Getting A Better Understanding of Our Lives: What Do We Do When the Unknown Takes Shape and Emerges from the Darkness of the Woods?

Last Sunday, around 2 pm, just as I was beginning an afternoon meditation, a black bear emerged from the woods behind my home. At first, I didn’t realize what it was. It was hidden by bushes and flowers, and all I could see was its massive side. Then it walked right by the door of the den where I was sitting. I went to the door, thinking my presence there would scare it away. It ignored me. It just continued on its way toward the front of the house, where my wife had earlier put out bird food.

 

I’ve seen bears before, several times. Four years ago, in the early morning, one came right to our front door and raised its paws as if to frame the window and look inside at the bird food stored there. I then went to the door, clanging 2 metal rods together; it immediately ran off. Not this bear. I shouted at him and he just leisurely walked on its way. Its presence was almost overwhelming; so, of course, I got my phone and, from inside the house, I followed him around taking pictures.

 

But at that moment when I first saw but couldn’t identify what it was, it seemed like a black cloud was walking through the yard and into my life. It felt like the unknown was taking shape and emerging from the darkness of the trees, a force both beautiful and fearful. All else was forgotten.

 

Maybe what was taking shape was the silence that resides before speech and memory can be born, and it shook me with its immense size. Maybe all such large, wild animals can seem almost mythological to us. Our Paleolithic ancestors, when not consumed by fear or the drive to hunt for food, were likewise overwhelmed when such animals appeared. And instead of taking photos, they drew bears, bison, or elephants, etc. on the walls of a cave. And then they could more deeply appreciate, remember, study, or spiritually enter the awareness of the animal. Such wild animals even today can allow us to touch the ancient lives of our ancestors.

 

When the bear came out of the woods, what message was my life perceiving in it?  Clearly, it took me out of the realm of the usual. And, yes, it was also a great story to share with my friends and family, and you.

 

When it came to the front of the house, I once again got out the metal rods. But it didn’t run off until I walked out the front door shouting and clanging the rods together. It then disappeared—for the moment. Later, I heard a noise, like a window shaking. It was the bear ripping from a window a bird feeder mounted there, and I had forgotten to take down. When I once again clanged the rods together, it grasped the feeder in its arms and ran off.

 

The depth of meaning that any event can hold for us is rarely, if ever, clear. Nor can it be encompassed by words. To truly understand our lives, we need some humility about our ideas. But I did realize one lesson: when we delay doing what needs to be done, we pay a price. And it can come to bite us, or to steal our bird feeders and rattle our windows.

 

One of my favorite books is Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. This book greatly influenced George Lucas in his creation of Star Wars and other movies. The movie follows Campbell’s analysis of a cycle or pattern that heroic characters have possibly followed in their path to enlightenment, redemption, or saving lives. It can be seen in widely divergent works of literature, myth, and religion such as the story of the Buddha and Bilbo Baggins, Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo to Gilgamesh, the hero of the first story ever written. It can be seen in The Odyssey and ET….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Using Mindfulness and Empathic Imagination in Teaching the Story From Day One

I’d like to share with you what I learned from teaching a middle school class called “The Story From Day One,” which integrated mindfulness and visualization exercises with the language arts curriculum.

We often teach myths as merely literature, divorced from the cultural, spiritual, and historical context. But we pay a price for this approach. It limits the depth of meaning students can derive from their study.

Combine this with the narrow focus on the now that social media can foster, and students easily feel isolated on an island of self, cut off not only from their contemporaries, but from a sense of the continuity of life. They have little grasp of how their lives today emerge from yesterday.

 

Suggested Myths to Teach in Your Class

 

In my Story From Day One course, we read several myths from around the world, of creation, of tricksters and of heroes, including:

 

Integrating Mindfulness with Academic Content 

Start lessons with a mindfulness exercise so students can calm and clear their minds, better understand how their inner lives affect their outer ones, and notice how they respond to words, stories, and other people.

After mindfulness practice, ask questions that challenge assumptions and reveal what was hidden, so each lesson becomes the solving of a mystery. For example, before teaching a class on language or vocabulary, ask:

 

How can words (mere sounds or collections of marks on a page or device) mean anything?

Do words have meanings, or do people give words meanings?

Imagine a time when words were almost magical, when to give your word was deeper than a legal contract today. If you felt your words were like magic, how would that change how you spoke? (Share this old Eskimo poem.)

 

To read the whole post, please go to Mindfulteachers.org.

Teaching The Story From Day One

I’d like to share with you what I learned from teaching a middle school class called ‘The Story From Day One,’ which integrated mindfulness, visualization and inquiry exercises with the language arts curriculum.

We often teach myths as merely literature, divorced from the cultural, spiritual, and historical context. But we pay a price for this approach. It limits the depth of meaning students can derive from their study.

Combine this with the narrow focus on the now that social media can foster, and students easily feel isolated on an island of self, cut off not only from their contemporaries, but from a sense of the continuity of life. They have little grasp of how their lives today emerge from yesterday.

Kieran Egan, educator and author, advises in his wonderful book Imagination In Teaching And Learning: The Middle School Years, to design lessons with a narrative structure, understanding not only the skills and knowledge we want to develop but the transcendent qualities in the subject studied.

To excite students, especially middle school students who are still close to, if not seeped in, this age of magic, and who have a natural yearning for adventure and awe: Use stories of facing the extremes of reality and limits of experience, of heroes braving dangers and encountering wonders, to connect to and utilize students’ romantic imagination and emotional awareness to better understand course material.

A good way to begin is with Gilgamesh, the protagonist in the first written epic story, recorded sometime around 2100 BCE. Gilgamesh is the first literary hero, actually the first greatly flawed superhero. The story also introduces a precursor to the biblical Noah and the flood, as well as central themes that have filled literature ever since.

First There Was Breath, Then There Were Words, Then There Were Stories.

The first step in teaching mythology, literature, and language is to create the space in the classroom so language comes fully alive to students. Where they feel as well as examine what they say and read.

 

To read the whole post, click on this link to the ImaginEd website which published this piece.