Our Learning Exchange this year had the dual theme of Creating Magical Moments and Building Community. We have captured some particularly poignant reflections from participants about the magical moments and the sense of community they experienced.

Vin Jensen is our highly valued web and social media maestro. This is his second time at one of our Learning Exchanges and when asked about his experience this year he said:

“Did a moment stand out for me? I think, with a straight face, that magic was available in every moment. Let me say, first, that the word “gregarious” has readily come to mind for no one, ever, who has offered to describe me. Yet as I looked around at some thirty-five people (probably half of whom had been names, at best, or complete strangers to me two days earlier) I counted not a single person with whom I had not shared at least one meaningful, and memorable, conversation during the Learning Exchange. That’s a rare kind of magic.”

At the end of the Learning Exchange we were favored with the gift of music, from Bart Buechner and Sonny Seabrook, and an impromptu poem from Tamara Smiley Hamilton.

Bart tells us how Sunny found himself at the Learning Exchange this year:

“Sunny Seabrook is an Army veteran and musician I first met a the Veterans Home of California at Yountville, where he still lives today in a community of some 800 other veterans. He was involved in the EST movement in the early 1970’s, and continues to work on personal improvement and development at 84 years of age. We have had numerous conversations about CMM over the years, and he finally got curious enough about it to accept my invitation to the LE. As we were leaving, he told me that he finally understood the difference between the EST/Landmark Forums and CMM. In years of attending the Landmark Forums, he achieved good personal insights from each of them, but not the level of interpersonal connection that he experienced at the LE. This understanding of the profound relational capacity of CMM was a profound learning for him.”

And Sonny tells us what it meant for him:

“The CMM Generosity of spirit is running through my veins … thank you for sharing and creating those precious musical miracle moments with me …

And for introducing me to such a high quality group of human beings! each of them contributed in their own way many unforgettable miracle moments for me.

There’s not one person on the list that did not reach me deeply in one way or another I feel forever bonded with these extraordinary people and that realization is a miracle moment! Those five beautiful days in Oracle Arizona and the whole transformational experience was up to this point the highlight of my year!

I am so grateful for your unforgettable gift of including me”

Fielding Graduate University was well represented this year. Apart from these six alumni, Linda Blong, Bart Buechner, Erin Kreeger, Sergej van MIddendorp, Beth Fisher-Yoshida and Jan Elliott (L to R), there was also a 10-member Fielding University contingent. Elena Nicklasson, Director of Development at Fielding Graduate University, was one of the participants. She prepared a brief news item on her experience from a Fielding Perspective:

“During the last weekend of October, a group of Fielding alumni, faculty member Miguel Guilarte, PhD, and Teresa Southam, the inaugural recipient of Fielding’s CMM scholarship and a doctoral student in the School of Leadership Studies came to Oracle, AZ for the CMM Learning Exchange 2018.

Kim Pearce, president of the CMM Institute and widow of beloved faculty member W. Barnett Pearce, PhD, inventor of the coordinated management of meaning (CMM) theory, hosted the three-day workshop. This year’s theme was “Creating Magical Moments across Space and Time: Building CMM Learning Communities.

Themes that were presented and worked on by the participants ranged from Cosmokidz to Global Social Witnessing. The event stood out for its many ways to engage all participants in working together to experience the magic of CMM while learning and talking about it at the same time.”

You can read more of her story on the Fielding Alumni Network site.