Celebrate – Soul Needs

Education is a mess – is there an integrative way to teach?

I have updated an introduction to the SunWALK model of human-centred studies;

SunWALK: Summary of the main meanings of the components represented in

the model and its ‘logo-diagram-mandala’ – providing a teacher’s process model

SunWALK: Summary of the main meanings of the components represented in

the model and its ‘logo-diagram-mandala’ – providing a teacher’s process model

Give me a brief introduction:

SunWALK grew out of reflection on many years of teaching children and adults and particularly a period of five years teaching in a RC middle school – theorizing my practice via a PhD and practising my theory day-to-day.

SunWALK simply says that the quality of all of our lives will be higher if we undertake all education within the framework of deepening our humanity.

Deepening our humanity is a matter of developing technical competencies within the chief dimensions of the human spirit; Caring (the Humanities), Creativity (the Arts) and Criticality (the Sciences & Philosophy) – all in local, national and world Communities. These are the ‘4Cs’ of the model – 3 intra-personal, 1 inter-personal.

We and our one planet will be better of if all of the technical stuff, from learning to read to Masters degrees in engineering, take place in the context of humanization/the 4Cs. This requires international, national, school & classroom commitment to deepening the best of being human as the context for learning the technical.

We can’t afford to have character and morality and compassion as hoped-for accidental outcomes. Moral Education, PSME, RE etc. don’t work as bolt-on extras. They need to be the general context in which competencies are developed.

It is a model based on the energy flow of the human spirit – that is the given. That is physical, mental and spiritual energy that flows through all living human beings.

That energy, the human spirit, is the true ’stuff of education’. With the best of the past teachers need to equip children to face tomorrow’s challenges which will always be a mixture of new problems combined with eternally recurrent problems. Building all education with will be the medium with which the teacher works to nurture and challenge balanced development.

Today we have lost the balance between specialization, and whole-systems thinking and acting – SunWALK model brings into harmony the best of ‘Western’ & ‘Eastern’ world-views.

OK – so what’s the ‘Sun’ and the ‘WALK in the model’?

The ‘Sun’ = the individual’s spiritual inspiration & values sources – accumulated and ongoing, as operating internally and as expressed in speech and behaviour.

WALK = Willing & Wise Action through Loving & Knowing – here seen as the general goal for education, and as the interiority, character and behaviour of the student.

The model/logo combines a range of sub-models including the following:

a) An ‘interior’ model of the human spirit – in relation to ‘the world’.

b) A model for re-positioning education within being & becoming human – in the world with others.

c) A general model of the curriculum – for primary, secondary and higher education.

d) A framework for the analysis and evaluation of teaching episodes or projects.

e) A model of education that makes non-faith-specific spiritual and moral education intrinsic to all learning.

THE MODEL AND THE PROCESS IN ONE (long) SENTENCE: –

The SunWALK model of spiritualizing 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 [1]’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.

These underlined concerns are central components and focuses of the practice and theory in the model.

This is an intense combination of theory and practice. It automatically requires the teacher to practice their theory and theorise their practice – dynamically as practice-based research. It automatically enables the classroom to be connected to the school & community as a whole and to e.g. a relevant department in a university.

It attempts to suffuse all teaching with the demands, challenges and joy of being human in the world with others. But it seeks to bring together the Whole and the parts, the ineffable and the concepts – not just concepts because as Heschel (1971:7) says, “Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.”

The diagram/logo/

The outer ring of the SunWALK logo combines two dimensions:

1 ‘Community i.e. the social,interpersonal dimension of interaction with other individuals or groups.

2 ‘Cultural sources’ including such dimensions as the traditions, the political & the legal.

The three major divisions of the arts,sciences and humanities are here thought of as the stored, yet potentially dynamic, accumulation of knowledge and beliefs and procedures – everything from galleries to written laws of physics that the individual can draw upon or be influenced by. This is the ‘stuff out there’ rather than the interiority of consciousness in which there is the perpetual flow and re-shaping, focusing de-focusing etc. of heart-mind.

In SunWALK everything within the inner circle = a representation of ‘interiority’, i.e. human consciousness – the human spirit.

The human spirit is presented intra-personally as 3 ‘voices’ – 3 modes of being & of engaging with reality & of knowing.

The three emanate from the singleness of ‘heart-mind’, consciousness.

They are presented (metaphorically) as the ‘primary colours’ of Creativity (the yellow of inspiration), Criticality (the blue of reason) & Caring (the red warmth of love).

Creativity is the ‘I’ voice of subjective engagement via an artistic medium – it is concerned with subjective knowing and is particularly related to the core virtue ‘beauty’ and its products are of course ‘the Arts’.

Criticality is the ‘IT’ voice of objective engagement which enables progress in the Sciences ( & Maths., Philosophy and ‘critical’ studies). It is concerned with objective knowing – and it is related particularly to the core virtue ‘truth’. The products of course are the sciences and technology – but also philosophy and critical studies.

Caring is the ‘WE’ voice which enables moral engagement – for progress in the moral domain and in service of others. It is concerned with social knowing – related particularly to the core virtue ‘goodness’ and to ‘the Humanities’.

All three of course need to be conditioned by the pre-eminent virtue of justice. All students need to have these ways of engaging with reality developed in a balanced way. High technical competence combined with moral dwarfism leads to ……

The physical dimension is seen as the instrument for the flow of spirit in all of its forms – e.g. via dance, drama & PE and sports.

Each individual develops her/his I, WE and IT voices, the 3Cs, via socialization, starting in the family, the local community and then later in formal education. A sense of justice is seen as paramount intrapersonally as well as inter-personally i.e. it enables us to engage with that which is beautiful, good or true with balance, clarity & due weight.

The essential process in all 4Cs is multi-level dialogue. In the case of the individual dialogue is seen as meditation, reflection and inner-talk. In the case of groups it is dialectical process via consultation.

The ‘Celtic’ knot that surrounds the central shield indicates that the 3Cs are simply aspects of the one human spirit– the flow of ‘heart-mind’.

The white shield at the centre represents the meditative state in which there is no ‘focused’ engagement via one of the 3Cs – and in which there is relatively little of the interference or chatter that we experience in the unquiet mind.

This can enable us to ‘go beyond ourselves’, i.e. transcend our normal knowing – any of the 3Cs (I, WE or IT modes), as gateways, can be a pathway to the transcendent and to subsequent improved insight into reality.

The black dot at the centre is the ‘well-spring’ of consciousness. For artists (and great scientists) it is the Muse. For religionists it is the voice of God within (albeit distorted by the dust of self). For non-religionists it is the inner source of spirit as energy & inspiration – the bits of realization and insight that come to us for which we don’t make an effort.

Educating the human spirit is seen as nurturing, and cultivating, the life-force which culminates in the developed human who, through higher-order consciousness, realizes abilities from within Caring, Creative or Critical engagements.

Teaching is seen as nurturing and cultivating what is normally present, almost from birth, & certainly by the time we go to school – namely the flow of spirit expressed in nascent forms of Caring, Creativity, and Criticality – in Community with others. Holistic Learning takes place when the learner uses Creativity, Criticality and Caring – in Community – inspired by higher-order values – in dynamic combinations such as Creativity providing texts for criticality – which then, via dialogue, produce/attract the spirit for more creativity.

In SunWALK spirituality is not a dimension; it is the model as a whole. In SunWALK moral education is not a dimension – it is intrinsic to all of its praxis.

The SunWALK logo can also be seen as a mandala, or even as a plan drawing for a fountain or an ‘arts centre of light’!

SunWALK is a major shift to a process view of the world, of being human and of educating our young people. It rejects a worldview that is limited to the mechanistic, the ‘human-as-computer, the fragmentary and the materialistic; seeking instead modelling that is based on flow/process, holism and the spiritual.

SunWALK is designed to enable teachers and students to become agents of change to transform a world that is still operated as atomistic, mechanistic and materialistic into one that is holistic, dialogic, and derived from the best processes and products of the human spirit.

The SunWALK logo and model of education Copyright Roger Prentice 1995 & 2009

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“The Self is an ocean without a shore”: Bill Viola, a perfect match of spirit and form?

THE ARGUMENT The past lives only in the present in that our consciousness is marked and shaped by those whose insights we come to re-realize – including those that come from the great spiritual teachers. Memories are like art and sacred writings that are simply marks made – but marks made that can transport us to our own high realization in inspired consciousness. Bill Viola is now re-presenting us through his mastery of one of newest of mediums, video, with access to that spiritual core at the heart of the great world wisdom traditions. Is this a perfect post-modernist match of spirit and form?

In my SunWALK model about ‘what it is to be human‘ and about ‘how can we spiritualize education without the exclusivity of sectarian religion‘ I was inspired by several quotations as well as by Seamus Heaney’s poem Personal Helicon.

Bill Viola from ‘Ocean Without a Shore‘ – click to see full size – Source artdaily

“One of the things the camera taught me was to see the world, the same world that my eye sees, in its metaphoric, symbolic state. This condition is, in fact, always present, latent in the world around us .”
– Bill Viola

I was interested to see news about Bill Viola’s recent work ‘Ocean Without a Shore’ (shown at Chiesa di San Gallo, Venice). Viola’s website cites the following two inspirations;

“The Self is an ocean without a shore. Gazing upon it has no
beginning or end, in this world and the next.”
Ibn al’Arabi (1165 – 1240)

From the Viola site we learn;

‘Ocean Without a Shore’ is about the presence of the dead in our lives. The three stone altars in the church of San Gallo become portals for the passage of the dead to and from our world. Presented as a series of encounters at the intersection between life and death, the video sequence documents a succession of individuals slowly approaching out of darkness and moving into the light. Each person must then breakthrough an invisible threshold of water and light in order to pass into the physical world. Once incarnate however, all beings realize that their presence is finite and so they must eventually turn away from material existence to return from where they came. The cycle repeats without end.

The work was inspired by a poem by the 20th century Senegalese poet and storyteller Birago Diop:

“ Hearing things more than beings,
listening to the voice of fire,
the voice of water.
Hearing in wind the weeping bushes,
sighs of our forefathers.

The dead are never gone:
they are in the shadows.
The dead are not in earth:
they’re in the rustling tree,
the groaning wood,
water that runs,
water that sleeps;
they’re in the hut, in the crowd,
the dead are not dead.

The dead are never gone,
they’re in the breast of a woman,
they’re in the crying of a child,
in the flaming torch.
The dead are not in the earth:
they’re in the dying fire,
the weeping grasses,
whimpering rocks,
they’re in the forest, they’re in the house,
the dead are not dead.”
(from David Melzter, ed. Death – An Anthology of Ancient Texts, Songs, Prayers and Stories (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984)

The Ibn al’Arabi quotations reminded me of my attempt to portray our state in visiting ‘the shoreline’ and encountering the unknowable Whole – in my Personal Myth and the four key qutations (SEE below)

The poetic sense of the dead speaking in the ‘dying fire, the weeping grasses’ etc is secondary for me to how they live on in the consciousness that we possess, because of them. Our spirits continue to live out their consciousness through ours.

FOUR KEY QUOTATIONS

The Ibn al’Arabi quotation also reminded me of the inspiration I got from four key quotations in relation to a sense of the Whole and to a panentheistic and Universalist perspective I hoped that they contributed to the leitmotif that made of the thesis parts, a whole;

Text 1)

“The larger the island of knowledge, the longer
the shoreline of mystery.” Unknown author

Text 2)

The search for reason ends at the shore of the known;
on the immense expanse beyond it
only the sense of the ineffable can glide.
It alone knows the route to that
which is remote from experience and understanding.
Neither is amphibious:
reason cannot go beyond the shore,
and the sense of the ineffable
is out of place where we measure, where we weigh…….

Citizens of two realms, we must all sustain dual allegiance:
we sense the ineffable in one realm;
we name and exploit reality in another.

Between the two we set up a system of references,
but can never fill the gap.
They are as far and as close to each other

As time and calendar, as violin and melody,
as life and what lies beyond the last breath.

The tangible phenomena we scrutinize with our reason,

The sacred and indemonstrable we overhear

with the sense of the ineffable.

Heschel A. J. (1971), Man is Not Alone, New York: Octagon Books p.8

Text 3)

Tao, the subtle reality of the universe

cannot be described.

That which can be described in words

is merely a conception of the mind.

Although names and descriptions have been applied to it,

the subtle reality is beyond the description.

One may use the word ‘Nothingness”

to describe the Origin of the universe,

and “Beingness”

to describe the Mother of the myriad things,

but Nothingness and Beingness are merely conceptions.

From the perspective of Nothingness,

one may perceive the expansion of the universe.

From the perspective of Beingness,

one may distinguish individual things.

Both are for the conceptual convenience of the mind.

Although different concepts can be applied,

Nothingness and Beingness

and other conceptual activity of the mind

all come from, the same indescribable subtle Originalness

The Way is the unfoldment of such subtle reality.

Having reached the subtlety of the universe,

one may see the ultimate subtlety,
the Gate of All Wonders.

Ni, Hua-Ching (1997), The Complete Works of Lao Tzu, Santa Monica, USA: Seven Star Communications – Tao The Ching (‘Chapter’ 1)

Text 4)

….set then yourselves towards His holy Court, on the shore of His mighty Ocean, so that the pearls of knowledge and wisdom, which God hath stored up within the shell of His radiant heart, may be revealed unto you….
(Baha’u’llah: Proclamation of Baha’u’llah, Pages: 8-9)

The past lives only in the present in that our consciousness is marked and shaped by those whose insights we come to re-realize – including those that come from the great spiritual teachers. Memories are like art and sacred writings that are simply marks made – but marks made that can transport us to our own high realization in inspired consciousness. Bill Viola is now re-presenting us through his mastery of one of newest of mediums, video, with access to that spiritual core at the heart of the great world wisdom traditions. Is this a perfect post-modernist match of spirit and form?

The mystic inner core of the great world wisdom traditions is incorrectly named as Perennial Philosophy

• 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

Two views of the structure of Perennial Philosophy are HERE

Viola in our sea of uncertainty, and maelstrom of violence, is helping us re-connect.

Perhaps also Viola is showing us that video can do more fully what photographers – Minor White for example – have longed to do – to ‘en-form’ the spiritual?

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

Inspiring quotations for PhD thesis

Like heroes and heroines certain key sayings inspire us. Here I’m assembling the ones that have meant most to me.

As I re-find them I am putting the NEWEST at the top:

From my thesis;

The four texts that contributed to the leitmotif that, I hope, makes, of the thesis parts, a whole

Text 1)

“The larger the island of knowledge, the longer
the shoreline of mystery.” Unknown author

Text 2)

Citizens of two realms, we must all sustain dual allegiance:
we sense the ineffable in one realm;
we name and exploit reality in another.

Between the two we set up a system of references,
but can never fill the gap.
They are as far and as close to each other

As time and calendar, as violin and melody,
as life and what lies beyond the last breath.

The tangible phenomena we scrutinize with our reason,

The sacred and indemonstrable we overhear

with the sense of the ineffable.

Heschel A. J. (1971), Man is Not Alone, New York: Octagon Books p.8

Text 3)

Tao, the subtle reality of the universe

cannot be described.

That which can be described in words

is merely a conception of the mind.

Although names and descriptions have been applied to it,

the subtle reality is beyond the description.

One may use the word ‘Nothingness”

to describe the Origin of the universe,

and “Beingness”

to describe the Mother of the myriad things,

but Nothingness and Beingness are merely conceptions.

From the perspective of Nothingness,

one may perceive the expansion of the universe.

From the perspective of Beingness,

one may distinguish individual things.

Both are for the conceptual convenience of the mind.

Although different concepts can be applied,

Nothingness and Beingness

and other conceptual activity of the mind

all come from, the same indescribable subtle Originalness

The Way is the unfoldment of such subtle reality.

Having reached the subtlety of the universe,

one may see the ultimate subtlety,
the Gate of All Wonders.

Ni, Hua-Ching (1997), The Complete Works of Lao Tzu, Santa Monica, USA: Seven Star Communications – Tao The Ching (‘Chapter’ 1)

Text 4)

“The utterances of the heart — unlike those of the discriminating intellect — always relate to the whole.” (Jung)

Also from the thesis;

Introduction to Chapter 1 – an ‘overture’

By way of a short introduction I want to ‘sound’, as in an overture, certain ‘notes’, or themes or resonances. They are from writers, and a film-maker, whose statements have come to mean a great deal, in the struggle to search out my own story, and its meaning educationally.

Autobiography is a journey inward. St Augustine said:

Men go to gape at mountain peaks, at the boundless tides of the sea, the broad sweep of rivers, the encircling ocean and the motion of the stars; and yet they leave themselves unnoticed; they do not marvel at themselves.
St. Augustine, Confessions X2

Autobiography is not entirely a matter of re-collecting objective facts: it is re-creation as well as re-collection, but it is a seeking after a kind of truth; the truth of authentically being in oneself. Peter Abbs (1974 p. 7) calls autobiography: the search backwards into time to discover the evolution of the true self. It is, as such, about self-knowing, but something beyond the fripperies of the ego. Baha’u’llah, Founder of the Baha’i religion, in one of His own writings, cites a tradition from Islam: He hath known God who hath known himself. (Baha’u’llah: Gleanings, MARS database3 p.178).

For the theistically religious the more we come to know our true selves, the closer we come to the Divine within us, and vice versa. I make no claim, beyond a few faltering steps, but the ideas continue to inspire.

The ‘Thesis Poem’
I have chosen the following poem by Seamus Heaney (1996 p.14) as ‘the poem’ for the thesis because it shows beautifully how we resonate now, in relation to what we sensed and experienced as children. It also shows how, through metaphor, the objective connects with the subjective to thrill, to the very quick of our being.

About the poem, ‘Personal Helicon’ Pelligrino (2003 p.1) explains;

Mount Helicon is a mountain in Greece, that was, in classical mythology, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. From it flowed two fountains of poetic inspiration. Heaney is here presenting his own source of inspiration, the “dark drop” into personal and cultural memory, made present by the depths of the wells in his childhood. Now, as a man, he is too mature to scramble about on hands and knees, looking into the deep places of the earth, but he has his poetry – and, thank God, so do we.

Of course if Heaney was reading it we would have that wonderful voice, like an aromatic tree giving up the sap, and perfuming the air with all the good things from the soil.

Personal Helicon by Seamus Heaney
for Michael Longley

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

Later I take up the issues of resonance, and of objective and subjective meaning combined in metaphor, and the power of the subjective in personal history, to continue to generate the new in the meaning-making we do. The darkness echoes, as we stare into the part darkness of the self, and its memories – we stare, each a big-eyed Narcissus.

The final ‘sounding’, or theme, in the Introduction to Chapter 1 concerns identity and the moment, which lives on, and in which the past continues to create. The piece is by Jorge Luis Borges4, who says:

Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made
up of a single moment – the moment in which a man finds
out, once and for all, who he is.

The one moment could conceivably be a choice – as in Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life where a group of 22 people are suspended between earth and heaven with a week to answer the important question: “What is the one memory that you choose to carry into the afterlife?” When each chooses his or her memory, this is all that will be remembered for eternity.

Professionally, the lesson, or pair of lessons, upon which this thesis is, in part, an extended reflection contains the one memory I would choose. Ideally it would be the whole of the two ‘story’ lessons.

If it was reduced just to seconds it would be the moment that one ‘deviant’ boy offered an explanation of the possible symbolic meaning of the two fishes that I had drawn on the blackboard. One fish was a line drawing, the other a similar shaped fish, but its shape was delineated via chalk shading (i.e. from ‘the outside’).

“Mr P I think one fish represents bounded imagination, and the other stands for unbounded imagination.”

His brilliantly insightful comment was the jewel in the crown of an outstanding lesson in which the class and I, so I felt, was as ‘one-mind’, intellectually sharp but attitudinally contemplative, in ‘cross-over’ from extreme left-brain and extreme right-brain engagement – and here he was, the boy always in trouble with various teachers, speaking my as yet unrealized thoughts, and riveting me to that moment.

It was the supreme moment, within the supreme experience in a life-time of teaching, and it was, as Jack Nicholson and the movie title say, ‘As good as it gets’.

One key quotation is missing from this section. It is; “The larger the island of knowledge,the longer the shoreline of mystery.” Anon. I now find that in a piece of his work Bill Viola was inspired by;

“The Self is an ocean without a shore. Gazing upon it has no
beginning or end, in this world and the next.”
Ibn al’Arabi (1165 – 1240)

The ocean and island metaphors, the limitless Self, the fathomless self, the moment and memories, ‘After Life’, self-knowledge and the impossibility of knowing the Self – all these and more are essential threads in my attempt too present in SunWALK a model of what it is to be positively and fully human as well as a model of how education can be intrinsically spiritualizing without the narrow sectarian religion.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

What is art? – definitions

Source

What is art?

One definition that works for me is;

Art is culturally significant meaning, skilfully encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium.

Richard Anderson quoted in Freeland (2001 p. 77)

I would make one change;

Art is culturally, and personally, significant meaning, skilfully encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium.

There is a whole range of art that I know has cultural meaning but for it to enable an aesthetic experience in me it has also to have personal as well as cultural meaning.

TASKS:Lesson questions

How far, and in what ways, has art , through the dominance of conceptual art, replaced philosophy?

How far, and in what ways, has art replaced religion?

More resources

Extensive quotations from Tolstoy at Professor Julie van Camp’s site are HERE

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE

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

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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

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

The Golden Rule as one aspect of the world-view shared by most holistic educators

The Golden Rule

Two aspects of the world-view shared by most holistic educators are Perennial Philosophy (see separate post) and the Golden Rule.

One measure of the challenge facing us is in the following. In looking for short definitions that might be useful I was struck by the fact that several (many?) Western encyclopedias actually refer to the Golden Rule as a Christian doctrine! Ethnocentricity rules! The point is also well pinned down in an interesting article from Arab News by Iman Kurdi

Below are some of the most interesting sites that present and explore the Golden Rule along with some suggestions for lessons and all ages.

http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm

http://www.goldenruleradical.org/

Home

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR LESSONS/Discussion

1 In what sense is the Golden Rule the same as or different to acting justly?

2 Collect some examples, via interviews, of where the Golden Rule was applied with good effect?

3 Choose several of the problems that exist in the world and see how far you can a) analyze the problem and b) obtain inspiration for steps toward a solution.

Source – for your poster Golden Rule info and much more

A TOUCH OF IRONY: The Wiki entry on the Golden Rule currently shows the price of democracy in that it is hung up in disputes! Re-named as the Ethic of Reciprocity – has it been hijacked or up-lifted by philosophers! I’m sure it will settle eventually – in the mean time there is a lot of good stuff alread on the site – including additional sources.

—–0—–

NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

Gandhi, certainty and the ‘Healthy Doubt’ – as the basis for ‘federating’ common ground

Whatever our religious background we tend to say something equivalent to, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’. This is an assertion of certainty. For some of us strength of certainty is an indicator of the quality of faith. Unfortunately, to take an extreme example, unconditioned certainty can lead to unspeakable horrors – the Nazis were certain that their killing of millions was a right and proper thing to do. So is a smidgen of doubt, the cousin of humility? And might it also be that such a conditioner of faith as a ‘healthy doubt’ hold us back from continuously negating ‘the other’.

I’m also suggesting that water-tight, hermetically-sealed certainty might put a break on an individual’s willingness to recognize the essential sameness in all of the world’s great faiths. Why can’t we be one? Well because we think our path up the mountain is the only right one – and because we are familiar and comfortable with it.

I can only think of three possible solutions. Firstly we all become Baha’is, Unitarians or or some form of Universalist worldview. Secondly we all wait to see which religion dominates and then hop on board (a time-honoured method but not out of Morality’s top drawer). Thirdly we take a leaf out of Ghandi’s book and expand our heart and consciousness so that we can revere our own tradition and the inner essence of all of the other great world religions.

Gandhi said;

I came to the conclusion long ago … that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian. (Young India: January 19, 1928)

This is interesting because it suggests that we can have a universal heart that works from within the particular. Is that possible? Is it only possible for a few? Whether or not we go with Ghandi ‘s ‘particular-to-the-universal way we need to break through from narrow-mindedness and close-heartedness. To be able to cherish both the particular culture into which we were born and have a heart that embraces the inner light of all of the great world religions seems to me to make sense – just as federalism makes sense in say America or Germany.

There are some other of Ghandi’s thoughts that are relevant to the view expressed here;

God has no religion

My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.

We must respect other religions, even as we respect our own. Mere tolerance thereof is not enough.

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

(When asked if he was a Hindu) Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.

“The sayings of Muhammed are a treasure of wisdom not only for Muslims but for all of mankind.”

The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives. Source WikiQuotes

If we can’t quite yet expand our consciousness to recognizing the inner oneness of all of the great faiths at least the Golden Rule (separate postings) is an ethic through which we can start to clear a meeting place within the forest of beliefs.

It is only beliefs that prevent the realization of our oneness. And it is only realization of oneness that will enable us to overcome our current ‘hardening of the hearteries’. That ‘hardening of the hearteries’ = beliefs so narrowed as to prevent us seeing ourselves reflected in the eyes of the ‘other’.

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)

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

Source

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.

Source

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.

Source

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

Source

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, Redman

Pump! 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 two

Verse 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 bitches

The 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 Sensai

Outro: 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

Source

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.

‘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!

Author/Artist/Singer:	Artifacts
Music Title/Track:	Cummin Thru Ya Fuckin Block
Theme ID:	31545
	N/A

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