Under the Spell of Chuck Squier

November 24, 1864. Visualize a quiet morning on southeastern Colorado’s high plains. See in your mind’s eye lodges housing Indians who thought they were safe, at peace with the White people. Then think of the terror, the horror that ensued as hundreds of heavily armed soldiers of the First and Third Colorado Volunteer Regiments attacked, killing young men and old, but mostly women and children.

Consider the biases, the hate, fear, self-righteousness, the complexity of terrible acts and blame that led to this event and its aftermath.

Under the White Wing: Events at Sand Creek does all this and more. And on a Sunday afternoon in March, the full house listening to author Chuck Squier masterfully read his gripping narrative verse experienced again the distress, the melancholy that time and place holds. Spellbound by Chuck’s stunning portrayal of those involved, listeners could well heed these words by Gary Holthaus:

If we do not know this story and others like it in our history, we cannot acknowledge who we are as Americans and what we have done as a nation.

A memorable afternoon. If you haven’t heard Chuck Squier read from Under the White Wing, you have missed something extraordinary.

Attendees settle in for a singular experience.

Laura Goodman welcomes the group and thanks Chuck.

Reg Saner, Boulder's first poet laureate, introduces friend and colleague Chuck Squier.

Chuck captivates the audience with his resonate voice, 

portraying multiple facets of humankind. 

Photos courtesy of John Zola

Under the White Wing - An Extraordinary Reading

Save the date and join us for an extraordinary reading!

Charles Squier

UNDER THE WHITE WING:

EVENTS AT SAND CREEK

Sunday, March 18^th, 3:00 p.m.

3021 Jefferson St., Boulder, CO 80304

R.S.V.P.  – stillpointcenter@earthlink.net    or 303.443.8059

Charles Squier's masterfully lean and fast-moving verse narrative vividly evokes the characters and motives convergent in one of the nation's most unforgivable chapters, the Sand Creek massacre. Rarely, if ever, has any episode in that slow holocaust called "the winning of the West" been revealed with such movingly understated irony. The verse line of Under the White Wing is clean, muscular, and mercifully free of the falsely "poetikal." Its illumination of the barbarism which in the American West once passed for civilization places Squier's poem among the best of its genre.

-Reg Saner, author of Reaching Keet Seel:

Ruin's Echo and the Anasazie

Here we have the tragic events of the Sand Creek massacre of 1864 truthfully told in a language so clear and visual that you will think you have already seen the movie. It is a story that has the power to transform us, if we listen.

-Gary Holthaus, author of Circling Back

An Evening with Adam Kahane

Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change

The Book

&

An Evening with Adam 

Suspend that usual notion of power as power over, Adam tells us. Instead, consider using the word power as the drive toward self-realization, the drive “to achieve one’s purpose, to get one’s job done, to grow.” Think of this as power to.

Shelve typical ideas about love as romantic love only, he says. Think of love as “the drive to reconnect and make whole that which has become or appears fragmented.”

Understand, as Martin Luther King Jr. did, that both are necessary. “Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic,” Dr. King said. Building on this, Adam tells us,

Power without love is reckless and abusive, or worse, and love without power is sentimental and anemic or worse. We can see both of these degenerative forms in our world, in our work, and in our selves. Choosing either power or love is always a mistake. How then can we exercise power and love together?  (p. 53)

Thus was the basis for the captivating talk in which Adam elucidated his ten commandments for approaching social change, and for looking at ourselves.

Adam’s work in more than fifty countries has informed his compelling ideas—from scenarios in South Africa as the country transitioned from apartheid, to post-civil-war Guatemala, to India, Japan and others. Continual learning is key, and Adam often uses the phrase, “what I’ve learned,” or “what I’m learning” as he tells stories of the people he’s learned from, including those with whom he’s worked and those whose works he’s read, such as Paola Melchiori, Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Tillich, Rollo May, Robert Johnson, among many. 

Not flinching from the difficulty of putting these ideas into practice and the impossibility of thinking of love and power as easily integrated, Adam offers the analogy of walking. When we walk, we use one leg at a time. But both legs are necessary. Power and love—use one at a time. Both are necessary. With practice using both becomes more natural.

Thank you to The Leadership Project of PassageWorks Institute, co-sponsor of this event, to Naropa University for hosting it, and the the 75+ attendees who engaged so wholeheartedly. A special note of gratitude to Adam Kahane for being with us, nudging us to think beyond the conventional, and to do what we can. More good news is that Adam is finishing his next book.

Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change

Stillpoint Center and The Leadership Project of PassageWorks Institute are pleased to invite you to a special event, hosted by Naropa University.

ADAM KAHANE, international expert on dialogue and social change, will speak on his research relating to his recent book,

POWER AND LOVE: A THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Friday, February 10, 2012

7:00-9:00 p.m.

Nalanda Events Center

6287 Arapahoe Road

Boulder, CO 80301

Adam is a leading organizer, designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders can work together to address their toughest challenges. He has worked in more than fifty countries with executives and politicians, generals and guerillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United National officials, clergy and artists. Adam is also the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities, about which Nelson Mandela said: “This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created.”

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

For more information:  http://passageworks.org/