Do You See What I Mean?

From the webmaster: Michael D’Aleo will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional AWSNA Conference hosted by Toronto Waldorf School in late March, as well as at the 16th annual Gateways Early Childhood Conference in April. Since he will be such a prominent guest to the school, we invited him to write a feature article for the TWS eNews outlining the central message of his upcoming talks. 

 

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?

by Michael D’Aleo

 

Being present to all that is unexpected: this is what it means to be living.

The day had been a very busy one at school.  As often happens at the end of the week, I was simply intending to stop by the store and pick up a few items for dinner and get home so I could finish my school work.  Having efficiently found the items I needed, I walked quickly to the front of the store only to be met with a line of closed checkout lanes.  Only two cashiers were on duty and both of them were busy with customers with large orders.  Additionally, there were other people silently waiting in the lines behind the customers checking out.  There was no choosing the faster lane; here was only slowness.  This was going to take longer than I had planned.  Initially frustrated, I settled in for the long haul.  Ignoring the gossip magazines after an initial cursory glance, my attention fell on the busy cashiers and customers unloading their carts - slowly.  As I accepted the present situation, I became interested in the movements of the people around me.  Their gestures, facial expressions and general silence were the only living presence in the otherwise sterile store.  Like characters in a scripted play that had been rehearsed one too many times, I noted that neither the cashiers, the customers nor myself were really paying attention to what was happening.  All were simply acting their part.  Suddenly, in an instant, the sounds, colors, motions, gestures, subtle facial expressions began to speak.   Every detail began to express a greater conversation that was taking place, even drowning out the incessant beep of the scanner.  In that moment the living quality of existence was suddenly expressing itself.  But was I the only one who had noticed? As I looked again at the deliberate motions of the cashier scanning the items, it reminded me of the state I too had embodied just a moment ago.  I had unconsciously given myself a gift – what I call “the gift of presence” - I had come back to my senses.   

Being present.  This can make a chance encounter, a delayed flight, congested traffic, a flat tire, a person late in picking you up, or simply being too tired to walk further, a great gift.  It is a “gift” we can receive from another or give to ourself.  The “gift” I am suggesting is not simply the possibility of developing patience or the opportunity to respond to all those text messages or cell phone calls that lie unanswered.  The “gift” that I am speaking of is one where the unexpected halt to our busy schedule - the one that was not “planned” for, but is presently manifesting in the 7:35 to 8:53 a.m. time slot as you sit stuck in traffic- is a reminder to come back into a living relationship.   

“The plan I had made the night before is not going to happen. (Not going to happen.)  Now - what will I do? What will I do?  Fret over the lost time?  Use it productively?  If only I could get back to the plan…”  

The situation takes us completely out of our tightly planned schedule and throws us into a world of direct experiences.  This happens to us all the time, but are we open to receiving “the possibility” present in the given situation?  

The “gift” of these moments (they can go on for hours) is that they create the opportunity for us to “come back to our senses.”  While this phrase is commonly used to express the need wake up from a state of fantasy or fancy and to come back to a state in which we are using common sense, it is interesting to note that it literally invokes us to do so by using  our “senses”. The expression reminds us of a deeper truth – the development of true ideas and concepts is based upon rich sensory experiences.  True knowing is to be fully awake to sensation and to find or build conceptual relationships between the various sensations.  This use of the word “sense”, as in “sensible”, conveys images of knowing that are reasonable, while pointing to the origin of that knowing - experiences that are full of sensation.  How many phrases in our language that convey understanding actually have an origin in the descriptions of sharing a common sensation?  

“Do you see what I mean?” -  “Does this ring true?” – “Are you warming up to this idea?”

Perhaps you’re saying: “I hear what you’re saying.” - “That feels right to me”- or even, “Something doesn’t smell right here.” 

Or when a statement is made that we disagree with:  “That’s nonsense!” 

Maybe you can recall a number of other phrases along this line of thinking.  Note that in each case, a word describing a sensation is used metaphorically as a statement of knowing.  True knowing must begin with sensation and constantly be corrected as the sense impressions change.  We “wake up” in the moments when we notice that a new sense impression has just corrected an inappropriately applied habitual concept from the past. We don’t usually live in our senses.  We often live in the comfortable world of previously thought ideas about the way “things are”, based on remembered past experiences.  

As a teacher, I have found that the only time I am really preparing students for the life that they will live, the life of the future, is when I go beyond my comfortable world of previously thought ideas about the way “things are” so that I can teach them how to fully use their senses and live in the present. While it is still possible to tell a story, teach a mathematical concept or discuss a period in history (the wisdom of the past), all of us know that unless we, the teacher, are mindful of the present, the lesson we had planned will fail.  This is not to say that planning a lesson isn’t important: it is the road map that takes the class forward.  Yet, if we aren’t careful, the class becomes like a scene out of the movie “American Vacation” where the plan creates a series of checked off destinations but nothing has really been seen.  Those unexpected events of the day are the moments when our greatest possibility for being present is possible.  To be present is to be living.  

A few years ago I was teaching a main lesson class with the 11^th grade in Electricity and Magnetism.  On the first day of the block we perform a few experiments as a class.  One of the experiments takes about 7 minutes to prepare, and just as we completed the experiment we observed that….. nothing happened!  Just as I was about to state that “that’s not what is supposed to happen”, I caught myself and noted that one of the steps had been performed backwards. The pieces of material we were separating were upside down!  What HAD happened was exactly what was “supposed to happen” as I had missed a detail and not quite followed the procedure I had outlined correctly.  (In that moment we, the class, were no longer on the map or following the guidebook!)  In that moment I refrained from speaking and said nothing.  I paused and said, “Note what has happened” (nothing unusual).  “Now let’s perform this experiment again only this time lets turn the materials so the other sheet is on the top.”  Without missing a beat the students followed the instructions again, made one small change and now the results were completely different!   The comparison of the two different setups, identical but for one small detail, became one of those unexpected but great teaching moments.  Now, these differences are becoming a part of the new map; a much bigger map but one that still doesn’t encompass the unexpected details that creep into science lessons and daily life.   

Being present to all that is unexpected; this is what it means to be living.  To see that the conditions of today may or may not be the same as yesterday allows us to live in the present rather than living out the life we have already planned.  Sometimes we have a pre-planned life for ourself, a spouse, a friend, or is it a preplanned life for the students in our class?  Do we notice when one of the people we are interacting with has changed?   

We do need a roadmap for occasional reference!  The question is: Are you seeing the scenery, can you smell, hear, sense and read the more subtle qualities of the space?  Or are you simply reading a 10 year old guidebook?  How can we let go of the guidebook we use every day to name the people, name their qualities, name the sensation we use to identify these concepts themselves?  How far can we go in coming back to our senses?  

“Do you see what I mean?”  

 

 

 Lost  

by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.

I have made this place around you,

If you leave it you may come back again saying here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost.  Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.