Bloom, Bloom (vol. 4, no. 8)

Here are a few things I’m sharing this month:

1. Question I’m living with:

• “Again and again, you vowed to be humble as soil. You broke your word every time. When you keep it, what will bloom?” – Rumi (Haleh Liza Gafori – Gold Rumi)

2. Quote I’m considering:

• “The doctor went to see the rabbi. ‘Tell me, rabbi, please,’ he said, ‘about God.’ The rabbi pulled out some books. She talked about Jacob wrestling the angel. She talked about Heschel and the kernel of wonder as a seedling that could grow into awe. She tugged at her braid and told a Hasidic story about how it is said that at the end of your life, you will need to apologize to God for the ways you have not lived. ‘Not for the usual sins,’ she said. ‘For the sin of living small.’ – Ellen Burstyn

3. Poem I’m pondering:

“Saint Francis and the Sow” by Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

4. Something inspiring:

• Press 3 for a pep-talk from kindergartners! Peptoc Hotline features pre-recorded life advice and encouraging messages from the students at West Side Elementary, a K-6th public school in rural Healdsburg, California. (ht Recomendo)

5. My Rewild School manuscript is in the hands of five beta-readers. Here’s an excerpt reflecting on the benefits of my being from a blue-collared background in academia:

“Coming from the outer rim, the edge, the borderlands, I was not burdened by academia’s baggage of beliefs. I was not held back by what it considered sacrosanct. What it considered “right”. What is held to be traditionally true. And, not being steeped in these things meant that I was not blinkered by these things. I did not know the history of what had come before me. I knew less.

And, knowing less gave me creative spaciousness, a freedom to experiment, invent and wonder what would happen if my students and I did things a different way. It let my instincts emerge. It allowed me to access something wiser and smarter and better than me.

I burrowed into my personal experiences and past for guidance from my best teachers, mentors and coaches. I turned inward and tapped into something universal – the hero’s journey, the monomyth and rites of passages with their second-birth.”

Thanks so much. And, have a great day! – shawn