Be the change you want to see.

i am not my family. i am not my friends. i am not my hair color, or the melanin in my skin (or not) or the number on a scale or in the back of my jeans.

i am my scars. i am my choices, and my mistakes, and my experiences, and my adventures, and my successes (and my failures.) I am my own striving. I am what i hope to become. I am what i hope the world should become: trying and sometimes failing, apologizing, making amends to make the world better and more humane. I am the love i give in the world, the compassion and the yearning.

i am my own words on the page. I am my own colors on the canvas and on my own skin. I am my intention, my will exerted upon the universe. I am the magic I need to see in the world. I am the work and the connection, I am the kindness and the trust and honesty that i bring to the discussion. I am the questions that help understanding.

I am between the truth and the lie. I am in the middle of the becoming.

I am the compass needle pointing North.

Just like two weeks ago when I had that shift where my shoulder released, this week goes workout, massage, workout. Massage was today, and I told Danniel about the progress of two weeks ago on the left shoulder, and asked him to work on the right, and a bit on places where I am sore from yesterday's workout...

 

 

 

working with Danniel feels like Safe Space. He has proved i can trust him.  But it is WORK, sometimes more than others... to trust, to consciously relax and let someone cause me PAIN because I know if I can relax, and let him do what he's proved he's excellent at, I will make further physical progress in my struggle to gain full body Strength and Flexibility. (your mileage may vary, of course)

 

 

 

Today was excruciating all through both shoulders, down the pectorals, and through the big muscles that form the armpit, front and back.

 

 

 

part of what makes Danniel so special as a massage therapist is that I... well. I am very vocal during massage. I make a lot of what I know are noises not generally OK in public spaces... and I've never had him make me feel weird or wrong or even an iota uncomfortable for doing so.

 

 

 

and he does deep painful work, and uses my sounds as guides, digging in or holding steady as is needed.
Today there were a few moments where I was hyperventilating because the pain was pretty intense, but I could feel the muscle fibers lengthening and the moment where I conquered the pain by enduring it was the moment that the muscle relaxed and gave in, and then the pain got less. (story of my life in a nutshell, right here.)

 

 

 

I had an odd moment there this morning, where I felt like all the hollering and moaning and groaning was actually deep releases of very old pain, pain from times in my life when it wasn't safe or smart to grieve or express myself out loud.  it's being an incredibly valuable experience to VOCALIZE when it hurts, even if, or maybe because, it's nonverbal noise.  And because it's safe.  I didn't have the privilege of crying with someone there to comfort me till I was well past 30... I appreciate this deeply on account of I didn't get to have it growing up.

 

 

 

I'm proud of myself for doing this healing work even when it's not "fun" or pleasurable. I'm learning to value myself in the physical realm and to do what's needed to take care of and maintain the health of my body.

 

 

 

my goal is to be a spry and flexible and juicy old broad, who laughs too loud and too long, who amuses and offends the neighbors, and who goes on all kinds of adventures with all kinds of friends.

 

 

 

And what I am doing now, is building strength and good habits slowly and carefully, so I can achieve that goal.

 

 

 

Looking cute was never enough motivation for me... but comparing confident and strong old ladies and weak, tottering old ladies at the gym?

 

 

 

well. which group do YOU want to be in?
Best. Motivation. Ever.

 

Once upon a time there was a teacher.

She struggled to do right by her students, but her training had been incomplete and spotty, and sometimes she failed them. However, she kept learning and trying new ways to teach because her love for her subject and for the students themselves was pure. (Well, pure for the most part. Sometimes she had trouble connecting the subject to the students' lives in a relevant fashion, and sometimes the students drove her to distraction with their questions, demands, "bad days" and even celebratory moments. Such is life.)

This teacher worked for years with a majority of students who came from poor and disadvantaged families, students who'd been abused or neglected, and students with learning difficulties of all kinds. It took a long time (and a second, more comprehensive teacher training) to be able to recognize that none of the students were "bad kids." She realized that NO kids are inherently "bad", but that some students travel through life encountering so many obstacles, roadblocks, and people telling them, "You can't" that they were perpetually in a state of frustration. And of course, people in a state of constant frustration generally cannot learn well. Nor do such people tend to have a positive and hopeful attitude, or kind and polite manners.

Then this teacher moved to a different part of the state, where many things were different. In this new town, schools had adequate funding to maintain necessary scholastic resources and facilities, and moreover to attract talented and dedicated teachers - and keep them. In this town, the parents have the financial resources to keep their children healthy, fit, protected, and encouraged their children toward high achievements, big dreams, goals and plans for the future.

The children in the schools our teacher now found herself in, seem (compared to her previous students) incredibly polite, discreet, and well mannered. They are also (almost unbelievably, compared to her previous students) self-confident and secure in themselves and in their own potential to make a difference in the world and to succeed in their own lives.

***

Sometime around a year ago I believe I wrote a post about this comparison. I resented the privilege these students lived in, grew up in, were supported by, to the precise degree that I loved and ached for my Children of struggle. Children of privilege, (I felt) had so much to take for granted. For awhile I believed they were arrogant and self-centered and uncaring about the world (though I had little evidence to support the first and third assumption. As for the second, to exist is to be self-centered; it must be so).

I don't believe this anymore.
They are children. Children nearly-grown and planning toward their futures, but children. Insecure about their place in the world some of the time, putting a brave face on things some of the time. And flamboyantly confident some of the time, in the bulletproof way the young can be across the face of the planet.

Yes they are privileged. No, they don't yet realize their privilege, or the extent to which their security and unhampered opportunities for growth have given them a leg-up on the rest of the world, and sometimes they are going to seem obnoxious or oblivious to peers who have had to strive and fight their way into their potential and their future. But, but... these are as open and hungry for knowledge and meaning and SIGNIFICANCE in their own lives as any students I have ever met. I had a moment today, talking about Poetry and Poets with a class of AP Senior English, and they all, *all*, felt like they were utterly open hearted and deeply interested, ready to learn and stretch and grow.

These Children are no more "bad kids" than the previous Children I taught. These Children are just lucky enough to have less in the way of their achieving their destiny, their potential, of making their future in the shape they choose.

I'm embarrassed to admit how I tarred them with the brush of my own misguided opinions, but I'm hoping I can do better in future now I can see The Actual Students more clearly.

+ I got a job interview...
+ ...at a Waldorf school
+ and liked Njeri and the co-teacher who will take the second grade in the fall, very much indeed
+ and they were favorably impressed with me (liked my art! eee!)
+ and wanted to find a way to make this job work for me, including suggesting that we could try to have teaching experience at that school count as my third year practicum.
+ they want me to tell them if I am willing to teach a demo lesson. To the first grade, before school starts, even. Um. With the parents in the room observing, also. Double um. Amazing to get that offer, seriously, even if the idea intimidates me a little, really amazing to have that offered to me. It's making me think deeply about what I want to teach to the first grade, how, with what methods and techniques

However, to follow the example of a wise friend of mine, I think I want to make different mistakes in my life, so I should hopefully have the opportunity to learn something new...

I have already taken teaching jobs against my better judgment, where I didn't feel I was properly qualified for the subject and well-grounded in my teaching practice (or my personal life, for that matter!)...

Teaching drama was one hell of an adventure, I learned a lot, but I don't EVER want to teach-by-the-seat-of-my-pants again. I want to really know what I'm doing and why, well enough to explain it to anyone with questions about what I'm doing, and why. I am nowhere near that when it comes to First Grade curriculum *or* classroom management at that age.

It will be a different mistake, saying no, but I feel it is the honorable choice both for my growth and development as a professional, and for the children who will be in that classroom.

Instead I am choosing to boost signal about this job opening for others who might be drawn to the opportunity, and hope Njeri finds the proper teacher for her incoming first grade. Have sent email to Lisa Anderson at my teacher training program, and have linked to Njeri's website on Twitter, where I have several Waldorf schools I follow and who follow me.

Perhaps I can be the bridge between a need and filling that need. The idea is very satisfying, though I may never find out if I *did* help. I'm okay with that.


*** now, back to finish my homework!

Tonight was a special festival performance for my Waldorf teacher program.

Several of the teachers performed: Glenda did 3 eurhythmy performances, Sybilla spoke several pieces, including an adaptation of a TS Eliot piece which I want a copy of, and Christof sang, I believe operatic pieces. All performances were infused with energy, that part's not the problem.

I realized after leaving the performance space, that, to put it in pagan terms, I don't feel Waldorf all the way down into my root chakra.

And I realized something else. While this training is giving me a firm grounding in certain intellectual, emotional, and spiritual balance, the approach is entirely to Apollonian for my freaky little self.

I miss the dirty jokes and innuendo, I miss goofy word play, I miss that kind of cuttin' loose that is fun as hell when you're with the right people, or even when you're by yourself. I miss the exalted feeling I get (got) from being out in storm winds at sunset, the feeling of nature being vibrantly, even violently alive (not calmly alive) all around me.

I miss the Dionysic stream.

I am still getting loads and loads of Good Stuff (tm) from this program, and what I might end up doing ultimately, is taking the new core of calm confidence this program has been helping me to build up, and take the rest of the fearless simplification and heart-warmed thinking philosophy of meticulous care and respect and preparation, and take it to teach in the public schools anyway, like I initially thought I would. Goddess knows I can handle the Dionysic style chaos the public school classrooms often wind up coping with... Especially to work with the kids who need remedial study which I can provide.

I think I can do a beautiful job to ground the classroom and kids and provide the Safe Space so many children need in order to heal, grow, develop, and soar. I might not choose to do it in pure Waldorf, but I love Fusion art and music and cuisine and... that's much more ME anyway.

...
Still thinking thinky thoughts...

<3

From my lecture notes, Nov. 14 "The Teacher as Artist"

"The goal of Waldorf Education is not primarily to teach a child how to make a living.

The child should be empowered to develop their whole BEING: to develop their capacities so they can go forward in their life to meet their future and succeed with creativity, courage, warm-hearted clear thinking, healthy forward-thinking, focused strong wills."

and

"Waldorf teachers have a simultaneous challenge to develop heart and spirit as well as mind at a comparable pace as conventional education techniques."