Sometimes we need to let the inner child, the non-expert, loose in the world to create. What colours are included in our rainbows?
In education, we talk about bullying a lot but our schools are too big and the adults who are closest to children are often too overwhelmed with getting through the next class or day to build healthy relationships. More problematic is the way adults treat each other and children in the presence of others. Words are simply not enough. Real change in our educational systems is long overdue. Are you listening politicians and school managers?
There is no heroism
In tormenting the weak
Ganging up against those
You dislike or do not understand.
To ruin a thing you can’t have!
It only throws the limelight
On your weakness, cowardice
How scared you are of failure
Or something you can’t
Grasp, control or have.
If it was not so
You would have simply co-existed
With that thing that just is not
You or yours
Like flowers co exist with thorns.
Sharmishtha Basu
4.3.13
You Reading This, Be Ready
Recently, I attended a presentation and the person commented, “The only now we have is this one right here.” I began to use this with students. In the busyness of life, what do I want to remember? If I am present, right here, now, I can see the extraordinary aspects of the world I live in the now. I bring my mind into the room and it joins the shell, my body. William Stafford shared this Zen-like view of the world in this poem.
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
We should look for the extraordinary that appears in each of days. It is there.
These Days
I take my leave for the next day and will return Monday. I find in the quiet time those important things, their roots, and the dirt they grew in. Several Buddhist authors wrote about the need to recognize both the flowers and the weeds in our gardens. Charles Olson wrote this beautiful, simple, short poem I think echoes that message. I examine life fully and grow attentive, present, and creative in moments of solitude. The gap between stimulus and response grows. I explore radical opportunities to respond, not react. Enjoy.
whatever you have to say, leave
the roots on, let them
dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
where they come from
Here are some great acts of loving-kindness. I am sure we can add to it considerably but it is a great beginning.
Preface to Leaves of Grass
I re-blogged Distraction and Love yesterday. John posted it originally at What is Real True Love? He followed up to comment and left a long, wonderful comment with quotes. What distracts us? I only ask and answer that question when I have the space and solitude. It is in those moments that I can hold my questions and have enough compassion to receive the answers. I was led to this passage by Walt Whitman from John’s comments. I gently question my facts and truths, learned throughout my life in the quiet of meditation and prayer.
I love his beard and hair. When I grow up, I might look like him. I hope to find the wisdom Whitman spoke of so eloquently. Enjoy.
“Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote you income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take your hat off to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
The challenge for me, over the years, has been to accept that the change I want in the world begins with me to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi. Thomas Merton and, later, Parker Palmer wrote about the violence of activism. They are not talking about social justice, but the being so busy that the busyness of triviality overwhelms. Paul Simon’s words come to mind: Slow down/you move to fast/you gotta make the morning last. Have a great morning.
This is a wonderful post. I have been reading about being present in the digital age. John is accurate busyness is not new. It might be harder to manage. Thomas Merton warned us about the violence of activism decades ago and Parker Palmer has reiterated the theme over the years. The person I am most afraid of listening to is my self. It takes the fullest presence to hear my spirit, my soul, my inner voice. The need to sit with one’s self is essential to life.
![667403955_1357046431[1]](http://realtruelove.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/667403955_13570464311.jpg)
David Kanigan, over at Lead.Learn.Live, this morning posted this excerpt from a book by Tony Schwartz . I read it and commented. I’m reposting my commenting here as well, because it goes to the heart of what I write about on this and my other blogs.
http://davidkanigan.com/2013/02/28/the-addiction-of-our-times/
“I believe this is a very special moment in history, a kind of perfect storm. There is a growing recognition — to borrow language from AA — that our world has become unmanageable…The addiction of our times is digital connection, instant gratification, and the cheap adrenalin high of constant busyness. The heartening news is that more and more are beginning to recognize the insidious costs of moving so relentlessly and at such high speeds. Just below the surface of our shared compulsion to do ever more, ever faster, is a deep hunger to do less, more slowly. I saw proof of that a…
View original post 738 more words
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 