You may wonder what "Passionate Meanderings" is about. The phrase itself is suggestive of passionately roaming around or exploring that most, if not all, of us have done. We have wandered aimlessly or with some intent through forests, in deserts, along shorelines, or even in some sort of boat on lakes. We may have meandered through cities and towns around the world. However, we probably spent considerable time meandering through various memories and ideas. Such meanderings can be exhilarating and inspiring. They almost always stimulate our emotions, curiosity, and maybe even inquiry. We may have even stumbled into rabbit-holes of extraordinary learning and insight. Although in the virtual worlds of the Internet, we can't go on physical meanderings together, but we can do so on our own or with local friends. And, here on Passionate Meanderings, we can join together and go on mental meanderings with a passion for playful exploring, inquiring, and learning.
As we start on this passionate meandering adventure, a few of the founding passionate meanderers will share some of our thoughts about a wide, but intricately intertwined and interdependent issues, themes, and ideas. Please explore, comment, and participate in our members-only forum. Other ways of participating may arise as we continue to meander...
ARTICLES
The "Articles" section contains longer and more in-depth treatments of various topics. However, we try to split up much longer pieces into series of articles rather than subjecting everyone to a 50 page read!
SNIPPETS
"Snippets" are short quotes statements, or other communications, as well as links to news and short pieces on other websites. They are meant to spark one's curiosity, raise questions, or stimulate further thinking.
POETRY & STORIES
"Poetry & Stories" provide a different approach to looking at particular issues, themes, and ideas. As with "Snippets," the writers' commentaries are minimized, so that readers can create their own connections.
MEDIA & ARTS
The "Media" section provides a collection of photos, videos, and other forms of audio and visual communication about key issues, ideas, and themes.
BLOG
The "Blog" is just that, a blog by our team of meanderers. Please feel free to comment and engage in further conversations.
PLAY-INQUIRE-EXPLORE
The Play-Inquire-Explore section provides opportunities for readers to play around with, inquire into, and explore a variety of topics and issues.
REVIEWS
The "Reviews" section contains reviews of books, articles, videos, and other communications.
GLOSSARY
Given that underlying theories and concepts for "Passionate Meanderings" can involve unavoidable technical terms, the glossary provides easily accessible explanations of these terms.
RESOURCES
The "Resources" section provides list of links, books, articles, and other interesting sources of information and engagement.
OVERVIEW OF THIS WEBSITE
The term "meander" captures a sense of wandering about in different contexts, which could be cities, forests, meadows, farmland, ocean coastlines, or even in bodies of water while swimming or in a boat. However, many exciting adventures occur while meandering in our minds. In both the physical and mental senses, meandering can involve passions for exploring, playing, investigating, and finding ways to express one's understandings, insights, and questions. Passionate Meanderings has been created to bring together a group of "passionate meanderers" to share their ideas through a variety of different styles and genres.
Much of this work is based in seeing our living world as complex living systems, with their various relationships, interdependencies, paradoxes, issues, but always grounded in the "stuff" that characterizes the life or living at its most fundamental levels. Nora Bateson refers to this "stuff" as Warm Data. Others have referred to this as some sort of life force. But, whatever you may call it, it is not a set of predictable, linear, mechanical, "life-less" processes.
We are exploring our world from these perspectives; playing with these ideas; examining some of the major issues we're facing; as well as, meandering with some sense of wonder and awe at the magnificence of life in all its forms.
NAVIGATING THIS SITE
The top header menu bar will take you to the major sections. Some sections have thematic or other subsections that may be organized by an author's particular set of pages, by a theme or topic to which multiple authors contribute, or by some other organizational scheme. If you are interested in a particular author's articles, you can go to that authors "Author Page," which can be found under "Our Authors and Contributors," in the header menu bar. You also can do a search for that author in the search box near the top of the right sidebar. You can use this Search box to search for topics, as well. Note that clicking on a category or tag will only show you items in the Blog. However, you can use the category or tag word to search anywhere on the site, by copying and pasting or just typing the word into the search box.
OR, click on "Site Map" here or in the top-bar menu to see a list of all pages and posts.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED...
This website is free to browse through and read and view any videos that may appear here. Like all endeavors in our current time, hosting this website involves costs. And, for those of us who produce the content, it takes time and effort, for which it would be kind of you, our readers, to pitch in even very modest of amounts of money to support this work.
Although anyone can enter comments in the "Comments" boxes at the bottom of every page, we also offer a forum where readers can engage in more in-depth conversations and even branch out into new directions. To do this, we ask for a commitment to support this site by becoming a member for $1.00 a month ($12/year) or more, if you wish to do so. Click on the Join button on the upper right side of any page. If you wish to just donate once or once in a while, please click on the Donate button. If you'd like to be on a list for occasional news, click on the Subscribe button to enter your email address. Subscribing is available to anyone, member or not.
RATINGS:
Welcome fellow passionate meanderers!
Thanks for visiting Passionate Meanderings!
Please leave comments and join in the conversations.
Best wishes!
Jeff
Hi Jeff! nice initiative!!
Thanks, Serena!
Hi, everyone!
If you’ve visited recently, you may have run into a few glitches. And, there are basically two reasons for these glitches.
1. We ran into major issues with our now “former” web host, who was, once upon a time, a great web host. But, something happened — I’ve heard it was a change in ownership — and what used to work beautifully, ceased to work without hours and hours of struggle. Then, on top of that I received their renewal bill that was about 5.5 times more expensive than the previous six years. So, we had to find a new host that costs less than 10% of what the old host was billing. And, everything works!
2. The second reason is entirely my own errors.
I think everything has been sorted out. But, if you do notice something that isn’t working, that isn’t working correct, or that is missing or should work differently, please let me know using the “Contact” form, which is linked in the top bar menu.
Thanks!
Jeff