by Julia Hammond | Apr 30, 2014 | Blog
Spring is in full bloom on May Day, all the flowers out, a big warm spell covering everything, the seeds coming up. Some of the key metaphors for May Day – fertility, emancipation, the full-flowering tree of life that connects earth and sky – show up in many cultures...
by Julia Hammond | Apr 18, 2014 | Blog
I put beans into new black dirt this morning, and thought of Jack (pun intended). Spring is the time for telling Jack and the Bean Stalk, the story of an ne’er do well son, who risks ogres and uses his head to get right by his mother and create a good life for...
by Julia Hammond | Feb 20, 2014 | Blog
There was snow in Portland today, and the kids are all out of school. It was fun to wake up and feel like we have an extra Saturday this week, to see the quiet, white streets. The kids hung out and played — and I read the morning news, which I rarely get to do....
by Julia Hammond | Nov 17, 2013 | Blog
I really look forward to the holiday season. I know it will be extra busy, but I hope it will also be fun. I try to minimize the sense of endless shopping, and I hope be able to spend extra time with the people I love doing special things. In my family, Christmas...
by Julia Hammond | Oct 17, 2013 | Blog
Tonight, when we came home from a dinner out, the house was dark. It was cool out, and you could still make out the orange leaves against the black of the sky. The almost full moon was made fuzzy by a few hazy clouds. The kids wanted to light the Halloween lantern....
by Julia Hammond | Jul 24, 2013 | Blog
I’ve recently been reading Al Gore’s book, The Future. It is a wide-ranging book, and Gore moves through his perceptions of the world today, relevant history and current theories on everything from the human genome to education to make his points. But the...
by Julia Hammond | Jul 3, 2013 | Blog
Every culture and time period has stories that turn into folktales, stories repeated over and over. These folktales have similar motifs, but the specifics, the morals, the beliefs attached to them change with the times and represent the concerns, the struggles and...
by Julia Hammond | Jun 25, 2013 | Blog
Together, these three books, and the thinkers behind them, changed the way I look at art forever. I know that when I say “art” most people think of gallery shows or novels. These three writers will challenge you with the vast human history of art-making...
by Julia Hammond | May 28, 2013 | Blog
It seems like the best new ideas in education, and maybe in other fields, are work-arounds. Charter schools are work-arounds. Non-profits doing interesting things in the schools are work-arounds. They work around a system that is massively heavy and complex, and...
by Julia Hammond | Feb 7, 2013 | Blog
This year has been the year of money, specifically money shortages for my lovely little family. For a few months, I’ve been researching beliefs about money in an effort to understand a topic that has never been dear to me. I have always dealt with money only when I...
