The Growing Edge

Carrie Newcomer and Parker J. Palmer discuss long winters and new seasons of growth and The Growing Edge Quesion of the Month.

"What have you learned for the long winters of your life and/or those seasons of new growth and unexpected light?"

Parker and Carrie discuss The Growing Edge Question of The Month for March. March is the season of spring, mud and miracles. How do you hold the eternal mix of mud and miracles in your life? What do you learn from this process? What do you regard as miraculous, and how do you give thanks for it?

Carrie and Parker discuss The Growing Edge February question of the month. In February nature maintains a state of stillness in order to nurture its own growing edges. But we live in a culture that values (and sometimes requires) speeding. Parker and Carrie discuss slowing, stopping, lying low whether by choice or necessity. What do we learn, what can only happen when given time and space? What does it mean to live at the speed of our own souls?

It’s no accident that January takes its name from the Roman god Janus, the god of "gateways and beginnings." Parker and Carrie explore the idea of endings, beginning again, beginner's mind and the question "Where are you feeling called to ‘begin again’? Are there areas of your life and work where you’re feeling stuck, where would it be life-giving for you—and maybe for others—to gather up what you’ve learned and make a fresh start? ”

Parker J Palmer and Carrie Newcomer are joined by special guest the poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. A reading of Naomi's poem "Shoulders" and a conversation about the concept of gift, giving and paying attention.

Carrie and Parker discuss where the personal meets the political at the Growing Edge, focusing on the human heart as the first home of democracy. What personal work will help us navigate the kind of troubled times that ask us to be better people than we ever thought we'd need to be? Parker describes the politics of the broken hearted.

Carrie and Parker discuss the October Growing Edge Question of the Month. "What do you want to name and claim as a way you are flowering today that you could only hope for in the past? What do you want to celebrate about the way your life has opened over the years as it reaches for the sun?” Often we think of personal and spiritual growth as an effort to achieve some goal in the future. But it’s equally important to look back and celebrate the growth we’ve achieved over the past five or ten years ago in that process of “slow blossoming” that we’re barely aware of. If we fail to raise our own growth to consciousness, we may lose some of its benefits.

Parker and Carrie discuss the September question of the Month, fear, courage, mentors and what it means to see and be seen. It’s September, the start of the school year. For many kids, it’s an exciting growing edge moment and scary at the same time. When you’ve felt afraid on the growing edge of your adult life, what has helped you walk into your fear toward what excites you? What helps you keep fear from blocking your next steps toward your “deep gladness”?

Episode 1 - Welcome to our first episode and conversation about the August 2018 Question of the Month. "In the past, when you’ve felt a “growing edge” in your life, what signs let you know that something new was calling you? What did you notice as you followed those signs—and what did you learn from that experience about life on the growing edge?"