• Community is Shared

      I am a sociologist by training. I love to think about culture, people, interactions, identity issues and patterns. Emile Durkheim, the famous French father of all things sociological, argued that one must treat ‘social facts as things’. These “facts” become the subject of study for sociologists. Further, Durkheim believed that collective phenomenon is not merely reducible to the individual actor. Society, he believed, is more than the sum of its many parts. It is a system formed by the association of individuals that come together to constitute a reality with its own distinctive characteristics. Let me think of an example: how about language? Language pre-exists our birth and it continues after our death. Perhaps some of us will have the honor of inventing some new recognizable slang (LOL, duh),…

  • The Universe is a Green Dragon by Brian Swimme

    June 2015 Book of the Month Presented as a classical dialogue between a young man and a wise elder, cosmologist Brian Swimme’s unique book, The Universe is a Green Dragon encourages readers of all ages to engage their imaginations when considering traditional models of scientific understanding. Reminding readers that curiosity, mystery and inspiration remain the underpinning of science, Swimme unfolds big ideas in bite size pieces of a larger narrative. Swimme connects the human experience to cosmic reality both through scientific evidence and mystical thought. Integrating science and mysticism grounds his story in both inspiration and possibility. Importantly, Swimme empowers the reader to reimagine the role of personal existence and the expansion of the universe. According to Swimme, the awakening of the earth has a direct relationship to the growth and expansion of the human mind. “The Earth…

  • Angie Foster | Cutting Room Floor

    One of our favorite past times is catching up with old friends.  Angie Foster is a 2013 graduate of the Tuning the Student Mind program at the College for Creative Studies. She now lives and works in NYC.  Take it away Angie:   I moved to Brooklyn from Detroit last August. So far it has been adventurous, sweaty, lovely, hilarious, intimidating, ambitious, and perfectly imperfect in every way. I never know what I am going to see or do, but I just feel this pull that I am moving in the right direction. Within a few months of random freelance work when I moved here, I got my foot in the door of Pentagram, pretty much my dream job. A two-week freelance gig turned into a 9 month freelance-turned-internship with some great people and…

  • Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch

    May 2015 Book of the Month Over the last four decades, David Lynch has created some of the best-known and widely discussed screen works of our time. This distinctive writer-director’s art bears not only the mark of box-office success but also critical acclaim and cultural posterity. Yet Lynch generally reveals little of himself, or the ideas behind his work. Now he provides a rare window into his methods as an artist and his personal working style. In Catching the Big Fish, Lynch writes candidly about the tremendous creative benefits he has gained from his thirty-two-year commitment to practicing transcendental meditation. In brief chapters, Lynch describes the experience of “diving within” and “catching” ideas like fish-and then preparing them for television or movie screens, and other mediums in which Lynch works, such…

  • Cherry Basil Almond Sauce

    I love food. I love the freedom it gives me, as an artist, to express myself and try new and unusual things. A majority of my recipes commonly stem from an idea while I’m shopping, after seeing an item that inspires me. This past week, that food item was these luscious, organic cherries I found at whole foods in Detroit. I immediately thought cherries and almonds and was hooked from there.   I knew that I was also in the mood to cook with fish so I picked up some fresh Icelandic cod to use as my protein. Icelandic things continue to inspire me and constantly remind me of my trip there so I like to buy them whenever I can. I then invited my mother and father over for…

  • What Makes a Good Teacher

    I filmed this interview at Molly’s house in May of 2013. I remember telling her over tea and through petting her dogs that we were just going to have a conversation about why she enjoys teaching. She was a little nervous as she brushed her hair out of her face and reminisced about me sitting in her classroom just a few short years before. Naturally, Molly quickly forgot about the camera and discussed her love of teaching in the most sincere of ways. Here is one of my favorite moments from that interview: Chelsea: What makes a good teacher? Molly: I think really, ultimately what makes a great teacher is just being comfortable in your own skin and being authentic. Kids remember way less about what it is that you want to teach them then…

  • Introducing the Cutting Room Floor

    A common discussion among filmmakers is the ratio between the total duration of footage created for possible use in a project and that which actually appears in its final cut. This is known as the “shooting ratio”. Truth is, sometimes the best stuff ends up getting cut – random jokes, funny accidents, things that are just too intimate to share with a large audience… We thought it might be fun to share some “lost” conversations from our transcripts. So, we’ve created a whole new blog category, “Cutting Room Floor”. We hope you love reading them as much as we loathed cutting them from the Tuning the Student Mind film!

  • This Book Was A Tree by Marcie Chambers Cuff

    April 2015 Book of the Month This Book Was a Tree inspires engagement. Written in poetic language, Cuff invites the reader to reimagine their relationship with the natural world. Chock full of creative projects, scientific analysis and reflective prose, This Book Was a Tree offers readers dozens of ways to reconnect with nature. Cuff’s gentle admonishment to unplug and rediscover the joy of the outdoors is perfect for all you couch potatoes, channel surfers and techies out there. There is nothing like the fresh smell of spring. It’s April people – let’s get outside and celebrate by getting dirty! Check out Marcie’s website too! http://mossymossy.com/

  • Magic in the World

    “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.”  Albert Einstein Several years ago while on vacation in Amsterdam, my husband bought me a ring. It was a thin ring encrusted with seed diamonds to be worn stacked with my engagement ring and wedding band. One day shortly after he gave it to me, it accidentally slipped off my finger. After spending several days retracing my steps, cleaning out my car and calling all the spots I had visited, I accepted the fact that it was probably gone for good. About a week later, I had the oddest dream. In fact, it was…

  • Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak Bentov

    March 2015 Book of the Month Radical when it was first written in 1977, Stalking the Wild Pendulum offered the reader  a revolutionary image of the human mind and the universe. We at TTSM hope our July 2012 book pick reignites the passion for consciousness studies first inspired by Bentov more than thirty five years ago. In his creative first book, Itzhak Bentov paints a provocative image of the universe as comprised of sound vibrations, light rays, subtle energies, and packets of consciousness. He also discusses his  ideas that our brains are actually thought amplifiers, not thought’s source; that the universe is a hologram, as is the brain; that we can instantly reclaim any information ever known; that our bodies mirror the universe, down to the working of each cell; that…