On Sunday, June 8th from 5-9PM, brothers-in-law Carleton Schade and Neal Goldsmith will produce the first Poetry Science Talks - East (PST-E) presentation, talking about the history and nature of conversation, salons, and communications. We'll also talk about the nature of the PST experience since 2001; and we'll all talk about the future of PST-E, and where we wish it to go.

Salons have a rich and complex history and a special place in the development of ideas. Fostering conversation outside of the 17th- and 18th-century French court was considered, in its day, extremely risky, adventurous, even dangerous.

The salon has always been a place for special types of conversations. When several of us from PST visited the 2005 exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City: "The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and their Salons," we were reminded of the depth of the salon lineage.

Salons have variously been:

Labs for social, intellectual and artistic innovation;
On the margins of society: 'bohemian and elegant, rather than correct and boring;'
Known for progressive interests, 'feminine' values, and playful, allusive conversation;
Grand in style and hospitality;
Associated with publication, fictional characterizations, and publicity;
Supportive to new artists and the emergence of modernism.

The Poetry Science Talks in Manhattan, over the years, has shown many of these characteristics and (we hope) will grow in unexpected ways over time. We look forward to discussing these topics with you, to thinking and talking about what we want PST-E to be -- and to having a conversation on conversations.

THIS MONTH'S PRODUCERS: Neal Goldsmith and Carleton Schade

Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D.

I'm a psychologist specializing in psychospiritual development. I treat 'neurosis' as the natural unfolding of human maturation, the trigger and the key to completing one's childhood. My psychotherapy influences include yoga psychology, Psychosynthesis, Imago Relationship Therapy, regressive psychotherapy, Rogerian client-centered counseling, and other humanistic, transpersonal, and Eastern traditions. In recent years, I've had the honor to assist a number of clients facing psychedelic emergencies - crises of spiritual emergence - helping to integrate the benefit of these difficult growth opportunities.

Carleton Schade

I was trained as a geologist and have worked for years as an educator. I found passion in traveling, politics and writing fiction, comfort and love as a householder and peace through meditation and yoga. I am now involved in a futurist project entitled Dieback: The Science and Soul of the Coming Collapse. Through experience and research, I am finding that we develop (mature) along numerous lines—the physical, intellectual, psychological, spiritual, ecological, social, etc. We mature as individuals and collectively as a society. In the West, for example, we have grown intellectually through the millennia, yet have remained spiritual adolescents and ecological infants. If the Ecological Crisis proves to be the gateway for our transformation, let us all mature so that we can serve as midwives in this momentous event.