A caboose poem, using the last line of Mary Oliver’s essay “Ropes” as the first line of my poem.
Break the ropes that are holding you
The ones that tell you to resist
The ones that tell you not to trust your intuition
Break the ropes of the way you fall into routine habits that don’t serve
The fight inside against the world you see
Understand it’s all perception
Change your view!
Break the ropes tying you to the false safety of the shore
And become full ocean you
Two influences today for this essay: Rumi's poem "Fierce Courtesy" and Day 340 in Marianne Williamson's book A Year of Miracles: "For Reflection: On Finding Your Calling."
FIERCE! A word I need now.
Slowly but surely we are recovering from a couple of years of being waylaid by circumstances. Namely the pandemic, and all that came with it.
I have been reading aloud a book called Rhyme Schemer to my learners as a way to help them recognize better techniques for reading fiction. We are using Notice and Note signposts mostly, but the other day I pulled out something I used the year we taught The Bridge Home for the Global Read Aloud (seems like eons ago now!)
Doodle notes are a way for learners to focus on their listening by pulling words and phrases from the text and writing them down or drawing quick sketches. Many respond to this type of approach, and it provided me with some good information. In this case, I included a question for them to answer at the end.
There are so many ways to assess our learners. Doodle notes makes it colorful and practical and fun.
Written 12-21-21
I am finding inspiration and motivation from every direction.
A few days ago I realized I was ready to move on from the place I've been, which has been rather stuck. I knew this was coming, but I did not have a vision.
Today the vision began to form.
First, with Atomic Habits by James Clear. I'm thinking What kind of person do I want to be? And What habits will get me there?
This motivated me to get on my exercise bike, and I put on a podcast from Michael Meade called "The Cultivated Heart: In Loving Memory of Robert Bly." I have met both of these men before, and Robert passed a month ago today. In the podcast, Michael focused a lot on writings Robert did for a poetry anthology they worked on together called The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. It has always been one of my favorite collections.
What was helpful to me is that the topic of cultivating our hearts caused Michael to focus on a few specific poems, two of which really spoke to me.
I think I will also take a moment to mention why I knew I was stuck, even as I knew it was time to move on. First, I had a meeting with some friends where I found myself blaming a lot of others for things I'm encountering. This left me emotionally reeling for at least 12 hours, and was not a pleasant experience.
Second, I met a friend for lunch and a Broadway show, only to find myself surprised that she brought me Christmas presents. Why I was surprised baffled me. We always exchange gifts. How is it that I have not even given it ONE thought these last few weeks when I knew we had this event coming up? My only answer is that I have become ridiculously insular and selfishly focused that even things that should be evident go right past me. Not a good feeling. I blamed myself deeply for the neglect of this important exchange.
Another thing I encountered recently that brought me up short was revisiting other blog posts from Decembers of previous years. It is there I found something I wrote on December 9, 2017 called "On Questions and Contradictions." In this post I discovered that much of what I keep complaining about now are the exact same things that were happening then. Have I not even figured out how to do better?
In the blog, I referred to the poem "The Sunflowers" by Mary Oliver, in which she suggests we ask sunflowers questions:
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy
but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young –
the important weather,
the wandering crows.
Don’t be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,
which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds –
each one a new life!
I then proceeded to ask myself a lot of questions, many I still have today. Things like...How do I get through to my students? Why do I go through this every year? What will make real change?
And most importantly, Why can't I be you, Sunflower?
Coming upon this blog post was unforgettable in this current quest. Leave it to Michael Meade to pick up the pieces for me when he read this poem:
This poem connected everything together -- all my tears, my grief, my vulnerability, my blaming of others, and a good comeuppance on how wrong my view can be. This is about seeds being cultivated. It has been too easy to tighten up and not let that seed explode into something wonderful. After all, everything real in life is about breaking open to the moment. Without it, there is no creativity, no innovation.
Michael goes on to explain:
[We must live] with immediacy of the soul, that rare sense that the next moment can break open. And that we must...marry it, step into it, and become ourselves in that moment of opening and awaking. If we fail to do that we have not fully participated in the world.
It is obvious I have to do that which is really difficult for me -- truly open up, live more fully, love more actively. I have been saying this for years, and I think I'm doing it, but recent events have found my fault lines. And recent events have also taught me I have no time to waste. I look ahead and I see an end line. This is a new feeling, and one I must reckon with.
But Michael wasn't done. Then he introduced this poem, which gave me further marching orders!
To Be a Slave of Intensity (Kabir, trans. by Robert Bly)
Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think...and think...while you are alive.
What you call 'salvation' belongs to the time before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
JUMP INTO EXPERIENCE WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.
BREAK THE ROPES.
I simply LOVE that!
"So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound"
Welcome it all--joy and sorrow. Don't ignore any of it. ENGAGE!
So the answer to Why can't I be you, Sunflower?
is
I AM. I just don't activate it.
*
I'm not quite done, even though that seems like quite a lot.
For the first time in a long time I pulled a Rune stone. And the word was perfect, of course: FAITH.
This is already a word I have embraced during the journey over these past few months. I discovered it when I did the 33 Question Cards to find my word. When the Rune divination said the same, well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
And I still needed these words:
Faith encourages us to believe that we can make a difference -- in ourselves and in the world.
And so, on this auspicious solstice day of 12-21-21, I commit more fully to the life I know I need to live. I commit more fully to vulnerability, innovation, creation, and joy. I commit more fully to cultivating my heart, leading with my heart, shining light from my heart. And I seriously commit to not blaming others or myself for what is. I welcome it all--every ugly or beautiful moment, encounter, or feeling-- as TEACHER.
I needed to identify the turning point, and this has been it.
11:05 am 12/21/2021
#108Weeks
December 5-11, 2021
I have not even thought about Christmas, and haven't even gotten my music out, let alone any decorations.
On Monday, feeling positive and strong.
On Tuesday, trying to recover from all the Monday irritations.
On Wednesday, trying to recover from a fight in my classroom.
On Thursday, I was feeling sad and edgy.
On Friday, I reflected on an unexpected conversation with my 3rd period.
On Saturday, I knew I had made it through and all is well in my world.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, who reminded me to just "begin again."
#66Challenge
Written December 10, 2021
Inspired by Lynn Ungar's poem "Salvation."
Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Written during Write Around the Corner meeting 12/4/2021
The opening lines of "Eagle Poem" by Joy Harjo inspired this piece.
#66Challenge
Yesterday I decided it was time to walk a labyrinth, as I had some things on my mind that I thought a good meditative walk would resolve.
Before I went, I pulled out my Labyrinth Journal, which I've been writing in after just about every labyrinth walk since December 2006. In it I found my last labyrinth walk on February 15, 2020.
The photo of the card below is from a deck I have called Perfect Calm cards. On the back of the card is a little piece of writing about Taking Responsibility.
In a reflection I wrote, I said I felt the card was telling me to relax and keep calm even when things seem to be falling apart. This was just a few weeks after my husband had a mild stroke, and a few weeks before the world would be in a full-blown global pandemic. At the time I walked the labyrinth, Coronavirus was just a blip on my radar, so I know I wasn't writing about it.
I also wrote these words about the card:
The crossroads card brought to mind that I very well could be coming to a transition...Anything can change at any time. The message from the labyrinth is Be Relaxed. Be Ready.
Fast forward to the day I reflected on "Vienna," which I wrote about in the previous post. I know cultural anthropologist and mythologist Michael Meade talks a lot about genius, so I went to find a video about that, since Billy Joel had mentioned it. I came upon a video called "Run Toward the Roar," and I know I've heard the story before, and thought I'd check it out once more.
This is an ancient story about how the elders in Africa would teach the young warriors to hunt. They taught them that the old lions, the ones that were no longer able to run fast, would sit in the tall grasses. The younger lions would be across the way, in another area of grass. When the herds made their way toward the lions, the old lions would roar loudly -- causing the herd to run to where the more vital and able lions were waiting. They taught their young warriors to "Go toward the roar."
Fast forward to now. It is no secret the education system is in a huge crisis, and even I have been a victim of the dysfunction, a teacher looking to perhaps retire or to at least run away as fast as I can. It took a complete mental and physical breakdown (with time away) to find my direction.
Michael Meade says right now the culture as a whole is going through a collective rite of passage. I believe this applies directly to teachers, as well as many other issues we are facing. Here is the way he describes it:
A group of people begin to realize that the world as we imagine it, the worldview that we inherited, does not work anymore. It doesn't solve most people's problems, and in this case, it destroys the ecosystems and things like that, so it's a worldview that cannot, in the long run, be life-sustaining. And there's an old idea that humans come into the world when the life-support system of the womb collapses...Now we consider the way we view the world, the womb that we used to be in, the one we call the modern world or the western world, no longer works as a sustaining system for either culture or for nature. We need to exit from the womb and go towards what seems to be the roar, but it also is the direction where we might be able to imagine the next world that is more sustainable and inclusive....We are like the young people told by the elders to run to the roar.
What he is speaking of 100% applies to education. The "womb" has been deteriorating for a long time, and we did little to adjust. Now we are in a major crisis that HAS to be re-imagined by the collective. The things we are doing DO NOT WORK. Teachers are on the front line and are suffering from the lack of life-support. This is devastating for our entire culture.
The issue is that educators are bailing because it has gotten completely unsustainable for so many (and I know...I was there, and who knows, could end up there again.) The sad part is there is a lot of blame and talking about the problems, but not a lot of people talking about any real solutions. At least not that I've heard, and I've been paying attention!
So, back to February 15, 2020. Yes, I sensed there were changes, but not at all as we were confronted with. I recall the many difficulties and dark days during that spring, the separation from each other, and all the other devastating affects. We said then we'd have to do something different, that this was a signal to transition and re-vision education. Instead, we just have more of the same, this constant drumbeat to "return to normal," but now with a whole additional cache of unskilled behaviors, unbelievable stresses, and mental health issues among our young learners.
Guided by the many teachings that are coming my way, I know that my job is to go toward the roar. Sometimes I feel I am terribly alone in this endeavor, and I sometimes question my sanity. Yet...I know this is what I need to do. I feel my instructions from Spirit are clear.
This has been a good week to reflect on many of these things, and many more I haven't written here yet. Somehow I know I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. My mission has become even clearer as I've progressed through the many messages and spiritual encouragements coming my way.
I suppose you can say that in late October I stood at the crossroads and was ready to just run off into the field...but now I have chosen my direction, and I'm committed. And the crossroads card taught me something else: Be Relaxed. Be Ready.
 |
| I know I have a mission to fulfill |
#108Weeks
October 17-23, 2021
Be present. Notice. Celebrate.
There was a dead dragonfly outside my classroom door .
I dreamt of snow, and the interpretation means going through challenges successfully.
There was a rainbow in the clouds as I drove to work.
In the night I woke up laughing -- a spillover from laughing in my dream.
I am willing to be unfinished, unpolished, and in a state of change.
Today I keep hearing a hawk calling.
#66Challenge
These are a few poems representing some of what has been happening since September began. These short poems are written by jumping off a line from a poem I just read. The lines and poets are noted at the beginning of each poem
9.1.21
danced up to the moon and stars and galaxies (Angle)
I need to remember to dance.
I'm truly NOT having enough fun with my students.
I'm letting tension seep in.
I'm not taking the right steps again.
Today I will wear my feather earrings and remember to keep it light.
Smile.
Smile.
Smile.
(behind the mask! ;-)
9.2.21
break back into the world (Smith)
Yesterday
I had to be reminded
to do what works.
Wasn't I the one who
wrote a poem about that?
Even had it published:
You know what to do...
Do what works.
You know what that is.
#108Weeks
September 5-11, 2021
I had an epiphany about how I spend my time, which sent everything into a better motion.
I haven't been living my creative life.
Writers write. I wrote.
I voice the universe in an original way.
At school, I'm keeping learning and real reading in the forefront.
Getting prepared for my first Creative Writing Club meeting coming up!
I bring my brave face and loving heart each day, and I move forward.
Monday September 6th was a New Moon day. This is a day I pull a Native American Medicine Card to find out what I need for the coming month.
This month I pulled ANT which equals Patience.
Reading about ANT I learned:
I need to be community-minded and see future needs.
I can plan, but must be content with building a dream a little at a time.
Patience has its rewards.
Sweet victory is at the end of the line.
I can trust in the Universe to supply.
I must work for the good of the whole and my goodness will be provided.
In response, I then wrote this chant:
#108Weeks
August 22-28, 2021
Observe the obvious.
Ted Lasso, my inspiration for all things positive
I will use the ingredients I have to make things beautiful.
Books are window, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.
To improve things, I ask WWTLD? (What would Ted Lasso do?)
Serving the whole I feel myself to be a cherished part.
I started randomly choosing students for "Appreciations" a the beginning of class, complete with a handwritten note from me. Connections!
This year is about effort, focus, and perseverance.
#66Challenge
Today in my journal I wrote a long letter to myself.
It seemed like a perfect entry to include as part of my #66Challenge
Dear Helen,
It's dawning on you more and more that this school year is about love and safety and kindness. But you can see we can't get there directly. It has to be done from several directions.
One is the overall focus school-wide, which is community. Good start.
Second, the classroom FLOW which includes how we listen, speak, and conduct ourselves. This has been the current focus and it will probably go on for a while.
Next up -- empathy and power through reading. Getting a book in the hand of every student. One they want to read, above or below their "level."
Essentially, Helen, you've been given a gift -- these kids you've taught before, those who have been affected by the pandemic for the entire time you've known them, need you more than ever. You have a chance to make an impression on them in roundabout ways. The Read 180 program is what we DO. The WHY of what we do will need to be addressed, and not just once, but over and over again.
You joked about coming into the school year a hot mess and finding a beautiful direction. But look -- it's working. Over the summer you would have never gone this direction, taken this path.
This is the crux of it all:
BEING PRESENT.
Thursday was a turning point -- when you broke through the reliance on the program. It isn't the curriculum.
Kindness is the curriculum. And caring. And believing.
You're being reminded of your first year at Lehigh, how it was a few weeks in when you got the grip of what to do with those seniors to provide what they needed. That year, too, you didn't come in with preconceived notions because you truly did not know how you were going to reach and teach them.
But you sat down Labor Day weekend and made a plan to help them comprehend text and by October some were passing the FCAT on the fourth try, leading to the promise of graduation. And more followed.
You put their interests first. You made it accessible. You took the difficulties of studying British Literature and lightened it up. Made it about being a hero of your own story. Doing right. Not shying away from poetry.
This is still the message we need over and over and over again.
They were far from easy.
The kids in front me you now...far from easy.
See the rainbow path.
It is always there for you.
It is real.
It is accessible.
Do not resist.
BELIEVE.
Signed...Your True Heart
#108Weeks
August 15-21, 2021
Things feel lackluster and unsettled.
Stayed in my pajamas all day Sunday. It was awesome.
Don't care for the classroom set up, but with COVID I have no choice.
Going to start rolling into the curriculum and perhaps that means I can stop bending my brain.
It became clear on Thursday my students need a LOT of emotional and social support. More than ever before.
I'm no longer waiting for anything. I'm putting my students first.
With one small change, I already have more information to work with to reach them beyond the standard curriculum.
#108Weeks
August 8-14, 2021
"The safe place is an untroubled heart and mind."
Keep practicing presence. It's working.
The thing I want to remember most is to be with people. Notice them. Listen.
"My dreams are important to the unfolding of the world."
An 8th grade student in my Global Perspectives class arrived with fond memories of our class novel The Bridge Home from 6th grade. Did my heart good.
We still don't have access to our required reading curriculum, so the team keeps having to scramble to find things to do.
I'm surprisingly well-rested. Don't feel tired at all. It was a good week.
#66Challenge
Walked the beach this Sunday morning as a way to get a grounded start to the new week. Things have gotten started, and I'm feeling great.
The return on Monday seemed weird somehow. I found myself feeling near tears at times, for absolutely no reason I could discern. Thankfully, it subsided and I've been fine ever since.
My mind has been quiet for the most part, and all the hours of training have just been washing over me. It wasn't until around 3 a.m. on Wednesday that I found myself getting up to make a list of things to do.
I live and die with lists, and hadn't made one at all until that moment!
I'm teaching a course called Global Perspectives and intensive reading course with a program called Read 180. The reading course concerned me, as the independent reading portion relies on learners answering questions for the books they read. That irritates me to no end, since that is NOT the way real readers read! I don't take quizzes on the books I read. Why should they?
But, even though I know they have to do that, I also have started to figure out ways to include some real world reading. Funny thing is, when I talk to others on my team about it, they are thinking the same thing. I think that is what I like best so far -- a lot of us on the same page.
I have awesome teammates in these courses, one in particular who is a whiz at technology and has already set a lot of things up for us. There were concerns about how to grade within these courses, but we will figure that out. It seems that when someone starts getting freaked out about how something will happen, or when, I get calmer, and in turn calm them down. I came into this school year wanting to be more peaceful, more kind, more aware of the moment. And so far, so good. Seriously. It's been working so far.
Open House was fun. I got to see and hug so many returning students and talk highly about them to their parents. I felt like I was truly being myself, and even with returnees who may have been less than ideal last year, we were able to talk openly about it and set a new course. Incredibly cool!
The other thing to note is that there is a lot of emphasis on building a loving, kind, and empathetic community at our school, and I couldn't be happier. I already wanted to do that, and so I'm glad to know I won't be alone. There will be some school-wide lessons coming, and I have some productive ideas up my sleeve to implement. I hope to write about some of these in the coming days.
I know I'm in the glow of the new school year, and that's fine. I'm going to enjoy this feeling while it lasts!
#108Weeks
July 25-31, 2021
This is my final week of the summer and the focus is self-care.
It's nice to be lazy!
I'm feeling a desire to get back to writing, but just can't grab on to anything. Who am I as a writer?
In a poem I read, the word "balance" stood out to me. I contemplated all the ways this applies right now.
It's really about watching my mind and responding to where it leads me.
Living the question brought me an answer. I have a new, solid, meaningful writing project on the horizon, and its making me feel connected and whole again.
#66Challenge
It feels like a long dry spell since I was motivated to write much beyond short little poems (a daily practice) or 7 lines/7 days poems, which are basically just drawing on things already written.
Frustration has set in. I began to wonder what happened to the writer I had been. I kept thinking I needed a project: the problem was finding one that I could feel committed to.
I have plenty of drafted projects sitting around here I can fix up. Somehow I don't have the energy for that. I tried doing some little structural things, but soon became bored. The writing had no concreteness about it, and just seemed preachy and shallow. In addition, I felt this "thing" that no one cared about what I had to say anyway. Who is listening? I had no answer.
This caused me to put the question out: What kind of writer am I?
***
Today while noodling in my journal, I suddenly remembered something I literally had forgotten all about: the #64Challenge I did during the 2019-20 school year. That was an ever-changing, challenging year, which ended up with fourth quarter pandemic teaching.
Next week is my 66th birthday, and immediately I knew I need the #66Challenge for this coming school year.
This feels perfect. First, because in 2019 I had all kinds of plans and designs on what the school year should look like, and slowly but surely everything went haywire. By the end of February I was finding myself in a very different place than I was in August.
Coming into this school year I have no such designs. In fact, I'm actively working NOT to plan and design. There is all new curricula coming into our department, and I actually don't even know what I'm teaching. And no matter what I teach, there will be a certain amount of "do it this way."
I've been preparing myself for that all throughout this summer, by putting myself back in the moment every time I meet an obstacle, large or small. I have gathered my strength and risk-taking gene to do things I previously thought would be impossible.
Speaking to my friend Natalie yesterday she said something that resonated strongly: I made it through the 2020-21 school year. I can do anything.
***
I took time this morning to read the 64 posts for the last challenge. I found lots of nuggets that are good for me to remember going forward into a new school year and challenge:
What I focus on expands.
Abandon hope. Be fearless.
Do what you can do. Bear witness with no need to respond or attach.
Everything I need to know is in the person in front of me.
Be committed. Stay flexible.
I also found a slew of beautiful poems, deep reflections, classroom celebrations and intense frustrations. All documented. All worked out. All forward moving.
And most importantly: All a gift to myself!
***
By moving forward on a new challenge, in a year in which I already know will be full of change, I will have the opportunity to write concretely, do some good reflecting, pay attention, and give myself the gift of this school year always being accessible to me.
It's an adventure, a pilgrimage, a chance to practice the present moment.
It's getting me back to the writer I am--one who listens and writes to find out what she has to say. It doesn't matter if anyone else knows or cares!
It's taking all that has come before, folding it into the mix, and creating something new.
James W. Hall says that "we teach to re-create the world." I take this as my most earnest mission in life.
Here is to #66Challenge, and all the creative gifts it will bring to myself and yes, maybe even the world.
For a while I have been finding it difficult to get myself to this blog. I will write entire things out in my journal that I think I want ...
