The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth's evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. The work of H.O.P.E. is to make visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope.
Cairns of H.O.P.E. #38
End of the Long Days, 2004
Spirited Learning (continued)
I did some of the best teaching of my life this year. I got some
wonderful, spontaneous thank-you letters from my students. Wanted to share
some sections from an eighth grader’s letter because they give a student
perspective on what I was writing about spirited learning in the last issue.
“...you taught the class the great side of literature. It was so amazing
how much the whole class has matured and grown both in their writing and
in their true character. When I look back on this year I can just see the class
grow from a bunch of individuals that don’t really know each other that well
(or themselves, for that matter) into a thriving group that is really very
unified. I can just see everyone becoming so much of a better person.”
“...I think when we did have tons of organization in the class we
were like the frozen fish - just sitting there, fearing the next test and the next
boring assignment. But when you let us go on our own and learn on our
own, each member of the class became so in tune with the rest that it was
like we were each one string, together making an instrument that could play
beautiful music.”
“Being in your class taught me more than reading and writing. It
taught me so many things about life - the fun, the laughter, the astonishment,
the worry, the human nature, and so many other things. I learned so so so
many lessons about life - and none of them were from a text book! All of
them were taught to us by, well, us. And that is what rocks!”
I wrote the following snippet while backpacking in the Trinities this
summer.
“As children, you are looking to the adults within your world to point out a
way and to confirm and demonstrate your childish sense that, yes, the world
is wonderful and being alive is amazing. But if what you get is tests and
paperwork and teachers doing things to you, not for your benefit but to
appease others over them, then ...”
Administrative job
I’ve been hired to be the next administrator for Chrysalis. I am
nervous and excited. I have visions for Chrysalis, but because one of my
visions is a teacher-led school, my main job is to be of service rather than to
be directing.
(Three weeks after writing that paragraph): I’m having fun!! Each
day I am given 10-15 opportunities to be of service to others and to a high
calling. Many nice developments already that indicate this could be a really
good school year. My biggest concern is getting scattered, keeping all the
pieces of paper straight, maintaining a focus when so many other issues (big
and small) pop up hourly. So many issues pop up that it is very easy to get
hundreds of wonderful things started. But do they get completed enough that
they serve a purpose? Another distinction I am cultivating: is this project
something that when completed, will increase the momentum of the school,
make things better, make future jobs easier or is it something that, when
done, it will be done, and that is all there is to it? If the latter, is it possible to
do it in a way so that it can make things easier in the future?
One thing I am enjoying about the job is that I am feeling a
responsibility for maintaining the educational opportunities for a hundred
kids, maintaining educational diversity of choice for hundreds of parents, the
integrity of the public education system for the public, and the economic
viability of this staff (including me). That responsibility summons forth my
better traits. I am growing through being stretched in a good way.
Update on my streambed phosphate experiment
Periodically I’ve mentioned the way I fertilize our rocky ephemeral
streambed with phosphate. Our streambed is amazingly full of milkweed this
summer with full seed pods. Monarch butterflies flit noticeably about. Lots
of bricklebushes.
Two Tales of Hubris
I’m trying a new technique down in the streambed. Before I tell you
of it though, let me tell you two tales of hubris. I knew a man who once did a
financial experiment on a black walnut tree. He had read an article about how
the Japanese had developed machinery that peeled hardwood trees so
thin for veneers that a high quality black walnut tree was worth $100,000
(and that was back in the 70’s). So he planted a black walnut in his yard. In
order to create a super tree, he pruned off side branches so the only leaves
were a small clump on the top.
Because of his pruning, the tree shot up straight and tall. It soon became the
most beanpole tree you have ever seen. Twelve feet high and about two
inches in diameter. The man had visions of this straight and true, knot-free
tree fetching a remarkable price in twenty or thirty years. One day, the
straight but skinny trunk just collapsed. Didn’t break, just bent over like a
straw and that was the end of the tree and the financial biology experiment.
Once, in meditation, an idea came to me of how to reduce cutbank
erosion down in the streambed. We had lots of old fencing lying around. If I
stretched it up against the cutbank and staked it solidly in place so it would
not wash out, the fencing should do the same job as vegetation and create a
border layer near the cutbank where stream velocity was very low and non
erosive. Sands might even deposit in the shelter of the fence and perhaps
plants would intertwine and reinforce the fence even more. So, with a couple
of concrete stakes, I fastened the fence up alongside the cutbank. First storm
event came and went. Didn’t appear the fence did anything one way or the
other. Second storm event came. I wasn’t there to see what happened. I
assume what happened was a big fallen branch from upstream washed down,
caught in the fence and as the water rose and more debris piled up, just
lifted/ripped that fence section out. About ten yards, the fence got tangled up
on tree roots. That wad of fence diverted the torrent against the bank,
undercutting the tree. Within a month, two oak trees collapsed across the
stream. Those trees now forced the water to the other side of the channel
where they began undermining a very tall pine. Two years later, the
undermined pine fell across the stream, pushing the current back against the
other side. The fence wad is still there. Three trees lie across a stream that
still hasn’t stabilized its channel.
I’m sure many lessons can be derived from this. The most basic is
emphasizing the implications of the erosive power of water. We can watch
streams during 99% of their existence and think we now understand them.
But when water higher than our expectation of high water comes, the
dynamics of the stream changes exponentially in a way that can easily
exceed our assumptions. To put it another way, techniques that seem to work
99% of the time might fail disastrously during the other 1% of the time.
So with this warning, let me share with you a new technique I am
trying. Two issues ago I talked about creating diverging lines of stones on
stream riffles. By wading about during high water, I can fit the stones to the
flow. Bigger rocks are needed where the flow is stronger. But when really
high water comes, usually some of these rocks roll downstream a couple of
feet. The line remains 90% intact but some rocks give way and have to be
returned to the line after the surge subsides. Our streambed is filled mostly
with rocks of a size that move during highest water. (There’s a fit there.) So
large, flow-resisting rocks are hard to find. Is there a way I can strengthen
these rock lines? What about glue? If rocks are glued together, then several
smaller rocks achieve the inertial mass of one large rock. So I went to the
hardware store and, yes, they have glues formulated for rocks. So I’ve glued
some of my lines together and now I curiously wait for the winter rains. It’s
strange to go kick a line of rocks and have nothing move.
Will this turn out to be hubris or am I imitating the binding effects
that tree roots and grasses do? I am sure of my original concept about
starting high in the drainage. But once I’ve done that work, does there come
a time when a person can move further downstream? Can one learn things in
the headwaters that empower actions in the midsections? Or am I just being
dangerously impatient? If the glued rocks work this winter, does that mean
the idea works or might it mean that the disaster still lies three years away?
Never know about flowing water. Magic stuff.
Closing the Loop
This year, Alysia has put lots of energy into creating a small farm on
our homestead. The presence of goats and chickens has permitted us to enjoy
something people call closing the loop. Whenever we prune the grape arbor
back, we toss the grape leaves into the goat pen. They eat them in a flash.
She created a pond in the farm for the geese. She put a couple of goldfish in
for mosquito control and was amazed at how soon baby fish appeared. Lots
of baby fish. One day she scooped some out with a net and put them in a
bucket to take to school. She came back 10 minutes later and found that the
chickens had pecked every single fish out of the bucket into their stomachs.
So now she periodically scoops the pond and feeds the chickens. Interesting
to contemplate how sun on the pond transforms into eggs for us. In Alysia’s
words, “It just tickles me to take my garbage and throw it over the fence and
get eggs back.” Really good eggs, I might add.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
For some reason, I heard several references to Abraham Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs in the last few months. There was a “given” tone to at
least one of the references which suddenly put me in a different perspective
and made me realize I don’t believe in his hierarchy. I think Maslow was
great for investigating self-actualization but I disagree that physical and
emotional needs have to be satisfied before one can move on to self
actualization. Viktor Frankl achieved a state of self-actualization in the Nazi
concentration camps. Solzehnitzyn made a fantastic speech (for which he
went out of favor with people who had admired him only because he had
criticized the Soviet government) in which he opined that the Russians were
more developed spiritually than Americans because hardship forces one to
choose highest priorities whereas when one is surrounded by comfort, the
environment never confronts you with difficult choices that train a spiritual
mind. One of my beatific states came from sheer exhaustion after getting lost
and skiing all day and night (on the longest night of the year) in zero degree
cold. The next morning, after my friend had prevented me from going to
sleep, I skied slowly through the most beautifully peaceful sunrise I had ever
seen. The world was perfect. Anyway, I bring up these three examples to
question whether the growth Maslow called self-actualization requires any
of the lower steps in his hierarchy. Can’t help but think he might have been
shaped by the social agenda of the 50’s and 60’s that saw economic
development (for third-world countries and oppressed classes) as essential
for the fruition of human aspirations.
Wilderness Poem - written while backpacking in the Trinity Alps this summer
I go out in the wilderness
and there
let the Earth
think me.
I don’t mean “think me”
like something mystical.
As I begin to understand
some of the patterns with which it speaks (spirals, the Fit, gradients)
I start to catch some of its drift
and what it sounds like is a very good teacher,
usually speaking beyond my ken
but speaking with a wisdom
that comes only
after
six billion years
and still being alive.
So I listen carefully
trying to understand well enough
that I can think such meanings on my own.
In that way the Earth thinks me.
Looking at Our Galaxy
For years I’ve seen the Milky Way as our whole galaxy, a glowing
sprawl so vast that just half of it angles almost all the way across the sky.
(The other half is beyond the southern horizon for us northeners.) But while
walking with Alysia last week on a clear night when red Antares (from “Anti
Aries”, Rival of Mars) sparkled fiercely, I saw more clearly than ever the
sky’s Milky Way as just our spiral arm of the galaxy. The arm has dark
bands of obscuring gas and dust braided along its length, giving it a three
dimensional feel with the vastness of intergalactic space stretching beyond
our spiral arm. It’s not the galaxy slanting across this August sky. It is “just”
one arm of the galaxy filling the sky. It looks Really Big.
Allies Emerging
A thank you to Bob Holt who volunteered to edit Cairns before I
send it out each time. He made several suggestions based on a college
professor’s eye to precision and love for the language. Thanks.
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© 2004, Paul Krafel, P.O. Box
609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
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