Welcome to Week Six of the class! For this last lecture, I’ll do 2 things. First, I’ll highlight some ways that I use my blog as part of my practice. Then, I’ll offer a few suggestions on what to do next with your practice of moving outside, noticing, and writing about it.  Part One: Using…

Welcome to week five: So far, we’ve talked about wonder as delight and wonder as curiosity. This week I’ll focus on wonder as play. It’s deeply connected to delight and curiosity, but I think it deserves its own week.  What do I mean by play? Here’s a definition of play and playfulness from the feminist…

Wonder as Curiosity It starts with astonishment, then you want to know more: What is it? How does it work? What stories does it tell? Why is it so astonishing? Now you’re not just in wonder of the world, but you wonder about it. You are curious.  To be curious about the world is to…

Winter Wonder It’s Week 3 and hopefully you’ve had a chance to settle in a little to this new practice. Maybe you’re noticing things you never noticed before, or you’re noticing things you’ve moved past for years in new ways. You might be starting to open up to the world and to the winter, finding…

Welcome to Week 2. Today’s lecture is all about attention. 3 Forms of Attention When you think of giving attention to something, you might think of carefully studying it. Standing still, staring hard, concentrating. Observing it and trying to capture its smallest details so that you can understand it, classify it, know it. This type…

Season 2: the Winter Edition Welcome to Finding Wonder in Winter and the Words While Outside and in Motion! My name is Sara Puotinen. I live in South Minneapolis, four blocks from the Mississippi River Gorge. Six years ago, I started a writing project about running and the experience of training for my first marathon. After I…

Welcome to Week Six of the class! For this last lecture, I’ll do two things. First, I’ll highlight an activity that I added a few years into my practice that has not only been enjoyable, but has opened up new ways for me to pay attention to the world: memorizing a poem before going outside,…

This week’s lecture take us in a slightly different direction than the last 3 weeks. Week 2 was about attention, weeks 3 and 4 about wonder as delight and curiosity. The emphasis in those weeks was on learning to pay attention and find, or be found by, wonder. This week is about our bodies in…

It starts with astonishment, then you want to know more: What is it? How does it work? What stories does it tell? Why is it so astonishing? Now you’re not just in wonder of the world, but you wonder about it.  You are curious. Week Four’s lecture is about wonder as curiosity.   Transcript continued…

Week Three’s lecture is about wonder and delight. It features poems by Mary Oliver, Dorothea Tanning, lucille clifton, Maggie Smith, Robert Frost, and one poem and 3 delight essays by Ross Gay. Transcript Invitation / Mary Oliver Oh do you have timeto lingerfor just a whileout of your busy and important dayfor the goldfinchesthat have…