IMAGINATION #1. Maxine Greene. Wide-Awakeness. Doing Philosophy. Blue Guitar.

Living the Comma

Living the Comma is a writers community connecting people with a creative process, a writing practice, and a spiritual path.

We have a theme that ties the weekly Living the Comma newsletter with monthly meetings. Each theme will be explored in each newsletter and meeting. A weekly writing activity will be drawn from the monthly theme. Weekly writing activities responses can be shared in comments section to each newsletter and in monthly meetings. My hope is that conversation develops around each writing exercise.

Living the Comma Dates and Themes: September 1 — Beginning. October 13 — Imagination. November 3 — Gratitude. December 1 — Joy. January 5 — Wintering. February 2 — Love. March 2 — Grace. April 6 — Breath. May 4 — Finishing.

Meetings occur at Virginia Highland Church from 7:00 to 8:30 EST. 

OUR NEXT FACE-TO-FACE MEETING — OCTOBER 13, 2026. Join via our VIRTUAL MEETING LINK if you cannot be present in person.

The Living the Comma newsletter is published weekly.

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Imagination makes empathy possible — Maxine Greene

About a year after I finished my doctorate, I summonsed the courage to send a thank you note and a copy of my dissertation to Maxine Greene. Maxine Greene responded with a hand written note. I immediately framed the note as both reminder and inspiration. She is a big deal to me and many others. I built upon the concept of wide-awakeness in my dissertation, and Maxine Greene helped me understand the idea’s truth. Drawing from existential philosophy, she prioritized imagination, asked deep questions about experience and learning and meaning-making, and lived into the idea I am not yet. I stood on her shoulders in my work. She paved my way. To thank her for her role in my journey seemed necessary. To have her validate my work still makes me pause in gratitude. I hang on each adjective. I fully accept the challenge presented by the overlap of our commitments.

Dear Dr. Steedly,

Belatedly, I thank you for your generous letter, and, more than that, for the opportunity to read your beautiful, scholarly dissertation. It is not only the overlap of our commitments. It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

I hope you publish it as a whole or in sections. The best of luck, and thanks again.

Sincerely,

Maxine Greene

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Living Wide-Awakeness

My dissertation, Living Wide-Awakeness: High School Drama Teachers Creating Opportunities For Powerful Encounters With The Arts, examined the work of two high school drama teachers. I came to my research as someone who cares deeply about arts education. It is not an overstatement to say that the arts make me who I am. I became a high school drama teacher because my life was better because of the arts and I wanted to provide that opportunity to others. I taught high school drama then went to graduate school to study arts education. I wanted to study why and how the arts matter.

Imagination is the pulse of wide-awakeness. Wide-awakeness is not my idea. Philosophers, scholars, and artists have been exploring it for generations. Hungry to understand it, I founded the Wide-Awakeness Project committed to living it. At heart, wide-awakeness is about the in and of experience. Where attention, creativity, and intention live. Where our work is our project. Where we create and invent. Where we build and breathe. Where we connect and grow.

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Doing Philosophy and Imagination

I cannot bring a world quite round,/ Although I patch it as I can.// I sing a hero’s head, large eye/ And bearded bronze, but not a man,// Although I patch him as I can/ And reach through him almost to man.// If to serenade almost to man/ Is to miss, by that, things as they are,// Say it is the serenade/ Of a man that plays a blue guitar. — From Wallace Stevens, “Man With Blue Guitar”

Philosopher Maxine Greene tells us we can all do philosophy. Doing philosophy means we see the world as it is and create a world that is not yet. The man with the blue guitar does philosophy. When we do philosophy, we are only bound by a world that lacks imagination. When we do philosophy, words like calling and vocation and life’s work describe our days. When we do philosophy, we are amazed by the shape we take when shape has been destroyed.

“Philosophy is all about our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves and the world. Doing philosophy, therefore, is first of all the activity of stating, as clearly and as convincingly as possible, what we believe and what we believe in.” ― Robert C. Solomon, The Big Questions – A Short Introduction to Philosophy

Doing philosophy is about bringing the world quite round. Creating. Inventing. Curing, Solving. Composing. Healing. Building. All things that can be done when we think about the not yet in which we live. Doing philosophy is about making the not yet better – more just, peaceful, healthy, and loving – than our current world.

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Writing Exercise — A Note to the I Am, Not Yet

Living the Comma Writing Exercises are inspired by the Beyond with Jane Ratcliff, The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad, Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert, the Mondays are Free writing project by Ross Gay and Patrick Rosal, The Clearing by Katherine May, and Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouelette communities. 

Step 1: Write A Thank You Note

Write a thank you note to someone who sparks your imagination. Address your note to a mentor, inventor, author, preacher, teacher, philosopher, artist, scientist, chef, historian, politician, poet, musician, gardener, librarian, journalist, athlete, or astronaut — to anyone who inspires the as if and not yet. Send the note to the person if you can, 

Step 2: Ask A Few Imagination Questions

Questions feed imagination. Respond to the following questions. What do I believe?What do I believe in? Yesterday I was? Today I am? Tomorrow I will be?

Step 3: Imagine Your Blue Guitar 

After having written a thank you note and responded to the questions, write your Note to the I Am, Not Yet. This note can be an ode to dreams you have tucked way. It can be a kaleidoscope of mirrors reflecting desire, longing, wishes, quiet thoughts you want to manifest. It can be your blue guitar story in which you see the world turned right. It can be a patchwork quilt of memory and aspiration stitched side-by-side. It can be a foundation for a future you want to create,

Step 4: Craft your Note to the I am, Not yet

There is power in stating the I am. There is power in exploring the not yet. Once you have drafted your note, pay attention to grammar and rhythm. Pay attention to details and description. Pay attention to heart and hands and head. There is deep courage in claiming. There is deep courage in singing. There is deep courage in wishing. 

Step 5: Share your Note to the I am, Not yet

Take a moment to read your note aloud again and again and again. When/if ready post your note in the comments to this message. Consider sharing it with our writing group on the 13th. 

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A final thought about Maxine Greene. I had the privilege of sitting in Maxine Greene’s living room one afternoon. She hosted “salons” with her Columbia University graduate students and I was invited to attend. They were discussing a reading assignment from their course. I breathed in the energy of the room. Possibility was palpable. It was the I am. It was the not yet.

The imagination is the I am. The imagination is the not yet. 

From the heart of the comma,

Katie

Thanks for Living the Comma. OUR NEXT FACE-TO-FACE MEETING IS OCTOBER 13, 2026. Join via our VIRTUAL MEETING LINK if you cannot be present in person. Subscribe to participate and connect with our community.

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