Bird Droppings May 3, 2021
Occasionally we need to learn again about the Rock and the Smoke

High school students always ask questions about religion. As we get into evolution especially in biology. Occasionally I get someone who wants to prove a point. A young lady brought in her father’s sermon on creation and how the earth was only about eight thousand years old. In detail or rough detail, the sermon explained the striations of geology in the Grand Canyon. Millions of years quickly developed an eight-thousand-year life span. It was sedimentation from the great flood of Noah. I did not pull out the recent law suit of the Noah Ark’s exhibit against their insurance company about flood damage. I explain my religion or lack thereof more simply. It is about the rock and the smoke.

“If people find no room in their lives to pray or to meditate, to reflect deeply on why they have been created and what they must do with their lives, and to listen with all of their being to the guidance of the universe, then these people are like birds who have not yet learned to fly. All the parts of the bird are present, but something is still missing. To be a whole person is to be alive in a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual way.” The Sacred Tree, The Four Worlds Development Project, 1984

I started reading this short book several years ago and recently picked up again, only absorbing a page or two a day not trying to force my read as I do so often and get through it in a matter of minutes. There is an under lying theme with the tree of life so often depicted in primitive traditions. In Native American thought the tree intertwines spiritually and physically with all. Many times, in ceremonies a specific tree would be selected after much thought by a medicine man or woman for the occasion. It would be carefully taken down and then “replanted” at the site of the ritual. Sundance ceremonies always would center round a tree as the main focal point of the entire ceremony. I could not help but think of the latest James Cameron movie Avatar and the depiction of the tree that is connected to all on the planet. Even the Game of Thrones had sacred trees connecting everything.

In my own life my early mornings are to sit read and write for me a mediation of sorts. When I can if time allows although that does not sound good I will wander out into the darkness to think and reflect. Listening and watching as around me life unfolds. For many being alone in the dark is not a comfortable event but as I have now for some time embraced the solitude and quiet.

“A sign that much work is needed in the area of personal spiritual growth is when a person dislikes being alone, and especially dislikes being alone in silence. Many people use television and or recorded music to fill the silence so do not have to experience themselves as they are.” The Sacred Tree, The Four Worlds Development Project, 1984

Years ago, I would walk out into the early morning’s darkness all about me wandering a blanket wrapped about me, thinking and reflecting on things at hand. I found as I was searching I found peace in the solitude and quiet of the early hours. As we moved over the years and my ability to walk around became hindered I started to write and read and reflect as I would sit and ponder. I started writing down my ideas and thoughts and sharing with others. I found in each of my morning’s notes; an idea was there for someone. Today as we near a full moon and the night is bright with the moons reflection of the sun perhaps speaking of darkness at night is a bit odd but always I have found within darkness there is light when we seek it. So, in effect in my solitude I have found community. It has been a few years since a dear friend shared with me and helped me remember a poet and philosopher of life that I had forgotten so many years ago.

“Walk easy on the earth each life has its own fragile rhythm, to be aware of it is to understand, to ignore is to abandon oneself to sadness. It is to search vainly for the wholeness that only comes in surrender to what is.” James Kavanaugh, Quiet Water, 1991

James Kavanaugh passed away a few years back and his works will continue to inspire and awaken emotions in people for many years ahead. There is a spiritual aspect to his writing as he reflects on his own former priesthood in many of his writings. But he also separates from religion that spiritual context that is within each of us. It is that individuality and uniqueness that gives us the essence of who we are and provides us with a desire to continue existence.

“Existing is one thing, but making a purpose for your existence is another.” Kendall Gomez, neighbor, former LHS student, California University Student, friend, and often philosophy genius

Kendall is one of the few who is up when I get up each morning although she was a country away in California when she wrote this. Many the day Kendall would come by my room at school and talk and even visited a few times after she graduated. She moved into our neighborhood several years ago and it was interesting neither of us knew we were neighbors for nearly a year. Granted she is a half mile away from our house if that would still be a neighbor. As I read her post this morning and one of her responses, that her purpose was to come up with riddles for others to solve, it sort of hit me. Perhaps it is “more better” stated that we find our purpose through our existence and may even find ourselves in that effort.

“Another sign that warns the traveler that his heart is empty of the gifts of the west is when a person does not feel respect for the elders or for the spiritual activities and struggles of other people.” The Sacred Tree, The Four Worlds Development Project, 1984

We live in a world so interconnected to each other and yet so disjunctive as well. So many of our interactions that fail and go by the wayside are due to inadvertent differences of opinions, distrust and differences of beliefs than to any other rationales. I recall sitting down so many years ago with a man who was very much a man of faith. He was devout in his beliefs and staunch in his moral codes and ethics. We sat down in a small restaurant in town to discuss a program I had envisioned working with indigent families and people. As a prop knowing this fellow I had brought a bible along. Several verses were marked dealing with helping others and providing for those in need. I did not indicate to this man another religious connection of any sort and almost immediately as we talked he mentioned that Catholics were not Christian. My hand rested atop a Catholic bible. I found it interesting that within his desire to do good and help people was still this animosity for another person he had no idea of any connection to any church or religious affiliation for me other than a Methodist Church I was previously involved with working with high school students. He knew I attended a Methodist Seminary along the way. So already we in some ways were opposed semantically because he found one denomination was wrong and one was right yet both evolved from the same traditions and history. We started a program Shepherd Staff Ministries and up until I left that program over seventeen years ago we never disagreed on anything and he is still involved on the board of directors. People were served in our community with food lodging and counseling.

“Poverty is not merely a matter of not having ‘things’. It is an attitude which leads us to renounce some of the advantages which come from the use of things. A man can possess nothing, but attach great importance to the personal satisfaction and enjoyment he wants to get out of things which are common to all.” Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, 1956

As I was selecting passages today I was drawn to both Kavanaugh and Merton were Catholic clergy at one time or another in their lives. Kavanaugh had a falling out as he wrote about an outdated church and left the priesthood. Thomas Merton wrote out against war in a time when such things were not often politically correct and died suspiciously in Southeast Asia electrocuted in a bath tub protesting the War in Viet Nam. Merton was a Trappist monk till his death. When you read these two authors their ideas do flow and interconnect with those of the Native American concept of a world interconnected I started with. Merton often wrote about and was well versed in Eastern thought seeing a connection between all that was. Kavanaugh in his poetry wrote of the world almost as if he were a piece in a vast puzzle a part of the whole.

“Thus, I am certain that somehow life will never end, because the assemblage of my friends and all the beauty of the world I have known, assures me that in some state, I must have a life of love to say what I feared to say on earth. To give what I tried to give and couldn’t and to thank you with all of me, when gratitude never seemed sufficient. I long to release all hurts and manipulations, any selfish expectation when pain and suffering got in the way of love and forgiveness, when age and self-pity interfered, or when my ignorance and arrogance prevented what I longed to reveal and share. When I realized I’d done the best I could with what I had from the past, when it was apparent that for one as good and fine and loving as you are: A lifetime isn’t long enough to love you.” James Kavanaugh, A lifetime isn’t long enough to love you, 1996

We of this modern era somehow get lost in all that is. We want to categorize and sanitize and package seemingly undefinable ideas and thoughts. We want to be able to research and develop vaccines to cure and control all that is around us. We lose our connections. I was talking with a fellow teacher yesterday a very good friend who has served for nearly twenty-five years active and in the reserves with our military. He has been in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in most areas of conflict in the past twenty years. He has seen death and destruction at the hands and minds of men. We often talk about life in general and while he knows my own believes and perhaps his might differ we often find common ground. I bumped into him on my way to check on a student and we talked. I had an article I had been meaning to bring to him as he teachers’ history. It is a National Geographic article about a tribe in Africa that is one of the last known hunter gatherer societies left on the earth. What is amazing to anthropologists is that there is no strive, stress, animosity within these people. There are not items of desire or to covet. If you need a bow and arrows you make one. If you need meat you hunt and fruit you gather. As we talked I recalled another friend’s virtual game in history of having students develop society from nothing and how it is not until as humans we begin to own things that strive and turmoil appears.

“We live in a whirl of images and noises, sounds, lights, desires, frustrations, pleasures, sufferings. Our lives are a cacophony; insulated from wind and rain and sun, from heat and cold, we are enshrined in our own catacombs of concrete and plastic. Living in such a world is it any wonder we turn to drugs, to more sensational means of stimulation, to entertainment that renders us catatonic? Insulated from nature, ungrounded, why should we be surprised at our own brutality? Where in such a world is there room for gratitude and for what should we be grateful?” Arthur Versluis, Sacred Earth, the spiritual landscape of Native America

I am getting carried away this morning but so often an idea starts and perhaps today I need to draw to a close and continue another day. My dog is barking calling to go out and now back in the moon has set and gone behind the pines and only the stars remain to light the sky. To my right as I walked out our drive way and cars and to the left pines and darkness a seemingly distant world untouched and real. I will use another line from Versluis as he discusses primitive people’s ideas and views.

“There is, however a mysterious unity between people and their landscape, between people and the creatures around them. This unity is of a subtle kind not easily explained. But understanding it is essential if we are to enter into a different awareness of our world” Arthur Versluis, Sacred Earth, the spiritual landscape of Native America

Another day is near dawning and another day of rest. It was nearly eight Sundays since my mother passed away. I sat down at my computer much later today than normal. Today is yard work and grand babies then next week finish up the school year. For all of my students and teacher friends may peace be with you and yours and may we as a nation find some point of reference to draw us together. For twenty plus years now I have ended my morning sojourns with this line, please keep all in harm’s way on your minds and in your hearts.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird

Bird Droppings May 1, 2021
Trooper, pondering, remembering and digesting the stories

Forty nine years ago I was a student at Mercer University in Macon Georgia. I had moved south only a few months before from Pennsylvania. Macon was new to me and I will admit I was a bit naive at the time. In the student center for those of us who lived off campus it was a place we could go grab some food and study between classes and socialize. I recall the day I met Trooper. Never one to be quiet and demure he demanded attention. You knew when he was around. Back then his typical outfit was a pair of ragged cutoff jeans and t-shirt thinking back that was just about year around. On that day several girls were gigging and screaming in the canteen as Trooper strolled by. He had inadvertently pulled down a tube top or two as he walked by. In today’s world the campus police would have been called in the 1970’s the girls were asking for an autograph. The fine line of perception has changed so much since the 1970’s.

At that time I was working in a center for special needs children and adults and out of the blue Trooper shows up to volunteer. I see another side of this larger than life fellow from Mercer Campus. At that time he was not a student but would audit courses he liked. He worked for a band promoter as a bouncer of sorts keeping the guys in the bands in line. Needless to say we became good friends. Somehow he ended up volunteering at my center and a few weeks later I am a character witness at his drug trial. I will never know if it was synchronicity and or deliberate. If not for the next few years knowing him I would have said deliberate and my father thought that till the day he died. Trooper continued working at various programs after he escaped from jail and moved out of Macon. Never really sat down with my dad and went over all of that. Several stories there.

As I think back it’s the stories of all those years. Boys Club camping trips to North Carolina, a rustic cabin in Dahlonega, trips to Albany Georgia, meeting the sales rep for an archery company and a good one my wedding and him pulling a big Buck knife out to carve some frozen grapes from a table display. I weigh the god and great stories over the one or two bad ones.

Good stories, great stories and several sad stories all intermingle as I think back. It has been two long years since his daughter called and informed me, he had been hospitalized. Two years ago, today great news he may be getting out of CCU and going to a regular room. Then a short time later he suffered a massive heart attack and they could not revive him. So here I am pondering remembering and thinking of all the stories. I had a long night of dreams last night. I thought back to how upset I was I had not traveled to visit him in many years and he visit me, we always had a reason. We had kept in near daily communication through social media arguing politics and remembering our stories.

With my mother passing about two years back now thinking back to Troopers passing I am remembering time is often an enemy as we grow older. Our bodies are in a daily fight with us. I vacuumed the living room and took my blood pressure planning on a heart procedure and a pacemaker shortly. You can do this but not that today. Can I get another minute with a friend or another conversation? A dear friend in Pennsylvania came up with this in an email. “Every time a classmate (and I would say friend) dies it means we’re closer to being the next one to go or closer to being the last one alive. The problem is, when I find out the answer to that question, I won’t be able to tell you.” I need to spend my time with family and friends more wisely.

 I was reminded a few days back about stories my father would tell. I promised my brother and sisters I would write them down. I need to get them down. Now another group of stories need to be put on paper so they can be retold. It is our stories that give us life. I wish my mother and my good friend trooper well in their new journey namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird

Bird Droppings April 30, 2021
Should we sharpen the machete or bring a shovel?

I have been reflecting over the concept of critical pedagogy and in that reflection, I recall an incident nearly forty years ago that calls to mind my own interpretation and understanding of what we as teachers are all about. I purchased a book in 1972 or so that was about a method of teaching that for me was what teaching was all about. The book was the Foxfire 2 book, a collection of mountain lore and life. The editor was a man who went into North Georgia to teach English and ended up creating a teaching method or I should say edited a teaching concept in that much of what he developed was previously suggested and implemented with John Dewey.

Elliott Wigginton started in 1966 a way of teaching that incorporated the students in the learning process. I am sitting in my room at the high school writing and will be headed back up to North Georgia only miles from where this idea for teaching started in a few days.

“When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.” Anthony J. D’Angelo

Always in movies with a jungle setting the leader has a machete and hacks away at the undergrowth making the way clear for the group following. D’Angelo is an author of sorts, an author who as a senior at West Chester State University in Pennsylvania wrote a paper “Wellness Works”, which would become the basis for his ideas. While writing primarily about college life he was also offering bits and pieces of wit to help folks make it through the day. He is Author of The College Blue Book and the inspirational series; we are creating a new kind of “school” for a new kind of world. It just so happens my college career started at West Chester State as well although in my feeble attempt at education I was asked not to return and ended up facing a military draft physical only to find I was physically unfit for military service.

“After all, the world as we know it is less than 15 years old. In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and in 1995 the World Wide Web went up. It is a completely new world for us all. With this new world, come new challenges. With these new challenges, come new ways of educating people for the future and it is our every intention to be at the fore front of this educational revolution. The 20th Century was about Content, but the 21st Century is about Context.” Anthony J. D’Angelo

As I read through the website dealing with empowerment many interesting ideas and thoughts that last line hit me like a ton of bricks. John Dewey was saying the same thing nearly a hundred years ago. Context is the critical component versus content.

“Most College Students Get a Degree, But Not an Education.” Anthony J. D’Angelo

The basis and rationale of his thoughts centered on the fact nearly one third of college students drop out. His writings and training (coaching) are meant to change that. Going back again nearly 100 years ago another educational revolutionary had similar thoughts. John Dewey offered a very similar constraint to content versus context with his take on constructivism.

“Learners who can adapt quickly by learning in a complex world are more likely to adapt to changing conditions and survive as an individual.” Martin Dougiamas, A journey into Constructivism

It has been a quite a few days possibly years since I walked in my yard to show some friends from the South Georgia coast my ever-growing herb garden. I was pulling a few leaves here and there comparing different types of thyme and mints but all the same it was a matter of trying to dodge raindrops and our dog running between my legs trying to get back in the house. My friends had gone to the amusement park all day and were worn out but hamburgers and hotdogs off the Bird nest grill and a few minutes catching up and we were into old stories and somehow reptiles. It seems my oldest and my good friend who had come by are both amateur herpetologists and snake talk can go on for hours. As I stood thinking just before going to bed that night it was so quiet other than the dripping of the rain on the house and from trees and shrubs. It was an ethereal undertaking walking out in the remnants of a rain of that evening.

“Learning is a search for meaning. Therefore, learning must start with the issues around which students are actively trying to construct meaning.” On Purpose Associates

Looking at the surroundings yesterday morning as I walked through the house checking to see if the dog needed to go out for her morning constitutional I saw the light or I should say my senses saw light. I can accept that thought and or pursue why and how I saw a light. It could be perhaps the batteries are low and it is only a glimmer of light. Last year I started a daily log on each of my students writing down as events transpired within my various classrooms, while focusing on education I would also jot down any events or happening with that student that may be important. As I thought daily life is little different as I read D’Angelo’s thoughts, while he focused on college students the application to a lesser degree very easily could be made to own my students who are at high risk for graduation from high school. By pushing that envelope further, we have people who are at risk with life itself.

“The purpose of learning is for an individual to construct his or her own meaning, not just memorize the “right” answers and regurgitate someone else’s meaning. Since education is inherently interdisciplinary, the only valuable way to measure learning is to make the assessment part of the learning process, ensuring it provides students with information on the quality of their learning.” On Purpose Associates

As a teacher so often, I found myself saying this is my class room and you will do as I say. I even have gone so far as to declare back in the day when I had a trailer, my room as an independent kingdom and issued money, Mr. Bird bucks. I still have the crown although it currently resides on a rather large stuffed antelope head (an eland) on my classroom wall. However, in the process of declaring an independent kingdom from the rest of school we as a group signed a declaration of independence. While I said my class room, in effect the room had become the student’s class room.

“I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual’s powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions. Through this unconscious education the individual gradually comes to share in the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in getting together. He becomes an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization. The most formal and technical education in the world cannot safely depart from this general process. It can only organize it or differentiate it in some particular direction.” John Dewey

Do I simply want to accept the light from the night or pursue finding out more? I recall just before school was out that I spent the better part of my planning period on the phone with a parent. This particular student has been a problem for all of his teachers, numerous physiological reasons can quickly be brought to our attention and various assundery medications have been prescribed over the years. In high school with four different teachers and different outlooks of perception we have a student being daily assessed by four people and four world views. On a particular bad day, I jotted down behaviors that were issues. At some point his medications came into the discussion and the student made a comment how he felt that was the issue not his behavior. You might say, “The medicine made him do it”. He as often found excuses for his behavior as we all do.

“When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.” Anthony J. D’Angelo

I find myself being sort of a renegade in the high school and not willing to accept four other good teachers’ viewpoints without investigating I always dig deeper into the issues of the student’s behavior. Upon referring to a handy Physician’s Desk Reference, PDR, eight of the behavior issues were side effects of his particular medications and all of the medications were recommended for adults. Indicated in bold lettering there are warnings this medication may cause drowsiness and to not operate equipment while taking this medication. The problem this student was being referred for every day was sleeping in class. We gave this student ISS for sleeping and for making comments about how he can’t think straight. All day long we hack at leaves, I tell friends in the north about kudzu. It is so hard to describe a plant that hacking at the leaves only infuriates it, it seems to grow faster. Add to it a couple of tropical storms and hurricanes worth of water dumped on it helps as well. But whether it is in education or family we need to look beyond traditional means. It is about context versus content borrowing from D’Angelo and of course John Dewey.

I was speaking with my son many years ago about teenager issues as we rode home from a band practice. It is so easy to say one thing, hack off leaves and never really get to the roots. He asked me why our county has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates. I offered often lack of education, or simply indifference to the responsibility and focus on the moment we have so engrained in our kids and lifestyles. A year or two later I am dealing with the issue personally with my son. Maybe I should have offered context and less content discussing pregnancy. So I walk out today looking for how come it is so bright outside even in the rain we also need to look at context. We also need to review why we keep sharpening the machete and not look for a shovel and as I finish today harm is an elusive word. A child raised in an environment where tomorrow is questionable is that harm? Students who say whatever and quit school is that harm? Young men and women fighting in various wars around the world is that harm to themselves as well as those around them? Refugees in Sudan tying shelter together with sticks, thread and leaves is that harm? I wonder if we even care at times more worried about the trivial pieces of life what shirt or shoes to wear? So today please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and be sure to give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird

Bird Droppings April 29, 2021
It is not always all in a name

On February 3, 2003, I officially started calling daily emailing and journaling Bird Droppings. I went back in my files and pulled up a few old thoughts and ideas. Along with my new name in 2003 some other bits and pieces as I was reading, the local paper on that day had a street poll that was asking locals about gas prices. I found another email from my mother about starting a gas war. It was a forward from my uncle to my mother. A simple concept we as consumers stop buying gas from two biggest gas companies and only buy from smaller ones which will drive pricing down. Idea was emailing to at least thirty people this idea which gets mailed to thirty more, sort of pyramid gas war tactics. I found it interesting that eleven years ago we were still fussing about gas prices. As I turned the pages of my old Bird Droppings from 2003 one caught my attention. It was a quote from my middle son about my former principal. He had interviewed him for the school newspaper. I ended up emailing my dear friend and former principal last week.

Going back even further it was in 2001 or so roughly I started using the name Bird Droppings and put out several issues of newsletters under that name and sitting here this morning with an old copy in my hand. I thought at the time back in 2001, Bird Droppings, that is a good title and subject for my daily meanderings. Looking back to that day in 2003 much was occurring around the nation as NASA tried to pick up pieces of a space shuttle and sort out the disaster that happened over east Texas. These explorers chose their profession and knew the risks one crew member being remembered by a cousin said she would prefer to die in space doing what she loved. Space was a passion for each member of the crew; it was about the searching and inquiry.

I can remember the Challenger accident over twenty-five years ago before some of you were even born. It was a shock just as this tragedy in 2003 was. But as a brother of a Challenger crew member said the morning after “their work continues”. Often events in our lives make no sense at that point of happening and later clarify as we go further in life. There is really no solace to a family when a loved one is lost even when you knew the risks they were involved in. I recall reading over the years such headlines such as the services and memorials for the miners who perished in the West Virginia coal mine several years back. It is the thoughts and assurances of friends and family that can make the pain bearable.

A number of years ago my brother died during the night in his sleep. When I received the call at work I was in shock and hurried to my parent’s home. Within moments calls and emails and faxes began to arrive from around the world from my parent’s friends and family. That support made that moment so much easier to bear. More recently with the death of my father in-law and my own father the support of friends and family eased the pain and passing. I recall that day back in February 2003 and was running a bit late that morning as I listened to the news and watching a nation morn seven heroes.

Today I found a quote that for some may it not apply and for others who knows as I do each day. Many years ago, I read a series of books written by a socio-anthropologist about his studies of herbal medicine among the Yaqui Indians of Northern Mexico. He eventually found his way to a medicine man that used the Anglo name of Don Juan. After a number of trips and many years he had become an apprentice to Don Juan in his efforts to become a Yaqui Medicine man. Carlos Castaneda wrote of the trials and tribulations of his adventure and studies and his books are used in many classes as case studies. Today there are many skeptics about the writings and reality of Castaneda’s work. Many claim it was purely fiction albeit an elaborate fiction.

“We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.”
Carlos Castaneda

One of the simple truths he found in his studies under Don Juan was how much we ourselves are directly involved in our own situation. That sounds simple but so often we blame the world around us for our plight. A student of life can only blame themselves for all choices made as they are ours and no one else to make. So, in effect we make ourselves happy or sad and only we can redirect the pathway. Those heroic astronauts who gave their lives over ten years ago, they could have chosen another path a simpler path and less risky path, but they wanted and chose the direction that they were on and where they were to be. We now can choose how to continue their journey ending in a crash or building upon that and going beyond the stars. Remember the families of those brave men and women who have died serving our country and nation and keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and always seek peace and more importantly always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird

Bird Droppings April 28, 2021
A rock flower and song

A journey begins with a step and apathy begins with turning your back and saying I don’t care. Before we left school for the virus last year I had my last IEP of the year. I recall my laptop was acting weirder than normal and all of my school email jumped to my personal email account and then disappeared. My entire address book all of several months of writing went into computer limbo. I came home still the same on my home account and my email for school was not there and went back to school logged on again and everything came up. Something simple was not working my pass word was wrong according to my computer then I checked and caps lock was on, a simple fix.

Then suddenly as if by magic my personal account was gone again which was very frustrating not understanding electronics and computers at times. It seems they were doing server work at school unbeknownst to those of us using it.

“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.” Benjamin Franklin

Just as I did this morning it is so easy to get caught up in oneself and our own little troubles. The following are the words to a song sent to me many years back by the mother of a teenage daughter. I remember the song from many years ago. My friend said her mother enjoyed this song which was recorded by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmy Lou Harris among so many others to use the words as I sit here I wonder how many folks will remember them and or the song.

Wildflowers
By Dolly Parton

The hills were alive with wildflowers
And I was as wild as, even wilder than they
For at least I could run, they just died in the sun
And I refused to just wither in place
Just a wild mountain rose, needing freedom to grow
So I ran fearing not where I’d go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don’t care where they grow

And the flowers I knew in the fields where I grew
Were content to be lost in the crowd
They were common and close, I had no room for growth
I wanted so much to branch out

I uprooted myself from home ground and left
Took my dreams and I took to the road
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don’t care where they grow

I grew up fast and wild and I never felt right
In a garden so different from me
I just never belonged; I just longed to be gone
So the garden, one day, set me free

Hitched a ride with the wind and since he was my friend
I just let him decide where we’d go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don’t care where they grow

So often poetry and songs have meaning hidden in the words, it might be in the way they play out and many times in a song the melody adds to the feeling and attitude portrayed by the words. Watching one of the American Idol contestants sing a song made famous by Garth Brooks, several even commented on great song writing. Keith Urban a singer songwriter too offered the actual song writer Tony Arata from Nashville. Although Tony went to Georgia Southern by chance and will often show up in small venues in Statesboro. Tony was my brother in laws college roommate. I throw out another song while I am on Tony Arata it is The Dance words are powerful as is Garth’s delivery of the song.

Back to business as I was reading this morning so many teenagers feel as did this wildflower desiring to be or wanting to be free. Yet as I read the words to the song an image of a wild rose growing in a sidewalk crack in New York popped in my mind and a line from another song made popular in early 1970’s.

“You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. They took paradise and put up a parking lot.” Joni Mitchell

In the past months I have addressed apathy and a recently dear friend in a teacher meeting in Conyers was discussing apathy with teachers and how we can combat it. I was thinking about that all night; first apathy is like a virus it replicates rapidly and soon over whelms. Soon it takes over but what does apathy look like and feel like. There are key words and phrases, such as whatever, because, no reason, I’m passing, I’ll do it tomorrow, everybody else is doing it, it’s not mine, and a good one let me copy your homework. The list goes on and on apathy, procrastination and not caring can be rampant.

I am reading again a book, Neither Wolf nor Dog, written by Kent Nerburn about Native American Spirituality. The Introduction to the book is a few pages long telling of a motorcycle ride into the plains and of a large rock considered sacred to the Sioux. It is called the buffalo rock. A rather simple large boulder situated in the migration path of the buffalo that looked somewhat like a buffalo. Today it has a plague on it telling its historical significance and an iron fence around it to protect it. Nerburn writes of how he was taken to tears looking at this ancient symbol caged as he wrote and as he walked around pondering the thousands of years of people who would touch the rock for luck in the hunt or simply honor and respect as they rode by this rock in the plains of America. As he walked about sitting on top of the rock very carefully placed a crumpled cigarette not snuffed out by a careless tourist carefully crumpled and the tobacco spilled out onto the surface of the rock. Tobacco is sacred to the plains Indians and someone had carefully honored the rock and memories. Someone still cared.

As I look at schools and look at the concept or possible illness of lack of apathy. I wondered first is someone caring enough to seek a cure. Second could it be possible to weed out teachers who teach and lecture apathetically which then causes apathy in students. It is not just a school thing for many students learn apathy at home. I remember many years ago a professor who would walk in never address the class, go to his podium and start reading the book and when the bell would ring stop, leave the room and that was it. In a semester he never addressed a question a student had, an issue was never brought up, he gave a final and who knows if anyone passed. Was his class or was it his classes that were apathetic. Most assuredly he had some symptoms and from there the degree of apathy can vary, although I would say it was serious with him.

Apathy is much like a vacuum however once the seal is broke, once learning is allowed in it fills rapidly. Curing apathy however often requires others to lend a hand. Begin a new day with a new thought reach for the stars as last night with a clear crescent moon and stars. I read if you can see more than eleven stars in the constellation Orion you have a clear night, I saw twenty-eight earlier this morning. Seek out something new, wonderful, and interesting. Apathy breeds within itself and upon itself. It is thinking and learning that keep apathy away. Another wonderful day for each of us please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and always give thanks namaste. I will end with one of my favorite quotes borrowing from the Governor of California, “I’ll be back”.

Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and to always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird

Bird Droppings April 27, 2021
Driving up a mountain takes considerable effort

I am looking forward to another trip to Black Rock Mountain in North Georgia, the site of the Foxfire Museum property. In the past the site was used as a focus of the Piedmont College’s teacher’s class in The Foxfire Approach to teaching. My oldest son took the course as a piece of his master’s degree program at Piedmont. But interestingly enough several folks who graduated from Loganville High School my son’s old HS attended this course. One of the teachers as we went around the room doing introductions made a comment about an interesting point for her was the first time she had ever held a snake was in my old class room at Loganville High School, holding Stevie my ball python. Sadly, Stevie has passed away after nineteen years of being around students. Sitting here thinking actually there is a picture of her 2003 State Champion Softball team in my files.

As I recall my past sessions sitting and listening to teachers and teachers to be in the discussions that went around the room with the lead facilitators providing a frame work; I was always amazed at how quickly others began to expound or expand the conversation which was a starting point of a weeklong session. Depending on the facilitators the initial start could take a few minutes for those gathered to realize it was a joint venture of teacher and students searching for answers.

Just prior to leaving our house to drive up I had hit on an idea for my dissertation topic which has been eluding me for some time. I had been sitting in a discussion with a former student and he offered the idea of that I had shown him or helped him find, how learning was an artform.  As I pondered deeper into that morning this idea stuck with me and from it a topic. I would use my passion for story telling which for me toed directly into the Art of Learning and using the Foxfire Core Practices as a palette and it was only a few days ago my idea evolved again and now is, Birddroppings: Passionate learning through story telling. I have come across the word improvisational through discussion on my own style of teaching. It is that combination of student and teacher thinking is just that improvisational.

When I left Mountain City on my last trip and drove back to the lower lands of Walton County I felt excited about the possibilities and my own epiphany that morning with the idea of learning is an art form. John Dewey’s book, Experience and Education sits to my left as I write and the past few days I have borrowed from it several times as I jotted ideas down. But it is within the community of fellow learners and teachers we find answers and again more questions to ask. I thrive on the idea of learning even though I am sure many of my high school teachers and some college professors would argue. When students want to learn and desire to learn amazing things can be accomplished. Core practice one sums it up.

“From the beginning, learner choice, design, and revision infuse the work teachers and learners do together.” Core Practice One from The Foxfire Core Practices

John Dewey and his thoughts run through the Foxfire Approach to Teaching with an emphasis on a democratic classroom, experience as a means of learning and student input into the process of learning. I find that this is a rather simple statement this initial core practice which along with the other nine have evolved over the past nearly fifty years of teacher interactions and discussions from literally around the world. But so often a key attribute is missed and that is that students and teachers do this undertaking together. At my last course attended listening to sixteen nearly teachers and active teachers respond to why they were involved in this class provided me with a sense of maybe there are a few who get it in the world.

In education we talk about test scores which are also what is used to measure in most schools to federal and state guidelines. Standardized tests given to all students at the end or near end of a school term on specific subjects that are to measure what students have learned. Sadly, many students could take the same test at the beginning of the term and score the same so is that really a valid measure of what is learned probably not. Far too many teachers avoid discussing the concept of learning; they are engrossed in standards, curriculum, forms and teacher manuals on the subject. So, I sit here offering learning is a stream to cross and or an art form. Both of these ideas are fluid, moving and ever changing.

“Measuring tools lead to quantification; the tools in the arts lead to qualification.” Elliot Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of Mind

Do we ever truly measure learning? I have been wondering this since I started back into teaching although in various different words and meanings. A simple measure would be giving a pre-test and post-test which would show where a student started and where they ended. On a far more involved scenario would be that of using portfolios gathering the evidence as the student progresses through material. They are effectively used in some schools to measure learning and student’s growth. These would consist of gathering artifacts along the way from the student. Essays, reports, assignments, any piece of material that is involved in the student’s educational life could be considered an artifact.

“With respect to art and its meaning I share Dewey’s view that art is a mode of human experience that in principle can be secured whenever an individual interacts with any aspect of the world.” Elliot Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of Mind

So, I am wandering as I sit here this almost summer like morning pondering an article to write on critical pedagogy. I sat down yesterday trying to write but my energy level has deteriorated even after two five-hour energy shots and I did little more than ponder a moment. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and to always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird

Bird Droppings April 26, 2021
Using Pronouns

It was one of those days yesterday and a word caught my attention as I was listening to a friend talk. The word was them. I never realized the extent of prejudice till a pronoun was used. Such words as they, them, or those people never were clearly a term used to delineate who they or them was but it was obvious within moments. It was about then that they took over in that area or verbiage to that extent. I wrote a whimsical tale of observation this morning to a friend about watching a leave floating along a stream. My premise was do we allow the leave to pass or do we interfere lifting the floating leave from its journey to observe or interact.

I recall I had lunch with a dear friend a few years back, someone who reflects with me on many topics. This person does not use they or them unless referring to political parties or politicians. I recall my oldest son came along as he was helping me at school move and such to my new abode on C hall. This was over sixteen years ago. We talked of education at lunch of why so many teachers have difficulty and of why some parents have a hard time and why some children end up the way they do. We discussed scholars and philosophers and we talked of my son’s journey in school which is only a few months away and he finishes his Masters hopefully he will have a firm job offer nearby.

We reflected on my own life’s journey and directions and that of several mutual friends and the paths they had taken. We compared our observations, made notes and reflected on new directions and pathways ahead. I raised the question as I heard earlier in the day of them and we talked of them and is there a difference in teaching us or them is there a difference in attitudes between us and them. It is so funny when two people, three actually my son was there talking about life and attitudes and are very positive, it is hard to use pronouns of us and them it changed to we continually. We should do this or this, not us and or them.

“There is a destiny that makes us brothers, No one goes his way alone; All that we send into the lives of others, Comes back into our own.” Edwin Markham

As I talk with people and email I find I am no longer simply an observer I am now interacting altering by my words that moment of destiny and of the future. My choice to use or not use a word or even discuss a subject and respond positively or negatively affects the journey for myself and that other person.

“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We need to sometimes take a stand and try to alter destiny it really isn’t destiny till it happens anyway. We can change the direction of the leaf floating by, a slight movement a word and perhaps light can permeate even the darkest of corners and a person who sees only in black and white may be allowed to see color and realize in an instant what has been missing in their journey. A professor and I were discussing the butterfly effect. The flap of a butterfly’s wing in the Andes of Peru could create enough turbulence to alter the path of a hurricane. As I thought deeper, never simply let a leave float by if you know only a few feet away is a waterfall. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and pull a few leaves from the current when you get a chance as I will and always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird

Bird Droppings April 25, 2021
Quietly listening to Hot Tuna and pondering the word inspiration.

It has been some time since I was made aware of the band Hot Tuna. Sitting here listening to their music takes me back to 1973 or 4 in Macon Georgia and fellow who I went to school with. We were both students at Mercer University. I was music novice coming to Macon but learned quickly in the music capital of the US at that time. Over a few years I heard many famous musicians in concert either at the University or Macon Coliseum. This band Hot Tuna I have never seen live but have listened to now for nearly fifty years. The original Jefferson Airplane split up and one group went acoustic and Blues the other stayed electric. Hot Tuna is the acoustic group. 

Nearly fifteen years ago at a county wide teacher kick off meeting which used to be before budget cuts traditionally a packaged inspirational meeting and welcome back for the new school year lead by a guest speaker. Someone is paid to come in and inspire us as teachers, it could be a comedian or professional speaker and it seems each year they try a new approach. I would much rather enjoy going to hear Nelson Mandela or Bishop Tutu maybe even Jimmy Carter but so far, no such luck. In the past before austerity cuts the county start up program, we would car pool over to the Monroe high school gym near our county office and sit in the bleachers listening to pep talks and such and most teachers would leave wishing they had called in sick. I once considered asking for a substitute but our secretary did not think the county would cover a sub.

A young black college professor stood in front of us. He made his point not one person approached him as he boogied through the crowd prior to the meeting. So, I start today with a quote from a young college professor.

“You can teach anyone anything once you get their ATTENTION.” Dr. Adolph Brown, III

Prior to at aforementioned annual teachers inspirational gathering in the county this same professor was walking about the crowd clad in hip hop attire, the baggy pants and shirt and baseball cap with a dew rag. He could have been from any street corner in Atlanta or Monroe where the school is located he was just a young black man. As they announced Dr. Brown, a very distinguished man in a business suit and such rises and heads towards podium and then the hip-hop fellow moves toward the mike and takes charge and announces he is Dr. Adolph Brown III from Hampton College, professor of psychology and education. He is a world-wide consultant and motivational speaker.

“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’” Dan Rather

We teachers sat listening to this young professor talk about faith, trust and getting students attention.

“In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.” Jacques Barzun

New teachers come in wanting to make changes in student’s lives immediately and it does happen but the real changes are those often years later. Recently a former history teacher joined our high school group site and many of our members were offering memories of this great teacher’s efforts both in the classroom and as a coach. Mr. Ross Kershey was one of the winningest basketball and track coaches in Pa. and a truly great teacher in the class room inspiring students to learn. It has been over forty-five years since I was in his class yet I still consider him one of the best teachers I ever had. Over the years I have set at the feet of some great teachers in college classes and in industrial seminars and while I did my job as a professional management training coordinator.

“Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.” Tracy Kidder

I had a former student come by to visit me a few years back he had walked across the stage nearly fifteen years ago to accept a special education diploma and then went on and officially finished high school and received his general education diploma and went on to college. It was a good feeling to be sitting there talking with a student who kept at it and succeeded even though all the odds were stacked against him.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” William Arthur Ward

This is what teaching is about, it is inspiration and I wish all teachers could have heard those comments we heard in our Walton County teachers meeting that year when Dr. Brown offered the key component in teaching it is our example. It is setting the example for students. I have heard that before many times and somehow it does not sink in with most teachers. So, as we head towards a school end for the summer and End of Course Tests the next few weeks at our school please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird

Bird Droppings April 24, 2021

Eating some left-over chicken parmesan and thinking about the circle of life

A couple days ago I made a huge pan of chicken parmesan and had plenty of leftovers. So I am sitting at my computer working on my Birddroppings and dissertation eating some. Several things have led me to my writing today. I am a student of Carl Jung in terms of my psychological philosophy is more in tune with him than say Freud. I see events intertwining and taking us to the next event. As I have been working on citations for my dissertation and verifying page numbers from several references, I ended up yesterday reading Dr. Michael Garretts book Walking in the Wind again.  

“You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.” Black Elk, Ogalala Lakota Medicine man

If you think a bit soon all you will see is circles. Hurricanes and tornadoes move in circles. Birds build their nests in circles. The more philosophical meaning could be looking at life, we have birth and then the circle of our own journey until death completing the circle. In the past six days or so several friends from high school have passed on. Each had a journey in life touching many people and many friends.

I was mowing my front yard yesterday trying to stay ahead of the rain that was forecasted to hit early this morning. I have a rather large selection of music on my Apple music through my iPhone and hearing aids. My middle son had suggested a group, Mandolin Orange and I have become a fan. My iPhone however has recently decided that after an album finishes it will introduce me to similar music in that same genre. So here I am mowing listening to my music, and it changes still similar in what I like so I just keep mowing.  A song by Jason Isabelle is playing. Honestly, I can say I do not know him. The song title is a bit weird, “If we were vampires”. The chorus hit me hard. I cut off the mower and went to my front porch to sit and listen again without the mower running. I had to look up the lyrics. Perhaps it was reading about a friend passing just before I started cutting grass. It might have been thinking about my wife Pat and I married forty-three years I am not sure, but I was crying.

“It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever, likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.

Maybe we will get forty years together, but one day I’ll be gone or one day you’ll be gone.” Jason Isabell

Words to a song can impact us perhaps opening up memories and forgotten pieces of our lives. The intellect and the artist in us intertwining, intersecting, and blending the avenues of our soul. I read more in Walking on the Wind and finished my mowing with this song stuck in my head. We live life so flippantly and waste precious moments. I thought back to friends lost over the years and to my father and father-in-law whose birthday is today. I thought of my mother when she lost my father nearly fifteen years back and then my mothers passing. I shared with my grand daughter I miss my writing spiders and they would be coming out soon as they get bigger. I am writing today with several dream catchers around me reminding me of the web of life. We each are merely strand on the web. I thought of the word synchronicity used by Carl Jung. I was taking my wife’s car to wash this morning and gas up. As I pulled off the ramp a red-tailed hawk swooped by me. Ten second sooner or later and I would have missed it.

“Wellness is harmony in spirit, mind and body.” Carol Locust, Eastern Band of Cherokee, Harvard Educational Review

I read this line from Dr. Garett’s book from a list written by Carol Locust. It sounds so simple, but it connected with the lyrics from the song of Jason Isabelle. Dr. Garett stressed that we need balance in our lives. I some how seem to be drawn back to a yellow sticky note left on my computer screen over twenty-five years ago my sixteen-year-old son. He was a big fan of Aerosmith and the words he wrote were from a song on one of their albums. A young man had been severely injured in a car accident; he was close to all of us. I spent the night by his bedside watching the monitors and holding his hand. Come morning he was declared brain dead and he had always said he would be an organ donor and he was taken for surgery to save other lives. I was hit hard that night having three teenagers at home myself. I drove home from the hospital and sat down at my computer to see this yellow sticky note.

“Life is about the journey not the destination.” Steven Tyler, Aerosmith

These threads intertwining being spun as I sit here writing. Savor the moments and time we have. I have a digital photo album next to my desk and as I looked over a spider web was on the screen. A writing spider, amazing how life and our journeys interconnect. My dear friends please keep all in harms way in your hearts, on your minds and always give thanks, namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird

Bird Droppings April 23, 2021

Are you a Weginahsa?

“The work of a teacher – exhausting, complex, idiosyncratic, never twice the same – is at its heart, an intellectual and ethical enterprise. Teaching is the vocation of vocations, a calling that shepherds a multitude of other callings. It is an activity that is intensely practical and yet transcendent, brutally matter of fact and yet fundamentally a creative act. Teaching begins in challenge and is never far from mystery.” Dr. William Ayers, To Teach: the journey of a teacher, 2010

It was just barely four o’clock in the morning and I miss having my grandkids waking me up. They had been coming to visit with us till all this craziness started. My son is a nurse and my daughter in law is a nurse as well. Some weekends both are working and kids come visit with us.  We have been facetiming quite a bit with all five of our grandkids lately.

A few weekends back my son’s husky needed to take a run outside to do his morning thing. He had slept most of the night but on that day after I had gotten up and rambled around the kitchen in the wee hours he started barking and I went and took him out. it was cold and rain was coming. Several whippoorwills were calling through the pines and a crazy mockingbird had been up literally round the clock lately calling away. It is unusual to hear a bird calling at this hour. But maybe he was calling for some warm weather to stay I have been hoping for myself so music and song made for a wonderful morning awakening.

“The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done …. Men who are creative, inventive and discoverers.” Jean Piaget

I have always been a fan of the great developmentalists and the process of each piece leading to the next and so forth. Piaget while well respected in educational fields did his research on his own children. I still find that a bit weird. Although watching my granddaughter growing up I do very much the same watching her interactions with parents, other children and with me. However, his ideas seem to be sound in many aspects even though his demographics are a bit shallow.

“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” Anatole France

In our age of standardized testing and how much we can force feed into our students so they can pass a test I had to think twice as I read France’s quote. We constantly test for content daily in our school systems and wonder why we still lag behind. “Education Weekly featured an article on science programs in other modern nations and how they were so far ahead of ours. Every program featured context over content. John Dewey one hundred years ago preached context.

“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” William Yeats

Every day I drink several liter bottles of water after my morning tea. I never started drinking coffee till recently and then only mixed with my tea and Starbucks is the wrong direction in the morning for Chai Tea with a shot of expresso. Although I do brew my own now which is nice but it takes a few moments to heat up. For several years the liter bottle has reminded me of how we teach. For so many teachers it is simply trying to fill a liter bottle period. I visited a museum in the mountains of North Georgia and was looking at an old moonshine still when it hit me. We need to teach kids to distill information. Concentrate on the important and the pieces that can lead to other pieces. Stop trying to cram it all in to a confined space.

“The farmer channels water to his land. The fletcher whittles his arrows. And the carpenter turns his wood. So, the wise direct their mind.” Dhammapada

Many years ago, there was a folk song entitled “If I were a carpenter”. As I read this passage this morning from a Hindu text that song popped in my mind. I used a similar passage many months ago from another great thinker, of our time.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

During the folk song era which probably in some circles including my own, still exists, Pete Seeger was very famous. He would sing songs borrowed from Woody Guthrie’s hobo and dust bowl days, songs of the depression. He would borrow from various other current and past sources for his songs. He wrote music for and developed one song that was made famous outside folk circles by a group called “the Byrd’s”, entitled “Turn, turn, turn”. This song was based on words from a book in the Old testament Ecclesiastes to be exact, “To everything there is a season, a time to be born a time to die”.

As I sit here writing this morning I got thinking about the late great Spike my bearded dragon, a former resident of my class room who had passed away a year ago Friday after five years and how he would spit out grapes. He must not have liked seeds in his grapes. I was thinking back to Independence Day and flags flying from telephone poles, draped over tables, emblazoned on T-shirts and paper cups celebrating our independence. I am reminded of what and who we are as Americans. By the constitution of the United States all people are equal all are entitled to certain liberties and the pursuit of happiness.

As we go about today remembering we need to also think of in being free and being able to speak, and worship freely we should not impose our ideals and beliefs on others which was the founding father’s key tenet. That is so easy to say but I was reminded many months back of the innocence of youth as I sat at lunch with my youngest son at a Chinese Buffet in Loganville. The owner I have known for many years and she had her three boys there with her it was late afternoon we had been working at the High School moving back into my room from having new carpet put in.

The Chinese restaurant owner’s sons were sitting playing at the next booth. As they talked, some was in English some in Chinese as the chattered back and forth and giggled playing games as small children do. The boys were between 3 and 5 years old. One of the boys using his fingers to pull his eyes slanted said I am a Chinese boy now. As I sat and thought about how there were so many possible meanings to that. I know his family; both his mother and father are from mainland China and very active in cultural awareness programs in local schools and the community. So was this an example of an innocent child’s color blindness or was it a slight to his heritage. I would like to think it was simply youthful innocence. “There is a time to ever season”, we cannot choose the road of our genetics but we can choose the directions and pathways we take with it. We can choose the words and actions we exhibit. Earlier today I read a post wondering about genetic preference for music and I responded it is deeper than genetics. Spiritual is the energy tying all together.

Several years ago, as I wrote the word black indicating race I was reminded that it is politically correct to say Afro-American. I was intrigued, I am still called a white person within the context of the discussion not a Welsh, English, German, Irish, Native American, Hebrew, Scottish, Amish person. After a moment or two I came up with WEGINAHSA that would work. I wonder if I called someone a Weginahsa if they would be upset or if I could get that listed as an ethnic group. I could list it under other. I am a Weginahsa pronounced Wee – jean – A – house – a. I am no longer just white I am a proud weginahsa, if I can spell it correctly and pronounce it the same twice in a row. I am reminded of another politically correct nomenclature Native American. The late Russell Means asked a reporter who was speaking about Native Americans where he was born. He responded in New York and Means said you too are a Native American and then said I prefer to be called Indian.

We choose the roads and pathways we choose the words and implications of those words and the attitudes that formulates them. I was thinking back to Piaget and theories of development of children and at what age do we see color? At what age do we begin to find differences in humans? Pondering and looking again at Dr. Martin Luther King’s words, as he made the comment about a street sweeper. It is our choice as to how great or how little we are and it is our choice whether we truly are free or not. That is not in the devlopmentalist guide book that is ours to decide. Today is the time and the season for us to be who we are and that we are able to think act and be free, please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and a key is to always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird