A world filled with splendor

In her October 3 blog post Fields of Flowers, Sherry Boas writes, "We live in a world filled with splendor. To enjoy it, all we have to do is open our eyes to the ordinary as well as the extraordinary."

It is easy to forget, and good to be reminded. I am reminded each evening when I sit out on my balcony for my daily meditation. Indoors, I get caught up in worries about work, chores, and health. When I step outdoors, I am immersed in the magic of trees and sky.

Soon, it will be too cold to practice meditation outdoors, but I hope I continue to find ways to see that we do indeed live in a world filled with splendor.

Willpower

This morning on NPR, I heard an interview with John Tierney, co-author of a book called Willpower. The main point was that willpower can be strengthened by practice, but it also can get depleted.

I think depletion of willpower explains how often toward the end of the work week, on a Thursday or Friday evening, I feel the urge to stay up late reading fiction or surfing the internet, and the urge to skip tasks such as exercise. At those times, I feel I have been spending all my time working hard, and I want to rebel.

A point made in the interview was that we can help ourselves by not straining our willpower. One example given was that sitting next to a plate of cookies and not eating them depletes our willpower. I have removed strains on my willpower from my environment. Now it is only the computer and fiction that tempt me to stay up too late. In the past, there were also TV and computer games, but those are no longer available in my home, which has made it less of a strain on my willpower to go to bed on time.

The story also noted that we can strengthen our willpower by exercising it. Examples of exercises mentioned in the interview included maintaining good posture, using correct grammar, meditation, and prayer. I do practice daily meditation, and I think it has helped me with willpower. I don't think of it as helping so much because it takes discipline to do it. I think of it helping more because in meditation (as well as my other daily druid practices), I take some time to be aware of how I feel and what's important to me. I put things in perspective. I remember the long-term consequences, instead of only focusing only on the immediate urge.

It may seem contradictory that we can strengthen our willpower by 1) not depleting it, and 2) exercising it, but the same is true of our physical energy.

What can I do for my willpower? I think my druid practices help to exercise my willpower. I think that allowing some time to relax on a daily and weekly basis helps me recharge when my willpower is depleted.

I think one problem that I have is that the number of things I want to do is about 10 times the amount I have the time and energy for. I do try to set priorities on a day to day basis, but maybe I should apply some of my willpower to setting realistic goals, even though it will require letting go of some things that I really want to do.

I think another problem is that I don't like my job. Therefore, my willpower gets depleted because I have to spend so much time trying to force myself to stay focused on doing something I don't want to do. I think that's the reason I don't narrow my to-do list -- because what I really want to do is to not have to have a job that I don't like. If I could spend less time on doing what I hate, I would have the time to do the things I want. And of course my to-do list would be smaller if I had a job I liked, because right now a huge chunk of my to-do list relates to trying to get a job I don't hate.

Arianrhod's Dance and the seed of autumn

Tonight I read the autumn equinox section in Arianrhod's Dance by Julie White and Graeme Talboys. Some excerpts:

As with spring, the symbol of the autumn equinox is the seed. However there is a subtle difference between the seed planted and the seed harvested. That we planted seeds that we may plant them again may seem like an endless task without point, but it is only part of a much greater cycle. No seed is exactly the same as the seed from which it has grown. Each has within it the nourishment and the memory of the previous cycle....As individuals, we carry that forward in our own developing lives. However, we also carry it forward from generation to generation so that it lives beyond us....Genetically modified foodstuffs...break the cycle of development. If that should happen -- with food or in a wider sense -- wisdom is lost, our strength is gone, and we will wither....we must choose our path and work within it....Tomaotes are no better than fish. However, fish genes have no place in tomatoes.

At my job, I feel sometimes like a tomato trying to fill the role of a fish. At home on my balcony, looking at the trees and listening to the crickets, I feel like myself. I feel how I have grown from my parents, carrying forward their wisdom, while also being my own unique self.

The gift of charm

Where I work, we receive telephone inquiries. Several months ago, someone called with some of the usual questions. Two people he spoke to commented to me, "He's very charming." Usually, it's normal to get inquiries, and usually it pretty much goes routinely, and so usually there's no comment made about it. But this person was so outstandingly different that he inspired two separate people to remark about him.

Over the past few weeks, I have had occasion to interact with this person face-to-face a number of times, including one lengthy conversation. The effect continues to be the same. This person is charming. When I talk to him, I feel I want the conversation to continue.

I recently read Elvenbane by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton. In that world, elves have the power to create a "glamorie." With glamories, elves can cause themselves to look different, cause someone to fall in love with them, or cause someone to want to do something.

It occurs to me that this charm that this person has is much the same. He seems to have some magic power to cause people to be positively inclined toward him.

I expect that it is most effective in superficial relationships. It's a surface behavior, and when you get to know someone really well, sometimes the surface behaviors become less relevant. But, it is a very useful ability to have.

Several of my relatives seem to have something similar. They travel, and they can arrive in a town with very little, and the next thing you know, people are offering them jobs and housing.

Charm is a very powerful gift, which can make it much easier to get many of the things we want. But just as in the fantasy novels, each gift also has its costs, and each person has different gifts. I admire the gift of charm and wish I had it, but I know that I have my own gifts, and I know that people blessed with the gift of charm may be unhappy or may wish for different gifts. There are people I love who are completely bereft of charm, and so I know that my lack of charm does not make me un-loveable.

Freedom of association, and freedom not to associate

I believe everyone should be free to think, to learn, and to express their opinions and beliefs. However, that does not mean that everyone should be able express whenever and wherever they wish. For example, someone may wish to loudly yell hateful rhetoric, but I do not wish to invite such a person into my home.

Most situations are more subtle than the decision not to invite a loud, hateful person into my home. Every time we deal with other people, there is the potential for conflict. But it is in dealing with other people that we find the greatest joy. We learn from other people. We are inspired by other people. We depend on other people for survival, for after all, few of us live in homes we have built singlehandedly, and eat only food we have produced singlehandedly. How do we cultivate the benefits of cooperating with others, while minimizing negative consequences?

There is an article called Weeding the Garden about what to do when a disruptive person joins your group. I think it's a good article. It includes points such as:

• Groups have a right to choose whom to accept and whom not to accept into membership.
• Deciding to ask someone to leave the group is a judgment call. You just have to do your best to make the right decision.
• If your group is small, you may be reluctant to ask anyone to leave, because you need all the members you can get, but you may find that when the disruptive person leaves, your group will become more appealing to new members.
• If you allow the disruptive person to stay, often the group will become consumed by conflict.
• Sometimes people may have a legitimate complaint about your leadership. Consider that there may be truth in the views of those who criticize you, rather than immediately dismissing them as troublemakers.

This article was written for group leaders. I am a member of various groups, but not a group leader. How do I cope as a group member? I feel that the leadership of some groups is too restrictive, rejecting people's contributions for reasons that have no validity. I feel that the leadership of other groups is too welcoming, giving too much serious consideration to loony ideas proposed by group members, and failing to censure members who behave in a way that is hurtful to other members.

In a less restrictive group, I will 1) not engage in interaction with members whose behavior I find destructive, 2) speak to the group's leaders about my wish for the disruptive behavior to be controlled, and 3) take a public stand in favor of more constructive discourse.

In a more restrictive group, I face the possibility that if I speak up, I may be kicked out too. I may choose to speak up, I may leave quietly, or I may stay and look for more subtle ways to bring about a more positive climate.

I may choose to join a group or leave a group. I may try to change a group from within. I may choose to seek a leadership position in an existing group. I may choose to start my own group. When we choose to be a group member, we choose to live with that group's rules and leadership. Although the best leaders welcome input from members, it is not the responsibility of the group we have chosen to join to be exactly as we wish them to be.

And what of arenas other than group membership? If someone were to write a comment on my blog that I didn't like, I could delete it if I wanted to. That is not censoring their free speech. They can have their free speech on their blog. This is my blog, the place where I express my vision, not someone else's vision. If someone tells me that I should pursue a more lucrative career, that I should be more outgoing, that I should be more adventurous, I may consider their comments seriously, just as the group leader must give serious consideration before deciding to eject a disruptive member. But in the end, it's my own judgment call to decide what feedback to listen to and what feedback to ignore.

In living my life, my job is to seek the path that I believe is right. Everyone else around me is seeking their path, and the way that looks right to them is not the way that looks right to me. We learn from others. Others learn from us. But ultimately, we are each responsible for our own path.

To care for each other and the earth, in the name of any religion

I have started reading Priestess of the Forest by Ellen Evert Hopman. I am less than halfway through it, and will probably write additional posts inspired by it in the future, but here's the idea that is striking me about it now. In the story, Roman Christians are offering wealth to Celtic people if they will reject the traditional Celtic religion. The Druids fear that catastrophes (such as bad harvests) will come if the Celtic people turn their back on the traditional religion.

I emerged from the book to find myself living in the city, living where I hear harsh voices arguing, and sirens. And I thought, indeed, we have lost our religion and we are declining.

But I don't believe that it is the loss of pre-Christian religions that is at the root of our problems. When Jesus came and said don't worship things, but instead, serve only love, treat all with love, including those you have previously rejected due to their sex lives or their ethnicities, that was a good thing.

Problems aren't caused by one religion displacing another. Paganism, Christianity, atheism, or Islam -- any religion can be used for good or it can be used for evil.

In the book, the religion of the Druids taught mindfulness of the seasons and respect for nature. It taught that as we must harvest plants and animals in order to sustain our lives, we must do it in a way that allows plants and animals to continue to thrive, that they may continue to sustain us in time to come.

It doesn't matter by what name we call our religion or our gods. What matters is that we must remember to be grateful for all that we have, that we must care for other people and for the earth. In order to thrive as a species, we need to work together in cooperation rather than to kill each other, and we need to care for the earth if we are to continue to find resources for food and shelter. We have religion in its many forms because it helps us to remember to do these things. But sometimes we forget the necessity of caring for each other and the earth. Sometimes the forgetting takes place in the context of religion, as we re-interpret our religion and use it to justify selfish ends. Or sometimes it takes place when people turn their backs on all religion.

It does not matter what label of religion or lack of religion people apply to themselves. What matters is that they care for each other and for the earth. When that caring starts to slip, we are diminished.

Labels

Pantheist. Scientific pantheist. Universal pantheist. Druid. Hedge druid. Reformed druid. Christian druid. Pagan. Neo-pagan. Eclectic pagan. Naturalistic pagan. Humananistic pagan. Humanist. Secular humanist. Religious humanist. Religious naturalist. Quaker. Liberal Quaker. Unprogrammed Quaker. Programmed Quaker. Nontheist Quaker. Christian Quaker. FGC Quaker. Unitarian Universalist.

Labels. Some of the above apply to me, some do not. In one of the internet forums I follow, people were denigrating labels. Labels have a bad name. I think what's bad is not labels, but stereotyping, that is, assuming that because a person has one attribute, they will also have certain other attributes. Labels are useful. I searched for my labels, and it was only after I found the labels pantheist and druid that I could find like-minded people.

The many different labels help us find like-minded people, but do they fracture us as well? Would religious naturalism be more known and accepted in our culture if we cohered more? Perhaps, but I think it's okay as is. I think it's good that each of us can find our own unique identity. We do come together with people who use different labels. I'm not a Unitarian Universalist, but I am a pantheist and a druid, and there are Unitarian Universalists in pantheist groups and in druid groups. Thus, even though I am not a UU, I know that UU's and I are part of the same community.

And so it spreads. I am not a conservative, but some of my friends my high school are conservatives. Conservatives and I are part of the same community. I am not Latin American, but my sister lives in Brazil, and I work with someone who is from Colombia, and I have a friend with a Mexican ancestor, so Latin Americans and I are part of the same community. I am not a bee, but bees pollinate the fruits and vegetables I eat, so we are part of the same community. I am not an apple tree, but an apple tree has given me food, and I have planted an apple tree.

We use labels to find what we are looking for. We use labels to say we want an apple, not a peach. We use labels to say we want to communicate with other pantheists. Labels help us find our way. They do not diminish that fact that all of us here on earth are here together, one community.

Busy bees

A sea of flowers, and the constant swirling of bees visiting them, bees of many different species. As I watched them on my lunch hour, it occurred to me that in nearby buildings there are people dressed in suits, signing papers, having meetings, talking on the phone, in their climate-controlled offices, guarded by receptionists who won't let the riffraff in. The bees carry on, oblivious of these administrators who think they are so important. The lifespan of an individual bee is shorter than my lifespan, but nature is eternal.

Reaching for the sun

The weather forecast for a particular day may be uncertain, but overall, the seasons follow a predictable cycle. Life does not. We know that we have times of darkness and times of light, but there's no guarantee that summer will come to our hearts on an annual basis. Though we don't follow a predictable cycle as the year does, at times, we can identify our place in life as being similar to a certain station on the wheel of the year.

Last night, I was reflecting on the spring equinox. Spring equinox is a time when we are half in light, half in darkness, but we are turning toward the sun. That fits with how I feel. In the past few days, I have been thinking of all the things I use -- car, computer, cell phone, clothing, food, etc. I try to choose organic, locally grown, fair traded, recycled, and re-used products. Sometimes I succeed, and yet so many of the things I use don't fit these categories. I try not to use too much energy, but in recent days, I have felt it necessary to turn on the air conditioner.

In the same way, I try to devote my time and energy to making the world a better place, but too often, it seems that just surviving exhausts all my time and energy. I want to reach out to others in kindness and love, but too often I find myself discouraged and irritable.

And so, I live half in light, half in dark. I can never achieve all that I apsire to, but I can continue to reach for the light.

There's a song, "Every Flower" by Peter, Paul, and Mary:

Every flower's reachin' for the sun
Every petal opens when the day has just begun
Even in the city where they grow up through the street
Every blossom needs the sunshine to makes its life complete.
Some are torn out by the roots and cast aside
And some might be arranged for a bride
A flower's just a seed when it's young
And every flower's reaching for the sun.

Some are bent by fears they cannot see
And some are touched by love and set free
A flower's just a seed when it's young
And every flower's reaching, every flower's reaching
Every flower's reaching for the sun.

Sometimes I feel torn out and cast aside. Sometimes I feel bent by fears. Sometimes I feel I'm just a seed, not yet a flower. But still, I'll keep reaching for the sun.

Three moods

I've been through three different moods in the past few days. I think I have something to learn from each:

1. Late Friday afternoon, I got a call regarding the job I had applied for. It was a job that I thought I would love, and thought I was qualified for, but I told myself that that for all jobs, there are many candidates, so the odds of anyone getting a job they apply for are low. I was prepared for their choosing another candidate over me. However, that's not what they did. They found me so unsatisfactory that they decided to do another search rather than offer me the position. When I got the news, I thought of two other rejections I had experienced:
   
   One was that two days before, I had been to tai chi class. My tai chi teacher always tells me to drop my shoulders. On this day, she also told me open up my collarbone. She pressed on the places she wanted me to adjust, to show me the posture I was supposed to adopt. She demonstrated exercises to practice at home. Unfortunately, my body does not know how to adopt and maintain the desired posture upon command. She seemed quite exasperated, and went into scolding mode. She said, "If you keep doing that, you'll get frozen shoulder and you won't be able to move your shoulders at all." I was a bit shocked. She has always seemed like someone who is patient with beginners, who knows that we can't be instantly perfect. I assumed that she teaches because she likes to teach. I take the class because I want to learn. In our society it is, unfortunately, considered acceptable for adults to scold children, and some supervisors actually seem think it is appropriate to scold employees, but in an adult education setting, when students and teachers are both there because they want to be there, why would scolding come into it? In scolding me, she deflated my interest in tai chi. I thought about quitting the class. I had been practicing tai chi almost every day, but after that day, I went for three days without practicing it.
   
   The other thing I thought of after hearing about the job was something that happened some months ago, when I joined an e-mail list. I was excited about joining a new community. I fantasized that they would be impressed by the wisdom in my contributions. Instead, they hated my contributions so much that the moderators blocked my posting.
   
   What these incidents told me is that no one wants what I have to offer.
2. Friday evening, I went to a friend's house. I enjoyed family time with a couple, their toddler, and their dog. The dog was very excited to see me. Being with them, I was restored to feeling like a normal person, rather than like someone no one wants.
   
   In addition to enjoying the warmth of the chaotic family time, I also enjoyed the more reflective time I had talking with my friend's husband when my friend took the toddler upstairs to put him to bed. My friend's husband mentioned that he never had to look for a job. He has had two jobs since finishing school, and in both cases, someone told him, "Hey, you are needed over here. Apply for this job."
   
   I know a lot of people in his career field, and I've always been jealous of how they are in so much more demand than people in my career field, jealous of how they are wanted, while I am not. But when he mentioned the way he had gotten his jobs, I didn't take it that way. The way I took it was that it's hard to get jobs by applying to them and being chosen from a pool of applicants, so hard that he's never done it successfully. And I also know that his wife came to him -- he did not have to learn the skill of courting, and apply it until he won someone over. She chose him first to be her boyfriend, and later to be her husband.
   
   I felt that all that stuff -- looking for a job, looking for a mate -- is really hard, and I am not skilled at it, but here is someone who is also not skilled at it, and he has a good life, and he is not some loser that no one wants, so maybe there's hope for me too.
   
   I left their house feeling inspired. I knew what I wanted to do. I realized that networking is the way that people get jobs, and that I should do things that get me out there involved with other people. I realized that everything I do, I do on an individual level. I don't work with others to create something together. At the community garden, I talk to the other gardeners, but they have their gardens and I have mine. At the radio station, I have made some friends, but they have their shows, and I have mine. At tai chi class, I talk to my classmate (there are only two of us in the class), but I'm learning tai chi for solo practice. It's not like a dance troupe where you coordinate with others. In my job, I do what I do, but no one is really a partner with me, and one one really understands what it is that I do.
   
   After visiting my friends, I wanted to do three things: a) Get involved in the local sustainable living community to co-create something with others, b) Get involved in the professional association for the type of job I'm trying to move into. Participate in something related to conference organizing. c) Apply to graduate school.
3. Saturday, I was tired and depressed. I was fed up with doing chores all the time. I'm always getting groceries, preparing food, washing dishes, doing laundry, reading nonfiction for my druid studies, and trying to work toward doing something other than the job which is sucking the life out of me. I wanted to rebel against chores and indulge myself. I was standing in line at the library to check out a nonfiction book. I got out of line and headed for the fiction section. I checked out Fire by Kristin Cashore, and spent the rest of the day reading it. It was very good. What it conveyed was that life is difficult. We can't live the peaceful life we wish for, because we have responsibilities to fulfill. People get injured. People die. People we believed in turn out to be imperfect. Within ourselves, we have the capacity to hurt others, and to kill others. Life is difficult, but we get through it by loving each other, not only through romantic love, but through the love of friends and family, and family is not limited to our biological family. After reading the book, what came to mind were the words from the refrain of a traditional song:
   
   The water is wide I can not get o'er
   And neither have I wings to fly
   Give me a boat that will carry two
   And both shall row my love and I
   
   What that means to me is that life is too hard alone, but love gets us through it. Also, the song has a captivating sadness to its sound, which expressed the sadness I was feeling when I finished reading the book.

That was my Friday and Saturday, a journey through feeling 1) discouraged and unwanted, 2) encouraged and inspired, and 3) rebelling against chores, indulging in relaxation, and sad for all the hurts of life. Now where am I? I hope that yesterday's vacation from chores has restored me, and that I can return to the inspiration I felt Friday evening, but I'm not there yet. I'm still tired. Thus is my life -- my body is rarely up to the ambitions of my mind.

Overly ambitious

I got lots of library books. I couldn't read them all before they were due, so I kept renewing them. Meanwhile, I kept thinking of more library books I wanted to get.

I'm taking a class, and feeling burdened by the homework. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of the class I want to take next semester.

I'm working on a druid study program, and there is lots to do. I never get as much done as I intend. Meanwhile, I am thinking about all the things I want to do that will be in next year's curriculum.

The world is so full of things I want to learn and do. I keep seeing more, even when I already have too much to do. But I can be like the sugar maple I wrote about yesterday. In the shade of the forest, it can't grow as fast as it would like, but it just perseveres, growing slowly.

The Education of Little Tree, Chapter 2

I think I read The Education of Little Tree a long time ago, but I don't remember it much. Today I picked it up and started reading. I realized that I didn't want to read it through all at once. At the end of chapter two, I stopped, because I wanted some time to ponder the things said in that chapter before I went on to read more. There were two things in particular that struck me:

1. "It is the Way....Take only what ye need. When you take the deer, do not take the best. Take the smaller and the slower and then the deer will grow stronger and always give you meat....Only Ti-bi, the bee, stores more than he can use...and so he is robbed by the bear, and the 'coon...and the Cherokee. It is so with people who store and fat themselves with more than their share. They will have it taken from them. And there will be wars over it...and they will make long talks, trying to hold more than their share. They will say a flag stands for their right to do this...and men will die because of the words and the flag...but they will not change the rules of the Way."
2. "Ol' Tel-qui is like some poeple. Since he knows everything, he won't never look down to see what's around him. Got his head stuck up in the air too high to learn anything."

Wrinkled trees

Looking at maple trees, I see that younger trees have smoother skin, while older trees have deeply wrinkled skin.  Trees don't use skin cream to try to hide their wrinkles. I hope that as I age, I can be like that tree, standing tall, unashamed of who I am.

Why I refrain from interaction

It seems I prefer  not to talk to people.  If I've observed someone for a while and have decided they are okay, then I will start talking to that person.  But most people don't get deemed okay.  It seems terribly elitist.  I think that part of the reason for it is because I'm hurt by the things people say (such as giving me health advice) so I don't want to talk unless I think it is safe.  Also, I think it makes a difference that I don't have enough people on my wavelength.  If I felt I was part of a supportive community, then I wouldn't mind reaching out to people even though they might say something I didn't like.  It's like, you don't mind eating a bad-tasting thing if it is only 1% of your diet so much as you mind having 100% of what you eat be bad-tasting.

Another factor is fear of awkwardness.  I usually don't know what to say to people.  If I start a conversation with someone, then after saying one thing, I'll have to say a second and a third, and a fourth, and I might run out after the first.  That ties in with the previous reason, because people who aren't on my wavelength say weird stuff that I don't know how to respond to.

Also, I don't know how to steer people away from the things that I don't like.   There's a way to stand up for yourself without hurting the other person, like if someone says something unsupportive, I can say, "Gee, you're supportive," in a way like I'm teasing them for how unsupportive they are being.   But it's only once in a while that I can come up with a good response on the spot .  That's another problem -- I usually think of what I want to say two hours later.

It seems like a negative trait to be so withdrawn from other people, but I don't want to push myself to talk to people just for the sake of it.  To a certain extent, this is a winter time in my life -- a time of quiet, stillness, retreating inward, and yet growing.  The growth that is taking place within is what will be my strong roots when my blossoms are ready to burst forth.  To try to go forth now would be going forth without being ready, so it would not bear fruit.  I used to be more sociable in the past, and a more sociable time will come again, but now is not that time.  I have many great people in my life now, but now, a time when fatigue brings me a feeling of sensory overload just from being around other people, is not the time to add new people.  At least not people who I would have to see in person and go out and do things with.  I don't have the energy for that.  However, I do have many rewarding interactions by computer and phone.

Continuing easing of irritability

As I wrote on Aug. 7, I've been feeling sick, and that has produced considerable irritability.  For four days now, the sick part has been over, though there is still much fatigue.  With the lifting of some of  the physical symptoms, it has become easier to cope with the irritability.  Today was a very frustrating day at work, with many causes for irritability, and yet on many occasions, when I felt the irritation flare, I was able to rise above it.  I thought of calmer, more peaceable attitudes toward other people.  I put a positive spin on it by thinking that today provides us with many opportunities to work on our patience.  I am grateful to the health which has allowed me to return to the disposition that I feel is more myself.  I must remember compassion when those who are sick do not take a positive attitude.  When I do feel irritability, I want to observe it and identify its cause.  It seems to me that the causes are:

1. Frustration.  Not being able to work on tasks that need to get done.  Working under people who make detrimental policies which I then have to enforce.  Working under people who don't tell you they've invented a new policy, and then act like the policy has always been there and criticize you for not following the policy they never told you about.  All of these are about a mismatch between what I want to do and what I'm able to do.  The solution is to look at the reality of the situation, and consider what I can do within that reality.  Can I change the circumstances to better allow me to do what I want? Or can I change to new goals that better fit my circumstance?
2. Overload.  When I am very tired, then any task before me becomes annoying.  Even sounds and sights become annoying because they demand sensory processing.  The solution to this is rest, stillness, quiet, darkness.

How to help

Something else from my class: a quote from Goethe: "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

That fits my experience and philosophy. So many people think they are helping me when they tell me how I ought to be different, but I don't find that helpful.

Another story from Waldorf book

Another story from the Waldorf book: There was a solar eclipse, so Petrash took his students to view it using paper with pinholes. He found this rather un-inspiring. Then, as he and the students were walking back to the school building, they passed some other students who were outside. He writes:

Several...students were...holding baseball caps so that the sun light was shining through the grommet holes and making a ring of crescent suns on the blacktop. Another student was stretching her mesh vest and dozens of crescent suns were shining beautifully on her lap. I marveled at the ingenuity of the children; their creativity made me feel so old and unimaginative. As I circled the playground, I passed under a tree. On the ground under the tree were hundreds of little partially eclipsed suns. It seemed that each place where the light was able to filter between the cracks in the leafy canopy, an eclipsed sun became visible on the ground. That thought that came to me was that in some amazing way, each individual ray of light conveyed an image of the sun. In the same way, each individual child bore the image of the divine.

As Petrash sees the divine an all children, Quakers see the divine in all people, and Pantheists see the divine in all the universe.

Story from Waldorf book

Today I finished reading Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out by Jack Petrash. The book talks about how while traditional education focuses on mental growth, Waldorf education seeks a balance between physical (playing outdoors, learning household skills, sports), emotional (art, music, theater, stories, poetry) and mental. Petrash tells the story of one boy who always struggled with academics, but had a deep appreciation for art and excelled in kindness, conscientiousness, sincerity, and open-mindedness. At 8th grade graduation, this student read the following, which is attributed to an unknown Confederate soldier:

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do great things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men most richly blessed.

I think if I just read this, I might not like it, because I would think of the illnesses and injuries that have affected me and people I know. I object to telling people disabled by illness that they should be grateful for their conditions, because of the lessons they can learn from it. However, in this context, I appreciated it, because it seemed to me that it was about this particular boy humbly accepting his academic limits, and shining as a good person in his own way, rather than being resentful about his limitations.

Higher learning

Someone from one of the email lists I'm on wrote, "Higher learning is perhaps sitting high in a tree and watching."

Yesterday, I sat listening to music and staring into space for several hours. It reminded me that when I was growing up, I often spent time like that. Nowadays, I tend to keep myself occupied at all times. If I'm just sitting still, I read or watch TV. But when I have those times of just letting my thoughts wander, I find I have more inner peace.

Embrace the mud!

It rained a lot during the Clearwater festival, and when it stopped raining, the ground was muddy. The ground that we had to sit on when watching musical performances. Most people had chairs. I didn't, but that was okay, because I had rain pants. As I was sitting there in the mud, someone walking past me said, "The thing about mud is once you step in it, the rest of the day is a breeze."

It reminded me of something from when I went backpacking a number of years ago. The trail was muddy. My companions and I were stepping carefully on the least muddy spots. Another hiker came through, trompy merrily through the muddiest spots. He advised us "Embrace the mud!"

What these two stories symbolize to me are that if there is something that I'm avoiding doing, sometimes the best thing to do is to plunge in and get it over with.