My 8 year old son is learning guitar. After a few months of rote-learning standard riffs and chords, he is beginning to experiment with his own tunes and chords. “Daddy,” he says as he fingers an improbable combination of notes. “Is this a real chord? It sounds kind of cool.” On balance, he spends as much time creating his own sounds as he does practicing the songs and scales his guitar teacher provides him. Both types of practice are important and both help to wire his developing his brain differently. In this TED Talk by brain surgeon Charles Limb, he …

Given the volume of tweets that I share with the world that are about growing, harvesting, preparing and eating food, is it any surprise that we have set up a blog called Home Harvesting? But one day … Ingrid turned to me and said something that resonated instantly in both of us … and of course I tweeted it … This summer has produced a bountiful harvest at home. We have struggled to keep up with the fruit, vegetables and eggs we have produced. For the first time, nothing has gone to waste – we have harvested, prepared, consumed (and …

I am a bit slow off the mark with this year’s Reverb – Reflect on this year and manifest what’s next! Reverb is a daily blog post based on an offer from the folks at Reverb. Here is today’s challenge … ‘December 12 – Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author: Patrick Reynolds)” That moment came for me on Day 4 of a facilitation gig I did in Sydney with the folks from …

If you have my previous posts, you will be aware that I spent time working with the folks from Australia’s contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre sector. The event was called the Flashpoint Forum and was hosted by the sector’s peak body ACAPTA. When the 2 days of Open Space was over on the Friday, everyone (26 plus a few others) came back together on Saturday. I’ll admit to feeling nervous about this day. I was asking myself questions like … “why don’t we simply continue Open Space for another day?”. Here’s a story the group created, performed and recorded in just …

I am big fan of story and performance based structures such as the Story Spine. These are great ways of providing a group a structure and can be used in strategic planning, project planning and evaluation. Recently I wrote my own story spine to generate new ideas about where my own business ‘could’ go in the future. These structures can invite possibility! I learned another structure last week when facilitating the ACAPTA Flashpoint Forum. This is the structure used by many street buskers … you know, they attract the attention of the crowd and then involve audience members in a …