Transcription: Christopher Reynolds, teacher, musician, traditional healer Interview 02-07-09

Christopher Reynolds is a high school French teach, musican, and traditional healer from Berea, Ohio. Chris contributed an interview to I-Open research describing his thoughts about the role of creativity to transform regions, not just in terms of economics, but more importantly, in terms of culture.

From the interview transcription:

I’ve been in a dream to a place where the violence that’s done against the world has stopped. I know that because I look to the stream and the life in the stream is coming back and I look to the road that we’re walking on and the life is coming up through the stones. I’m walking that road with my friends and I know that we have made it past this time of transition. There was an African healer, his name is Mandaza Kandemwa: ”if we dream that place then we already are in that place.” So, I would offer this dream that you would get to that road in your way, you would get to that place in your way, but part of me is there now.

Chris is passionate about "waging creativity" - as he does this in all his work - to nurture that which is growing forth from the land, to help things to be born, instead of destroying things.

Our shared challenge is being able to respond to what has not been seen before. The energy needed to do this in the classroom is the same energy that is needed to renew a region's culture.

Creativity is not just making things, it is in how you perceive what is before you. Each of us holds a receptive mirror, a unique way of seeing things, and when you are able to use the mirror, that quality is 'presence' - the capacity to reflect back and see the creativity, to see what is coming forth. Teachers in touch with their 'mirror' can reflect back and show the future it's own face, responding in such a way to strengthen what is coming forth.

When the future is carried in - in the classroom - it's carried in with shaky legs, it's weak, it's unsure, and you don't know where it came from. This is the kind of presence someone will bring.

Chris also describes a traditional path of healing each of us can take to strengthen our understanding of the role we play as caretakers of the earth. His art movement, "urrealism", teaches others how to bring forth what's best in people.  

The end of the transcription includes a reading list of authors and books to help you get started thinking about the power of creativity and renewal. Here are a few,

  • “Spiritual Emergency” (1986), by Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof
  • “The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View” (1991) by Richard Tarnas
  • “Love and the Soul: Creating a Future for Earth” (1995) by Robert Sardello

Meet Chris on video and learn more about his life work at I-Open

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 301 Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA