Back to the same place but not the same experience
Intensive Two @ Pajaro Dunes
Group Dynamics and Learning Group Formation
The Return to Pajaro Dunes
Jogging north on the beach after an intense session I confronted death. Well, I mean I thought about it. I ran as best as I could in the sand. I passed first a dead fish, then a small dead bird, then another larger one; this time a gull. Not much farther up the beach I saw a dead sea otter near my path. I tried to make it to the top of the large dune but I wasn't in good enough shape. I imagined not too far in the future when I will labor as hard just to walk slowly along a shore. I confronted death on this jog and it was a welcome and inspiring break from "classwork".
I think it's great to have the kind of place where I can enjoy the significance of such thinking. Some real stuff happened again at Pajaro.
I'm having trouble with some of the links still, making my way through and fixing them. Some papers are available on the Papers page that haven't made it here yet.
Group Formation
I was extremely frustrated by this experience, but that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything from it! Here's a video I made about a power dynamic theory as pre-work in anticipation of what might happen during this process.
Experiential Group
Now this is what I'm into. In some different ways than the Insight Group from Pajaro 1, this group experience was fantastic for me. It keeps turning out that I love working in groups.
Learning Group
Despite the difficulties in forming groups, this one was a pretty damn good one to end up in for me. I can't remember if I knew that at the time. I think I thought it, but for the wrong reasons.