Of all conceptions born of medieval Europe, the most powerfully charged and widely adopted is the mind-altering idea of the university. Arising a thousand years ago, this one revolutionary idea has spread to nearly every nation in the world and all seven continents. The ancient campus of William & Mary centers upon the oldest academic buildings in the United States. The university preserves in brick and mortar the ancient human aspiration to universal knowledge, the ultimate object of which is the unity of the individual soul. In this walking tour we examine the local origins of a universal idea. 

Have you ever longed for Life in the Woods? The woods are more than trees and earth and sky. The woods are a way of being, of seeing and feeling the light. In this class set in the shadowy light of the autumn woods, Diana Lorence invites us to look and learn to see with woodland eyes and all our original senses. She draws on her seven years of solitude in the woods at Land’s End in California to let the shadows teach us what light is, let autumn teach us what the year is, let the deepening year teach us what life is. What meanings await us to be read in the woods of our memories and imaginations, illuminated by a Woodland Way of Seeing?

The American Wisdom Tradition rests on an unalienable foundation of Native American Wisdom. That Native wisdom is irreducible to books and concepts, but rests on embodied experience lived in harmony with the natural environment in place and time. In this fall-and-spring series of field experiences, we will visit local environments of woods and waters, led by Russell Reed (Atakapa of Louisiana), experimental archaeologist and past supervisor of American Indian field programs at the Jamestown-Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg museums.

“When words lose their meaning, the people lose their freedom.” So observed Confucius 2500 years ago, though he might have been speaking to us today of our most urgent issues. Over the course of the past two revolutionary centuries, certain words of fundamental importance have so far lost their meaning as to reverse their import, at the cost of the very freedoms they purport to protect. What is freedom? What are words? What is meaning? In this course we will examine the meaning of six familiar words and endeavor to reclaim our inner freedom.

This ninety-minute-long walking tour of the town and gardens along Palace Street in Colonial Williamsburg examines the city through the philosopher's eyes. Do gardens have meaning? Is architecture more than shelter and decoration? Is there a difference in Williamsburg and what difference does it make to us? What role can a city play in the pursuit of wisdom? Registration and Colonial Williamsburg Good Neighbor Pass required.

In this class of words and images, Michael Lorence will be joined by Ed Pease and David Stemann, the architects who recently restored all the Civilian Conservation Corps cabins in Virginia. In 1890, the American frontier was declared closed. A consumer revolution exploded out of that vacuum only to collapse into the depths of the Great Depression. In response, the CCC was formed to bring hundreds of thousands of white, black, and Native American men and women back into healing contact with the land, restoring a suffering nation with a vision of a simpler past and wiser future.

For seven years, Diana Lorence and her husband lived alone in an unelectrified, twelve-by-twelve-foot house they built themselves, hidden in the woods of Northern California, in a world lit only by fire. Without telephone or computer, without automobile or access to stores, Diana’s Innermost Life answered her deepest need for something we have all left behind. Please join us for this true story in words and pictures of what it is like to live for years of your life, literally out of this world.

The American Wisdom Tradition rests on an unalienable foundation of Native American Wisdom. That Native wisdom is irreducible to books and concepts, but rests on embodied experience lived in harmony with the natural environment in place and time. In this fall-and-spring series of field experiences, we will visit local environments of woods and waters, led by Russell Reed (Atakapa of Louisiana), experimental archaeologist and past supervisor of American Indian field programs at the Jamestown-Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg museums.

Henry Thoreau's beautiful essay “Walking” describes the art of walking as “Holy-Landing,” a crusade undertaken to reclaim the paradise of our beginnings. “We should go forth on the shortest walk,” he says, “in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return.” America once stood for a paradise regained of boundless forest and stream: a mythic landscape preserved from the beginnings of time. In this narrated woodland walk through the majestic Bassett Woods at Colonial Williamsburg, we seek the sources of American wisdom in the ancient forests that shaped the early nation.

What would it be like to wake in the morning and know that you had no light or heat, no television or radio, no computer or phone? No car, no neighbors, no news, no appointments, no stores, no errands, no chores? Of all the thousands of questions that have been asked about Diana Lorence’s years in the woods at Innermost House, the one most frequently repeated is simply, “What did you do all day?” The answer may surprise you. And after seven years of deepest satisfaction, Diana could truly say, she never worked, she never played, and she was never bored. You are cordially invited to spend 24 hours in words and pictures with Diana of Innermost House.  Registration required.

For seven years, Diana Lorence and her husband lived alone in an unelectrified, twelve-by-twelve-foot house they built themselves, hidden in the woods of Northern California, in a world lit only by fire. Without telephone or computer, without automobile or access to stores, Diana’s Innermost Life answered her deepest need for something we have all left behind. Please join us for this true story in words and pictures of what it is like to live for years of your life, literally out of this world.

In this timely invitation to American Wisdom, Michael Lorence is joined by special guest Dr. Michael Luchs, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Marketing at the W&M Mason School of Business, a leading expert in the field of Consumer Wisdom. “I think of wisdom as the art and science of thriving," says Professor Luchs. "More than ever, I believe that wisdom is something we all can learn, and that how wisely we choose to use our resources can have a profound effect on our well-being – and on others as well.” Please join us for this philosophical and practical exploration of a subject of interest to us all.

During her seven years in the woods, Diana Lorence of Innermost House found herself practicing a feelingful form of what she later learned is called "forest bathing." Walking in silence amidst the surrounding beauty of the woods, bathed in that sweet air, the delicate passingness of nature altered her sense of time and place, until the boundaries between herself and the world softly relaxed, and gave way to a sense of oneness Diana calls "timeless time." Every morning in the woods is then the first morning, again and again forever. Please join Diana for a gentle guided walk in the beauty of our own Bassett Woods.

Charles Eastman, born in 1858 and later named Ohíye S'a, was of Santee Dakota, English, and French ancestry. He is considered the first Native American author to write American history from the Native point of view. In The Soul of the Indian, Eastman brings to life the rich spirituality of the Native Americans as they existed before contact with Europeans. It is a rare firsthand expression of the foundations of American wisdom, which we will discuss with Mr. Russell Reed (Atakapa of Louisiana), experimental archaeologist and past manager of the Indian sites at Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg.

Of all conceptions born of medieval Europe, the most powerfully charged and widely adopted is the mind-altering idea of the university. Arising a thousand years ago, this one revolutionary idea has spread to nearly every nation in the world and all seven continents. The ancient campus of William & Mary centers upon the oldest academic buildings in the United States. The university preserves in brick and mortar the ancient human aspiration to universal knowledge, the ultimate object of which is the unity of the individual soul. In this walking tour we examine the local origins of a universal idea. 

This ninety-minute-long walking tour of the town and gardens along Palace Street in Colonial Williamsburg examines the city through the philosopher's eyes. Do gardens have meaning? Is architecture more than shelter and decoration? Is there a difference in Williamsburg and what difference does it make to us? What role can a city play in the pursuit of wisdom? Registration and Colonial Williamsburg Good Neighbor Pass required.

Have you ever longed for life in the woods? It is a longing that takes us back to our American beginnings. The woods are more than trees and earth and sky, the woods are a way of seeing. In this class we draw on the seven years of solitude lived in the woods at the Innermost House in California to examine our lives here in Williamsburg. What beginnings lay just beneath the surface of our lives here, hidden in the plain sight of home? What meanings exist to be read just behind our everyday experiences, illuminated by an Innermost Way of Seeing? Registration required.

“The hands are the cutting edge of the mind,” cultural historian Jacob Bronowski once observed. In this series of reflective walks through the Historic Trades at Colonial Williamsburg, we seek to regain the wisdom of skilled hand work to a world where it has almost wholly disappeared. How does the human mind suffer when the hands have no voice? In this first series of three meetings, we will visit sites representing the fundamental crafts of Food, Clothes, and Shelter.

“The hands are the cutting edge of the mind,” cultural historian Jacob Bronowski once observed. In this series of reflective walks through the Historic Trades at Colonial Williamsburg, we seek to regain the wisdom of skilled hand work to a world where it has almost wholly disappeared. How does the human mind suffer when the hands have no voice? In this first series of three meetings, we will visit sites representing the fundamental crafts of Food, Clothes, and Shelter.

Charles Eastman, born in 1858 and later named Ohíye S'a, was of Santee Dakota, English, and French ancestry. He is considered the first Native American author to write American history from the Native point of view. In The Soul of the Indian, Eastman brings to life the rich spirituality and morality of the Native Americans as they existed before contact with Europeans. It is a rare firsthand expression of the foundations of American wisdom, which we will discuss with members of the American Indian Initiative at Colonial Williamsburg for their invaluable contemporary perspective. 

“The hands are the cutting edge of the mind,” cultural historian Jacob Bronowski once observed. In this series of reflective walks through the Historic Trades at Colonial Williamsburg, we seek to regain the wisdom of skilled hand work to a world where it has almost wholly disappeared. How does the human mind suffer when the hands have no voice? In this first series of three meetings, we will visit sites representing the fundamental crafts of Food, Clothes, and Shelter.

Henry Thoreau's beautiful essay “Walking” describes the art of walking as “Holy-Landing,” a crusade undertaken to reclaim the paradise of our beginnings. “We should go forth on the shortest walk,” he says, “in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return.” America once stood for a paradise regained of boundless forest and stream: a mythic landscape preserved from the beginnings of time. In this narrated woodland walk through the majestic Bassett Woods at Colonial Williamsburg, we seek the sources of American wisdom in the ancient forests that shaped the early nation.

At the heart of Unitarian Universalist spirituality lies New England Transcendentalism. Yet as a spiritual wisdom, Transcendentalism is so little recognized today that it is often reduced to a prefiguring of modern environmentalism and social reform. How can something once so near to us be now so distant? How can wisdom once gained be so entirely lost again? In this presentation we go back to the beginning—back to Emerson and Thoreau and Walden—as a way of moving forward toward a livable future. What would Transcendentalism look like if it were new and useful to the world today?

Have you ever longed for a more inward life? It is a longing that takes us back to our beginnings. In this exploration of stories and image, Diana Lorence draws on her seven years of solitude at her Innermost House in California, and her years in Williamsburg before and since, to examine our lives here in the home we now share. What beginnings lay just beneath the surface of our lives here, hidden in the plain sight of home? How might our days here in Williamsburg come to life before our eyes, illuminated by an Innermost way of seeing and living and being?

What is the wisdom of autumn? What is the wisdom of harvest time, of the waning sun, the coloring trees, the first frosts, the gleaned fields? What is the wisdom of fire? What does the beauty of autumn have to teach us of wisdom in the retiring season of our lives? In this class of informal conversation set in America’s oldest college classroom, where the sons of American founders and American Indians boys once sat and studied together, we ask the age-old questions of life. How are we to live? How shall we be happy? What is the meaning in our time of a true Elder Wisdom?

Of all conceptions born of medieval Europe, the most powerfully charged and widely adopted is the mind-altering idea of the university. Arising a thousand years ago, this one revolutionary idea has spread to nearly every nation in the world and all seven continents. The ancient campus of William & Mary centers upon the oldest academic buildings in the United States. The university preserves in brick and mortar the ancient human aspiration to universal knowledge, the ultimate object of which is the unity of the individual soul. In this walking tour we examine the local origins of a universal idea. 

This ninety-minute-long walking tour of the town and gardens along Palace Street in Colonial Williamsburg examines the city through the philosopher's eyes. Do gardens have meaning? Is architecture more than shelter and decoration? Is there a difference in Williamsburg and what difference does it make to us? What role can a city play in the pursuit of wisdom? Registration and Colonial Williamsburg Good Neighbor Pass required.

Henry Thoreau's beautiful essay “Walking” describes the art of walking as “Holy-Landing,” a crusade undertaken to reclaim the paradise of our beginnings. “We should go forth on the shortest walk,” he says, “in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return.” America once stood for a paradise regained of boundless forest and stream: a mythic landscape preserved from the beginnings of time. In this narrated woodland walk through the majestic Bassett Woods at Colonial Williamsburg, we seek the sources of American wisdom in the ancient forests that shaped the early nation.

Have you ever longed for life in the woods? It is a longing that takes us back to our American beginnings. The woods are more than trees and earth and sky, the woods are a way of seeing. In this class we draw on the seven years of solitude lived in the woods at the Innermost House in California to examine our lives here in Williamsburg. What beginnings lay just beneath the surface of our lives here, hidden in the plain sight of home? What meanings exist to be read just behind our everyday experiences, illuminated by an Innermost Way of Seeing? Registration required.