THE FOOL METHOD

The Book That Started All This Trouble

[Insert actual page count] pages.

Yes. I counted.

Apparently, I had rather more to say about being a Fool than I realised.

I had originally intended to write something small.

A few thoughts about Tao, Zen, nature, and the peculiar business of being human.

But one thought led to another.

A question opened a door. Behind the door was another question. Behind that was a rather opinionated I who insisted on having a chapter to herself.

And before I knew it, there was a book.

So, What's in It?

Well, quite a lot of things that have been bothering me for years.

Why do we become so attached to the person we think we are?

Why do we spend so much time trying to improve ourselves?

What happens when we stop treating nature as scenery and begin recognising ourselves as part of it?

And what can Tao, Zen, ecology and a little theatrical foolishness teach us about living?

The book explores these questions through stories, conversations, reflections and the occasional thoroughly unreasonable observation.

It isn't a manual for becoming a better person.

Heaven forbid.

We already have enough people trying to become better people.

It is a companion for exploring the person who is already here.

From Book to Adventure

And then I thought:

Why should we only read about these things?

Why not spend ten days experimenting with them?

Not in a classroom.

Not in a crowded retreat centre.

But each in our own chosen place in nature, reading, walking, observing, playing and meeting other Fools online.

And so the book found itself accompanying a ten-day retreat.

THE FOOL METHOD — How to Be an Eco-Fool?

The book gives us stories and questions.

Nature gives us a place to explore them.

The Fool's Sandbox gives us somewhere to meet and compare our discoveries.

And our own lives provide the most interesting material of all.

How We'll Use the Book

During the retreat, we'll read selected passages together, explore their questions, and turn some of their ideas into games, theatre exercises, conversations and experiments.

There will also be plenty of time to read on your own.

You don't have to agree with the book.

In fact, if you disagree with something, do bring it along.

A Fool who agrees with everything is a rather worrying creature.

A Little Warning from the Author

I cannot promise that this book will change your life.

It might.

It might not.

You may finish it with more questions than you began with.

Personally, I would consider that a perfectly respectable outcome.

And if nothing else, it should give you something to read while sitting under a tree.

The tree, incidentally, has not read a single page.

And seems to be doing rather well.

COME READ, PLAY AND EXPLORE WITH US.

The Fool Method — Ten Days in Nature, Together and Alone.

WHAT'S HIDING INSIDE THESE PAGES?

37 lessons. Several troublesome I's. A few trees. And absolutely no examination at the end.

You may read them in order. You may wander about. You may disagree with the author.

The author has been known to disagree with herself.

PART ONE — MEETING THE I

1. Welcome, Meet Yourself — The Warm-Up
Come in, have some tea, and meet the person who has been accompanying you everywhere.

2. Understanding Your I Design
Discover how thoughts, feelings, habits and familiar stories put together the person you call “I.”

3. Mapping Your I Design
Meet the Flower Map, where no single petal gets to declare itself the entire flower.

4. Zero: A Place to Begin
Find the little space between what happens and the story you are about to make of it.

5. Holding Your I Design Lightly
Learn what happens when life refuses to follow the beautiful arrangements you've made for it.

6. An I Design That Can Change
Look at your old photographs and discover that you've already been several different people.

PART TWO — FREEDOM TO MOVE

7. Rhythm and Room in Your I Design
Find out why life sometimes needs a little dancing rather than another set of instructions.

8. Focus and Release
Explore the fine art of paying attention without holding on for dear life.

9. Embrace and Examine
Welcome your feelings without allowing every passing emotion to become the managing director.

10. Dwell, Observe and Move
Meet an old radio and discover why turning the knob harder doesn't necessarily improve the music.

PART THREE — THE I IN COMPANY

11. Your I Design Before an Audience
See what happens to the person you are when somebody starts watching.

12. The I Design That Must Be Somebody
Investigate the exhausting business of being interesting, impressive and terribly important.

13. An I Design Engaged in the Work
Discover the pleasure of doing something without constantly checking what it says about you.

14. Relationships in Your I Design
Explore the strange discovery that being yourself has always involved other people.

15. The Walls in Your I Design
Meet the invisible walls we build to protect ourselves, and notice what they keep outside.

16. Reconnecting Your I Design
Find little doorways back to people, conversations and the living world.

PART FOUR — THE ART OF NOT KNOWING

17. The Unfinished Painting
Discover how two people can look at the same picture and find entirely different worlds.

18. When Your I Design Knows Already
Meet the mind that has reached its conclusion before the evidence has even taken off its shoes.

19. Trying a Change in Your I Design
Experiment with another way of seeing, responding or beginning.

PART FIVE — LIFE AND ITS MANY ROLES

20. The Table Nobody Could Carry Alone
A long table reminds us that cooperation is sometimes more useful than heroism.

21. When a Role Rules Your I Design
Find out what happens when the title becomes more important than the task.

22. Letting Your I Design Serve Life
Explore the difference between looking like you're doing a wonderful job and actually helping.

PART SIX — THE ART OF FLOW

23. The Kite on the Table
Discover that even the finest kite cannot persuade the wind to follow its timetable.

24. When Your I Design Insists
Meet the determined little I who believes that if pulling doesn't work, pulling harder surely will.

25. An I Design That Responds to Life
Learn to notice what this particular moment needs, rather than repeating yesterday's successful trick.

PART SEVEN — CARE, BOUNDARIES AND JOY

26. Care in Your I Design
Explore the difference between caring for somebody and deciding what they ought to want.

27. A Boundary Can Be a Riverbank
Discover how a boundary can give shape to a relationship without building a prison around it.

28. Making Room for Joy in Your I Design
Investigate why joy sometimes disappears the moment we insist everybody must have a wonderful time.

PART EIGHT — WHEN THE I GETS VERY SERIOUS

29. Before Your I Design Replies
Meet the furious brass band that begins playing inside your head before you've finished reading an email.

30. When Your I Design Becomes a Badge
Find out how even our lovely new discoveries can become another identity to defend.

31. Before the Next Line
Explore the delicious possibility that forgetting your script need not mean the end of the play.

PART NINE — THE FOOL METHOD IN EVERYDAY LIFE

32. Your I Design Through a Day
Follow your many I's from morning to night and see who turns up for which occasion.

33. Examining the Story in Your I Design
Put a familiar story under the Fool's magnifying glass and see what else might be happening.

34. Your I Design Meets Another Person
Discover what happens when two people arrive with two entirely different scripts for the same scene.

35. The Conditions of Your I Design
Explore how surroundings, relationships, time and circumstances help create the person you become.

36. A Flower Map of Your I Design
Bring your discoveries together into a living map of your own patterns, possibilities and questions.

37. The River Continues
The book ends. Life carries on. And the Fool discovers that the river has absolutely no intention of graduating.

AND THEN?

Well, we could close the book.

Put it on a shelf.

Feel terribly accomplished.

Or we could take it outdoors and see what happens when these ideas meet real life.

That is how our ten-day Fool Method retreat came about.