I believe it was Jefferson who said something along the lines of a person who acts and speaks rightly constitutes a majority. Margaret Mead spoke of the power of small groups to make changes. I wonder if we have lost some of this in the early 21st Century? I hope not.
Monthly Archives: September 2014
Build up
Each moment is a building block building on what was previously there. There is only place and time we can be in and that is the present moment.
John Dewey in Art as Experience described the aesthetic quality of life. We live and express ourselves under the tension and strain we live. Expressing occurs under pressure. This is not negative. Rather, it is the reality of living life in the world, acting on the environment, being acted upon by the environment, and becoming who we are not as a preplanned package, but as a naturally being and becoming.
Being present is the only place and space to be. Being present is being awake to the world in this most immediate and intimate moment.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Dialogue Lost
Weekly Photo Challenge: Dialogue Lost.
Dialogue is a flow of language which requires listening. Listening is the often overlooked component of dialogue. Without listening, the flow is broken. It is not that we do not listen; however we listen to answer, to correct, to defend, etc. meaning the flow is broken. When we just listen, the silence speaks volumes and the flow remains in tact.
Listening is not limited to human-to-human listening. It extends outwards to other sentient beings and non-sentient phenomena. When I listen, the wind speaks as it rustles leaves, blows through leafless branches, and across the mountain’s sheer rock face. Even the wind, has nuanced voices telling me something and guiding me in life. The wind asks questions which call me to explore and seek the next question.
A Mindful Moment
The link is to a post that is both simple and deeply moving. Meditate comes from the root which means to measure. This measuring is not about applying a number and is about the qualities of what is being observed. In this case, a candle flame.
Prayer comes from the word meaning obey. We can only obey when we listen deeply and find those quiet moments where silence appears speaking to us in its fullness.
Enriching the Earth
I spent a few days with my brother on his farm. He is in a space where satellites and towers seem to miss his place. It was nice to chat, reminisce, and laugh. I was not dressed for the farm, but still helped as best as I could. My brother pointed out several times I was setting a new fashion standard with shorts and sandals. I was careful where I walked.
I introduced Wendell Berry’s writing to my brother. Although he is more high-tech, there are qualities about my brother that remind me of Wendell Berry. They are both relatively low tech and understand the need placed on them when they use technology i.e. a car and airplane to do their work and live their life.
Farmers experience the reality of shipping animals. My brother uses Temple Grandin‘s ideas about humane treatment of animals. Good farmers know they put into and take out of the world. In some ways, we have lost sight of the cycle that we are part of in the world. We are spectators and it is easy to criticize. The cycle of life and death is entangled.
When farmers harvest, they return the parts of the plants, the weeds, and the waste into the ecosystem enriching the Earth. Human treatment of the Earth reflects the character of a person. Humaneness extended to Earth, all sentient beings, and inanimate phenomena is an imperative in enriching the Earth.
To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind’s service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.
I love Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse’s book The Journey to the East set the stage for Robert Greenleaf writing about servant leadership. The quote in the post is about the character that unfolds, revealed in living life, not as a planned, linear project, but a dynamic journey. We do not know what is about to happen and it is in the joy, sadness, exhilaration, and disappointment our humanity is revealed.
We live in a world which is can be paradoxically forgiving and unforgiving. It is the attitude of letting go which helps us overcome, moment-to-moment, the unforgiving part. It is in these challenges that the character lines are revealed in the continuous sculpting of our faces which appear over time.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 