school of the small and imperfect

A weekly practice space for relational ethics, emergence, and collective sense-making

School of the Small and Imperfect is a structured weekly gathering where we explore how development happens through relationship. It’s a space of shared attention rather than self-curation, where the small, the subtle, and the unfinished become workable ground.

Horizontal in spirit, a school of fish, it moves through responsiveness rather than hierarchy, held inside a clear container that supports collective direction and depth.

We work with relational experiments that help us interrupt familiar cultural habits: reorganizing around comfort, interpreting too soon, resolving difference too quickly, managing ourselves for legibility, or smoothing tension before it has had a chance to speak. These experiments are not for personal mastery. They are ways of shifting how the interaction itself organizes.

Most people don’t have a space where the interaction matters more than self-presentation. Here, the work begins before we manage the moment.

how we work

Each gathering follows a clear arc that holds the practice and leaves room for what emerges.

We arrive together by shifting out of narrative and into contact. A small experiment comes next, something concrete the group can meet. It might mean following a subtle impulse, noticing where attention wants to wander, letting a contradiction remain, or moving at the pace of sensation instead of urgency.

This opens into the central practice, where we stay with what the group brings forward. The direction comes from the interaction itself: a hesitation, a question, a shift in tone, a small opening. The work is improvisational but not diffuse; I hold the architecture so the group can explore without scattering or collapsing.

Reflection happens through contact rather than analysis. We speak from what moved or became available, without explaining or smoothing ourselves into coherence.

We close with a simple ending that lets the work settle on its own.

Nothing here is meant to be polished. The small, the imperfect, the incomplete? These are the materials of development.

Why this work matters

We live in a culture where attention is thin, urgency is rewarded, and belonging often depends on taking the right position. School of the Small and Imperfect offers another way to be in relationship, one that does not rely on self-management, strategic communication, or ideological demonstration.

This is embodied, ethical practice.

We explore how to meet one another without the habits that quietly shape domination:

  • organizing around comfort

  • reaching for premature clarity

  • avoiding what feels unfamiliar

  • shaping ourselves to prevent disruption

In these tiny exchanges, the pauses, the misfires, the openings, we discover what becomes possible when we stay with the interaction instead of reorganizing it.

This is political work in the most grounded sense. How we relate here becomes part of how we relate everywhere.

Interrupting the reflex to categorize, distance, or withdraw is a form of justice that doesn’t depend on ideology. It emerges directly from how we meet what’s before us. This is relational ethics as lived practice: shared agency, attunement without erasure, and the capacity to stay with difference without collapsing or dominating.

Letting ourselves be seen without managing, staying in uncertainty, allowing difference to remain without reorganizing the moment. These are the conditions under which repair and solidarity become possible.

Development doesn’t scale by proclamation. It scales through contact. The small is not preparation; it is the site of change.

the details

School of the Small and Imperfect meets for 75 minutes on Zoom every week and runs in three-month cycles. The work deepens when the group moves together long enough to feel its own rhythms and to notice what changes over time. Closing the doors during each cycle supports trust, pacing, and shared direction.

Enrollment is currently open for January.

Participants should have support outside the group, as the work can bring things forward.

Tuesdays beginning January 6th
3pm-4:15 pm Central European Time
(6am Pacific US, 9am Eastern US, 2pm UK, 7:30pm India)

School of the Small and Imperfect operates on a sliding scale. To reserve your spot in the school, follow this payment link.


Alternatively, book a time below to meet with me.

Book an appointment.

Let’s talk!