Imbolc and the waning half Ancient Moon
Shabbat gratefuls: The second soul. Calm. A peaceful, easy feeling. Lighting the shabbat candles and saying the blessing. Shavuot. June 12. My torah portion. My conversion parsha. Tara. A gentle teacher. Joanne’s tangerine jelly. United Health Care. Sue Bradshaw. Alan, feeling better, but not well. His new electric Beamer. Bread Lounge.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Calm
One brief shining: Great Sol has reappeared, Black Mountain glows, my Lodgepole companion sways with its grovemates as wind gusts from the West, my fingers, of long use, press first this key then that and out pops a word, then two, then three, then more.
Yesterday I began saying my torah portion with the torah text. No vowels and a different, more florid style for the Hebrew characters. No punctuation either. I have a ways to go. Tara guides me toward my best work. June is less far away now. I can feel it. Bar mitzvah boy at work.
Been thinking about God as the creative advance into novelty. Some ways of thinking about how to act within this metaphor for how things are. Got the image of everchanging reality as an ocean wave. Instead of hiking, pressing forward in a direction I choose, perhaps surfing captures it better. Paddling out into the water, standing up for a better view, and riding with the wave’s energy. Requires balance, courage, caution, and the Taoist virtue of wu wei. Going with the flow of change.
Or. Guiding. Not seeing ourselves as shapers of the future but as guides, even for ourselves. Folks who know some of the terrain, can offer information about it, yet depend on others to draw their own lessons, to find their own way. As we all must do anyhow for ourselves. Helping each other get comfortable with the inevitability and hopefulness in change.
Maybe a better metaphor is the organizer. The organizer identifies with the people a goal, say affordable housing, or jobs in a situation of high unemployment, then draws from them their own solutions to how to reach their goal. The organizer may be a member of the group or not. The key is that both people and organizer recognize the power inherent in acting together, following the pace and direction of change identified by those who need a new reality.
These thoughts have thrust me back to the good old days when America was great. During the 50’s and 60’s when the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement were organizing. Give America Ganga Again. GAGA. A green hat with bright red initials. When my guides were Paolo Freire and his learner center pedagogy of the oppressed. Paul Goodman. Summerhill. The psychology of Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow. And, Alfred North Whitehead. Guess they still are.
Anyhow. Sparks. Fire yet to be lit.
In Shabbat. A week ago tonight, my lousy night. No sign of more to come. But, that time came with no warning. Health insurance has helpfully denied my meds for proctitis. Which help. Sigh. Forward and backward.
*Freire proposes a reciprocal relationship between the teacher and the students in a democratic environment that allows everyone to learn from each other. The banking method of education is characterized as a vertical relationship:
teacher
↓
student
The relationship developed through the banking method between the teacher and the students is characterized by insecurity, suspicion of one another, the teacher’s need to maintain control, and power dynamics within a hierarchy that are oppressive. The critical pedagogy that Freire proposes allows for a horizontal type of relationship:
teacher ↔ student
This relationship is democratic insofar as both the teacher and the student are willing and open to the possibility of learning from each other. With this type of relationship, no one is above anyone, and there is mutual respect. Both the teacher and the student acknowledge that they each have different experiences and expertise to offer to each other so that both can benefit from the other to learn and grow as human beings. ICP
