Soul Making

Some people may be immediately offended by the idea of soul-making, especially if it is part of an educational process. It makes some want to grab some bricks to reinforce the boundaries between religious beliefs and things that may be discussed in an school setting. My contention, however, is that soul-making is the heart of authentic education.

I have discussed the soul in a separate blog titled “Soul Education,” I quote a portion of that blog below:

“The soul (variously defined as our immaterial essence, our animating principle, the cause of our individual life, a person’s total self, a Nourishing Mother that feeds us, or as our moral and emotional nature) witnesses our life as a detached observer of our thoughts and deeds and emotional reactions.

“Soul is both the intelligence and deep experience that stands behind our secret self, our quintessence, our vitality, our creative essence, our being, our spirit, our heart, our courage, and our conscience. It is, at the same time, the source of our deepest longings and yearnings. It is the source of our desire to surrender our personal needs and serve humanity, all life forms, Mother earth, the World, the Universe, or God.

“The soul is our I AM, the root of our being.

“As such soul is the seat of our consciousness. Our soul witnesses our life. It is our deep, reflective pool that mirrors for us our thoughts, emotions, and deeds. It allows meaning to enter and float throughout our life. Soul turns outward events into our very own experiences of personal truth.

“Among the souls many allies and guides are Nature (Nature which simply is; Nature cannot be misguided or wrong – only humans can), Imagination (the Force behind all Creation – here I refer to the constructive, not the destructive, nefarious forms of imagination eager to cause suffering, despair, and annihilation), unvarnished Honesty, Universal Truth (our soul is happy when are we aligned with it, miserable when we are not), Beauty (which arrests our running thought life and leaves us dumb), a Nourishing Spirit, and certain feelings such as Unconditional Love, Gratitude, Joy, Empathy, Awe, ands Compassion).”

In contrast to soul education is modern, industrial, compulsory education that serves ego personalities with normal consciousness bordering on unconsciousness. Ego consciousness may be compared with the awareness in Plato’s, cave, where man reacts to shadows, not realities. Ego awareness takes things literally, personally and is only interested in practical and habitual matters. It is well defended from truth by what Freud called the ego defense mechanisms (denial: deny the existence of anything that threatens your image; projection: project onto others what you deny in yourself; reaction formation: changing your real emotions to their opposite; repression: forgetting what you don’t want to remember: displacement: kicking the dog after being screamed at by your father; dissociation: splitting off sections of your memory that are too painful to remember).

I have chosen to initiate a new paradigm of education based on soul, one that incorporates soul-making into many aspects of its program. But what does soul-making look like? How would one recognize it? Below are six way that New Earth Institute proactively influences and encourages soul development.

1. Relationships. When adults relate to children as sacred. beautiful, intelligent souls with great creative potential. rather than bodies with egoistic minds that need to be programmed according to a set curriculum, these soul mentors support and help awaken the child’s innate consciousness, talents, and abilities and gives that child permission to relate to others in the same way. Of course when parents who relate to their child in the same way, have even a stronger effect. When a child is recognized for his depth of sensitivity, understanding, wisdom, imagination, love, joy, and awe, her deepest nature is validated and she responds in kind.

2. Expression. In any creative activity where students witness simple demonstrations, but later are
given the freedom to express themselves according to their own lights, soul is operative; soul expressing its own preoccupations, its own agenda (rather than the school’s agenda) is soul building its own awareness. Areas of creative activity are, but are not limited to, free play, playing with water, paper and book making, dance, singing, music making, instrument making, cooking, baking, dress up, drama, drawing, painting, sculpture, pottery, print-making, collage, batik, mural-making, mosaics, writing poetry, stories, plays, carving of all kinds, science experiments, gardening, and endless other activities relating directly with Nature.

3. Asking Questions. Instead of asking questions to test the “knowledge” of students, ask them open
-ended questions that invite wonder and imagination. Instead of teaching facts and theories, let them explore the facts, develop the theories, and present their conclusions to others. Conformity to a set curriculum obviates original, creative thinking; It’s important to know what books say and to understand what teachers are saying. Even what experts say. But it more critical to the learner to be proactive and to create what feels intuitively right to them. To break the grip of unthinking dogma, ask what do you the student think about so and so? It asks students to ask themselves to ponder, to question how everything in this world works rather than passively memorize “the right answer.”

It is natural for children to be curious about everything, but most have been trained out of their innate proclivity.

Student also need to be asked those questions about who are we?, what we are doing? and why? Until they create the habit of asking them themselves like they used to do all the time.

4. Living Material. Teachers who appreciate, understand, and use living material (fairy tales, folk tales, legends, creation stories, myths, short stories and literature with many layers of meaning written in the figurative language of the soul [full of images, symbols, analogies, similes and metaphors, synecdoches (“tree at my window, window tree”), apostrophes (“all hands on deck”), metonymies (“the injured boy holds up his hand as if to keep the life from spilling”), allegories or parables, paradoxes, hyperboles, understatements, and ironies.] feed the soul.

In contrast, if one teaches to the ego who sees everything literally and unimaginatively, one uses material with literal language, like is used in many children’s’ books or elementary science books.

5. Models of Intelligences. Learn about, discuss, and research peoples and cultures that do not rely on schools to develop the intelligence of the young. Learn how primitive peoples discover the vital information and understanding that sustains their cultures. Empathetic anthropology has much to offer in this regard. Learn what’s amazing about people who employ the lowest levels of technology. Why are their ways of life sustainable and ours aren’t? Why can they commune with nature? Study the great wisdom the came out of India: the Vedas, the Mahabharata. Learn from Native Americans who have more to teach us about sustainable living and self-reliance than most universities. Why do they know many things that we don’t? Study the life of the people who seeming learned knowledge overnight, like the ancient Greeks who invented or greatly transformed history, drama, science, architecture, philosophy, medicine, sculpture, justice, war strategies, and when perplexed, turned to their greatest authorities: oracles. How did the great flowering of the Renaissance in Florence, Italy happen within a few decades? Why did it abruptly end? Study the great mystics whose vast knowledge came from their inner nature. Together read the poets who transmit so much wisdom to the soul.

5. Talk about Relationships. Weekly Forums abide by specific rules to guarantee non-violent communications (no attacking others). Here ANYTHING may be brought up and discussed. Meeting provides chances to honestly discuss your loves, hopes, goals, resentments, dislikes, and disappointments in an environment that preserves respect for one another.

In volatile situations that erupt at school, we discuss the choices each of us made, what other options we could have chosen, how we feel about ourselves, who we want to become, and tenets we would like to live by. It is an opportunity to reflect upon our thoughts, desires and actions, to consider in the presence of others. It’s a time to entertain alternative possibilities and scenarios, to listen to suggestions and advice, and decide to change something about our habitual patterns, or not. Forum provide a chance to see how our fantasy life fails us in relationships and what we can to do heal what has been wounded. Unconsciousness become aware of its own face. The emphasis is on NOT feeling trapped by our personalities, but on choosing a new way we want to be. Our Forum urges us to examine our experiences and reflect on our identity; much of the language used is figurative.

Forum discussions can lead to the realization that we have conflicting, internal forces, feelings, ideas, thoughts, ambitions, that on some level we are at war with ourselves, and that often we present different personalities to different people. Real discussions that penetrate the veneer of smooth social interactions often lead to life-long friendships.

The object for Meeting is always the same: discovering who we are in this moment and who we wish to be.

6. Observe Nature. Nature, God’s perfection is our greatest Model. We can learn much about nature that increases our appreciation of its workings. But nature, like silence, can also be a significant teacher herself. In a rural setting, near a vast wilderness we have manifold opportunities to commune with nature. What setting could be better?

7. Listen to Students. Differentiate when ego is speaking (the focus is on control, developmental fantasies (i.e. being a hero), coping, “me”, the practical, or the manipulation of objective reali{using literal language} and when the soul is speaking (the focus is on images, reflection, insight, beauty, awe, and awareness {using impersonal or figurative language}. Adults must reply in kind. While dealing with ego needs, one must address the ego’s concerns. When dealing with soul talk one must listen and learn, ask questions, and respond with soul speech.

8. Provide Quiet Time, Guided Meditations, and teaching simple breathing and meditation
techniques.

A school cannot cause soul-building experiences. But it can, through its intention and activities, allow them to happen spontaneously.