Where There Be Dragons
.."Education" and The Importance of Intercultural, Interspecies Cross-Pollination..
In this era of post-truth, where seemingly opposing sides are presented as clearly defined, schools offer compartmentalized subjects as if relations no longer matter and the entire world seems certain that race is real, deliberately displacing all the while the political histories that convinced such curious notions to emerge in the first place, well, it can be rather hard to step away from the waves long enough to see the ocean. A seemingly set view only is as such because of its interaction with others, just as a wave only can be because of its relationship with the sea. As Vietnamese Zen master Thich Naht Hanh so elegantly shared with the world throughout his lifetime here on Earth, we inter-are. Before the 17th century the idea of a “white race” was unheard of. Race, and racism, are man-made constructs, as are most modern views. In truth, all our bloodlines, all our values, all our hopes and all our dreams, like all rivers, if they haven’t already, eventually intersect.
Recently, over the Summer Solstice, I attended a unique gathering with hundreds of multi-cultural (un)educators from around the world on traditional Payahuunadü land, in what is now referred to as the Easter Sierra Mountains of California. It was a grand reunion with many old friends, fellow colleagues, mentors, and enormously inspirational people from all walks of life with whom I share a similar desire; to re-think what education is and what it is for. Like waves rising and quickly merging into the greater collective pool, we came together and offered our experiences to the much-larger-than-us collective of ever-evolving efforts to generate more useful actions and views, ones that counter the dominant narratives of separateness that have resulted in an unprecedented atrophy of once largely used sensual faculties, namely creativity, and memory. The experience resulted in a revitalizing feeling I had nearly forgotten; peace.
(picture by Hannah Joy Sachs )
It is a strange time to be an educator. Indeed, it is a strange time to be human. I am always amazed at how seldom my students can tell me the names of more than 5 native plants that grow in their backyards. Fewer still are those who can tell me how such plants can be used. Almost non-existent are ones whom carry consideration that such generous gifts as the ones provided by plants, minerals and the like are not merely resources that exist for human consumption but are the miraculous result of eons of intricate intermingling with countless beings of whom modernity would deem as “other” in order to eventually become the fruit, the vegetable, the medicine, the twine that we in the so-called “civilized” world so take for granted. Alas, what leaves me most amazed is that not only have students become amnesiatic as to what makes life live, but most esteemed educators of today wouldn’t be able to explore any of this with much detail either. So what do we expect? Such are the times in which we live. To be a teacher nowadays means something far different than it once did.
Yet contrary to the loud narratives being broadcast so consistently around most regions of the world today by well-intended teachers, politicians, corporations, preachers and pop stars (etc.) that suggest the technological fruits of modernity, be they visions of democracy, socialism, communism, capitalism, anarchism, high speed internet, faster cars, bitcoin, magical agricultural chemical fantasies (etc.) are going to liberate us all from having to suffer, make life safe and more efficient (etc.), one with ears to hear can still find ancient songs being sung that whisper of other ways, ones that don’t seek to bypass life’s inevitable challenges nor do they attempt to oversimplify an unfathomably complex existence. Such songs gracefully nudge the listener instead towards educational riddles that do not compartmentalize the grand quilt of cross-pollinating knowledges into “subjects” any more than empires designate people into racial groups defined by the color of one’s skin. Lessons here unfold in multi-sensorial waves, emphasizing relations and the importance of rain. There are places still, where real elders exist, where wisdom is honored above power, fame, and the accumulation of synthetic materials. In steaming pools of sacred waters bubbling with memories of long-ago volcanic churnings, such stories were recently told, on the longest days of the year.
How good it is to come together with others. It has been over four years since I last saw so many dear friends. After years of forced solitude, unable to travel, finally, under the shadow of ancient Bristlecone Pines, without masks, without fear, humans from all over the Americas, throughout Africa, India, Nepal, Southeast Asia, Australia, Taiwan and beyond all embraced, shared stories, tears, laughter, and song. We drank teas from lands now experiencing wars together, offered prayers to those unable to join us and broke bread made from our own hands from grains grown by us. We played with each other’s children and reflected over how much we all have grown, how some of us have died, how all of us are who we are because of our commitments to each other and willingness to continue showing up for the benefit of a Story bigger than each of our own individual stories that began a long time before any of us met and will, gods willing, pass through us with the aid of well-tended-to rhythms that honorably merge with each other’s unique offerings courteously, providing much needed cross-pollinated hope for a time beyond now we will likely never see.
As educators, we often forget that we are only able to think what we think because of the hard work done before us by those whom, after spending their waking days seeking knowledge then generously offered us a transmission that carries forward still the essence of their life’s dedication. Modernity seems to have little patience for the important task of keeping alive the details of the past in such a way that properly honors the hard works of ancestors, teachers, gurus and saints, mothers, fathers, etc. We did not come up with the great ideas currently surfacing. We may have revitalized old stories and added to them somewhat, but it is good to remember that we are but a small piece of a Grand Unfolding that intersects ceaselessly with countless others. We are re-membering, again and again. And how good it is to know we are part of such a noble tradition. How good it was for me, in the Sierras, to again be side by side with many, who to be sure are some of the greatest educators, thought pioneers, cutting edge visionaries, etc. I have met during my many years of travels throughout the world whom were so humble as to consistently remind me, as we shared visions together, that they had teachers too, as do I, and we must keep them alive just as we must keep alive seeds, in order to not lose memory, culture, the awareness of how grand we all really are.
In the peak of the coronavirus pandemic I, like so many others, became debilitated with fear. Unable to sit with those who see the world different than me, my view became small. Only allowed access to screens, I unconsciously adopted a narrow belief that suggested that some vicious “other” was secretly orchestrating some doomsday scenario. I didn’t buy into Q Anon conspiracies or any of the wilder narratives of the time, but I did fall prey to the global zeitgeist suggesting there was good and evil out there, as if all this was not all in me. In coming together with Hindus and Buddhists, with indigenous brothers and sisters, with Christians, pagans, Muslims, atheists, with fellow humans who identify as LGBTQ+, with Caucasians, wealthy and poor, young and old, all of us sitting under the same Big Sun, away from the cities, away from time (as it is generally defined by business-as-usual), away from mainstream educational formats that suggest there is a “right” way and a “wrong” way, allowed to be safe and to share openly without judgement, well, fears melted away and instead of seeing a bunch of “others”, I saw many breathtaking extensions of me, expressing the Miracle of Life in a thousand different ways, offering Herself up in a collective song through us, as we passed collectively through the Solstice gate, willing to do what it takes to reorient ourselves so that the illusion of separateness can be gently hospiced, as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira so eloquently suggests, into its next phase.
The desert now is alive in a way I have not before seen. Not only there did I catch a glimpse of our human capacity for creative insight when exchanging equally with the diverse and colorful human cornucopia, so too was I reminded of how much we are in relation with the Living Earth. Snow melt from a massive winter results now in a super bloom within one of the driest regions of the American West. The landscape which for so long was a haunting shade of dusty grey now transforms into a symphony of dancing colors, highlighting flowers rarely before seen. Early one morning I rose before dawn to listen to the smell of a black velvet bud balancing heroically atop a slender green swaying stalk. She spoke to me in aural pleasure and pointed to Everything, all at once.
Education is so much more than mastering one subject. Education is collaborative and intergenerational. If learning doesn’t bring us to a place of awe and initiate us into ways of seeing that transcend and include myriad views without suggesting distinction from any other than it behooves us to reflect over what said “education” is even for at all? Who is education then serving? Does it serve soil? Does it serve the unseen and unheard? If I learn this, will it enable me to simultaneously learn that? Or will it further my feelings of individuality and further convince me I am somehow special, apart from, more worthy?
Even amongst this impressive group of educators who have dedicated their lives to pushing this field forward, we still have a long way to go. Though we do our best, we still tend to honor doctorate degrees earned from systems that were clearly built with racist intentions over the thoroughly integrated skill sets acquired organically by the very people being revered by said systems who themselves were never afforded the resources needed to acquire a degree. As such those who are truly the most knowledgeable and skilled still are often undervalued and under-compensated. It is a difficult conundrum modernity has found us all in. So many of us want to change but we are what we are because of the very systems we now are beginning to loathe. So how then do we break away from the foundation that we stand upon? How do we blaze a new path that leads beyond the bland flatland of modern education that continuously perpetuates systems of privilege and segregation? A dear friend suggested to me late one night around the camps fire when I presented her with this riddle thus: “We can’t.” We are what we are and we all inter-are. We now must simply rest and allow our dead senses to come alive again, on their own natural terms, different than before but still possessing the vestigial memory of what has been lost, so that we can see again that we are all of this, all of us. Me. You. They. Them. Then, now, and tomorrow. Together.
“Yet so too”, an underpaid colleague chimed in, “must we be careful not to fall into the trap of “oneness”.” The reason the flower blooms is because of a unique, well-orchestrated network of diversity which resulted finally in the unlikely miracle of the flower becoming itself; a temporary reflection of all the myriad collaborations between sun and dirt and microbial agreements with moving minerals and animals’ prayers. We need many views, many politics, many seeds, many drums. We need rainbows. We need change. We need life and we need death. We need science and we need myth. We need chaos. We need many truths.
(picture captured by the great Luis Gabriel Alvarado )
Years ago, when I first began working for the group Where There Be Dragons, most of the instructors were western educated, white-bodied men. This is no longer the case. And this means I am offered far less contracts to lead trips. If we are sincere in our desires to be allies and work for a world where all the worlds brilliant stories are offered a space around the fire to shine, those of us in power need to pass the mic. I am proud of the work being done by so many in this regard. It isn’t easy to do. To be sure, most cross-cultural organizations like this are not as of yet following suit. It takes real courage as it threatens the status quo and requires different foundational structures. It requires a release of power. We have many miles to go still, and we won’t reach the summit of this mountain in this lifetime, but may the recognition of small victories inspire us to keep moving forward, allowing other views to be seen.
We have made it through the Solstice Gates. There is no going back. Jump up and live again!
*Dedicated to all my teachers, especially Martin Prechtel, without whom I could not see how I see, feel how I feel or know how little I actually know.
All blessings.
This week, a podcast instead of a song or book: The Humanize Podcast
:::from their site:::
(from) APRIL 26, 2023
[Encore] Radical Inclusivity & CRT w/Dr. Reiland Rabaka (2022)
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