I'm wandering.
What I'll remember about Thanksgiving this year is probably that my daughter went home on Saturday morning. I miss my daughter's so severely. A lesson I'm learning.
And that it was hard to have energy after one of the worst stomach flu bouts ever to make what was a very great dinner. And that my art teacher's husband died Sunday-he was such a wonderful person in my kidhood, and that going back to school today I read early in the morning that someone who often subbed for me had a massive stroke and wasn't expected to survive.
It made me feel rather overwhelmed.
As did all the nagging things, report cards to do, data to fill out, a heater switch broken, carpets to replace at home but for some reason not all of them(out of my control), this thing not working, that thing to organize. The annoying stuff of life. Touching on the stored memories of the other annoying things. As I thought about...could it be over already, a fast...
Thanksgiving.
And I didn't call my Dad because he's in terrible pain, I can't help him, and I'm not sure that I really do much more than make him feel badly. I wasn't what he wanted.
It builds inside my head. It's something that never works out to be ok , safe or good. It's always a wound.
Lately I've been thinking about what the purpose of school, learning, life is.
Is it to be a good worker, to have a lot of money, to accomplish great things, to explore, to? Thinking about the lives of people I admire and what their relationship to learning, to their children, to school was like. Looking out and just thinking about the change through time I've witnessed.
I even been thinking about something I saw on a show last night on 60 Minutes. The reporter went to Africa to travel with this couple that have spent a lifetime filming lions. There were so many provocative things in this piece-lions are rather amazing-they even filmed a group of 8 lions trying to take down an elephant. And a lion licking a baby baboon after killing its mother in the most sincere show of care-you couldn't think of what to hold onto in it. That was just startling. Often my mind considers a killing planet. But what got me was the photographer talking about how many lions are left here on Mother Earth. I thought I heard the numbers had gone from 400,000 to 20,000. Don't quote me it's possible I'm off a bit. But that kind of change-that's so disturbing. On the radio today I heard another report on pythons in the Florida everglades, responsible for killing 90% of the wildlife-birds, small animals, deer. I started to process this.
In my lifetime.
That happened from people dumping "pets."
If we are not aware, awake, feeling, thinking, perhaps we might miss the fact that there are many levels of troubles that surround us.
Polar bears, lions, animals ....nature....a healthy planet...thanksgiving....
I'm aging. I'd like my children, and if they have them, their children to study nature, to have a relationship to authentic learning, to be involved in care for earth.
To experience the arts in schools.
I like Miss Rumphius. Do you know that story?
Perhaps I ought to think about the kinds of seeds I can plant to help us get growing in the right directions.
hum...
I'm not overly fond of giving up my anecdotes, for robotron neuro guy.
But I do know that we are standing on the same cliff as the lions.
Your Thanksgiving weekend sounds like most. Bittersweet. I saw in a movie or read in a book, can't remember which, where an older gentleman stated upon hearing of the loss of a colleague and remembering the death of his wife that he had reached the age where things were no longer given to him, but rather taken away. I don't think that you and I have reached the age where things are totally taken away...but I sense that we are on the down hill slide. Perhaps all is simply our frame of reference as robo-guy mentioned.
ReplyDeleteInteresting videos especially on the lions. I am fascinated by long term married couples and I must admit I find the couple far more interesting than the lions. The theory of everything was interesting but of course I understood very little of it. I am not sure that I am ready to discard our beliefs, anecdotes, ideas, and emotions for quanta and what ever else was monotoned through out the video. On an absolute scale of probabilities, I give going out like a candle flame about equal probability with an afterlife. But I can't fathom that the truth of my love for my wife is nothing but a little squirt of a half dozen neurotransmitters nor can I fathom what it is like to not exist. Is that possible? On the surface, of course yes. But when you think about it, gee what is it really like not existing? I can't fathom it. We must be careful to not use reductionism to drive ourselves into non-existence. What effect does our lives have on the quarks that are in the atoms that comprise our cells? There is more to this than meets the eye.
Jack watched this video of robotron saying he never saw such reductionist crap in his life...finding that it was made by some young poker gamer guy. I enjoyed watching him react I will admit. I was following these funny threads when I came upon that video. At mywork the ONLY way I can beacknowledged is by this narrow test-homeless child-no one worried, ill child, nothing. But if they can out perform the other room on a very specific and rather bad exam-this defines you as "good"-that kind of nonsenses relates to that movie. We are on a planet that's damn near eliminated lions...in a few years-we have damn near destroyed so much, on this cliff debating if we believe in anything. I saw it as all rather interrelated.
DeleteLong term married couple-well they have quite the partnership. Both in liking to film, but also study lions-live in the bush. It's a funny niche they occupy. I'm going to be celebrating 26 (again due to an error) years being married on Dec. 12-but we lived together a year too-so a long time.
I've been reading stuff suggesting marriage is a thing of the past. That's a shame.
Another cliff.
I am in a time where I am dealing with very unkind folks-so that filters my look at life. However I can say this-we reap what we sew. That being said it's hard to believe in reductionism.