(Malaguzzi)

And Elohim said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the yabashah (dry land) appear; and it was so. (Genesis 1:9)

Many of us can easily observe the benefits of integrating play, love, and
work at home. During the first few years of their lives, young children are—in a
quite literal sense—visiting a foreign country for the first time. Because kids do not think in adult concepts and categories, they often approach this “new land” from many different perspectives simultaneously. Metaphorically speaking,
they observe water and sand, trees and woods, plants and animals, the moon,
the sun, the stars, all of it, as if through the eyes of an artist, or a naturalist, or
a writer, or a scientist. When we offer our children opportunities to explore
this new and exciting world in their own time and at their own pace, we open
them up to powerful learning experiences they could not encounter in any other
way. Why intrude on a time when children are instinctively learning with such
joy and enthusiasm? Why rush babies and preschoolers and school kids into
adult-led learning experiences. (Elkind)

10 And Elohim called the yabashah Eretz (Earth); and the mikveh (gathering together of the waters) called He Seas; and Elohim saw that it was tov. (Genesis 1:10)

As Piaget has show, the child’s thinking remains animistic until the age of
puberty. His parents and teacher tell him that things cannot feel and act; and as much as
he may pretend to believe this to please these adults, or not to ridiculed, deep down the
child knows better. Subjected to the rational teachers of others, the child only buries his
“true knowledge” deeper in his soul and it remains untouched by rationality; but it can be
formed and informed by what fairy tales have to say. (Bettelheim)

11 And Elohim said, Let the earth bring forth vegetation, the herb yielding zera (seed), and the fruit tree yielding pri (fruit) after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so. (Genesis 1:11)

Literacy risks being seen both as the only pathway to success and at the
same time a punitive boogeyman that scares away children’s joy. Generally,
teachers are as much in agreement about the importance of literacy as we
are about the importance of play, but sometimes we think they are mutually
exclusive—that time devoted to one takes away from the other. Literacy
and play, indeed all learning and play, can go together. They really must
go together; together they can and should be pleasurable and rewarding
experiences for children, and for teachers and parents as well, who clearly
want the best possible for their children now and for the future. (Gandini)

12 And the earth brought forth vegetation, and herb yielding zera (seed) after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and Elohim saw that it was tov (good). (Genesis 1:12)

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine. (Emerson)

Let God work in you, give the work to God, and have peace. Don’t worry if He works through your nature or above your nature, because both are His, nature and grace. (Meister Eckhart)

All division is in the mind (chitta); there is none in reality (chit). Movement and rest are states of mind and cannot be without their opposites. By itself nothing moves, nothing rests. It is a grievous mistake to attribute to mental constructs absolute existence. Nothing exists by itself.

There is rest as a state of mind (chidaram) and there is rest as a state of being (atmaram). The former comes and goes, while the true rest is the very heart of action. Unfortunately, language is a mental tool and works only in opposites. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

A writing that refers back only to itself carries us
at the same time, indefinitely and systematically, to some other writing. At
the same time: this is what we must account for. A writing that refers only
to itself and a writing that refers indefinitely to some other writing might
appear noncontradictory: the reflecting screen never captures anything but
writing, indefinitely, stopping nowhere, and each reference still confines us
within the element of reflection. Of course. But the difficulty arises in the
relation between the medium of writing and the determination of each
textual unit. It is necessary that while referring each time to another text, to
another determinate system, each organism only refer to itself as a determinate
structure; a structure that is open and closed at the same time.(Derrida)

2020 (#12) : Malaguzzi , Isaiah 55:12 , Bettelheim , Winnicott , Elkind , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The most favorable situation for creativity seems to be interpersonal exchange, with negotiation of conflict and comparison of ideas and actions being decisive elements. (Malaguzzi)

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

Myths and fairy stories both answer the eternal questions: What is the world
really like? How am I to live my life in it? How can I truly be myself? The answers
given by myths are definite, while the fairy tale is suggestive; its messages may imply
solutions, but it never spells them out. Fairy tales leave to the child’s fantasizing whether
and how to apply to himself what the story reveals about life and human nature.
(Bettelheim)

At this point Edmund quite naturally left the toys, got onto the couch and crept
like an animal towards his mother and curled up on her lap. He stayed there about
three minutes. She gave a very natural response, not exaggerated. Then he uncurled
and returned to the toys. He now put the string (which he seemed fond of) at the
bottom of the bucket like bedding, and began to put the toys in, so that they had a nice
soft place to lie in, like a cradle or cot. After once more clinging to his mother and
then returning to the toys, he was ready to go, the mother and I having finished our
business. (Winnicott)

The fairy tale proceeds in a manner which conforms to the way a child thinks and
experiences the world; this is why the fairy tale is so convincing to him. He can gain
much better solace from a fairy tale that he can from an effort to comfort him based on
adult reasoning and viewpoints. A child trusts what the fairy story tells. because its
world view accords with his own. (Bettelheim)

Though play can be fun, as one of
the three essential drives—love, play, work—it contributes to the best kind
of learning. Play operates as more than a creative urge; it also functions as a
fundamental mode of learning. (Elkind)

In this play he had illustrated much of that which the mother was talking about
(although she was also talking about herself). He had communicated an ebb and flow
of movement in him away from and back to dependence. But this was
not psychotherapy since I was working with the mother. What Edmund did was
simply to display the ideas that occupied his life while his mother and I were talking
together. I did not interpret and I must assume that this child would have been liable
to play just like this without there being anyone there to see or to receive
the communication, in which case it would perhaps have been a communication with
some part of the self, the observing ego. As it happened I was there mirroring what
was taking place and thus giving it a quality of communication. (Winnicott)

eternity is In the split moment of the now. We miss it because the mind is ever shuttling between the past and the future. It will not stop to focus the now. It can be done with comparative ease, if interest is aroused… By keeping your mind clear and clean, by living your life in full awareness of every moment as it happens, by examining and dissolving one’s desires and fears as soon as they arise… Once you are well-established in the now, you have nowhere else to go what you are timelessly, you express eternally.

(Sri Nisagadatta Maharaj)