A great video of the Conference produced by the the University of Melbourne and Victorian College of the Arts.  (You get to see a bit of the Keynote Speech that I gave.) Thanks, once again, Tony Smith for your stewardship of this great conference!

(this post is from last week....I couldn't access my website from Japan for a while.)

With a free morning in Tokyo, I headed off into the Subways to find Kameido Tenjin Shrine.  The Wisteria are in bloom, and this festival celebrates them.  The festival grounds were full of covered carts, waiting until later in the day to open and offer food to the festivities.  People were arriving, however, and we all got to experience these delicate flowers streaming overhead.

Their English website says these Wisteria have been familiar since the Edo Period in the 17th to 19th century.  Perhaps appropriate to purpose of my visit, the shrine is also conducing “the special ritual of praying for enhancing better schoolwork.”

On Sunday and Monday, I was gifted by many questions that invite me to enhance my “schoolwork.”  So wonderful to be asked over and over again to see the world, your ideas, and your material from another angle.  Monday’s workshop was a Teacher’s workshop—a group of teachers gifting each other with new perspectives.  The group itself was potent—teachers were there who have been part of the school since the beginning (all cities represented) to the newest.

One of the questions brought to consciousness something that I remember “suddenly” understanding as I watched my teacher teach.  I realized that one of the elements that seemed to be part of her ability to observe was also her willingness to be observed.  In my current exploration regarding observation—omniservation—we used the Alexander Technique to be omniserved while omniserving.  (And I thank my Japanese translators for their expertise and flexibility!)