Learning: The Four Elements

Although these four elements are described here separately, it is their combination and connections that create dynamic intelligence. Balanced and conscious use of these four portals to knowledge creates an active, living intelligence at the center of our being that serves as a moral rudder when we experience life’s turbid and muddy waters. We may call this “soul force” or our “true and sacred nature.” It lights our way; it wisely guides our life decisions and actions and provides a reliable sanctuary when stress overwhelms us. Its depth of genius senses whenever opportunity presents itself and gives us the courage to venture forward; or conversely, it warns us when danger is near so that we may seek a safe haven. Such is the wisdom of an integrated personality.

Without integration the individual is a many-headed monster whose heads fight each other in the name of security, advantage, and supremacy. Because of the bias of Western culture, mind becomes puffed up and hyperactive, and the other function languishes in the shadow of death.

Awakening to all aspects of our being, highlights our strengths and weaknesses and motivates us to become more complete, more responsible human beings.

Although an unbalanced, precocious development of a single pathway in childhood is often referred to as “genius,” it often manifests at the expense of the other faculties and fades as the child matures. Holistic teaching does not try to further accentuate any imbalance, but to develop the other sides of the self so that personality as a whole can have a grounded and vital center.

New Earth Institute, therefore, tends to have a fluid curriculum rather than a rigid learning process because our first priority is to find ways to nurture and balance the four side of genius. A commitment to that requires that we first respond to the primary need of our students to be whole.

New Earth Institute is holistic in that it sees everything in terms of a holographic vision of life. Everything is a part of something greater, yet all is composed of parts that are, from a different perspective, whole in themselves.

We look for and therefore notice the relationships of all living things, the interconnectedness of all life. We move from a sense of separation and isolation to a sense of belonging and wholeness. We honor the earth, as we honor others and ourselves, as sacred, living beings.