don't lose sleep

school ended.

teeth

teeth

what matters?

someone died today.

loss.

fear of losing.

it was good, last week, in conversation

to hear myself saying, "that was when i was sad"

like it was a billion years ago

a childhood memory

formed by it, but so far removed

i have been immeasurably happy

and am

but it occurred to me

that i will not always be

this happy-

that sad will make its round again.

what matters

in a world where people

are lost?

now

happy or sad

matters

maybe.

do not succumb to unfounded fear

do not dwell on if

but make a little

home in now

without boundary

Sound bytes:

"Ms. I, is it bad for someone not to believe in God?"

"What do you mean by bad?"

.... "I don't know... like, my cousin is an atheist."

"People are always growing and changing and trying to figure things out. It is OK to question."

Concerning students/people who defy expectations:

"What it comes down to is someone at some point told them they could do anything they wanted to do."

Why her parents chose to raise her as they did:

"No one told them that who they are is enough. No one encouraged them to do what they wanted. So they made the conscious decision to raise us differently."

Maybe the most important role of teachers/parents rests in paradox. To provide a framework from which to view the world, but also to encourage them to challenge or question or explore outside of the framework. To set clear limits and at the same time to teach them that there really are none.

like a field of forces

although i've broken ties with a belief in god, i wonder what to think about the whole idea of the transcendent.

because i have (had) moments

of transcendence.

(transcendence from what? to what? into what? retreat or advance? an acute awareness of being, the way the present moment consumes any thought of past or future, embodying freedom at whatever cost)

whatever this is... this deep deep peace and contentedness... i want it to stay. i feel more of a sense of wonder and awe at life and the natural world than i have in a long long time.

free to wonder and feel and be.

"The disappearance of all things and of the I leaves what cannot disappear, the sheer fact of being in which one participates, whether one wants to or not, without having taken the initiative, anonymously. Being remains, like a field of forces, like a heavy atmosphere belonging to no one, universal, returning in the midst of the negation which put it aside, and in all the powers to which that negation may be multiplied." -Levinas

"Talk of mysteries! think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come into contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?" -Thoreau

i suppose moments of transcendence could be explained away through some reference to the interplay between our cognition and emotions. and i suppose emotions could be explained away as some evolutionary function that allows us to avoid hurt, overcome challenges.... and that's all fine and good. but shhhhhhh... i feel no desire to explain it away. i want to feel and i want to stay.

what i do know is

what i do know is

it is good to be.

honestly.