Bucket or Fire?

"Education is not the filling of the pail, it is the lighting of a fire." --W. B. Yeats

This is a quote I give to my students every semester. It is shorthand for a very simple question: are you a bucket or a fire? I want the fires. I am happy to fuel. It is not my job to fill.

Last week in advanced compostion, my students came to the conclusion that they require both--are in fact both. How can they synthesize and create, come up with new ideas and solutions, if they are not given their fill of the bucket to then process and draw on? It is their job to take their fill and discover what is fuel. Perfectly sensible. There are plenty of concepts and ideas that they must obtain (bucket): Toulmin logic, the rhetorical situation; understanding how to appeal to an audience with the topics that interest them, and then bend and shape their approach in tailored ways for that audience (purpose). Simple, yet it has been over 20 classes and this is the first one that made this simple distinction--we are both bucket and fire.

This points to purpose in teaching. It is my job to select the concepts for the bucket, to present them clearly so the students can then take the ideas and use them as fuel to prompt their own inquiry to feed the fire. Have I mentioned how much I love my job?

I have been struggling with my own learning process. Pissy and defensive because I feel like I've been treated like a bucket in my yoga teacher training. Here is a list of questions: now memorize the answers. The Budda's teachings, sankya philosophy, Patanjali, Vedanta, postures, sutras, anatomy: yoga teacher training has felt like an endless stream of concepts I'm expected to digest whole and spill out verbatum. Where is the experiential wisdom? When do all of these ideas grow from bucket(filler) to fire (fuel)?

The teacher has to present the bucket (basics) in a way that allows the students to process the information and make it their own. Let it fuel the fire. I have tried to ask questions and promote discussion in yoga class--in an effort to develop understanding. Squeaky wheel--a role I am used to playing (my Mom has pointed out my tendency for years a la the James Taylor song Shower the People. I'm the middle child--I'm the link, the one who notices, the one who wants everyone to not simply get along but understand). I'm tired of squeaking in yoga class, I wish more people hungered for understanding enough to speak up. I care enough to question and poke--and yet it feels like I'm just an annoyance, holding back the flow of filler for the bucket. 

Years ago, I learned what happens when I get overwhelmed with information at RISD. Too much is like a blanket, it snuffs out the fire. I came in to art school loving drawing, and by the time I left it had become an abstraction--and worse it was work. I lost my passion for making art.

I will do my best to protect the embers that remain. I don't want to loose my appetite in this buffet of information. As a student I need to remember to take responsibility for nurturing and protecting my own intellectual curiosity. This is my fire to tend, I need to sort out the fuel and accept what I see as the filler. Because who knows what will become fuel in the future?

Top 100 Words

I found the list of my top 100 words (see post below). Here they are in alphabetical order:

bawdy, bite, bounce, brim, callous, candid, cinnamon, crass, crave, creep, crunch, daisy, defenestrate, dusk, elation, erudite, euphoria, fawning, ferocious, fervor, fey, filament, fountain, frippery, fuck, fume, gangly, garrulous, giggle, gloaming, gory, gorgeous, grace, grate, grimy, grisly, gross, gruesome, guttural, honey, hope hiccup, hilarious, irate, irk, irreverent, illuminate, jaunt, jerk, juicy, lethargic, lick, lily, lugubrious, luminous, lush, mercy, mincing, munch, myopic, obtuse, ocean, odious, ogle, passionate, peaceful, pillow, pity, pompous, primp, prestidigitory, pungent, putrid, rant, rile, rip, sagacious, salacious, scrape, serendipity, shirk, skin, silly, sizzle, stammer, steam, suck, sweet, tickle, undulate, vacillate, vapor, veranda, virescent, vivid, wanton, weep, willow, wisp.

I think I'd keep most of them still. Funny there are no As--what about amaze?

Here's the top 10 (as rated in September 2004):

ferocious, fuck, giggle, grace, hilarious, luminous, lush, sagacious, tickle, virescent

Virescent is one of those words that popped into my head and I didn't know what it meant (I don't recall the circumstance). It means to become green. Green is my favorite color (especially a bright lime version that is what I like to call iguana belly green--or Larry belly after my dear, departed pet iguana).

Yesterday, abrogate popped in (while I was showering, so I forgot)--I know I've known its meaning, but I can't access it. It just popped in again as I was writing this so it obviously needs to be looked up: to put aside, to put an end to.

Ok, I can take a hint--I've got piles of papers to grade!

What Not to Do

So much of teaching is prompting discovery. I can tell my students what not to do, but most will do the don'ts repeatedly. This is no surprise, I do plenty of things I know I shouldn't. I waste time and then get stressed out that there isn't enough time. I behave badly: I dislike (sometimes I hate), I feel envy, I blame (sometimes me even). I don't write even though I know writing will feed me. I don't eat well (unless Kit Kats and cheetoes qualify as nutritious). 

I forget what I know until I rub up against it again. Sometimes it isn't so subtle, more like bouncing off a sliding glass door I thought was open. Sometimes it is just a whisper. 

A few years ago I was out in my yard at 3 AM because my dog woke me up. He couldn't wait until morning? I had opened the gate and was peeking in the downstairs windows at the work my tenant was doing on the space. I felt a feathery wisp on my leg. "Andre!" I screamed, "get in the yard!" Andre is not furry. What I felt was not my muffin daring out into dangerous territory without a leash. There is no part of him that is feathery (maybe his whiskers), he is all tightness and compact muscle. The skunk at my side froze. I looked into the yard to see Andre ready to pounce. "UPSTAIRS!" I demanded and Andre obeyed. The skunk did what skunks do. I was in my nightgown, it was a hot summer night, still and stifling. I had the nightgown off before I made it to the top of the stairs. My eyes squirted stinging tears. After showering for a long time, I got out to discover I couldn't tell if the stink was gone. Every window in the house was open, my whole house was suffused in the smell that makes me gag for miles when I pass skunk roadkill on the highway--even with the windows up. 

Some students get the glass door ah-ha, others the whisper, some the skunk--the lucky ones find their way to knowing somehow--if I do my job well. I whisper, I do cartwheels and dance, I yell and rant, I beg and plead, but mostly I ask questions so they can find their own answers. That's my job.

An old friend from high school (the friend/best friend as only going to an all girls high school can cultivate--I like to think we were on our own island in what often felt like a sea of bitches) commented recently on how ironic it is that I am a teacher, considering all of the bad teachers we had way back when. She went so far as to say they were destructive. Those were some of my best teachers, they showed me what not to do, over and over again. 

But the best teacher is experience, the awareness of oops--because sometimes knowing what you should or shouldn't do isn't enough. Sometimes the hard way is the only way to learn. We do stupid things. So I'll keep giving my students the heads up on ways to avoid mistakes and they'll keep making them until the oops resonates enough to change their behavior. And I'll try to avoid skunks, but I'll continue to keep the windows (and doors) open.

Finding the Right Fit

I love words. In my favorite class of all time, Sylistics, we had to make a list of our top 100 favorite words. It was a few years back, but I can still remember some of them: giggle, defenestrate, hope, frolic, fuck, silly, vomit,  grin, illuminate, kismet, fear, luminous...

I learned that I have an affinity for two kinds of words.

1. words that sound like what they mean

2. words that are amazingly specific in their meaning

Learning sanskrit has altered the landscape in my mind. Strange plants, some beautiful, others simply functional have nestled in among the daisies--the best are a combination (form and function). Many of the words are simply shorthand for ideas I've had for a long time that took a lot more words to articulate in English.

It is a truly amazing thing to discover words that fit your beliefs. 

"To be of use." That's how I've articulated my goal in life for years. In the best, truest, most positive and productive way--to be of use (I stole the phrase from Homer Wells in John Irving's "The Cider House Rules"). And now I find that there is a (sanskrit) word for that: dharma. In the Bhagavad Gita, it is the Dharma of the warrior (Arjuna) to fight. For many of us, dharma is not so clear. 

What are we meant to do? How do we fit in and find a way to feel fulfilled?

I have a trick that I use to keep me awake (as opposed to asleep/dialing it in)--or as my friend Andrea put it to me many years ago: you have your kite with your key and it needs to be out there in the storm--and it is. But you are sitting on the couch, warm and safe and dry. The kite is out the window. Get up, go outside, and get wet. However you want to put it--to test that you are engaged, alive, present, awake (not on the couch)--think about this:

What would you do if you won the lottery? More money than you could spend in a lifetime. After you bought houses for your family and friends (is that just me?) and went on a trip with everyone you wanted with you to celebrate (tropical if you're me). Eventually you'd have to settle down and do something with the rest of your life.  How would you fill your days? 

I'd write and teach writing and yoga.

What would you do? I hope you're doing it. If not, what are you waiting for?

Tanning--What's Next?

In the beginning of the semester, I give my students a questionnaire to fill out. Basic questions to help me get to know them, and also to help me put them in groups of 4-6 for the semester. At the end of the form, I ask them to tell me a little about their interests. This year, several students listed "tanning" as an activity.

Admittedly, I've never been to a tanning place, but I still can't fathom getting cooked under damaging false sunlight as a fun thing to do. What's next? Showering? Doing the dishes? 

I don't get it. And yet, if the goal is to be in the moment (present)--and that is the goal because happiness is a state of being and can only be glimpsed in the moment--and tanning does it, so be it.

Last night in yoga class I had my first visit of a sanskrit word. Words tend to pop into my head at strange moments, words I don't know and have to look up in the dictionary. The classic example: in a heated argument with my old boss (we were screaming), I blurted out; "What does defenestrate mean?" He didn't know. I took a break and went downstairs to my office to find out. It means to murder someone by throwing him out a window.

Such a great word, defenestrate--so specific. Who knew? A week or so later the word was used on Law and Order. 

Which brings me to coincidence. Did you ever notice that things often coincide and align in a magical (freaky) way? This morning I was chatting via facebook  with an old friend and I reminded her of the foot fetish guy we met after going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This evening, an author was on NPR talking about his book about desire and aversion--fetishes. The first example was a guy with a foot fetish. Have I mentioned that I don't like feet at all? Yuck.

Maybe I'll tell my prostitute/foot fetish story tomorrow.

The word of the day (from last night's yoga class) is: abhyasa. It means constant practice. Yoga on and off the mat. Yoga, by the way, means union, yoke, to join together: body/mind/spirit. Tanning bed or shower, we all have a duty to find our way to presence. I think I'll grab some playing with my dog.

Is That Really You?

I just joined facebook and it was the strangest thing to see the suggestions (for friends/people I may know)--ghosts floating up from the past. 

Has me thinking about old wounds and the friends I lost in the process. Which leads me to today's topic: compassion vs. sympathy.

Tricia (Open Heart Yoga) pointed out in class the other day that when we feel compassion we "feel with"; sympathy only allows us to "feel for". 

The dangers of compassion: feeling too much. Sympathy is safer, a one way flow (you give what you can, even if it is just empty words).

An overactive imagination can fuel compassion into a conflagration of epic proportions. This is what allows me to write, but it is also what can unhinge me at times. Sympathy is so much safer. There are no walls in compassion. You become the other, in that you experience their emotions fully. The upside is that it isn't all pain and suffering--joy and celebration transfer too. A risk worth taking. 

Decide to go with the flow--literally. Compassion means letting emotions out and in (see the holiday post). The next time a stranger (or someone you live with) does something completely maddening--put yourself in their shoes (sorry for the cliche) and respond from there. The old "do unto others" advice is easy when you allow yourself to become the other.

Example: my old neighbor put Andre's (my dog) poop on my stoop (funny rhyme). She boasted it loudly. My reaction: I was sorry to hear that she took pleasure in acting with malice. I asked her why she didn't talk to me first. Had I done something to suggest I was unreasonable? I told her I couldn't imagine being proud of such an act. I said I hoped she was willing to talk to me and resolve it.  My reaction was heartfelt (I was stunned she would do something so mean--she seemed really nice). She apologized. After that, she went out of her way to say hello and be pleasant.

Maybe when people do recklessly mean things, they just need someone to calmly hold up a mirror and ask with compassion: is this really you?

Get Inspired

Just watched this talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (you should too):

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

(If it doesn't work as a link, copy and paste it.)

The talk is 19 minutes, so grab a cup of coffee and settle in, then come back to discuss.

My reaction....

I'm not doing my job.

I know this. I've known this.

All the excuses rain down, I'm drowning in excuses.

• Teaching comes first (responsibility to my students).  I can't discount this one, other than the fact that teaching leaves plenty of time for writing.
• I don't have anything to write about. This one is easy: if you build it, they will come. I know I have to sit down and do the grunt work if I want the muse, inspiration, source--whatever you want to call it--to show up. A simple freewrite would unearth countless possibilities.
• I don't have anything I really want to write about (the way I did with Salt Licks/novel 1). See above--mining for gold is the responsibility of the artist, we can't expect inspiration to magically show up. Sometimes it does, sure. Other times, we have to pursue it, or at least in my case, sit down at the desk and invite it in.
• Yoga Teacher Training is my first priority (after teaching) and it takes so much time and energy. Yes, true. I committed to making it a priority. Not true that it takes all the remaining (non-teaching) time. This excuse is especially troubling since writing about my experiences would help me process what I am learning and coming up against personally (last night it was the sticky issue of past lives/reincarnation).
• Family & friend commitments. These are by choice; and the fuel that keeps me joyful and connected. But it is writing that keeps me sane, energized--my best self to share with others. To not write is to weaken my ability to shine. I realize I am ignoring my dharma when I don't write (what I'm meant to do/my way of being of use in this life). Teaching is only half the equation, to be the best teacher of writing, I need to be a writer who writes.

There are other excuses, but none of them stick. The drowning is an illusion. I stand on dry ground and refuse to get wet. 

I have to start doing my job again. Show up, jump in, and don't just tread water and gaze anxiously and the shore. Swim. Dive below the surface and see what's hidden there, waiting for my attention.