I would like to mark here my profound respect for Brain Goodwin who recently passed away, and was such a wonderful guide and inspiration for much of the work I am now doing within Animate Arts.
I happened to arrive in Totnes the day after Brian’s passing, and so was able to attend an ‘in house’ small memorial service for him at Dartington and connect with the community there in other ways, including helping to make a burial shroud in felt for him to be buried in – quite an honor to be able to participate in this event. Whilst it is very sad that he is gone from our realm, I believe he died a peaceful and ‘conscious’ death with his wife by his side.
I wrote the following ‘poem’ titled Goodwinian Dialogue whilst sitting in the college library during the week I was there which I would like to share with you. It is about what I felt it was like to be in conversation with Brian Goodwin
Goodbye Brian…many will carry your inspirations on with us, as you become a beloved ancestor.
Sophia
Goodwinian Dialogue
Thought, feeling, senses blazing, sentience cohering in a myriad of interactions
Intention arising, movement finding direction
Pace and momentum, connotations gathering, finding elegant expression
Gentle, penetrating appreciation
.
animate arts 
Thank you for the poem Sophia,
I, too, am a long-time, profound admirer of Brian Goodwin. Perhaps it will be argued that others thought of the concept of circadian rhythms being a generational mechanism for morphological patterning but I don’t know of anyone who put it into such an elegant and explicit form before he. (See Waddington’s editorial of Goodwin’s “universal” mechanism in the Journal of Theoretical Biology”, ca. 1969).
I regret that I never got to meet him in person but his influences will live forever in the works of future scientists of all types.
Hi Jerry,
Thankyou for your comments. It is delightful to hear from others who have been inspired by Brian. He was one of the principal teachers on the Masters program I did at Schumacher College last year, so I got to know him quite well. A remarkable person and a transformational teacher.
Best wishes to you in your work.