In Joe’s world true imagination is causal, meaning creative. We can literally enter into the ontological structure of reality itself (ontological meaning the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being), and we learn to do this first with storytelling and imaginative play, but that is just the beginning. The very top of Tibetan meditation practices develops this capacity. The child will maintain that great capacity for imagination if it’s encouraged. If it’s discouraged there’s no payoff. Fear of being rejected replaces true development of this extremely high and powerful capacity. This concept is one of the great pillars of Joe’s collected writings.

Michael Mendizza

Love transforms effort and attention into near constant nurturing, and nurturing is a transformative practice. Years ago Joseph Chilton Pearce described how all learning in the early years involves movement and, at seventeen months, Carly Elizabeth is in near perpetual motion. She never stops! She weighs twenty-two pounds and I, a strapping one-hundred and seventy. You would think I could keep up. Not a chance. It takes a village.

Joseph Chilton Pearce turns 90 today!
With his distinctive turning up of his nose Joe reminded me in a recent conversation that he dreaded getting ‘old.’ Then he said, “It isn’t as bad as I thought.”

Most of us worry and fret about our day to day affairs and this dominates our feelings about what life is all about. Beginning at a remarkably early age Joe realized that the game of life is all about discovering and developing capacity. We are creation and creation is a completely open-ended affair. The meaning of life therefore, is what we make of it! And yet, what we make of it is often predetermined by the environment, predominantly the virtual reality we call culture.

I wish it were not so but we often don’t say what we mean and mean what we say. I remember with fond admiration and scoops of respect sharing time with Marshal Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication. ‘Look beyond the words and respond with empathy to the feelings and needs that are the true meaning of what is being said,’ he said. Oh, but we get triggered. Then we are pushed and pulled around by our frazzled emotions, and for what; justifying, defending, proving ‘who’s right?’ I can’t remember one time when playing ‘who’s right’ actually resolved a conflict. Marshal pointed to a better way.

This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Carly is changing, and fast. She is beginning to talk to herself, not with words but with sounds and babble-phrases that will soon be sentences. Until very recently she needed play-learning experiences to be initiated. Now, at sixteen months and counting, she is beginning to initiate her own play-learning experiences. The early formation of imagination, past and future, is unfolding. There is teething, relatively short attention to some things and quick frustrations if life fails to respond immediately to her new intent. With unfolding intent comes unfolding challenges and that turns into unfolding frustrations. Welcome, Carly, to the world of creativity.

Normal isn’t necessarily healthy or natural,
or the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It is so much more demanding for parents not to substitute virtual for real experiences; no wonder a recent essay applauded the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for softening its position on screen time. This essay is the latest edition of the blind leading the blind, looking at water from inside the fish bowl and not at the true nature of the child, that is, after all, nature, not FaceBook, Sesame Street or the criminally misleading Baby Einstein. The arguments go like this: