I am working to understand personal mastery in my life. As I was journaling the old-fashioned way, I had a breakthrough. We discussed in class the other night how people are called to do good works while in the company of others. Personal mastery is an emergent process echoing the lines of Robert Frost’s classic poem, The Road Not Taken, but, in this case, both paths are overgrown. Each new step we take is part of an emergent process. In a remarkable poem, Just a minute, said a voice, Mary Oliver gave us these lines: “‘Just a minute,’ said a voice in the weeds./ So I stood still/ in the day’s exquisite early morning light/ and so I didn’t crush with my great feet/ any small or unusual thing” (2004, p. 45).
If personal mastery is emergent, how does it fit with personal vision? It does, and is the process by which my personal vision comes to life and is fulfilled. I realize how obvious all this has been with answers in plain view. Parker Palmer, like Deborah Meier, is a teacher and learner I admire from a distance. Frequently, I am drawn back to explore his words. I find myself reflecting on a line from The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. “Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts … I reclaim my identity and integrity, remembering my sense of selfhood and my sense of vocation” (Palmer, 2007, p. 34). This authoring is the learning and finding balance between the advocacy and inquiry I wish to undertake in my life.
Bolman and Deal (1995) used authorship to describe this authority as we co-create life’s composition through word and action while engaging the spirit of learning and welcoming to the inner teacher we each possess (p. 73). Sir Ken Robinson (2009) used the term the element to describe a place where the sweet spot of what I love to do and what I am good at meet, revealing wholeness as I author life (p. 8).
Each time I take a step, I will be reminded of the uncertainty of where I step, just like Mary Oliver. I am learning my way through the world and mastering my presence.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 