2023 (#29) : Malaguzzi , Jerome Bruner , Emerson , Heidegger , Jung , Marie-Louis von Franz , Joshua , Mathew

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

Finding a place in the world … is ultimately an act of imagination. The home, workplace, and social (friendship) circles have different values and beliefs, which complicates the individual’s ability to subsist within one culture. Therefore, people should be encouraged to identify and understand their perceptions of culture and go beyond the cultural ways to innovate … to create … Each must be his own artist, his own scientist, his own historian, his own navigator.

• Jerome Bruner

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing, and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever.

• Emerson

The first help might be the readying of this readiness. It is not through man that the world can be what it is and how it is — but also not without man. In my view, this goes together with the fact that what I call “Being” (that long traditional, highly ambiguous, now worn-out word) has need of man in order that its revelation, its appearance as truth, and its [various] forms may come to pass

• Heidegger

This description fits the paradoxical situation of the self, as its symbolism shows. It is the smallest of the small, easily over- looked and pushed aside. Indeed, it is in need of help and must
be perceived, protected, and as it were built up by the conscious
mind, just as if it did not exist at all and were called into being
only through man’s care and devotion.

• Jung

Through the realization of the dark side of God, and the precarious situation of man, he became more tolerant and understanding, realizing that we are all poor devils struggling with a difficult fate, the beginning and end of which we do not know. He thus began to accept the small happinesses of life, which you can enjoy much more if you know that life is difficult and dark, and he acquired a certain sense of humour which he had not formerly possessed.

• Marie-Louis von Franz

going the way of all the earth.

• Joshua

we know
from experience that it had long been there and is older than
the ego, and that it is actually the secret spiritus rector of our
fate.

• Jung

 Freely you have received; freely give.

• Mathew

2023 (#28) : Malaguzzi , Emerson , Derrida , Joshua , Mathew , I Ching , John Ashbery

“If only you had seen all I had to do.” The child
wants this observation. We all want this. This means
that when you learn to observe the child, when you
have assimilated all that it means to observe the
child, you learn many things that are not in books —
educational or psychological. And when you have
done this you will learn to have more diffidence and
more distrust of rapid assessments, tests, judgments.
The child wants to be observed, but she doesn’t want
to be judged. Even when we do judge, things escape
us, we do not see things, so we are not able to evaluate in a wide way.. This system of observing children
carries you into many different feelings and thoughts,
into a kind of teaching full of uncertainty and doubt,
and it takes wisdom and a great deal of knowledge
on the part of the teachers to be able to work within
this situation of uncertainty.

• Malaguzzi

 It is the doubling of the heart itself, nay, the infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new infinity on every side. It inspires in man an infallible trust. 

• Emerson

Each situation demands the creation
of a suitable mode of exposition, the invention of a law of the singular event, take into account the
recipient, imagined or desired; and at the same time it demands the belief that this writing will determine
the reader, who will learn to read (or to “live”) this writing,

• Derrida

the moment he stretched out his hand,

• Joshua

The girl is not dead but asleep.

• Mathew

Review the past,
Summarize the journey.
Everything is fulfilled.
Supreme good fortune.

• I Ching

I could swear it moved
in incomplete back yards
to endorse the conversation, request to be strapped in.
Then it will be time to take the step
giving fragile responses,
and finally he wrote the day.

• John Ashbery

According to your faith let it be done to you

• Mathew

2023 (#27) : Malaguzzi , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Emerson , Derrida , Bhagavad Gita , Joshua , Proverbs , Mark , Sri Ramana Maharshi

It’s a constant value for the children to know that the
adult is there, attentive and helpful, a guide for the
child. Perhaps this way of working with the child
will build a different understanding of our role than
we have had before. Clarifying the meaning of our
presence and our being with children is something
that is vital for the child. When the child sees that the
adult is there, totally involved with the child, the
child doesn’t forget. This is something that’s right for
us and it’s right for the children.

• Malaguzzi

When you are giddy, you see the world running circles round you. Obsessed with the idea of means and end, of work and purpose, you see me apparently functioning. In reality I only look. Whatever is done, is done on the stage. Joy and sorrow life and death, they all are real to the man in bondage; to me they are all in the show, as unreal as the show itself.I may perceive the world just like you, but you believe to be in it, while I see it as an iridescent drop in the vast expanse of consciousness.

• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us, that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary, and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine. 

• Emerson

Pure pleasure and pure reality are ideal limits, which is as much as to say fictions. The one is as destructive and mortal as the other. Between the two the differant detour therefore forms the very actuality of the process, of the “psychic” process as a “living” process. Such an “actuality,” then, is never present or given. It “is” that which in the gift is never presently giving or given. There is — it gives, differance … 

• Derrida

All actions are wrought in all cases by the qualities of Nature only. He whose mind is deluded by egoism thinks: “I am the doer”.

• Bhagavad Gita

we will treat you kindly and in good faith.

• Joshua

A generous person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

• Proverbs/Mashal

He who sees God without seeing the Self sees only a mental image. They say that he who sees the Self sees God. He who, having completely lost the ego, sees the Self, has found God, because the Self does not exist apart from God.

• Sri Ramana Maharshi

The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

• Mark

‘As rivers lose name and shape in the sea, wise men lose name and shape in God, glittering beyond all distance.

• Mundaka Upanishad Book 3

2023 (#26) : Montessori , Emerson , John Ashbery , Deuteronomy , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , D.T. Suzuki , Mathew , Marie-Louise von Franz

It is a question of co-operation with a command of nature,
with one of her laws which decrees that development
should take place by means of experiences upon the
environment. With his first step the child enters a higher
level of experiences.

• Montessori

Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment..

• Emerson

Like mountains veiled by water and sky

• John Ashbery

in a land of grain and new wine,
where the skies drip with dew.

• Deuteronomy

destiny is what happens. There is no thwarting of destiny.Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole of the future.

• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

When the release takes place, whatever is born in the mind explodes like a volcanic eruption or spills out like lightning. Zen calls this ‘return to self’ . . . (

• D.T. Suzuki

“Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

• Mathew

In considering the symbolism of the bath, comparison can be made with all the different baptismal rites which we have in our own religion and in pre-Christian rituals. For instance, in the Eleusynian mysteries the participants went first to the sea to take a ritual bath. Such cleansing baths taken before initiation into the deeper mysteries are symbols widespread throughout the world. North American Indians usually go into a sweat lodge where they sit in a chamber under the earth; water is poured over the hot stones so that the man sits in hot steam while rubbing himself with sage grass as a means of cleansing himself from the sins he has committed and from the evil spirits.

• Marie-Louise von Franz

2023 (#25) : Vivian Paley , Nietzsche , Malaguzzi , Emerson , Proverbs , Deuteronomy , Derrida , Mathew

In fantasy play, children learn to envision new roles for themselves and for other people. They learn to change and redirect the outcome of an imaginary plot and to include the ideas of others in their plans. When the common story becomes more important than one’s habitual stance, the individual mind expands in the search for more common ground. Experience teaches us that we and our narratives become more interesting when we add maximum variety in people and ideas. It is a tall order, but the more we play out the problem involved, the more likely we are to find the right balance between the individual and the group.

• Vivian Paley

“Yes, life is worth living! Yes, I’m worthy of life!”-Life, you and me, all of us just as we are, we became interesting to ourselves. We cannot deny that in the long run laughter, reason, and nature ended up becoming masters of each of the great masters of teleology: Brief-tenured tragedy finally has always returned to the eternal comedy of existence. And the sea “with its countless smiles”–to speak with Aeschylus–with its waves, will finally cover the greatest of our tragedies. . .

• Nietzsche

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

30 Then I was constantly[e] at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.

• Proverbs/Mashal

 The simplest words-we do not know
what they mean except when we love and aspire.

• Emerson

May my teaching fall like rain.

• Deuteronomy

An analysis which is not merely a theoretical analysis, but at the same time another writing of the question of Being or meaning: deconstruction is also a manner or writing and putting forward another text. It is not a “tabula rasa”, which is why deconstruction is also distinct from doubt or from critique. 

• Derrida

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall

• Mathew

Let’s go back a little and start out again from the question “who?”

• Derrida

spreads out her wings, takes them
and carries them as she flies.

• Deuteronomy

2023 (#24) : Malaguzzi , Vygotsky , Jerome Bruner , Emerson , John Ashbery , Deuteronomy , Heidegger , Mathew , Nietzsche , I Ching , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Jung ,

The ability to enjoy relationships and work together
is very important. Children need to enjoy being in
school, they need to love their school and the interactions that take place there. Their expectations of
these interactions is critical. .

• Malaguzzi

We may say that we become ourselves through others and that this rule applies not only to the personality as a whole, but also to the history of every individual function.

• Vygotsky

’Learning’ is, most often, figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you currently think. There are many ways of doing that. Some are more intuitive; others are formally derivational. But they all depend on knowing something “structural” about what you are contemplating-how to put it together. Knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it. It permits you to go beyond it.

• Jerome Bruner

He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The things that are really for thee gravitate for thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best.

• Emerson

The bars had been removed from all the windows

There was something quiet in the way the light entered

Her troussaeau. Wine fished out of the sea — they hadn’t known

We were coming relaxed forever

• John Ashbery

By virtue of this inevitable nature, private will is overpowered, and maugre our efforts or our imperfections, your genius will speak from you, and mine from me.That which we are, we shall teach, not voluntarily but involuntarily. Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never voluntarily opened. Character teaches over our head.

• Emerson

 a land flowing with milk and honey.’

• Deuteronomy

Thinking is not inactivity, but is itself by its very nature an engagement that stands in dialogue with the epochal moment of the world. It seems to me that the distinction between theory and practice comes from metaphysics, and the conception of a transmission between these two blocks the way to insight into what I understand by thinking.

• Heidegger

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

• Mathew

³ “A blessing on you in the city, and a blessing on you in the countryside.

• Deuteronomy

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

• Mathew

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.

• Nietzsche

When, in accord with this, movement follows the law of heaven, man is innocent and without guile. His mind is natural and true, unshadowed by reflection or ulterior designs. 

• I Ching Hexagram 25

You need not eliminate the wrong ‘I’. How can ‘I’ eliminate itself? All that you need do is to find out its origin and abide there. Your efforts can extend only thus far. Then the beyond will take care of itself. You are helpless there. No effort can reach it.

• Sri Ramana Maharshi

The divine child approached me out of the terrible ambiguity,
the hateful-beautiful, the evil-good, the laughable-serious, the
sick-healthy, the inhuman-human and the ungodly-godly.

• Jung

⁶ “A blessing on you when you go out, and a blessing on you when you come in.

• Deuteronomy

 in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

• Mathew

2023 (#23) : Montessori , Emerson , Bhagavad Gita , Sri Ramana Maharshi , Deuteronomy , Mathew , Derrida , John Ashbery , Jung , Tao Te Ching , Deuteronomy

The child walks with his eyes
as well as his legs, and it is the interesting things in the
environment that carry him along. He walks and sees a
lamb eating, he is interested and sits down by it, watch-
ing ; then he gets up and goes further, he sees a flower
sits down by it and sniffs at it ; then he sees a tree,
walks up to it and round and round it four or five times
and then sits down and looks at it. In this way he
covers miles ; they are walks full of resting periods and
at the same time full of interesting information, and if
there is something difficult like a boulder in the way, that
is the height of his happiness. Water is another great
attraction. Sometimes he will sit down and say :
” Water “, happily and all you can see is a tiny stream
falling drop by drop.

• Montessori

Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. 

• Emerson

The Light of consciousness comes to him through infinite powers of perception, and yet he is above all these powers.

• The Bhagavad Gita

You are the constant illumination that lights up both the experience
and the void.

• Sri Ramana Maharshi

you have seen with your own eyes all these great deeds of Adonai.

• Deuteronomy

do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.

• Mathew

Still on a preliminary level, let’s not forget Nietzsche’s precautions regarding what might link metaphysics and grammar. These precautions need to be duly adjusted and problematized, but they remain necessary. What we are seeking with the question “who?” perhaps no longer stems from grammar, from a relative or interrogative pronoun which always refers back to the grammatical function of subject. 

• Derrida

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,^[c] your whole body will be full of light. 

• Mathew

I could swear it moved
in incomplete back yards
to endorse the conversation, request to be strapped in.
Then it will be time to take the step
giving fragile responses,
and finally he wrote the day.

• John Ashbery

When the clever old man had brought the boy to this point he could
begin his good advice, i.e., the situation no longer looked hopeless. He
advised him to continue his wanderings, always to the eastward, where
after seven years he would reach the great mountain that betokened his
good fortune. The bigness and tallness of the mountain are allusions to his adult personality.Concentration of his powers brings assurance and is
therefore the best guarantee of success.From now on he will lack for
nothing. “Take my scrip and my flask,” says the old man, “and each day
you will find in them all the food and drink you need.” At the same time he
gave him a burdock leaf that could change into a boat whenever the boy
had to cross water.

• Jung

The Master stays behind;

that is why she is ahead,

She is detached from all things;

that is why she is one with them.

Because she has let go of herself,

she is perfectly fulfilled.

• Tao Te Ching

 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Mathew

Adonai is one]; ⁵ and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, all your being and all your resources.

• Deuteronomy

where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

• Mathew

2023 (#22) : Derrida , Jerome Bruner , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , Emerson , Bhagavad Gita , Mathew 5:7 , Jung , John 15:7

Why do I now underscore that expression: “what is happening?” Because
for me this belongs to the order of the absolutely unforeseeable, which
is always the condition of any event. Even when it seems to go back to
a buried past, what comes about always comes from the future. .

• Derrida

Knowledge is not a storehouse. You already “know” most of what you “learn” in science and mathematics. “Learning” is, most often, figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you currently think.

• Jerome Bruner

eternity is in the split moment of the now. We miss it because the mind is ever shuttling between the past and the future.

• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget

ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why: in short to create a new circle.

• Emerson

Content with whatever gain comes of its own accord, and free from envy, they are beyond the dualities of life. Being equipoised in success and failure, they are not bound by their actions, even while performing all kinds of activities.

• Bhagavad Gita

That which returns is the constant affirmation, the “yes, yes”. That which signs here is in the form of a return, which is to say it has the form of something that cannot be simple. It is a selective return without negativity, or which reduces negativity through affirmation, through alliance or marriage (hymen), that is, through an affirmation that is also binding on the other or that enters into a pact with itself as other.

• Derrida

Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

• Mathew 5:7-10

since Christ, as a man, corresponds to the ego, and , as God, to the self, he is at once both ego and self, part and whole.

• Jung

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

• John 15:7

2023 (#21) : Malaguzzi , Emerson , Derrida , Marie-Luoise von Franz , Dogen , Mathew 5:16 , Tao Te Ching

 What is important to the child is
that the teacher sees the child while the child is
working, while the child is putting out the effort to
accomplish the task — the processes are important,
how much the child is putting into the effort, how
heroic the child is doing this work. What children
want is to be observed while engaged, they do not
want the focus of the observation to be on the final
product. When we as adults are able to see the
children in the process, it’s as if we are opening a
window and getting a fresh view of things..

• Malaguzzi

By doing his work, he makes the need felt which he can supply, and creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work, he unfolds himself.

• Emerson

there is a duty in deconstruction. There has to be, if there is such a thing as duty. The subject, if subject there must be, is to come after this.

• Derrida

Usually an analysand who comes into analysis has tried out what could be done in general in the conscious situation, and you are therefore confronted with the ticklish question left us by society of finding out what the person in his particular conditions ought to do,and here we can say that the “right” behaviour can be described as that which is in accordance with the totality of the psychological personality. The situation in fairytales is similar, for hero and heroine may be said to represent models for a functioning of the ego in harmony with the totality of the psyche. They are models for the healthy ego, an ego complex which does not disturb the total set up of the personality, but which normally functions as its organ of expression.

• Marie-Luoise von Franz

But by the same token, the insignificance of language, of the properly linguistic body : it can only take on meaning in relation to a place. By place, I mean just as much the relation to a border, country, house, or threshold, as any site, any situation in general from within which, practically, pragmatically, alliances are formed, contracts, codes and conventions established which give meaning to the insignificant , institute passwords, bend language to what exceeds it, make of it a moment of gesture and of step, secondarize or ‘reject’ it in order to find it again.

• Derrida

The time-being is like this. Arriving is overwhelmed by arriving, but not by not-arriving. Not-arriving is overwhelmed by not-arriving, but not by arriving. Mind overwhelms mind and sees mind, words overwhelm words and see words. Overwhelming overwhelms overwhelming and sees overwhelming. Overwhelming is nothing but overwhelming. This is time. As overwhelming is caused by you, there is no overwhelming that is separate from you. Thus you go out and meet someone. Someone meets someone. You meet yourself. Going out meets going out. If these are not the actualization of time, they cannot be thus.

• Dogen

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

• Mathew

the heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement.

• Tao Te Ching

2023 (#20) : Vivian Paley , Emerson , Proverbs 15:4 , Numbers 23:13 , Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj , John 15:4 , Isaiah 4:16 , Derrida , John Ashbery , Genesis 1:27 , Jung

In fantasy play, children learn to envision new roles for themselves and for other people. They learn to change and redirect the outcome of an imaginary plot and to include the ideas of others in their plans. When the common story becomes more important than one’s habitual stance, the individual mind expands in the search for more common ground. Experience teaches us that we and our narratives become more interesting when we add maximum variety in people and ideas. It is a tall order, but the more we play out the problem involved, the more likely we are to find the right balance between the individual and the group…

• Vivian Paley

He may have his own. A man’s genius, the quality that differences him from every other, the susceptibility to one class of influences, the selection of what is fit for him, the rejection of what is unfit, determines for him the character of the universe. A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him, wherever he goes. He takes only his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps and circles round him. – Emerson

The soothing tongue is a tree of life,

• Mashal/Proverbs 15:4

maybe Adonai will come and meet me; and whatever he shows me I will tell you.

• Numbers 23:3

The person has no being in itself; it is a reflection in the mind of the witness, the ‘I am’, which again is a mode of being.

• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

• John 15:4

the people living in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
    a light has dawned.”^[f]

• Isaiah 4:16

The concept of the archive shelters in itself, of course, this memory of the name arkhe …“archive”. In a way, the term indeed refers, as one would correctly believe, to the arkhe in the physical, historical, or ontological sense, which is to say to the originary, the first, the principial, the primitive, in short to the commencement. But even more, and even earlier, “archive” refers to the arkhe in the nomological sense, to the arkhe of the commandment.

• Derrida

Wasn’t it April? Weren’t things more likely to last
in this or any season? Rhymes we like.
More than rhythm, they provide a life preserver
for embarrassing sorties. Um, someday we’ll be grown up too,
the desk lights not cancel the barge
as it approaches the corner of avenues.

• John Ashbery

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

• Bereshit/Genesis 1:27

This special development in man’s idea of spirit rests on the
recognition that its invisible presence is a psychic phenomenon, i.e., one’s
own spirit, and that this consists not only of uprushes of life but of formal
products too. Among the first, the most prominent are the images and
shadowy presentations that occupy our inner field of vision; among the
second, thinking and reason, which organize the world of images. In this
way a transcendent spirit superimposed itself upon the original, natural
life-spirit and even swung over to the opposite position, as though the
latter were merely naturalistic. The transcendent spirit became the
supranatural and transmundane cosmic principle of order and as such was
given the name of “God,” or at least it became an attribute of the One
Substance (as in Spinoza) or one Person of the Godhead (as in
Christianity).

• Jung