Dying/broken/forgiven.... now I begin

Born: 17-06-56....gemini.... monkey
re-born: 3-09-80
born again\found: 14-04-08
other notable dates: 10-03-68; 03-09-87; 23-03-96;
1-05-98; 31-01-02; 5-04-04

Interests: movement, stressed/transgressive embodiment, lived experience (body\space\time\relation)
expression ( word, dance, text, image, story, music, poetics)
learning, yielding......

Hopes for the blog:
offer up the wild intersectedness of lived experience and engage others in creative, expressive, perhaps irreverant, hopefully playful, and respectful encounters....
enact kindness
create moments of pause for disclosure, discovery, stillness

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Ravens and Crows

So, the conference I am attending is on teaching and learning... interests that are so close to my heart. The site of the conference is a gorgeous spot on the top of a steep, steep hill. I can stand in a grove of trees and gaze out at the lovely waters surrounding this place. The trees are filled with crows and ravens... these cousins seem to like hanging out with each other here... and they caw, scree and chorus; they flap, dance, pace, prance... and suddenly halt into intense curious fascination, then to do that impossibly precise choreography of their heads...then to do that stroll...it puts me in mind of preachers in long coats, hands clasped behind their backs, their strides reminiscent of sailors just off the boat... and then they are off again...

all through the day my colleagues and I are buzzing--animated by our reflections on the tensions in teaching and learning... so many of the people I encounter are working poetically...it is as if we have found each other on this fine day in June, amid the trees and the birds, what are the chances of that...

here are some of the mantras I have heard today... it is strange to hear things that I say to myself in my head spoken out in the open :
Do the duck
Do the f@#k dance
Delayed gratification is the hallmark of emotional maturity
A good teacher on a bad day is a better risk than a bad teacher on a good day

and, as they say in L'Acadie, elle/il jongle beaucoup


1 comment:

  1. Jongle is a lovely Acadian French verb whose etymology includes a fusing of "to juggle" and "to think"... hence, elle jongle beaucoup... she juggles/thinks well. I like how those two meanings can co-exist side by side; my brain/mind likes it, too.

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