A glimpse, at times, is all you get.
Sometimes, it's all that's needed.
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
(--Poem by William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963)
At prison graduation ceremony yesterday an unconsummated moment when an unfinished carved book (they say) was not presented to me upon the rumor I was finished teaching for the university (and/or) at the prison. I could neither confirm nor deny the rumor beyond my typical end of term "I'm done!"
Speaking to a former graduate about his spirits and feelings I see he (and others) might benefit from a post-grad seminar-of-sorts set up to involve members of the outside community and men on the inside reading agreed upon texts, writing pieces about their thought/feeling/experience, exchanging them inside/outside, commenting, dialoguing, and philosophizing into the next piece of reading/writing. This would be an open support-learning community done within and without to deepen the core reality of our being-with one another and
lernen-lassen (letting learning happen).
We could resurrect the title of our year long meetings with individuals at the prison begun in 2015, and expand it -- ILU COTO.
Here's how we described it:
ILU COTO
individual learning understanding conversation together
(ilu coto translates as: the illusion of barrier, opening beyond preserve/reserve)
1x1 conversation, contemplative, meditative, corresponding
ilu coto is the invitation to converse with one another about things that open us to what is present, and what is beyond our ordinary awareness.
And so, this:
A New Seminar
there's
so much
at 4AM
silence reveals
as darkness
retiring
slips away
within
without
notice
(--wfh, 16jan19)