Bird Droppings July 1, 2026

Foxfire is a name for a fungus glowing in the dark, until you wander up Black Rock Mountain.

A few weeks back, I was involved in another synchronous adventure, as I am literally every day. I have been thinking about it ever since. I have been a fan of Carl Jung and the concept of synchronicity for many years, and I often write about it. I was out and about and, by chance, had not made breakfast, still out of sync from vacation. I stopped at a local Bojangles to get a chicken biscuit. As I am standing waiting, a boisterous voice bellows out Mr. Bird. Standing next to me, waiting on his breakfast, is a student from 2001, and it’s my first day back to teaching. Oh, the stories I could tell. I mentioned this to his son, who was about ten years old and standing next to him. I returned to teaching after a twenty-plus-year period away from the classroom on September 11, 2001. This fellow walks into the room, a tiny room currently occupied by six girls and me, and loudly proclaims in his booming ninth-grade voice, “I hate girls.” As the story progresses, we become friends and stay in touch on social media. I had not talked with him in person in at least ten years. All is well with him and his family.

“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Aldus Huxley

In 1965, I was introduced to this author in a tenth-grade English Class. The book we were reading was Brave New World, written in 1932. You would think that a book thirty years old at that time would not have been that controversial. However, for our class and the reading list, our English teacher was let go. What amuses me is how these books we read imparted more than just the words contained between the covers; they were a catalyst for the thinking that developed.

Today, in 2026, with a new school year about to start, English teachers use the books my tenth-grade teacher was fired for as part of their reading lists, as do many high schools across the country. These were 1984, Anthem, and Brave New World, which were so controversial in their time more than fifty years ago. Still today, these same words can inspire students and adults to think and ponder. I fear the undercurrent in politics in some areas of the country towards education may again squelch such reading.

 “To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking — and since it cannot, to become its echo, I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.” Maurice Blanchot

“Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and a source of amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then a master, then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” Sir Winston Churchill

Each day, as I sit down and wonder whether the ideas may or may not flow, I try to find a spark, a starting point for the day. It is sort of my kick-start to the day to revitalize my own cerebral cortex. I was thinking of experience as a starting point earlier, but within the word’s semantics, there are so many limits to the concept of experience. I was seeing a teacher, and most, as I read, were seeing experience as a limit. It has been some time since I journeyed up the mountains of North Georgia to visit the Foxfire property. I had the privilege of speaking with a Foxfire Fellowship student up on the Foxfire Museum property on my last visit. Foxfire has transitioned to a new model of summer fellowship, in which students develop and write stories over the course of a class at the high school. Initially, as a student of the Foxfire approach, I was concerned. Then my thoughts shifted, and even this morning I had a new epiphany as I thought about the idea of a container in relation to being a student. Then I reread this line from Huxley. It is what we do with it. Students were turned loose to learn in 1965, and the culmination is this property and museum of Appalachian culture on a mountainside. Now others can relive and see the history of the Rabun County area, not simply learn about it in a book.

Over the past few days, numerous emails from former high school classmates, perhaps prompted by nostalgia and finding a few on Facebook, have reminded me of a nearly forgotten tenth-grade class, yet one that truly started a process of thinking that has continued for me nearly sixty years later. But the direction changes as I look; it is through writers and writing that we convey so much.

“To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.” Charles Caleb Colton

“I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.” William Faulkner

Each day I walk outside and look at the sky on clear mornings; today, a slight mist and cloud cover greeted me. For some, the stars and constellations provide direction, and as the seasons pass, the constellations change, indicating time of day and position in the sky. Often, as I go out, I am greeted by a new or slightly different sky before my front door. If by chance I am writing at home and not on vacation, I can go out into the backyard, surrounded by pine, pecan, black walnut, persimmon, and oak trees; depending on where I stand, much will be obscured, and I see only a shrouded sky laced with branches.

As I read Faulkner’s note so often this is true, we do not think about something till we read what we have written. Many times, I will return to a piece a week or months later and find a new meaning or understanding of what I was thinking at the time. I wrote a philosophy of teaching paper, and until it was returned with comments, I wasn’t sure what my philosophy was. A journey that began in reading, then in experience, and moves through writing, for it does take the written word to read.

“You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don’t labor for the admiration of the crowd but be content with a few choice readers.” Horace

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” Samuel Johnson

It is as true as I write each morning, glancing through previous writings and reviewing articles and emails and any books handy at that moment, looking for and pondering where and how I will direct my thoughts. Often, my morning consists more of reading than of actually writing words on paper or on a computer screen. It is so many times a search for an idea, a thought that has eluded me.

“If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn’t need to have the rest of the universities attached.” Judith Martin

“Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors — somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating — none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.” James A. Michener

What comes so easily for some, it has been said, may not be for others. I sit each morning, writing two or three pages, reading numerous articles and emails, and then go about my day researching and studying more. I used to ask students what they learned that day; most will say nothing, since that makes it so much easier to write. As I think about where that student is coming from, maybe they never read Brave New World. It could be because someone, somewhere, did not give them the opportunity.

It is often because someone or somewhere did not teach them to read effectively or to think beyond just surviving day to day. It might have been that was the only alternative. I was reminded in an email of Dr. Laura Nolte’s famous poster, “Children learn what they live,” as I spell-checked; I made an error: I had typed “Children learn what they love”. As I thought a bit, you know what? That is just as true too. So how do we help children love learning, and love reading? I wish it could be an easy answer. Perhaps we can start with ourselves. Let’s all set an example today, keep all in harm’s way on our minds and in our hearts, and be sure always to give thanks. Namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

docbird