Daily Blog - Are you in the mood for it?

Happening

Writing space #1. Our front verandah.

I'm lucky.

The aim of this journey-thing I'm doing is hard to define. There are things about changing my "way of being in the world" which are hard to put out there in a clear way, even when they are relatively clear to me. Being mindful, sensitive to when I'm not really listening properly or not able to speak clearly, are simple aims but they take too long to explain and sound vague and to me kind of selfish in the explaining.


Becoming a better teacher is one aim, but again this simple aim seems to disappear into vagueness bordering on a weird mid-life crisis. gathering skills to teach better lessons and create better outcomes for the people and communities I end up in sounds ok, but studying yoga at an ashram, permaculture at a place with only 44 gallon drums for toilets (which is actually a brilliant system when done right, as it was at Living Waters), Tibetan Buddhism at a retreat centre in south west WA aren't your usual "effective teaching strategies" research unit. Along the way I've studied Non-Violent Communication, Restorative Circle Practice and Playback Theatre and these continue to hold my attention. I am becoming a better student, but is this really helping my teaching? I think so, and today I wanted to share one thing that is inspiring me and making me wonder how it's possible to rethink teaching and learning and build a better course that enables better learning.

It's just a question, really, and it emerged from reading a book called Acts of Service which sounds like it should be a religious text, but is in fact a study of the history of Playback Theatre by its founder, Jonathan Fox.

In it he describes two frames for making decisions: Program and Mood. If your decisions are determined by Program, then if something is supposed to happen at a particular time then it will happen at that time. If you are Mood directed, then the thing will happen when the Mood is right, or the time is ripe.

I find it difficult using Fox's words, because for me the word "Mood" is a bad choice. It is already loaded with the sounds of whining teenagers growling "I'm not in the mood" as an excuse for lack of discipline or motivation or appreciation of the impact of not wanting to cook or clean or be nice.

But what if that teenager was onto something? It's a tricky place to start, but using the worst place to start can be a good test of an idea. Fox talks about an African tribe who has a dance scheduled in every month, but if the mood in the village is not right then they spend time healing the wounds before the dance goes ahead. They wait until everything is back in order. They don't force it, but the dance does still go ahead. I wonder how long they would wait. To me this example is a bit distant from my reality, but I know that teenager feeling. I've made that same statement and, working with teenagers, I've seen the sullen body language and heard the groans of "Not now!" and "No!" many times.

One of the problems we face at Clunes - and this is something we were all very aware of so I'm just mentioning a well-kown fact, not announcing a new insight - was that we had such a well organised and tightly packed program. There was no time for people to be anything other than in the mood. This breeds discipline. It helps people discover the benefits of rising to a challenge and making the most of every opportunity, even when they're tired and the opportunity is simply to clean the dishes again.

The other writing space. Our lounge-kitchen space,
with the view up the hill.

In this way Clunes prepares students for the world. But Fox suggests that the world, like Clunes, is skewed far too heavily in favour of program needs. What if it were possible to give mood a bit more of a look in? What would the world look like if we worked only when we were in the mood for it? What kind of work would we do? Would we choose more wisely and do it better? What would not get done, and how much would we miss it? And, once we missed it, would we then do it, and would everything turn out okay? Would it really be such a disaster?

All those questions are good'uns, I think, as far as thinking about the broader world and maybe changing the way conversations happen with that teenage voice we all have inside ourselves.

I read a lovely article in Tricycle magazine which asked a similar but even more general version of the same question: What would happen if we actually listened to all our feelings? In it the author was heading towards a discussion of environmental destruction and loss, and wondering what would happen if people weren't so busy rushing to the shops or the office and had enough time to actually respond to that feeling of concern about where we're all heading and how fast we're going there.

I guess in a smaller way I'm wondering the same thing. What would happen if we all listened to that teenage voice with a bit more empathy and stopped and asked: "Okay. What am I in the mood for now? What is this the right time for?"

It is no small challenge to communicate all of that without ever overstepping - without ever thinking that my moods are more important than your moods. But it's also just as difficult and necessary to avoid  dishonouring ourselves and thinking that other people's needs, or the needs of some disembodied timetable, are better or more important than ours. Just because it's in someone's Outlook Diary doesn't mean it's sacred. The needs of the program are not more important than your or my need to honour the weird and unpredictable schedule of my own intellectual, physical, social, spiritual and emotional energy. (I'm sure there are other energies and I think "natural" or "environmental" energy belongs in there somewhere, and perhaps modes of energy like playful, mischievous, curious, musical, receptive or generative energy deserve to be part of that concept).

Here at Origins there is a philosophy of never accepting that which is not freely given. This applies to many things but most specifically to work and money. There's no fee associated with staying, no expectation that one will be involved in work or the activities on offer here. And yet it can't run without either work or money and would have no purpose if people didn't want to come here and be involved in the study and practices. I look around and see that this causes a bit of anxiety. One has to trust that the system works and in most places in the modern world it is a system which has been discredited and thrown out in favour of programs and schedules.

How would you catch a plane if the pilots only flew when they felt like it? How would anything actually work!!!


I don't know. I wonder how much my fear of this question is a product of my conditioning - and my own fear of inadequacy in the face of dealing with people as they are. I know as a beginning teacher it is so easy to stick with the plan - to not allow any deviation from the strategy you know will at least lead to some progress.

The other way of seeing this question, though, is what would happen if our energies and our tasks were in harmony far more often than they were in conflict? What would happen if we were at work because we wanted to be there and not in order to leave again as soon as possible? Two books I've only dipped into but which approach this from different angles are Matt Fitzgerald's Run: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel and E. F. Schumacher's classic introduction to Buddhist Economics: Small is Beautiful.

Fitzgerald simply asks people to integrate running with awareness so that you can run more in tune with your moods and more often create sessions that satisfy your needs: for play, for challenge, for calm, for inspiring scenery, for great conversations, for confidence that you will achieve your goals: for whatever you are in the mood for. He argues that this is a revolutionary way of thinking about training, but the way great runners have been training intuitively for... well, ever.

In Small is Beautiful, Schumacher asks us to consider the possibility of acting in accordance with perhaps a higher concept of mood. A simple model of economics might argue that a worker is in the mood to earn enough money to buy a TV, so he works as little as possible for as much money as possible. But Schumacher argues that work can be seen differently. From a Buddhist perspective, which puts "right livelihood" on the eightfold path to enlightenment, work is not just a means to gain material possessions or satisfy basic needs (buy food, pay the rent). According to Schumacher, Buddhist economics sees employment as serving this need but also giving a person "a chance to utilize and develop his faculties [and] to enable him to overcome his ego-centeredness by joining with other people in a common task". In short, as you would expect, doing work is about becoming a better person.


Putting mood in this context, one might ask: "When aren't you in the mood to become a better person?" We all have those moments, but with wisdom we get to a point where we see that it's probably a good thing to try to be a better person more often than we practice not being one.

The question that has come to me is smaller and simpler. It's not about responding differently to the world or hoping that the world would listen to me and try something a little different. It's just about being a better and more responsive teacher.

Imagine a course where your teacher was able to listen to your moods. Now you need rest; now you need vigorous play; now you need to be challenged; now you need to nurtured. At this moment you want to see the big picture - to stand and stare at the finish line and wonder how on earth you will ever get to that point - and at another moment you want to start at the beginning, or the middle, or at page 10 or 50 or 275. I want to be a teacher that is capable of responding with the kind of readiness that this student is looking for.

Being capable of it, I might even manage to do it once in a while.

The course would be covered; the students would be honoured and, I think, there would be less conflict. The question I have is simply how do I develop the skills and the learning environment that makes it possible for me to provide this? That's the kind of work I want to do. In one sense it seems ambitious, but in another it seems to be as logical as saying that people deserve respect. Isn't allowing them the chance to ask their own questions and dig for their own answers just about respect - and creating a really respectful learning environment?

Anyway - a long thought for the day and not much news.
Be well.
Why not? :)

Observing

The tree next to our front steps.

Things I'm grateful for

Nina, who posted this article, and this article:
http://www.zeitnews.org/social-and-behavioral-science-research/the-deliciously-eccentric-story-of-the-town-growing-all-its-own-veg.html#.T4Pc9WzK229.facebook

Being around to hear the crack and thud of leaves and nuts breaking off then hitting the ground.

Not being underneath them.

Potluck lunch today was amazing. It even ended with pear crumble and connoisseur ice-cream!

The person playing music nearby - the flute? the clarinet? - so beautifully.