Gola Wolf Richards: B.A., Human Development Psychology,
M.A., Theology; Philosophy
and Psychology of Consciousness and Change
-Robert E. Lane, Prof. Emeritus of
Political Science, Yale University: “I have known Wolf Richards for
many years and have always been impressed by his skill and wisdom in
interpersonal relations. He has an intuitive understanding of other
people’s feelings and of their efforts to cope with the problems that confront
them. In my opinion Mr. Richards’ grasp of Confucian principles will give
depth to his approach to conflict resolution. He is an excellent speaker
and a fine person.”
-Dear Friends: If my competencies for conflict-resolution are
suggested in a metaphor, the fruit to be harvested from my branch of the tree
of life began in 1946; when I was born into chaotic circumstances, generated by
intense emotional flux in my father’s personality. As a Christian minister, his faith involved
worshipping high ethical and moral ideals; yet, as an unhealed victim of gross
child abuse, in contrast to my mother’s godly character, my father’s inability
to enact his ideals persisted. Based on
mama’s spiritual strengths then, I learned to survive how my father’s spiritual
deficits invited hell to spread through every room, in every parsonage that we
called home. Before she ever met my
father and everyday thereafter, mama was stalked by unwarranted hostility. Nonetheless, her gift for moral genius never
failed; despite being a captive of brutal domination. Starting with what I
learned from that background, over the course of many years, references to
highlights in my career are as follows:
-H. Steven Coopchik: “I
became particularly aware of the value of Wolf’s philosophy when I was the Director
of Personnel of the Division of Special Education of the New York City Board of
Education. At that time (1983-1987) the Division employed 20,000 staff
(10,000 of whom were teachers) serving 114,000 students. The stress the other
major managers and I experienced, often on a daily basis, was sometimes nearly
unbearable. However, I was able not only to survive, but to succeed by any
measure, with the support I experienced from Wolf’s philosophic precepts.”
-Arthur Sirianni: “As
co-workers over a period of seven years, my professional relationship to Wolf began
in 1972, at The League School for Seriously Disturbed Children, in Brooklyn,
N.Y. At that time, The League School was
NYC’s primer therapeutic institute for treatment, research and professional
training for educating affected children and their families. Inasmuch as our
school was designated by the federal government as the top school for
therapeutic education in America, we were awarded five million dollars to train
graduate students from schools such as Columbia University, New York
University, and other outstanding facilities throughout the nation. By means of
our national training program, Wolf’s work with the Spurwink School in Maine
capitalized on his competencies with children from early childhood through
adolescence.”
-In my work as a counselor, author, and educator, my
background includes having been radio host for “Speaking for Virtue” at
the University of Southern Maine; with lectures given for Global
Conflict-Resolution at www.TEDxDirigo.com, Dartmouth College’s Novela Symposium, Duke
University’s Graduate School for Environmental Engineering, Maine’s C.G. Jung
Center, the University of Montana in Missoula, the University of Maine’s first
International Peace Conference, and the faculty of “Religion and the
Challenge of America”; where the honorary co-chairs were Senator George
Mitchell, and Harold Pachios, Esq., former Chair of the US Advisory Commission
for Public Diplomacy.
-In the roots to my orientations to conflict and conflict-resolution:
My father was a big and strong man; and in contrast, my mother was small and physically
weak.
On one occasion as a little boy, consequent to mama being accused
by my father of having purchased the wrong size eggs, I screamed as I witnessed
him hurling her through the air to land on a concrete floor; where he then straddled
her body, held her by the neck, and choked her while pounding her head with his
massive fist, so as to beat her to death. I was no more than four years old. Screaming “daddy, don’t kill my mama”, I immediately
jumped on his back and wrapped my little arms around his neck. He reacted by violently
yanking me off, and threatened to kill me if I ever got in his way again. In
yanking me away from his back, the fist that was hitting my mother stopped short
of murder. But, as badly beaten as she would be from one occasion to another, I
later learned that not only had wisdom refused to die within her, but on the
contrary, it had grown; not on account of cruelty, but in spite of it. Mercifully, in 1958, daddy suffered a stroke
and died; leaving my mother and us penniless, homeless, and grateful that he
was gone. In 1958, after twenty-five years of “marriage”, with no relief ever by
means of legal or community support, mama was finally safe and free to tell how
she had been forced into a loveless union; and how he had beaten her
unconscious and raped her on the first night of their “wedding”. Daddy died in 1958, and from then until mama’s
death in 2001, she taught me how and why she had survived. Nowadays then,
concerning every way that life is being insulted, assaulted, or otherwise
subjected to confusion, my orientation to conflict-resolution is deeply
indebted to how my mother kept her sanity, despite being controlled by a
character-disorder man. Moreover, as derived from forty-six years of
contemplating the classic “I Ching”, or “Book of Changes”, I
am indebted to Yin/Yang Philosophy and Psychology of Consciousness and Change;
which is the spiritual root to China’s thousands of years of civilization.
-Briefly: By means of Yin/Yang philosophy and psychology, contemplative
education cultivates timely orientations to untimely experiences of
conflict. Its methodology is based on individuals accessing opportunities to
dialogue with an actual or virtual teacher, and/or the conceptual resources
that such a teacher would have contemplators to review, discuss, and endeavor
to actualize. As dialogues about Yin/Yang philosophy and psychology concentrate
dynamics of sage human development, perspectives will grow to augment insights
for discerning timely orientations for conflict-resolution. In the I Ching: As opposing
dynamics are conceived in union, microcosmic factors in human development are
related to macrocosmic dimensions of universal creation. Likewise, cause and
effect factors are related to transpersonal or acausal (spiritual) potentials
of change in human development. As practical dialogues for problem solving are contemplatively
informed by Yin/Yang principles and concepts, our thinking begins to work in tandem
with cosmic creativity; spontaneously and positively redirecting universal chaos.
In similar fashion, as outlined in the I Ching: As self-cultivation by means of
sage perspectives increases, social coordination increases for conflict to be acceded
by conflict-resolution. This concept references Mystical Humanism; or social
progress by means of synchronicity, between individual and collective
dimensions of consciousness. In this sense, individuals who engage in contemplative
self-cultivation co-create general tendencies to natural harmony; based on the
same principles of Universal Creativity that standardly and spontaneously transform
chaos, throughout the cosmos. The key idea in the I Ching is that: Becoming
aligned with universal tendencies for harmony is fundamental to how individuals
are naturally responsible for elevating civilization as a whole. Thereby, as
individuals self-cultivate virtuous orientations to conflict, transpersonal
benefits for humanity are collectively generated through synchronicity.
In the I Ching: The way we perceive change throughout the universe
occurs consequent to fundamental elements of contrast, or Yin/Yang; whereby all
our orientations participate in history, governed by infinite mixes of Yin/Yang
relationships. Thereby, in every “this vs that” point of contrast, potentials
for varying degrees of opposition or complementarity exist in every dimension
of life. Therefore, by means of the
character that governs our perspectives, our choices continually generate
positive or negative transpersonal effects, on the world at large. In my work to
mentor young and not so young people over waves of personal discord and global
dissonance, I record
contemplative audio to magnify tendencies to achieve ethical
ideals in conflict-resolution. By listening to a story, heartwarming poetry, or
one of my concisely comprehensive college-level sermons, contemplators learn
that: Perception depends on universal reciprocity between positive and negative
polar dispositions. Therefore, as positive and negative habits develop in how
we perceive and react, conceptual customs become concentrated into conscious or
unconscious habits; which promote responsible or irresponsible influences in varying
arenas. Thereby, by means of the same principles of reciprocity that govern the
cosmos: History at large is potential to be rescued, every time we contemplate how
to lead rather than impede sustainable human relations.
As an author, I wrote
and recorded an audiobook, titled The
Way to See (W)hole®; which as a contemplative course in virtues, is concisely staged in a story of wise
responses, to the universality of conflict. As a conceptual tool for sage approaches
to problem-solving, it relies on efficiencies found in aphorisms and metaphors;
deftly used to bridge diverging points of contrast.