I’m not going to lie (mostly because I rarely do, and when I do, it’s only to myself). I’ve been working like crazy, trying to figure out what good teaching is supposed to look like without counting the loss and the immeasurable digital brain dings we absorb in the 7.5 hours of “hybrid” learning. The sheer amount of data transferring from one live conference to the quick switcheroo in what you call that thing while combatting #adrenalfatigue and, well, you know, the pandemic. And I’m not going to lie. I’ve been pretty depressed. And, as a friend suggested, maybe that was the lie I told myself. Lies always have a kernel of #truth in them; lies which build #strength within tissues and sinew.
I could outline some reasons for depression, which is the work of #practice, and I do this, but mostly what examining my emotions through a slow process of #meditation and #self-study and #movement gifted me was #clarity. This came mostly through yoga, and when in #pain or darkest night, asking myself what could I do? So, #gratitude that this is the depth of my despair, which manifests itself in my #earthmother worry and puts me at odds with seeing any #irresistiblecircumstances in the State of Education. So, it’s time to get busy.
Our #irresistiblefutures depends on more than just #perspective, which is a delight to work with and learn #collaboration and make #connections. In truth, I draw inspiration from others’ #perspectives but for true #equinimity to bring #balance to the world, we still must take actions to make beautiful, new #realities. This includes examining our motives and deep #shadowwork, which can be triggering for those in clinical depression, and requires help. You are not alone.
For those of us, who teach, we truly walk in the past and future through our words and actions. This blog was created (or morphed) out of yoga #practices which I explored as my day-to-day struggles to do #goodwork of being a mother, wife, and teacher. I learned some things, but change happens. We need future #teachers and #lightworkers and #yogawitches.
And so here it is: Spells and Such (coming soon) – #loveisall #loveislove #safeschools
This has been a fragmented school year. The familiar routines still feel uncomfortable. The ringing of bells off and on, picking up students (and teachers) in unexpected places. So many, many hurry-ups and whoopses and much profanity and bold ennui. We practice words we never knew until a year ago but they don’t help us learn. Well, maybe some of us knew the educational jargon before, but memory has been another fragmentation, and of this I write in some kind of long-awaited space, which defies education altogether. The existence of words can make them so. And each morning I study these, like some ancient map or unread dusty book (there are many this year). Literacy and learning fragmented by new words and new Science and (even) here in America, new Civics.
The nonexistence of someone’s beliefs fragment us; it can’t be done or had to be done yesterday. School language is rough and sputtering–fragmented–throughout the day until great intentions need a nap (by lunch time). Fragments of learning evidenced everywhere in my classroom closet full of 17 years of children’s books and classics and hands-on activities. But like some great wall, which may never really be built except what already exists in our nation’s head, beliefs give us comfort, a neat and tidy border from which to cross or turn and go another way. I can almost taste it in the Air. Change. For better or worse. We’ll be writing about it forever, maybe with a little humor.
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
The Destruction of Sennacherib, Lord Byron
I wish to purge and be light again. It’s time. The long fragmented year (and a half) is coming to an end; I wish to read and remember, and empty myself of fragments, writing kennings and highlighting that something can be done, has been done, will be done, about the struggles here–in this space and time of pandemic–in its nonexistence which dictates we must push on through testing, and Saturday school, and special programs to help the learning lag and mind fragmented by impossibilities and directives (ad infinitum). I wish to regroup and find a way back to what I remember, but memories are fragmented, too.
I toyed with words early on, abandoning this blog and my journals, to add big sweeping strokes of color and narratives, upon my backyard fence. Meadow and swamp grass grow through the boards now, speckled with paint of last Spring. Reminders everywhere on my return Home from school where here hours grow and grow and grow, fragmented. And after the inevitable fight for normalcy, what will remain? Testing? Old ways of doing school? Memories? And is my stamina and strength so fragmented as not to be taped together with duct tape, my pandemic friend for fences, computers, and chargers for our learning?
Here now fragmentation gives us imperfect organizational cell called public education, splitting off into new life without mention of what worked in the old one, tidied up by memorandum of understanding and PDFs covering i-cloud assignments and on-the-spot withitness. Here exists fragmentation of all that is real: budget, time, students, teachers, learning, reading, words. Our books piled high and in misuse and border control. I miss just reading, and I know the students do, also, but…
The hour is late, and I have some fragments to sweep up and out the door and into my car so I can drive away, never really knowing what the Day is until it’s over. I wake to sleep and sleep to wake, fragmented from myself and dreams. And writing my blog has that same deja vu; a chance for irresistible circumstances to collapse in its own silence and return to unknowing and unknown as a pleasure. I’ll leave the fragments of incompleteness and ubiquity to my memory.
In terms of bones
i move around
needing #structure
of the ground:
a wiggle here
to hear the click
the sound of concepts
when they stick
this gentle flow
within these walls
the bigger #container
holds us all:
the woman
not of man's design
and outside the scope
of common time
the Seasons matter
to the trees
(so #blissful can be
our memories)
where words, these fall
like gentle rain
#collecting to begin
again
just as winter's red
gives in to Earth
and Spring's bright pink babies
begin rebirth
out of muddiest sand
and intensions sweet
(the pain of this #change
on blistered feet)
a seek to #balance
within my hands
that intersection
as one
understands
in terms of bones
i move around
the #practice
is to hold
my ground
a continued journey
round and round
đź’ś
#loveisall #loveislove
#irresistiblecircumstances.blog
All the Elements
Came to play
Danced and sang
And went their way
Fire in Moon
Moon in Fire
The South whispered secrets
Of North's dark desire
Bring me your frankness
Your spices and ice
Weave in the lemongrass
Bundle this tight
Walk all the quarters
Crouch on the ground
Fill sacred space
With a Leo's Moon Sound.
All the Elements
Came to play
Danced and sang
And went their way.
#fullmooninleo
In previous incarnations, prior to the imminently eminent momentary unknowns and everyday survival modes of 2020, I was a sloppy #yogawitch. Not a person to methodically organize my life was I, any facet, focused more on the only structure I learned: language. Going through the motions of life while learning the rules through reading and writing #teaching and #practice’s purposeful mistakes, splitting infinitives deliciously aimed at irritating my perceived naysayers. Breaking small rules was an unconscious act of intention awry–a small wickedness and hidden pleasure. Over time, I let this go, confronting and discarding these darknesses hidden to me.
Shadows still dance in my inner realms and these, my familiars, I have learned to organize and call upon to move me past my disorganization and anxieties (I simplify here–there are many helpers involved). I can find these readily in myself and, as such, I began to see them in other places, outside my purview, in the collective. Last night’s full moon allowed these to dance and sing about us in our Full Moon circle. I hear and see those beautiful poetic birds of mystery; you can see them, too, maybe? They are here and here and here and here and here and every morning on my morning playlist (maybe you’ll find comfort and strength here, too?). The sound (not the words), as #memories fills my sight, organizes my Day and Night; my flow feels genuine and intuitively organized.
This is not to say I don’t recognize the sharp oppositions in play in the greater world–only my tiny justification of how presented before I saw my inner chaos. In those “other” roles and realms, those of mother, wife, teacher, daughter, sister, friend, employee, adult, woman, shadows pooled: a stack of dishes; a pile of laundry (clean and folded–or dirty); #practices scribbled down in the wee hours of the morning to do again (as if); a teacher closet with an #abundance of learning unused and a file cabinet of empty files which commiserates; a grocery list with items circled and forgotten; a bottle or two of lotions and perfume I’d never put on (the glass extraordinarily, iridescently filling spaces). Abundance of words and worlds I possess and reflect upon–light bouncing off every corner of my mind; the fast pace of my physicality finally caught up to me, and my body had to slow down, creating a new spaces and organizational flows.
Death is a real thing to me now. There. I said it. I wrote it. Death is a real thing to me now. Understanding comes from experience, I think. What was 2020 but one long catalog of lessons in being alright in the moment while doing what is epically needed to be done? And I understand I get confused, I get things wrong, I make typos, I run around in circles (literally) while I think of what I am doing, and I fucking procrastinate every hard task (as I am doing today), but I understand that each moment is predicated on the words I say to myself–spoken or carried within my thoughts (an element in myself). Beautiful organization takes time, and that same messiness in discovering this, carried me through 2020. Processing in new ways (and historical ways to me on Erika-Standard-Time) allowed me to handle death in the classroom.
My day-to-day as a teacher in a hybrid classroom during the pandemic is predictably challenging; we all do the best we can in our levels of awareness to #balance and ground and survive. I return to language here–mostly poetry (in all Her forms) and runes (ancient communication). And then, I enter our classroom and continue to practice the appropriateness and preciseness which convey the standards as equitably and compassionately as I am able. This is #goodwork, and this is happening all over our building–some teachers have multiple areas to teach (#gratitude for how they still do the same in separate spheres of realities). As I, too, run for the bigger classroom for my bigger face-to-face classes with my computer screen projecting my shirt and lanyard, with mouse and sheets of paper in tow, always one dropping to the floor), I’m learning to quell the words of self-doubt in mind which causes us to waffle in indecision at the most critical time for language–6th period!
I know I am not alone. I feel the energies move through me as shadows, pooling and accumulating in great abundance; warnings to be careful what type of #abundance one calls. This organization destined to fail: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. The pace is harried and my husband reminds me at home I don’t need to run to bed, and in his calm way, guides me to see my organizational spaces work both ways: to let out as well as in.
Here I linger on a blog. I let my mind get lost in those words that bounce around and catch in the shadows’ dark pools. I let the greater picture captivate my inner sight, the soft rhythm of a needed day off (one which I promised would involve grading). I am no longer a sloppy #yogawitch; today’s plans include my abundance of #dreams and #goals. This, the continued practice of letting Death’s presence remind of Life’s import, helps create and maintain #irresistiblecircumstances wherever I go.
Florida winters
the fortresses
for the weary world of
warriors;
the Earth in all Her charms
smiles upon the stillness
here and there
strangers pondering the Florida snow.
Elementals come to play:
the winter wind sweeps across Spanish moss
icicles
dangle, sway, and dance
in mysterious bliss
sama
Florida winters
the fortresses
for the weary world of
hidden pilgrims;
the Day in all Her charms
sings with the songbird; golden rays
here and there
breathing errantly #life into the Florida snow.
Elementals come to play:
the winter woods rise up rigidly into the sky,
bogs
be snow not, but still and patient, waiting
for simplicity of exchange
barahka
Florida winters
the fortresses
for the weary world
of #abundance;
the Night in all His charms
nestles softly; illumination brings hope
here and there
sparks of inspiration put to good use.
Elementals come to play:
the full mid-winter Moon arrives just so, and
sky gods
intermingle with the usual banter
baraka
Icelandic Rune Poem from reading sources about the house; digital text and translation here)
Most of my mornings for the past two days I spend figuring out technology to bring EMY and my brick-and-mortar-sorta classroom into 2021–things on my bucket list for 2020. That I even have a list is on my mind, so proud have I been to live what-I-called-intuitively for the past year. Like everyone else. I will take pride in my accomplishments, only to highlight how I am humbled by those who continue to persist in the bleakest of circumstances and inspired by human ingenuity and perseverance.
On the one hand, I, well-equipped and experienced in setting fitness, health, yoga, lifting, teaching, and organizational goals and squeezing them all into some kind of category, along with to-do lists and planners and file folders and stickers and pens, naturally and intuitively plan for the coming of 2021, supplied with what is [available] and occupies my time. I call it intentions and affirmations that WHAT I want to manifest or cultivate or bring into existence, and I can check off “done” on that ta-do list, which deteriorates into an annoying sense of great waste of the #abundance available on line, in Nature, at home, in my lover’s eyes. I recognize that I pretend to be organized and I’ve even stated that 2021 will be the year I become organized. What does that even mean?
On the other hand, I have been side-lined recently from walking, standing, moving, and getting things done, which has given me the gift of digital dreaming and word-play. This time of stillness in my physical body reminds me of the potentiality of Day which brings to light those aspects hidden to oneself. The point is–at least for me–is to step into the Day. Time to fix and connect the links in social media for Youtube and EMY and Instagram and plan for the 2021 second semester classroom (that’s organization improving). The adrenal fatigue fog is lifting and I have more mental #clarity; the newest flare-up is localized to the bottom of my foot, which gives me time aplenty to do the Erika mental gymnastics to hone my skills (or find them again–so lost I’ve been in 2020land).
Inspirations today include #practices of
-working with runes (foundational for any communicative endeavor)
Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri, nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ovo; semper ad eventum festinat et in medias res non secus ac notas auditorem rapit, et quae desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit.
-Horace
December’s almost-predictable roller-coaster ride leads me to a beautiful #abundance of creative ideas and promised into 2021. The quarantining process brings with it a shift of #perspective with learning new tools, such as #mindfulness, through a turbulent 2020. At school, we literally had opportunities to re-invent the teaching wheel (and that’s as close to autonomy as you can get in any content). As with most of 2020, great scarcity and unknowing brought #irresistiblecircumstances to discover the important people in our lives and places of refuge, along with how to receive and return Love. Revisiting and tagging thought categories has been useful in seeing #whatis, essentially the #practice of yoga with all that is available, any time and in any place, with the difficulty and uncomfortableness of 2020 snuggled right up against #pain, #grief, and #catharsis; working through resistance requires hard work. Who is to say whether it is the work of 2020 that makes us weary or 2020, a tag itself in omnipresence.
Today, the proverbial 2020 train creaks and clacks slowly up to its pinnacle, and I sit here, stuck between past and future. Experience dictates caution (just like a teacher). Intuition advises my adrenals to scream and get off the ride, but healthy curiosity reconciles with the dose of knowing or, rather, acceptance. Daily walks in Florida’s #skog in the perfect Season among the miles of sandhills, prickles, and humorless humidity has uncovered Nature’s own inherent wild ride–a message to perhaps slow down the pace and look around in the #irresistiblecircumstances which one has created for oneself.
What is Walk
Whether through the miracle of birth
This body Earth
holds host to the catalog of dismissed #abundances:
the water oak, the cypress, the wild sages and cassia,
the thistles and duckweed, the blooming poison ivy,
the water lettuce, the tickweed and asters of the brush,
the sweetgum and inkberry, the ribwort plantain,
or through the death of 2020;
This body Earth
returns to inner fertility of a Florida mid-winter:
moss carpeting the realms below the roots
home of ant, snakes, spiders, and little birds
(a recurrent theme) while
Spanish moss dangles fat and lazily from canopy
and across the pale dead grass,
a pair of hawks glide to dinner
witnessed
along with vultures and their darker intents
(Not a look of someone doing someone else’s work)
A rotting log from a bird’s eye view.
Blistered feet will write the story of thorny 2020:
We are almost 16 weeks into this 2020 edition of a Covid school year; school is still more about adrenaline than passion. As drive myself through adrenal fatigue and increasing #pain cycles, there is still much comfort in seeing students participate in all the various forms. There is routine in examining the old texts, seeds of our Constitution, and discussing fresh perspectives of Enlightenment. Inequities present themselves, easily imagined as we live the reality of our ancestors. Rich and poor, the work of school is useful to all.
Self-management hangs heavily in a synchronous learning environment, from discussions of leaving something on the stove (when working from home) to managing the impossibilities of impromptu Internet glitches and patches while all at once some magic learning happens. In any case, there’s hardly a time to pause unless we make time for this release. And, just like physical pain, mental anguish and stress takes a toll. Were our forefathers (and foremothers) not the same in their dreams, fears, and internal dialogues? Did they take a moment to seize an opportunity for gratitude (the mindfulness strategy today)? Did they trace the Night’s path across their backyard sky, or take a nap in the emerging sunlight on a cool day, or savor a hot cup of tea in quiet contemplation, and find hope there?
Of late, without much ease in movement, I find myself processing the words, words, words, in a such way I never anticipated in my half-century. Could the younger me have envisioned a day I wouldn’t remember vocabulary or concepts or need the constant reminder of my stumbling and bumbling access to the more common areas of my brain? Likewise, did I intellectualize the day I couldn’t lift the weight of the world and a barbell locked and loaded to squat beneath or push overhead?
School becomes a challenge, tripping over the next item to do, procrastinating the great and honorable task of grading (and grade-entering to create irresistible mixed-media digital content); however much I love to craft a lesson, the sheer amount of energy to make any decision has taken flight to darker realms, suspended.
Survival depends on Day and Night, a marriage of predictable opposition. I am held by spaces between polarities, and Day’s quiet appearance transforms Night’s #abundance into actionable steps toward the future. And while little of life outside of school setting presents itself in the traditional way, each Day has offered fresh #perspectives. Brought into a classroom, our community is light of hope itself–we will survive. Rich and poor, the perspective of familiar cycles is Hope.
I hear your song, Sisters
the gather and order of energy
rumbles from the Earth into my feet
and ripples through my body
long ago and into the future
no longer latent
ready to be used
I hear your song, Sisters
the release and adieu of labels
the loss unnoticed by the immense sky
and waves of wonder in thought
memories and knowing
no longer latent
ready to be needed
I hear your song, Sisters
the hunting and gathering of resources
flights of instinct and inheritance
and cycles of survival
darkly held in the sunrise
no longer asleep
ready to be heard
