If there is anything I learned this quarter about contemplative exercises, it is that mindfulness is a state of mind itself and once you think about it, you break the concentration. I determined that being led in a practice in a group setting brought me more individual focus, rather than hearing a practice online on my own. For me, mindfulness… Read more »
Our action project was a struggle but through pressure, like carbon, turned into something wonderful in the end. We had an intense start with lots of motivation and ideas flowing like a river. We wanted to find our place to make an impact on the immediate world around us and we felt like we had all the power in the… Read more »
“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s words resonated with us. We wanted to create positive change, and like many, we didn’t know how… Read more »
Right away my group and I knew what we wanted to come out of our action project, and that was to circulate strong emotions within our audience in response to information on global warming and its effects. We chose to use the bottom up approach and targeted our own community. Luckily, we have the city of Seattle right at our… Read more »
Our action project allowed us to engage with the University of Washington community and to interact with a greater system, the federal government. However, we initially struggled to settle on a project that had an impact on a broad system and was possible to execute within a few weeks. We decided to go back to the basics and expand on… Read more »
Group projects will never be simple. The convergence of bright minds will without a doubt clash and merge in new and different ways. Our project was never perfect, but I would not trade perfection for the personal growth and group development. Looking back I believe that my first action project idea lacked the meaning and depth that I ended up… Read more »
https://futureofseattle.weebly.com/ My group chose to use pictures as the central media because they invite several different perspectives. While we provide supplementary material on the website, the viewer immediately forms an opinion or thought on the subject once they view the photos. If the information we provided does not necessarily stir the reader, maybe their interpretation of the photo will. As… Read more »
Throughout this quarter, my peers and I were invited to complete an action project. This project has three key goals: to create and implement a response to the course material, create an offering to the larger community, and to integrate a reflective component in both inception and implementation. My group’s final product after extensive deliberation is a website about climate… Read more »
For our action project, my two groupmates and I organized a yoga and dance party at the University of Washington. The idea was to teach people about the Anthropocene in a creative way that wouldn’t be overwhelming and paralyzing for participants. We would bring a yoga instructor to help us incorporate the body as well as contemplative practices for an… Read more »
The group action project, encouraging us to embrace agency in the Anthropocene, demanded we engage the greater community in some fashion. While free to shape the project as we pleased, we were asked to incorporate contemplative practices into our work. In groups of about four people, we had nearly a month to complete our projects. For the assignment, I worked… Read more »
