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Conclusion
I see the meaning and purpose of life as
learning to live as fully and mindfully as possible. My own life is about adventure; about learning relationship with
myself, with others, with the non-human world; about exploring the spiritual
path. For me, education in its best
sense involves fundamental shifts in the way we experience ourselves, the
world, ourselves in the world.
In my desire to learn about self, other
people, nature, spirit, I have traveled and lived in other cultures, worked as
a jack-of-all-trades, studied in academia, and at times retreated alone into
the wilderness. Solitude catalyzes a
shift in the way I experience myself, the world, and myself in the world. For a long time I have thought that some day
I would like to spend a full year in solitude.
It seems an interesting, exciting, scary, and worthwhile thing to
do. Only during the past several years
has it occurred to me to follow that dream in an academic context.
My plan for the retreat, in its clearest,
simplest form, is to go into solitude, build a shelter, store food, gather
wood, settle down and mindfully wait to see what happens. Sometimes I will write, but not all the
time. Sometimes I may become so
involved in daily life that I lose track of (and possibly interest in) being a
researcher. Certainly I will tell
stories to myself about what I think is happening. My intention will be to remain Alive in each moment and find the
courage to see through and let go of the conditioning that holds us all (I
believe) in thrall. Then I will
struggle with the desire to not return at all, and come back to tell a story of
the adventure.
My original project was to write only
about my retreat into solitude. But as
I have wandered this pathless land, my steps have carried me into more
immediate self-reflexivity. If I am
studying my own life, that study should attend to life as it is here and
now. The actual physical retreat is
still in the future even though it is also the context for my present
activity. The desire to bring education
home into my own experience of living suggests researching the process of
researching; studying myself studying for a Ph.D. Thus the process of earning a Ph.D. becomes the subject of
itself. This notion makes me feel
excited and somewhat dizzy. Both the
project and using excitement as a measure that the project is valid seem valid
to me. Woof! Dizzy indeed.
Can my Ph.D. be about my own life? Or, does it have to be about someone else's
life? How did this question ever arise
as a valid question or even as a question at all? If we are interested in learning about education, then first
person accounts are important. Imagine
if a rabbit could tell us about its life in its own words. Whoooeeee!
No no, that might make an interesting book, but what would it have to do
with academic research?
I am excited and somewhat relieved to
have discovered narrative research, particularly the autoethnographic work of
Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner. It
has been like coming home for me. Much
of what I sensed intuitively and have been working toward on my own is
reflected in their writing. I have just
begun to read their chapter in the second edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research. The chapter not only talks about narrative research, but is itself
written as their personal story. This
has been my approach in writing this paper as well. I decided (well actually I didn't decide, it just naturally
happened) to tell my story of this journey we are on together. What else could I do and remain internally
consistent and true to myself and to you?
The move toward mindfulness is gradual;
it takes time and effort. It is as
though I am blind to the fact that I am seldom really present in my own life -
right here, right now. I spend a great
deal of time thinking, talking, writing, about the past or future or other
places, and am often not aware of myself doing these things in this actual
moment. This gradual awakening into my
own life here in the universe(city) is wonderful. It is catalyzed by what I read and what I am writing to myself
and to you right now. The process is
communal. I have been supported and
challenged by my conversations with you.
Thank you. I also wish to thank
my Texas friend, Patti Kuchinsky, for her support and presence in my life.
I am trying to remain true to what I
believe education should be; transformation of student and teacher
together. I have come to realize that
my desire and intention in doing this work is to increase both the internal and
external space for experiencing. This
includes physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual exploration and
adventure. I am beginning to understand
that as long as I am concerned with earning a Ph.D. I will not have fulfilled
the requirements to deserve the degree.
Only when I have surrendered my belief in its importance or in its power
to save my life will I have kept the promise I am learning to make to
myself. Varela (1991) claims we bring a
world into being as we dance together; that we lay down the path in walking
along it. Being as honest as I can, not
(I hope) trying to avoid or rebel, I cannot see how the retreat or this project
will turn out. I wonder where this
emerging path will lead and what it will look like from the other end? Will we make it there together, or will we
end up walking someone else's path.
If I can remain clear that I am not going
into solitude primarily for a Ph.D., I will be more likely to have a valuable
experience and even, perhaps, more likely to produce work worthy of the
degree. Just to remind myself... why am
I going? To explore Life and my own
vibrant Aliveness more fully.
A/Lone in the Bush
The
question repeats itself: Why I am going
on this retreat, and what do I hope to accomplish during a year of solitude?
I
believe I am going because I am called and will die if I do not. This is not melodramatic. Not that I will die physically if I don't
go, but of course I might/will whether I go or not. Nor become a zombie if I stay, but will stagnate spiritually and
circle mentally. I am frightened of
death and madness. No surprise. These are common, even universal, fears;
terrors lurking in the darkness that must be faced if we are to explore beyond
the security of our social nests.
Transformation;
a spiritual (perhaps) shift in being. I
no longer know what this means conceptually and carry only a vague experiential
memory. Once, deep in wilderness
solitude, I wrote, "I came here searching for my soul, looking for my maker;
but they're still hiding. What I've
found is peace and beauty and the sense that, yes, there is still something
hiding." What I found was stillness,
and in the heart of that surrender awoke to my own Aliveness and to the Living
world of which I am part/whole. That
moment by moment experience carried/carries its own full meaning (no need to
search philosophical byways) and is itself worth living for. Life is the only thing worth dying for.
Terrifying
to be nakedly alive.
Fragile.
Vulnerable.
What is this longing that crashes over, blown in by dark winds? Where does it live when my heart is not mourning? Pain meanders hand in hand with grief and sorrow from chest to shoulder to belly pit and beyond. Where was it yesterday when the world was calm and clear? Now I question, was I dead from the ears on down and better off so, too? I tell myself that a storyteller's tongue must wag from a poet's soul. To hell with the soul, I long to suckle, fondle, lose my ache between a woman's breasts. "Aha!" the strident cry, "an infantile man." Yes! Why deny that my desire hankers there? I dream to feel the female gaze rest atop my head, and tender arms hold me softly. For shame! such neediness and yet, I am weary (and beyond) of self-sufficiency. Of whispering, "be patient," to my heart, "be calm and wait." I am weary (and beyond) of learning to love my own inner child. I yearn for flesh, and the silent, solitary places of the earth in such shadowed times as these are barren and without the wet, juicy love I crave.
Terrifying
to be nakedly alive.
Fragile.
Vulnerable.
What
do I hope to bring back from solitude?
Body knowledge of a shift in myself; the rhymes and rhythms of surrender
to life's comings and goings. How to
share this poem in my living. Can these
rhythms and rhymes slip through space and, like a yawn, touch others in secret
ways?
I
hope to leave myself there when I return so I am neither here nor there and
both places together.
I
hope to remember how to remember not who I am, but who I am not.
I
hope to have the courage to breach these defenses not with force, but with
cunning; the cunning to be still and wait; "Stand still! The trees and the bushes around you are not
lost." says the Northwest Native teaching story; the cunning to be kind to
myself to defuse the threatening judgment that shoves meat into the maw of the
guardians; the cunning to be calmly curious.
I
hope to remember again that truly there is no one home in here; no one to
protect; no one with reason to attack another empty house.
I
hope to find some Thing/One that calls to me and whispers, "Yes, you have found
some One/Thing in me."
I
hope to once again believe and have the courage this time to go on believing.
I
hope to remember the courage to admit that without leaning on the beyond I do
not have the courage to lean on the beyond.
I hope to remember that there is no one here to hope and nothing there to hope for; that every moment is True and no truth lasts for more than this moment; that this moment is Eternal.
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