Dear friends
Each January I choose a word or phrase that will serve as a touchstone, a North Star to navigate by in the coming year. Here’s my Touchstone Word for 2024:

ATTUNION: a melding of attention, attuning, and communion

You won’t find attunion in a dictionary (yet). I coined it myself. I hope to use it to spark vital conversations about growing a more perfect union/attunion in our fragmented culture. As Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: “A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.”

Here’s a full definition:

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Hi friends

Every January I choose a word or phrase that will serve as my touchstone, a North Star to navigate my life by in the coming year. I’m eager to share my touchstone word for 2023:

Wonderground

“Wonderground” functions both as a noun and a verb. A wonderground is a context, a ground upon which a person or community cultivates and exercises wonder. “Let’s go down to the wonderground for the community conversation tonight.” The verb form, “to wonderground” means to ground one’s wonder in a practical context. “We wonderground our longing for a more harmonious world in our daily lives.”

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Hi friends

For years I’ve made a practice every December of choosing a word or phrase that will serve as my touchstone, a North Star to navigate my life by in the coming year. I’m excited to declare my touchstone word for 2022: CONSENSING. “Consensing well with others” is my central learning goal in the coming year.

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A little voice in my head says: “Contemplaying our hopes and aspirations may be delightful, but what about the dark side of life? What about loneliness, apathy, anxiety, misery, grief, shame? What about the rage that ferments beneath long unmet needs?” Is the art of contemplaying applicable for these experiences?

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Contemplate is from Latin contemplatus, past participle of contemplari “to gaze attentively, observe,” from the prefix com- “together” plus templum “temple.” The original meaning of Latin contemplari was “to mark out a space for observing auguries or omens,” and the temple was a holy space reserved for this purpose.

So, contemplation in the original sense entails gathering with kindred spirits in sacred space to discern, look deeply, seek insight that guides our path forward in a world filled with noise, fear, distraction and confusion. There is a craft to creating settings and occasions for contemplation.

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Today’s new contemplayful word:

Curiosify – to awaken and focus curiosity in oneself or another.

Curiosifier – A person who stimulates/awakens the fire of curiosity in others.

The best teachers are master curiosifiers. Skill as a curiosifier is key to success in many endeavors: social change activism, story telling, leadership in business, etc.

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