Weathering Today's Storms with our Life-Value




I’m going to combine the above reference to week 19 of Dear Teachers and my Verbostratis blog essay for this week, Personal and Public Ikigai in the United States, because they dovetail.

As I’ve stated before, January’s Dear Teachers essays revolve around “time”, especially “now”. Where I live, we’re expecting some winter storms over the next 48 hours, so the theme is fitting. In Marlene’s photo, her capture of the beautiful colors and textures of a summer storm rushing in reminded me that life is like that: wild stuff rolls in. We all have storms and it feels like they do so when we’re knee-deep in our “stuff”. Can we make it through them? Most likely, yes, if we have firm roots. The ways to form those roots are what I wrote about in the September-December essays.




Our roots can also be described as our ikigai- our life-value. If we’re living in our passion and in a mission, AND if we’re within a culture that allows us to do that sustainably as a profession and as a vocation, we have made it to our ikigai. We are living a life we value AND that others value. We need both.

Most of us have parts of this picture right now. In other words, we have roots, but they could be made substantially stronger. Life’s storms, whatever we decide they are, will more than likely do some damage to us in our present states.

I made a connection this week over this essay with an educator in Seoul named Matthew Boomhower, whose own special interest is global education. In his blog, he writes of his philosophy: 

“The more time I spend in the classroom, the more I come to see education as an experience in which the line between the teacher and student blurs in a community of learning.” 


In Week 19, I wrote that we can ride out the storms of life better if we do so together. All of us (all adults and children, everywhere) can reach our ikigai by doing things more in community. How we could do that is a whole other huge discussion. (Can I add here how stoked I am to combine Japanese, American and Korean references in a single essay?)

I send you sincere wishes for success in your coming week. What are your storms? What are your roots? Comment below or go tell both to a friend. Ask them of theirs. The more connections we find, the better off we’ll all be.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Heart Within

Image
I just finished writing a big essay on my main blog, called Spring and the Death of Denial . It was in response to a fantastic conversation on a philosophical radio program called On Being. Now, I’m hopping back into Dear Teachers , and am struck by how this week’s essay, the last of the April focus on what’s really there, connects to that. When we don’t want people to see who and what we really are, we throw up defenses. When we don’t trust the people that surround us, we again build barriers. Within those walls, we are one thing. Outside of those walls, we are something else. To grow, we first have to admit the walls exist within all of us. They come from our families and traditions. From our own pasts. From our own needs. From our own fears. In this week’s essay, the image from Marlene that I chose was a close-up of a lily in full bloom. The center of that flower is bright yellow, while the outer edges are a deep red, trimmed in that same golden hue. We don’t get t...
Read more

Life's Sweetness When We Look

Image
I slid 2 poems into Dear Teachers. Week 22 is the first. (Week 32 is the second, if you’re keeping track.) Overall, my writing style has become more poem-like as I’ve grown older. Shorter and more lean. However, I felt the need for lines here. Why? Marlene’s image is very linear. The vertical grass texture is amazing and I found myself relaxing with the rhythm of it. To me, it almost hums in quiet anticipation. While you can’t see its legs, you feel this deer is standing completely still and its legs are as straight up and down as its neck and ears are. Lines. Timelines. Lines start. Lines stop. This deer has stopped. Let’s stop. I said before that February’s thoughts would touch on before and after the Now of January. When we stop, we can experience both the moment and what’s hidden. What’s hidden can be what has happened in the past- what’s gotten us here until today. Which leads to the heart of this poem. It shares a subject with a piece that’s way at the ...
Read more

The Heart of Living

Image
Please take a minute (or two, or three) to simply stare at the point on the horizon in this picture where the trail disappears. Find a relaxation music channel & hit play. Breathe in and out, looking at that path- going, going into...somewhere. Hakim Sanai was a Persian poet. I learned of him as I was seeking quotes to connect with this image. He influenced another, more popular, spiritual mystic poet, Rumi . His words I quoted in Dear Teachers this week are almost 1000 years old: “When the path ignites the soul, there’s no remaining in place. The foot touches ground, but not for long.” The Persian mystics were also dervishes. I recall the phrase, “whirling dervishes”. They danced in joyous exultation as part of their faith; their feet literally touched the ground but for moments. To me, this quote’s message is that if we’re engaged in life, we’re going to always be transitioning. Living is not stagnant. I may be in the foreground of that photo, but I am crawl...
Read more