A slide version of the SunWALK holistic education model – on what it is to be fully and positively human:
.
Category: Caring
Who will you be spending Christmas with?
Coming Home: an Introduction to Spirituality
There are many who yearn for spiritual food who are put off by the antics and corruption of religions. Perennial Philosophy or mystical paths such as Sufism can provide that food. But what are the basics of this core belief that transcends religions?
This is the beginning of an attempt to provide such a n i.ntroduction. Currently I am developing it in a question and answer format.
Coming Home
—–
Waking up to the Spirit you have always been
—–
A book for the non religiously spiritual.
—–
Roger Prentice
—–
Introduction:
This is an attempt, using questions and answers, to present simply and clearly the truth about being spiritual – initially without reference to religions.
This is for family, friends and students – and all those who want to realize, i.e. realize the deepest in themselves. I haven’t achieved this to a high order. Many of you can out-do me in many good things. But it seems my task is to collect and re-present these insights. I am painfully aware of my shortcomings. But as Heschel says to be human is to suffer the knowledge of the difference between what we should be and what we are. The only ‘crime’ is to say ‘that’s the way I am and I’m not going to change’. To say that is also very dangerous. We are all designed to struggle toward our own perfection – to become more and realize our gifts more fully in the mutuality of love.
This is an action-based account i.e. there are a range of simple ‘To do’ practices that can help you relax into:
To do: Sit quietly as often as you can – and let your breath breathe you. (More to follow)
Part 1 is an attempt to present the ‘bare bones’ without reference to the great and the good, or to philosophies or religions.
Part 2 goes a stage deeper and introduces ideas from some of the great and the good – people such as Ken Wilber.
Part 3 goes deeper.
Coming Home
Part 1- Re-finding our-selves = re-finding the spirit we thought we had lost
Q. What is spirit?
A. All that isn’t simply physical.
Q. Does that mean mind as well as feelings?
A. Yes if we put mind and heart together we get ‘heart-mind’. Heart-mind = our interior landscape or simply consciousness – the great inner ‘sea’ of feelings and thoughts. Neither heart nor mind in this sense are physical.
Q. Is that all spirit is?
A. It a) is the life-force b) the force of attraction that holds all bodies together and c) it is walking on in the right spirit – until all becomes Spirit.
Q. Are there other names for the spiritual?
A. Yes many – love, energy, chi etc.
Q. So spirit, or love as attraction, holds everything together?
A. Yes. Another definition of being spiritual is ‘to live for others’, to be of service.
Q. What else comes from spirit, apart from the warmth of love?
A. The light of the mind, knowing. ‘Warmth and holding together’ and ‘the light of seeing and knowing’ – both flow from love.
Q. What about everyday activities? Is walking spiritual?
A. It can be.
Q. Is running spiritual?
A. It can be.
Q. Is Sky-diving spiritual?
A. It can be.
Q. Is sex spiritual?
A. It can be.
Q. Is breathing spiritual?
A. It can be. The great yogic teaching is that the breath is that which connects the physical and the spiritual.
Q. Why ‘can be’ in all of these?
A. It is ‘yes’ if we a) re-cognize such activities in the context of the spiritual and b) realize the eternal in ourselves.
But it is ‘no’ if we remain tied to the miseries of our own ego.
Q. Does that mean that everyone is spiritual?
A. Yes but each needs to plug in and switch on! We all spring from the Whole, just as sunlight emanates from the sun. But we have to allow ourselves to feel, & acknowledge, the awareness that deep down we know was there from the beginning.
Q. Is being spiritual a normal state of being?
A. Yes it is simply being more than self-centredness. It is being conscious of the Whole/the Source/the Spirit that is beyond our individual ego. This consciousness gradually widens the circle of its concern and allows us to lessen our attachment to our ego.
Q. So loving more widely – like the outflowing circles from a dropped stone in a pond – is freeing?
A. Yes – those who really achieve insight cease to be run by the pleasures and torments of the the ‘small self’ – the ego and tru freedom increases..
Q. Isn’t this something that only special people – saints or mystics – can do?
A. No it is part of being human and we all have such experiences. But we fail to realize their closeness and fullness, mainly because they are so simple & there all the time – we’ve failed to notice, for want of quietness and contemplation! In any case we are all mystical just as we are all philosophical its part of the package of being human – just as much as is being social, sexual and creative.
Q. How do we make those experiences a stronger part of our lives?
A. Contemplation or meditation – as one source says ‘Be still, and know …’.
Q. How do we stop or prevent ourselves being spiritual?
A. Not staying conscious of that Whole from which we spring (emanate). And by staying attached to the pleasures and torments of ego-identification.
Q. Is there any other sense that someone might not be, or stop being, spiritual?
A. When they are attached to any thing that prevents her/him from experiencing their true Self.
Q. How many kinds of attachment are there?
A. Many – we think of gross ones such as alcohol and drugs but many are subtle – materialism, status etc – some are very subtle, perhaps ultimately even the attachment to not being attached!
Q. What do I do if violent or filthy or self-destructive thoughts or ‘demons’ come into my head?
A. Let them pass as though they were moving across a cinema screen and say, ‘Hello good morning/ eve etc, thank you and goodbye.’ Our True Self is not our thoughts. Thoughts come from the ego.
Q. Why what good would that do?
A. It will help you understand that you are not your thoughts.
Q. If I’m not my thoughts then what am I?
A. You are part of the Whole, in the temporary emanation and form of being uniquely you for 80 or so years.
Q. The Whole of what?
A. The Universe and beyond (everything – and all that is beyond that isn’t a thing!)
Q. What else am I?
A. You are star-stuff made conscious (SEE the 3 recent BBC physics documentaries called ‘Atom’.)
Q. What else am I?
A. You are ‘a hairy bag of sea-soup’. (This is not only a joke but is an accurate statement about our physical make up and evolution!) Science and spirituality are two ways of approaching truth.
Q. Do rituals and practices help?
A. Yes providing we don’t allow them to breed complacency, narrowness, and self-satisfaction i.e. a state of attachment. The most important are contemplation/meditation, prayer, and service to others.
Q. What really is contemplation or meditation?
A. Being still to experience our True Self, instead of the mind chatter and ‘TV interference’ of the ego.
Q. And what is the ultimate secret of the universe?
A. It is pointed to, not described, in these the final sentences of Wilber’s The Eye of Spirit;
When the great Zen master Fa-ch’ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the roof. ‘It’s just this’ he said, ‘and nothing more’. SFB P.258
Q. I don’t geddit!
A. Here it is again from another master;
The world is illusory
Brahman alone is real;
Brahman is the world. (SFB p19)
Q. Still don’t geddit!
A. Here it is again from another master;
There is neither creation nor destruction,
Neither destiny nor free-will;
Neither path nor achievement;
This is the final truth. (One Taste p468)
Q. Still don’t geddit!
A. ‘Walk on‘ (The Buddha). Walk on in the right spirit – lighten up and have forgiving and compassionate fun – until all becomes Spirit.
End of Part 1 (To be developed)
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central SunWALK model in the PhD.
Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Wilberian Studies; integral and holistic studies that draw on inspiration from Ken Wilber
I therefore sought to outline a philosophy of universal integralism. Put differently, I sought a world philosophy—or an integral philosophy—that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations . . . a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos, a genuine Theory of Everything. —Ken Wilber (TOE, p. 38).
For my own work, and for the benefit of those with similar interests, I have decided to keep a list of sources that I come across that fall under the category of ‘Wilberian studies’. That is integral and holistic studies that draw on inspiration from Ken Wilber. These include leadership studies, education, philosophy, psychology etc. I am collecting these interesting variations on, and adaptions and applications of Wilber’s four quadrants and three voices of I, WE and IT. – SEE especially Wilber’s The Marriage of Sense and Soul.
My own diagram/application is at the foot of this posting.
Here are the first few other Wilberian ‘four quadrants’ variations, adaptations and applications ;
5 The Promise of Integralism A Critical Appreciation of Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology by Christian de Quincey
HERE 4 Intimations of Jung in Integrative Psychology and in Ken Wilber’s Quadrants by John Giannini
HERE3 Integral Spiral Dynamics by Michael Dowd
HERE – click to see full size. Click HERE to see the 4 parts of the diagram in detail.
2 Developing Leadership Capacity: Searching for the Integral – by Wood and Hessler-Key
HERE1 Prof Slaughter’s article
HEREMy own application;
HERE was to suggest that teachers see the raw material of their work as the flow of spirit (the student’s spirit and their own) – that spirit inevitably being socialized in to the three voices of I, WE and IT. Teaching thus becomes the work of nurturing refinement in abilities within the I WE and IT voices. The real concern is the learner and her/his holistic development
The real stuff of education thus is spirit – that uses community and cultural stuff drawn from the Arts, Humanities and Sciences – the Arts being the ‘food’ of the I voice, the Humanities being the food of the WE voice and the Sciences being the ‘food’ of the IT voice. Proceeding like this I have suggested constitutes a) integralization and b) spiritualization i.e. a paradigm shift and one that in my personal experience greatly strengthens the academic concerns of teaching.
Share this:
Triadic forms: Texts and our construction of meaning
Within the SunWALK model at the heart of this site (summaries are HERE ) I suggest that we all communicate at any one time in one of three voices – the subjective I voice of the Creative (Arts), the moral WE voice of the Caring (Humanities) – and the objective IT voice of Criticality (as in Scientific investigation, practical criticism and philosophical inquiry). I suggest that education, and personal well-being, is a matter of achieving balance between those three voices – because they each energize the others. I also suggest that wisdom is a balance of these three – at least practical, common sense, day-to-day wisdom.
The three ‘voices’ correspond to other triadic forms – Kant’s three inquiries for example. Another three concern how meaning is derived from text. This topic is brilliantly introduced on Daniel Chandler’s website at the University of Wales (Aberystwyth). He says;
The range of theories about where meaning emerges in the relationship between readers and texts can be illustrated as a continuum between two extreme positions respectively, those of determinate meaning and completely ‘open’ interpretation, thus:
* Objectivist: Meaning entirely in text (‘transmitted’);
* Constructivist: Meaning in interplay between text and reader (‘negotiated’);
* Subjectivist: Meaning entirely in its interpretation by readers (‘re-created’).It may surprise some readers that anyone could adopt either of the extremes as a serious theoretical position. However, there are prominent theorists whose positions are at least close to these poles. For David Olson and other ‘formalists’ the meaning of a text is ‘contained in’ the text, and it must be ‘extracted’ by readers. Such a model of communication is ‘transmissive’: meaning is seen as something which can be ‘transmitted’ from a ‘sender’ to a passive ‘receiver’. As one moves towards the other pole the model of communication becomes more of a process of ‘negotiation’ or ‘construction’ (variously referred to as a ‘constructionist’, ‘constructivist’, ‘social-interactive’ or ‘dialogical’ model). In formalist theories meaning resides in texts ; in dialogical theories meaning is a process of negotiation between writers and readers (Holquist 1983). Those who stress negotiated meaning argue that the meanings of texts are neither completely predetermined nor completely open, but are subject to certain constraints. Some commentators refer to influences on the process of making meaning such as ‘a preferred reading’ – which may be represented in the text as ‘an inscribed reader’ or may emerge in ‘interpretative communities’. Individual readers may either accept, modify, ignore or reject such preferred readings, according to their experience, attitudes and purposes. This whole attitudinal spectrum towards meaning- making with texts parallels that relating to the nature of reality: ranging from objectivism, via intersubjectivity, to subjectivism.
As I have mentioned elsewhere understanding, and upholding, these various triadic approaches is vital to upholding an inclusive, universalist, world view and a balanced understanding of reality. It is also the antidote to fundamentalism and to various other sicknesses that plague us.
To be developed.
The ‘SunWALK PhD’ is HERE
—–0—–
To read the rest of Daniel Chandler’s introduction – and much more – go HERE
A very interesting article on identity, prepared by Chandler for the OU, is HERE
Other articles by Chandler are HERE
—–0—–
NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.
Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Where does Aesthetics and Aesthetic experience fit in all of this? (re Wilber, heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’)
see post on September 5th, 2007
Where does Aesthetics and Aesthetic experience fit in all of this?
Aesthetics belongs to the science of philosophy (Criticality) BUT aesthetic experiences are ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ i.e they are Creative and subjective.
The Indian philosopher Coomaraswami said that art and religion were not similar – they are, he said, the same. I would say that they are the same in that both involve engagement that involves a ‘loss of ego boundaries’ i.e. they are ‘unitive’ experiences. But both of these are or can be morally neutral activities. Religion on the other hand is false if its spirituality does not engender right action.
Aesthetic experience then, so I argue, is closer to artistic creation and is similar to mystical experience. We may or may not see our unitive experience as taking place within a moral context or a moral world-view, such as a religion. That is a unitive experience like membership of a religion, or a taste for spiritual food does not of itself mean that we and our actions are moral. We have more or less the sensibility and will to grasp the moral implications and act on them
Our moral sense comes from parents, family, schooling etc. If we are religious then a major shaper of our moral sensibility is the founder of the religion and his/her teachings. If we are Humanist or a ‘Free-thinker’ other inspiring individuals shape our moral sensibility.
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Wilber, heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’ through which we engage with reality
Heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’ through which we engage with reality
The three intrapersonal ‘voices’ of human engagement, have previously been presented as Caring, Creativity and Criticality.
Our Caring, Creativity and Criticality ways of engaging are developed through internalizing the voices of parents and family and then all of the Humanities, the Arts and the Sciences experiences we have at school and in the wider society.
Corresponding to the three voices we have three ways of knowing:
1 the ‘social-others-centred’ way of knowing – in the case of Caring
2 the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ way of knowing – in the case of Creativity and
3 the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’ way of knowing – in the case of Criticality
So;
Caring, the ‘social-others-centred’ way of knowing = the internalized voice of the Humanities, and is about engaging with reality via the moral viewpoint
Creativity, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ way of knowing = the internalized voice of the Arts, and is about engaging with reality via the subjective viewpoint
Criticality the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’ way of knowing = the internalized moral voice of the ‘Sciences’ and is about engaging with reality via the (supposed) objective viewpoint.
NB Criticality is wider that what is normally meant by the Sciences and scientific methods. It includes philosophy and such activities as Eng Lit criticism. Why? Because it is about reasoning and other ‘left-brain’ objective activities. The participant assumes the position of being objective and is learning or teaching about phenomena – s/he is not learning or teaching in the phenomena – a distinction that correlates with that between ‘knowing that’ (Paris is the capital of France) and ‘knowing how’ (being able to dance a response to a tragic event).
Heart-knowing and head-knowing, left-brain and right-brain
Heart-knowing, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’, is seen as partly an innate, intuitive way of knowing and seems to relate to right-brain activities.
The ‘methods of the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’’voice’ seem to relate to right-brain activities.
The third form, i.e. social knowing, is seen as deriving from the cultural interpersonal matrix of family and community relationships, internalized as the Caring seems to draw upon both sides of the brain (as do architects!).
—–0—–
NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.
Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Heart-rending testimony of an Afghan woman in Fazal Sheikh’s online book, ‘When Two Bulls Fight the Leg of the Calf is Broken’
Be sure to visit Fazal Sheikh’s on-line HERE
Take a look at the heart-rending testimony of an Afghan woman in ‘Fazal Sheikh’s online book When Two Bulls Fight the Leg of the Calf is Broken’.
Here is a short extract;
‘When our great Islamic revolution succeeded, we thought our day of deliverance had come. Finally we would be free and independent. Afghanistan was released. But once again women were treated as the goat in the game, pulled this way and that by one faction or another. Once again, on all sides, indiscriminate bombing and rocket-attacks, bullets and mines killed Afghan children in their mother’s wombs. We were forced to flee with bare feet and uncovered heads to escape the killing. Some of us fled to foreign countries and became refugees. It should not be forgotten that some of us were forced to flee to Moscow for our safety!
I shall never forget how so many of us spent frightened lonely nights waiting patiently in the front line for a single loaf of bread. How many of us were abducted by armed men from Mujahedin parties in the middle of the day in busy streets. How many of us were raped. How many of us threw themselves from buildings to keep their chastity. How many of us were taken from the scorching refugee camps in Jalalabad to become a commodity for men in neighboring countries. How many widows were forced to sell themselves to feed their families.
Those who have come to power, those with guns, continue to leer at us, to make fun of us, to take pleasure in harassing us. These men who think of themselves as the defenders of our faith, as our fathers and brothers sent to protect us, are the same ones who call us “Honey”. They say: “Don’t come out of your bottle, the flies might touch you.” The flies are the men that rush at you. Others tell us that we are “live wires that must be covered.” It is a pity they don’t recognize us as individuals, as fellow human beings. Over the loudspeakers they announce that years of holy war has simply been to cover Afghan women in Muslim dress.
That, dear brother, dear father and son, I am sure was not the purpose of the holy war……’
—–0—–
Of course people need water and food but as Maslow pointed out long ago security is a comparably important need.
—–0—–
NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.
Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Diagram of the SunWALK model of Holistic Education
The SunWALK logo/diagram conveys the basic ideas of the SunWALK model of Holistic Education;
The diagram functions as a logo, badge, a mandala, diagram, curriculum outline, model of what it is to be human (- and even as a building plan design).
You can read more about the basic ideas HERE
or a complete doctoral thesis HERE
Share this:
Story and Personal Myth in making our selves, and our education, whole
My personal myth Island, Shoreline and Ocean –
a view of story in Personal Development and in Holistic Education
Introduction:
By way of an introduction here are a few succinct thoughts. Skip this if you want to go straight to my ‘personal myth’;
Myth operates in us – its part of being human – like philosophizing. Therefore we should make the most of it – in terms of the mythology we make, and that with which we choose to identify.
Story is central to our meaning-making and how we (choose) to make sense of the world and give account of our encounters and experiences.
Myth, as opposed to story generally, is about our deepest concerns and is characterized as narrative that gives account of the unknown and unknowable as well as some of the known. E.g. we die but we don’t know what, if anything, happens after that. Myth creates and is derived from beliefs.
Myth intrapersonally is the clothing we give to the psycho-spiritual dynamics of inner experience.
Myth interpersonally is the stories we tell each other to explain encounters with the (mainly) unknown and unknowable.
Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth is a must because it makes clear the relationship between myth and religion and world-views.
“Without myth, cult, ritual and ethical living, a sense of the sacred dies,” says Armstrong. Without the discipline of mythical thinking and practice, it was difficult for many to avoid despair. The dark epiphanies of the 20th century can be blamed on “the absence of a viable mythology” that could help us face the unspeakable. Guardian review by Tim Radford
A personal myth operates in us whether we choose to articulate it or not. It is closely allied to what one psychologist called ‘our personal script’ and the another (Kelly) called our set of ‘personal constructs’.
We can help in healing ourselves by articulating our personal myth in comparison and contrast to the group myths around us – or that exist as historical artifacts.
Restorying, (e.g.by writing different versions of) our personal myth can enable us to re-frame our personal experience and gain degrees of control and depths of energy that previously were denied us through locked-up pain.
Creating a personal myth can facilitate better self-understanding and there is potentially a powerful tool for teaching and learning.
My personal myth is here;
The ‘Island, Shoreline and Ocean’ personal Myth
The personal myth that follows was written as a ‘one-page’ way of expressing a) a sense of the relationship with the cosmos, the Whole, and b) of a range of the ideas in, and behind, SunWALK. Jane is part of me, perhaps the same Jane as in Jane’s Short Story in Chapter 1.
The personal myth is an attempt at re-storying one kind of knowing. A felt need to undertake a re-storying of knowing can lie in acknowledgement of the fact that we know, and need to know, and need to express that knowing, in more ways than the empirical-reasoning mode – hence Island, Shoreline, Ocean. To admit other ways of knowing, is to admit that in our wholeness we are more than our senses and our reasoning. It is also to admit that in our knowing we are surrounded by mystery, which we encounter. We in various ways give accounts of those encounters.
3:3 Island, Shoreline and Ocean
a personal myth concerning the nature of mystical experience & its relationship to consciousness, & to knowledge creation – as such it is an attempt to include as much as possible of what I learned during the eleven year journey of the thesis – in a ‘one page’ story
The sun always woke her. Every day Jane walked through her garden, inspecting this plant and that, analysing what needed to be done. The quest was never-ending. Sometimes she sat a while on an old tree stump in order to consider the tasks and challenges, trying to work out the feelings and puzzles of what didn’t seem quite right, what didn’t feel quite right. What she couldn’t physically arrange she sometimes tried to paint or write – she had an imaginary garden as well as a real one. Sometimes she looked at her neighbours’ gardens, wondering if that would give her inspiration, but she was always left with the feeling that her most important answers came from elsewhere.
Every day beneath the practical considerations she felt a longing. Having made her review of her garden Jane walked over the fields, across the two streams that eventually made their way down to the sea, and along the cliff, and down to the shoreline. At the shoreline she breathed in her sense of the infinity of the ocean, along with the ozone-heavy, sea-weedy, sea air.
Frequently she imagined the island’s shoreline around the island’s circumference. In her mind’s eye she saw each place being shaped in some different way by the ocean – which was sometimes gentle, and was sometimes awesome in its relentless might. Sometimes the feelings that filled her were so powerful that she was overcome. Sometimes the beauty of being in the presence of the ocean was so great that she felt that neither garden nor painting nor poetry would ever fully satisfy the deepest longing.
Often after such reverie she slipped into the sea.
The sea had so much salt that she just floated. And, when the temperature was right, in floating, eyes closed, she lost all sense of where she ended and where the surrounding sea began. There was no separate sea, no separate self – it was just ….. being. It was always that way, just being. At such times she felt both full and empty, both powerless and at that same time she felt herself to be the very ocean that insistently carved and re-carved the island shoreline.
Mostly at that point she just wanted to stay, to be just part of this place between land and sea, like a driftwood sculpture, ocean-polished, that had been thrown up after a long journey from some river bank, high up some vaguely-remembered river. The shoreline was exquisitely the best of places. But she always took that first step. A first step on the walk back to her garden. And with the walking the experience that was ineffable started to give up insights and possibilities to both refine the garden, and to extend it into some more of the island’s familiar, wilderness, space.
In the evenings she and her friends sat beneath the moon, in whichever was the most interesting of their gardens, at that particular time, and they discussed the issues that concerned them. They all, more or less, had similar such deep experiences as Jane. The ongoing conversation was what united them, along with their respect for how they clothed so differently, in imagination and form, the experiences that were ineffable.
C. from an unpublished doctoral thesis by Roger Prentice, Northumberland ver July 2003
—–0—–
Karen Armstrong’s book A Short History of Myth is HERE NB Read the Customer Reviews which are excellent and ignore the Editorial Reviews which are carping, mean-spirited and self-serving!
Relevant book that looks interesting Restorying Our Lives: Personal Growth Through Autobiographical Reflection HERE
Island map SOURCE
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
The ‘Rules for being Human’, Perennial Philosophy and Universalism
These ‘Life-Rules’ by Cherie Carter-Scott, from her book If Life is a Game, These are the Rules are becoming well-known and they seem to me to be are interesting in relation to a holistic perspective, and to the ideas of Perennial Philosophy and a mystical world-view.
When you were born, you didn’t come with an owner’s manual; these guidelines make life work better.
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called “Life on Planet Earth”. Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. “Failures” are as much a part of the process as “success.”
4. A lesson is repeated until learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it — then you can go on to the next lesson.
5. If you don’t learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.
6. You will know you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.
7. “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” becomes a “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that again looks better than “here.”
8. Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.
9. Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life — or someone else will.
10. You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract — therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.
11. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn’t help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.
12. Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. All you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.
13. You will forget all this.
14. You can remember any time you wish.
(From the book “If Life is a Game, These are the Rules” by Cherie Carter-Scott)
TASK:/LESSON
1 Take a look at Perennial Philosophy and the Golden Rule and compare and contrast them to Carter-Scott’s ‘Rules’.
2 Re-write these according to your beliefs and world-view.
3 Find out what Cherie Carter-Scott meant by reading her book.
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY – TWO VIEWS A) BY KEN WILBER AND B) BY DEB PLATT
Even a cursory glance at the ideological and physical conflicts of today will indicate the desperate need for understanding that enables a ‘clearing in the forest’ of beliefs – one that will enable harmony in diversity.
.
On this site I argue that the deepest recognition has to lie in our humanity which we hold in common with all others – I am human, you are human, they are human – we all are human. However since religion exists in many and powerful manifestations the most important of all questions is, “In what ways is there a common light at the centre of of all of the great world religions?” The answer is presented in Perennial Philosophy. Perennial Philosophy is not a particularly good title – something like ‘core mystical reality’ or ‘the great chain of being’ are more accurate, albeit much clumsier titles.
In many ways the appeal to recognize sameness in others, harmony in diversity, is also a call to a kind of federalism. That is to say such a recognition will enable the people of the world to hold an allegiance to the whole as well as to the particular – much as most Americans or Germans hold an allegiance to their national government as well as to their state governments.
.
HERE IS HOW KEN WILBER SUMMARIZES THE SEVEN MAJOR POINTS OF THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, IN HIS BOOK GRACE AND GRIT:
1. Spirit exists.
2. Spirit is found within.
3. Most of us don’t realize this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin,
separation, and duality–that is, we are living in a fallen or illusory state.
4. There is a way out of this fallen state of sin and illusion, there is a Path to our liberation.
5. If we follow this path to its conclusion, the result is a Rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience
of Spirit within, a Supreme Liberation, which–
6 marks the end of sin and suffering, and
which
7 issues in social action of mercy and compassion on behalf of all sentient beings.
.
THIS IS HOW DEB PLATT PRESENTED HER LATE LAMENTED SITE ON WHICH SHE BROUGHT TOGETHER A VAST AND BEAUTIFUL SELECTION OF QUOTATIONS FROM WORLD RELIGIONS
.
If anyone knows what happened to her site please tell me. Her site was a truly great contribution toward religious understanding and its disappearance a great loss. Equally if you managed to copy her site before it was taken down please let me know (onesummit ATgmail.com replace AT with @).
This is the ‘universal’, mystic heart of all of the great wisdom traditions as Deb Platt presented it;
• There’s a reality beyond the material world:
• Which is uncreated.
• It pervades everything,
• but remains beyond the reach of human knowledge and understanding.
• You approach that reality by:
• Distinguishing ego from true self
• Understanding the nature of desire
• Becoming unattached
• Forgetting about preferences
• Not working for personal gain
• Letting go of thoughts
• Redirecting your attention
• Being devoted
• Being humble
• Invoking that reality
• Surrendering
• That reality approaches you through:
• Grace
• The teacher
• You’re transformed so that you embody that reality by:
• Dying and being reborn
Holistic Education doesn’t have allegiance to any one religion or philosophy, but Perennial Philosophy is very important for many and is the position of this site. It is motivated by recognition of the essential oneness of the great wisdom traditions
(SEE also Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy or Chap 2 of Jack Miller’s Educating for Wisdom & Compassion)
Share this:
From ‘Summer is a-coming in’ (1250) to ‘Cummin Thru Ya Fuckin Block’ (1994); each generation’s popular song lyrics – for cultural exploration
Source – and lyrics for the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
From SUmair is IcUmin in (1250) to Cummin Thru Ya Fuckin Block (1994); each generation’s popular song lyrics – for cultural exploration of values and beliefs
Great song lyrics are inspiring. Of course when they are coupled with great music the two have a multiplier effect and become ‘transcendent’. Why? How do the words when combined with the music become so powerful – so powerful that they can ‘take us out of ourselves’ and transport us delightfully?
Once or twice I’ve heard teachers and/or preachers refer to lyrics in popular song and I’m sure a lot of work has been done in schools and colleges. Here I just post one or two ideas and hope that I get to hear about more such work.
I did look many many years ago at some of the lyrics used by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan with secondary school pupils in the context of teaching English in the first school in which I taught. (I’m afraid I am one of those who thought that Bob Dylan did fall from grace with the electric guitar – but no one can take away the diamond-like clarity and poetry of his early work!) Still good stuff!
If you can avoid too much initial resistance folk song is, of course, a very interesting vehicle to look at historical events and work-related and class and geographic issues.
One of the earliest songs is SUmair is IcUmin in (c.1250)
SUmair is IcUmin in, lU-duh sing cUckU
GrOweth sAd and blOweth mAd and springth the wUduh nU
ow-uh blAteth after lahhhmb, lOth after cal-vuh cU
Bullock stairteth, buck-uh vairteth, mUrI sing cUckU
Well singst thU cUckU; nA swick thU nevair nU
Sing cUckU, nU….Translation:
Summer is coming in, loudly sings the cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo….
The seed grows; the meadow blossoms, and the woods alivens anew.
The ewe bleats after the lamb; the cow lows after the calf;
The bull leaps; the goat capers*; merrily sing cuckoo!
Well sing you, cuckoo–don’t ever stop now.
Sing cuckoo, now….
Hear the music HERE
Lastly I want to mention films – probably like me you are astonished in having watched a film to see that it had used 30 or so songs and yet you were not aware of them – so looking at the use of popular music in films is another very interesting area.
TASK/LESSONs – a few ideas
1 Look at some lyrics that stand up as poetry and some that don’t but get transformed when coupled with the music.
2 Explore the multiplier effect’ when lyrics and song come together – via a good/great singer.
3 Use song lyrics (and photographs/photography) in ‘reminiscence work’ with senior citizens and multi-generational work.
4 Explore why each generation gets attached to and is defined by (?) the songs that are popular.
5 what are the down-sides of music in films? What part does music play in ‘Hollywood’ type movies?
6 Watch some key/favourite/ important sections of films with and without the music sound-track – what’s the difference and what’s going on?
7 Cows are said to like music – why. If its true and what is known about music in the work-place?
8 Get children to interview parents grand-parents about key music in relation to key events in their lives.
9 Get children to develop a set of images in relations to a particular song that is important to them e.g. Strange Fruit
HERE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE LYRICS AND EDUCATIONAL SOURCES FOR THEM
Every time we say good bye (Cole Porter)
We love each other so deeply
that I ask you this, sweetheart,
why should we quarrel ever,
why can’t we be enough clever,
never to part.
Ev’ry time we say goodbye
I die a little,
ev’ry time we say goodbye
I wonder why a little,
why the gods above me
who must be in the know
think so little of me
they allow you to go.
When you’re near
there’s such an air
of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere
begin to sing about it,
there’s no love song finer,
but how strange the change
from major to minor…
ev’ry time we say goodbye.
Ev’ry time we say goodbye
I die a little,
ev’ry time we say goodbye
I wonder why a little,
why the gods above me
who must be in the know
think so little of me
they allow you to go.
When you’re near
there’s such an air
of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere
begin to sing about it,
there’s no love song finer,
but how strange the change
from major to minor…
ev’ry time we say goodbye.
Ev’ry single time
we say goodbye
Miss Otis Regrets
“Oh, hi! A-heh heh! Is Miss Otis in?”
“Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, madam.
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, mmmmmm.
And she’s sorry to be delayed,
but last evening down at lover’s lane
she strayed, madam.
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.When she woke up and found
that her dream of love was gone, madam,
she ran to the man
who had lead her so far astray.
And from under her velvet gown
she drew a gun and shot her lover down, madam.
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.
When the mob came and got her
and dragged her from the jail, madam,
they strung her up
on the willow across the way.
And the moment before she died
she lifted up her lovely head and cried, madam.
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch.
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
All the things You Are
You are the promised breath of springtime
That makes the lonely winter seem long
You are the breathless hush of evening
That trembles on the brink of a lovely song
You are the angel glow that lights the stars
The dearest thing I know are what you are
Someday my happy arms will hold you
And some day I’ll know that moment divine
When all the things you are, are mine
There is a very funny (and strangely moving) version of All the Things You Are by Peter Sellers – you can hear a bit HERE
Of course neither have the lyric and romantic charm and transcendental sweetness of Cummin Thru Ya Fuckin Block;
Author/Artist/Singer: Artifacts Music Title/Track: Cummin Thru Ya Fuckin Block Theme ID: 31545 N/A
featuring RedmanTo the beat y’all
*rat-a-tat drumming sound*[all] Make it funky (4X)
[Red] My nigga Tame [all] makes it funky
[Red] My nigga El [all] makes it funky
[Red] Redman [all] makes it funky
[Red] Huh, check it outVerse One: El Da SensaiI Ego Trip like Ultramag, sag my Girbauds I drag
competition so listen and raise the white flag
Cause the instructor, of the New Jerz verse dusts
another motherfucker I discover what no other brother
can do, hard to handle and to, stamp
I play Tramp like Grace Jones in that movie Vamp
I’m fit to wreck shit, I dip into the skit
Spit lyrics exquisite, blitted as I hit it
I suppose I knows the ways of the pros
Bros be like, “Oh that nigga’s got mad flows”
Creep’ll get it deep, I got it when it’s strict against
ducks who suck, and didn’t have the best defense
I make shit nice, defies with my device
And if I’m in a rap fight, you can catch a cap, right
Bust it, whassup what did ya ask me?
Crafty with my sassafrass P-Funk, thought been handy
Dandy Mayor Ave., back in the lab create my trap
Dibble dabble in the midst of the Artifact we have
swiftness, I blitz, specific and you dig it
from N.J., the Notty Headed Terror and da SensaiChorus: Artifacts, RedmanPump! Pump! We’re lickin off the mad shots
[Red] It’s the Artifacts and Redman cummin thru ya fuckin block
(repeat 3X)
Pump! Pump! We’re lickin off the mad shots
[Red] It’s the Artifacts and Redman cummin thru ya fuckin!!Verse Two: Tame One
Well I come live from the Artifact exhibit as a misfit
Larger than Jurassic Park I lick off like Wilson Pickett
Drama like a talk show I hit more cheese than nacho
Feelin Machu when I Pi on; a Coltrane like Roscoe
Hostile underground fossil, nigga bout to rock ya
So peep it how I freak it check the technique yeah I rock ya
I glide like drips and blaze a trail like I was Portland
When ill stressed, I still rock a vest like Ed Norton
The ill king, taking all things cash, crash, and asses
Backstage passes, V.I.P. all access
I got the props pon cock, fuck the know-nots
Whose techniques are weaker than the graphics for the Gobots
I rock with raw steel like Sue Richards, when Rick smacks her
Up motherfuck that I got more funk than muskrats
With my hocus pocus I can fuck up where ya focus
wit my left hook, dip right jab shuffle I can smoke ya
it don’t matter, cause all my shit is fatter than the
pads on MPC-60’s, hit me you got five second to jet G
Straight from the Bricks, now back to the N.J.
The Notty Headed Nigga and da motherfuckin Sensai[Red] Hoooaaaahhh! One two, one two, one two
This is for Jersey, haha ahh, ah hah
One two, one twoVerse Three: Tame One, MC El
I’m the black king, quick to grease my naps with Royal Crown
and aloe vera representin for the Notty Headed nigga era
However whatever my Posse Packs the Pistols
and my Skwad got the Boom, rid the room, get the bitchesThe exact Artifact, who is that, you speak of
Leak my speakers, unique and freakin beats track in fact
I be dat, nigga who you look for, in your worst fears
Peace to my nigga Lord Sear and Samere
Display, niggaz from N.J.
Notty Headed Terror and da motherfuckin SensaiOutro: Artifacts, Redman
Pump! Pump! We’re lickin off the mad shots
[Red] It’s that Notty Headed Nigga cummin thru ya fuckin block
Pump! Pump! We’re lickin off the mad shots
[Red] It’s the Artifacts and Redman cummin thru ya fuckin block
Pump! Pump! We’re lickin off the mad shots
[Red] Big up to Boom Skwad’s cummin thru ya fuckin block
Pump! Pump! We’re lickin off the mad shots
[Red] It’s the Artifacts and Redman cummin thru ya fuckin block
Pump! Pump!
[Red] Booyaka
Pump! Pump! (6X)
[Red] For nine-fo’
Pump! Pump!
[Red] Artifacts get dapped like that y’all
*sound of rat-a-tat drumming again*
[Red] Jersey’s in the fuckin house y’all
New York’s live in the house y’all
Newark is live in the house y’all
E-O’s live in the house y’all
Word is bond in the hizouse y’all
I’m in the motherfuckin hizouse y’all
So niggaz get the fuckin balls y’all
Endpoint
Question: If ‘sewage’ is the spiritual food of choice how precisely did we fail to develop the appetite for the sublime?
In parenting we go from almost total control to indirect influence. Intrinsic worth, value, meaning, taste, discrimination are the kinds of qualities most of us hope our children acquire. In this process we have to stay conscious of the fact that if we don’t have (a reasonable degree of) control over our children’s environment someone far less benign will be manipulating them.
Share this:
‘I am what I eat; Salads, Soups, Sikhism, and Harmony in Diversity – starting with our children
Discovering the site ‘gateway to Sikhism‘ was one of today’s pleasures.
Discovering the 100+ recipes was also a pleasure and set me thinking.
I’ve heard that one of the last elements of group culture to go in the process of assimilation is food.
Food and harmony in diversity seem connected in many ways.
Firstly of course who in their right mind wants assimilation – of themselves or others. As the (wo)man said, “I want salads not soup” – that was on the question of diversity and its harmony! However what is needed is an understanding of the harmony that can help the diversity flourish. That’s what is in short supply. Perennial Philosophy and a universalist worldview is one way forward. Perhaps this doesn’t require leaving our own culture and religious roots – (although the Baha’is would say, “Yes it does – and that is the ultimate of act of allegiance.”). Gandhi had something interesting to say about this;
“After long study and experience, I have come to the conclusion that [1] all religions are true; [2] all religions have some error in them; [3] all religions are almost as dear to me as my own Hinduism, in as much as all human beings should be as dear to one as one’s own close relatives. My own veneration for other faiths is the same as that for my own faith; therefore no thought of conversion is possible.” (M. K. Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as told in his own words, Paris, UNESCO 1958, p 60.)
He also said, I’m given to understand, “God has no religion.”
Secondly food is one of the great universals – it demonstrates universality in the fact that we all need, and most love it, and its diversity is astonishing!
Thirdly many of us enjoy (too much?) eating our way into other cultures. I’ve not (yet) visited Japan but we had a meal in a new a Japanese restaurant in Brighton (England). Of course we need to go further so that we can touch some other parts of the essential reality of other cultures. In doing so we need to sense both that which is distinctive and that which is universal.
Some of the many cultural and sacred connections between food and culture and ‘acting-in-the-world’ can be seen in the Sikh Langar
Through food we can also celebrate our sense of ‘world citizenship’. I’m not only defined by what I think, or that with which I ‘link’ as the wit said, but also by the cuisines I celebrate!
Our giving and receiving food is of course the continuation of the ancient practice of neighbourliness. Today we can extend this to distant people through giving via charities.
Many years ago a Roman Catholic school I taught in would celebrate another religion’s festival in the morning assembly. Divali and Just as enjoyable – one of the teachers organized that those children would bring in a ‘pot luck’ of ‘Indian’ food. Now for many of the children this was a memorable kind of experiential education!
With our children and our neighbours, near and distant, let’s reach out and break bread – or mix rice – even more!
Share this:
‘Practical theory’ re: Jane’s Short Story, meaning, interpretation, stories, meta-thinking, the teacher – and generating an antidote to fundamentalism!
Teachers, and other professionals, deal in a) texts (written and other kinds) and b) discourse about their meaning and interpretation with students every day.
When we engage with texts we do so in one of three voices – the philosophical-scientific, the creative or the moral-caring. This article comprises the first of a few reflections about hermeneutics in relation to the process of teaching – and in relation to the SunWALK model and ‘what it is to be fully and positively human’ – the main focus of this site.
‘Essentially, hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else’s point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary.’ Wiki
1 It makes sense for middle school children, and above, to come to understand that texts represent possible meanings and ‘critiques’ represent readings of texts. It might also be useful from this to understand that readings can both change over time in our lives, but principles might remain constant.
Developing meta-thinking via periodic re-visits to a useful text
There are calls for teachers to help children to achieve meta-thinking and one enjoyable way is to re-visit a story in succeeding years with the discourse centred around such questions as;
“How do you read the story?” and
“How do you feel what you’ve learned over last year has changed your views and, what you value – in relation to the story?” and
“In what respects have you, and your thinking, changed and developed over the last year?”and
“How do you read the story now compared to when you first ‘met it’ – what’s stayed the same and what has changed?”
One re-visiting was to Jane’s Short Story in a Roman Catholic middle school. Jane’s Short Story was posted to this site yesterday (8th Aug 2007). I wrote Jane’s Short Story to see how good Year 7 children (11 to 12 year olds) were at de-constructing and critiquing a piece that was deliberately stream-of-consciousness, oblique and cryptic! They surprised me the first time we used the story as a text and they also impressed me with their reflections on how their thinking had developed and the differences they saw on their second encounter.
Such work is also an antidote to the shallowness and superficiality that blights much of what children suffer in school. If you treat children as profound thinkers they show that they are profound thinkers – that’s part of the genius of the process in Lipman’s Philosophy for Children
What’s the connection with the SunWALK model?
PFC Philosophy for Children is the exemplary programme for the ‘IT’ voice, the objective mode of engaging with truth. The spirit flows even more powerfully if we combine IT engagement with working with the ‘I’ voice of creative expression. This means that the children can treat the text, including occasionally pieces by the teacher and/or other pupils both as literary text and as philosophical text. Switching back and forth between the two activities and the two treatments of text becomes a very powerful mode of teaching – including for the third voice, that of the moral and other-centred i.e Caring.
What’s the connection with fundamentalism?
There are many including;
Once you have separated out the different forms of truth-telling, the IT voice of philosophy and science, the ‘I’ voice of Creativity and the ‘WE’ voice of Caring you no longer have to defend texts in inappropriate and very dangerous ways. Treating religious texts as the supreme sources of inspiration for acting with justice, truth, beauty and goodness makes sense. Treating such texts as finite and fixed in their meaning as if they were simply mathematic formulae doesn’t.
It is we who make the meaning, not God – which is why we should always be tentative in how we assert our interpretations (including this one!). Sacred texts are gifts of meaning-making possibilities. Of course part of the texts is time-related and part constitutes eternal realities, but understanding what we are doing as we engage in objective, subjective or moral truth-seeking helps minimize confusion.
Literalism is the denial of God because it is the denial of meaning-making possibilities in relating to sacred texts – it limits the text to fixed and finite meaning – and tends to take us away from the focus on the need to act in the world with justice, truth, beauty, goodness – and all of the other so-called names and attributes of God.
It also allows people to start believing that the ‘others’ have broken whatever covenant is deemed to have existed so that no ‘rules’ of war’ need be complied with.
Its only in early life that we can prevent the kind of indoctrination of hatred for others. Understanding that spirituality, be it theistic or humanist, is simply the process of gaining the will to act morally is vital. Understanding the ‘voices’ with which engage and the texts that we engage with are all either objectively focused or subjectively focused or morally focused is vital in developing the truly mature mind-set and world-view.
Share this:
Jane’s Short Story; teaching children ‘nowness’ in creative writing and photography
SourceIn the unpublished doctoral thesis, from which this piece and Jane’s Short Story, is largely taken, the range of concerns include ‘the perpetuation in the present of early experience’. I’m interested to discover that one definition of ‘nowness’ is presentness: the quality of being the present; “a study of the pastness of the present and…of the presentness of the past”.
I wrote Jane’s Short Story to see what a Year 7 class (11 – 12 year olds in the UK) could ‘handle’, but it has become a major piece for teaching me, as well as for teaching others.
Jane’s short story (line numbers are simply to help in discussion)
1 “Come to mummy Jane. Come on, yes, you can do it.” Ste…steppp…stagger step..step got there BIGKISSmmmms’nice. Her mother’s nose stroked back and forth across her neck, as giggles of delight and laughter bubbled from Jane.
“Jane pay attention otherwise you’ll be asking me what the work is in five minutes time.”
5 (’Oh no I won’t Mr Moaner, I know perfectly well what you’re asking – so stop picking on me!’)
“Images Jane, images.”
Tulips. Gigantic red tulips, opened a bit beyond their best, and bigger than any red thing and redder than any red thing and she crawled to grasp, to know the greenness of the green cool green stems and embrace them and lose herself in the redness that was ……..
10 “I want you all to pay attention to the structure of your story……..”
How could she tell her mother that she never felt safe after he left. Only in his hugs with the smell of him did she ever, could she ever, feel safe. She chewed over this and poured herself another bowl of corn-flakes, sensing school time getting nearer and nearer. Her mother had left without giving the bus fare.
Yet again Jane’s leg itched from the nylon thread in the seam of her skirt.
15 She grasped the chair to ease her leg away from the itch, only to put her fingers under her chair and into some freshly placed chewing-gum. “Ugh! Boys are so disgusting!”
“Thank you Jane. I’m not sure what that has to do with careful control of your narrative but I suppose we should be grateful that at least you’ve re-visited our world, even though the visit will no doubt be brief. The trouble with you Jane is that you don’t use the possibilities and talent you have.”
20 Endless possibilities. The muddy brown wet sand, miles and miles of it. She sensed freedoms beyond the edge of her imagination, she would be all creation itself.
“Put your hat on Jane and come here – you’re not going in the sun until I put some cream on you.” Jane submitted to the sun-cream and enjoyed it but also remembered the tug of the harness around her shoulders – tug tug, with her running but not going anywhere.
25 “……and do try to put some images into your writing – do make it come alive.”
The finch, with feathers going in directions they shouldn’t, struggled on its side. The broken leg would not need mending because the shock was already killing the tiny creature. Jane hated the cat with an acid and granite hatred.
“You have ten minutes to finish your story.”
30 Jane sat back on her rump and examined her mother’s radiant face.
She spat out the tulip petals as her sadness entered her.
She was as rigid as the door he had slammed behind him.
She willed the incoming tide to consume her castle and leave only empty sands.
The finch stopped its fluttering and took on the stillness of death.
35 Jane wrote some lines.
Jane felt the tug tug of the harness and struggled to go somewhere.
—–0—–
Jane is, substantially, but not wholly, me. It was an attempt to make the feminine side of my soul ‘walk and talk’
In writing the story I reached back down to early memories with which to ‘clothe’ some of the levels in the streams of consciousness.
In continuing to work with children, or adults, I still sometimes use Jane’s Short Story – as a way to encourage others to create their own stories, made from their own real, and imagined, experience. I discovered how powerful it is if PFC (Philosophy for Children), and creative task-setting, are combined/interwoven – so much so that I believe that the two, when harnessed, together create something akin to ‘exponential development’ i.e the most powerful form of transformative learning. It is still a joy, and a learning experience, when children make their own creations walk and talk, sing and shout, just as Jane became ‘real’ to me, some 9 or 10 years earlier. From time to time I revisit the story and change a few words. Once I also gave it to the same class on succeeding years and asked them to see what they could see compared to their ‘reading’ of the previous year – and to say what differences they felt between the two readings. On the success of this I think that it is worth doing something similar with every class, i.e. for them to re-visit a piece two years running. What they are looking at, with each re-visiting, is, in part, the growth they have had via another year’s experience – a very useful exercise in meta-cognition for the children.
Although it was written when I was in my early fifties I include the story here because it encapsulates some of how autobiography is expressed in even the most creative, or the most abstract, of our work. The story was written in a ‘stream of consciousness’ style to see how well my classes could be at deconstructing the text. It was written in my second year of doing PFC. Sometimes I use it just as a text, sometimes the classes go on to write their own episodes from Jane’s life.
My experience is that children in Year 7 or 8 take a little time to decode the levels in the ‘stream of consciousness’ but then respond most sensitively to the possibilities that exist in and around the story. It seems to work at quite a deep level for some, and very few, except perhaps in initial perplexity, reject the story. It also helps to teach them that story, in its different kinds of truth, can combine re-collected personal experience and meld it with imaginative material. It can be a minor revelation for children who see ‘story is story’ and ‘real life = the truth.
Jane, both as part of my spirit and personal history, and as an independent spirit, has continued to exist, but she has also been transmogrified into the creations of other authors, adults as well as children. It is Jane in the personal myth called Island Shoreline Ocean, presented at the beginning of Chapter 3. My (our) past is re-presented and it is continuously transmogrified, in further re-representations. Each of us re-experiences what we are, as we engage or re-engage, with our beliefs, values, attitudes memories and new experiences. We echo past experiences in each new experience, even when we are seeking to help others in their creativity. Jane’s short story lives on in me as a crystallization of the feelings and images deep in my soul, deep, one might say, in my ‘present’. It has generated versions from 11 – 12 year olds, but also from an 84 year old man who, on one of my courses, wrote the first story he had ever written in his life. (He was pleased and amazed; I was deeply moved by his openness and courage!)
TASK/SUGGESTED LESSONS: It would be fascinating to combine the ideas above with photography!
Great photography blog HERE
Share this:
Reason and Revelation, Religion and Philosophy – the pre-eminence of Socrates in Baha’i Writings
Source
Richard Dawkins – bete noir of many religionists. Source
‘Faith in religion’ and ‘the reason and logic of philosophy’ are in direct opposition – right? We might be forgiven for thinking this is so, given some of what comes out of religions – and out of philosophers. One religion at least seems to elevate philosophy to a high status and to give a pre-eminent position to Socrates in particular. Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i religion, speaks in glowing terms of Socrates;
…… Socrates … was indeed wise, accomplished and righteous. He practiced self-denial, repressed his appetites for selfish desires and turned away from material pleasures. He withdrew to the mountains where he dwelt in a cave. He dissuaded men from worshipping idols and taught them the way of God, the Lord of Mercy, until the ignorant rose up against him. They arrested him and put him to death in prison. Thus relateth to thee this swift-moving Pen. What a penetrating vision into philosophy this eminent man had! He is the most distinguished of all philosophers and was highly versed in wisdom. We testify that he is one of the heroes in this field and an outstanding champion dedicated unto it. He had a profound knowledge of such sciences as were current amongst men as well as of those which were veiled from their minds. Methinks he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters. (Baha’u’llah: Tablets of Baha’u’llah, Page: 146
Depending on how you read phrases like ‘he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters’ Baha’u’llah seems to elevate Socrates to a station akin to that of a prophet.
In my SunWALK model reason (using the senses + reasoning) and revelation are seen as two of the ways by which we come to know. Others are;
a) tradition in the sense of the contents of the repositories of Art, Sciences and Humanities and the living traditions that are exercised in various communities.
b) caring by which I mean our heart consciousness that derives from the relationships in which we are embedded and the love and other positive qualities we have received from those with whom we have relationship. (Without having received love it is very difficult to love.)
Interesting piece by Dawkins HERE
Share this:
Knowledge, Knowing and the Unknowable: Head, Heart and the Mystery of Our-selves
Ver 2. as at 4th Aug 2007
PREFACE
This was written as a summary of some of the discussions held during a recent course run with 9 wonderful young women and men. So first and foremost this is for Poppy, Ellie, Jono, Saha, Natalie, Paddy, Jody, Kenny – and Davey.
This is what I feel/think I’ve learned so far;
WHAT’S WRONG?
Because of its lopsidedness and excessive specialization modern science, and thought generally, has got us into a mess. The mess is characterized by our consciousness and life being fragmented, mechanical and excessively materialistic. We need to create a new ‘post post-modernism’ that combines the positives from modernism, post-modernism and pre-modernism.
First of all we have to chose a starting point – because all of life is a circling matrix of connectedness.
THINKING AND FEELING AND BEING – AND BEING ‘MORE THEN’
I am – therefore I think. (Variation on Descartes’ starting point).
We are/You are – thereby I am. (Variation on a Swahili saying).
I am supported in my existence by all of the relationships in which I am embedded – including my ‘significant others’, and those I chose to lead me, and those with whom I chose to identify – so as to become like them or at least possess some of their qualities.
Our being is much more than our thinking, reason and logic – we are 51%, or more, feelings.
Unless our capacities for feeling are attenuated, blunted or simply under-developed.
We are known and knowable – but also exist at levels that are beyond the knowable.
That is we are, in the depths of our being, a mystery to our selves – and to each other.
Thinking is one way to engage with other/s, or the self – and with reality.
Thinking is what we do as part of being – sometimes it is more, and sometimes less, than the feeling/s we are also generating/experiencing. One or the other is in dominance at any one time.
Thinking and feeling are simply different forms of the single human spirit that flows through each of us – and apparently around that ‘space’ we call our inner world or interiority.
What would be a sensible name for the single flow of spirit that switches back and forth between ‘heart’ and ‘mind’? I suggest ‘heart-mind’. ‘Heart-mind’ actually has a long history in Chinese thought.
‘Heart-mind’ is preferable to ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ as some sort of separated ‘organs’.
Heart-mind is interiority – conscious thoughts and feelings, + re-callable memories + that which normally remains in the sub-conscious, such as painful memories.
HEART-MIND (THE ONENESS OF THINKING AND FEELING) AS THE 3 ‘I’, ‘WE’ AND ‘IT’ VOICES OR MODES OF ENGAGING WITH REALITY – AND OF CIOMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER
Thought and feeling however don’t account for the fact that we communicate with each other, at any one time, in one of three voices; ‘I’. ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ .
Sometimes our heart-mind/spirit switches into the I mode of artistic-subjective expression and engagement with reality.
Sometimes it switches into the WE mode of caring and other-focused action.
Sometimes it switches into the IT mode of scientific-objective investigation and engagement with reality.
We switch back and forth with great rapidity – unless we are in a meditative state or dreamless sleep. The other 2 voices are always ‘running in the background’.
THE ‘I’, ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ VOICES CORRESPOND TO CREATIVITY, CARING and CRITICALITY
I suggest that the term ‘thinking’ is better thought of as three separate ways in which we engage with reality, with each other – and our selves.
Thinking in the sense of Criticality (inc. philosophy, science maths, Eng. Lit, etc.) is one way for the human spirit to engage with reality. The other two are Caring and Creativity.
Caring focuses on moral truth as caring – action for the sake of others.
Creativity is concerned with subjective truth as a way to engage with reality – its voice says “This is how it has been for me, this is how it looks for me – standing in my ‘skin’.
Criticality focuses on objective truth – in which reasoning and logic are especially important.
Thought and feeling/s are two sides of a single coin – each transforms into the other moment by moment in the dynamics of the heart-mind. This is evident in simple introspection.
Heart-mind, is however socialized into the 3 I, WE and IT voices.
All 3 have cognitive and affective charges at any one time.
The I WE and IT voices are internalizations/socializations of parental voices, school and community voices.
The cultural ‘repositories’ that correspond to the I,WE and IT voices we call the Arts, Humanities & Sciences.
The moral voice is an internalization of early caring and experience – with conscience as the internalization of the parental voice.
There may be sensible connections to be made between left and right brain hemispheres and the UIT and I voices.
It seems sensible to connect the I voice and the mystical since both involve unitive experiences.
In dealing with the Critical IT way of engaging with reality we deal in concepts – but we might agree with Heschel who says “Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.”
CONCEPTS AS ‘DELICIOUS SNACKS’ – AND ‘AMAZEMENT’ AS THE UNITIVE STATE OF THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE
Amazement is the state of union, the unitive state which in its elevated forms is the mystical.
The mystical needs to be recognized as a normal, every-day even, part of being human. It needs de-mystifying and de-rarefying. It is not the sole prerogative of the exceptional such as Joan of Arc or of those who unhelpfully hear voices.
The basic experience is embedded in every day language as when we say, “It took me out of my-self.”
In normal, conceptual, busy-busy life we have a strong sense of ego/self/me-me. But sometimes I forget my self – through a unitive experience.
As the gospel song says;
I’m gonna lay down my heavy load
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
I’m gonna lay down my heavy load
Down by the riverside
Gonna study war no more.
One reading of the ‘heavy load’ is the small self, the ego, the ego boundary that keeps us in the relative hell of separation and pain and suffering.
Contemplation or perhaps deeper meditation is what takes us to the unitive state.
But I don’t think permanent self-loss is the goal because the dynamic lies in going back and forth between the unitive and the duality that is most of everyday life.
In fact I believe that our knowing comes as a consequence of the dynamic that arises from going back and forth between the unitive and duality
LOGIC IS WHAT WE NEED WHEN WE RETURN FROM THE STATE OF AMAZEMENT/MYSTICAL UNION
Logic is a good servant but insufficient as an overall master explanation of what we are, or what amounts to truth.
For example logic can be used impeccably to support the view that God exists, and equally for the view that there is no God.
Logical constructions, like journeys, always start somewhere.
That ‘somewhere’ in our intellectual-spiritual journeys, and dialogue with each other, is always a set of assumptions and viewpoints.
DEVELOPING A NEW PARADIGM – AND REALIZING THAT THE INADEQUACIES OF THE OLD PARADIGM LIE IN ITS SET OF ASSUMPTIONS (BECAUSE THEY LARGELY LIE UNTESTED)
The assumptions, like a geographical position, always imply a world-view.
The assumptions are largely untested like the 9/10ths of the ice-berg that is below the surface.
The world-view can include a range of other assumptions including what it is to be human, what constitutes reality, what is good or bad etc.
The new paradigm that is struggling to be born is characterised by wholeness, flow and realizations of the spiritual nature of being human – the opposites of fragmentation, the mechanistic and the excessively materialistic. Above all it centres on realizing to a much deeper and higher forms answers to the most important of all questions; “What is it to be (fully and positively) human?”
REALIZING UNITY – PERSONALLY OR COLLECTIVELY – IS HELP BY THE GIFT OF WISE VOICES
Individually our happiness depends on our integration – of heart and head, of identity and purpose, of personal development and service to others. One key secret is realizing that mind and body and spirit are all one and the same – the singleness of the life-force, chi, the human spirit.
Collectively we also need deeper realization of unity – that unity is based on the existential reality of being human. Like millions of others I learned this from Shakespeare. Scots would add Robbie Burns.
Unity can not in the social political sphere be achieved through philosophy or theology, both of which depend on reason and logic. Why? Well as the ancient saying goes, ‘The longest journey in the world is from the human head to the human heart, but the shortest journey in the world is from the human heart to the human head.’
Unity can only be achieved via a commitment to the existential reality of being human. We are all human. We strive for a better life. We have loved ones and we all suffer grief and loss……………….
Our theology and philosophy are only games (of reason and logic) that we play – on the ‘foundation’ of incomplete certainty, not-knowing and mystery – and they must take second place to realizing our existential human oneness – and truth and beauty and goodness.- and above all justice as our over-riding interior ‘conditioner’ as well as the chief conditioner in the social and political realms.
Deep unity is realized through our existential sameness. The ‘healthy doubt’ is vital in matters of theology and philosophy. Doubting, just a modicum not a flood, is healthy when it functions as a cousin of tentativeness and humility. Absolute certainty is the condition of the fundamentalist – and the fascist and terrorist. Unity requires something other than closed minds and cold hearts. The co-existence of humility – but without a collapse into the hell of relativity, political correctness and effete values now displayed in so many Western countries. But our unity lies in the state of not-knowing, not in hard and water-tight (heart-tight?) convictions;
“We are united by our doubts and divided by our convictions.” Sir Peter Ustinov
Excesses of certitude cut us off from truth and can lead to horrors of cruelty – the Nazis were certain that Jews, and Gypsies were sub-human.
“Certitude divides and diversity unifies…..We have to elevate religion above politics…..”
H.R.H. Prince El-Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan BBC Newsnight 9th Feb 2006
I am because we are. I am ultimately in a state of not knowing. I see through a glass not darkly, but with imperfect vision – this being an inevitable consequence of being finite.
Speaking personally I can’t live fully up to the truth, beauty, goodness, justice and mystery that I’ve learned (about) so far. This means that I, like us all, need forgiveness; hearts embrace, minds take a stroll together before parting. I/we need for-give-ness as part of the love through which to gain the will to walk on!
Go well.
Roger
Dr Roger Prentice
Share this:
How can we make our teaching and parenting more holistic?
Source – beautiful work at Yellow Cottage Mosaics
Loosening the strait-jacket and increasing the holism
Question: “What is it that constitutes holistic teaching?”
Answer: “The holistic teacher is one who proceeds in all particulars with a sense of the whole –
and who once a lesson (at least) brings the pupils/students back to a sense of the Whole.”
Holistic Education – you must be joking! Fragmentation rules! I know that in the UK at least teachers are in a continually worsening government strait-jacket
So what can you do – starting today – to make your teaching and lessons more holistic and more satisfying for you and for those you teach? Here are a few suggestions.
a) ‘Re-framing’
By re-framing I have in mind that we all habitually use ways of thinking that we were taught or that we have adopted over the years. We can enrich what we do by seeing it in a new light and by then consequently changing how we work.
‘Re-frame’ your thinking via ‘added’ creativity. (SEE quote by Charles Darwin below)
If you are an arts teacher (performing creative or otherwise) see what inspiration can come from the sciences.
If you are a science teacher explore the creative and the humanities to re-fresh your thinking and practice. It was Darwin’s one great regret that he didn’t stay closer to the arts:
“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made it a rule to
read some poetry and listen to some music at least every week…
The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly
be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to
the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”
Charles Darwin (quoted in Christian p. 611)
Add the creative suggestions/connections to the presentation and discussion not just as balm for your own soul!
b) Make a deliberate effort to link each activity with other activities. In modelling through your behaviour/talk this ‘making of connections’ you will encourage pupils/students to make such connections. When a pupil/students does make a connection point it out; “Did you see how Juan/Maria made a connection between what we’re doing and the History lesson we did yesterday? Can you see any other connections?”
c) Relate subjects that are specifically concerned with values to values contexts.
d) Point out the creative potential in activities that are not specifically concerned with creativity.
e) Build in some simple form of contemplation/meditation in which the children let go of all of the busy-busy ‘freneticism’ and just ‘sense the whole’ to which we all belong.
NB Even if we could all agree on what constitutes a fully holistic form of teaching/education most teachers are restricted, particularly in the State system. Therefore it makes sense to think of stages or degrees of ‘holising’ given that teachers have such restricted freedom to plan courses.
The above principles will help in moving your teaching several steps toward being fully holistic.
TASK: Is this the crunch question and answer?
It took me 15 years to formulate the key question and provide myself with a reasonably satisfactory answer. (OK I know I’m a slow worker!) I know its very simple – we always overlook the obvious. If you can think of a better answer – or a good alternative – please send me it.
Question. “What is it that constitutes holistic teaching?”
Answer: “The holistic teacher is one who proceeds in all particulars with a sense of the whole – and who once a lesson brings the pupils/students back to a sense of the Whole.”
More questions
Question: What is it that makes of the parts a whole?
Answer:……………………………………
Question: Does a mosaic serve well as a symbol of holism – or is it ‘too mechanical and fragmentary’?
How is it that our consciousness/perception sees beyond parts to wholes?
Answers:……………………..
Share this:
Dialogue, ‘I’, ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ modes of engagement for Caring, Creativity & Criticality
SourceWithin any model of holistic education, including my own SunWALK, I see dialogue as being multi-level.
i) At the interpersonal level we have dialogue with each other, or group to group – including about any aspect of the Arts, Sciences and Humanities.
ii) At the intra-personal level we have;
In the creative ‘I’ voice we have meditation/mystical union in which, ironically, ego is set aside in order to achieve subjective expression. The loss of the ‘ego boundary’ in the creative act
In the critical ‘IT’ voice we also have inner dialogue – thought is often seen as internalized speech. However if Einstein’s many references to what is essentially a mystical view of his own scientific creativity – as we shape the before and after
In the caring ‘WE’ voice we have a wider set of forms of dialogue set as it is in relationships e.g. body language as well as spoken and written language.
Intra-personal meditation has been described as conversing with our own spirit!
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Heschel quotes – God, Man, Prayer, Life and Death – and video
The following quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel have been used to start a page on him on WikiQuotes. Many seem to me to give wonderful glimpses of the wisdom and beauty of this great soul:
God
* “Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine. … to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.”
* “God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
* “He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.”
* “We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.”
Prayer
* “Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.”
* “The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.”
* “The focus of prayer is not the self…. It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer…. Thus, in beseeching Him for bread, there is one instant, at least, in which our mind is directed neither to our hunger nor to food, but to His mercy. This instant is prayer. We start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost.”
* “The deepest passion in any human being is the craving for meaning of human exsistence- God is the meaning beyond”
Man
* “Man is a messenger who forgot the message.”
* “Man’s sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.”
* “The road to the sacred leads through the secular.”
* “Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.”
Life and Death
* “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”
* “The greatest problem is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The call for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior for our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future but perpetual presence. He has planted in us the seed of eternal life. The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a herenow.”
I just found a fragment of video – HERE – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6q1puhkUNg
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Everything you wanted to know about kissing (and philosophy) – HUMOUR
NB Marc Quinn’s sculpture – NB SEE Great museum-based learning content resource!
The Philosophy of Kissing (HUMOUR)
This witty view of kissing that satirically is in the style of the respective philosophers deserves even more readers so here it is. My favourite is the Hegelian kiss – what’s yours?
Dear Doctor Rude,
I think I understand what a “platonic kiss” is, but could you explain to me the difference between the following kisses?
Aristotelian kiss
Hegelian kiss
Wittgensteinian kiss
Godelian kiss
Signed,
Flummoxed in Florida
————————————————————————————————————————
Dear Flummoxed,
That’s a very good question; nowadays most sex education courses focus on secondary and tertiary sources, so much so that few people really get exposed to the classics in this field any more. I’ll try to make a brief but clear summary of some of these important types of kisses:
Aristotelian kiss
a kiss performed using techniques gained solely from theoretical speculation untainted by any experiential data by one who feels that the latter is irrelevant anyway.
Hegelian kiss
dialiptical technique in which the kiss incorporates its own antithikiss, forming a synthekiss.
Wittgensteinian kiss
the important thing about this type of kiss is that it refers only to the symbol (our internal mental representation we associate with the experience of the kiss–which must necessarily also be differentiated from the act itself for obvious reasons and which need not be by any means the same or even similar for the different people experiencing the act) rather than the act itself and, as such, one must be careful not to make unwarranted generalizations about the act itself or the experience thereof based merely on our manipulation of the symbology therefor.
Godelian kiss
a kiss that takes an extraordinarily long time, yet leaves you unable to decide whether you’ve been kissed or not.
Socratic kiss
really a Platonic kiss, but it’s claimed to be the Socratic technique so it’ll sound more authoritative; however, compared to most strictly Platonic kisses, Socratic kisses wander around a lot more and cover more ground.
Kantian kiss
a kiss that, eschewing inferior “phenomenal” contact, is performed entirely on the superior “noumenal” plane; though you don’t actually feel it at all, you are, nonetheless, free to declare it the best kiss you’ve ever given or received.
Kafkaesque kiss
a kiss that starts out feeling like it’s about to transform you but ends up just bugging you.
Sartrean kiss
a kiss that you worry yourself to death about even though it really doesn’t matter anyway.
Russell-Whiteheadian kiss
a formal kiss in which each lip and tongue movement is rigorously and completely defined, even though it ends up seeming incomplete somehow.
Pythagorean kiss
a kiss given by someone who has developed some new and wonderful techniques but refuses to use them on anyone for fear that others would find out about them and copy them.
Cartesian kiss
a particularly well-planned and coordinated movement: “I think, therefore, I aim.” In general, a kiss does not count as Cartesian unless it is applied with enough force to remove all doubt that one has been kissed. (cf. Polar kiss, a more well-rounded movement involving greater nose-to-nose contact, but colder overall.)
Heisenbergian kiss
a hard-to-define kiss–the more it moves you, the less sure you are of where the kiss was; the more energy it has, the more trouble you have figuring out how long it lasted. Extreme versions of this type of kiss are known as “virtual kisses” because the level of uncertainty is so high that you’re not quite sure if you were kissed or not. Virtual kisses have the advantage, however, that you need not have anyone else in the room with you to enjoy them.
Nietzscheian kiss
“she/he who does not kiss you, makes your lust stronger.”
Zenoian kiss
your lips approach, closer and closer, but never actually touch.
Doctor Rude
Share this:
SunWALK a model of (holistic) education in a nutshell
SunWALK a model of (holistic) education
The SunWALK model of
spiritualizing (or humanizing) pedagogy sees
human education as: the
storied development of
meaning, which is
constructed, and de-constructed,
physically mentally and spiritually, through
Wise & Willing
Action, via
Loving and
Knowing – developed in
Community, through the
‘Dialectical Spiritualization’ of
Caring,
Creativity &
Criticality processes, all undertaken in the light of the
‘Sun’ of chosen higher-order values and beliefs, using best available, appropriate
content.
So Sun = the values we internalize through which we read the world and see the path ahead.
WALK = Wise and Willing Action driven by Loving and Knowing.
We do the WALKing in the light of the ‘Sun’.
Working with such a model enables teaching and learning to be a spiritualizing/humanizing process and reduces the tendency for education to be just materialistic, mechanistic and atomistic.
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
TOO CONDENSED? – LONGER VERSIONS HERE!
DIAGRAM of the SunWALK model
Share this:
Who are you? Who am I? What is human being?
Saw this today – with some quick ideas for a lesson;
“You are the average of the five people
you spend the most time with.”
– Jim Rohn
Are you? Am I?
Do we have an essence? Or are we each an admixture of the roles we play and the relationships in which we are embedded?
Or both?
The best answers I ever found were in Who is Man? by Abraham Joshua Heschel.
The Photo is of Heschel with MLK at Selma – they consider each other to be a ‘prophet’
Is my essence the sum of that with which I identify?
Or is there an essence that is independent of the accidents of personal history ?
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Lectures
In development
Additional Lecture-workshops
Listed here are examples of a range of additional lectures supplementary to the modules in the 30 unit course.
1 Happiness, Self-understanding and Better Relationships
2 Hard Times, Measure for Measure and the spirit of poetry – a literary take on Holistic Education
3 Seeking a Friendly Face: reflections of holism in contemporary UK art
4 Exploring ‘cinematic’ language and experience as metaphor of holistic reality
5 New Circus and Holistic Education
6 An aesthetic view via an appreciation of the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson
7 Science and Religion: Fundamentalist Science and Alchemical Religion
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Book – A Common Humanity
Just discovered a book to add to my ‘must read’ list. It is A Common Humanity: Thinking about love and truth and justice by Raimond Gaita.The Guardian published an extract
Born in Germany in 1946, RAIMOND GAITA is professor of moral philosophy at Kings College, University of London, and professor of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University. Among his books published in the United States are A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice and Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, The Philosopher’s Dog. He lives in London and Melbourne.
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Share this:
Juxtaposition: Buddhist sand art and s…
Juxtaposition: Buddhist sand art and street paintings
From time to time juxtapositions come along i.e the placing of two or more views the dynamics of which create a rich text for philosophical inquiry and creative response.
I saw on TV a piece about Buddhist sand art. It was fascinating – a sense of the sacred – its destruction at the end of the celebration, the placing of some of the sand into running water so that the good might be more widely disperse, the giving all who attending the ceremony a small bag of the now mixed sand grains. Very powerful, very moving, very spiritual.
I also came across 3D street art as in these examples here
There are many examples of the Buddhist art. Here is one interesting application.
Suggested task: Explore these two forms of art and see how they inform each other within their cultural contexts. What questions arise? What creative expression opportunities arise? What is the dialogue between the philosophical questions and the creative expressions produced?
Am I right there is no subjectivity in the Buddhist’s monks art and in the 2D/3D street art it is highly (?) subjective? Is the first simply symbolic decoration? Is the latter highly disciplined or self-indulgent? What can we say about the fact that both forms have only a short life span before destruction? Des the pavement art get ‘dispersed’?
—–0—–
All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE
Soul Needs - One Garden 
