by Sarah Chauncey | Jul 9, 2016 | Writing
Yesterday, the people behind the Wordnik Twitter account shared an article about how researchers at the University of Vermont have discovered that all stories follow one of six arcs. These are the arcs they identified by data-mining more than 1,700 novels: “Rags to...
by Sarah Chauncey | May 4, 2016 | Spirituality
The other day, I saw the above photo in my Facebook feed (photo © Kerry Dixon). “Transformation” is a nebulous word, kind of like “sustainability” was a decade ago. Few people identify their primary field as “transformation.” Rather, it crosses multiple sectors, from...
by Sarah Chauncey | May 3, 2016 | Spirituality, Writing
Transformation isn’t about words. Most of us who work in transformation research, write about or teach concepts that can only be fully understood as a direct experience. It’s about an experience that words can only point to. Yet words are what we have. For most of us,...
by Sarah Chauncey | Apr 20, 2016 | Spirituality, Writing
“What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.” – David Whyte Language is a paradox. Words are symbols that can never capture the essence of what they point to, yet at this point in our evolution, words are the...
by Sarah Chauncey | Jan 9, 2015 | Creativity, Mindfulness
Novels, J.D. Salinger wrote, grow in the dark. By that, he meant that true creativity comes from the subconscious mind, from allowing ideas time to percolate below our conscious awareness. It’s not just novels, though, that spring forth from the subconscious mind. So...
