Metissage:
The Silent Echo Of The Landscape
Dec. 9th 2015
The Silent Echo of the Landscape
Where do our stories start and where do they end? One might suspect that our own personal narrative begins at birth and ends at death. Upon further inspection, however, we discover that this is not necessarily true. For our personal narrative is never solely individual, nor is it separate from the stories of others. It is, instead, entwined with others’ stories, as well as the stories of landscapes we inhabit collectively. Zen teacher and scholar David Loy sates: “stories do not have sharp edges. They never begin at the beginning” (2010, p.4). Here he suggests our stories are not linear; they do not simply lead from birth to death, but are, instead, cyclical. Consequently, our personal narrative forms before we are born and continues on long after we die, for there are no “sharp edges” that separate our personal narratives from the collective narrative.
In the Buddhist tradition, one that I study closely, there is a belief that the universe we live within houses an inherent interconnectedness. In a similar way, the indigenous people of North America, like the Lakota tribe, use the metaphor “we are all related” (Cajete, 1994, p.74) to symbolize this same teaching of interconnectedness that Buddhism posits. Indigenous scholar, Gregory Cajete, describes how such a metaphor acknowledges, “that all living and non-living entities of Nature have important inherent meanings within the context of human life” (1994, p.74). The teaching that “we are all related” further implies that our personal stories, so too, are all related and because of this, they have immense importance. Cajete states, “humans are one and all storytelling animals. Through story we explain and come to understand ourselves (1994, p.74); thus, reiterating that our personal stories are imperative for our development. Nevertheless, I argue that when “sharp edges” are projected onto these personal narratives, our stories can be detrimental, as they inhibit our understanding of our surrounding world, as well as the stories of others. In Buddhism, to believe our stories have these “sharp edges”– that they are somehow separate – is considered a delusion. For it rejects the notion that we are a subset of the greater whole. And yet, it is not uncommon for us, as humans, to get caught up in this deluded concept: that there is no intersection between the stories of ‘self and other.’ As a result, we become embedded in a ‘surface-level’ narrative: a one-sided version of our personal narrative, which ultimately, creates binary perspectives that we fail to dig underneath.
The Life Writing practices I have engaged with this semester have helped me discover where “sharp edges” exist within my own personal narrative. To elaborate, ‘surface-level’ narratives occur when these “sharp edges” inhibit us from perceiving how our personal story intersects with the collective narrative. My life writing demonstrated to me how I was habitually reinforcing a particular ‘surface-level’ narrative: that I had been ‘uprooted’ from my home in Australia from an early age, and since then have remained ‘rootless.’ In other words, because I have lived this nomadic life of an expatriate on the move – through Asia, Australia, and North America – I have been unable to retain a true sense of ‘home’ – a place in which I can put down my roots permanently. Consequently, I have always felt disconnected from the numerous places I have lived in. My initial poems capture this ‘surface-level’ narrative, as I convey my ‘uprooting’ from my hometown, Adelaide, and subsequent transition to Singapore. When I finally returned to Australia, I felt ‘rootless’:
Roots
roots in the city of churches
spread across continents
waking up with sleepy lizards
born with a blue tongue
and a golden cockatoo crest
wild like the sun in my eyes
watching yabbies’ blowing bubbles
like kids in a paddling pool
searched the caves day by day
found answers under stones – upturned
crawled with spiders by the ferns
cool, crisp rhythm of waterfall spray
sings to me
through the clouds and the rain we go,
ever so slow; the misty hills begin to show,
and I know; I’m warm and safe inside
these childhood memories, me on my knees;
playing by the water of Morialta falls
dug my heels into barren clay
hissed like a cassowary
“this is my land!”
when told to go
left early on a plane
for a 15-year layover;
returned to see
all that had changed
was me
Uprooted
North;
flew due a tropical getaway
told everything would “be okay”
seven and a half hours direct;
I was on the cusp of 5 when
Grandma said she’d never speak to us again
we took to the skies
like migratory birds
I flapped my wings so hard I almost fell
from grace
new nesting grounds
in uprooted trees with concrete canopies
from wooded parks to tall walls between tiles and mortar
Condo-minimum life; maximum security
hoard people upon people upon people upon people upon people upon
a bomb shelter; earth quake proof
but where is the land?
Down Under this muddy buffalo grass:
a weed, artificially implanted in space between
concretized floors
high above our nest
made a friend on the 17th floor;
flitted around the few trees in the fairground, behind the playground
built a fibrous wall from spittle and twigs around my longing to return
‘home’
got trapped within the humid bubble of an ‘expat on the equator’
but money, fancy schools, and BMWs can’t buy the freedom of untouched land:
the smell of mountainside air crisp on burnt skin
breaks the sweaty city life that I pushed through
for more than a decade.
Rootless
bush fires burn away
all the roots on arrival
blackened Saturday
fans on high
no clouds above just
searing hot ozone
rootless and floating
jumbo jet landed
but I never did
from tropics
to deserted land
skin cracking
befriending students
through back alley pub crawling
short-lasting friendships
My initial poems capture a sense of loss and existential confusion that I felt in my childhood and teenage years. Many times I have been resentful that I did not stay in my homeland of Australia. I have felt that because of this early ‘uprooting’ of the ‘sapling’ that I was developing into, my identity feels scattered between environments. This has led to a fear that I might not ever find my way ‘back home’ to a place I could settle and grow permanent roots in. Through my Life Writing it became apparent that these feelings of ‘up-rootedness’ were the ‘surface-level’ narrative. My Life Writing practice consisted of daily note taking in a small, red notebook that I labelled ‘mind snacks and mind snags.’ From this stream of consciousness note-taking, new thought patterns began to emerge, which then developed into poetry. These poems dug beneath the ‘surface-level’ and, because of this, I encountered a deeper story of interconnectedness; one that captured my connection both to the landscape and people within my numerous “homes.”
As I dug deeper with the ‘shovel’ of my Life Writing, a process began to occur which I can only describe as ‘zooming out.’ Ironically, this ‘zooming out’ is also, the digging beneath the ‘surface-level’ narrative I allude to. Although metaphorically paradoxical, the process is two-fold and not necessarily contradictory: as I zoomed out I began to widen the viewfinder on my own personal narrative and through this widening, was able to gain, what I term, a ‘panoramic perspective’ on a storied viewpoint that was initially fairly narrow. Through achieving this ‘panoramic perspective’ on my own personal narrative (of where do my roots exist), I discovered how my individual story of being ‘uprooted’ multiple times, had actually led to a ‘re-rooting’ into this multitude of ‘home’ environments; not leaving me ‘rootless’ as I once thought, but ‘transplanting’ and ‘grafting’ my roots, making them more widespread and farther reaching. In other words, the ‘zooming out’ and gaining a ‘panoramic perspective’ on my surface level narrative, allowed me to dig underneath it. The resulting epiphany was how I have transformed the people and landscapes that I have been ensconced in, via the intersection of my stories with theirs. It is this intersection of stories that has led to my roots being transplanted and grafted permanently in my multiple ‘homes’ and to becoming part of their collective narrative. For as David Loy states, “even as a personal self is constructed with stories, collective selves are constructed by remembering and enacting shared stories” (2010, p.27).
Conclusively, my Life Writing helped me realize my permanent imprint on the places that I have lived in and they on me. Such an imprinting led to the growth of new roots in each of these environments I have, at one time or another, called ‘home.’ This is reflected in my latter two poems that capture my transition into Vancouver, Canada and Kyoto, Japan:
Transplanted
arrived in the hea(r)t of the moment
tale-end of summer
beaches busy; chiselled bodies
full sports bars with endless beers
on the patio, wondering where next to go
but no place is better than right now
mountainous horizon
settled me in early morning;
riding down university avenue
towards glistening golden city
sunset across water
welcomed me with a chilly breeze
changing seasons oncoming autumn
the delusions of summer fall
away
took me years to find my footing
on North-West soil
but from the beginning
I’d found home
transplanted from East to West
re-rooted; healthy; watered by endless rain
(which at times drove me insane)
but this modern city
on ancient land
brought me back to life
Grafted
an offshoot of culture
grafted from a past life
into right here and now
the bamboo sways on arrival:
a white monk with hair and a blue backpack
marching through Daitokuji along cobblestone
past his old home
to a new family that smiles without words
sharing space with an old sun
shining down through the shoji blinds
warm as they drink wheat tea
everyday, crossed-legged on tatami
the smell of fresh coffee
opened hearts; closed eyes
early evening, revising kanji
with the rain at the window
ears pricked for the dinner bell: “Bangouhan!”
summoned downstairs
toward the smell of okonomiyaki
their daughter, sitting in the corner
makes him want to stay forever
a modern maiko with no makeup
and all-natural laughter
walked every street
from the glittering bars of kiyamachi
to the golden temple: kinkakujui
a gem-stone in every rock garden
never left unturned
Where do our stories start and where do they end? One might suspect that our own personal narrative begins at birth and ends at death. Upon further inspection, however, we discover that this is not necessarily true. For our personal narrative is never solely individual, nor is it separate from the stories of others. It is, instead, entwined with others’ stories, as well as the stories of landscapes we inhabit collectively. Zen teacher and scholar David Loy sates: “stories do not have sharp edges. They never begin at the beginning” (2010, p.4). Here he suggests our stories are not linear; they do not simply lead from birth to death, but are, instead, cyclical. Consequently, our personal narrative forms before we are born and continues on long after we die, for there are no “sharp edges” that separate our personal narratives from the collective narrative.
In the Buddhist tradition, one that I study closely, there is a belief that the universe we live within houses an inherent interconnectedness. In a similar way, the indigenous people of North America, like the Lakota tribe, use the metaphor “we are all related” (Cajete, 1994, p.74) to symbolize this same teaching of interconnectedness that Buddhism posits. Indigenous scholar, Gregory Cajete, describes how such a metaphor acknowledges, “that all living and non-living entities of Nature have important inherent meanings within the context of human life” (1994, p.74). The teaching that “we are all related” further implies that our personal stories, so too, are all related and because of this, they have immense importance. Cajete states, “humans are one and all storytelling animals. Through story we explain and come to understand ourselves (1994, p.74); thus, reiterating that our personal stories are imperative for our development. Nevertheless, I argue that when “sharp edges” are projected onto these personal narratives, our stories can be detrimental, as they inhibit our understanding of our surrounding world, as well as the stories of others. In Buddhism, to believe our stories have these “sharp edges”– that they are somehow separate – is considered a delusion. For it rejects the notion that we are a subset of the greater whole. And yet, it is not uncommon for us, as humans, to get caught up in this deluded concept: that there is no intersection between the stories of ‘self and other.’ As a result, we become embedded in a ‘surface-level’ narrative: a one-sided version of our personal narrative, which ultimately, creates binary perspectives that we fail to dig underneath.
The Life Writing practices I have engaged with this semester have helped me discover where “sharp edges” exist within my own personal narrative. To elaborate, ‘surface-level’ narratives occur when these “sharp edges” inhibit us from perceiving how our personal story intersects with the collective narrative. My life writing demonstrated to me how I was habitually reinforcing a particular ‘surface-level’ narrative: that I had been ‘uprooted’ from my home in Australia from an early age, and since then have remained ‘rootless.’ In other words, because I have lived this nomadic life of an expatriate on the move – through Asia, Australia, and North America – I have been unable to retain a true sense of ‘home’ – a place in which I can put down my roots permanently. Consequently, I have always felt disconnected from the numerous places I have lived in. My initial poems capture this ‘surface-level’ narrative, as I convey my ‘uprooting’ from my hometown, Adelaide, and subsequent transition to Singapore. When I finally returned to Australia, I felt ‘rootless’:
Roots
roots in the city of churches
spread across continents
waking up with sleepy lizards
born with a blue tongue
and a golden cockatoo crest
wild like the sun in my eyes
watching yabbies’ blowing bubbles
like kids in a paddling pool
searched the caves day by day
found answers under stones – upturned
crawled with spiders by the ferns
cool, crisp rhythm of waterfall spray
sings to me
through the clouds and the rain we go,
ever so slow; the misty hills begin to show,
and I know; I’m warm and safe inside
these childhood memories, me on my knees;
playing by the water of Morialta falls
dug my heels into barren clay
hissed like a cassowary
“this is my land!”
when told to go
left early on a plane
for a 15-year layover;
returned to see
all that had changed
was me
Uprooted
North;
flew due a tropical getaway
told everything would “be okay”
seven and a half hours direct;
I was on the cusp of 5 when
Grandma said she’d never speak to us again
we took to the skies
like migratory birds
I flapped my wings so hard I almost fell
from grace
new nesting grounds
in uprooted trees with concrete canopies
from wooded parks to tall walls between tiles and mortar
Condo-minimum life; maximum security
hoard people upon people upon people upon people upon people upon
a bomb shelter; earth quake proof
but where is the land?
Down Under this muddy buffalo grass:
a weed, artificially implanted in space between
concretized floors
high above our nest
made a friend on the 17th floor;
flitted around the few trees in the fairground, behind the playground
built a fibrous wall from spittle and twigs around my longing to return
‘home’
got trapped within the humid bubble of an ‘expat on the equator’
but money, fancy schools, and BMWs can’t buy the freedom of untouched land:
the smell of mountainside air crisp on burnt skin
breaks the sweaty city life that I pushed through
for more than a decade.
Rootless
bush fires burn away
all the roots on arrival
blackened Saturday
fans on high
no clouds above just
searing hot ozone
rootless and floating
jumbo jet landed
but I never did
from tropics
to deserted land
skin cracking
befriending students
through back alley pub crawling
short-lasting friendships
My initial poems capture a sense of loss and existential confusion that I felt in my childhood and teenage years. Many times I have been resentful that I did not stay in my homeland of Australia. I have felt that because of this early ‘uprooting’ of the ‘sapling’ that I was developing into, my identity feels scattered between environments. This has led to a fear that I might not ever find my way ‘back home’ to a place I could settle and grow permanent roots in. Through my Life Writing it became apparent that these feelings of ‘up-rootedness’ were the ‘surface-level’ narrative. My Life Writing practice consisted of daily note taking in a small, red notebook that I labelled ‘mind snacks and mind snags.’ From this stream of consciousness note-taking, new thought patterns began to emerge, which then developed into poetry. These poems dug beneath the ‘surface-level’ and, because of this, I encountered a deeper story of interconnectedness; one that captured my connection both to the landscape and people within my numerous “homes.”
As I dug deeper with the ‘shovel’ of my Life Writing, a process began to occur which I can only describe as ‘zooming out.’ Ironically, this ‘zooming out’ is also, the digging beneath the ‘surface-level’ narrative I allude to. Although metaphorically paradoxical, the process is two-fold and not necessarily contradictory: as I zoomed out I began to widen the viewfinder on my own personal narrative and through this widening, was able to gain, what I term, a ‘panoramic perspective’ on a storied viewpoint that was initially fairly narrow. Through achieving this ‘panoramic perspective’ on my own personal narrative (of where do my roots exist), I discovered how my individual story of being ‘uprooted’ multiple times, had actually led to a ‘re-rooting’ into this multitude of ‘home’ environments; not leaving me ‘rootless’ as I once thought, but ‘transplanting’ and ‘grafting’ my roots, making them more widespread and farther reaching. In other words, the ‘zooming out’ and gaining a ‘panoramic perspective’ on my surface level narrative, allowed me to dig underneath it. The resulting epiphany was how I have transformed the people and landscapes that I have been ensconced in, via the intersection of my stories with theirs. It is this intersection of stories that has led to my roots being transplanted and grafted permanently in my multiple ‘homes’ and to becoming part of their collective narrative. For as David Loy states, “even as a personal self is constructed with stories, collective selves are constructed by remembering and enacting shared stories” (2010, p.27).
Conclusively, my Life Writing helped me realize my permanent imprint on the places that I have lived in and they on me. Such an imprinting led to the growth of new roots in each of these environments I have, at one time or another, called ‘home.’ This is reflected in my latter two poems that capture my transition into Vancouver, Canada and Kyoto, Japan:
Transplanted
arrived in the hea(r)t of the moment
tale-end of summer
beaches busy; chiselled bodies
full sports bars with endless beers
on the patio, wondering where next to go
but no place is better than right now
mountainous horizon
settled me in early morning;
riding down university avenue
towards glistening golden city
sunset across water
welcomed me with a chilly breeze
changing seasons oncoming autumn
the delusions of summer fall
away
took me years to find my footing
on North-West soil
but from the beginning
I’d found home
transplanted from East to West
re-rooted; healthy; watered by endless rain
(which at times drove me insane)
but this modern city
on ancient land
brought me back to life
Grafted
an offshoot of culture
grafted from a past life
into right here and now
the bamboo sways on arrival:
a white monk with hair and a blue backpack
marching through Daitokuji along cobblestone
past his old home
to a new family that smiles without words
sharing space with an old sun
shining down through the shoji blinds
warm as they drink wheat tea
everyday, crossed-legged on tatami
the smell of fresh coffee
opened hearts; closed eyes
early evening, revising kanji
with the rain at the window
ears pricked for the dinner bell: “Bangouhan!”
summoned downstairs
toward the smell of okonomiyaki
their daughter, sitting in the corner
makes him want to stay forever
a modern maiko with no makeup
and all-natural laughter
walked every street
from the glittering bars of kiyamachi
to the golden temple: kinkakujui
a gem-stone in every rock garden
never left unturned
I did not only identify with these numerous ‘home’ environments solely through the sharing of verbal stories with people; that was just one side of this ‘re-rooting’ process I describe. The other side is the many non-verbal conversations that I had with the landscapes themselves. In each of these places that I have written about in my poetry collection – Australia, Singapore, Canada, Japan – I have spent quite literally hundreds of hours in the seated posture of meditation, in stillness, listening to the silent echo of the landscape and meditating on its “afterimage” (Zajonc, 2009, p.103). Contemplative education scholar, Arthur Zajonc, describes a practice that involves this type of meditation: a “movement between two poles: focused concentration and open awareness” (2009, p. 93). Zajonc elaborates how a bell can be used as an entry-point for the meditation technique he is describing:
“In brief, we first concentrate on the sense experience itself: the sound of the bell. Second, we attend closely to the memory of the sound. Once we are filled with the bell-sound, we let go and open our awareness as fully as possible while maintaining complete inner quiet. [The] ‘void’ emerges within us and the final phase of meditation can occur: ‘letting come.’” (2009, p.95)
By undertaking this deceptively simple meditation exercise, Zanjonc hopes we “discover the silent echo of the bell” (2009, p.95); this is responding inwardly to the memory of the bell-sound in such a way that we “hold the empty space without expectation” (2009, p.95). It is this inward memory of the bell-sound that is the “afterimage” of the bell. In releasing our focused attention into a broader open awareness we are able to make the “afterimage” become our object of our meditation (Zajonc, 2009, p.95).
I reference Zajonc’s practice-method because I realize that I have been using it to grow roots into the various landscapes I have inhabited, throughout the course of my lifetime. I, however, have not been meditating on the silent echo of the bell (although at times I do this as well); rather, I have been meditating on the silent echo of the landscape. Similar to Zajonc’s method, I sit still and focus my attention on the land I am seated on, settling the body-mind deep into the earth (rooting down). When I feel I am settled, I release the effort of focused attention and attempt to move into an effortless spaciousness that is empty and open. It is in this space that I become quietly receptive to whatever the land I am seated upon has to show me. This communication may not be instantaneous, but the rooting into the landscape I am seated on, is. At times, I do not necessarily have to be seated in stillness to hear the silent echo of the landscape; I could be walking in nature, or even riding on a bike or bus in the city. Nonetheless, from my experience, sitting still is the most effective way to listen to the land. From that point onwards, the stories of the land intersect my stories, and my stories entwine with the landscapes, and together, we shape each other.
This shaping that occurs in non-verbal dialogue – between myself and the landscape – is not always pleasant or comfortable. Sometimes the landscapes we live in have something to teach us through unpleasant or seemingly cruel contortions of our learning spirit; nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that this is not important dialogue. I recollect from a reflection of a recent trip to Haida Gwaii – a Northern island within my current ‘home’ province: British Columbia. Perhaps a little too comfortable in the landscape of Vancouver, a new aspect of the landscape of B.C had some very important lessons to teach me. The dialogue that unfolded between the island and I, involved some unpleasant contortions, which led to the growth of new roots. I recall in a journal excerpt written shortly after my visit:
During this visit, I witnessed how old emotional patterns appeared as I encountered certain shadows of my past: shadows to do with failed relationships, and fear of rejection, and a fear of dealing with these very emotions. Without the barrier of the city, the landscape became a mirror image of my internal grappling. On one of my more manic days, I woke with sunshine both within and without, feeling ready for a new day; but proceeding throughout the day, every emotion under the sun arose within me. Simultaneous to this, the most erratic weather took hold of the island and engulfed me. As I drank coffee and ate breakfast in a nearby café the sunshine quickly turned to rain, and one of the most spectacular rainbows I’d ever seen manifested in front of the forest outside the window, on my right hand-side. When leaving the café, a torrential downpour began, but when I reached my destination – only a kilometre down the road – the rain clouds had shifted, and it was once again pure sunlight and clear blue skies. No sooner had I begun my hike into the forest, I was caught in a hailstone storm that had me reeling for cover. Was Mother Nature playing some sick joke on me? Not at all! She was merely holding up a mirror and saying: “look, this is where you’re at today. Recognize it, because you need to in order to heal.” I had gone to Haida Gwaii not realizing that the there was a part in me, deep in the shadows, that needed some attention. It took a new landscape and stormy weather to wash that out of me: this was an initiation into healing an old wound and continuing my own journey of inner transformation.
Tying up the various threads of this Metissage is a challenge, for each of them can unravel into their own individual stories that could continue on infinitely. After all, “stories have no sharp edges. They never begin at the beginning.” Ultimately, our stories continuously intersect one another on both the personal and collective level. The themes I have drawn upon – digging beneath my ‘surface-level’ narrative; ‘uprooting’ and ‘re-rooting’ my storied identity; listening to the silent echo of the landscape; and observing how the landscape reshapes me – all have a similar theme: they all compose the collective narrative that my surface-level narrative is a subset of. That is to say, that underneath my personal story of being ‘uprooted’ at an early age, is a deeper story; one that showcases how my ‘re-rooting’ across the globe, has led to the intersection of my personal stories with the people and landscapes I have encountered. This more holistic narrative demonstrates how my ‘uprooting’ has not been detrimental to my development in the slightest, as I had once feared. On the contrary, I, like a plant that has been transplanted and grafted, have widespread roots that spread cross-country allowing me to access sources of nutrients from all across the globe that nourish me.
“In brief, we first concentrate on the sense experience itself: the sound of the bell. Second, we attend closely to the memory of the sound. Once we are filled with the bell-sound, we let go and open our awareness as fully as possible while maintaining complete inner quiet. [The] ‘void’ emerges within us and the final phase of meditation can occur: ‘letting come.’” (2009, p.95)
By undertaking this deceptively simple meditation exercise, Zanjonc hopes we “discover the silent echo of the bell” (2009, p.95); this is responding inwardly to the memory of the bell-sound in such a way that we “hold the empty space without expectation” (2009, p.95). It is this inward memory of the bell-sound that is the “afterimage” of the bell. In releasing our focused attention into a broader open awareness we are able to make the “afterimage” become our object of our meditation (Zajonc, 2009, p.95).
I reference Zajonc’s practice-method because I realize that I have been using it to grow roots into the various landscapes I have inhabited, throughout the course of my lifetime. I, however, have not been meditating on the silent echo of the bell (although at times I do this as well); rather, I have been meditating on the silent echo of the landscape. Similar to Zajonc’s method, I sit still and focus my attention on the land I am seated on, settling the body-mind deep into the earth (rooting down). When I feel I am settled, I release the effort of focused attention and attempt to move into an effortless spaciousness that is empty and open. It is in this space that I become quietly receptive to whatever the land I am seated upon has to show me. This communication may not be instantaneous, but the rooting into the landscape I am seated on, is. At times, I do not necessarily have to be seated in stillness to hear the silent echo of the landscape; I could be walking in nature, or even riding on a bike or bus in the city. Nonetheless, from my experience, sitting still is the most effective way to listen to the land. From that point onwards, the stories of the land intersect my stories, and my stories entwine with the landscapes, and together, we shape each other.
This shaping that occurs in non-verbal dialogue – between myself and the landscape – is not always pleasant or comfortable. Sometimes the landscapes we live in have something to teach us through unpleasant or seemingly cruel contortions of our learning spirit; nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that this is not important dialogue. I recollect from a reflection of a recent trip to Haida Gwaii – a Northern island within my current ‘home’ province: British Columbia. Perhaps a little too comfortable in the landscape of Vancouver, a new aspect of the landscape of B.C had some very important lessons to teach me. The dialogue that unfolded between the island and I, involved some unpleasant contortions, which led to the growth of new roots. I recall in a journal excerpt written shortly after my visit:
During this visit, I witnessed how old emotional patterns appeared as I encountered certain shadows of my past: shadows to do with failed relationships, and fear of rejection, and a fear of dealing with these very emotions. Without the barrier of the city, the landscape became a mirror image of my internal grappling. On one of my more manic days, I woke with sunshine both within and without, feeling ready for a new day; but proceeding throughout the day, every emotion under the sun arose within me. Simultaneous to this, the most erratic weather took hold of the island and engulfed me. As I drank coffee and ate breakfast in a nearby café the sunshine quickly turned to rain, and one of the most spectacular rainbows I’d ever seen manifested in front of the forest outside the window, on my right hand-side. When leaving the café, a torrential downpour began, but when I reached my destination – only a kilometre down the road – the rain clouds had shifted, and it was once again pure sunlight and clear blue skies. No sooner had I begun my hike into the forest, I was caught in a hailstone storm that had me reeling for cover. Was Mother Nature playing some sick joke on me? Not at all! She was merely holding up a mirror and saying: “look, this is where you’re at today. Recognize it, because you need to in order to heal.” I had gone to Haida Gwaii not realizing that the there was a part in me, deep in the shadows, that needed some attention. It took a new landscape and stormy weather to wash that out of me: this was an initiation into healing an old wound and continuing my own journey of inner transformation.
Tying up the various threads of this Metissage is a challenge, for each of them can unravel into their own individual stories that could continue on infinitely. After all, “stories have no sharp edges. They never begin at the beginning.” Ultimately, our stories continuously intersect one another on both the personal and collective level. The themes I have drawn upon – digging beneath my ‘surface-level’ narrative; ‘uprooting’ and ‘re-rooting’ my storied identity; listening to the silent echo of the landscape; and observing how the landscape reshapes me – all have a similar theme: they all compose the collective narrative that my surface-level narrative is a subset of. That is to say, that underneath my personal story of being ‘uprooted’ at an early age, is a deeper story; one that showcases how my ‘re-rooting’ across the globe, has led to the intersection of my personal stories with the people and landscapes I have encountered. This more holistic narrative demonstrates how my ‘uprooting’ has not been detrimental to my development in the slightest, as I had once feared. On the contrary, I, like a plant that has been transplanted and grafted, have widespread roots that spread cross-country allowing me to access sources of nutrients from all across the globe that nourish me.
Reflections On The Festival Of Learning
Dec. 9th 2015
In our festival of learning we presented explorations into mapping the ecology of our learning spirits. This was done through the sharing of our Métissages. As this took place, our ideas as a cohort overlapped in such a way that they then weaved together to form a collective Métissage. This collective Métissage appeared to tie together all our personal narratives into one collective narrative; as a result, we began to feel each other’s stories as if they were our own, as we journeyed through each others’ emotional landscapes. This type of learning seemed, to me, to help unite us as a class. It could be said that the learning that occurred acted like a form of medicine as it healed some past wounds that the cohort shared. I allude to this process in my own Métissage: the sense of using our own personal narratives to come together and heal as a collective. By offering our personal narratives to each other in this way, we began to dig beneath the surface of any ‘surface-level’ narratives we were holding onto. Breaking through these ‘surface-level’ narratives helped us reach a deeper sense of our shared story. For example, as I presented my ideas on my own theories of “sharp edges” and ‘surface-level’ narratives, some of my classmates built spontaneously upon these ideas in their presentations, using shared vocabulary. Diana used the term “sharp edges” to describe how she had been viewing her own personal narrative. I, similarly, built off the initial Buddhist ideas of interconnectedness that Nina presented in her speech. Together, we began this weaving session: as we wove our stories into one another’s presentations, we deepened this collective basket of knowledge, and, in the process, became a closer-knit group. Perhaps this is a type of learning that should be explored in all educational communities? Through the sharing of our subjective experience within our personal narratives, we learnt from each other in a truly unique way. I witnessed how presenting my Métissage did, indeed, act as a “shovel.” A shovel that dug beneath my ‘surface-level’ narrative and helped me arrive at something much more expansive – a sort of depth that can only be reached through a spontaneous and emergent pedagogy. It was this type of pedagogy that was enacted within this festival of learning; this weaving could not have occurred if everything was planned. Instead, it was a kind of magic that arose in the moment. This methodology, I believe, can benefit any classroom, and it certainly brought us together as students.
Personally, this sharing of my learning spirit embedded me further into the various ‘home’ environments I explained in my presentation. Creating the poetry and artwork within my Métissage consolidated my emotional understanding of the ‘rootedness’ my soul feels in the various countries I have lived in. As I drew pictures of Morialta Falls, Singapore’s harbour, Vancouver’s skyline, and Kyoto’s golden temple (kinkakuji), I revisited these places in my very being, and felt how each of them had shaped me within; reshaping my tacit infrastructure, as if a piece of each place had broken off and being lodged within me.
Personally, this sharing of my learning spirit embedded me further into the various ‘home’ environments I explained in my presentation. Creating the poetry and artwork within my Métissage consolidated my emotional understanding of the ‘rootedness’ my soul feels in the various countries I have lived in. As I drew pictures of Morialta Falls, Singapore’s harbour, Vancouver’s skyline, and Kyoto’s golden temple (kinkakuji), I revisited these places in my very being, and felt how each of them had shaped me within; reshaping my tacit infrastructure, as if a piece of each place had broken off and being lodged within me.
Mind Snacks & Mind Snags
- I feel at my best when I retreat to my small room, light incense, sit with a fresh pot of tea and contemplate my existence in both silence and thought.
- The only way I know how to truly respond from a place of heart is to sit still. That’s the only way I’ve ever known how to soothe hurt or brokenness. Maybe if we all just sat still, something would heal in our world’s brokenness.
- What myth can we implement to wake those from their slumber?
- There’s a clear blue hole in a grey sky; golden red warm horizon above silhouetted mountaintops. No city in the world has a skyline this beautiful. Sailboats look like toy boats on choppy water: white, red, and blue – skimming like shark fins above the water.
- I don’t want to go into auto-pilot. Always want to find this presence.
- Art is the practice for which we inquire.
- The pleasure of letting go of what you want is far great than the pleasure from getting what you want.
- Afraid of forever living out the path of aloneness. Why has it taken so long?
- Learning the ropes of being human again and again. Suddenly life is like a jungle gym and I’ve been swinging across the moat of foam floats and blocks. There’s a safety net which I’ve asked for, characterized by its holy desires. Sometimes I’m on the trampoline flipping and flopping with glee, glee, glee. Sometimes I’m on the monkey bars, shaking and struggling, arms burning as I try to stay lifted, to not fall. The ball pit wasn’t there before; just spikes and heads. Now I can drop in, but not so sure I’ll always be able to swim out. Sliding down the slippery dips, life can be a slippery slope into the ball pit sometimes. Don’t let your shirt get snagged on anything!
- Mountains silhouetted in the window of Harbour Center this morning. The sun rose and light crept over them. One of the reasons why I love this city so much. Mountains always watching over me like guardians - keeps me safe and grounded. I’ve been here quite a while now. I wonder when I’ll go.