from Whitman's "Song of Myself"

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and
am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

...

16

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,

...

A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)

17

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.

...

19

...

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the
side of a rock has.

Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
through the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

20

Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;
How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?

What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.

I do not snivel that snivel the world over,
That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.

Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity
goes to the fourth-remov'd,
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.

Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with
doctors and calculated close,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.

I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
after all.)

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.

one from Rumi

Those who don't feel this Love

pulling them like a river,

those who don't drink dawn

like a cup of spring water

or take in sunset like supper,

those who don't want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,

that old trickery and hypocrisy.

If you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.

I've torn the cloth to shreds

and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,

wrap your beautiful robe of words

around you,

and sleep.

- Rumi, in "Essential Sufism"

And according to my Chinese Horoscope (I am an "Earth Sheep," or, a Goat)...

In China this is the month of the Rooster. Goats and Roosters are not fast friends. You Goat people are too funky and airy for their steely taste. So this month may be a bit tougher for you than the last two. Again, your temper may turn out to be your worst enemy. People who want you to conform to their way of doing things irritate you. You are often someone who isn't afraid of compromise and concession, but when it comes to your work life, you can be exceedingly stubborn. [No kidding]

The best way for you to manage your over reacting to suggestions you alter your way of approaching a project, would be to adopt a policy of nodding and telling the person or persons politely that you need time to ponder the matter. "Thank you; I will think about this" is all you have to say. [I will take this approach into consideration] Then, take the time to look inward and discover exactly what you think about it. And while you're thinking, try to figure out what transforms you from a creative, ethereal, gentle soul into a raging beast when someone makes a comment about your work. You ought really to take up meditation, see a therapist or attend anger management classes. One thing will sooth your rage this month, and that is children. Either your own or somebody else's kids will be around a lot in September. Play with them and enjoy their innocence. The company of little ones always brings out the best in Goats. [who's bringing the kids over?]

Once again, Yes! Magazine has led me to the pasture of inspiration, this time in the form of Radical Educator and Free Thinker John Taylor Gatto, who wrote an article there for the latest, Education themed issue.

His article, Take Back Your Education, begins with the byline, "More and more people across America are waking up to the mismatch between what is taught in schools and what common sense tells us we need to know," asking the reader/public, "What can you do about it?"

Well, this was a welcome poke in the side a week before school begins, as I have been struggling with reconciling my own, admittedly Gatto-esque curriculum with the new "standards" for the classes I am teaching, including such antiquated and generally counterproductive practices as grading rubrics and so forth -- the core of encouraging backwards exercises in mimicry, obedience and fear, and without doubt the largest proponent of plagiarism.

At current, the problem on my end is no longer that of how to be a radical student -- I think I've learned my lessons via and against the Academy, taking Twain's adage, "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education," to heart -- but rather on that of being a radical educator, as far as is possible within these systems.

Here he quotes ________ (will refer back), expressing the goals of public education -- it's frightening to see it in print. Gives a clear visual on what exactly I've been railing against.

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

When one believes Gatto's claims about the "absurd and anti-life" functions and processes of the current institution of education, (best expressed in his 1990 speech "The Psychopathic School", and published three years later in the volume, Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling) how does one go about working and teaching therein? I have come largely to the conclusion that my own schooling will best be continued outside those hallowed halls, but what of teaching?

I have had many teachers in my life, some of whom have been my students, some of whom have been my family, some friends, and some people who passed through my life only briefly. Their titles are unimportant in regards to what I learned at their sides, in their words, in watching these people. The title of "teacher" is often not appropriate for the people that are at the front of the classroom, nor do they earn the title suggested by the word simply by assuming that titular role -- it's also a sad fact that many who can be found at this post have neither a desire or intent to become a true "teacher."

Unfortunately, the system is such that those who seek higher education for their own purposes -- whether research, writing, other professional ventures or so on is the goal --are relied upon as the workhorses of the college system. From the greenest of teaching assistants to full tenured professors, these persons are at the mercy of an institution that takes the education of its young as taxation of those it supports for their higher academic pursuits.

We've all experienced the student side of these classrooms -- both the one in which the class is beset by a young graduate student who clearly has no knowledge of pedagogy but overcompensates for this nervousness with cruelty and grandstanding, and the one in which we've a respected, even lauded elder who clearly has no interest in actual engagement with the students, who is content with spouting off his or her genius while waiting for the bell to ring -- both that which announces a return to the beloved library, or that announcing blessed sabbatical has come once more.

Working in the public university system can make one want to give up teaching -- something many do. It is not the most encouraging environment: one fears loss of one's livelihood for teaching in the way one feels one should, must, teach. One is paid a pittance and always on the razor's edge of receiving health benefits -- one, for instance, is taking maternity leave and is neither allotted paid time off or healthcare during this time. One is not considered a "full time employee" even with the courseload of full-time employees, so that the institution can be excused from having to treat one as a full-time employee: ie, benefits-wise, unemployment-wise, and so on. If there aren't enough classes to be taught and one finds oneself without a job, well then -- one simply finds oneself without a job, no matter how long one has been teaching there... and without unemployment benefits.

To say that it's frustrating wouldn't begin to express the bind one finds oneself in - especially when dealing with the conflict above: how to do one's lesson plan, one's syllabus, how to teach when one's job is already so in danger. Whose interest wins out, and what does it even mean to make the choice in the "interest" of the student, or the self? Can one morally engage in teaching practices one feels deeply opposed to, in the interest of sustaining the self financially or in regards to one's health? At the same time, one must "put the oxygen mask on yourself first!" so as to be in the state one must be in to help others... and where does that leave us?

Well, for now, it leaves us thus: three days before school, putting together a reading from Gatto to inspire my frosh, intending to continue to skirt the line. That is -- to both follow the rules as well as shake the dust up enough to see the limitations and laser red lines that they draw around and through our ideas and classrooms. To work into my own lesson plans lectures that inspire my students to do the same.

Today I woke up and found myself out of sorts -- I'd had a "normal" day yesterday and this tired me extraordinarily. When I returned home at six I went straight upstairs seeking the cool of the airconditioning, to check my email, and so forth -- but then only to forage for food somewhat later did I find the energy to return downstairs. This overly-restful evening set me up for a strange night's sleep, and so I found myself up early but without the bounce I'd like. This is happening with some frequency as the internal changes press on my bladder so I will have to figure out some techniques for not getting too over-tired. On these days it can be harder to remember to cultivate a yogic outlook so here I've posted some teachings as a gentle reminder to myself and anyone for whom it may be useful.

Based on teachings by Lama Marut How to cultivate happiness by practicing All Day Yoga:

• All day yoga starts by getting a good night's sleep. Nobody benefits from your crankiness and
mental afflictions are lining up to explode when you are not well rested.

• Wake up with enough time to loll around in bed for ten or fifteen minutes. Try not to start your day
by being jolted out of bed with a crazy alarm and do not jump out of bed and start running around
like a chicken with its head cut off.

• For the first part of the loll, think of what an incredible miracle your life is. You have relative health,
a sound mind, shelter, food, you live in a country that lets you practice peacefully, you have access
to all the precious ancient teachings in your own language, you have access to teachers from a pure
lineage. All systems are go for you in this lifetime. Liberation is in the palm of your hand. See it for
what it is! Every day you can add things to be grateful for.

• For the second part of the loll, think of how this opportunity will not last. Everything good that
arises must go. We must have worked very hard to have all of these opportunities. What will we do
with it? Will we waste it by being distracted by meaningless things? In our last moments of life, all
of the dramas we are currently caught up in will seem just like a dream, like a bubble. Think about
how this could very well be your last day. How will you live it?

• Get up and do some asana to get the prana moving and to unclog your spiritual arteries. Then do
your meditation. If you are a beginner, start with ten minutes focusing on the breath. When the
mind strays from the breath, notice it, trace it back. When you are ready for analytical meditations,
ask a teacher to guide you. Meditation is a must if you want to progress along the path. You cannot
seriously transform your mind if you don't meditate.

• Go do your thing out in the world and carry your practice with you. Check on your yamas and
niyamas all day long. This is the only way you will ever get happy. Have you noticed that being
angry doesn't make us happy? Being envious of what other people have doesn't make us happy?
Thinking only of what's in it for me does not make me happy. Instead watch your mind. Watch how
it turns things around. Instead of being completely self-cherishing, think how you can serve
someone else today. Who can I make smile? Who can I bring coffee? Who can I offer one moment of
happiness to?

• Come home and sit back on your couch. Do not turn on the tv. There is nothing on except toxic waste to poison your mind and increase your ignorance. You are not missing anything; in fact, you will gain some sanity by not watching. Instead, sit back and think about what it will be like when you are enlightened. Fantasize about what it feels like to be free of mental pain of any kind, physical pain of any kind. What would it be like to love each person like they were my only child? You must start to imagine this to be able to reach these goals. Make it conceivable.

• Then have some dinner and do whatever else you need to do.

• Before you go to bed, spend some time reading a sacred text. Don't bother trying to stay caught up with the bestseller list. All of that knowledge that is meaningless will just leak out of your brain one day. Read something that teaches you to be a better person, a kinder person. Look at all the great beings that have walked this earth. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus… They all have one thing in common. They lived to serve others. Have those kinds of thoughts in your mind as you fall asleep.

today's from the earth meditation:

carrots, beets, and cipollini onions, roasted with olive oil, balsamic, sea salt, ground pepper and a touch of sugar. made the house smell like dreaming.

today's reading meditation:

John Berger's About Looking (not to be confused with "About Seeing" with which we are more familiar) -- and further led me to the inspirational "Here is Where We Meet" events in London...

yesterday was full of John Cage's words. his birthday is coming up on September 5th.

there is a celebration via the poetry project at St. Marks Church

not surprisingly, today's musical meditation comes courtesy of Cage, his composition for piano,

"In a Landscape."

I can't help but also include Cage and Duchamp's "Discs" segment of Richter's film, "Dreams Money Can Buy," because I find it so interesting, and haunting -- not in the least because of the offset from the noir-esque narrative frame. It doesn't seem to want to be embedded so here's the link.

Sigh, I eschew the structure for the content, but as Cage himself said, the structure allows us to see... without having been in school I would have been without the tools, but it's time to take them to other, less institutional shops. On y va!